Christopher J Stevens

Posed sepia photo of a young man in a suit. Date circa 1900.

Found rummaging at home, this photo of my great-grandfather Alfred Stevens: an Englishman later disowned & cut-off by his family for falling in love with an Irish girl, equally disowned by hers. They settled in Dublin with nothing, struggled by the best they could: mine the 1st gen to finish school.

😅

Demis Hassabis on our AI future: ‘It’ll be 10 times bigger than the Industrial Revolution – and maybe 10 times faster’ The head of Google’s DeepMind says artificial intelligence could usher in an era of ‘incredible productivity’ and ‘radical abundance’. But who will it benefit? And why does he wish the tech giants had...

One of the key psycho-social lessons, that thinkers from Nietzsche to Addams to Dewey tried to communicate, is that the industrial revolution was itself already too fast relative to the human capacity to adapt. In Addams' terms: too fast "perpendicularly"; not solid enough "laterally"

Difficult not to read this kind of perspective as pure self-interest on the part of liberals, especially in light of liberal Israeli & pro-Israeli academics having effectively muzzled a huge swathe of global academia via the professional lynching of Jewish voice @mbeisen.bsky.social in 2023.

What about targeted boycott of Israeli and international companies who materially support or cover for the onslaught and the conditions that led to it? My understanding was that that was the brunt of the boycott movement. Concretely, what % of boycott is blanket directed at academia, culture, etc.?

I try to make the most of the distance I have from the horror. If I were Palestinian myself, I think I would have far less patience than you 🙏

Israel edit Israel voted against the adoption of the Rome Statute but later signed it for a short period. In 2002, Israel notified the UN Secretary General that it no longer intended to become a party to the Rome Statute, and as such, it has no legal obligations arising from their signature of the statute.[76] Israel states that it has "deep sympathy" with the goals of the Court. However, it has concerns that political pressure on the Court would lead it to reinterpret international law or to "invent new crimes". It cites the inclusion of "the transfer of parts of the civilian population of an occupying power into occupied territory" as a war crime as an example of this, whilst at the same time disagrees with the exclusion of terrorism and drug trafficking. Israel sees the powers given to the prosecutor as excessive and the geographical appointment of judges as disadvantaging Israel which was prevented from joining any of the UN Regional Groups.[77]

What about targeted boycott of Israeli and international companies who materially support or cover for the onslaught and the conditions that led to it? My understanding was that that was the brunt of the boycott movement. Concretely, what % of boycott is blanket directed at academia, culture, etc.?

Yes, I understood that.

Quite the privilege in itself!

This would make you quite a progressive liberal, based on my experience of exchanges with Israelis who describe themselves as liberals. I asked because Israeli liberals living in West Bank settlements do not, in my perspective, respect universal human rights for Palestinians.

Palestinian friends in the West Bank?

How much concrete evidence is there that Israeli liberals are significantly more concerned about universal human rights, as these pertain specifically to Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank since Oct 2023, than hardliners?

C'est une hypothèse que divers éléments, remontant jusqu'à 2005 au moins, ne permettent pas de définitivement exclure.

Une campagne spontanée de détournement, ou semblable, aurait été éventuellement plus stratégique.

Coup réussi de ta part ! Je parlais plus de la polémique anglophone, laquelle, me semble-t-il, joue parfaitement à la fois le coup de marketing visé par la marque (créer le buzz) et le coup de récupération inévitable par l’ED (on peut plus rien dire, les woke veulent tout censurer, etc.).

Photograph by Heidi Levine / the Washington Post

Yesterday, @washingtonpost.com Washington Post published an image of Gaza City which looked like Hiroshima.
It seems that this is one of the *least damaged* areas in the Gaza Strip. Short thread:

@leloveluck.bsky.social

Tout véridique, et en même temps je soupçonne ici l’une de ces situations où la critique va autant servir l'extrême droite que l’a fait la campagne publicitaire de base.

‘Alligator Alcatraz' detainees on hunger strike for 10th day, protesting conditions One of the detainees, Pedro Hernández, was hospitalized during the strike but continued to refuse food, he said on Thursday.

A hunger strike at a South Florida immigration detention center state officials have named “Alligator Alcatraz” enters its tenth day, as detainees protest what they call inhumane and dangerous living conditions.

Two girls shot in Gaza - BBC pieces together what happened and looks at dozens more child shootings Layan and Mira were killed in proximity to IDF soldiers - the Israeli military says intentional harm to civilians is prohibited and their cases will be examined by the authorities.

No child shot in the head can be described as a 'human shield':

"Layan al-Majdalawi, two, and Mira Tanboura, six, [were] both killed in Gaza in separate incidents in November 2023. [...] We found that in 95 of [160 cases of children shot dead], the child had been shot in the head or chest."

McGregor thanks Grok for saying he's innocent

what the actual fuck is happening on that website

Ba gheall le páistí scoile iad Starmer agus von der Leyen ag fanacht le moladh ón máistir Tá sé ag éirí níos soiléire go bhfuil ceannairí stáit ag seasamh siar ó Donald Trump lena chinntiú nach gcuirfidh siad aon olc air

Ba gheall le páistí scoile iad Starmer agus von der Leyen ag fanacht le moladh ón máistir
tuairisc.ie/ba-gheall-le...

Centrism is a helluva drug.

Okay, nice. Making a note based on your other choices. Thanks 🙏

Yes
Yes
Yes
What is Jam?
Yes

She gave up the game with her "If you want Trump to win, keep saying that": it revealed that she was either unwilling to act on Gaza or, worse in terms of the kind of image a future POTUS should display, impotent to alter the US' position. Trump (falsely) promised the world. Harris said "Shhh!"

Israel’s new measures do nothing to stop the starvation crisis in Gaza, say aid workers Humanitarian workers say airdrops and corridors to allow trucks into region have done little to stop the rising death toll

Aid groups report that Israel is refusing to allow any olives or other “fruits or vegetables with pits or seeds that could be planted” into Gaza. They will only allow in pitted olives.

Zuckerberg claims ‘superintelligence is now in sight’ as Meta lavishes billions on AI Ahead of Meta’s quarterly earnings report, CEO says his company aims to bring powerful AI into the lives of millions

What is it with billionaires and their evidence-free claims? Is Zuck making a bid for fellowship of the @royalsociety.org, which has a high tolerance for that sort of nonsense.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Zohran Mamdani scores 17-point lead with Jewish voters in NYC mayoral race Mamdani's support among Jewish voters comes after accusations from opponents and some community leaders that his criticism of Israel represents antisemitism.

it’s almost like all the attacks calling Mamdani antisemitic were vapid bad faith bullshit created by politicians with no policy plan other than smashing the “scary muslim” button