Ariz Kader

Group identity is far more important than many liberal thinkers have accepted in recent years. If you consider yourself part of a group, and you are convinced that group is somehow under threat, you feel the urge to defend the group. Whether that is done rationally or not doesn't really matter.

For reference, this is from a kind and well-educated Italian Jewish friend of mine whom I believe is generally well-reflected. Yet, because the heart wants to believe something (like ISIS somehow supporting a candidate in an election [and a Shia Muslim one at that]), the brain has to follow.

Don't know about Americans, but lots of my Jewish European friends have definitely radicalised a lot after the Oct 7th attacks in Israel.

These days, they pretty much post daily conspiracy nonsense that is usually pretty boring. This one was hilarious.

Never underestimate the "love you bro" relationship strongmen have to one another. Obviously, Hitler hated Stalin. But in transcripts of conversations where Stalin is mentioned, Hitler calls him "the second greatest man of our times" referring to himself as first, obviously.

The reason I remember that film right now in relation to Gaza is that - at the time - Israel had a far more open discussion on right and wrong and democratic dialogue. And yet that film's focus didn't humanise the Lebanese at all. I can't imagine how Gaza will be remembered by Israelis in the future

In Waltz With Bashir, the entire premise of the movie is about soldiers sharing how hard their experiences were when invading Lebanon. Not how despicable the actual war was, but how it affected the infantry soldiers perpetrating the conflict.

Israel is an extremely introspective and self-oriented society. Everything worth noting is mentioned in relation to Israel itself (as reflected by its media and political narratives). Yet, it is so strange that the suffering from war is always thought of as trauma to soldiers themselves.

A still from the film "Waltz with Bashir".

I've seen a lot of reports recently (in Israeli social media) on the stress and trauma of Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza, and it is - to an outsider - such a jarring thing to read.

Being a soldier is not a natural profession & trauma is of course something that happens. But the focus is so odd.

Most people (from my experience) who picture this as the ideal are very lonely in their day-to-day. I can't imagine a situation where you have to adjust to isolation more than moving into a rural area without a natural tie to that community. It takes time and effort that you could spend whre you are

I couldn't put it better myself. I lived in rural Sweden for four years after living in the city my entire life. There are lots of positives, but only like 5% of people daydreaming about it would be able to adjust to what it actually means to live like that.

Decided to bring back the moustache after over a decade's absence. Overnight, I look both 100% more Middle Eastern and 120% more Spanish.

True Andalusian hybrid.

Stolen from facebook specifically for @ljukic.bsky.social

Koreans (since they are apparently of Central Asian origin with Mongolians being some of their closest genetic relatives) are also on the list with some truly award-worthy babies.

I rank babies. I have been doing it for years. I can safely say that Central Asians have the best ones. All babies are great, so don't be offended. The Central Asians just happen to be the best.

Weirdest superpower move I have ever heard of, to be honest.

She's free!?!? Amazing news for her and her family.

Det är inte det jag tror heller. Men vad jag undrar är de rättsliga processerna. Dvs, om målet är att i slutändan kunna se till att "fel" folk (till exempel svarta amerikaner eller andra som röstar på demokraterna) inte ska få tillgång till vapen så betyder den här processen mycket i slutändan.

Jag har inte klickat på länken så vet ej men undrar på vilka grunder de vill argumentera rent lagligt. Oftast, i auktoritära stater, så sker flera testfall innan man ger sig på sina mest betydelsefulla fiender. Man testar vad som går på de samhället inte bryr sig om alra först hursomhelst.

Just remember to start every major paragraph with "as I wrote in my previous (award winning) book,...".

Technically, I guess Bluesky would be closest to Shiisim with the original bloodline (Jack Dorsey) and his closest followers building an alternate version of the much bigger orthodox version that recently came into new management.

I can't really look up resources right now as I'm with my kids, but this is based on my memory of opinion polls measuring European ethnonationalism comparatively. If you remind me at a later date, I can probably look them up again and try to find relevant data :)

The UK is an extremely interesting case in a European context since ethnonationalism is uncommonly weak and unpopular. It is the connection to crime and poor integration that seems to be a driving force for RW anti-immigration populism.

Talking about being tough on immigrants loses a lot of the base for the centre-left and doesn't really attract the right vote as it is incompatible with their identity.

The only way to frame this properly is talking about how to increase legal pathways to reduce people smuggling etc.

I might go against the grain on this site a bit by saying that immigration is absolutely a salient issue in a country like the UK and that having a more stringent immigration scheme seems to be genuinely popular. But emulating the way in which the right speaks about the issue is a losing play.

Israel Says It Attacked Gaza Hospital to Destroy Camera Placed by Hamas

Israel justified its strike on the Nasser Hospital, which killed six journalists and more than a dozen others, by claiming a "Hamas" camera was set up there.
The location they attacked is where Reuters and the AP livestream.
From me and others (see byline/contribs)
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/w...

Technology will always change. I am not afraid of that. What I am afraid of is a population so primed to do nothing and be easily swayed and unquestioning about the world around them that we become powerless. The ability to question things is what makes us free.

We are meant to learn this way. We are meant to have our curiosities piqued by things we were unaware of before, and AI search integration stops that spontaneous learning experience in its tracks. The result might be a population less curious than ever.

One of the great benefits of something like Wikipedia is that it increases your curiosity to learn more. You might have searched for information on one subject, only to find yourself curious about something else and ending up reading four other articles as a result.

As anyone who has done a Google search recently will tell you - the AI summaries are pretty poor. They do a good job of giving bite sized summaries, but (because of the nature of the data they draw from) often include glaring innacuracies.

But that is not the major problem imo.