
Lifehacker: Tarek Loubani on 3D-Printing in Gaza - bschne
https://logicmag.io/bodies/tarek-loubani-on-3d-printing-in-gaza/
======
padraic7a
This is a great and inspirational read. It demonstrates the application of a
diy hacker solution to issues like medical shortages caused by the Israeli
blockade, but also to dialysis machine vendor lockin which is a global issue.

Check out the section on the difference between QA in the lab and field-
testing!

It's also a heartbreaking read to be honest. Check out this quote on why they
spread their 3d printers around multiple locations; "There are two reasons we
do this. One is that we want to promote the culture. The other is that we’re
going to get bombed at some point. When that happens, if we are the only place
that has all the 3D-printing knowledge or equipment, then we’re going to set
back the entire movement by two or three years. The more we hoard the
knowledge or hoard the equipment, the worse it will be. As it is, when our
offices eventually do get bombed, we’ll probably only be set back a year. If
somebody dies, obviously it will be even worse. "

~~~
bschne
The level of pragmatism/resilience in statements like this is always baffling
as an "outsider" who has never been in even a remotely comparable situation

~~~
Iv
It comes with a high toll on the locals mental health.

This is a place that is home to 1.8 million people. The blockade has been on
since 2007 (and in some other form before that).

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
The stethoscope is one of those simple inventions that has had an outsize
influence on the practice of medicine.

From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Laennec#Invention_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Laennec#Invention_of_the_stethoscope)

René Laennec wrote the classic treatise De l'Auscultation Médiate, published
in August 1819[5][6] The preface reads:

In 1816, He was consulted by a young woman laboring under general symptoms of
diseased heart, and in whose case percussion and the application of the hand
were of little avail on account of the great degree of fatness. The other
method just mentioned [direct auscultation] being rendered inadmissible by the
age and sex of the patient, I happened to recollect a simple and well-known
fact in acoustics, ... the great distinctness with which we hear the scratch
of a pin at one end of a piece of wood on applying our ear to the other.
Immediately, on this suggestion, I rolled a quire of paper into a kind of
cylinder and applied one end of it to the region of the heart and the other to
my ear, and was not a little surprised and pleased to find that I could
thereby perceive the action of the heart in a manner much more clear and
distinct than I had ever been able to do by the immediate application of my
ear.

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fouc
This is a fascinating read. Love his hacker mentality.

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bayesian_horse
He didn't convince me that the occupation of Gaza is almost over.

I may not be an expert on the current state of the near-east conflicts, but it
seemed to me as if the state of Israel doesn't really want to acknowledge the
Palestinians as either citizens of Israel or as entitled to their own state.

And the Palestinians are not going to cease existing just because they are
inconvenient for the established states in the region. Nor do they seem to be
able to reign in the radical elements in their midst.

~~~
jraby3
I think what’s quite often forgotten in statements like this is that Israel
voluntarily withdrew from Gaza 15 years ago, and Gazans then had an election
in which they elected Hamas.

Since then, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets into Israel with the
express purpose of targeting civilians, while Israel has lost a huge buffer
zone (Hamas now reaches major cities like Beersheva with their rockets).

Worst part IMO is that there have not been any new elections and that Hamas
has started enacting Sharia law in Gaza.

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
...And what you're forgetting is that thanks to Iron Dome, those rockets kill
fewer people than, say, electric scooters in Tel Aviv. And that Gaza is
subject to an economic blockade making it basically impossible to do, well,
_anything_ but be poor and angry: No fishing, no trade, unreliable
electricity, not enough fuel, slow internet, etc.

That's not even mentioning the slow annexation of the West Bank and East
Jerusalem.

Israel is now officially rejecting a two-state solution, and they are
obviously rejecting the idea of giving palestinians full citizenship (which
would render jewish Israelis the minority). That implies, logically, that
Israel is now denying Palestinians the perspective of any sort of democracy.

Violence against civilians is wrong. But it isn't unheard of in a struggle for
self-determination. It's inexcusably wrong for (some) Palestinians to deny
Israel's right to exist within the borders of '68\. But the enormous power
differential between the parties simply places the burden of taking the first
step on Israel's shoulders.

~~~
pugio
> making it basically impossible to do, well, anything but be poor and angry:
> No fishing, no trade, unreliable electricity, not enough fuel, slow
> internet, etc.

The blockade certainly makes things difficult, but, like all things, the
actual situation is much more complex than that. The people in power in Gaza
seem to find it much more expedient for things to remain bad, and all the
hate, negative energy, and blame to be directed at Israel, than to put real
effort into making things better.

Regarding, for example, your mention of electricity, I've had conversations
with people who tried to set up a working electric plant within Gaza, and were
stymied by a baffling level of neglect, poor workmanship, and inattention to
cleanliness or detail on the part of the Gazans. (I'm not making a general
statement about Gazans here, just the ones involved with the project.)

It seems sometimes as though the people there feel that if they were to give
up some of the hate, anger, and outrage towards Israel (justified or not), and
actually devote their full energies to improving what they have, then they'd
be selling out their cause. A prospering Gaza is a less effective critique of
Israeli policy, and a less useful weapon on the public stage in the battle to
reclaim ancestral lands.

~~~
tomcooks
> negative energy

Israel burns down centuries -old olive trees, closes access to water, and
promotes settlements in occupied territories

"Negative energy"

~~~
avip
\- Olives rarely make it to hundreds of years. Surely they don’t in Gaza which
has crappy soil for olives. Are you confused with the West Bank?

\- All water in Gaza are provided by Israel. Are you confused with Hebron or
some other place?

\- There are no settlements in Gaza since the unilateral withdrawal in 2005.
Are you confused?

~~~
bayesian_horse
Israel controls Gaza and the Westbank in pretty much any sense that matters,
especially they limit or prohibit trade and they regularly conduct raids of
all sorts.

That in turn means they are responsible for providing water and almost
everything else, and the Palestinians have almost no agency over any of their
affairs, which also makes it hard or impossible for them to reign in their
militant fractions.

And it's hard to expect those in Gaza to not have a problem with what happens
in Westbank and the other way around.

~~~
avip
Does it? If US build that wall and stop trading with Mexico, it’ll suddenly
become responsible to supply the needs of the Mexican people?

Israel supports Gaza because it’s an overwhelming consensus that leaving 1.8mm
people, most of them innocent by any reasonable definition, to starve to
death, is not a viable option. And no one thinks Egypt, a disfunctioning state
by itself, will take any action.

~~~
bayesian_horse
Completely different situation. Mexico is undeniably a larger country and much
more self-sufficient. Neither the Westbank nor Gaza are self-sufficient.
Israel does not allow Egypt to help them either, even though Egypt is not
dysfunctional at the moment.

So Israel is taking active measures to prevent Palestinians from getting help,
trading, or even building their own economy (which is tough when you can't
produce construction material and Israel doesn't let any in). Israel is also
responsible for putting Palestinians into those zones, because that many
people wouldn't move voluntarily into an area that can't sustain them.

Their situation has been likened to that of a prison, and the comparison is
quite apt. In a prison, the wardens are almost completely responsible for
anything that happens inside.

------
sneak
It bothers me that the term “capitalism” is being overloaded to mean “patents
and intellectual property”.

Other than that, this is a fantastic read, and it sounds like they are doing
great work.

~~~
littlestymaar
Capitalism describes a social organization where some people (the capitalists)
own the means of production whereas most people are working for them. And
nowadays, the «means of productions» are mostly in the form of patents and
intellectual property (as most companies almost never build anything
themselves[1], and pay contractors to build stuff for them).

[1] Apple don't build Mac, Mc Donald's don't operate most of its restaurants,
car manufacturers merely attach together a bunch of spare pieces built by
contractors, etc.

~~~
wtdata
> Capitalism describes a social organization where some people (the
> capitalists) own the means of production whereas most people are working for
> them.

This is not accurate. Capitalism describes a system where people are free to
own means of production. A hypothetical system where everyone owns some means
of production, would still be capitalism.

~~~
dragonwriter
> A hypothetical system where everyone owns some means of production, would
> still be capitalism.

No, it wouldn't, because it is _marketable_ ownership of the means of
production that defines capitalism; that is, it is the buying and selling, not
the ownership alone, that is key (particularly, historically, the
marketability of the means of production is a key factor distinguishing
capitalism from feudalism, in which much of the means of production was owned
but attached to entailments which the current owners were not free to
alienate.)

For a version of your example, if everyone owned a fixed, equal share of the
means of production which was not marketable, that would be an implementation
of socialism.

~~~
wtdata
> No, it wouldn't, because it is marketable ownership

I have to be sincere, I never saw this definition involving marketability
anywhere, this is new for me. Perhaps it's really like you say, but that's not
the definition I had, nor the one I see as the generally accepted one when
checking up the definition of capitalism.

> For a version of your example, if everyone owned a fixed

But that is the thing, it isn't fixed. You are free to manage it, sell it, buy
it, as you wish. That's why it's an hypothetical situation, where everyone
would end up with a part voluntarily and not forced by the state.

~~~
dragonwriter
You say this:

> I never saw this definition involving marketability anywhere, this is new
> for me. Perhaps it's really like you say, but that's not the definition I
> had

But then also this about your hypothetical about a “capitalist” system where
“everyone owns capital” which makes it capitalist as opposed to socialist:

> You are free to manage it, sell it, buy it, as you wish.

You seem to explicitly recognize that marketability—the right to buy and
sell—is an essential element of the kind of capital ownership that defines
capitalism in the same post that you claim that it isn't.

~~~
wtdata
My bad I misunderstood your answer to my first comment. I understood you were
taking about the marketability of the produce, not of the means of production.

In any case, that is the reasoning of my second point when originally
answering to you: A hypothetic situation where most people would own means of
production, would still be capitalism when means of production are free to
exchange hands.

That is too say: it's capitalism by definition as long as the means of
production can exchange hands freely, it doesn't matter if they are all
concentrated on the possession of a few or not.

~~~
dragonwriter
> it's capitalism by definition as long as the means of production can
> exchange hands freely, it doesn't matter if they are all concentrated on the
> possession of a few or not.

If they can be freely exchanged, absent active as social management if
distribution (which is _not_ capitalism), they _will become_ narrowly
concentrated over time. Broad distribution is not a stable condition.

------
bryanrasmussen
Using fucked up in the first sentence, not in quotes, gave me something like
the feeling that reading Dante in Italian instead of Latin must have given his
audience.

~~~
burning_hamster
I know exactly what you mean. And yet after a page worth of text I felt like
the editor made the right call: the text would have lost a bit of its soul if
they had redacted it in a socially more accepted way.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I don't think it was the wrong call, I was just surprised.

