Parameter efficiency is an important consideration, if not the most important one, for local LLMs because of the hardware constraint.
Do you guys really have GPUs with 80GB VRAM or M3 ultra with 512GB rams at home? If I can't run these ultra large MoEs locally, then these models mean nothing to me. I'm not a large LLM inference provider after all.
What's more, you also lose the opportunities to fine-tune these MoEs when it's already hard to do inference with these MoEs.
Deepseek starts a toxic trend of providing super, super large MoE. And MoE is famous for being parameter-inefficient, which is unfriendly to normal consumer hardware with limited vram.
The super large size of LLM also disables nearly every people from doing meaningful development on these models. R1-1776 is the only fine-tune variation of R1 that makes some noise, and it's by a corp not some random individual.
In this release, the smallest Llama 4 model is over 100B, which is not small by any means, and will prevent people from fine-tuning as well.
Yeah, I personally don't really see the point of releasing large MoEs. I'll stick to small and dense LLMs from Qwen, Mistral, Microsoft, Google and others.
Edit: This comment got downvoted, too. Please explain your reason before doing that.
For neutral networks, on one hand, larger size generally indicates higher performance upper limit. On the other hand, you really have to find ways to materialize these advantages over small models, or larger size becomes a burden.
However, I'm talking about local usage of LLMs instead of production usage, which is severely limited by GPUs with low VRAM. You literally cannot run LLMs beyond a specific size.
I don't. I have no problem not running open-weight models myself because there's an efficiency gap of two orders of magnitude between "pretend-I-can" solution and running them on hundreds of H100s for high thousands of users.
I prefer things with low color contrast in general, just to leave some color space for important things. Maybe this preference stems from the time I tweak color themes in IDEs.
In contrast, I also found more and more photography pieces which show vibrant colors and high color contrasts.
As someone in this thread already stated, if you want smooth remote desktop experience with security requirements, you may try sunshine + moonlight for streaming with tailscale / zerotier for connection.
When totalitarian governments all start applauding what you're doing, using what you're doing as a distraction from a bad domestic situation as well as a justification for their dictatorships, you should know that something is totally screwed up.
Yes, I'm talking about the totalitarian governments of China and Russia.
To be fair to China, even they are "appalled" by what Trump is doing to cause chaos with Europe and to abandon Ukraine by holding talks about Ukraine without Ukraine:
You misunderstood them. They want to slip into the power vacuum the us implosion generated, but they want to establish a world order similar to the colonial British Empire . Its in all their speaches and documents , if you care to read and listen. They are quite open about it ,like putin.
Isn't that the logical conclusion of a country that has a different leading style?
China plans ahead in decades. US plans ahead less than 12 hours, and depending on the moodswings in the Oval Office are pretty much the definition of unreliable right now.
There was a fascinating quote that some friends around Singapore told me once: "When China comes, they build roads and infrastructure. When US comes, they destroy, enforce and leave emptiness"
And, given what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and other shitshows I tend to agree.
China learned that cultural influence is playing the long game, and they're very successful with it.
Yup that's the idea. It's not going to run away from that police liability very soon. Probably in 5-10 years I think. Actually already happening right now in Myanmar.
Let's all be honest here. At the end of the day, what China wants is for everyone to shut the F up and buy a big screen TV.
Preferably on credit.
Anything that moves the world towards that goal will receive China's tacit support. Trump's moves are seen to move the world away from that goal, so we're seeing some signs of discomfort coming from China.
But believe me, it ain't because they're concerned about Ukraine or freedom or "ideals". Or even because they do or do not want to be world police.
We can't think about their goals in Western terms because the fundamentals of the thinking are just completely different.
Yup I do believe most of the Chinese elites just want that. The thing is, most of the Chinese elites don't really have a deep belief in anything, so getting the current status going is the best, most convenient thing for them.
I view it as China valuing stability. They want to control their interests, but countries like Russia or the post-Trump U.S. make long-term planning hard because you can’t assume rational decisions by the other major players.
China borders Russia. If the Russians invaded some Chinese territory and then Russia and the US held talks to decide how much to take not involving China in the talks, I think they would be pissed off. It's kind of the principle of the thing.
Ah yes, the only country in the world whose array of official foreign policies includes a "no limits partnership" with russia.
The statement of the named Chinese official is either a psyop, or he is, in the parlance of intelligence agencies, "going native". I'm leaning towards the former hypothesis.
In a recent report on info ops conducted on American targets, the Russian goal was to spread divisiveness. The Chinese goal was to create assets that result in a positive impression of China.
As of February, China’s actions with working with Europe and standing against America cemented its position as world power focused on stability.
Their decision to find a way to work with India, is yet another sign of their decision making.
In sharp contrast, America is dismantling itself in flight.
"it depends on what story you read" - which is what i alluded to in my other comment. You have to choose to believe Zelenskyy, who isn't acting like someone who wants the war to end, or not. That's it.
It is possible there was "miscommunication" - as that's what they're blaming the White House Zelenskyy meeting a couple weeks ago on. But Zelenskyy was supposed to be in Saudi Arabia at that time, and that's why the talks were planned for that date.
the whole "no paper invitation, and we don't want to participate if Russia is going to be present" is quoted in several stories. So which is it, they don't want to participate, or they weren't invited?
And in that clip it is explained that Kellog nearly immediately went to Kyiv to keep communication open.
I get the feeling that people merely don't like the way this is playing out, and that somehow gives them the right to make claims on shaky evidence.
i think that there is a lot of nuance to this ukraine thing, and a lot of the problem can be directly blamed on the US.
There are factions in the US that are warmongers, and a lot of americans don't like that. We don't want to be the ire of the world by constantly meddling in affairs. "strategic deployments" and "Strategic bases" and all this, yeah. We should have stopped. I don't even know if we can extricate ourselves without completely destablizing the global economy and "peace" - but i think we oughtta try.
> Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country would not accept any outcome from the talks since Kyiv didn’t take part, and he postponed his own trip to the kingdom scheduled for Wednesday.
every article, when directly quoting, uses weasel words like this. "Ukraine" decided they didn't want to participate because Europe wasn't involved, or Ukraine "didn't get a paper invitation". even though Zelenskyy was supposed to be in country at the time, he decided not to.
I will source the actual facts later, but keep downvoting stuff you don't like.
Downvote this comment too, here, i'll help:
Russia was promised by the US that NATO would not expand. by someone named Baker. Stuff shifted, but under no circumstances was russia going to let Ukraine "join NATO". When Ukraine started saying they were in talks to join NATO and get their own nukes, russia perked up and started fucking with the border. Russia warned Ukraine about the murders occuring in "ethnically" russian "speaking" areas of ukraine, near the border. I bet you can name them. Russia waited eight years to actually respond to this injustice, and it was after Ukraine started talking about joining NATO. Again.
So if you are pragmatic, and you don't want an all out war in europe, you withdraw the US support for NATO. Simple as. Now you don't get to threaten russia with US forces anymore. The US doesn't want to fight Russia, and certainly not for a leader that "loses" hundreds of billions of dollars. "whoops, we can't find half of it" is bad enough when it's an amazon order, it's a lot different when you're talking about sending nearly 400,000,000,000.00 USD to ... Ukraine.
The thing that gets me though, is does anyone really believe this is all russia is capable of? moving a front line 10 meters, or a kilometer?
Europe needs to stop prepping for a war, because Europe is the most war-hungry population on the planet, historically. They can't help themselves.
The rest of the world is about to find out what it's like to not have the US backing up your stupid decisions. We, as taxpayers, are tired of paying for the EU experiment, for sabre rattling from the UK and France and Germany.
It boils down to the need to "read between the lines" and not just accept any article put forth in the last 4 years. there is a lot more nuance than "orange man bad" and "Comedian War Hero", ok?
> Russia was promised by the US that NATO would not expand. by someone named Baker
This is Russian propaganda. Russia claims this was promised verbally. Surely if this was something that Russia wanted why didn't they demand in writing, like they did about many other concessions made to them? The answer is that Putin made that up. It never happened.
As i said, "Stuff shifted, but under no circumstances was russia going to let Ukraine 'join NATO'." - it's just too close to moscow, and there's been issues in that region since the collapse. "We're going to acquire nukes" was sort of the final straw. Let's just hope that Canada saying the same thing doesn't foment the same response from their neighbor, eh?
I sure can, but why do you ask? I just did 25 minutes of research to give a clear reasoning why they want them, and then finding the dates of when Zelenskyy said they "need" or "should get" nuclear weapons. But i'm unwilling to share this research effort without knowing the purpose behind your asking.
To put it better, what year would be an acceptable answer? Is the year that they loudly claimed "we should have never given up our nuclear weapons" not acceptable? the year "we need Nukes or NATO"?
I also remember sabre rattling in 2014 and either 2016 or 2017. NATO already has missiles pointed at Russia, and Ukraine joining NATO would allow missiles to be launched from even closer to Russia.
I don't understand why people don't get the nuance. The US did dirty. I don't know how to solve that, but the answer isn't "war with russia" or "proxy war with russia" the answer is closer to "get the fighting to stop, and tell russia to chill out and report issues to the world, not sit and stew for 8 years over their ethnic brothers, sisters, and children being 'rained down upon' with death and destruction."
> The far-right candidate Oleh Tiahnybok’s last name means pulling one’s side in Ukrainian.
> So his campaign officers have been conveniently running a message of “Tiahnybok is pulling for our side,” but so far managed to get only 1.6 percent of polled voters to declare support for him. A broad-shouldered and towering leader of the right-wing Svoboda Party, he positions himself as a knight on the yellow-and-blue horse – the country’s national colors – on a mission to save Ukraine. His program almost immediately mentions that a section “nationality” should be introduced into Ukrainian passports – a sign of pride to some, yet prejudice to others. Should he be president, Ukrainians will have to obtain visas to travel to Russia and pass a Ukrainian language test to work in civil service. Ukraine would pick up nuclear arms again and take a hard line approach towards Russia. Serving as a lawmaker twice before, Tiahnybok’s ideas have been better received in the more nationalist west. Once allied with President Victor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine faction, he was expelled for anti-Semitic and xenophobic statements.
The idea that Russia were forced to invade Ukraine because a guy who ran for President twice getting less than 2% of the vote who whose political party had no seats, proposed obtaining nuclear weapons over a decade earlier is too stupid for anyone to honestly believe.
"\nI bet this isn't going to be good enough, which is why i didn't want to do this. I have more, i just want to prove this point."
to my prior post, the sha256sum will match.
I merely asked what sort of proof you were looking for, buddy. Evidently a Ukrainian politician saying the exact words you said no Ukrainian politician said prior to 2014 isn't good enough.
here, about the party in Ukraine he's led for decades:
> The party gained increasing popularity in the late 2000s and early 2010s, winning 10.45% of the vote in the 2012 parliamentary election. Between 2009 and 2014, it was an observer member of the far-right Alliance of European National Movements. It played a role in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Euromaidan protests but its support dropped quickly following the 2014 elections. Since then, the party has been polling below the electoral threshold, and it currently has one seat in the Verkhovna Rada.
oh look, they win parliamentary votes, and hold a seat.
also incaseyoumissedit:
> It played a role in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Euromaidan protests
I think it's pretty obvious that the fact a single individual who's ceased even trying to run for office because he can't get the votes and actively despises the actual Ukraine leadership said something 15 years ago is not "evidence" for your claim that '"we're going to acquire nukes" was the final straw'. A guy who literally has less impact on Ukrainian nuclear policy than George Galloway on that of the UK.
But yes, congratulations on predicting that nobody would be impressed by such a stupid irrelevance. The non-stupid thing would not to have posted it in the first place...
When a group of Americans were mad that their preferred candidate didn't win and stormed the Capitol, were they heroes or traitors? When a group of Ukrainians did the same, why does your answer flip?
Euromaidan was a protests because Yanukovych didn't act on his promise to integrate Ukraine with the EU. Protesters were upset because that was not what he promised during his campaign.
The storming of the capital in US was under false claims that the elections were stolen.
There is both evidence that the elections were not stolen, and evidence what Yanukovuch said during his election campaign were not his actions. You can't tell the difference between the two?
Plenty of protests ended in the fall of a government and electing a new one. Why would that be the same as the US storming of the Capital?
If you would have said to compare it to the Georgian protests that don't accept the election results, that would be more difficult. But Euromaidan? That's easy.
Trump lost fairly, so storming the capitol is treason. Yanukovich didn't win fairly, so removing him is warranted. The answer flips because the situations are the opposite.
The people who stormed the Capitol didn't think Trump lost fairly. So the real difference is whether they succeeded. Had the Capitol protesters succeeded, they would have made the media feed people like you and I their narrative and make sure we saw them as freedom fighters.
I'm sure you'll disagree with the above, so here's a thought experiment. What would the Euromaidan protesters be called if they had lost?
The protests started when he switched his stance on getting closer to EU. The protesters got him out and had a new election. How can you compare that to not accepting an election result?
Edit: To answer your question: if the Euromaidan protest didn't succeed, it was just a protest like it was now. They would have had another election a bit later, possibly pissing off Russia again (In 2004 Russia poisoned a pro-EU candidate).
and if we're going to point at everything trump says and react with gusto - like canadian politicians saying they need to arm themselves with nukes to prevent invasion, just to name one - then i question the validity of "oh they didn't sign it so it doesn't matter" The secretary of state said to Gorbachev multiple times "not one inch to the east" of the "NATO" base in Germany.
But none of this matters, because Ukraine is 250 miles from Moscow, and that's a lot different than the nearly 600 miles away Poland is. the closest nato point to moscow as it stands right now is 350 miles away.
if you can't see the difference, i'm sorry. A big point of contention for Russia is the "Ethnic Russian" portions of Ukraine, near the border, who would "gladly" be part of russia, but because of an arbitrary border, they cannot.
Baker and Gorbachev talked about the status NATO forces in East Germany until the Soviet withdrawal in 1994. They agreed that only the forces under direct German control would enter East Germany until the last Soviet forces had withdrawn. Their agreement was formalized in Article 5 of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany.
The relevant article:
ARTICLE 5
Until the completion of the withdrawal of the Soviet armed forces from the territory of the present German Democratic Republic and of Berlin in accordance with Article 4 of the present Treaty, only German territorial defence units which are not integrated into the alliance structures to which German armed forces in the rest of German territory are assigned will be stationed in that territory as armed forces of the united Germany. During that period and subject to the provisions of paragraph 2 of this Article, armed forces of other states will not be stationed in that territory or carry out any other military activity there.
Germany upheld their part of the agreement, the withdrawal went uneventfully, and the agreement was concluded by the end of August 1994.
As you can see, it has nothing to do with whether NATO would accept new members or not. Gorbachev and many other top Soviet/Russian officials have directly refuted this myth, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43149963
the link i gave, under _Document 5_, is the transcripts from their conversations.
Where baker said "not one inch east of the Elbe."
I am not sure how much clearer it can be than declassified documents. "That is a lie putin told, it's propaganda!"
no, it's right there. has been available to look at for 9 years.
I really do not give one WHIT what happened afterward, all i care about is refuting falsehoods.
to wit:
A United States Secretary of State named Baker, gave a "cascade of assurances" that NATO would not expand EAST of the Elbe. Repeatedly, the same message was given to the russians.
That is literally all i said. You're arguing something completely different now and like i said, good for you, i don't care. it wasn't what i was talking about or responding to.
There is not a single mention of Elbe in the linked document. However, there are numerous references to the 2+4 agreement, which is the informal name for the treaty I previously cited. That's what they were discussing and that's what they agreed upon. Soviet representatives have confirmed that the discussions were limited solely to the placement of foreign forces in East Germany until the Soviet withdrawal was complete.
As the Soviet foreign minister stated in a 2014 interview, there was simply no reason to discuss NATO beyond that. They did not expect the Warsaw Pact to dissolve. The idea that the world would change so drastically that the Warsaw Pact would dissolve and its members would seek to join NATO was unimaginable at the time.
You are clinging to an erroneous understanding of a few transcript snippets against the words of the direct participants and their actual written agreements.
So you're saying that Baker never gave a "Cascade of Assurances" (not my fucking words) to Gorbachev? Even though there's dozens of documents there, i'm sure you scoured them all to make sure "Elbe" wasn't referenced. You think i pulled that out of my ass?
I want you to answer the simple question, because you have refused.
Is the statement:
Baker verbally assured gorbachev that there would be no eastward expansion
True or false?
That is literally, and when i say literally i mean literally the only thing i was talking to, above.
And it's obvious if you follow the historical context.
In 1990, Germany was still formally under Allied military occupation (since 1945). In the final 2+4 treaty, East Germany and West Germany - the "two" - negotiated with the four Allied powers (UK, France, USA, and USSR) to determine the terms of reunification. Their discussions centered on whether a unified Germany would be fully neutral, partially neutral, or entirely integrated into NATO. In the end, they agreed that reunified Germany could remain in NATO, provided that no foreign troops were stationed in East Germany until Soviet forces had fully withdrawn by the end of 1994.
That's it. There was never any discussion about the broader future of NATO because there was no reason to have one. Germany bordered the Warsaw Pact, and no-one on the Soviet side expected it to dissolve.
there's no way the Russians would lie, except to say that there was a cascade of assurances, but only if putin says that. If gorbachev said it never happened, that's the truth. If baker says he said that, he's lying, because Gorbachev is your baseline of truth. Basically, anyone that supports what you're saying is telling the truth, and the declassified national security documents (why would they have to classify such a thing as a verbal "Cascade of Assurances" about nothing further east?) I guess that's all part of this conspiracy that putin put in place. putin put in, hilarious.
so you just ignore the declassified documents, making this whole thing a waste of my time.
It's not just Gorbachev. The minister of defense Dmitry Yazov also refuted this myth, as did the minister of foreign affairs Eduard Shevardnadze and his successor Andrei Kozyrev, along with many others. You are clinging to your interpretation of a few phrases from meeting notes and other insignificant documents while ignoring the actual signed treaties, their historical context and the recollections of the participants in these events.
Shevardnadze, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, was as clear as one could be:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: At the end of March 1990, Genscher and the then US Secretary of State James Baker, talked about the fact that there was interest among "central European states" about getting into NATO. You knew nothing of this?
Shevardnadze: This is the first I've heard of it.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did you have a conversation with your colleagues in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary about a possible eastward expansion of NATO in the spring of 1990?
Shevardnadze: No, that was never discussed in my presence.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The German documents give the impression that Moscow counted on the dissolution of both the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Did you really think that would happen?
Shevardnadze: That may have been discussed after I resigned from the ministry of foreign affairs in December 1990. However during my time in office it was not.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Was the eastward expansion of NATO ever discussed in the inner circles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1990?
Shevardnadze: The question never came up.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did the subject play a role in the ratification process of the Two-Plus-Four agreement (where the signatories included the two Germanys and the four powers that occupied Germany after World War II) that unified Germany?
Shevardnadze: No, there were no difficulties whatsoever with the ratification process.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Nevertheless, the eastward expansion happened a few years later. Did you feel, at the time, that the German diplomats deceived you?
Shevardnadze: No. When I was the minister of foreign affairs in the Soviet Union, NATO's expansion beyond the German borders never came up for negotiation. To this day I don't see anything terrible in NATO's expansion.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: At the conference in Ottawa on German unity in February 1990, you had five telephone conversations with Gorbachev. Did you discuss a possible NATO enlargement -- beyond the GDR?
Shevardnadze: No. We only had German reunification on the agenda, nothing else.
Thats a report of a conversation, not a legal agreement. If you want a legal agreement, get it in writing. So like I said it's Putin's propaganda that there was some agreement. Thanks for confirming, I'll be sure to use that link in the future.
> Russia was promised by the US that NATO would not expand. by someone named Baker.
This is untrue Russian propaganda. There was no independent Russia at that time and Baker didn't promise Gorbachov anything of the sort, as Gorbachov has publicly stated.
> Stuff shifted,
Right this is an important thing to note. Russia isn't the soviet union even if it claimed to be the successor state. And in the 90s Russia under the Yeltsin (the guy who picked Putin to be his successor) agreed that these countries had a right to join NATO. Of course that wasn't needed since there was no such promise but it happened. Oh people will claim that the Poles gave Yeltsin too much to drink but the reality is that Russia needed US support and good relations with their neighbors in the 90s financial disaster just like Ukraine (which agreed to give away its nukes to Russia)
> but under no circumstances was russia going to let Ukraine "join NATO".
First who is this Russia we speak of. It was Putin's decision to invade, a move that many Russians even those who didn't like Ukraine getting closer to the EU were skeptical of.
> When Ukraine started saying they were in talks to join NATO and get their own nukes, russia perked up and started fucking with the border.
That is incorrect. Russia invaded in 2014 when Ukraine was not seeking to join NATO (only became a goal after the Russian invasion). Plus everyone including Russia and Putin knew there was no chance of Ukraine joining nato in 2014 or 2022. Russia must invade Ukraine to stop it from joining NATO is not just propaganda, its stupid and obvious propagnada.
> Russia warned Ukraine about the murders occuring in "ethnically" russian "speaking" areas of ukraine, near the border.
Is it ethnically Russian or Russian speaking? You know there's a difference.
Much of the area was Russian speaking but not all of it. Many of the more rural areas in the east were primarily Ukrainian speaking. And it had an ethnic Ukrainian majority.
Hell a lot more Ukrainians used to speak russian not just in the south and east. The main driver in the change isn't nationalism or discrimination but Russian invasion.
Either way its ridiculous propaganda. Those areas were largely peaceful despite economic issues and crime. Russia invaded and then set up a couple of local thugs and neonazis as warlords pretending this was a local thing or a civil war.
They blamed Ukraine for a war they started and then blamed them for shooting back. Then they massively enlarged the war killing a lot more people (a significant share of whom were russian speakers or ethnic russians because of the part of Ukraine they invaded).
> I bet you can name them.
Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (sometimes transliterated lugansk via russian)
> Russia waited eight years to actually respond to this injustice, and it was after Ukraine started talking about joining NATO. Again.
Russia could not care less about them or injustice. Russia barely even cares about its own citizens (if it's all for the glory of the modern czar, what does an individuals life or rights matter) and despite claiming area for annexation it does not treat them as citizens. It forced them to be used as a meetshield against their own countrymen(no training and ancient guns).
Did you see how they destroyed the mostly Russian speaking city of Mariupol? Or many smaller cities? But then they changed the sign from Маріуполь to Мариуполь and I'm sure the survivors considered it all worth it /s.
>So if you are pragmatic, and you don't want an all out war in europe, you withdraw the US support for NATO. Simple as.
If you're pragmatic you back them to the hilt and try to prevent Russia starting such a war.
>Now you don't get to threaten russia with US forces anymore.
The one threatening to nuke London is Russia not the other
way around.
> The US doesn't want to fight Russia
Right neither does Europe. Neither does Ukraine. So Russia can get get out of Ukraine (including Crimea and Dpnbas) and everyone will be better off.
>The thing that gets me though, is does anyone really believe this is all russia is capable of? moving a front line 10 meters, or a kilometer?
Yes because that's all they have accomplished. And if we had done more to swiftly back Ukraine it would have been less.
> Europe needs to stop prepping for a war, because Europe is the most war-hungry population on the planet, historically. They can't help themselves.
Europe is prepping because Russia started a major war. And sadly we the US are not reliable allies right now even though Ukrainian and European victory us clearly in our interest.
>The rest of the world is about to find out what it's like to not have the US backing up your stupid decisions. We, as taxpayers, are tired of paying for the EU experiment, for sabre rattling from the UK and France and Germany.
Again the saber rattling is all coming from Russia. Do you even understand Russian? Do you watch Russian by to hear the stuff the state propaganda news put out?
>there is a lot more nuance than "orange man bad" and "Comedian War Hero", ok?
Sure but being more nuance doesn't stop both those statements from being totally accurate and important. Total nuance is not claiming the Donbas is just russian anyway or that Ukraine provoked russia when even Russian newspapers (Moscow times, Medusa) posted many articles disproving state propaganda.
20% of Israel citizenship is Arab, they get equal rights. Parliamentary representatives etc. they even get affirmative action in getting higher education.
Is it perfect? No
Half the country is fighting the other half to keep us a western democracy.
But every time ignorants post half baked opinions and paint us as pure evil, more ppl here say, fuck it.
I have Israeli friends across the spectrum (except maybe ultra-orthodox, but including Ukrainian/Russian olim). I also have friends from Lebanon (not even Arabs). They all share different stories, many of them very ugly ones, — and not just about Palestinians. And many of them are Jewish and critical of Jewish policies.
I know plenty of Israelis who are genuinely trying, and there are many of liberal-minded people with their conscience absolutely in the right place. I don't want to badmouth any of them.
My point is — if the same level of "trying" happened elsewhere (like in Xinjiang), Americans and Europeans would instantly brand it the worst kind of totalitarianism.
It's astonishing how the same first-rank predators who've been devouring the world for 500 years now posture as moral messiahs. And that's coming from me — one of them.
Don't let anecdotes shape your perception of reality. I have a feeling you're not familiar enough with the details.
Parent is correct. 20% of Israel's citizens are Arabs who generally enjoy equal rights. They are members of Knesset, they are judges, they are in tech, they are in academia. Some of them serve in the IDF (though that's an area that can still use improvement).
It's as far from totalitarianism as can be. And there's plenty of that in the world your Americans and Europeans let slide when it's in their interest. Most of the world is not free and democratic: https://freedomhouse.org/country/israel
"Jewish policies"? What's that?
Ask your friends from Lebanon what happened to the Christian majority that used to exist in that country? Or what happened to the Jews that used to live there?
Much easier as in otherwise they'll suffer material and bodily harm? Look at what the Syrians are doing to the Alawites now and then tell me again how Israel should just let those same people have the power in this balance.
I never told you any such thing. Nor did I defend or express support for Hezbollah or other islamist terrorist organization. That does not mean that during the civil war the Christian side were the good guys.
> Much easier as in otherwise
No, much as easier as in it was historically easier for them to get asylum in western countries.
I'm implying you are painting the wrong picture about Lebanon. This is a story of a state which was established as a safe haven for Christians being taken over by force and ethnic cleansing of Christians and Jews. I'm not saying the Christians didn't have their share of bad actions (by western standards) but if I had to pick who are the good guys I'd still pick them.
"In the 1960s Lebanon was relatively calm, but this soon changed. Fatah and other Palestinian Liberation Organization factions had long been active among the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanese camps. Throughout the 1960s, the center for armed Palestinian activities had been in Jordan. They were forced to relocate after being evicted by King Hussein during the 1970 Black September in Jordan. Fatah and other Palestinian groups attempted to mount a coup in Jordan by incentivizing a split in the Jordanian army, something that the ANM had attempted to do a decade earlier by Nasser's bidding. Jordan responded, and expelled the Palestinian forces into Lebanon. When they arrived, they created "a State within the State". This action was not welcomed by the Lebanese government, and this shook Lebanon's fragile sectarian balance.
Solidarity with the Palestinians was expressed by the Lebanese Sunni Muslims, with the aim to change the political system from one of consensus amongst different sects, towards one where their power share would increase. Certain groups in the Lebanese National Movement wished to bring about a more secular and democratic order, but as this group increasingly included Islamist groups, encouraged to join by the PLO, the more progressive demands of the initial agenda was dropped by January 1976. Islamists did not support a secular order in Lebanon and wished to bring about rule by Muslim clerics. " - Wikipedia
"During the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), an estimated 120,000 people were killed, and almost a million people fled Lebanon, with Christian casualties being a significant part of that total." -> Gemini (some estimates put the number at 150,000)
A million people were displaced, again mostly Christians. 2/3rd of the population.
You'd think the Muslim Lebanese could just have easily moved to Syria, or to Turkey, or other Muslim or Arab countries. I don't see how the argument that the Christians just left because it was "easy" for them to get asylum in western countries holds water.
Hezbollah didn't exist for most (or all) of the civil war in Lebanon. Not sure why we're talking about Hezbollah. The PLO wasn't really an "islamist terror organization" either.
My Lebanese friends are Armenian Gregorians, so I tend to consider their perspective relatively impartial — though, as you rightly noted, it remains anecdotal.
As for 'Jewish policies', there are, of course, issues around settlers, the West Bank, and Gaza. My own view on Gaza doesn't favour any particular side - it's a deeply complex and painful topic, and I recognise the trauma is still fresh. But I was referring to a different angle. Many of my Israeli friends are deeply frustrated by the influence of the ultra-Orthodox community and the state policies shaped by that influence - whether it's on women's rights, voting rights for Israeli Arabs, or broader social norms.
It's increasingly concerning given the explosive proportional growth of this community, which is on track to represent a third of Israel's population within a few decades.
And yet, the topic of the ultra-Orthodox and their influence is exceedingly rare in the West. I wouldn’t have been aware of it myself if I hadn’t had a personal experience. Years ago, a girl who had run away - literally - from a Hasidic community arrived in the UK, desperately looking for a way to stay. She was applying for jobs, including a position I had open. Meanwhile, she was staying with some soft-hearted Jewish family, working as a nanny for their kids. I still remember her eyes and the dedication — and desperation — in her voice.
My CTO at the time, an Israeli ex-IDF intelligence guy, soft-pushed me to hire her, even though she was absolutely unqualified. He told me, 'These people have enough resolve to become anything.' I didn’t budge. But I’ve never forgotten that experience.
My beef with the term 'Jewish policies', if it wasn't clear, was the mix of opinions about the Jewish people, Israel, and certain political powers within Israel. To me when people just mix "Jewish" and "Israel" that is either a sign of ignorance or a sign of animosity. But feels like this was just an honest mistake.
The ultra-orthodox and the Arabs are large minorities in Israel. They are actually similar in many ways as neither serves in the IDF and so both are "discriminated" against. In some ways the ultra-orthdoc are more anti-Zionist than the Arabs and I don't know they hold any specific policies on Arab voting rights in general (though their political parties align opportunistically with the Israeli right).
These same people invoking the concept of totalitarianism to push their agenda are totally silent on the US allying with Al Queda in Syria. The concept that we have moral standards for foreign policy friends or enemies is a joke.
> For many Westerners, ‘totalitarian’ just means ‘a country that has something we want but won’t give it up for free.’
Source? It's obviously a ridiculous definition so I'm curious if you can find any source that supports the claim of "many" people having that viewpoint. Pretending to speak for the masses is the definition of populism
you are talking about (edit almost) a third of the entire human population, as if you know better. Reality says - random armchair Western Educated Individual Rich and Democratic does not rule the day for a third of humanity by claiming some political imperative.
More reality - the Muslim world is organized and very wealthy in spots. By confrontational and arrogant (see above) posturing and actions by Westerns, it drives power alliances to the Muslim world. So then there is one third of the actual population of the entire world, embracing the Muslim world economically and politically.
Secondly and perhaps more importantly, the backdrop economically for all parties is substantially about Oil and Gas. In the USA, the Oil and Gas interests have gained the upper hand, and they know very well how to apply it. Oil and Gas industry has all the capital and all the ambition to expand, fortify and entrench for the next multiple decades. It is rarely mentioned in the provocative and divisive social "news" that fills the media in the West each day.
The combined population of China and Russia is less than a fifth of the world (15-16 bn vs 80+ bn). Edit: should be 1.5-1.6 bn vs 8 bn.
I'm only discussing Trump's behaviour and its effect on totalitarian governments, I don't have enough knowledge to discuss the rest of what you wrote.
I think the recent series of Trump's actions against Ukraine have failed to send a message to totalitarian governments that matches his own words. This has nothing to do with how much of the population Trump rules.
Ungoogled chromium is a good alternative in terms of privacy because all google-related services are gutted and there are no other built-in telemetry things.
There are some downsides, too.
First, you have to do some research on learning to make this browser work conveniently, e.g. finding alternative services to sync and backup your settings, bookmarks, accounts and passwords, etc.
Second, changes pushed by Google like Manifest V3 is still hard to deal with.
https://github.com/elder-plinius/L1B3RT4S/blob/main/ALIBABA....