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> today as well

To be fair it’s hard to reconcile with them being paid relatively high wages due to manpower shortages (since they are generally reluctant to send conscripts into Ukraine).


> ed, it is in its best interest to ethnically cleanse Gaza,

That was not Israel’s policy back in 2006. Hamas had zero interest in coexistence or the wellbeing (or lives) of the people living in Gaza. The current situation is a direct outcome of that.

I mean.. yes, if the only choice is between removing the entire population of Gaza and giving it back to Hamas it’s not that surprising that most Israeli’s are picking the first option.


>Hamas had zero interest in coexistence

I don't think the evidence favors this conclusion. Their actions immediately following 2006 suggests they definitely had quite a bit of interest - they enforced a ceasefire after 2006 (also punishing other groups that attempted to break it), and according to former President Carter were willing to accept a 2-state solution if the Palestinians democratically approved it. This was all put on hold after Cast Lead, which aligns with the Israeli policy of denying a two-state solution.

The only piece of evidence I can think of that counters this is Hamas' charter, which IIRC calls for the creation of a Palestinian state in all of former Mandatory Palestine which would imply the destruction of Israel. But even then, based on the pragmatism demonstrated above (and the openness to a two-state solution), the Hamas leadership were rational enough to realize this goal could not be achieved.


> comparing the number of civilian victims whenever Russia bombs Ukraine

Because Ukraine has access to modern AA and early warning systems. Russia is still indiscriminately shooting at civilian targets it’s just that they have a much harder time hitting anyone than the Israelis.

Also there are hardly any actual military targets in Lebanon and Gaza because the local terrorists couldn’t care less about the civilian population there (not that this fact absolves Israel of anything)

> used as a NATO-powered bulwark against Russia

Deranged paranoid delusions… NATO, EU and USA couldn’t care less about somehow attacking or invading Russia. That’s just as absurd as it gets.

> America often does with its "allies"

When exactly did they do that in Europe?


> allows you to make such a 2-dimensional assessment

Surely there were many complex causes which resulted in Germany invading Poland back in 1939, and Poland itself at the time was a deeply flawed state in quite a few ways?

So of course you would also say that that event could not be described as “unquestionably, unconscionably, unacceptably wrong”?


> or the Scandinavian countries that generally have higher spending power than the us.

Do they? PPP they all have lower disposable income than the US and they are not even at the top in Europe (including social transfers). Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands are above Norway and Sweden is even lower than France.


Of course we have higher Disposable Income in the US, it's a useless metric for these sorts of comparison purposes as it includes expenditures for things like healthcare, which in most other places is paid for by taxes (aka. not part of disposable income). A more useful metric would be Discretionary Income.


The OECD economists are pretty smart cookies, and account for government services delivered in kind (like healthcare). The net adjusted household disposable income includes the value of government provided healthcare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/income/ (“Household adjusted disposable income includes income from economic activity (wages and salaries; profits of self-employed business owners), property income (dividends, interests and rents), social benefits in cash (retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, family allowances, basic income support, etc.), and social transfers in kind (goods and services such as health care, education and housing, received either free of charge or at reduced prices).”) So the income top line in European countries is higher than the actual income to account for the value of those services.


Also, Norway's PPP is as high as it is only because of North-Sea oil revenue.


that is used for a sovereign wealth fond. Norway produces less oil than the us.


Right, but the US has 60 times as many people. Norway's per capita oil revenue is very high.


> with nothing to show for it

It’s still an independent state, which is something.


Global market share hardly matters though. UN isn’t regulated monopolies national agencies/EU are. Not that it should matter it’s still an oligopoly which is not that different


this is a super slippery slope. this would mean most manufacturers are actually monopolies because they have control over their own products. i don’t see how this makes any sense.


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