The only thing I don’t understand about this article is what precipitated them to write it now, in September.

As they mentioned, this all came out months ago. Haaretz – which is basically the Israeli New York Times – reported on this. Soldiers, survivors, and investigators have all testified that the IDF instructed soldiers to let no one return to Gaza, full stop, by any means necessary, and liquidated hostages in a widespread manner.

It’s terrible. I’m glad it’s being talked about. But geez, why does it take months for something like this to suddenly get reported on?

This article doesn’t really answer most of my questions.

What subjects does the AI cover? Do they do all their learning independently? Does AI compose the entire lesson plan? What is the software platform? Who developed it? Is this just an LLM or is there more to it? How are students assessed? How long has the school been around, and what is their reputation? What is the fundamental goal of their approach?

Overall, this sounds quite dumb. Just incredibly and transparently stupid. Like, if they insisted that all learning would be done on the blockchain. I’m very open minded, but I don’t understand what the student’s experience will be. Maybe they’ll learn in the same way one could learn by browsing Wikipedia for 7 hours a day. But will they enjoy it? Will it help them find career fulfillment, or build confidence or learn social skills? It just sounds so much like that Willie Wonka experience scam but applied to an expensive private school instead of a pop-up attraction.

Even still. Most are like, ‘Woman (allegedly American) no longer alive due to visiting West Bank, claim some’.

Most headlines don’t even say who killed her.

I agree with all of that. It’s tough to talk about because I really hate to give any impression of moral equivalence. I think the leaders on both sides are equivalent in their hearts, but in actions and outcomes there’s simply no contest. Israel’s killers are much, much, much more brutally effective. At least several hundred times so in numbers. Very possibly a thousand times so.

When I speak of Hamas, it’s largely for the purpose of trying to understand their behavior.

I’m not terribly surprised, since whatever either side says is largely detached from what is really going on on the ground.

For instance, Israel has stated that it allows the vaccinations to take place, but four days ago blew up one of the aid trucks organized by a group called Anera after it had already been authorized for transit.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/middleeast/israeli-strike-gaza-aid-convoy-intl-latam/index.html

Now, the IDF claims that the truck was hijacked by armed militants. Anera said that the truck was not hijacked, it was staffed with local Palestinian delivery drivers who asked to drive at the last minute, but also admitted that they were not among the people that the IDF had pre-aproved.

So we can see here that the IDF blows people up in a deconflicted setting. But I’ll say something critics of Israel often won’t: I can’t guarantee that none of those drivers were actually part of Hamas. Would it surprise me if Hamas and the IDF agreed to peacefully allow vaccinations without interference and BOTH broke that agreement? No. Israel doesn’t follow the rules of engagement, nor does Hamas. What either side says they agree to is not a reliable source of what is happening. Both say whatever they think sounds good and then their fighters do whatever the hell they like. Neither side is honest or in control of their fighters, so nothing anyone says really matters that much.

This makes me so sad. It’s clear that the only reason that they’re doing it is because unlike starvation, unconstrained polio virus can transmit to soldiers.

They’ll allow limited aid to prevent kids from dying of this one particular thing. Not of dying of all the other horrible stuff. But just of this one special cause.

Sick.

I feel like this is a pretty crass joke to make.

A good friend of mine found a body a few months ago. It’s a pretty shitty experience. And it’s actually a lot like what OP describes. A sense of foreboding and suspicion combined with a conviction that these thoughts are foolish. And an uncertainty whether to check or to alert someone or to just try to forget it.

Op, I’d report it and ask them to please follow up with you and let you know. It’s probably nothing, and you’ll feel better once you know it was nothing, and that you did the responsible thing in having it dealt with.

I would suggest calling the city or county and reporting suspicious dumping. It could be a body. It could be a rotting animal carcass. It could have toxic chemicals in it.

You don’t need to suspect that it’s a body to call the city and report what looks like dangerous dumping.

To clarify a bit: I DO think that what this woman did was child abuse. But not specifically because she locked the kid in a bathroom. Because she did it for a social media audience.

For some context, I use what is often called “gentle parenting” (although I think it’s just what I would call “parenting if you’re humane and responsive to the needs of a child”). So I would never do this. But I also am very aware of the feeling of helplessness that comes from having a child in distress and having exhausted every remedy I know. I am familiar with the logic that a child who is screaming is doing so for attention, and will stop when their behavior isn’t being tolerated. Putting a child into a time out until they stop doing something is not a radical approach. If I saw someone do this on a plane, I wouldn’t immediately consider it abusing a child.

HOWEVER: if I saw this lady chatting animatedly into her phone’s front facing camera while dragging a distressed kid (to whom she’s not addressing her attention) toward a lavatory, I’d immediately think, ‘Oh fuck: is that one of those people who turns every moment into a social media opportunity? That kid needs rescued.’

I think it’s an omission that the article didn’t recognize this. This woman didn’t just put a kid in a bathroom to try to get them to calm down (dumb idea, but not abuse by itself, imo). She did all that while talking to strangers and saying, ‘Hey everyone! Look at me! Look AT MEEE!’

THAT is what makes it abuse.

I was trying to explain what AI alignment is to my mom, and I ended up using the behavior of companies like OpenAI, and how they’re distorted by profit motive as an example of a misaligned decision making system. And I realized that late stage capitalism is basically the paperclip maximizer made real.

This is a very good article. I think AI models have more to teach us about epistemology than people want to believe right now.

This is interesting.

It’s fascinating how different people and different cultures view this stuff.

I’ll say this: the grandmother doesn’t get enough attention in this article. To start with, I simply don’t think it’s considerate at all to fly with a one year old. I didn’t fly with my kid until he was about two and a half, specifically because one year olds have little to no self control, and the air pressure can be very painful. It’s just bad for the kid and other passengers. And then this grandmother gives the kid some random person? Does that person have kids of their own? It’s odd that the article doesn’t say.

I don’t think confining the child to the restroom was effective or healthy. Now I don’t think it’s child abuse… unless perhaps if you’re filming it for TikTok. As soon as the woman is performing for likes, her credibility as a responsible care giver evaporates. I think filming it was probably the dumbest part of the story.

Really, "L"s for everyone all around.

This needs said over and over.

The settlement of the West Bank used to be a slow walk of annexation. Now, it’s not even slow.

The Israeli civilian government is actively annexing the entire region. They are rounding up native residents and putting them into interment camps. They are openly discussing expanding their activity into their northern neighboring country, Lebanon. The military is serving as shock troops for the naked displacement of locals. The IDF is conducting air strikes on a totally defenseless demilitarized neighboring country that is already under total military occupation. While using a separate, unrelated war as a brazenly cynical excuse to just start attacking anyone whose land they happen to want next.

Thes sanctions are a band aid applied to a mortar wound to the chest. This is so wildly disproportionate to the needs of the situation that I genuinely feel it is far more offensive than doing nothing.

That sounds like some very cool engineering. I hope it sees as little use as possible, but I’m glad you’re prepared.

I’m concerned that this would require a continuous supply of water at a flow rate that might not be realistic.

I will also add that I think in the long run, as we try to figure out how to differentiate between humans and machines, the only real reliably solution I see is to focus on elevating the individual. Having people with long histories validate their reality by living and documenting it.

I don’t upvote something that I’d be ashamed for someone to see I upvote. I might make an exception for pornographic content, but even with that, if it’s pseudononymous in that it’s not attached to my personal public life, I don’t mind if someone can trace through and see what a specific account I use for those purposes has liked and disliked.

There’s a weird element to the war that I never really hear people examine:

Netanyahu want’s Trump to win, and has an enormous amount of power to humiliate and troll Harris and Biden. I really hope the Harris campaign – who seem to honestly be much smarter than most political campaigns in recent memory on either side – is preparing for contingencies like Netanyahu pulling out of the negotiation the day before Harris’ acceptance speech and doing something crazy like attributing Biden’s unconditional support for his decision not to concede.

Anytime Netanyahu wants, he can basically throw a grenade into the US election by thanking Biden and Harris.

I really hope they’re considering their options, because even divorced from basic morality, unconditional support for Israel clearly has major electoral liabilities.

The whole thing feels farcical. How are we struggling to get negotiators to agree to a proposal they originally suggested while they are entirely reliant on us to do the thing that we’re asking them to stop doing?

I feel like one must have a humiliation kink to do Anthony Blinken’s job.

Realistically, you go to work at the place that does the work you like. This person certainly wrote from this voice BEFORE they started working at the NYTimes, and was hired because of it.

have espoused divisive rhetoric and advanced policies to expand Israel’s hold on the territory

It’s funny how obviously you can see the authors drawing on the NYTimes style guide when trying to find an acceptable way to say that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are violent ultranationalists who support the use of terrorism to ethnically cleanse and annex occupied territory.

“Expand Israel’s hold”? Come. On. They have said over and over that they already believe this territory is theirs by law of might and divine right, and have called over and over for a specific favored ethnic group to drive out the undesirable indigenous population by making them choose between surrendering their land or dying for it.

It’s just maddening to see them talk about genocide and apartheid the way a parent might spell out words when trying not to let their kid know that they ate the last slice of birthday cake.

This is true, but we also need to be realistic about the fact that saying you support an agreement is never an actual guarantee that you’d support it if the other side agreed to sign.

Israel has repeatedly asserted that they supported a deal only to find one more small issue every time Hamas agreed. And it’s important to be clear-eyed that we cannot really assume what Hamas will do if Israel finally agreed. I desperately hope that Sinwar recognizes that a ceasefire under any terms would be in his best interest. But this is a guy with his own vision of what success is, and leading after an assassination of Haneyeh. That’s complicated. It’s very hard to predict what someone in that situation will do.

I hope that what they say is true. I think acting as the more honorable party would be in their interest. But we need to recognize that until Netanyahu is forced to sign on the line, at this point we really don’t know what to expect from Sinwar.