testfactor @ testfactor @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

I'm well aware of the existence of alternatives. But you must agree that what is achievable with an implant far outstrips the current alternatives?

Maybe someday, but that's not the point of the tech as it stands. It's accessibility.

They guy who it failed in (Noland Arbaugh) is a full on quadriplegic. The ability to use a computer in a semi-normal way is absolutely beyond life changing for him.

I think what you are probably actually after, based on your description/comments is a flash card app, not a dictionary app?

To that end, seems like a guy on the open source subreddit made a thread about it and built one that's FOSS. Some other good suggestions in the thread, even if his solution isn't what you're after.

https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/14azw6d/an_open_source_flashcard_studying_system/

Yeah, no, for sure on all counts. As before, I'd imagine it'd have to be pretty egregious to rise to the level of removal. Makes sense.

All fair points, and I don't disagree with any of them.

And yeah, I recognize my posts are rambly, but honestly, it's mostly just me jotting down thoughts. I'm not trying to write a dissertation, I'm trying to engage in conversation.

I do think there's levels to this though, right? Like, you list a bunch of other special interests that were at the Iraq protests that weren't policed, but there are certainly viewpoints that would have been, right? Like, if someone showed up with a, I don't know, a "just nuke'em, end the war, and get it over with" sign or something, that would have been policed, right?

Maybe not? Maybe anyone can join any protest for any reason? I tend to think there's some level of extreme that the group would self police, but who knows.

That said, the sign in question wasn't past that line by any stretch of the imagination. That wasn't even really the point of my original post though. I was more asking about what the messaging actually is.

I did go on a tangent about messaging because the guy two up basically said (to grossly paraphrase) messaging clarity doesn't matter, and I was just stating why I disagree. I did use the context of this protest though, so that's on me. I don't think this sign is out of line necessarily.

Ultimately my main point about messaging was that protests that don't have well stated outcomes (e.g. get troops out of Iraq or stop investing in Israel) are doomed to failure, as the group you are protesting against has no viable mechanism to capitulate.

There's probably a sub-point in there that if your stated goals are too fractured, it makes it impossible to capitulate as well?

Idk, I'm mostly just rambling again. I'm also not as invested in the conversation as I was three days ago.

We could have a whole dialog about which historical protests have led to meaningful change and which haven't and what distinguished the former from the latter. I'm no expert in protest philosophy (obviously) but I've seen protests make a difference and fall completely flat, and I think it'd be an interesting study to find out why, and to what degree coherent goals and messaging are correlated to success.

But, as I say, I'm not as invested as I was 3 days ago, so I'm probably gonna just do something else instead. Hope life is treating you well, and you've got an exciting weekend planned! :)

Eh, I figured it'd happen when I posted. I don't really worry about it much.

I had a genuine question I was curious to get opinions on, and figured hearing what other people thought was worth loosing some meaningless Internet points, lol.

I don't really disagree with anything you said, though I think it's a pretty loose interpretation of the literal words on the protest sign, which was the crux of my question.

Though, I do agree that a protest sign has limited real estate, and there's certainly an interpretation where the sign was more going for "vibes" than any attempt to be read literally.

I will say that, while I agree that Israel hasn't exactly been champing at the bit for a two state solution, I don't know that all the blame falls on them there.

As late as 2017 the position of Hamas was, "we will accept the 1967 borders, so long as we don't have to recognize the state of Israel as existing and we retain the right to take over all of the Israel portion as well at some later date." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/5/2/hamas-accepts-palestinian-state-with-1967-borders

There's also the question as to whether any deal made with Hamas has much weight, as it's not the only leadership structure amongst the Palestinians. Fatah still has significant pull, and have largely been sidelined by Hamas. So any agreement made might not even mean anything, as a lot of Palestine don't align with the group you're negotiating with.

Mostly I say all that to say, the position is more complicated than just "Israel are being a bunch of dicks." Negotiating to any kind of peace is going to be a hugely uphill battle, even if the Israeli government was suddenly super invested in coming to a compromise. There is no clear solution to the problem.

I would consider the black population of South Africa liberated, absolutely. I'm iffier on saying that "South Africa" was liberated. But that's not a bad point at all.

But I think the thing that muddies this for me though is the use of "Palestine" instead of "the Palestinians." The issue is that there's a meaningful distinction between the two in the cultural zeitgeist, and they aren't therefore as interchangeable as "South Africa" in your above example.

But overall I don't hate that explanation/comparison. It works enough that I can reasonably interpret the person's intent with the sign through that lens. Thanks.

I do disagree with your second point though. A protest is, first an foremost, an exercise in messaging. The idea that the messaging doesn't matter is tantamount to saying the protest doesn't matter. I agree that this particular quibble is comparatively small, but I think nothing is more uncompelling than a protest that conveys "we don't know what we want, and we're mad as hell about it."

This is certainly just an opinion, but I think for a protest to be effective, it needs a fairly concrete set of goals, with well defined expected outcomes. Without that, the people you are protesting against have absolutely no incentive to change.

It's the Chick-fil-A problem to some degree. Exactly what steps does that franchise need to take to get people to stop boycotting? They took a lot of action in the wake of the bad publicity, and it made no difference to those who were boycotting it. (This isn't a defense of Chick-fil-A btw. Just an observation about the boycott.)

This is in direct contrast to something like a workers strike, where work is stopped until a concrete list of demands is met, and then people resume work. They act as a cohesive unit, and there are a concrete set of things that the target can do to make it stop.

And to be clear, I think that the student protests going on do have well defined goals. Get University money out of programs that support the state of Israel. I think the messaging was good on that front, at least at first.

Where it falls apart for me, and maybe this is just biased media coverage, but it feels like half the protestors don't know that that's the goal, as opposed to just general opposition the genocide. And that's why I think messaging is important, and needs to be policed, to keep the messaging clear. Anything other than that absolutely hurts your movement.

I agree with everything you said being the goal of the protests, but that wasn't my question.

My question was, "is this particular protest sign arguing for the abolition of the state of Israel?"

The sign seems to be advocating for things beyond what are listed in your post, which is why I asked the question.

Maybe I'm reading into the verbiage too much, but I have trouble coming up with an interpretation of "liberate Palestine" that is both a coherent and doesn't involve the dissolution of the state of Israel.

Maybe it's just going for vibes, and there wasn't much thought behind the choice of words, but it's the actual choice of words that threw me off.

I don't think that's what I'm implying though. I'm all for signs that say "end the genocide" or "equality for Palestinians."

I think my question is, does the sign in the thumbnail imply that the state of Israel can't exist without genocide?

I think it absolutely can, and that's why I was questioning the message on the sign, as it seems to oppose what you claim most of the protestors want.

Genuine question. The sign in the thumbnail says, "We want Palestine to be liberated." What does that mean?

Is it advocating for the dissolution of the state of Israel? Like, "liberated" implies the removal of an occupier, no?

It can't just mean "stop the murders," right? Like, if that's the case it was say to liberate the "Palestinians," not "Palestine" right?

I just ask because I feel like the messaging on this is a bit all over the place at times, and calls for the abolishment of the state of Israel seem a bit extreme to me, and I'm trying to figure out if that's the actual stance people are taking.

The other guy is probably being a bit over the top, but your initial comment was kinda anti-Semitic, no?

Like, if I was reading a comment thread about black people and responded, "but is it as funny as eating fried chicken and watermelon," I don't think someone would be out of line saying, "are you asserting that all black people just eat fried chicken and watermelon?"

And then saying the thread isn't about them isn't exactly absolving the initial comment is it? The comment would still be racist, no?

Idk man, that guy got disproportionately hot about it I think, but your initial comment was a bit rough too, right?

Pennsylvania. This happened in Pennsylvania.

Took me a not inconsiderable amount of time to validate that.

Figured I'd post it in case others wondered what state this was in. It just keeps using the county name.

Not sure why this is getting down voted? Like, we can agree that genocide and antisemitism are both bad at the same time, right?

Like, just because Israel's actions against Palestine are evil, does that necessarily require someone to embrace the Holocaust? Clearly not, right?

And I realize that Zionist =/= Jewish, but it's dancing a fine line, no? At the very least it's a call to violence against a Jewish adjacent group that I think feels pretty deeply uncomfortable.

Maybe I'm alone in that though. :/

Ah, gotcha. Thanks! :)

Maybe it's cause I'm on mobile, but I just see the intro paragraph, unless I'm missing something on how to see a full article?

I feel like you're taking a bit of a dissonant position here, no?

If it would be a moral tragedy to kill a cat and eat it, why is that not true for a cow? If life eats life, it's not murder for me to kill and eat the cat, correct? So why is it a moral evil if killing and eating the cow is not?

I think you're saying that this is just one of the "fucked up" stances that society has taken? But then why participate in it?

I'm fine with either answer. Either "eating meat is fine because animal life is less valuable than people's dietary needs/preferences," or "vegetarianism is the only moral option, as all life is equally valuable," but it seems to me like any answer in the middle is hypocrisy, no?

Haha, we responded at like the same time lol. Wild.

And fair on all counts, but it does seem at odds to an "a life is a life" position, no?

Like, I'd assume you would be more upset if they were farming humans for meat than you are that they raise chickens and cows for meat, no?

And are you against all farming, or just factory farming? If an old school farmer raises a cow in a field, and then kills and eats it, is that acceptable?

And are fish's lives not valuable? Less valuable than a chicken's or a cow's? It's still a life, no?

I'm truly not trying to be combative. I'm actively trying to understand how to jive these two positions.

Fair. I'd be curious how you square that with the idea that "a life is a life"?

I don't mean that in an accusatory way. It just seems like an inherent contradictions to me.

And to be clear, not that you'd save your cat over a stranger or enemy. Like, I know people who would save inanimate objects before either because the emotional connection is that strong

I mean more in the abstract that human and animal life are of equal value.

Like, would you support the farming of people to sell their meat at the grocery store? I'd assume not, but then it feels like a contradiction to me, and I'd be genuinely interested to hear how you square that circle.

I feel like the idea that an animal life is worth less than a human life is demonstrably true at a societal level though, right?

Like, we don't sell human parts at a grocery store to eat, and I feel like people would call it a moral tragedy if we did.

If an animals life is equivalent to a humans, then meat is in fact murder, no?