I have no idea why you would assume Israel had to resort to extortion to get Trump to help them bomb Iran. We bombed Venezuela a few weeks ago, no extortion required.
It's far more likely he was did it because Hegseth thought it would be more manly or something more ego driven than extortion. More likely it's just another example of flooding the zone to forget about the Epstein files and the stagnating economy
I've often struggled to find a concise way to say "control public narrative by crowding out other headlines". Thank you for sharing the popular term for this [0].
No problem! It's one of things that when you see it, you start to see it everywhere. The concept also has broad explanatory power: it explains seemingly irrational actions from otherwise shrewd actors such as Elon Musk spending so much on Twitter and a lot of Trump's smaller controversies
Venezuela is in the eastern hemisphere, just like Cuba, and it seems they want to control that entire part of the world. Iran would be of no concern to the US if not for Israel.
> Iran would be of no concern to the US if not for Israel.
This is only true if you completely ignore the Sunni Shia split and our relationship with literally every other country in the Middle East excluding Israel.
Edit:
This is evidenced by the fact that when Iran was attacked by The US and Israel, they bombed a bunch of neighboring countries with US bases. None of those countries have alliances with Israel. (Although they are certainly less hostile than other countries in the region)
I am thinking the theories are true because of the must larger negative repercussions of that action.
They are strengthening the regime (US intelligence services were aware of that before the attack and had informed the president), they are destabilizing all their oil producers, they are risking great economic cost..
It only makes sense if indeed they either extorted him, or if he is indeed demented / deranged.
Picking on someone vastly weaker than you (especially while they're already getting beat up by somebody else) doesn't make you look strong, it mostly just makes you look like an asshole, and probably an asshole who is too scared or too weak to go after somebody who can actually fight back.
This is true, but only for a certain percentage of the US population. Large swaths of this country think that picking on our weaker neighbors evidence of our strength
You make it sound as if Trump is some kind of rational actor who would never willingly put his hand on the stove.
Indeed every negative repercussion you have mentioned has already been previously inflicted on us without any extortion required.
> They are strengthening the regime
Us action in Venezuela has only strengthened the PSUV's grip on the country.
> they are destabilizing all their oil producers, they are risking great economic cost.
Liberation day. Need I say more?
This administration is quite willing to risk stability and the economy to assuage Trump's ego.
I mean he campaigned on stuff like "the so-called enemy doesn’t respect our country any longer." Blaming "Kamala Harris’ weakness" for this loss of respect. What else shows strength like literally blowing up your adversary?
I can't believe I have to say this on HN but no, the Iraq war was not started for Israel. Yes Netanyahu did testify before Congress but he was not testifying on behalf of Israel and the Israeli government quietly warned against invading Iraq.
I noticed that you somehow failed to mention 9/11, Colin Powell, George Bush or Osama Bin Laden, nor the fact that the Invasion has bipartisan support and was overwhelming popular with the American public.
Yes, thanks for confirming that the Iraq war was started because of Israel, and not oil. None of what you mentioned specifically discredits Israel as the primary cause of the Iraq war.
You guys really like revising history in realtime, huh? As if we didn’t live through that era ourselves. It was never a remote secret that Israel kept pushing the US to attack Iraq and had done so for years before 9/11, which Iraq had no part in anyhow.
The word "Constitution" refers to the document listing the principles on which Claude is trained. It's not clear to me that Anthropic can defer to it - it is phrased throughout as a description of how Claude behaves, not as a description of how Anthropic or any other entity behaves. Can you be more precise about what you mean?
I'm pretty sure for me "mining.fyi" wouldn't have created any associations with landmines (although "mines.fyi" does seem to match the contents of the website closer).
It'd be really interesting to see A/B testing results about what most people associate the word "mines" with (I wouldn't be surprised if that would be landmines in this day and age).
Even "mine.fyi" would be better at not making me think "landmine", although that would instead get read as "belonging to me".fyi.
I assume this is probably because most people don't see mines (as in gold mines) mentioned in plural very often. Or if someone does refer to multiple mines at once, they usually also specify the type of mine at the same time, like, "the cadmium mines in [country]" or similar. Or if talking about old, abandoned mines in an area, they're usually referred to as such.
The word "mines" on its own without an adjective usually does mean landmines, I think.
(I also immediately assumed this was about landmines.)
The US government has been pretty good about cleaning up the UXO it knows about, which means what's left is the UXO it doesn't know about. You'll find it near most of the current and former testing ranges, particularly Yuma Proving Ground where there's trails leading right from the adjacent BLM land into areas with potential UXO. The only real barriers are a few signs and the law.
I found this quote from the AI executive slightly reassuring:
"As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop," Sharma added. "Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us."
While I'm sad to see someone who's been with the company for so long leave, it's undeniable that the Xbox brand has really faltered under his watch
"Read my lips: no new taxes." — George H.W. Bush (1988 Republican National Convention)
"I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." — Franklin D. Roosevelt (October 1940 Campaign Speech)
"If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." - President Barack Obama (June 15, 2009, AMA Speech)
"I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them." — Donald Trump (July 5, 2024)
how did Obama break that promise? i don't recall people having to change plans? i know you have to have a health care plan but if you already have one, did Obamacare force you to change it?
It didn't force people to change insurers, it forced insurers to change their policies, which ended in about 4 million people getting cancellation notices.
Yeah hence the "slightly" in my comment. At least it seems like they understand understand the problem, even if they may change their mind in the future
> Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Not a lie or broken promise because it wasn't a foreign war. WW2 came to America's doorstep. The first American battle of the war was fought on US soil.
I think that's doing the article a disservice. "Some patients prefer the service of AI doctors to real doctors, even though they definitely do get a lot wrong" is what I got out of it.
Personally I think the article spends a lot of time trying to show that AI may be able to improve health outcomes, particulaly for rural patients, but IMHO it doesn't spend nearly enough time talking about the current challenges
No idea. I only replied to the guy saying that "metal detectors stop weapons". Which is false.
The evidence is in US law. Because they would be undetectable, 3d printed guns are required to have some metal inserted into it to be legal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D-printed_firearm#United_Stat...). I think a guy who can 3d print a gun and wants to bring it onto a plane could probably skip that step;)
"I only replied to the guy saying that "metal detectors stop weapons". Which is false."
Taken in a strict boolean sense, yes, but real-world policy is rarely boolean, and mostly about tradeoffs and how many nines of reliability you want to spend on.
Metal detectors will catch the vast, vast majority of guns ever produced, which is their whole point of existence.
Not in the context of someone smuggling a weapon through a security checkpoint. At least not unless they're certain that it's small enough not to trigger the detector.
That said I will note that it is generally illegal to possess such nonferrous weapons regardless of circumstance.
How does a plastic pistol open the cockpit door? It is proof to small calibers. You might shoot someone in the plane and then you will be subdued and ghaddafied with a SkyMall magazine. Not the most effective form of terrorism.
Countries that didn't create the TSA also had a reduction in terrorism.
I agree. Such a pistol won't even get you many shots before catastrophically failing.
But upthread it was suggested that metal detectors are sufficient to stop weapons and a discussion of 3D printed guns followed. Nonmetallic weapons (and other tools) of all sorts are possible, 3D printed or otherwise.
If you want a gun you can use more than a couple times need metals. However if the goal is one shot plastic is good enough. Even plastic bullets will work - not well, but one well placed/timed shot is all we are talking about.
It's far more likely he was did it because Hegseth thought it would be more manly or something more ego driven than extortion. More likely it's just another example of flooding the zone to forget about the Epstein files and the stagnating economy