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"Israeli fighter planes have also attempted to kill children by dropping thousands of booby-trapped toys on Lebanese villages and towns. The Israeli occupying forces have used this method through the years and continue to do so, the most recent example being when booby-trapped toys were dropped on the town of Nabatiyah, killing and injuring children and permanently disfiguring others." https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-180386/


Yes. Except there are credible reports of Israel also doing this in the past. "Israeli fighter planes have also attempted to kill children by dropping thousands of booby-trapped toys on Lebanese villages and towns. The Israeli occupying forces have used this method through the years and continue to do so, the most recent example being when booby-trapped toys were dropped on the town of Nabatiyah, killing and injuring children and permanently disfiguring others." https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-180386/ https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/227779/Mariam%252C_res...


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47444297 "Villagers have been whipped with belts, attacked with machetes, beaten unconscious with bamboo sticks, sexually assaulted, shot, and murdered by WWF-supported anti-poaching units, according to reports and documents obtained by BuzzFeed News."


I agree, but let's not forget that the more (semantically) obvious reason why people get locked out of wealth has more to do with not being able to take it than with not being able to produce it.


I believe replacing "weapons" for "systems" makes the statement more in line with concrete reality.


I upvoted when I had read up to where you wrote "doesn't help with." I felt I was reading my own thoughts when I read the last two sentences. I think it is not just software design that will become shortsighted we may even see less interest in improving programming languages. I've always hoped for people to come up with some mathematical insights (beyond functional programming) that will describe code organizing structures in a more sensible way, so that experience no longer appears as the main argument for software patterns being tools to manage complexity. Now a programming language is just another language to be modeled, and its texts generated and proofread by a fallible human.


> I think it is not just software design that will become shortsighted we may even see less interest in improving programming languages.

I believe in the contrary. AI code generators and modern languages that enforce type and memory safety are a great match, since the compiler ensures the mess doesn't grow too much.


This is an entirely class of problems than what I'm describing.


At least it's not social media disinformation. \s


I agree with the sentiment that there is significant absurdity hiding beneath all the economic abstraction around employment and investment, which obscures the origin of money as a requirement. The way I see it (and this is a rather centuries old observation) is that the economic system is set up so that most of the population requires earning money for their survival. Earning money is a social requirement not a biological one. But if the resources are cheaper now that money is more valuable, what is the problem with earning less money for one's work? The problem is that some people would rather keep charging the same for what they sell. If one doesn't own much, then one can't afford waiting for a better deal. In this situation having power means owning money, houses, land, machinery and little debt. This makes workers require the same salary in order to survive and perform their jobs, this contributes to the (abstract pseudo-)problems of less employment, less consumption, less debt obligations being fulfilled. The real problems is on the one hand the resources required for survival being out of reach, and on the other resources, machinery and skills going to waste. For many, directly tackling the real problems may come dangerously close to disregarding social requirements. Hence, we keep talking about this problems in abstract terms, so that important members of society can live off the rent, by convincing the rest, by whatever means necessary, of the survival-money exchange rate. Money is a peaceful mean to make them follow orders.


"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." - Adam Smith


We're not talking about security of property here but about who benefits from government spending.


> but about who benefits from government spending

Elon Musk? And, if you count foregoing taxes as spending, Jeff Bezos?


All the more desperate considering that 1/10th of the work may be regarded by many as "not good for the economy".


We should take those people and make them dig holes in the ground, and then fill them up again. Plenty of work, great for the economy.


Did you just invent an imaginary group of baddies, assign them an imaginary belief, and then feel concerned because they "exist"?


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