It is complex and yet it isn’t. There are understandable psychological and historical causes for the current state. It is not black and white. But nothing is. We just want to make things to fit nice boxes.

If you want to understand it, you need to understand radicalization and how it applies to MENA including Israel. Actions do not come from the vacuum and people are messy. Every person has an agenda.

At the same time, in this specific situation, there are what according to well-established parameters amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. While there is terrorism committed by Palestinian groups, these crimes are largely committed by Israel. It might be that if the power imbalance were a little less we would see similar actions from the Palestinian state. But it is not.

Just in the last week, we have seen apartheid, ethnic cleansing, what could be genocide, collective punishment, embargo and cutting vital supplies to the area you are occupying. This list is not exhaustive. This is univocally wrong.

The most complex part is not understanding it. The most complex part is solving it.

While Israel is part of the cause of Islamic terrorism in Europe, I think we should not pat too much on our backs. Yes, our countries’ positions taking sides on Israel is problematic as hell and so is us being tied to the US in the minds of many people outside Europe. But so is our own Islamophobia. I get where it comes from, but othering and sidelining people will lead to further radicalization. Which for people whose Islamophobia is rooted in current oppression in many Islamic societies, is entirely opposite of what they want.

Which was influenced largely by the antisemitism of the West and the rise of Zionism for Jewish people which is partly radicalization as a response to thousands of years of oppression. But Brits were still in power with colonialism in full force.

I had it but really had to scroll to the bottom. It was also not Reddit but articles saying it was the first result. Which is kind of ironic.

And criminalization of civil society is in general thriving in many European countries including France.

I didn’t say it is worse than it ever was. Just saying it is not the best it ever was either.

My perspective comes from the fact that I am an aid worker and human rights activist. This has nothing to do with online discourse. My perspective is also not only found in online echo chambers. It is common among my colleagues. I am not referring to Twitter dying. I don’t care about that. And yes, activism is at least in my field of activism pretty damn ineffective. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

While the number of wars is less than 20 years ago there is an uneven but increasing trend for the past decade. Last year casualties were also more than at least 89 apart from a huge spike in 94. Amount of refugees has also been increasing in the past decade a little bit faster than the world population has.

Despite these facts, globally things are not at least yet out of hand. At the same time, there are many countries, especially in the West where current politicians are dismantling social security nets and human rights legislation. We are also increasingly seeing the effect of climate change on conflicts and displacement. Famine is thankfully rarer than ever before but we are so badly behind on any environmental action that it is pretty much guaranteed to happen more and more. I might be less pessimistic if the climate crisis weren’t staring us right at our faces. In general, historically things have gotten better and better with some lows. If we had time, we could probably sort ourselves out. There are also a lot of very smart people that could help with the existential threat but after the past decade, I don’t trust that they will be allowed to fix it.

You can also only be almost completely anonymous if you know what you are doing. The majority of people don’t know how. While data gathered from default users might officially be anonymized, the amount of data collected will often make you pretty easily identified. Zero-click spyware that has already been used against political opponents while not relevant to most average Joes do exist.

The world can’t be pulled up by your bootstraps. Most defeating is that you can do anything in your power and things still get worse. Yes, I might have more than a touch of secondary trauma but activism these days feels like hitting your head on the wall repeatedly. You can’t stop people from dying. You risk ending up in jail in too many countries that you once thought were civilized. And you are once again marching again Nazis when they sit in parliament in too many countries.

The good thing for him is that he was so young when he was diagnosed that he probably doesn’t know anything else. Saying this from personal experience as I was diagnosed at 14 months in mid 80s. Of course, something like this would be amazing as I can’t tolerate even small amounts of accidental gluten but as I don’t know anything else I can’t even imagine anything else.

I also have really complicated relationship with hope. Mainly, I try not to hope as my body seems to be insanely problematic. I am disabled with multiple autoimmune diseases and genetic syndrome. While objectively I find the advancement in treatment interesting and amazing, I personally try not to hope. It is absolutely exhausting to get your hopes up only for the other shoe to drop.

What the everloving fuck did I read?

First of all, I don’t know who you think you are talking to but I am not lying. I 100% know how abuse affects you as I was abused most of my childhood and teenage years. I am not playing any cards, I am reminding you that calling people selfish and lazy when you do not know them based on something like grammar is ignoring multitudes of factors you have no idea of using myself as an example. And this is not a work email. It is informal language used in meme. And by the way, even though I am using a grammar checker on all that I write, it is not perfect. Of course, people also check the language when it is more relevant but the majority of people are not using it for all texts.

My point is less about bad grammar and correcting it and more about how you are going around correcting it. You also have no business defining what I should and shouldn’t take from your writings when you didn’t spell it out. My point is that requiring perfect grammar when you do not know the person writing from Eve is problematic especially when you call everyone with bad grammar selfish and lazy. Taking the multitudes of factors that can cause people to have bad grammar into account is not a problem. Painting everyone with the same negative brush is.

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One of mine is also lupus. Thankfully it has mostly spared internal organs but it really likes skin and veins in addition to joints in my case, veins being the biggest problem. I also have EDS so the genetic lottery really didn’t like me. I joke with my friends that someone should tell my body that diseases are not Pokemons.

I call mine overeager and incompetent. It likes to attack everything but what it is supposed to attack. The running tally of autoimmune diseases is currently at 4. It is bad enough that I am eating medication that is used also in higher doses for chemotherapy. In other words, if I trusted my immune system I would have died long ago as it also doesn’t really function against infections either.

Starting fire is pretty relevant skill in Finland for multiple reasons from saunas to cabins to campfires. While I partially learned at home, scouts are pretty good here and definitely taught me a lot of wilderness and survival skills.

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I think having a digital ID system is very important in the modern age but where it is required needs to be limited. You should not need to use it where it isn’t strictly necessary. We have one in Finland too. You will almost entirely use it to use official services that would need your ID in person as well. In this proposal, the issue is not digital ID but how it would be used. First, where it would be used could compromise revealing too much of your identity when you want privacy and secondly and more importantly, it could compromise revealing your private actions to the government. Latter can move into highly problematic territory when criminalizing actions that should not be criminalized.

Of course, don’t lay down. Really learn and train to become useful in those situations. You don’t need to be professional, just properly trained. There are multiple ways to do it but you need more than a couple of days a year to also keep that training up to date.

I just have a lot of experience with people making things worse because they think the basic to medium first aid courses will make you able to help properly. And then make things worse. So my comment might have come out too harshly. But advanced first aid with the psychology of emergencies and scene management with the right attitude (mostly listening to those more experienced) will actually be useful.

I am a humanitarian aid worker working in emergencies with a decade under my belt. I am not saying civilians are not useful if they are properly trained. First aid courses that are not advanced, often repeated can help but it really is nowhere near enough to think you are ready to even halfway towards the front lines. Often simple first aid courses can also make you think you know more than you do. That also commonly coincides with attitudes where people are not listening.

I just have absolutely too much experience with people making bad situations worse with their actions. And even some people causing emergency situations because of what they don’t know. But I do not disagree with you. I think we are talking about two different things. I am talking about normal first aid courses people take every couple of years what you are talking about is actual advanced first aid courses that properly teach emergencies, how they work and how you need to act.

I would disagree. I say that everyone should take a first aid class, but to be useful in any real situation in general you need a shitton of training. Honestly, from experience, I want fewer people who think they are useful when being everything but useful in emergency situations. It leads to situations where I need to babysit them and work. At worst, they endanger themselves and/or others.

I know a lot of people who are not used to these situations feel like an extra pair of hands is always a plus but I have not met any first responders, health care workers, military or aid workers that agree with that statement. It is a common subject of discussion as it really is driving most of us up the wall.

In general, I feel the American labour movement could benefit from checking out the history of the labour movement in other countries. Not everything is transferrable but a lot of it is.