CerealKiller01

Huh?

The smartphone improvements hit a rubber wall a few years ago (disregarding folding screens, that compose a small market share, improvement rate slowed down drastically), and the industry is doing fine. It's not growing like it use to, but that just means people are keeping their smartphones for longer periods of time, not that people stopped using them.

Even if AI were to completely freeze right now, people will continue using it.

Why are people reacting like AI is going to get dropped?

To address your second point “not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump”; why isn’t the opposite true? “Not voting for Trump is a vote for Harris”, follows the same logic, so refusing to vote or voting independent should be net neutral, no?

You're missing some context - “not voting [instead of] for Harris is a vote for Trump”. If the dilemma is between not voting and voting Harris, choosing not to vote subtracts a vote from Harris.

Of course Harris got a boost in donations after she became the candidate - she appealed the the people who thought Biden was too conservative. That doesn't mean conservative democrats are an insignificant demographic, they simply already donated earlier. The move towards the center is meant to not drive them away into not voting [instead of voting for Harris]. Obviously there will be some progressives and some conservatives who will decide to not vote [instead of voting for Harris], the goal is to move to the point where these margins from both sides will be minimal.

Star Wars is a science fantasy film with space magic and swords made of light where the main character goes into the evil warlord's dungeon to save the princess. Oh, and it made most of it's money by selling toys.

That's not to say other media in the same universe can't be gritty war films, not that it can't be good. But the issue isn't that Disney are "infantilizing Star Wars and profit", the issue is that they are, for the most part, doing a bad job at it. The first season of The Mandalorien was arguably the best thing to come out of the brand since the original trilogy because, like the original trilogy, it had charm, lovable characters and (to a lesser degree) some nice world building.

I think part of the issue is that people at Disney realize why Star Wars was successful, but think along the lines of "Well, if people loved this chocolate cake, I could double the amount of chocolate and people will like it twice as much".

Volunteering?

There's a good chance got them because dunkin donated them or because the cafe didn't want to give cash for fear it could be construed as pay.

The point of gift cards is that they're: a. Not money (when using money might have some sort of disadvantage for either side). b. Have restrictions that the person who gave it to you might want to impose. c. Are usually cheaper than paying money directly to the vendor.

And frankly, no one forced you to try and use them. They were given as a gesture of appreciation, and you could have given them to someone who would have been happy to have them, or just politely refuse to accept them. Also, not checking the expiration date is on you.

Yes, young people usually engage more in "forbidden" activities than older people.

Yes, Fatah is a relatively secular organization. And is absolutely a better start than Hamas.

You should to realign your metrics for the middle east if you think If "hooking up with Putin" is the worst thing someone can do there.

Are you thinking "young people" = "less religious"?

That's mainly the case for Christians/the west, not Muslims in Muslim countries.

Which one, the west bank or Gaza?

Or do you think each one will get an autonomy in almost every aspect, but will still be part of the same state?

Depends on the starting conditions.

There are two main "forces" at play here:

Hamas, which is an fundamentalist, religious and military organization backed by Iran. If they were to gain power in a Palestinian state, it would look something like Hezbollah controlled areas in Lebanon. So... not good.

Fatah, on the other hand, is a (relatively) secular organization that's in good relations with western countries. If they were to gain power, Palestine would be more open to western influence, and will probably treat women, secular people and minorities better. This version of Palestine will probably be the most pro-western Arab state, so it might be more influenced by western values more than other Arab states. Of course, in the mid- or long run it's possible an extremist power will rise regardless of western backing (ex. Iran).

Assuming a you're talking about the near future, which organization will have control largely depends on if Hamas would exist. If so, they'll probably get the credit for a recognized state due to their "resistance". Then again, it's very possible one of the conditions for a universally recognized state will be the elimination of Hamas as a political (and obviously military) force.

I'm kinda ignoring the "including Israel" part of your question, as Israel would absolutely not accept any version of Palestine with Hamas.

And those Hezbollah operatives can lose their pagers

And you can lose your car keys. But if someone asked you where they were, you wouldn't say "Oh, they're in a random place".

or they themselves can move randomly through populated areas with the hidden bomb strapped to their hip

The explosive charge was small enough to seriously harm only those who are in direct contact with it. There's a video of one charge going off in the middle of grocery shopping (speaking of your next point) with a person standing maybe 20 cm next to the explosion. That person was able to run away without apparent harm.

They never go to buy groceries, or stop at a hospital or school, or have their devices stolen or lost in some random location

There's no method of warfare that would never harm civilians.

a manner that has absolutely no mechanism by which to control where they actually are and who else is in proximity to them when detonated.

~~The pagers being bought by Hezbollah is the mechanism. Did you mean a real-time mechanism? Is this what it boils down to?~~ Edit: Sorry, I misread what you said. Changing my reply to: As you can see from the video, where they are and who is next to them isn't really a factor. I would agree that if they are in very close proximity to another person (hugging them of maybe riding in a crowded public transport), the explosion will probably harm the other person. Once again, relative to other methods aimed against targets operating among civilian population, this seems more selective, not less.

No one is forcing to to reply. I'm continuing it because to me the operation was extremely selective in which people it targets relative to modern warfare among civilian infrastructure, and I'm trying to understand the counter argument.

I did

OK, it took me a while to understand this, and I'm assuming you meant "I do have some criteria". If you meant something else, I can't even guess what it was.

after the bit you cherrypicked.

Ah, my bad. I mistook the "pagers that will randomly move around a populated area" part as a purely rhetorical statement and my brain kinda swept it aside. Sorry. The explosives weren't planted in a random batch of pagers. It was in a batch specifically meant for Hezbollah operatives. You could make the argument that some of the pagers got into non-Hezbollah hands (and obviously they did), but what you said is a gross and unfair exaggeration. Your criteria doesn't apply here.

I don’t care in the least if anyone thinks I’m in cahoots with anyone; it won’t change that I’m in cahoots with no one.

Sorry, I was trying to say - Please don't imply I might be willingly misunderstanding you when you're not communicating clearly. Even your edit is somewhat unclear, as it isn't evident if the part before the edit is still relevant.

how absolutely heartless and tragic [...]

Wait, what? The prevalent criticism against the exploding pagers (both on Lemmy and other places) is that they're akin to mines and are essentially terrorist attacks. Both of these thing are (at least somewhat) specific and objective, and that's where we started the conversation. Going from that to "It's heartless", which is a very subjective description, seems to me like moving the goalpost.

Yes, of course it's heartless and tragic. War is heartless and tragic. How else would you describe taking a kid who was in high school a few months ago, putting a rifle in his hand and telling him "See that other kid who's just like you? go shoot him because he happen to be living on the other side of an imaginary line"?

Saying "Well, this heartless and tragic thing is acceptable but I don't like that heartless and tragic thing" is arbitrary unless there's an actual criteria. Either way you're entitled to your own opinion, it's just that earlier I thought you have some criteria or test.