In some places in the world, some people seem to get incredibly clumsy when they’re near open windows. In others, they have very guilty consciences to the point of killing themselves.

\s for clarity

Yes indeed, that’s true. The difference is that now, they don’t even want to be part of a future “unity government” like in 2014. The only thing they demand now is that the government body consist of Palestinians. Or in other words: Palestinian self-determination.

The first offer from Hamas to let go all the hostages to Israel was on the 09.10.2023. The Israeli government rejected it then and has rejected it ever since: https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-doubt-netanyahu-preventing-hostage-deal-charges-ex-spokesman-of-families-forum/

In fact, Hamas has stated that they are not interested in any future government in Gaza about a year ago and instead wanted a Palestinian technocratic body to take over. You know what happened? Israel murdered the diplomatic leadership of Hamas in November 2024. And then Israel and the US came out and said, that they had no one to negotiate with. And just a few weeks ago, they tried the same.

In negotiations early this year with Witkoff and others, Hamas even put this in writing - again with the offer of releasing all the hostages - contingent on a stop of Israeli aggression, the continuation of humanitarian aid and the Israeli troops to withdraw from the strip. That treaty was then changed by the US and Israel in May this year before it was rejected.

This has been modus operandi from the beginning from the US and Israel. After they had a deal, change it, make it look as if Hamas is rejecting the deal and capitalize on it. In fact, if you go back in history, you’ll find the same strategy over and over again, to make it look like “Palestinians rejected peace”.

And last but not least: You are telling people to lay down their weapons, that have been under a brutal siege for over two years, while ignoring the side that put in place the siege and genocidal aggression.

That is not entirely true. Italy and Japan for example have just a few weeks ago said, that they are thinking of recognition of a Palestinian state making it contingent on several changes of Hamas.

But this is neither here or there. If among a whole people, the only organization that is invited does represent only a minority of the people, which can be seen from their low approval, then this meeting is a farce. In the case of the PA, if you read the linked article, they have actively focused on cracking down on anti-occupation groups in Jenin, while Israel has forced around 40000 Palestinians out of their homes during ‘Operation Iron Wall’ early this year. Instead of opposing, they colluded. This is not the Palestinian people deciding their own fate, but colonial powers imposing their will on them.

Leaders from all over the world are making a show of it in honor of the reality-TV-star-US-president. They only invite one Palestinian representative (Abbas) from the PA to their talks. The same PA that controls only parts of the West-Bank and is highly unpopular with the Palestinian populace because they are seen as collaborators with the occupation. The “peace” “deal” came about without involvement of Palestinians. Just like 100 years ago, the fate of Palestine is being decided by colonial powers.

All the while, militant groups (if they were fighting against Israel they would be rightfully called terrorists) are continuing Israels’s tradition of killing journalists in the strip and are fighting Hamas for control.

Now we don’t know which groups these are, but back in June Netanyahu has admitted to backing militant groups in Gaza. Occam’s Razor would imply, that these would be among them.

It’s good that the bombings have stopped, that humanitarian aid has started to reach a population under a medieval-style siege for so long, offering a bit of - even if incomplete - respite. But I fear for the population once the show in Cairo is over.

EDIT: And no one is looking at the horror that is going on in the West-Bank. Nor is anyone including any points in a “deal”.

It’s because how it came about and how the process works (which they make up for themselves btw) it needed unanimous consent.

That would be my biggest worry as well. Although this isn’t specified yet, I assume that they would develop the software for Google/Apple. IIRC the Digitale Gesellschaft, a privacy advocacy group, has mentioned this as feedback about a year ago. I don’t know what was done with that though. Other issues were included in the development plan though.

Also: With how this law is worded, no one is forced to use an eID. You can go the old fashioned way and e.g. go to the traffic office in person.

Please don’t jump to conclusions. A well implemented eID can even improve privacy compared to the alternative of accessing big parts of the internet by trusting private companies to handle sensitive information like photos of physical IDs.

There is something in cryptography called Zero Knowledge Proof. With it only minimal information is exchanged and no party can tell anything about the person accessing it, i.e. the website who you are or profiling your ID, nor the verifier or issuer what you’re doing.

Without knowing how the eID will be implemented, you can’t just make such blanket statements. Want to know the details? It is open source and you can look up any technical details as well as the software code publicly.

Reminder, that the Ultra-Orthodox parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, didn’t break from him because they oppose anything that is being done in Gaza or the West Bank, but because he plans to end the exemption from conscription for Ultra-Orthodox Jews. In fact they still back the coalition in the legislature, but pulled their ministers.

Not too long in the future:

The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.

Also from 1984 by George Orwell

There do exist things resembling that a bit. Usually done on the local level and mostly concerning some street/development design, where people are invited to actively participate in a workshop style event with experts and vote on the results. But yes, these are not mandates. And as soon as you go onto the state or federal level, such structures become virtually non-existent.

The others are parliamentary commissions which can be instated by parliament and are formed of mainly external experts around a certain issue. These are often used on state and federal levels of government.

I would love if representation was spread wider over the population and that involvement was higher. I also am baffled at how bad general civics education is here in school, especially at the obligatory level. I would welcome a far more detailed and engaging civics education where they could already get some experience right at the school. Or go and participate at some local event. This way they also see the importance of a truly democratic process. Alas, as long as they can’t vote, nobody seems to want their opinions.

Another part that needs addressing is finances. There’s a lot of intransparency yes, but the way it works now, it is also very hard to get your message across without being big in a main political party or having some big private sponsor. Which limits your actual freedom before and after you’re elected. If we’re thinking radical we might severely limit campaign budgets or think about public funds allowing the same restrictive scope for everyone, no matter their background and finances. This would also limit the imbalance in outreach between capital-backed candidates and others.

A third huge problem lies within the judiciary, where judges on many levels effectively also have to be party-associated to get elected. If that sounds completely compromising their necessary impartiality, yeah, it’s because it does. (Although I don’t have data on how that influences their work)

And lastly: The structures of accountability for politicians. I know that some steadiness or stability is necessary, but without the fear of accountability, far too many misuse their positions without repercussions. As we see from around the world, this invites more and more brazen figures to do more and more brazen violations. Just a brain-fart: 100k signatures to force a vote on relieving someone of their immunity so they can be tried in court. And to not just wait it out. Right now, it’s parliament that has this exclusive possibility.

This is not law yet. The Federal Council (the executive) has started a consultation process at the beginning of the year which ended in May. They are now looking at all the feedback that came in, that was - unsurprisingly - exclusively negative from all sides. If the responsible minister wants to go ahead with it, it goes to the Federal Council for a vote. If they approve it, this would be a decree to change an existing decree and that would come into effect next year or the year after.

And this is where direct democracy comes in: If this is the case anyone can start getting signatures for a public initiative which would change the constitution to prohibit such practices. In fact anyone can start doing that now. If it succeeds, then it’ll come to a popular vote. Threema (a secure chat provider) has already announced that they would do that and I’m sure that they wouldn’t be the only ones to band together in this.

The process might take long, but this is in no way “not good enough to counter a campaign for legal change with a goal” and in fact has happened multiple times in the past. Hence why Switzerland has a direct vote on issues every few months because of something called “Referendum”, whereby a popular vote can be forced on an issue passing through parliament. I might have my criticisms of the political system, but this ain’t it.

its system encourages it to have politicians as a thing

Well yes, there is some level of representation, so over 8 million people don’t have to decide every little detail on 1000s of changes of law. The system is built upon a “milita” system. I.e. politicians usually have a job. So people have the possibility to vote in experts or their vicinity and know that they won’t solely be career politicians. Unfortunately the laws around financing and propaganda are rather lax, giving an advantage to the rich, which leads to an over-representation of the capitalist class with occupations such as lawyers and business-owners and a clear under-representation of classical working-class jobs such as craftspeople or office workers. This is amendable though to correct the mismatch, if people realize their class interest and don’t fall for the same right-wing propaganda of a party whose playbook has been inspired by the US GOP for decades and who is inspiring Germany’s AfD now.

The main downside of the system imo has to do with people with no knowledge on an issue having to weigh in on them and therefore how powerful propaganda campaigns can be, which means that money buys power, as in every other existing so-called democracy - direct or not. Especially with how money shifts power away from the populace, this is inherent to capitalistic systems and it would be on the populace to protect itself from it. With enough propaganda though, people keep voting for more power of capital unbeknownst to them or not, just as they might vote against their interests on other things. The fact that you have to convince so many people, who hopefully do have some degree of education, makes it a lot harder though, for big capitalists to reach their goals, compared to less direct systems. And I know of several examples, how such a vote did not go in favor of big capital. What usually makes the difference is whether they succeed in portraying their advantage as the advantage of all.

And when people jump to “yeah but Democrats are to blame” I know we’re usually already in Bad Faithville. Both Sides and all that.

Just no. This is not about both sides in any shape way or form. This is about agency. Fact is: There were ways to do this and the last three Democratic presidents (including the sitting president) have campaigned and outlined plans to codify it into law and didn’t. Yes it may have taken people by surprise that the country and the world is regressing as early and fast as it is, but that doesn’t take away agency, especially when they didn’t even try to spring to action after mere lip service to garner votes.

The thing is: The conservative, religious right, openly formulated and has been following their plan of judicial activism for decades. The lower courts haven’t become this biased towards Republican policy over night. It was due to bad luck, bad faith acting of McConnel and the other Republican senators and stubberness of some involved people on the other side of the aisle that Trump was able to nominate this many people to the USSC. It would have happened at some point.

They didn’t fail. They didn’t even try. Not even with a super-majority.

I am sick of such important issues like health of people, let alone half the population, being used as mere strategic play. So please push them to do the right thing, after they’re elected. They don’t seem to respond without pressure.

Hate to be that guy, but it is also the present (hopefully not future) the Democrats have allowed Republicans to build:

Bill Clinton promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law. He didn’t.

Obama promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law. He didn’t despite having a super-majority in his first two years.

Biden promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law and didn’t. The Dobbs decision was taken in June 2022, so before the midterms when Democrats still had a simple majority in the house and a tie + VP in the senate. When there were rumors/leaks a month or so before the decision that the USSC would take that decision soon. Again: Inaction.

Many reasons. One major factor imho is the belief or illusion to be living in a meritocracy. Which would mean, that someone who’s rich has to have earned it and therefore criticism must stem from envy or jealousy. The same belief fuels the ideology of thinking of poor people to just be lazy leeches on society.

Never have I ever watched/read anything relating to Lord of the Rings.

As an engineer I can attest that it is also useful for quick calculations and illustrations, especially at the concept stage. We also ran process “simulations” in it for fun, but of course something like SciLab would be better suited for it. The possibility to simultaneously work in the same spreadsheet was also a godsend during lock-downs.