Bay 12 Games Forum

What you described is Israel being a hostile country to Gaza and using its armed forces to do hostile actions. By your definition, NATO occupied Yugoslavia in 1999, and USA periodically occupies... MANY countries. Oh and ALL of Ukraine is currently occupied by Russia because their missile regularly hit all regions

Words have meanings!

I mean, they do, and the word you're looking for is "Bantustan" (though that's more accurately applied to the state of the west bank) or "Reservation" at its most charitable. If you think those were independent self-governed entities that weren't (or aren't, for the ones still around) militarily controlled by their possessing neighbor, I got bridges to sell you.

It takes more than just bombing to be occupying something; control over infrastructure, borders, and so on. The only reason Israel's control over that isn't explicit is because they intentionally abandoned it instead of wanting clear responsibility for the mess Gaza had been turned into. It didn't remove that responsibility, Israel just very deliberately tried to abrogate it.

If the relation between Ukraine and Russia was like the one between Gaza and Israel, the situation in Ukraine would be a hell of a lot worse than it is now.

Oh... and Israel doesn't just strike Gaza for no reason. It always happens in retaliation to attacks coming from Gaza. Retaliation, not punishment. Plain and simple self-defense.

It's consistently grossly disproportionate and aimed -- from what I recall, with explicit acknowledgement of it by leadership within Israel -- at collective punishment of the gaza population, not retaliation against any particular attack. It's why the IDF is so fond of targeting civilian infrastructure and residential buildings even when they're entirely aware the actual military impact of doing so is somewhere between minimal to non-existent and actively detrimental. It's neither plain, nor simple, and only the barest fig leaf of self-defense.

But... OK... let's assume that Gaza is not an existential threat at all... it is just a threat that is, evidently, capable of killing over 0.01% of your population in a single strike. Should Israel just ignore this "small nuisance?" If not, in what way do you propose to negate this non-existent threat?

Look to south africa, to a number of other places with similar conditions. It would not be clean because there's no clean solution left at this point, and probably hasn't been anything even approaching one since the israeli far-right murdered Rabin at the absolute latest, but integration of a bantustan or something adjacent to, but hopefully more functional and less abusive than, the US or Canada treatment of the natives, is probably the only option that doesn't lead to the eventual genocide of most or all of the relevant palestinian populations. Israel has been incredibly clear it's not going to stop fucking up the populations in the west bank and gaza, so it needs to get off its ass and take responsibility for the authority they're practicing.

Which'll be a mess, but if folks keep shitting the bed for decades eventually you're going to have a bloody mess to clean up.

... beyond that, the problem with considering the scale of population impact, is that Israel has been inflicting comparable amounts of casualties to the west bank and gaza populations on a scale that averages out to that kind of damage yearly, nevermind the deprivation and general abuse that's not directly fatal. For decades. Hamas managed a strike that did more damage to the population of Israel than has been inflicted in one go for most of its history, and that amounted to around a year, or less, of the damage Israel's been inflicting on the west bank and gaza -- and it took the IDF being remarkably stupid for it to happen. That attack being as bad as it was wasn't because of Hamas competence or capability, it was because the IDF decided fucking with people on the west bank was more important than keeping a terrorist group under wraps. It's not a "small nuisance", but there's no way in hell Hamas actually takes down Israel.

It's the difference between a terrorist group let run rampant over an open air prison and an actual nation with a fairly significant military. The two are not an equivalent threat to each other, not by a very, very long shot.

And you are completely missing my point. I am saying that it is absurd to even take into account if people were killed or not. Intent is what matters when you determine what is a justified response, not a result. I see no difference in the moral evaluation of an action that tried to kill thousands and an action that managed to kill thousands.

Then you've got a problem in regards to moral evaluation of this conflict -- because Israel has both tried and managed to kill thousands, repeatedly, so you're dealing with at best equivalent moral actors. If there's no moral difference between those things, then there's no moral difference between the fuckers that toss a grenade into a nursery and the fuckers that pulp a family with a pressure wave, especially if both groups have significant voices calling for mass slaughter and the removal, by grave or eviction, of the relevant populations.

... though, I guess in fairness, to some extent I wouldn't even disagree with that. If hell exists, the leadership of israel and much of the IDF and the settler groups will be standing in it shoulder to shoulder with hamas and their fellow travelers when their times come.

It is outright wrong to compare Gaza to a prison and Hamas to a gang. There are no Israeli forces in Gaza to enforce anything since 2005. Gaza is de facto self-governed. And those armed guys are de facto guys that not only defend this territory but also conduct offensive operations aka Armed Forces. Things are what they are, not what they are called or what they are recognized as.

Israel's regularly gone into gaza to do whatever it pleases or bombed it as punishment for one thing or another for longer than hamas has had bloody handed control over the strip. You don't have to be inside something you've walled off if you control its airspace and every meaningful exit and have enough artillery pointed at it to level most of it. Israel abrogating responsibility for the territory while still maintaining de-facto control at will doesn't mean the place is self-governed. It just means Israel's been playing fuckfuck games with the definition of occupation and whether or not Gaza is actually a state or not (about as much as Transkei or Rehoboth were, if that).

What do you even mean by "no control over their borders, trade or infrastructure?" As far as I can see people can't get into Gaza without asking for permission (or going with military force), they obliviously trade (they don't make their rockets out of thin air) and they obliviously control their own infrastructure.

They've been blockaded for over a decade, their infrastructure only exists and functions to the extent israel (and egypt, to a lesser extent) allows (and israel has a history of not allowing it -- and we're actively seeing that gaza doesn't have control over power, food imports, etc.), we're literally seeing a situation where no one's letting the people of gaza escape the strip and there's sod all they can do about it, so on and so forth. Limited smuggling capability is no more a common conceptualization of "trade" than the market for cigs is in a jail. Infrastructure that's controlled by other entities literally isn't yours. Etc., etc., etc.

Hamas barely functions as an administrative entity, and they don't actually get to decide how or if most stuff inside the strip functions. It only has what control it has because no actual nation wanted to take responsibility for the mess gaza was turned into, and a pile of other actors decided they'd be a good patsy in the meantime.

If an obliviously enemy who wants your total destruction is currently too week to do so, it doesn't mean that this enemy is not a threat to your existence.

I mean, by this metric the people of iraq or iran, the middle east in general, china, probably others, would be justified in calling a good quarter or third of the US population at a minimum an existential threat, and Hamas actually has good targets of much of the Israeli population.

Hamas can want genocide all it wants, it's not bloody capable of it, never has been, and almost certainly never will be. It takes more than intent to be a threat, much less an existential one. You have to have the capability on top of willingness to exercise it, and for all its terribleness a comanche style raid counts for that a hell of a lot less than the steady encroachment and slaughter israel's been doing to the palestinian people for basically its entire post WW2 existence.

Hamas is a threat, of violence and atrocity, of terrorist attacks, and so on, but there is exactly fuckall it can do to the existential state of Israel, even if they had complete authority over the entire palestinian population of the territory that was once mandatory palestine (which they don't).

Israel, on the other hand, has a lot more than fuckall it can do to the existential state of the palestinian people in the general region, and there basically hasn't been a point in either of our lifetimes they've stopped steadily eroding it.

Bloody hell, they haven't even stopped outside Gaza for this conflict; while the IDF's been bombing gaza and getting ready to go in and die in droves in a land based mobilization, settlers have been murdering dozens on the west bank and emptying out entire villages of their palestinian population as israeli police and IDF forces basically just sit back and watch.

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... though I guess you could go with acknowledging both Hamas and Israel are existential threats for their relevant targets (Jews, whoever's in between them and majority control of mandatory palestine at a minimum/every palestinian they can run off or kill, respectively). I wouldn't, because it drastically exaggerates what Hamas is capable of, but you could.

It just wouldn't change which of the two is the greater threat, both in capability and actual deed, and it wouldn't be even a little close.

You shouldn't tease people like that, blech. I checked and that title sadly does not seem to exist. I'd totes read it if it got long enough to take at least a few hours to read.

It is kinda' adjacent to Dungeon Item Shop (sadly stubbed these days, and more witches than merchant-y things but it's there, too), tho', and there's several more with the general conceit.

Though, if I had to guess for stuff in that direction, maybe some of the litrpg crime boss stories might get anime'd? I'm aware of at least two western ones off the top of my head (godfather system and a steam/arcanopunk-y one I'm forgetting the title of), and there's a solid handful of japanese or chinese LN cruft in that direction I've ran into in passing. Might be neat.

Any case, I'm just sayin' there's no guarantee a shift towards stuff in spice and wolf's direction would actually mean escaping the litrpg curse blessing curse clurssing/blurse. We could see a spike in what amounts to Torneko fanfiction instead :V

... and, like. Hell. If you spat out a Torneko anime you'd probably have my attention. Someone should get on that, dragon quest spinoff anime, keep the boxes.

You don't get to reroll perception checks on subsequent interact actions. You need to bring in another character. Duh.

Well shit, was I dopplegangered or something then? If so the transition was pretty slick, I never even noticed.

Wait, no, I get it now, the Last Thursdayists are right and I'm actually someone entirely different from the folks I have memory of failing the perception check. Shame the world ends at midnight, though. It was good, uh, was? It was. Was while it lasted.

Dawn of the lastfirst day, I guess.

I mean, it's pretty unlikely to be brought to vote at all. The dems would vote for something that would neuter the ones that are incapable of doing much of anything except fling shit around in a heartbeat, and those same poo flingers would functionally break the GOP majority in the house if that majority actually went through with it.

If the speaker let that get to vote, it'd almost certainly cause even more of a mess for the GOP than the current farcical state of things, so... it probably won't go to vote. It's not impossible it does, but if the GOP had that much sense or care for the functioning of congress the rules involved would have never been enacted to begin with.

It has taken, like, Three, four years. For me to actually notice the phones in this house have a dedicated call block button. I just noticed. Few minutes ago.

The button's been there the whole time, it was just. Below the actual numbers, and not the speaker phone button, so it. Never registered what the words on the button actually said. It was just a random button that had no use and I ignored it until this very day.

i

i guess better late than never

what kind of perception roll do you flub so badly it takes half a decade before you realize something literally in front of your face tho

how big is that negative score

was this like sequential critical failures or something

what the hell

The House has a new Speaker! Welcome to the era of (R)Mike Johnson!

May it be short and miserable, ha.

For those unware, despite being pretty worthless on a lot of fronts, this particular dipshit was one of the major congressional jackasses pushing the Big Lie, stolen election horseshit. So, y'know. Less integrity than a wet paper towel, made a career of turbolying even relative to less insane politicians, far-right nutjob in regards to policy, etc. Somehow even worse than your normal GOP sack of shit. Remarkably likely to drive us right into a shutdown in a few weeks, and so on.

they finally decided which monstrous nut case they actually like?

It seems to be more a combination of getting tired of the voting process (let no one claim GOP congresscritters have any work ethic worth a damn, ha) and at least not personally hating the shitsack like they did the guy that ostrich'd in response to finding out about rape cases in his proverbial chain of command. There's not much indication they actually like this guy, just... dislike less. Definitely a monstrous nutcase, tho', but that's all that's really left of the GOP roster so there's not much surprise on that front.

Oh... now that you mention it, I do remember Celeste having that? I think? I've watched folks play a few times (actually own the game through some bundle or another, but, uh, precision platformers and me do not get along even a little, nowadays in particular), but... I just don't pay much attention to sound design these days, even when I don't just have the whatever muted.

Back when I spent time playing literally every JRPG* on the SNES, though (back then, I didn't mute as consistently, heh), I don't remember it being much of a thing. It wouldn't be surprising if it was actually pretty common, like... after... the SNES era, just due to expanded capabilities, though? Or if it had been common and I just wasn't paying attention enough to notice, heh.

E: Yes, even the ones not in english. Very, very few to completion, but an hour or two to check things out? The entire SNES JRPG library, years ago. There was a few years in the late 90s, early 00s I had sunk an hour or two into every roguelike in existence at the time, too, heh, but there's a lot more of the things nowadays, and far more of them are paywalled.