I agree; being able to export is super important for keeping records, and it's definitely my top request. Having a local app instead of a web app would be great too.
The amount of pro-colonial sentiment in the thread here is baffling. The people that were colonized and stolen from have the right to do whatever they want with these artifacts, even if you believe they may not have the means, or will sell them to private collectors.
Hacker News is comprised almost entirely of privileged people from colonizing cultures, and tech culture has been going through a neo-reactionary renaissance for a while, so it shouldn't be surprising. It is weird how aggressive this specific subject makes them, though.
Why not just accept the situation as part of the ebb and flow of history? They certainly weren’t the first empires in history. I think a lot of the objection is more about nationalistic sentiment than anything else and I don’t feel it needs to be done to reclaim cultural heritage.
> Why not just accept the situation as part of the ebb and flow of history?
Why would you? By calling it the 'ebb and flow of history' you seem to imply that the things we do to each other is beyond the control of humans.
But of course we're fully in control of what we do, so the question is rather: if we have the possibility to do good, and it comes at virtually no cost to us, then why not do good?
In my opinion it’s still more driven by nationalistic agendas than the ethical imperative and as others have said there are good reasons to leave the artifacts where they are. I’ve only ever seen people make heated demands based on past grievances. A lot of this stuff happened a long time ago now, anyone influential has died, it really is time to at least take the heat of these conversations.
Unification and Colonialism are two sides of the same coin. You think the former provinces, cities and then villages all willingly integrated in to country you live today?
That’s over simplifying it. but it’s not aid, more like strategic interests aligned. For example the U.S. aid prevented Israel from continuing development and selling its own fighter jets. It gives U.S. arms actual military exposure in dense urban warfare. There’s lots of joint benefits here.
There is no benefit other than the profit made by the companies manufacturing this "aid", payed for by the American taxpayer via the US congress and government.
Real aid must be provided with no strings attached.
Much of this so-called "aid" comes with the condition that it be spent in the US. This prevents us from developing our own weapons, selling them to whomever we want, and diversifying our sources of military supplies.
In addition, the US provides much more "aid" to our enemies.
Also, part of this "aid" is used to financially bribe our generals. Essentially making them American "Foreign Agents of Influence" in the spirit of FARA[1], not as literal spies. Unfortrunatelly we lack legislation like FARA, so it's still legal here.
From the same report, "U.S. Foreign Assistance to the Middle East": Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II, receiving $158 billion. Jordan for example received $26.4 billion from 1951 to 2020.
>> Similarly with lifting sanctions on Iran, which resulted in giving them $10B.
In the case of Iran, it was not a matter of receiving $10 billion in aid, but rather the release of $10 billion of Iranian funds that had been frozen.
> From the same report, "U.S. Foreign Assistance to the Middle East": Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II, receiving $158 billion. Jordan for example received $26.4 billion from 1951 to 2020.
Check again, the majority of the "aid" got to our enemies in MENA (and that excluding non-Arab enemy and semi-enemy countries, which are for some reason not included in MENA).
Look at:
- Figure 2. U.S. Foreign Aid to MENA Countries: FY1946-FY2020
- Figure 3. Israel, Jordan, and Egypt in the FY2024 Assistance Request for MENA
- Table 1. U.S. Bilateral Aid to MENA Countries: FY2021 - FY2024 Request
The majority of this "aid" (~56%) goes to enemies and semi-enemies (and that's even excluding hostile non-Arab countries in the region).
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>> Similarly with lifting sanctions on Iran, which resulted in giving them $10B.
> In the case of Iran, it was not a matter of receiving $10 billion in aid, but rather the release of $10 billion of Iranian funds that had been frozen.
Did I wrote somewhere that Iran got $10B aid?
What you wrote is factually correct, but the net effect is that Iran got $10B which they didn't had access to before.
> from 1989, both Egypt and Israel became major non-NATO allies of the US.
Just b/c somebody is an ally of the US, doesn't make them automatically an ally of Israel.
Paraphrasing: An ally of my ally is not my ally.
But with the current leadership and State Dept we are not sure that even US is our ally.
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Türkiye is a member of NATO, with antisemitic leader. Is Türkiye a friendly country? It used to be, but now it's a gray area.
[Trans-]Jordan's royal family is on life support from Israel, but it still openly acts like an enemy.
Egypt is the most obviously an enemy, even though there is "peace" on paper. Instead of asking me, ask an average Egyptian or [Trans-]Jordanian if they see Israel as an enemy.
Just b/c US pays them extortion or "protection" fees, doesn't make them any less of an enemy. It only delays the coming inevitable military conflict with them.
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We are not that far from NATO planes bombing Tel Aviv and carrying out SEAD operations[1].
If in the past it was a Sci Fi scenario, nowadays it becomes much more plausible.
> We are not that far from NATO planes bombing Tel Aviv and carrying out SEAD operations
I think you might be perceiving things as more threatening than is warranted. Lebanon and Egypt are complicated neighbours and may not quite be friends. NATO isn’t going to bomb Tel Aviv.
The truth is, US giving "aid", imposing or lifting sanctions exactly to protect their interests, and to increase their leverage, not because they care about other countries in question.
For decades our country tries to get rid of this "aid", but it's virtually impossible.
No, we don't need it. This "aid" is a net loss for us.
It’s the reason US State Dept treats us like Puerto Rico, without giving us any of the perks of Puerto Rico's status, like tax exemption and unrestricted access to the US mainland.
Netanyahu tried to get rid of American military "aid" in the past, but he failed to do so.
Aid must be spent to purchase arms from American suppliers at greatly inflated prices.
It also creates perverse incentives that ultimately weakens, if not cripples, our military.
Israel without US backing seems a perilous place for Israel to go, and if accepting the aid keeps the alliance alive, surely that’s in Israel’s interest?
Thanks for the explanations - I haven’t come across these viewpoints before.
Hamas was elected if memory serves, and while getting them to renounce violence would seem ideal, how could they? Israel wasn’t going to. They have behaved terribly and until someone starts behaving better, it’s going to carry on as it has for so long.
Peace with Egypt has been maintained and relations with Egypt seem to be improving and are ok - what am I missing? There seems very little chance of war.
Sinai was supposed to be a demilitarized zone, slowly it was filled with the Egyptian army. Egypt built multiple tunnels under the Suetz canal.
Yet our governments and military still trying to appease them, in the same way as they did to Hamas.
And how do you think all these advanced weapons (RPGs, anti-tank missiles, thermal bombs, etc.) got into 'azza[1]? How did their terrorists go to train in Iran?
Why do you think Egypt opposes an Israeli presence on the border in Raphiakh[2]?
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[1,2] I'm using the original biblical place names here, instead of the English distortion of a broken Arabic pronunciation of their Hebrew names.
> Yet our governments and military still trying to appease them, in the same way as they did to Hamas.
They turn a blind eye and try to appease Egypt, but it never works in the long run.
Our politicians and generals think short-term, they just want to finish their term and get their lavish pensions, and lucrative security contracts from the US, or a high-paying position in some Washington-funded military research think tank.
Isn’t this policing of Iran needed because of the US supporting Israel?
No, do you remember the terrorists attacks in USA and in Europe? Have you watched the Argo movie? Do you know about terrorist attacks in Latin America where Iran is involved? Seems people don't check history beyond Israel (21k km^2)and Jews (16m).
Had the same issue when I hired a software developer intern to train. I didn't wait one extra minute to tell them about the issue after I saw the bathroom, and discussed with them why this was not acceptable at all. They kinda changed their habit, but I eventually let them go due to incompetency reasons.
Ironically, the laborers that have had their passports taken away from them during the construction of this tournament aren't allowed to make "the journey" back to their homes.
Build this into a browser, add 10$ a month to the wallet and automatically devide value over the websites you visit. If enough people would do it, it would be great for (independent) content creators.
But now there's a dependency on some blockchain, and almost certainly some kind of centralized money conversion service... the content creator can't turn their fun crypto coins directly into food in their stomach or shelter over their heads.
> almost certainly some kind of centralized money conversion service
Most places have ways to exchange cryptocurrencies offline (using cold wallets), so this is already not the case. If you are lucky you can get a lot of things you need without transferring the money into another currency at all, which is the ideal scenario.
