This is just straight up racist propaganda. No other way to describe it
sabaya is straightforwardly associated with what we moderns call rape
Absolutely factually incorrect. Sabaya is the plural of sabiye which means young woman/girl. The masculine form is sabi which means boy or shab for young man (not exactly symmetric like use of guy vs girl in english). Zero sexual connotation and used in everyday language in levantine arabic.
Yep. And the subheading I really have a problem with.
Reading too much into the language seems, at this point, to be less of a danger than reading too little into it.
The implication being that it's low stakes to make this accusation without solid evidence. In reality the whole justification from the West for the state of affairs between Israel and Palestine is that Arabs are a bunch of backwards savages, and this extends to the way the West has acted throughout the Middle East.
Pretty much yes. (Ma)demoiselle vs madame are also used due to french influence over the region for singular use but sabaya is what you would use for a group of younger women with neswein being the alternative for older/married women.
So both of those words are spelled sabaya when anglicized and while I will admit I was not familiar with the soft s variant because it's antiquated (and still not necessarily sexual in meaning even if that one is debatable), it doesn't sound like the man in the video who is supposed to have said that even said either of those words to me. I genuinely can't even make out what the word he said is.
Why is this the subject of debate nearly 8 months after the fact?
Because the hostage families decided to release recovered footage to put additional pressure on getting them released.
Also, because I went down the rabbit hole trying to find info on this stuff, I think I’ll share additional evidence I gathered. Specifically that sabaya (or saby for short) has been used in the context of ISIS taking female slaves (often for sex).
You try to present arguments against Hamas by talking about ISIS. ISIS and Hamas are not interchangeable words, and Hamas is not ISIS.
Also even if I don't speak any variation of arabic it is well known that words can have different meaning in different places in which the same language is officially spoken. We have many examples of english speaking people that use the same word differently, like very differently.
Come back when you actually know something instead of vaguely gesturing at possibilities. My argument and sources were clear. I spent too much time digging already, and forgive me if I don’t want to spend even more time researching every suggestion for your 9 day old Lemmy account.
There is an obvious cultural connection between different Arabic Islamic extremist groups in the Middle East. Yes there will be cultural differences, and differences in dialect, but the meaning of this word isn’t one of them.
jordanlund I must admit that I do not see what was uncivil about my response. I will try and rephrase:
Come back when you actually know something
Please, civility.
forgive me if I don’t want to spend even more time researching every suggestion for your 9 day old Lemmy account.
As I mentioned above, this was left behind. My statement was clear about this: Ok, no link. I’ll go to another point. Also, I really don't see how the number of days I am on this platform is relevant to anything we are discussing here.
My argument and sources were clear.
Yes, clear and irrelevant to your point. They are about ISIS, not Hamas. Again, Hamas and ISIS are not interchangeable words.
Yes there will be cultural differences, and differences in dialect, but the meaning of this word isn’t one of them.
Because you say so? I'm sorry, you failed to provide evidence to support your claim.
Taking into consideration the above, I think it is obvious that I don't see any point continuing this interaction. I find the way you approached it, infantile.
I just saw there is an explanation on how this community defines civil:
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!
My intentions were not to belittle anyone, I was just totally unimpressed by the level of immaturity this user showed in their replies, and wanted to point that out. And I hope this point was clear in my rephrasing. I take this comment removal as a motivation to use more words, so it is obvious what I mean.
I’m going to reply one more time out of the hope you actually are confused about my response, and aren’t simply sealioning.
…I really don't see how the number of days I am on this platform is relevant to anything we are discussing here.
Troll accounts are prevalent on this platform. So much so that certain apps flag new accounts to users.
Again, Hamas and ISIS are not interchangeable words.
I do not disagree with that statement. However, that is not what I am saying.
The influence of ISIS on the Middle East, in Arabic language, and in the culture of similar Militant Islamic Extremist groups is clear and obvious. It colors the world in which the Hamas Militant spoke. It is only logical that he would choose words to frighten, and degrade those whom he was fighting against.
Because you say so? I'm sorry, you failed to provide evidence to support your claim.
No. Because the word spoken has a specific meaning in the culture/context in which it was spoken. The only argument that makes any sense against this, is that he actually said a different but similarly pronounced word.
If the closest thing to criticism they did when it mattered was "maybe it could be done more competently", they're only free in the sense that they're publishing what the state department wants for free.
Don't you love how Saudi Arabia, the country who was very obviously behind 9/11, hasn't suffered a single negative consequence as a result of their actions? They literally got away with 9/11. And then the US invaded some unrelated countries. Mind blowing.
I'm old enough to remember the 9/11 attacks. It was never in question that Saudi Arabia was complicit in what happened. The majority of the terrorists were Saudi. It took a bit longer for the fact that the Saudi government was complicit to emerge, but we knew within a short time that at the very least, they provided financial support to the terrorists.
The argument for starting the "war on terror" was that Al-Qaeda planned the attack, so we should attack the countries that harbor them. At the time, the majority of the country supported this; I remember George Bush Jr.'s approval ratings being in the 90s for a short time. Even then, most of us knew that Saudi Arabia was at least complicit in what happened. The lust for revenge, as much as it was justified, made people forget that.
Over the last 23 years, I feel like a lot of Americans have forgotten the role that Saudi Arabia played in the events of 9/11; after all, they're our "ally," right? I have always been on the fence regarding whether or not invading Iraq and Afghanistan was a good idea. Back in 2001, though, I felt like invading Saudi Arabia was a great idea. 23 years later, I don't feel any different. Should the United States have attacked Iraq and Afghanistan, I'd say "probably"; should we have attacked Saudi Arabia? Absolutely. Yet it never happened.
We shouldn’t have attacked Iraq or Afghanistan. The premise for the war in Iraq was that Saddam was harboring weapons of mass destruction. That was a flat out lie. The Iraq war and the power vacuum it created led to the creation of ISIS.
Afghanistan had elements of Al-Qaeda present. The Taliban tolerated them. We should have hunted bin Laden there and hit Al-Qaeda where we could find them, but toppling the government was mostly useless and we ended up needing to get the hell out of there after spending $2 trillion dollars, only to have the Taliban return.
Should we have attacked Saudi Arabia though? Absolutely. We should have actually done regime change there and maybe even helped ourselves to the oil revenues to cover the costs of 9/11 and our military. Our presence would’ve also helped modernize their medieval society in ways beneficial to the Middle East.
Exactly. I know it's easy to automatically froth at the mouth with rage when seeing "AI", and here anything mentioning it gets automatically rejected, but there are genuinely good usecases.
Amazing speech synthesis and recognition is useful for anybody, but especially people with certain disabilities.
Much better translation, spell checking, help with writing. Helping people understand texts that are written in a complicated way (legalese, technical jargon, condensing EULA's, etc)
Infrastructure planning and traffic control.
Grid energy usage and distribution.
Image recognition, useful for anybody for things like searching a photo library for a specific thing, but also for people with visual issues who previously had to rely on awful screen reader software.
Spotting fake reviews, a massive issue online. Flagging bot accounts.
The potential for them to take over some jobs and free up people to pursue other things in life.
This technology, if trained ethically, and not used to siphon more data from people, is amazing. It's how megacorps are using it that's the problem.
On the other hand, assuming the social system isn't the right one, hypothetically AI fully realized could make it more unreasonable and more tightly stuck the way it is.
Not to mention, any other, more just social system wouldn’t be fucking decimating the environment, ultimately hurting the poorer nations first, for money. And AI is accelerating our CO2 output when we need to be drastically cutting it back. This is very much a pacifying tool as we barrel toward oblivion.
When the world needs to be drastically altering our way of life to avert the worst of climate change, these companies are getting away with accelerating their output and generating tons of investment and revenue because “that’s what the market dictates.” Just like with crypto/blockchain a few years ago, adding “AI” into any business pitch/model is basically printing money. So companies are more inclined to incorporate this machine learning tech into their business, and this is all happening while the energy demand for increased usage and the constant “updates” and advancements in the field are gobbling up way more energy than we can honestly afford—and really even conceive of. Because they’re trying to hide this fact, given, yknow, the world fuckin ending. Basically, the market and the entire system of media is encouraging and fawning over this “leap” in tech, when we can’t realistically afford to continue our habits we had before this market even existed. So they are accelerating co2 output, everyone cheers, and we all ride merrily to the edge of our doom.
It’s capitalism once again destroying us and the planet for profit. And everyone who mindlessly jumps on board, ooh’ing and aww’ing at the stupid new shit they’re doing (while they infringe upon the work of all artists without compensation, driving human creativity out in the job market in favor of saving corporations some scratch by firing their artists and using AI instead…I genuinely can’t really conceive of how people seem so on board with this concept.
"Cutting-edge technology doesn’t have to harm the planet, and research like this is very important in helping us get concrete numbers about emissions. It will also help people understand that the cloud we think that AI models live on is actually very tangible, says Sasha Luccioni, an AI researcher at Hugging Face who led the work.
Once we have those numbers, we can start thinking about when using powerful models is actually necessary and when smaller, more nimble models might be more appropriate, she says."
that's a shame and i'm not surprised at all to see that corporations are using AI for completely unimportant things.
But one thing to consider is that AI could also lead to solutions that help save the planet, like solving problems with fusion technology. I still believe in science, and I still believe that capitalism is the root of the problem, not the technology itself.
I mean, sure, I agree with you. Capitalism is the problem, no question. I would love a job-replacing tech so people could live lives of leisure and art. But…this system is being built for capitalist ends. It’s built by, funding by, and being put in the hands of the exact people causing the problem.
I agree that in a hypothetical world, machine learning technology could very well help humanity. But the code and money is in the hands of people who aren’t interested in helping humanity.
I’m no fan of forced labor for basic necessities. And I’m not advocating for that system by any means, but this tech, in this world, will drive the cost of labor down, drive people from the jobs they’ve been forced to rely upon, and it’s literally taking one of the few job fields where people actually got to express their humanity for their wages: art. Creative writing and design/visual art were one of the few fields people actually dreamt of doing. Because it offered us a living for creating. For being human. And that tiny outlet of humanity in the vast contrivance of capitalism is being devoured by this tech.
That’s just one small part of my distrust of “AI.” But the underlying problem is as I stated first, which is that this tech, existing in this world at this point in time, isn’t going to free us. It’s another tool by the ownership class to cut costs, decimate the environment, and drive profit. While also killing the small little sliver of human creativity that was allowed to exist under capitalism.
So again, hypothetically, yes, the tech could be a force for good and for human liberation from meaningless work. But it’s actually making our work even more meaningless, while sequestering another huge chunk of power for the ruling class. It would be great if it could reach its potential as a force for good. But given everything, that is not how it’s being implemented.
AI has barely started infecting things, it's still avoidable... Yet even at this early stage it's obvious these companies have no morality and are willing to break laws and violate social norms.
It's obvious they're evil and they've barely just begun.
Corporations are as callous and mechanical as they have always been, with an ever expanding range of tools to exploit. They will do anything and everything they can unless it is less profitable to do it.
Don't ever let life-deprived, perspective-bubble wearing, uncompassiontate, power hungry manipulators, "News" people, tell you what you can and cannot do. Doesn't even pass the smell test.
My advice, if a Media Outlet tries to Groom you to think that nothing you do matters, don't ever read it again.
I don't care what the implication was, I didn't read past the slight/insult to my character, morality and intelligence. Who is some MSM empty suit tank to play cognitive narrative shaping with me, absolutely zero.
god, i love this statement. it's so true. people have to understand our collective power. even if the only tool we have is a hammer, we can still beat their doors down and crush them with it. all it takes is organization and willingness.
What do you think the actor's strike was about? And what do you think one of the key agreements the actors wrung out of the studios was? They were not about to allow their likenesses to be sold for all of eternity for pennies on the dollar.
Knowing people like him, he would probably take the obvious literary warnings from a book like that and use them as inspiration for how to build an even more dystopian nightmare.
Which this very story proves. The AI voice that they generated was specifically based on "Her", a movie about a guy who falls in love with an AI voice assistant. I haven't seen the movie, but I'm going out on a limb to guess this is another "don't make the torment vortex" situation.
theatlantic.com
Hot