We use a Lego phantom[0] to control for geometric distortions in a few of our MRI studies. The tolerances are so tight that it works really well. Especially important in multi-site studies.
This strike is a fuck-up. Could be a mistake, could be a crime attributable to a person somewhere in the middle-ish of the chain of command, or even at the very bottom. You need a pattern of such strikes to move the needle firmly into "intentional government-wide war crime" territory.
Last I heard 16 hospitals have been damaged and 7 are no longer able to operate. Is that a pattern yet? They are also explicitly targeting residences where they believe officials live with their families (which is also a war crime).
Even if you think they are simply wreckless, it is well-established that wrecklessness still constitutes war crimes
Israel has a (recent) history of bombing hospitals, and committing warcrimes and I believe they are also engaged with Iran. This attack on Iran is wrong from both parties and all targets are unacceptable, but do you have any articles or evidence that the U.S. damaged these hospitals?
> At least 13 hospitals and other health facilities have been hit during the US-Israel attacks on Iran, global health chiefs have said.The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was checking reports that four medics had been killed and 25 others injured.
> The Iranian Red Crescent chief said that at least 3,090 homes, 528 commercial centres, 13 medical facilities and nine Red Crescent centres have been hit in Israeli-US strikes. Officials reported damage to major medical facilities, including Khatam Hospital, Gandhi Hospital, and various rehabilitation and welfare centres.
> Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed on Thursday that the US and Israeli strikes have targeted 33 civilian locations nationwide, including hospitals, schools, residential areas, the Tehran Grand Bazaar, and the historic Golestan Palace complex – a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Why though? Do we really need a pattern of strikes or could we just hold the biggest military in the world to a slightly higher standard? Why equivocate away responsibility to 'oh it could have been private so and so who murdered 100+ school children. Shrug.'.
Shouldn't whistle-blowing be much easier in a more transactional work culture where everyone knows you can't count on the company and they'll fuck you over next Thursday on a whim of some consultant or an ambitious upper manager?
Most US tourism is domestic, the effect of a 12% drop in international tourism arrivals is a rounding error even for the US tourism industry as a whole, much less the US economy overall (tourism is 3% of total, compared to ~10% in other major tourist destinations like France).
Emoting and wishful thinking is exactly right, and I say that as a Canadian who is participating in this boycott. I'm not doing it to hurt the US economy, because I know it won't matter one bit even if we all stay away. It'll hurt some border destinations, but will hardly register in most places. Facts are facts.
Tourism is a rounding error.
Euros buying US arms are a rounding error.
The benefits of a relationship with XYZ country is a rounding error.
Any change we want to make to improve healthcare affordability is a rounding error.
Everything around discussing improving housing affordability is a rounding error.
The US economy is driven in part by coal which employs 40,000 people. Rounding errors have impacts and are part of policy discussion all the time. It only gets shut down with 'rounding error' when it's referring to average people issues without clout.
Calling things rounding errors is the US equivalent speech as russian style apathy propaganda.
It's not just tourism. Economically, the US does not depend on the rest of the world nearly as much as any other developed country. Trade (exports and imports) as percentage of GDP is the lowest of all major economies, by far. This is not up for discussion it's a fact you must ground everything else in.
Having established that, you know the firm upper bound on economic (not cultural or political or podcast-topic-generating) impact that international tourism boycott will have on the US. Same for putting tariffs on US goods. If you ignore this, you'll be surprised by how little this matters in the end, economically. Conversely, if you keep yourself firmly grounded in reality you can still in fact be against these policies on different grounds - on the fact that over time their cumulative economic and non-economic effect will hurt, on the fact that a lot of the reasons for these policies are fanciful nationalist bullshit (no, manufacturing jobs aren't and won't be coming back). But don't expect us staying away from your country, or putting a tariff on your shitty cars or cucumbers or whatever, to make a difference. Why is that controversial?
The foreign tourism segment is 20% of the size of the US ag industry. Saying this is a rounding error is ridiculous. 10% of US tourism employment would be 1.5 million people employed as a result of foreign tourism (total tourism employment is 15 million).
To say this a tiny unimportant segment that isn't worth talking about is ridiculous. Again especially considering the consideration the Republicans give tiny industries like coal which employs 40,000.
It's worth talking about a segment that employs 1.5 million in a discussion about 92k job loses.
My bad talking about employment on a thread about job cuts and giving background that a rounding error that doesn't matter is still 1.5 million US jobs. The US isn't 'too big to fail'. Death by a thousand cuts is still death. Ignoring each cut because they aren't important enough (only 1.5 million out of the 15 million travel workers) or poignant is dumb.
The vast majority of tourism in the US (around 90%) is domestic. The total drop of inbound international tourism is about 12%. The effect is noise-level compared to larger economic forces at play. The US is just not an international tourism dependent country in any way.
Most industries take notice when they lose 12% of a market. This is Russian style propaganda to say 'ignore this it's nothing'. We have an insane amount of policy/policy discussion around coal which only employs 40,000 people.
I live in a border state with Canada and this is having a huge impact for my community and those around us. I can't imaging it not impacting at least 40,000 Americans.
It's not 12% of the market. It's 12% of 10% of the market. As I said, a Canadian boycott will hurt some (close to the) border destinations, but will hardly register in most places. I'm personally not crossing that border because it doesn't feel safe to do so, and because of the threats to our independence, but I know for sure it won't have a noticeable nationwide impact even if we all stay away, and the French and the Germans and the Japanese do too. Noticing objective reality and economic facts is not "Russian propaganda".
Sure, if there's potential for using this situation for political gain it'll maybe make a political impact, but there will not be an economic one, not above the SNR of what else is going on.
Edit2: My bad if you felt attacked by me. That was my frustration with the current world presenting everything as too big to address, just give up and leave it be.
It's 12% of the international market. That is the segment. Any business is going to pay attention when they lose 12% of a market segment. Travel is 2.5% of GDP, above agriculture (0.9%), mining (1.3%), and utilities (1.5%) so a very outsize industry. Straight 10% of that (international travel) makes the rounding error market segment 20% of the size of our entire ag industry.
That is your 'rounding error' a segment that brings in 20% of the entire United States ag industry.
Tourism is also 15 million jobs so a 'rounding error' to such a large industry isn't necessarily a 'rounding error' to our population. 10% of that would be 1.5 million jobs. The entire US agriculture industry employs 812,600.
Again, the party that makes ridiculous claims for political impact is the one so concerned over 40,000 coal industry jobs but unconcerned about the fate of 1.5 million US workers because it's a small 'rounding error'.
Edit: My bad if you felt attacked. Everything just gets hand waived away as too big to do anything about nodays. I don't buy it. I'm a software developer. I was mentored on the montra 'how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time'. It's the only way to create complex software solutions, and it's the only way to address our complex world. We shouldn't waive things away as rounding errors when they are part of a complex system. Especially when you consider the US Federal system. If you lose all the border states (most tourism comes from Mexico/Canada) you can easily lose control of the Federal government.
There are quite a few countries which consistently score higher than the US on democracy, overall freedom and press freedom indices, despite not having these absolutist freedom of speech provisions in their constitutions (if they even have constitutions). Because it's not about the piece of paper or what's written on it, is it? It's about the society and what it allows their government to get away with. If the US ever becomes an authoritarian dictatorship, it'll have the exact same constitution and reverence for Founding Fathers, plus a few extra Supreme Court decisions.
Like the RSF press freedom index, which ranks multiple countries in the top 10, where you can be jailed for expressing your earnest belief that something didn't happen?
I'm German. Punishing people for holocaust denial is exactly the right thing to do. There is no reason to deny that the holocaust has happened, because it has happened.
We don't see this as censorship, it's a safeguard against an ideology that destroyed democracy.
What about in the cases of satire? I make a joke about the holocaust not happening in a comedy club in Berlin, is that illegal? I think with it being such a slippery slope is why Americans take the stance they do.
It's not a slippery slope. It's a narrowly defined offense tied to a specific historical crime: the state-organized genocide carried out by Nazi Germany. It's a response to a specific historical responsibility.
The decisive factor is whether the joke attacks the ideology or reinforces it. So if a comedian in Berlin says "the Holocaust didn’t happen" as a punchline, and it comes across as actual denial or trivialization, that can be illegal.
when censored in advance, the governing body can prevent whatever they want and simply claim it was prevented because of lying. how are you going to know?
In Central/Eastern Europe, the problem is increasingly one of demographics. You can sometimes find somewhat cheap labour due to shitty (geo)politics, stagnant economies and poorly trained workers, but big-picture-like, the age of labour abundance is over. These economies have nowhere to go but down, down, down, starved of talent due to the twin cancers of bad demographics and emigration. Some countries are better, some worse, but the overall trend is the same all over the region. Going gentle into that good night.
(China's predicament is not much better, with the added wrinkle that there's absolutely nothing whatsoever they can do about bad demographics due to their size, whereas Central/Eastern Europe can import people once we collectively get over ourselves and let go of uppity xenophobia).
The number of kids born in 2025 in Uzbekistan (population 38 million) is about the same as the number of kids born in 2025 in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland, *combined* (total population 131 million). The age of labour abundance IS OVER, we're witnessing its very last days in EE. Unemployment may remain due to terrible politics and economic mismanagement.
There's not going to be any point even having sweatshops or factories in this region soon. Why bother? If it's anything low or medium-skill and low or medium-capital intense, just open up shop in... Well, why not Uzbekistan? And if double-landlocked isn't your thing, there's dozens of other options.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaging_phantom
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