Aceticon

joined 3 months ago
[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Interestingly, I lived in the UK for over a decade, so here are some observations:

First the UK legally considers many forms of criticism of Israel to be anti-semitism, which vastly multiplies the official count of "hate crimes" against Jews, especially since the Genocide in Gaza really went from slow burn to full steam ahead, as for example anybody shouting during a Peace In Palestine demonstration "From the land to the sea, Palestine will be free" is per the legislation there deemed to have committed an anti-semitic hate crime.

Second, over there I had friends and acquaintances who were Jewish, Muslim, Black, Indian, British, Asian and non-British European and have never once heard any of my Jewish friends or acquaintances complain of being discriminated against whilst I've heard more than once that from Muslim friends, including a tale were members of the London Transit Police displayed outrageous racism against a Turkish friend of mine and his friends at a train stop because they "dared" to challenge a white girl who cut the queue to the ticket booth - I can't speak for his mates but this guy wasn't at all a violent person and was even married to an English woman, so its extremely unlikely he was being threatening much less violent. However he definitely had stereotypical Turkish looks.

I've also heard reports of being victim of Racism from Black friends and Indian friends, and I myself as a Southern European was a victim of racial prejudice over there.

From Indian friends I even heard a tale of the police outright refusing to accept the report of a crime from one of their friends whose wallet had been stolen. If the police won't accept a crime report it doesn't end up in the crime statistics. Keep this in mind because I'll be back to it later.

Now, keep in mind that London has an entire area with Orthodox Jews, so people dressed in a way which is very visibly according to some Jewish traditions and not merely wearing a kippa (which I've also seen, all over London).

My impression, also from the political speech over there, is that actual discrimination and racial hate crimes (the real deal ones, because of ethnicity, not the "criticism of Israel is a 'hate crime'" bollocks) against Jews in Britain is pretty much just random insults on the street. Meanwhile the ones against Muslims, Indians and Blacks are amongst others done by the actual police, as well as being discriminated against by Public Services and in Courts.

(I have never, not once, heard of a Jewish Person in Britain being a victim of racial discrimination by the Authorities. Meanwhile even members of the police with Southeast Asian ancestry report being victims of discrimination within the force)

Third, and circling back to the story told to me by Indian friends, consider the possibility that most crimes against the people whom the police themselves discriminates against are far less likely to be recorded (and definitely the police themselves will not record their own displays of racial hate) and thus do not appear in the statistics. Further, Jews in Britain are overwhelmingly Middle and Upper-Middle class, which in that country (which is very classist) makes it even more likely that, simply because they dress right, have the right accent and use the right words (and in some cases are even themselves Solicitors, Barristers or even High Court judges) when they do pop up on a police station to report a hate crime it gets treated seriously, whilst if, say, a Working class son of an Arab immigrant pops up on a police station he's not taken seriously, is given the run around and is dissuaded from pushing for it to be investigated.

That idea that in the present day Jews are discriminated against all over the place is ridiculous. Certainly from what I've seen in the European countries I lived in, the actual authorities either treat them exactly the same as non-Jew whites or even discriminate "in their favor". They also tend to benefit from the inequality of treatment based on wealth in present day society in most of Europe because for historical reasons they're more likely to be Middle Class or higher than other minorities (who generally are either people from poorer countries or the direct descendants of such people hence not having had much chance at social mobility away from their class of birth, hence Working Class or even Poor).

This is not to deny that there is real anti-semitism in Europe, mainly committed by individuals with Far-Right ideologies. The difference compared to other minorities is that Jews are not discriminated against by the Authorities and are in fact taken seriously when they report having been a victim of a hate crime (plus in some countries, such as the UK and Germany, have actual political power explicitly backing "The Jewish People" - i.e. politicians openly practicing racial discrimination in favor of their ethnicity).

To wrap this up, from all I've heard from Jewish friends in Britain, you can have a very good life as a Jew over there, same as the locals (better if you're upper-middle class) and to me there being entire areas in London were Orthodox Jews overtly dress according to their tradition (plus beyond that I've often seen people wearing the kippa), is a pretty good indication that they do not fear being victimized by anti-semites.

(Also from what I saw reported on TV back there - and note that this was before the latest Genocide in Gaza - just about all reported cases of "anti-semitism" were "criticism of Israel", including an extraordinary situation were, for the political purpose of damaging the then leader of the center-left party, a Jewish Holocaust Survivor was accused of being an anti-semite for having compared some of the actions of Israel in Palestine to those of the Nazis during a conference for Palestine - in a country were repeatedly on national television it's implied that a Jewish Holocaust Survivor!!! committed a hate crime against the Jewish People, it seems a little naive to trust that the statistics on hate crimes against Jews there are a genuine reflection of reality).

That doom statement you've several posts ago which triggered my initial response, stands in sharp contradiction to what I've observed in the countries of Europe I lived in and what I've been told by Jewish friends there, especially compared to other minorities living there some of which are definitely victims of racial discrimination at all levels including by the Authorities themselves, which are almost certainly severely under-reported due to a phenomenon very similar to how rapes are severely under-counted in the more sexist countries.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (3 children)

That's quite the massive goalpost moving from "Jews are not safe anywhere else [but Israel]" to "in 2022 in Sweden there were 108 (4% of hate crimes that year) criminally reported cases of anti-semitism" and that's in a country were criticism of Israel is deemed anti-semitism, so the real figure of actual anti-semitism (i.e. words and actions against people for being Jews, not merelly the criticizing of Israel) is likely to be vastly lower.

For example were I live, Portugal, politicians went out of the way to pass a law that gives Portuguese nationality to those who can indicate (outright proof is not needed and seldom possible) descendence from people belonging to a Jewish group (the Sefardites) expelled from the country in the 17th century, with the curious result that the most famous "Portuguese" person is the Russian billionaire Abramovich and there are quite a lot of "Portuguese" in Israel who have zero relation with country beyond paying the Synagoge in Porto to pass them a certification that they are Sefardites so as to easilly get an EU passport and hence Freedom to travel, live and work in all of the EU.

It absolutelly is Racism, just in the very opposite direction of what you claim: there are actual living persons in Africa who were victims of Forced Labour (i.e. Slavery) by the Portuguese regime there in the 1960s, plus even more people who are direct, provable descendants of such victims, but apparently what's far, far more important for a certain rightwing political party in Portugal is to compensate the "descendants" of a group (descendants in quotes because few or none can definitivelly prove direct descendency of victims of those actions) for the actions of Portugal against their ancestors 10 generations ago - by an amazing, trully incredible "coincidence" the distant, possible but almost never definitivelly proven, descendants of people expelled from Portugal 300 years ago deemed deserving of compensation for long past actions of Portugal just happen to White, whilst the actual living victims and direct, provable, descendants of victims of the practice of Slavery of Portugal in Africa a mere 6 decades ago who are not deemed deserving of compensation for it, are Black.

There is definitelly a racist double standard going on, and it's definitelly not anti-semitism.

And don't get me started on what happens to somebody demonstrating in Germany or Britain against the Genocide in Gaza when detained by the police for it if they are Jewish compare to what happens if they're Muslim.

Again, a racist double standard, and it's definitelly not anti-semitism.

"Whites who happen not to be Christian" are the least discriminated against minorities in Europe at the moment except for a handful of places (I believe that Hungary, for example, is pretty anti-semitic).

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 13 hours ago

THeY'rE USinG TRaNs COcKs iN ChICkEn FIgHtS!!!

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (5 children)

jews are not safe anywhere else

That's not even close to true and is literally a line from Zionist propaganda.

At least in the West Jews are far safer than, for example, Muslims - it is the latter who are the "lesser race" of this age in the US and much or Europe, not the former.

If you exclude those reported claims of anti-semitism that turn out to be just criticism of Israel and it's Genocide (so, of the actions of a nation state and the Zionist regime in charge of it, not of the Jewish people) there is very little anti-semitism going on at least in Europe and way, way, less than anti-Islamism, Racism against people with African ancestry in general or even prejudice against the Roma (Gypsies).

In Europe, even the Far Right is shy of making statements against Jews but they damn well love to make wild claims about Muslims being bad people.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

With Fascists it's always the same playbook: start with an easily demoniseable minority and over time extend it to the rest.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Well, obviously the "we" means it only applies to us, not to them.

/s for avoidance of doubt.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 23 hours ago

The version, with the ox is from Portugal. Specifically the Portuguese saying literally translates as "put the cart in front of the oxen" (so we use plural oxen rather than horse).

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Specifically in electronics there are actually milspec versions of some microchips, different from the consumer grade ones (they have a wider range of operating temperatures plus I also believe higher resistence to electromagnetic radiation and mechanical vibration, similar to microchips "for ~~automobile~~ automotive use"), but I suspect that when it comes to actual consumer electronics devices the words "military grade" are not a protected tag (as in, electronic devices said to be "military grade" are not forced by regulation to have certain characteristics) so those words are generally marketing bullshit.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Also now you have to buy a special cloth from Apple to clean the gold logo on the Offical Apple MacBook Cleaning Cloth Pro without scratching it.

(It's cleaning cloths all the way down!)

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Propely done Agile is more to solve the "We have the general idea of what we need but will only know for sure the details of how it will work once the users see it and start playing around with it".

You still need to upfront know that a wedding is actually needed, but have a process for figuring out and trying out the details of the various elements of it (say, as part of deciding what kind of food will there be for the reception, actually preparing and trying various options) before the whole things actually gets "delivered".

Agile also works well for environments were software is developed to serve the kind of business which is are constantly changing (for example, certain areas of Finance) or is something totally new being created from the ground up (i.e. many if not most Startups) because the business itself is a sort of a neverending "we'll figure out what we need and if it works well when we get there and try it out" which matches almost perfectly the fast and scope-limited definition->implementation->feedback cycles of the Agile software development process.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I once had a customly designed project for an external client of a web-development company were I was technical lead and the sales guy who sold it to the customer without ever consulting us about it had the project management responsability.

On the very first day the guy got me, the junior developer and the designer together for the project launch meeting and started saying how we would have to work extra to make it fit his (ridiculously short) deadlines and I just said "No, it's not at all possible to fullfill those deadlines so that's not going to happen" and when he tried to argue with "what about the client" I replied that "You came up with those estimates and gave them to the client without even talking to us, the experts in that domain, so managing the fallout with the client from that is your problem not ours".

I fondly remember all that because of the transition from downtrodden and unhappy to absolute happiness visible on the face of the junior developer when, after the sales guy / project manager gave us the "work extra hard" spiel I (as the tech lead) replied with "No, that's not going to happen".

(Ultimatelly the project took twice as long as the sales guy's estimates)

The whole "putting the cart in front of the oxen" (as we say in my country) of this meme reminded me of that one (and that memory invariably puts a smile on my face).

view more: next ›