Just let people create value and trade.

PS: Sad that you're getting downvotes for a thoughtful, polite comment, too. Downvotes are for hiding idiocy and meanness, not viewpoints that you disagree with.

Your snide tone can’t obscure that the moral issue is straightforward, if you’re aiming at a world where people can be free to live, grow, and flourish. If you want a society that enables builders and engineers to express themselves by creating new things, i.e., on in which people are permitted to think, then you are aligned with Israel’s basic cause.

The central difference is that Israel’s government is essentially secular and free, whereas its enemies — especially Hamas — are essentially theocratic and totalitarian. In Israel, the general trend is that people of all types, including Arab Muslims, have rights and live happy, free lives. If Hamas was to conquer Israel, as is their stated aim, those same Arab Muslims would have no rights - those individuals would be oppressed by exactly the type of vicious theocrats you falsely suggest Israel is composed of.

Last, to clarify the kernel of truth that your point relies on through distortion: while it is true that Israel contains a set of backwards theocratic tribesmen, their importance is marginal. Tel Aviv’s builders and entrepreneurs are the dominant cultural force in Israel, and they are proponents and practitioners of secular modernity.

Do not falsely conflate a marginal group with Hamas’ explicit cause, which is to destroy Israel’s free society and replace it with religious tyranny.

Unless, perhaps, that is what you really regard as moral?

The idea that humans have destroyed the planet is quite silly.

Before he smoked that reefer, his space company was catching the largest booster ever made with metal chopsticks, all paid for by global satellite internet revenue.

His electric crossover/SUV was the best selling car in America.

Now that he’s gotten distracted by politics I dislike, he’s not doing any of that. Definitely no longer the world’s greatest builder.

/s

The integrity of a free society's government is the central issue here, not the creation of tools which could be militarily useful to a free society.

Long-term safety for free people entails military use of new technologies. Imagine if people advocating airplane safety groused about the use of bomber and fighter planes being built and mobilized in the Second World War.

Now, I share your concern about governments who unjustly wield force (either in war or covert operations). That is an issue to be solved by articulating a good political philosophy and implementing it via policy, though. Sadly, too many of the people who oppose the American government's use of such technology have deeply authoritarian views themselves — they would just prefer to see a different set of values forced upon people.

Last: Is there any evidence that we're getting some crappy lobotomized models while the companies keep the best for themselves? It seems fairly obvious that they're tripping over each other in a race to give the market the highest intelligence at the lowest price. To anyone reading this who's involved in that, thank you!

Governments buying goods for people with tax money turns them into dependents, sometimes permanently. It’s easy to overlook that.

> “This is a very well-designed study that validates the notion that sex differences start early in development—and that they depend on the sex chromosomes because that’s the only thing that can account for those differences,” says Nora Engel, a professor of cancer and cell biology at Temple University, who was not involved in this work.

Is this your area of expertise?

I want to make sure I understand you. You don't know if people's accusations are true, but you do know that they are making accusations. Is that correct?

My guess: Drier areas have fewer pests, less rain means there is less risk of flooding or crops washing away, and problems like mold or rot are rarer. Also, the sun is always shining. More photosynthesis means happier plants.

I hope someone here can share the details of the economics here. It's probably a very interesting cost-benefit analysis.

Do you justify things in terms of human life? Conversely, is your standard that nature should be left untouched?

As for me, I would say that flooding the valleys that are now Lake Mead and Lake Powell, enabling tens of millions of people to live, is worth far more than whichever critters and plants were displaced.

Besides, the issue here is not "total destruction" it is over-allocation. We have not destroyed the Colorado River. Rather, it seems like we just have too much demand for its supply. Did I misread that?

How many people would the river basin have supported without damming and irrigation? Far fewer than 40M. In other words, the engineers clearly engineered nature and made it much more hospitable to human life in the arid West.

Sounds like they might have overshot and can't meet tomorrow's demand, but even so, the status quo is certainly far superior to an un-engineered Colorado River Basin.