Don’t go into the light

yid

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

https://t.co/VjysXIHSlV

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Humans invented writing to track debts. The world's first writing system, cuneiform, emerged in Mesopotamia around 3200 BC to record who owed what to whom. Clay tokens for accounting date back as far as 8000 BC. Debt isn't some corruption of a golden age. It's so fundamental to human cooperation that we created literacy because of it.

War is even older. At Jebel Sahaba in Sudan, archaeologists found a cemetery dating to 13,000 years ago where half the people buried had been killed by arrows, spears, and clubs. That's thousands of years before the first city, the first farm, or the first written law.

And about that beautiful planet of trees and sunshine: for most of human history, roughly half of all children died before age 15. Researchers who studied 17 hunter-gatherer societies found an average child mortality rate of 49%. Even in Sweden in the 1750s, 40% of children didn't survive to 15. Today globally, it's about 4%. In Japan and Iceland, 0.4%.

The systems the tweet mourns are the same ones that changed those numbers. In 1820, roughly 84% of all humans lived in extreme poverty (per economic historians at the University of Paris). Today it's about 10%. Between 1990 and 2025, roughly 118,000 people escaped extreme poverty every single day.

None of this means that debt or capitalism are without serious flaws. They obviously are. But the "paradise ruined" framing gets the history backwards. The planet was a place where burying your children was normal, and violence was a constant threat. Everything that makes modern life livable was built, imperfectly, by humans figuring out how to cooperate at scale.

[Josh Raby @JoshRaby]

I’ve said this before but: If a plane hit turbulence and the pilot panicked, aimed the nose to the ground and crashed, no one would say “Well, you try flying a plane in turbulence.” They would say “That is a bad pilot. That’s not how pilots should handle things.”

[Zach Tratar @zachtratar]

As a centrist, let me explain why I hate both sides...

The left: they tax way too much. They are inefficient at actually helping people and get in the way of growth.

The right: they're murdering people, enabling tyranny, crushing alliances, and nuking our economy.

[Eyal Yakoby @EYakoby]

BREAKING: Live look at Columbia University after they learned that over 2,000 unarmed Iranian civilians have been massacred by the Islamic Republic.

[Don’t go into the light @sillychillpill]

@krea_ai Yes!!!

[daniela @daniela__127]

He "addressed the antisemitism accusations" by discussing Islamophobia and denouncing the "weaponization of antisemitism" which is exactly what I'd expect someone who was contemptuous of Jews and angry at having to deal accusations of being an antisemite to do. So gross.

[H. Ferdosy | ح. فردوسی @AuthorHFerry]

It's ridiculous to see these tweets now that Israel has attacked Iran. Back when it was Gaza, although my logic told me people like Shaiel were all full of shit, there was always that doubt in the back of my head. That little voice that said: "You don't know the whole story."

But then, Iran happened. This time, I happen to have relatives there, I happen to know, very intimately, the system, the culture, the infrastructure, the politics. This time, when Israel sends warning texts, my family gets them too. This time, when I hear the propaganda from the regime, they're speaking my language so no "context" is lost on me.

And now, I can say, with full confidence, that these people are full of shit.

I followed the whole story today, because my family was affected. My aunt lived near the area and had to evacuate. I saw Israel taking every measure to avoid civilian casualties, because I followed the warnings, listened to them, relayed them.

From the moment they announced evacuation, the state TV started asking people not to no listen to them and to ignore the text messages (so, yeah, there were text messages). They locked the staff up in the broadcasting building and had them air until the second it was struck--something they were warned about hours ahead of time.

My family had already evacuated by the time the first missile hit. I'm sure the IRIB staff could have as well if they had any intention of. Instead, they chose (or were forced to) stay there and ask other citizens to also stay in the area to become casualties.

After the Israeli strikes happened and any human person would recognize that those warnings were, indeed, not "mind games," what did the regime do? They brought back the anchors and started airing again despite the fact that Israel had said the attacks were not over.

Now, let's go back and add a little more context. The IRIB headquarters is more than just a broadcasting center. It's not just a bunch of journalists swiping cards in the morning and doing honest reporting. The IRIB is the heart of the Iranian propaganda machine. It's a place that's guarded 24/7 by armed personnel.

Back in 2009, I was in Iran, and I witnessed the day when protesters started marching toward the IRIB headquarters to conquer it, and the regime agents started shooting at them. That place is no short of a military fortress when it comes to the level of protection because the government knows that's where revolutions take place (one of which we saw in 1979).

Cutting the head of the regime's propaganda that urges people stay in evacuation zones was an important objective that saves lives further down Israel's military campaign. This is what Israel did today.

So, who's to blame for any casualties? Israel? Or the regime that actively tells people to stay in evacuation zones, keeps employees in a building it knows is going to be hit, and resumes broadcast when it knows it's going to be hit again?

I saw the whole thing. It was a rollercoaster today. And now I can say for sure, that Israel did everything in its power to minimize civilian casualties, and the Islamic Regime did everything in its power to maximize it.

Now, I know. Now, I have no doubts.

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim is a disgrace to the Jewish community, and is one of those people who should get his keyboard-wielding "hands off Iran" as I said in an earlier tweet. So, Shaiel, I'm begging you to stop talking about this war because... I wanted to say you don't know what you're talking about, but I think you know exactly what you're doing.

[Don’t go into the light @sillychillpill]

@bizzlemacgoo Gas tweet

[Don’t go into the light @sillychillpill]

I don’t know what TLDR stands for and at this point I’m too afraid to ask

[Don’t go into the light @sillychillpill]

@bizzlemacgoo ????

[Don’t go into the light @sillychillpill]

@bizzlemacgoo No you don’t

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

Lindsey Graham represents everything wrong with our politics.

[James Lippens @ShamebyJames]

You can tell Trump doesn’t actually think Zelensky is a dictator because he isn’t doing the obsequious groveling act he pulls out for actual dictators

[Michael Tracey @mtracey]

A useful test would be to honestly imagine what your reaction would be if George W. Bush or Barack Obama said this

[Don’t go into the light @sillychillpill]

@timecaptales If you can’t pass this test as an American citizen your ballot shouldn’t count

[drefanzor memes @drefanzor]

Barron 😳