Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 30,234]

The Pentagon Wants to Use AI to Create Deepfake Internet Users

The Department of Defense wants technology so it can fabricate online personas that are indistinguishable from real people.

https://theintercept.com/2024/10/17/pentagon-ai-deepfake-internet-users/

The United States’ secretive Special Operations Command is looking for companies to help create deepfake internet users so convincing that neither humans nor computers will be able to detect they are fake, according to a procurement document reviewed by The Intercept.

The plan, mentioned in a new 76-page wish list by the Department of Defense’s Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, outlines advanced technologies desired for country’s most elite, clandestine military efforts. “Special Operations Forces (SOF) are interested in technologies that can generate convincing online personas for use on social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content,” the entry reads.

The document specifies that JSOC wants the ability to create online user profiles that “appear to be a unique individual that is recognizable as human but does not exist in the real world,” with each featuring “multiple expressions” and “Government Identification quality photos.”

In addition to still images of faked people, the document notes that “the solution should include facial & background imagery, facial & background video, and audio layers,” and JSOC hopes to be able to generate “selfie video” from these fabricated humans. These videos will feature more than fake people: Each deepfake selfie will come with a matching faked background, “to create a virtual environment undetectable by social media algorithms.”

The Pentagon has already been caught using phony social media users to further its interests in recent years. In 2022, Meta and Twitter removed a propaganda network using faked accounts operated by U.S. Central Command, including some with profile pictures generated with methods similar to those outlined by JSOC. A 2024 Reuters investigation revealed a Special Operations Command campaign using fake social media users aimed at undermining foreign confidence in China’s Covid vaccine.

Last year, Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, expressed interest in using video “deepfakes,” a general term for synthesized audiovisual data meant to be indistinguishable from a genuine recording, for “influence operations, digital deception, communication disruption, and disinformation campaigns.” Such imagery is generated using a variety of machine learning techniques, generally using software that has been “trained” to recognize and recreate human features by analyzing a massive database of faces and bodies. This year’s SOCOM wish list specifies an interest in software similar to StyleGAN, a tool released by Nvidia in 2019 that powered the globally popular website “This Person Does Not Exist.” Within a year of StyleGAN’s launch, Facebook said it had taken down a network of accounts that used the technology to create false profile pictures. Since then, academic and private sector researchers have been engaged in a race between new ways to create undetectable deepfakes, and new ways to detect them. Many government services now require so-called liveness detection to thwart deepfaked identity photos, asking human applicants to upload a selfie video to demonstrate they are a real person — an obstacle that SOCOM may be interested in thwarting.

The listing notes that special operations troops “will use this capability to gather information from public online forums,” with no further explanation of how these artificial internet users will be used.

This more detailed procurement listing shows that the United States pursues the exact same technologies and techniques it condemns in the hands of geopolitical foes. National security officials have long described the state-backed use of deepfakes as an urgent threat — that is, if they are being done by another country.

Last September, a joint statement by the NSA, FBI, and CISA warned “synthetic media, such as deepfakes, present a growing challenge for all users of modern technology and communications.” It described the global proliferation of deepfake technology as a “top risk” for 2023. In a background briefing to reporters this year, U.S. intelligence officials cautioned that the ability of foreign adversaries to disseminate “AI-generated content” without being detected — exactly the capability the Pentagon now seeks — represents a “malign influence accelerant” from the likes of Russia, China, and Iran. Earlier this year, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit sought private sector help in combating deepfakes with an air of alarm: “This technology is increasingly common and credible, posing a significant threat to the Department of Defense, especially as U.S. adversaries use deepfakes for deception, fraud, disinformation, and other malicious activities.” An April paper by the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute was similarly concerned: “Experts expect the malicious use of AI, including the creation of deepfake videos to sow disinformation to polarize societies and deepen grievances, to grow over the next decade.”

“There are no legitimate use cases besides deception.”

The offensive use of this technology by the U.S. would, naturally, spur its proliferation and normalize it as a tool for all governments. “What’s notable about this technology is that it is purely of a deceptive nature,” said Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute. “There are no legitimate use cases besides deception, and it is concerning to see the U.S. military lean into a use of a technology they have themselves warned against. This will only embolden other militaries or adversaries to do the same, leading to a society where it is increasingly difficult to ascertain truth from fiction and muddling the geopolitical sphere.” 

Both Russia and China have been caught using deepfaked video and user avatars in their online propaganda efforts, prompting the State Department to announce an international “Framework to Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation” in January. “Foreign information manipulation and interference is a national security threat to the United States as well as to its allies and partners,” a State Department press release said. “Authoritarian governments use information manipulation to shred the fabric of free and democratic societies.”

SOCOM’s interest in deepfakes is part of a fundamental tension within the U.S. government, said Daniel Byman, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University and a member of the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board. “Much of the U.S. government has a strong interest in the public believing that the government consistently puts out truthful (to the best of knowledge) information and is not deliberately deceiving people,” he explained, while other branches are tasked with deception. “So there is a legitimate concern that the U.S. will be seen as hypocritical,” Byman added. “I’m also concerned about the impact on domestic trust in government — will segments of the U.S. people, in general, become more suspicious of information from the government?”

Edited October 21, 2024 by Vesper

[Vesper 30,234]

Don’t Believe the U.S.–Israel Fantasy for Lebanon

Israel and the United States are already speaking about a Lebanon post-Hezbollah. They’re getting way ahead of themselves. 

https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/israel-lebanon-war-hezbollah/

A view on Oct. 18, 2024, of destruction in Nabatieh, Lebanon, after Israeli warplanes launched massive air raids destroying a big part of the city’s old market and the municipal buildings. AP Images

For readers of Western media since the start of the invasion of Lebanon, Israeli maneuvers appear to be a blinding success. Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari filmed a press release from occupied southern Lebanon, and Israeli troops gave a tour of a captured neighborhood in Blida to a host of reporters, both international and domestic. A detained Lebanese man, alleged by the Israelis to be a Hezbollah member, told interrogators that his comrades had fled in fear and left him behind, like cowards.

What this PR offensive has obscured is the actual cost of the invasion thus far.

While the Israeli military has continued pushing into Lebanese territory, the actual distance has rarely exceeded towns on the border. Contrary to the claims made under duress by kidnapped Lebanese for the cameras, Hezbollah fighters have not abandoned the border, and skirmishes with Israeli forces remain deadly endeavors, with five Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting last week. Hezbollah has expanded the scope of its operations, with drones striking soldiers deep in Israeli territory, including an attack at a military base near Haifa on October 13 that killed four soldiers and injured at least 58 people. Missiles weighing as much as three tons are being fired at Tel Aviv. While much of Hezbollah’s leadership has been assassinated, rumors of the organization’s demise have, for now, been greatly exaggerated.

Despite the complex reality on the ground, Israeli officials and their American backers are already thinking far into the future. Although the total destruction in Gaza and the killing of Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh have so far failed to dislodge Hamas, Israel and the United States are already speaking about a Lebanon post-Hezbollah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government have advocated for months — and especially intensely as the invasion continues — for a kind of civilian uprising against Hezbollah. It’s envisioned as an almost cinematic event in which all sects of the Lebanese Republic throw off the organization’s yoke, releasing Lebanon from its alleged bondage. It is a purposefully vague invocation, one that any Hezbollah opponent, Lebanese or not, could map their own desires onto. While Netanyahu and the state remain relatively light on details, other Israeli politicians have been very specific in what they foresee.

Yair Lapid, former Israeli prime minister and current opposition leader, has been extremely supportive of the invasion of Lebanon — despite his severe disagreements with the Netanyahu government. In an English-language opinion piece in The Economist, Lapid lays out a plan that sounds indistinguishable from a Netanyahu one. Lapid advocates for the reestablishment of the South Lebanon Army, the Israeli proxy army that existed from the 1980s until 2000. It would consist of Lebanese soldiers bribed to fight with higher salaries, who would be trained not by Israelis but by “French, Emirati, and American military officers.” Most critically, Lapid advocates for dissolving the Lebanese government and placing the entire country of millions under an international mandate, at which point new elections would be held and “a new government can take control” — one almost certainly without Hezbollah anywhere near it.

The absurdity of this proposition, to say nothing of its intrinsic orientalism, should be obvious to anyone familiar with the region. Hezbollah has immense military power — moreso than the Lebanese Army, certainly. But it does not exert this power through might alone. While its allies in the March 8 Alliance do not hold the majority in the Lebanese Parliament, Hezbollah received the most votes of any single party in Lebanon in the last election, and enjoys significant popular support in south Beirut and in much of south Lebanon. While there are many in Lebanon who place themselves in opposition to Hezbollah and its ideology, supporters of the organization see the group as a critical backbone of resistance against Israeli military power, being instrumental in the expulsion of the Israel Defense Forces from the south in 2000 and rebuilding south Beirut after its bombardment during the 2006 war. While the majority of the Lebanese population has not and does not support a war with Israel, Hezbollah is an inseparable and native-born element of Lebanese society.

Related

U.S. Poured Billions of Military Aid Into Lebanon. Now Israel Threatens to Invade.

After Israel Killed Hamas Leader, D.C. Pushes to Hand Palestine to Saudi Arabia

Even if this might be a clear reality to observers, the United States takes no issue with Israel’s publicly articulated plans. It has stopped advocating for a ceasefire in Lebanon, instead seeing an opportunity for Hezbollah’s power to be diminished and defeated. It has begun maneuvering to push for an election of a new Lebanese president while Hezbollah’s attention is allegedly weakened and turned elsewhere, with U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein slipping up when speaking to the Lebanese TV station LBC, saying: “Until we select — once Lebanon selects a president.” When Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker asked a U.N. coordinator how in this scenario Hezbollah MPs would even be protected, considering Israel has launched assassination strikes against Hezbollah political officials inside Beirut, the coordinator simply replied, “No one can guarantee that this will not happen.”
 

Read our complete coverage

Israel’s War on Gaza

The United States is spinning up a fantasy vision of Lebanon, at once communicating with the Lebanese prime minister and other officials and engaging in diplomacy with them, while at the same time, the State Department speaks of a future Lebanon where Lebanese people “can choose their own representatives” — mirroring George W. Bush’s language about Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Lebanese people can choose their own representatives, but there’s no evidence the kinds of representatives the majority of Lebanese want are the ones that would meet the approval of Israel and the United States.

While the U.S. concocts this fantasy, the Israeli state and its military are acting in accordance with the understanding that the Lebanese cannot be trusted with democracy, and thus must be expelled from southern Lebanon entirely. When Hagari spoke from south Lebanon, he said that every house in the village he was in was part of Hezbollah’s infrastructure. Video has already emerged of Israeli troops destroying an entire Lebanese village in one swoop with planted explosives. What the U.S. and Israel may soon come to advocate, once the reality can no longer be ignored, is the kind of Lebanese state that former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan once foresaw: one where the south is under Israeli control, and in the seat of power in Beirut, an installed leader who will want nothing more than to give Israel everything it wants.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Vesper

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

Odd how its always the brown people eradicated in these post colonial adventures...

[cosmicway 1,333]

8 hours ago, Vesper said:

The Pentagon Wants to Use AI to Create Deepfake Internet Users

The Department of Defense wants technology so it can fabricate online personas that are indistinguishable from real people.

https://theintercept.com/2024/10/17/pentagon-ai-deepfake-internet-users/

The United States’ secretive Special Operations Command is looking for companies to help create deepfake internet users so convincing that neither humans nor computers will be able to detect they are fake, according to a procurement document reviewed by The Intercept.

The plan, mentioned in a new 76-page wish list by the Department of Defense’s Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, outlines advanced technologies desired for country’s most elite, clandestine military efforts. “Special Operations Forces (SOF) are interested in technologies that can generate convincing online personas for use on social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content,” the entry reads.

The document specifies that JSOC wants the ability to create online user profiles that “appear to be a unique individual that is recognizable as human but does not exist in the real world,” with each featuring “multiple expressions” and “Government Identification quality photos.”

In addition to still images of faked people, the document notes that “the solution should include facial & background imagery, facial & background video, and audio layers,” and JSOC hopes to be able to generate “selfie video” from these fabricated humans. These videos will feature more than fake people: Each deepfake selfie will come with a matching faked background, “to create a virtual environment undetectable by social media algorithms.”

The Pentagon has already been caught using phony social media users to further its interests in recent years. In 2022, Meta and Twitter removed a propaganda network using faked accounts operated by U.S. Central Command, including some with profile pictures generated with methods similar to those outlined by JSOC. A 2024 Reuters investigation revealed a Special Operations Command campaign using fake social media users aimed at undermining foreign confidence in China’s Covid vaccine.

Last year, Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, expressed interest in using video “deepfakes,” a general term for synthesized audiovisual data meant to be indistinguishable from a genuine recording, for “influence operations, digital deception, communication disruption, and disinformation campaigns.” Such imagery is generated using a variety of machine learning techniques, generally using software that has been “trained” to recognize and recreate human features by analyzing a massive database of faces and bodies. This year’s SOCOM wish list specifies an interest in software similar to StyleGAN, a tool released by Nvidia in 2019 that powered the globally popular website “This Person Does Not Exist.” Within a year of StyleGAN’s launch, Facebook said it had taken down a network of accounts that used the technology to create false profile pictures. Since then, academic and private sector researchers have been engaged in a race between new ways to create undetectable deepfakes, and new ways to detect them. Many government services now require so-called liveness detection to thwart deepfaked identity photos, asking human applicants to upload a selfie video to demonstrate they are a real person — an obstacle that SOCOM may be interested in thwarting.

The listing notes that special operations troops “will use this capability to gather information from public online forums,” with no further explanation of how these artificial internet users will be used.

This more detailed procurement listing shows that the United States pursues the exact same technologies and techniques it condemns in the hands of geopolitical foes. National security officials have long described the state-backed use of deepfakes as an urgent threat — that is, if they are being done by another country.

Last September, a joint statement by the NSA, FBI, and CISA warned “synthetic media, such as deepfakes, present a growing challenge for all users of modern technology and communications.” It described the global proliferation of deepfake technology as a “top risk” for 2023. In a background briefing to reporters this year, U.S. intelligence officials cautioned that the ability of foreign adversaries to disseminate “AI-generated content” without being detected — exactly the capability the Pentagon now seeks — represents a “malign influence accelerant” from the likes of Russia, China, and Iran. Earlier this year, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit sought private sector help in combating deepfakes with an air of alarm: “This technology is increasingly common and credible, posing a significant threat to the Department of Defense, especially as U.S. adversaries use deepfakes for deception, fraud, disinformation, and other malicious activities.” An April paper by the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute was similarly concerned: “Experts expect the malicious use of AI, including the creation of deepfake videos to sow disinformation to polarize societies and deepen grievances, to grow over the next decade.”

“There are no legitimate use cases besides deception.”

The offensive use of this technology by the U.S. would, naturally, spur its proliferation and normalize it as a tool for all governments. “What’s notable about this technology is that it is purely of a deceptive nature,” said Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute. “There are no legitimate use cases besides deception, and it is concerning to see the U.S. military lean into a use of a technology they have themselves warned against. This will only embolden other militaries or adversaries to do the same, leading to a society where it is increasingly difficult to ascertain truth from fiction and muddling the geopolitical sphere.” 

Both Russia and China have been caught using deepfaked video and user avatars in their online propaganda efforts, prompting the State Department to announce an international “Framework to Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation” in January. “Foreign information manipulation and interference is a national security threat to the United States as well as to its allies and partners,” a State Department press release said. “Authoritarian governments use information manipulation to shred the fabric of free and democratic societies.”

SOCOM’s interest in deepfakes is part of a fundamental tension within the U.S. government, said Daniel Byman, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University and a member of the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board. “Much of the U.S. government has a strong interest in the public believing that the government consistently puts out truthful (to the best of knowledge) information and is not deliberately deceiving people,” he explained, while other branches are tasked with deception. “So there is a legitimate concern that the U.S. will be seen as hypocritical,” Byman added. “I’m also concerned about the impact on domestic trust in government — will segments of the U.S. people, in general, become more suspicious of information from the government?”

So even the time honoured profession of internet troll goes out of the window ?
And will those AI entities also become customers to buy my e-books ?

Edited October 22, 2024 by cosmicway

[cosmicway 1,333]

13 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Well the Greeks invented all that up the arse stuff. Commie degenerates.

It was not.
It is a fairytale.
The early Christians invented that in order to close down the ethnic, dodecatheist, schools.
While that was necessary to kill paganism and heresies it was a lie.
Infact the word "paederast" we use so freely today to describe the adolescent gobbers was just a common word and it meant "children tutor".
Your college tutor was a "paederast" to the ancients.
This lie was carried forward by the nazi philosopher Falmeraier and also by Stalin who -before the war- was very much antigreek.

For the Greeks or some Greeks the typical gays are the Englishmen.
I really don't know since when and why as it is only in Greece they say that.
Caricatures tend to be international but this is only in Greece.

Hers is a famous cartoon by artist Bost, from 1958 during the Cyprus EOKA events.
The man playing the mandolin is a Turk and the soldier is Alphonse.

Edited October 22, 2024 by cosmicway

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

2 hours ago, cosmicway said:

It was not.
It is a fairytale.
The early Christians invented that in order to close down the ethnic, dodecatheist, schools.
While that was necessary to kill paganism and heresies it was a lie.
Infact the word "paederast" we use so freely today to describe the adolescent gobbers was just a common word and it meant "children tutor".
Your college tutor was a "paederast" to the ancients.
This lie was carried forward by the nazi philosopher Falmeraier and also by Stalin who -before the war- was very much antigreek.

For the Greeks or some Greeks the typical gays are the Englishmen.
I really don't know since when and why as it is only in Greece they say that.
Caricatures tend to be international but this is only in Greece.

Hers is a famous cartoon by artist Bost, from 1958 during the Cyprus EOKA events.
The man playing the mandolin is a Turk and the soldier is Alphonse.

Was pederasty a homosexual act in ancient Greece?

In ancient Greece, sex was generally understood in terms of penetration, pleasure, and dominance, rather than a matter of the sexes of the participants. According to Dover, pederasty was not considered to be a homosexual act, given that the 'man' would be taking on a dominant role, and his disciple would be taking on a passive one.

As early as the 8th Century BC, the ancient lawmaker Philolaus of Corinth, who himself had a male lover, created laws in support of same-sex male unions. By the 7th Century BC, there were at least five different varieties of same-sex relations in Ancient Greece. The Sacred Band of Thebes was an elite military unit comprised of 300 male lovers in the 4th Century BC who courageously ended Spartan domination. And millennia after writers and philosophers such as Plato were busy contemplating same-sex love, many vessels and statues on display in museums and sites in illustrate aspects of homosexuality in Ancient Greece.

In 1951, Greece became  the first European nation to decriminalise same-sex relations (the UK waited until 1967; though in both countries, lesbians were neither mentioned nor acknowledged). 

[cosmicway 1,333]

19 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Was pederasty a homosexual act in ancient Greece?

In ancient Greece, sex was generally understood in terms of penetration, pleasure, and dominance, rather than a matter of the sexes of the participants. According to Dover, pederasty was not considered to be a homosexual act, given that the 'man' would be taking on a dominant role, and his disciple would be taking on a passive one.

As early as the 8th Century BC, the ancient lawmaker Philolaus of Corinth, who himself had a male lover, created laws in support of same-sex male unions. By the 7th Century BC, there were at least five different varieties of same-sex relations in Ancient Greece. The Sacred Band of Thebes was an elite military unit comprised of 300 male lovers in the 4th Century BC who courageously ended Spartan domination. And millennia after writers and philosophers such as Plato were busy contemplating same-sex love, many vessels and statues on display in museums and sites in illustrate aspects of homosexuality in Ancient Greece.

In 1951, Greece became  the first European nation to decriminalise same-sex relations (the UK waited until 1967; though in both countries, lesbians were neither mentioned nor acknowledged). 

Paederast (*) was what I said, a school tutor.
The meaning it has now came about later.
While the ancients were certainly less moralistic than the christians there is no proof of gays in ancient Greece.
Socrates was accused of being gay and that was one of the reasons they sentenced him to death.
Meanwhile why the Greeks call the English gay ?
I searched, nobody knows.

(*) paedion = child, erastis = lover (but carer rather to the ancients)

Edited October 22, 2024 by cosmicway

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

1 minute ago, cosmicway said:

Paederast was what I said, a school tutor.
The meaning it has now came about later.
While the ancients were certainly less moralistic than the christians there is no proof of gays in ancient Greece.
Socrates was accused of being gay and that was one of the reasons they sentenced him to death.
Meanwhile why the Greeks call the English gay ?
I searched, nobody knows.

All sources say the same. Perhaps they are all wrong

Homosexual relationships played an important role in  Greek society

Here are some key points:

1.Active homosexuality was regarded as natural, and sexual desire was not distinguished by gender2.

2 There was a prohibition against males adopting a submissive role

3.Greek society did not distinguish sexual orientation as a social identity, but rather by the role each participant played in the sex act3.

4. Greek love was a term used to describe homoerotic customs and practices

 

[cosmicway 1,333]

7 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

All sources say the same. Perhaps they are all wrong

Homosexual relationships played an important role in  Greek society

Here are some key points:

1.Active homosexuality was regarded as natural, and sexual desire was not distinguished by gender2.

2 There was a prohibition against males adopting a submissive role

3.Greek society did not distinguish sexual orientation as a social identity, but rather by the role each participant played in the sex act3.

4. Greek love was a term used to describe homoerotic customs and practices

 

They were not like xians.
Fanatical xians were like Taliban.
Have you heard of Augustin of Florina (Lerin to the slavs) ?
Probably not but a famous personality here.
Bishop Augustin died in 2010. He was an opponent of the military junta of 1967 but at the same time a true fanatic.
He preached Taliban like laws - except for the burka which is unchristian. Everything else he said was taliban.

But the ancients were loose.
This does n't make them gay.

(*) the most fanatical person I have met was my head at school, the also famous "Dilliger" - a distinguished mathematician but he even banned fizzy drinks - only the blue orange drink was allowed in the schoold canteen - fizzy was satanic
 

Edited October 22, 2024 by cosmicway

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

4 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

But the ancients were loose.
This does n't make them gay.

Ok, sure ☝️

[cosmicway 1,333]

Just now, Fulham Broadway said:

Ok, sure ☝️

Look they would n't have children if they were gay - there would n't be a country named Gr today

[cosmicway 1,333]

37 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

In 1951, Greece became  the first European nation to decriminalise same-sex relations (the UK waited until 1967; though in both countries, lesbians were neither mentioned nor acknowledged). 

UK in 1957 in fact (the Wolfenden Committee).
But if Gr decriminalised in 1951, then UK doing the same in 1957 could n't be the reason for the cartoons.
What is their explanation ?
There is a whole book with Alphonse.

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

16 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

Look they would n't have children if they were gay - there would n't be a country named Gr today

Yup, sure ☝️

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

11 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

UK in 1957 in fact (the Wolfenden Committee).
But if Gr decriminalised in 1951, then UK doing the same in 1957 could n't be the reason for the cartoons.
What is their explanation ?
There is a whole book with Alphonse.

 Homosexuality always legal for women; decriminalised for men in: 1967 (England and Wales) 1981 (Scotland) 1982 (Northern Ireland) Age of consent equalised in 2001

All sources say the same. Perhaps they are all wrong and you are right

[cosmicway 1,333]

9 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

 Homosexuality always legal for women; decriminalised for men in: 1967 (England and Wales) 1981 (Scotland) 1982 (Northern Ireland) Age of consent equalised in 2001

All sources say the same. Perhaps they are all wrong and you are right

Sounds strange but can be as you say.
But that makes the Alphonse story even more bizarre.
The artist Bost has died. I might have asked him

Edited October 22, 2024 by cosmicway

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

Shoot a child so it screams in agony. Wait for people to come to the childs aid. Shoot the child again, then blow up the civilian helpers

 

[Fernando 6,585]

11 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Odd how its always the brown people eradicated in these post colonial adventures...

Adventures?

I get that Israel in war is doing some atrociousness, but it's not because they freely wanted. 

These places they attack is because they have been receiving rockets thrown at them. Any country that received rocket from another country will go and attack them. 

In these instances is being run by terrorist organization. 

 

[cosmicway 1,333]

11 minutes ago, Fernando said:

Adventures?

I get that Israel in war is doing some atrociousness, but it's not because they freely wanted. 

These places they attack is because they have been receiving rockets thrown at them. Any country that received rocket from another country will go and attack them. 

In these instances is being run by terrorist organization. 

 

True,
In Greek 20th century history there are two dark events resembling October 7.
The 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus. For a number of strange reasons we were unable to react.
Before that in 1923 when Mussolini sent the Italian fleet to bombard Corfu and killed many people. Again Greece was in no position to react.
Those were shameful events.
If we could reverse time we would surely have flattened some enemy cities.
Israel does that and any Israel would do the same.

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

40 minutes ago, Fernando said:

Adventures?

Iraq, Africa, Afghanistan, Palestine, Libya, Lebanon, now Iran, -endless list of millions dead =always the brown people 

40 minutes ago, Fernando said:

Israel in war is doing some atrociousness, but it's not because they freely wanted.

 Tell me, do an occupied people under an apartheid system where water, electricity and food are denied,

(acknowledged by the whole international community btw) have the right to defend themselves ? 

[Vesper 30,234]

1 hour ago, Fulham Broadway said:

All sources say the same. Perhaps they are all wrong

Homosexual relationships played an important role in  Greek society

Here are some key points:

1.Active homosexuality was regarded as natural, and sexual desire was not distinguished by gender2.

2 There was a prohibition against males adopting a submissive role

3.Greek society did not distinguish sexual orientation as a social identity, but rather by the role each participant played in the sex act3.

4. Greek love was a term used to describe homoerotic customs and practices

 

Sacred Band of Thebes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band_of_Thebes

The Sacred Band of Thebes (Ancient Greek: Ἱερός Λόχος, Hierós Lókhos) was a troop of select soldiers, consisting of 150 pairs of male lovers which formed the elite force of the Theban army in the 4th century BC, ending Spartan domination. Its predominance began with its crucial role in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. It was annihilated by Philip II of Macedon in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC.

 

 

Dive into the untold story of the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite unit of 300 warriors bound by love and companionship. This episode of Ancient Greece Revisited shatters myths about Greek warriors, juxtaposing the Athenian perception of "philosophers and boy lovers" with the valor of the Theban army. Discover how this army of lovers defied the Spartan military might, redefining the art of war and the concept of freedom.

Explore the origins of the Sacred Band, formed by Theban general Gorgidas, and their impact on Greek history. Witness the strategic brilliance of Pelopidas and Epaminondas, whose innovative tactics led to stunning victories against the Spartans, challenging centuries of military supremacy. Learn how their bond of 'φιλία' (philia) transcended mere friendship, embodying the deep connection between personal bonds and political liberty. Uncover the fall of Sparta and the rise of Thebes as a dominant power, promoting independence among Greek city-states.

The episode culminates with the tragic fate of the Sacred Band at Chaeronea, where Philip II of Macedonia, a former student of Pelopidas, extinguished their legacy. Reflect on the profound influence of Theban philosophy on Philip and Alexander the Great, and the ironic twist of fate that led to the Band's demise. This story of courage, love, and freedom offers a fresh perspective on the interconnectedness of personal relationships and political power in ancient Greece. Join us on this historical journey, where love and war intertwine to shape the destiny of nations.

 

Edited October 22, 2024 by Vesper