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Joined 11 months ago
Cake day: August 20th, 2023
  • Ranvier@lemmy.worldtoNews@lemmy.world•U.S. put a hold on an ammunition shipment to Israel
    9·
    2 months ago

    Yes not disputing at all that there’s a proxy war (though Soviet Israeli relationship deteriorated long before that started with Soviets funding Israeli opponents since 1967), just that despite or partially because of this, Israel is closer to Russia than most western countries. Isreal doesn’t want to upset Russia and give them more incentive to fund proxies against them, and some Israeli governments, like Netanyahu’s especially, have helped provide cover for Russian actions. And Russia at times will often take surprisingly pro Israeli moves despite also funding proxies.

    I don’t think it would be impossible for Israel to switch alignment to Russia, and I think you would quickly see Russia providing cover and stopping any assistance with proxy conflict against them. It would be essentially accomplishing Russia’s goal, so what would they have to fight Israel about anymore? Putin is a real politic great powers kind of leader who has no qualms about butchering civilians by the thousands. He’s certainly not aligned with Iran because he’s concerned about Palestinians. Israel becoming fully aligned with Russia would be accomplishing a 77 year in the making goal for the Soviet Union and Russia.

  • Ranvier@lemmy.worldtoNews@lemmy.world•U.S. put a hold on an ammunition shipment to Israel
    16·
    2 months ago

    That’s true, but also a little more complicated than that I think. At least one of the reasons Israel was able to extract so much aid from the US to begin with was the threat they could align with the Soviet Union (initially one of the biggest supporters of Israel, and first to recognize them as a state officially in 1947, though they had a few others had unofficially recognized them by then). Stalin had a zionist foreign policy, despite (or maybe because of) being antisemitic himself. Though Soviets and Israel largely schismed in 1967 and the Soviet union began throwing its funding behind the surrounding Arab states.

    Relations warmed in the 90s again but have been up and down since. But there has been a lot of Russian immigration to Isreal. Russian is the third most spoken language in Israel.

    2011, Putin said: “Israel is, in fact, a special state to us. It is practically a Russian-speaking country. Israel is one of the few foreign countries that can be called Russian-speaking. It’s apparent that more than half of the population speaks Russian”.[38] Putin additionally claimed that Israel could be considered part of the Russian cultural world, and contended that “songs which are considered to be national Israeli songs in Israel are in fact Russian national songs”. He further stated that he regarded Russian-speaking Israeli citizens as his compatriots and part of the ‘Russian World’

    Israel at times has been quite friendly to Russia. It took a neutral stance on the Crimea annexation, infuriating the United States. Russia recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017. Israel refused to recognize Russians assassinating people abroad, infuriating the UK. Netanyahu has spoke often about his friendship with Putin. Israel refused to impose sanctions on Russia or send defensive weapons to Ukraine.

    I mean you could go on, it’s a complicated relationship, with especially Netanyahu favoring closer relations with Russia and trying to play both sides. Iran’s relationship with Russia certainly presents complications, but I don’t think Israel getting closer to Russia or at least using the threat of it to extract more from the United States is out of the question. They’re often trying to “play both sides” of the Russia and US divide to their benefit. Especially if Netanyahu remains in power.

    https://www.axios.com/2022/10/25/ukraine-russia-israel-netanyahu-putin-lapid-kuleba

    https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/netanyahu-governments-approach-russia-and-ukraine

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Russia_relations

    China and Israel have had surprisingly good relations too. And again, Netanyahu has consistently tried to make those closer, possibly to help keep US aid flowing.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-israeli-us-ties-troubled-china-says-xi-looking-forward-to-netanyahu-visit/

    Not saying the US shouldn’t cut off Isreal, please do, but the results may be surprising if that were to actually happen. I don’t think putin harbors any particular concerns for the plight of the Palestinian people.

  • Ranvier@lemmy.worldtoTechnology@lemmy.ml•GPT-4 performance comparable with physicians on official medical board residency examinations. Model performance near or above official passing rate in all medical specialties tested
    71·
    3 months ago

    It’s just a multiple choice test with question prompts. This is the exact sort of thing an LLM should be very good at. This isn’t chat gpt trying to do the job of an actual doctor, it would be quite abysmal at that. And even this multiple choice test had to be stacked in favor of chat gpt.

    Because GPT models cannot interpret images, questions including imaging analysis, such as those related to ultrasound, electrocardiography, x-ray, magnetic resonance, computed tomography, and positron emission tomography/computed tomography imaging, were excluded.

    Don’t get me wrong though, I think there’s some interesting ways AI can provide some useful assistive tools in medicine, especially tasks involving integrating large amounts of data. I think the authors use some misleading language though, saying things like AI “are performing at the standard we require from physicians,” which would only be true if the job of a physician was filling out multiple choice tests.