Exactly what I’m saying. And no, I don’t find it wrong at all to think this way. I’m sorry if you were angered or offended in some way by my previous comment.

I hate to have to say it, but you’ve labelled the a party that still commits atrocities as “right” simply because they’ve committed fewer atrocities. I believe this point requires no further discussion. Both can be wrong for committing atrocities. Again, the main argument you’ve got here is “Israel bad, Palestine good” and “The things Palestine does are fine because they had the moral justification to begin with.”

You are too ideological. I’m a political realist; you’re a political idealist. You looked at what “is right” and then decided that anything done in pursuit of that right must be good. You’ve allowed the ends to justify the means.

In political realism, you must sometimes force off the justice boner and realise that the best result realistically possible is not the one that is the fairest or rights the most historical wrongs. This is what I was trying to get at with my original comment. History is not fair and never will be, and blindly trying to change that is unconstructive. You have to play the cards you’re dealt. It was a historical wrong for Israeli settlers to colonise Palestinian land. At the same time, I am saying that in the near-future, it will be impossible to right this wrong. The Israelis will never be punished for what they did. Palestinians will never control land from the west bank of the River Jordan to the Mediterranean again. Believe me, they want that, and they’re maybe even justified in wanting that, but it doesn’t matter what is right. We need to think of what is the best way to resolve the situation right now. It is pointless to argue about who is right and who is wrong because that means nothing. That is the harsh reality of international geopolitics. That’s how it is now, how it’s been since the dawn of human civilisation, and as long as the idea of the sovereign state exists, that’s how it’s always going to be.

I will give one final parting analogy: Imagine you are tied up and being beaten on the ground by an assailant who is many times stronger than you. The beating has gone on for several minutes now until your assailant offers you a deal: “If you allow me to hit you ten more times and give me all the money in your wallet, I will let you go. Otherwise, I will shoot you dead and take your wallet anyway.” Is this a fair deal? Of course not. Are you “right” to refuse and your assailant “wrong” for even daring to offer such a thing (and putting you in the situation of having to consider it)? Without question. But at the same time, you’d be a fool not to say “yes” to that. You’d also have to be extremely stupid to say “fuck you” in response to that. Even if there’s only a slim chance that they’ll actually uphold their end of the bargain. Honour, after all, doesn’t actually have any value. Your life does.

That is all I have to say on the matter. I will read your reply if you devote the time to write one but I’ve said all that needs to be said.

That’s true and if Microsoft decrees “Windows is included at no charge with a Microsoft 365 license”, I would think that’s many times more palatable.

You are correct. I would be easily radicalised, as would most people if I were placed into such a situation. I’m not immune from the same forces that radicalised everyone else there too.

I do not equate colonisers to the colonised, however, one must recognise that both have done things that they shouldn’t have done. At this point, “but he started it” is no longer an excuse for racial and religious hatred. It’s been 70 years already. People have been born into the conflict, grown up in the conflict, and died from the conflict.

The State of Israel has committed acts of genocide against the Palestinian people. I do not deny it. But at the same time, I cannot wholeheartedly support the other party in this conflict when their methods of resistance include terror attacks, hostage-taking, and indiscriminate bombings—the same things they decry Israel for doing. The Palestinians have rejected several offers of peace. The UN partition plan—rejected. Two state solution proposals—rejected. Peaceful coexistence—rejected. Instead, they counter with a Palestinian state stretching from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Palestinian leaders want to wipe the State of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants off the face of the earth, and Israeli leaders want to wipe the State of Palestine and its Arab inhabitants off the face of the earth.

You can say that the Palestinians were right/to begin with—that they had no obligation to cede any territory at all to the Israelis. And you’d be right. But it’s important to recognise that being right to begin does not give anyone a mandate to do whatever they want. You can be right and move yourself into the wrong by how you act, and this is exactly what happened. Yes, I sympathise with Palestinians whose lands were taken from them by Israelis. At the same time, I condemn those who take matters into their own hands by bombing Israeli music festivals.

Instead, what is happening is that the situation may quickly be moving to a forcibly-imposed one-state solution with that state being the State of Israel. And that would be a tragedy.

This is what I mean by “history is nuanced”. There is no black and white here and to portray any situation as such would be naïve.

You’re right that Microsoft’s main source of income is enterprise customers. But at the same time, I strongly believe that IT departments worldwide would start to seriously consider what tasks they really need Windows or Microsoft Office for and start considering giving as many employees as possible Macs or Chromebooks or even Linux systems. An additional $5 a month multiplied by a thousand systems is $60,000 p.a. I do see IT directors trying to minimise the number of Windows licenses wherever possible in that case. Does the receptionist really need Windows when the scheduling software is cloud-based? Can we replace it with a Chromebook? Is it finally worth it to give the designers the Macs they’ve been clamouring for? And the big one—do we really need Active Directory specifically now that everyone’s got a Mac or a Chromebook? These are questions that have to be answered by IT departments worldwide and every time they’re answered in the affirmative, it costs Microsoft another customer. Not everyone will switch, but the impact will still be non-negligible, and people will also think twice before getting Microsoft systems in the future.

I think you’re right. Microsoft isn’t stupid enough to try this.

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You have to understand that the bulk of computer buyers aren’t really that computer literate. As someone who worked 4 years in IT, I’ll tell you that the average computer user doesn’t even know how to install a graphics card driver, let alone do any other stuff. If given the choice between even $5 a month or learning to use a Mac or a Chromebook, people will learn to use a Mac or a Chromebook. Linux isn’t even a consideration.

The vast majority of people are perfectly happy with Google Docs/Slides/Sheets for daily personal use. If the choice comes down to using the Google office suite or paying a subscription, people tend to avoid paying. I know ZERO people who subscribe to Office 365 for personal use (besides those tricked into it). They either pay for the one-off license, pirate if they know how, use copies paid for by their work, or use alternatives.

People don’t care that ChromeOS and MacOS are locked down. They don’t do anything that requires the “unlocked” operating system and you can bet your ass that if Microsoft starts charging a subscription fee, Apple and Google’s marketing teams will jump so hard on that it’ll crack the pavement.

“War criminal” is not a term applied liberally to describe people who presided over bad things. It is a term defined by treaty in international law.

Nope, just that Hitler is one notable counterexample. There are plenty more European war criminals.

Don’t forget Hideki Tojo too. Not white, but still a light-skinned war criminal.

Vladamir Putin is wanted for crimes against humanity right now. There is a warrant out for his arrest.

And are we just allowing the current situation in Israel to slip our minds voluntarily?

If Windows 12 becomes subscription-based, Google and Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Imagine trying to sell a computer to some old lady with a subscription OS:

This computer costs $300. But to run it you need to pay another $10 a month.

“Do you have any where I don’t have to pay every month?”

Salesperson proceeds to recommend a Chromebook or a Mac.

The technically-savvy would look for Windows 11 machines, those who could and know how would install Linux, others will buy a Chromebook or a Mac, and only the truly stupid would pay the subscription.

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I’ll add your snap if you can recite the full rules of Magic the Gathering

Was, but no longer is. It is officially discontinued, making the ₹500 note the largest for now. I would expect the Government to quickly launch a new large-denomination note. India is still a largely cash society and the largest note being worth 6 USD is surely going to be inconvenient for everyday citizens.

The Government demonetised ₹1000 and ₹2000 banknotes a few years back as part of a campaign against “black money”. The Government’s thinking was that criminal organisations hoarded large amounts of cash in these large-denomination notes, and by forcing everyone to deposit the notes immediately into the bank, it would bring light to the flow of money.

It was not particularly successful and mostly all it did was lead to a week of chaos and long queues outside banks.

I cannot comment on how vigorously the law is enforced in other countries because I am not familiar with the legal environment. In the United States, downloading pirated content will eventually get legal notices sent to your internet service provider, who will threaten to (and legally is required to) disconnect you for repeated piracy. Using copyrighted pictures off the Internet will result in legal threats sent to you as well demanding settlements of hundreds of US dollars per picture, and they will follow through with a lawsuit if you don’t pay. Although I have no specific examples of what Microsoft has done, Autodesk and Adobe have sued people who used pirated copies of their software for millions of dollars. People who operate websites offering pirated content have been prosecuted and sent to prison.

Maybe you as an individual can get away with it in your country, but don’t assume it is the case all over the world.

It’s not that shallow. You are trying to use an anecdote, and not even a concrete anecdote, to argue a matter of statistics. The anecdote isn’t even illustrative of any point. It is utterly disconnected from any statistical argument. It is not logically sound and you should know that. We’re talking about how many people pirate things, not whether any given person pirates something. What you have argued in your comment is, “there exists a set of circumstances where a person could reasonably be driven to commit piracy”. That is neither persuasive to your thesis nor particularly enlightening.

I really wish rhetoric was taught as a standard subject in grade school. It must not be where you’re from.