[greggh]

The real answer here is that he is mad about people protesting what Israel is doing in Gaza. This $100M donation is being made with funds he had given to UPenn. He has taken it back, via lawyers, because they allowed the protests to go on. He is now just taking that original donation and moving it somewhere else. Not that I am against the Olympians getting paid, just some context.

Sources: https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/donor-pulls-100-mill... https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4348656-upenn-loses-1... https://www.timesnownews.com/world/who-is-ross-stevens-stone... (many more)

[an0malous]

I would have never guessed that a significant portion of western society would not only be ok with killing thousands of children but be outraged that anyone would protest it. I feel like I have more information about the world than ever and understand it less than ever.

[somenameforme]

Estimates for deaths we caused in Iraq range from the low hundreds of thousands to the millions, and that's going to be overwhelmingly civilians. [1] And given those are all very short time estimates (generally 2003-2007), and since many studies are from violent deaths only (excluding subsequent caused famine/disease/despair/etc) the millions is likely closer to the mark than not.

Compare that to the death toll in any comparable war, event, or behavior that we politicize against domestically. Now imagine yourself seeing these things from the outside. That's how the world looks to the 'real' rest of the world, and not the ~15% and declining percent of the world that people call the 'rest of the world', when they mean Europe, the Anglosphere, and a handful of occasional oddballs like Japan or South Korea.

And when you see this world through their eyes, you start to see an entirely different world, and it's the world that we are also starting to see now as all masks and pretexts have been coming off for years now. And in general I think that's a good thing. People can't form realistic and meaningful worldviews if they're stuck in a Marvel Comic Universe perspective of international relations.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

[asah]

it's hard to put numbers to words, but I doubt "a significant portion of western society [is] outraged that anyone would protest it" - likely, it's very small but influential and/or wealthy.

[tjroqfggyu56275]

Don't think anyone in the "global South", which have suffered from Western "civilizing missions" are surprised by this.

It's kind of funny to see "anti-interventions" podcasters go full empire mode and justify literally colonization today.

Hardly surprising, since most of these white nationalists love the British Empire's "oeuvre" in non-White countries (but somehow ignore the fact that their own country fought against its tyrannical rule).

[fouc]

There's a lot of non-obvious information or hidden information out there if you have no context. I mean, at the very least I can tell that there are a lot of wealthy and powerful people in western society that are invested in maintaining the innocence and primacy of Israel.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” -- Upton Sinclair.

Where salary in that quote could be metaphorical, given there's other reasons like identity, beliefs, or politics.

[bulbar]

Having more information doesn't necessarily means that one is better informed.

I also read/watch as much original sources as time and energy allows, that often (not always) gives a very different image than what media represents. For example, what I have read in the documents produces by UN representative for signs of genocide showed very thin/constructed arguments. Haven't read all of it so maybe there are better arguments as well.

[sixo]

What people feel about things is almost an entirely a function of their information environment, rather than the facts of the events themselves. Almost nobody truly aware of the number of slaughtered and starved Palestinian children would be "okay" with it; the people defending it are more-or-less viewing these events in terms so different from that that those basic facts cannot reach their understanding at all.

[adastra22]

(1) If you are going to protest something, you need to show up with an answer to the question: “well, what should they have done?”

(2) That doesn’t matter to the situation at hand. The protests on college campuses got WAY out of hand and disrupted the purpose of the institution: teaching.

[csense]

I'm surprised that a significant portion of western society has any sympathy for the Palestinian side after October 7. Hamas started a war and used a bunch of heinous tactics -- kidnapping and murdering a bunch of random civilians, putting bases in hospitals, stealing food aid, and so on.

Israel tries to avoid casualties when they can. For example when Hamas launches rockets at Israeli civilian targets, they shoot the rockets down with the Iron Dome and shrug it off. In my view Israel would be perfectly within their rights to return rocket for rocket into Palestinian civilian targets. That the Israeli rockets would have far more devastating effect as they'd produced by a nation state with a proper MIC, not what terrorists or smugglers can jury-rig, and the defenders don't have their own Iron Dome, Palestine would by far get the worst of the exchange, is something Hamas should be thinking of before they go around launching rockets at other people's civilian territory.

That Israel doesn't return rocket for rocket in this way tells me Israel is fighting with a significantly higher amount of restraint and morality than their opponent, and I'm confused as to how many otherwise intelligent people seem to feel otherwise.

I feel sorry for the civilians caught in the middle, but in my view, almost all the moral responsibility for the bad stuff happening to Palestine falls on Hamas. Hamas is always going around deliberately committing atrocities, Israel is often trying to show restraint while still maintaining reasonable military effectiveness against an enemy who likes using human shields.

[JumpCrisscross]

> real answer here is that he is mad about people protesting what Israel is doing in Gaza

This sounds more like a proximate cause than a “real answer.”

[sejje]

Answer to what question?

[jimmydddd]

This answer is correct.

[peyton]

By the article it sounds like Ross Stevens wanted his money to go towards excellence. Perhaps he didn’t find that at today’s Penn. Taking him at his word, he seems to have found that with the US Olympians.