I agree that the bar seems to have raised; the implicit assumptions were taken from the OPs quotes. That was the intended context, apologies if that was not clear.

Non-selective bodies: food banks that serve all who appear, common greens and parks, public libraries, perhaps some gyms or cellular networks. There were a few intentional communities that took a broad welcoming stance, I think New Harmony Owenites is one I’ve heard about.

Selective: there is either a process which rejects a nontrivial number of applicants (in a way which is not random; the output distribution is different from the applicant population), or there is no open system to join the commune at all (and the initial members are again very much not typical).

Long-standing: a continuous group has existed with the same name for more than, let’s say, 25 years. Ideally in a similar place and with similar policies, but I’m flexible.

Commune/community: a democratically run sharing of resources and container of social connections. They must have things held in common, to which any productive member contributes and any needy member can draw from. The things must be controlled according to the groups intent. Participation in this process should be high. A significant portion of social life of most members should stay within the community.

Successful: a vibe, but not killing too many members and improving the quality of life for members seem like good minimums.

Definitions are meant to be broad here, because I would like to hear about your oranges. Close examples that miss:

Most governments (not communal or not democratic)

Most churches (quite selective, required beliefs for example)

Annoyed to report: successful and long standing communes/communities seem to all be highly selective, at least initially.

If you’ve got good examples that contradict this, please share.

Directionally correct, but it does require self hosted agentic models that can compete with the automation running on corporate side. This is not obvious. It will be a new equilibria; maybe just a few more hours of poorly done work by a handful of consumers is enough to break some monopolies. Or maybe everyone will be attached to OpenAI compute, and we’ve just gained a new middleman for most interactions.

Then you should be able to easily give criticisms.

Major power computations I think are harder. I agree the US is falling, but I don’t think I’ve seen a serious analysis claiming that the US will become merely a power amongst a few dozen others anytime in the next few decades? We’re about to become much poorer and less diplomatically influential, but still nukes, still the huge military spending, still capitalists with hands in other economies?

And I guess I’m specifically reporting on my circle of american’s, who are both aware that we’ve burned a lot of goodwill and trust (though tbh, I’d hoped the trust was lost already after trump 1…).

The checks and balances held for Trump 1 relatively, and held for previous abuses before that (at least, sufficiently that folks would let the US say such things). I don’t think it’s obvious that they are irrepairable/irreplaceable: we could have a revolution and rebuild from scratch, as an extreme example. It is obvious that systems must change to do so; reorganizing the supreme court, changing campaign finance, etc. If they change, and how much, idk what to expect. But I think ~half the country knows it’ll take serious reforms, and it still wont put the US back where it was. Trust != systems.

At least in my circles, I think we’re aware? People are looking real hard at ways to leave. We’ve also got a higher than usual chance of reforming/refurbishing some of those broken guard rails. Fingers crossed.

The folks supporting Trump, on the other hand, already believed that these relationships were dead and bad. They’ll scapegoat somebody else for the decay; I do not see the avenue for this to be a learning experience.

It’s interesting to me that we don’t do this for all industries. Like, if a big auto manufacturer or textile company sets up shop, the local power company is compelled to build more power plants for them (sometimes the power company eats the cost, sometimes a deal with the provider, etc. See the article). Monopolies are weird.

A funny application of the law. Seems a little silly as an answer here.

I find the different ways places answer this question really interesting. By this, I mean the systems we’ve had in place, the committees and applications and rules, for power providing the whole time.

It is interesting because power is a privately owned monopoly that we regulate to the extreme; so we get all sorts of weird relationships and arrangements. Now we see them all getting stress tested.

Home grown, local eugenics.

Kinda like how picking who to marry is also eugenics.

Yes, let’s have this discussion.

Personally, I think screening for disease is a win. Give that service by default. Though we need this happening where somebody can check the data (grift would be very bad in this space).

One answer: The ability to pay taxes to the largest local military power, in exchange for keeping a ‘good’ relationship with the legal system it operates with.

Another: a tool for coordination and distribution of resources between large groups of people that does not require very many (or very long) meetings.

The argument here being that stopantisemitism is zionist and thus pro Israel? Sure. I still think a better title would name the organization. What’s the argument for the vague and not specific title?

I am not interested in telling you that you have done bad. I am interested in telling you that you could do better. I think this change is an improvement because:

I think there is an opportunity to make a more specific point, that requires no analogy, is shorter and more precise, still works towards your political priorities (assuming you do want Israel shamed for this kind of behavior), and (I think) has a better chance of making specific, incremental, progress in political discourse.

Yes, they are pro-Israel. They are also an american grift that’s very profitable.

I feel like you’re saying 2 is an even number, and I’m saying it’s also literally 2. Specificity has value, and I think there should be a good reason to be vague instead of specific.

I will ask again: why is my argument for changing the title stronger if stopantisemetism were anti-Israel?

Please explain why my “criticism” would be stronger if stopantisemitism were ever an anti-israeli body. I don’t understand that at all. This would show they have principles, instead of being a grift.

Plenty of other orgs have useful idiots and fans. They are ‘pro-Israel’, but I don’t think that’s the most useful descriptor or context.

I agree with the analogy. Your simple point is a fine one.

I think there is an opportunity to make a more specific point, that requires no analogy, is shorter and more precise, still works towards your political priorities (assuming you do want Israel shamed for this kind of behavior), and (I think) has a better chance of making specific, incremental, progress in political discourse. That change is to replace “Pro-Israel group” with “stopantisemitism” in the title. The analogy can be easily made in the OP body, comments, and likely springs to any readers mind. It also removes the potential for kibbitzing by apologists about how ‘oh but this is really an american org’.

That’s the simple change that I’m suggesting.

To check that I understand you: you are saying that Israel has used the label of antisemitism in a dishonest, vague, and harmful way as a tool to silence critics?

If so, we agree on this.

You are also saying that Israel deserves to be blamed/shamed for this behavior?

If so, we agree on this.

To me, this news item is about a particularly heinous (and I believe fundamentally American) grift that needs to be noticed and focused on. I think ‘Pro-Israel group’ could be replaced with the more precise and explicit “stopantisemitism” and it would improve the title. I think there are better (and endlessly many) examples of the government of israel doing this, but fewer opportunities to explicitly pile on to stopantisemitism. I am making a quibble about priorities.