Sorry maybe I sounded a bit harsh. I think we're on line here, but to be sure. I mean that the average voting age in 2006 could be an interesting detail when doing an analysis of the origins the current situation. So would other themes that played a role in the campaign before the election. I remember reading about this that the corruption of the alternative parties was an issue for voters too.

But when it comes to justifying huge numbers of civilian casualties, it's a pretty well established principle that civilians can never directly be held accountable with violence for the actions of their government. So that means that we don't need to engage with arguments about whether voters knew what they were getting into or any specifics about the election. Because doing so would be giving in to your opponent (in a hypothetical debate) and you'd be undermining your own position.

Maybe my points have the same problem. But since people who support the bombings don't seem to care about international law, I felt like these were a good second line of defence.

I wrote this on Reddit to argue against someone who suggested that Israel's response is justified, given that Hamas won an election. Here's what I responded:

There are several significant issues with your reasoning:

1. Voting has never implied being responsible for the crimes of your government.
2. There have not been elections since 2006. The Gaza Strip does not have a democratic system. This further challenges the argument that the population should pay some kind of price.
3. Hamas won the elections by taking 74 of the 132 seats in parliament. This means that 60 seats were for non-hamas participants of these elections. Consequently, many people who are trapped in Gaza and want nothing to do with Hamas are being punished/killed.
4. About 50% of the Gaza population is under 15 years of age. Attacking Gaza in this way should never have been on the table given these demographics.

In other words, the average voting age isn't too relevant.

The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.

Still civilians though. And, not all of them did. All in all it's madness to equate the entire Gaza population with the perpetrators the way that Israel is currently doing.

To be fair, extremism flourishes when conditions are bad. Hamas is potentially a product of these conditions, or at least partially. If both peoples would be afforded better conditions, they might seem less incompatible than the two groups seem at the moment.

About time the Palestian issue is put back on the agenda. Strangely enough, Israel is doing everything they can it seems to make that happen.

How can you say Six Sigma is bullshit?

It’s literally just a method of identifying a problem, measuring and analyzing its impact, and implementing a lasting solution.

The difference between the six sigma method and traditional organizations is that:

• Six sigma gives power to experts (instead of middle managers), * It involves staff who are actually doing the work
• It tests solutions before they’re implemented
• It acknowledges that many things can’t be forced top-down by the boss

You say that probably because many components in it look like common sense.

“Duh, of course the response to a problem should be to rectify it” (simplifying slightly)

Lots of companies don’t though. Or they jump to a conclusion about the best solution. Or some middle manager decides he knows what’s best and then proceeds to break things.

It’s quite useful to have a philosophy that gives authority to non-traditional but logical steps.

I mean, that’s what people do with models and methodologies right? In my language English terms are used when using an English methodology.

Kaizen comes from Japan, was developed in Japan, and it was quite successful there. It’s not that strange to copy it word for word.

The idea behind it is quite different from what tends to happen in traditional Western companies. Since companies want to be better than their competitors and organizational change is hard, it makes sense to look for ready-made tools, rather than try to reinvent the wheel.

Of course, since (organizational) change makes many employees nervous, depending on how the organization goes about it Kaizen could get a bad name.