+1, you convinced me.

I worry this will distract from risks like "making an AI that is smart enough to learn how to hack computers from scratch", but I don't buy the general "don't distract with true things" argument.

"I don't think that there is more that 1% that support direct violence against non-terrorists for its own sake": This seems definitely wrong to me, if you also count Israelies who consider everyone in Gaza as potential terrorists or something like that.

If you offer Israelies:

Button 1: Kill all of Hamas

Button 2: Kill all of Gaza

Then definitely more than 1% will choose Button 2

I haven't heard of anything like that (but not sure if I would).

Note there are also problems in trying to set up a government using force, in setting up a police force there if they're not interested in it, in building an education system (which is currently, afaik, very anti Israel and wouldn't accept Israel's opinions on changes, I think) ((not that I'm excited about Israel's internal education system either)).

I do think Israel provides water, electricity, internet, equipment, medical equipment (subsidized? free? i'm not sure of all this anyway) to Gaza. I don't know if you count that is something like "building a stockpile of equipment for providing clean drinking water to residents of occupied territory".

I don't claim the current solution is good, I'm just pointing out some problems with what I think you're suggesting (and I'm not judging whether those problems are bigger or smaller).

What do you mean by "building capacity" in this context? (maybe my English isn't good enough, I didn't understand your question)

I was a software developer in the Israeli military (not a data scientist), and I was part of a course constantly trains software developers for various units to use. 

The big picture is that the military is a huge organization, and there is a ton of room for software to improve everything. I can't talk about specific uses (just like I can't describe our tanks or whatever, sorry if that's what you're asking, and sorry I'm not giving the full picture), but even things like logistics or servers or healthcare have big teams working on them.

Also remember the military started a long time ago, when there weren't good off-the-shelf solutions for everything, and imagine how big are the companies that make many of the products that you (or orgs) use.

1. There are also many Israelies that don't consider Plaestinians to be humans worth protecting, but rather as evil beings / outgroup / whatever you'd call that.
2. Also (with much less confidence), I do think many Palastinians want to kill Israelies because of things that I'd consider brainwashing. 
   1. Hard question - what to do about a huge population that's been brainwashed like that (if my estimation here is correct), or how might a peaceful resolution look?

Not a question, but seems relevant for people who read this post:

Meni Rosenfeld, one of the early LessWrong Israel members, has enlisted:

Source: https://www.facebook.com/meni.rosenfeld/posts/pfbid0bkvfrb3qFTF7U82eMgkZzgMjMT4s3pbGUx7ahgKX1B8hr2n1viYqg9Msz6t3dBUPl (a public post by him)

Eliezer replied on the EA Forum

Any ideas on how much to read this as "Sam's actual opinions" vs "Sam trying to say things that will satisfy the maximum amount of people"?

(do we have priors on his writings? do we have information about him absolutely not meaning one or more of the things here?)

Hey Kaj :)

The part-hiding-complexity here seems to me like "how exactly do you take a-simulation/prediction-of-a-person and get from it the-preferences-of-the-person".

For example, would you simulate a negotiation with the human and how the negotiation would result? Would you simulate asking the human and then do whatever the human answers? (there were a few suggestions in the post, I don't know if you endorse a specific one or if you even think this question is important)