Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being a hilarious insufferable reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal critical theorist Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man idiosyncratic party-line Fox News boomer. No one yet has guessed a scholar, or multiple people. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
You are conflating causal and correlation relationships.
George Floyd and the anti-ICE protests are part and parcel of the same progressive-urban-racial spoils systems democratic party coalition. This coalition is what more broadly leads/coordinates/self-catalyzes the progressive front of the culture war, which emerged over the last 20 years as the Clinton coalition fell apart and was replaced by the more culture-war-enthusiastic Obama coalition. The Somalis don't cause this, they correlate with it as one part of the broader coalition.
This progressive democratic political machine, in turn, dominates the twin city region in part because of the Somali kingmaker status, which the Somalis support because it expands the spoils of the party spoil system. The Somalis are causal in this dominance due to their kingmaker role as a cohesive voting block, and the spoils they have capitalized on / engineered. Their influence emerged in the late 2000s/early 2010s due to the family reunification/naturalization cycle which only became apparent in the 2010s with the rise of a political Somali elite such as AOC.
The Somalis stand out due to how they leveraged the culture war / spoil system axis to stand out in their locality, which itself embraced the broader culture war in a way that it hadn't before their arrival enabled the progressive-municipality cluster to dominate to the degree (D+30) that they could pursue the culture war rather than the typical moderation for Minnesota politics. They stand out all the more as one of the remnants of the Obama coalition that more or less validated the emerging democratic majority thesis, just locally instead of nationally.
This makes for easy presentation of their political machine-area as emblematic of what's wrong with the culture war from the opposition side.
If we are negotiating a deal, and I ask if you plan to kill me in case we end up not coming to an agreement, and you say that it isn't off the table... That is a threat.
To interject just here- if you think I took a position that it was not a threat, you misunderstood the point of the post you are responding to. My position is not that it can't be a threat. My position, made more explicit and encompassing elaboration below, is that it is not a direct threat, that treating it as a threat is a choice of the recipient, and that even if you want to take that position then it is a weak threat.
Returning to the para in full-
If we are negotiating a deal, and I ask if you plan to kill me in case we end up not coming to an agreement, and you say that it isn't off the table... That is a threat. You are threatening to kill me if I don't give you what you want. You would just prefer a different way, but if that turns out impossible or too expensive, you are saying that you will in fact try and kill me.
It is precisely because you accept the paradigm that you are negotiating a deal that the indirect threat is weak and safe to disregard as a threat, and that treating it as a direct statement of intent is increasing the risk (and costs) for your negotiations here and in the future.
All negotiations deal with implicit and explicit threats. The very possibility of walking away from a negotiation is a form of threat, since it indicates a consequence of denying the opponent what they want (the subject of negotiation) at a cost the opponent prefers (the cost of a negotiated solution, as opposed to the costs of the baseline alternative to a negotiated agreement, i.e. BATNA). This is typically on the low end of the threat spectrum, but it is none the less a form of threat available to both parties.
At the same time, (competent) negotiations entail knowing when and how to deal with, deflect, or dismiss threats based on their credibility. Threats, after all, can be very cheap if they are only words. An insincere threat, one made without an intent to carry out, is still quite valuable if it drives the opponent to make a [concession] to make it go away. Getting something potentially valuable, but for practically free, is an incredible incentive, especially in repeat-game dynamics where the knowledge of willingness to make a concession informs further [concessions]. And there are few threats as cheap to make as an indirect / implicit threat that requires the other side to carry it for you.
And note that [concession] in this context doesn't need to be the nominal subject of negotiation. To dip into the OP context of Greenland as a US-Denmark negotiation, a weak threat over Greenland does not have to be answered with a handover of Greenland. It might be resolved by something like Denmark taking (or not taking/changing) a specific policy position on, say, chip production and trade with the Chinese. Or NATO funding. Or covering base costs. Or anything else of interest to the Americans. The value of cheap threats isn't [specific concession], but [concession] in general, especially in repeat game formulas where smaller [concessions] can add up over time if you know the other party is inclined to over-estimate your threats.
Going back to the general form, this is why if you on the receiving side of a threat, it helps to be able to deflect/dismiss it in ways without making concessions, especially if your goal is to deny the other party their ambition. In a 'defense' negotiation where you want to preserve the status quo, your goal is to raise the costs to the adversary enough that they no longer perceive it as worth the further cost to pursue. Dismissing indirect threats is preferable because a non-acknowledgement forces the offender into a decision to either drop the issue without gaining a concession, in which case 'you' have lost nothing, or to make the implicit threat more directly.
Forcing adversaries to make explicit threats rather than making concessions to implicit threats is good for you, the recipient of threats, because you are shifting the balance of costs against the threatener. The threatener wants to use implicit/indirect threats instead of direct threats in the first place because they are cheaper than explicit threats. Explicit threats often result in (typically) unwanted secondary effects, such as rallying the domestic political base around the leader being threatened, invite external intervention/support into the negotiation against the threatener, and raise the reputational costs to the explicit threatener if they back down by not carrying through. Not being willing to carry through is half the point of using the implicit threat in the first place. You, the defender, are under no obligation to make a concession to a weak threat that wouldn't be carried through.
But note- publicly treating an weak threat as a credible threat is itself a sort of concession to the threat-maker!
A more nuanced double-edged concession, but one that many parties willing to play 'the heel' will happily accept.
This is because the party elevating the threat is investing their own credibility and position into the adversary's threat for them. If you act as if the person threatening you really means it and would really do it, you are signaling to other people that they should take the adversary's threats as credible. And part of taking other people's threats as credible is making concessions to avoid the costs of those threats being carried out. Even if you make no other concession, and hope to reap in the benefits of domestic or external support, you can still be offering [concessions] in genenneral via enhancing the adversary's reputation and credibility to compel [concessions] in other- and future- negotiations.
Including negotiations with you. Which- if you later approach with the history/perceived perception of being Very Very Scared- can convince your own faction that the adversary is credible and sincere in their threats and thus warrant concessions earlier at less cost. But worse, you might also convince the opponent that you see them as scary and credible, and thus increasing the incentive of threats. Which not only running into your own framing bias, but also have the separate issue that- if you do intend to call a bluff- they are in a position where the cost of being called is now closer to the cost of going through with the threat anyway. Which is the context where you actually should be offering concessions if you are serious about denying the [thing] from a position of weakness, because your negotiating goal is to keep the adversary viewing the cost of carrying out the threat as worse than the equivalent.
But there's another drawback here- even if you act as if the adversary makes a strong and direct threat, that doesn't mean they have. Or that the resulting support will do more to deter than to encourage the mentality behind the explicit threats. Adversaries have their own ability to shape the information space, and there are as few things as easy to respond to of 'you said that' as 'no I didn't, here's the proof of what I did say.' Proof may be irrelevant to various groups that would be aligned regardless, but it is a way to separate would-be supporters who might have supported the defender against an explicit threat. That division- or even the division of people who express nominal solidarity but caveat it accordingly because they recognize the implicit-versus-explicit distinction going on that you conflated- can itself be another [concession] the adversary might want. Splitting a coalition because Party B won't be associated/stand by/defend Party A's rhetoric is a classic gain. Worse (for the defender) is if the allies they count on for support would rather prioritize ties with the aggressor than maintain a common front- see the recent sacrifice of European economic interest groups, the nominal heart and reason for being of the EU, to prioritize the American security relationship. Such divisions invite future exploitation, which can create future divisions, which can invite future future exploitations.
This is why the rule of thumb advice is 'don't give a concession for free' also ties to 'don't treat a threat as serious/credible if you don't have to.'
(This doesn't try to address next-level formulations, where things presented as negatives above may in fact be positives from a different paradigm. For example- European elites who would like to exaggerate American threats to build political support for a common European defense policy, and American elites who would happily play the role of villain if it allows European elites to increase European military spending so that the American elites can disengage from the continent. In such a case, 'threats' like 'do this and we'll end NATO' turn into incentives, but this is so far from base premise it's a huge rabbit hole of its own.)
Using your own criteria here, there is a statement of intention: If a deal cannot be reached, the US military will seize the island from the Danish government.
This is not from a statement of intention by the statement of a threat-maker. This is an inference of intention, from the observer.
This distinction matters, both in terms of who is making it, and what it implies one should do regardingn the threat maker.
When he makes the threat again after bombing Venezuela, this indicates that the US is willing to risk a war to get what they want.
Substitute this with the distinction of who is making the which claim,
When I infer a threat again after he bombs Venezuela, *I act as if this indicates the US is willing to risk a war to get what they want.
Note that in this venue, the US does not have to be willing to risk a war to get what they want. But if you act as if they were, particularly if you believe they are, then you can be pushed into acting out the [concessions] such a framing would warrant, even by people who might accurately understand such a perception is unnecessary / factually wrong.
There is also a condition for how it might be avoided: "Sell or give us Greenland, on terms that are acceptable to the US".
This is, again, the inference of the threat, not the stated conditions of a threat.
This matters on the conditions-to-avoid end because it is much easier for a threatener to change the conditions if they never specified them in the first place. If the recipient would make concessions in response to implicit terms, they have already demonstrated their intent/willingness to make [concessions] in principle, and thus continue to make [concessions] to implications of further conditions... let alone further explicit demands. This deal's getting worse all the time and all that.
This is precisely the sort of context where forcing the adversary to make explicit their threats, and their conditions, can improve the defending state's ability to gather and utilize external support. Even if external supporters may not be willing to actively fight against the threatener on the defender's behalf, they may be willing to increase the costs of renenging on the deal, and so indirectly (or directly) enforce the deal in a way that stops the bleeding of [concessions] over the issue.
At the same time, this is a context where implicit threats may result in [concessions] short of the inferred condition that none the less encourage the use of implicit threats in the future. If, say, the Danish government makes a [concession] of 'we won't sell Greenland, but we will pay more of the costs of American soldiers in Greenland,' that may well be enough to lead the Trump administration to drop the push for Greenland's sale... but future considerations, such as budgetary constraints that lead to an attempt to short the bill, which a future administration may / may not use as a future pretext.
The negotiating leverage is that no sane country wants to fight the American military, and Trump knows this. He is using the threat of invasion as leverage to get a better deal.
He would have no leverage with this threat if people dismissed is as the weak, indirect threat it is instead of treating it as massive leverage, which requires a concession of credibility.
Leverage in negotiations is not an objective metric score. It is highly subjective. It is also subjective in both directions.
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
Does anyone have any theories as to why this is?
Democratic party machine politics that evolved over the post-90s with invitation / incorporation of the Somali diaspora, which was part of an evolution from from a blue-collar/labor coalition to the more modern progressive/racial-interest group coalition.
Minnesota in the 90s was a soft blue-tribe area in the 90s, but also politically heterodox enough that spoiler candidates or waves could reverse general trends. It was that sort of 'close-but-just-enough-of-an-edge' that consistency in turnout machines can provide a decisive edge. You can see an example of the narrowness of edge in the district political leanings table, where- for example- the Democrats hold onto the 2nd district with a D+1 margin. (Note also the 4th district, which is D+30. That will be important later.)
In the 20th century, that political machine was a farmer-labor party, mixed with the political machine of the major cities. Basic late new deal coalition politics, the gradual decline of the new deal coalition model, etc.
But in 1991, as a result of the Somalia Civil War, Somalis were designated with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The Immigration Act of 1990 authorized TPS under a general concept of 'if something goes down while they are here, you don't have to send them back.' It was, as the name implies, intended to be temporary, and subject to renewal by the executive branch every 18 months.
Of course, the civil war didn't end within 18 months, and so it kept getting extended. And Somalis in the states could use their position in the states as a basis for getting family back in Somalia under family reunification policies. According to a flier from the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, 2/3rds of US legal migration is under family reunification policies. Vague but hard-to-objectively-assert claims are that Somalis are a prominent family reunification community, not dominating the applications but a disproportionate share (that I was unable to verify).
Of course, back in 2008 a State Department found
A 2008 State Department study of African refugees (many of them Somali) seeking family reunification in the United States found that 80 percent of applications included at least one fraudulent family member. The program was then suspended for four years until a DNA testing requirement could be added.
This, of course, is the scandal referred to by the International Refugee Assistance Project, though the scandal is how requests-for-evidence delay refugee applications from various muslim countries like Somalia, not the false family claims. The IRAP helpfully offers a help-sheet for avoiding requests for evidence in refugee family reunification petititonns. This includes a significant emphasis on challenging the legality of the request for evidence to push back against having to provide such evidence.
Anyways, Minnesota and the Somali community. The somali diaspora settled heavily in the Twin City areas, i.e. the political nerve center of the state, i.e. includes the 5th district area referenced before. Citing wikipedia to track that growth over time-
According to the Minnesota Department of Health, 23,915 refugees arrived in Minnesota from Somalia between 1979 and 2017. The Minnesota Department of Human Services recorded 13,582 Somali refugees arriving between 2005 and 2018.[8] In 2024, Minnesota recorded 1,267 arrivals from Somalia. Secondary migration from other U.S. states has also been a large source of population growth. Between 2010 and 2016, Minnesota received 3,740 documented secondary arrivals, primarily from New York and Texas, settling mainly in Hennepin, Stearns, and Kandiyohi counties.
Or to reframe- of about 24k that arrived over a 38 period, over half arrived between 2005 and 2018. 2005 is about 15 years after the first TPS admissions would have started, which is also about 3 naturalization cycles (5 years from legal resident to US citizen). That broader period is itself about a generation and a half of born-in-the-US-to-legal-adulthood generations as well. Which, of course, allows them to participate in family reunification appeals as well. And most of that hyper-growth period was under the Obama administration, which was certainly sympathetic to the idea of the permanent Democratic majority thesis of demographics and destiny, and involved a whole host of activist groups- such as the IRAP- who wanted to help it along.
The point here isn't that the Somali diaspora growth in the Twin Cities region was illegal, but rather that it was purposeful. Purpose without a shared intent between all the actors involved, but purposeful all the same.
And this goes back to the point of Minessota as a previously soft-blue tribe state with a relatively even equilibrium. In a relatively weak balance of power, even a relatively small block- if concentrated and coherent enough- can decisively shape the balance of power. And not even the balance of power between parties, but within parties.
It's not that the Twin Cities were previously a republican stronghold that was flipped by mass migration. Rather, the post-new-deal coalition of labor, farmer, and city machines saw a relatively organized and consolidated Somali community dropped onto the city machine, whether they promptly pursued their self-interest in things ranging from migration assistance lobbying to, well, social welfare such as childcare. They might not have been able to dominate the Twin Cities themselves, but they could play Kingmaker in democratic coalition politics, which is how you get things like years of Democratic administrators too afraid to confront the Somali fraud scandals.
And that shift came within the broader shift over the same decades of the Democratic party in general, which shifted from a general new deal labor coalition- the stuff of the Minessota farmer-labor party origin- to an urban racial-spoils coalition, where DEI was the policy mechanism by which to reward / advance allies in the racially-self-conscience coalitions. Like, say, the political Somali community. They didn't cause the game, but they are a product and a player in the game.
But remember- there's a discrete start point to this. The number of Somalis in Minessotta before 1990 was a not-quite-0k. Almost everything starts with the 1991 TPS admissions. But it still takes 5-ish years for people who were just arriving then to naturalize, and then use their citizenship as a basis to bring in people who will need another five years. So the policy started in he early 1990s, would only start to self-catalyze into a critical mass by the 2000s, where it coincides with the Bush-era immigration debates and then leads into the start of the Obama coalition. And even then, it's not a sudden change, but rather a shift in the internal balance of the city-machines of already democratic places. But they are a part and parcel of the shift of the democratic party from the previous labor-leaning coalition of the pre-1990s, to the urban culture warring coalition of the 2000s.
So for an outsider, it's relatively easy to have not see the ground shifting underneath until... bam. Democratic coalition of progressive culture warriors and racial coalitions has taken over the Democratic Party in general, and Minesotta in particular.
Dean
Flairless
2d ago
Wasn't her partner's videos one of the earlier released and claimed as evidence against the ICE? I.e., a pre-staged filmer for a deliberage ICE obstruction stunt?
Threaten a military takeover. He did this by stating that military intervention was not considered off the table. This was shut down by European leaders promising to retaliate.
This just bugs my 'words have meaning' nerve.
In its most general form, a threat is a an indication of intention- verbal or non-verbal- to inflict harm of someone. Often this comes with a conditional, but not always.
When Trump said he was 'going to bomb the shit out of [ISIS],' that was a threat. It wasn't conditional, but it was very much an indication of an intention soon followed.
When Trump said that threats with North Korea would be met with 'fire and fury,' that was a threat. It was vauge on what said fire and fury entailed, and allowed people to project a nuclear dynamic, but it was a threat with a condition (of North Korea threats continuing).
When earlier today Trump said he called off a second wave of attacks on Venezuela because it released a large number of political prisoners, that is a threat. The indication to attack was conditional on a condition no longer present, i.e. Venezuelan behavior, but the threat is on the condition of if that cooperation changes.
'Military intervention is not off the table' is not a statement of intention. It does not indicate an intent to inflict harm. It does not set a condition for which it might be avoided. It does not even set a condition for it to be enacted. It's a non-denial, but a non-denial is not an affirmation. It is, at most, the implication of the possibility of a threat... which has no negotiating leverage or coercive value if you simply choose another implication to interpret, at which point the speaker either has to up the ante by making a more explicit threat, or not sustain the implicit threat.
I tend to loath macho posturing comparisons, but even if you want to act as if that's a threat, it is an incredibly weak threat by the standards of Trump- who is not exactly adverse to explicit threats of military attacks- and it makes the sort of people who treat it as a strong threat seem even weaker in turn.
...and neither of those give you legal equivalency a law enforcement officer conducting legitimate law enforcement activities.
The last I checked the criminal laws police officers conducting law enforcement operations didn't get any special privileges regarding standards when lethal force is justified,
This begs three questions:
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When did you last check?
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How did you last check?
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Why did your check fail to find rules of engagement?
In Germany, and to my knowledge other european countries as well, police are taught to shoot for warning, at the leg or at tires, so there exist competing schools at thought and differing laws.
There may different schools of thought and laws, but there aren't different schools of biology. The leg is not a vestigial body part that can be safely and predictably punctured with ordinance. It may not be 'as' deadly as a shot to the chest or the head, but this is because of the order priority of critical organs, not because of a lack of critical bodily functions, i.e. arteries.
If someone competent tells you that they are shooting at the legs to warn rather than kill, they are lying to you. It may be policy to lie to you, it may be part of security theater to make the public feel better and that things aren't so dangerous, but it is at best a case of 'and trying to kill,' not 'instead of.'
Dean
Flairless
3d ago
You were a police officer conducting a law enforcement action at a bank drive-thru with a 4-year-old-kid?
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
I'm not claiming to know exactly what legal standard applies in this case, but normally, when there's a threat, you have a duty to flee.
"I don't know the legal standard that applies, so I'm going to introduce an entirely different standard (that also may or may not apply) premised on typical assumptions towards an atypical context" is certainly a take.
You do not have the right to kill someone unless necessary to protect yourself from serious injury or death.
This is much less so, since it entirely depends on who 'you' are, and in what contexts. Just to take one, governments reserve the right to kill people who challenge their monopoly on legal violence, whether that challenger personally threatens a representative or not. And this does not go into the rights to kill people who are threatening other people, whether members of the public or other agents of the government, let alone matters of perception of threat.
Perception, in turn, is what many of the legal rights to kill in self-defense hinge on. Particularly the perception of 'you', the person who feels in danger, and not 'you', the person who does not.
The cop easily got out of the way and was just barely in the way to begin with.
Why do you believe* the cop 'easily' got out of the way, as opposed to 'nimbly' when a slight difference of balance or attention would have not gotten out of the way?
Moreover, why do you believe 'easily' matters at all? If you are conceeding the officer was in the way of an accelerating vehicle, it does not matter if the were 'barely' or not. Being in the way is a binary state- you either are, or you are not, and if so then it validates perception of threat.
*Aside from the framing bias effect of the slow-motion video formats going around, which is a format that is typically used to exagerate to the audience how much time was on hand to process events, and use that implication as an anchoring bias to shape future considerations?
He was standing in front of the corner of the car. The car was not going fast enough to seriously injury him and the wheels were turned.
Getting run over by a car can potentially seriously injur someone regardless of what part of the car does so. In turn, the wheels were turning multiple directions in the event, including in directions that would- by your own admission- put the officer in the way.
She did not go straight forward. She was clearly trying to get away, not run him over.
Why do you believe she was 'clearly' not trying to run him over, from his perspective?
Remember, perception matters in self defense and use of force. Even if 'you' would have clearly felt she was not trying to run 'you' over if you were in his position, that would merely mean it would be unjustified murder for 'you' to have shot her. It would not change that if 'he' perceived differently, it would merely be a justified self defense.
'I wouldn't have felt afraid for my life if I were in their position' is irrelevant even if true. Reasonable person standards for perception don't enable a veto even by a reasonable person, because reasonable people can disagree.
The cop fired a second time from the side when he was well clear of the car and there was no risk to anyone.
Why do you believe there was no perceived risk to anyone to people who just perceived risk to themselves?
These... didn't come to mind first?
Very appropriately not, because the declaration of independence and constitution were not the basis even the American anti-abortion movement believing in a God-given rights, or the moral impetus to protecting unborn children. The premise of human rights does not first bring to mind your cited documents, because they are neither the origin or the primary legitimizer of the premise of God-given rights.
Many in that movement are, in turn, much more familiar with the religious background of that premise of inalienable rights bestowed by the creator, and that religious tradition's view on children, which far, far predate the American documents in this question.
Many in the more modern era who wish to appropriate their slogans to other causes- such as opposition to capital punishment, which ignores the intellectual tradition emphasizing the role of innocence- or to paint the anti-abortion movement as hypocrites, will gladly use the phrase with equal disregard of the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. They are using the phrase in the sense of arguments as soldiers.
I'm a bit surprised I have to explain this?
I would be a bit less surprised that an American was today years old when they first learned that a major part of the culture war for their entire life had a slogan that was first popularized by religious people referring to their religion, and not an American political document written about 250 years ago alluding to that religious tradition.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
A "right to life" ring a bell?
Yes- as a political slogan of the pro-life movement, relating to the inherent innocence of unborn who have made no decisions that could warrant killing them.
Secondarily, as a bad-faith attempt to twist that broadly understood meaning into other non-analogous contexts, typically as a poor 'gotcha' intended to imply hypocrisy.
Dean
Flairless
6d ago
I think we are at peace here, and am glad for it. I believe you meant no offense. Thank you for your graciousness in return.
I also have a separate (not always upheld) rule to not re-engage past arguments the day after on the internet, so please take no implication if I skip past everything else without comment to just answer your pet peave.
By the way, completely unrelated pet peeve: why do you abbreviate the country as "Saudi", given that it is a nisbah? That's like calling the US "of America", or referring to its southerly neighbour as "Mexican" as in "I am going to Mexican on vacation".
Linguistic imperialism laziness/ignorance/habit of referring to them as the Saudis. But also because I had been trying to wordsmith that post for some time and rewrote parts enough (for clarity / charity / etc.) that I got tired of writing out "Saudi Arabia" in full and I was getting tired enough that I just wanted to post it.
I normally don't refer to the country as just Saudi, though I do refer to the state/government as 'the Saudis.' That's a relatively common nomenclature, even if it's technically/linguistically incorrect. I'd go 'Kingdom of Saudi Arabia' if I had to be really official, but in that context I just wanted a one-word identifier and 'KSA' seemed like a clunkier acronym.
And, really, I was tired and just couldn't push myself to go back.
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
What makes this more interesting is that 32 Cubans, including military personnel, were also reportedly killed. It's unclear what they were doing where when the bombs struck, but Chavez and Maduro were reportedly relying on Cubans for presidential security all the way back in the 2000s/2010s.
32 people is a platoon's worth, or four squads. That many don't normally get taken out in a single strike. I would be willing to consider that some may have been manning the sort of air defense assets that were ambiguously targeted in the explosions in the morning, but...
...well, with the VP-coup angle, that opens the possibility that there might have been some Venezuelan-on-Cuban action going on.
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
What's funnier than an Isekai Delivery Service shirt from Amazon?
An extra extra large Isekai Delivery Service shirt, falling down the flight of stairs towards you.
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
For a moment I read that as 'isekai agent,' and I was even more confused when you said to offer them a pager instead of a truck ride.
Man, this thread got weird.
I've written a mea culpa for 4bpp (in response to Arijan), but I genuinely didn't get that people thought I wasn't saying that Israel had nukes out of some official obligation. I wasn't saying it because at first I didn't think it needed to be said because it was obvious, and afterwards I didn't say because I thought it was a non-sequitur and some bad faith (since cleared up) from 4bpp.
Before today I was fairly sure I'd raised up Israeli nukes enough in the past that there was a broader perception idea that I was trying to deny/not admit Israeli nukes didn't cross my mind.
To be fair, you are going to bizarre lengths to imply that Israel doesn't have nuclear weapons,
...you know, if someone I had less faith in the good faith of had said that, I would have dismissed it. Instead, I forced myself to do a review. I don't see what you apparently see as 'bizarre lengths' in a short-ish 2-post exchange, but I do see places where I both was relying too much on implicit points, where there was backthought no one else would see, and a place where I simply erred.
Also, @4bpp, since I'm going to eat some crow on insufficient charity towards you, but also admit to suspecting bad faith from you with your question. That, and some things that you weren't to blame for, shaped that response. Consider this me clearing the air, but still being viewing you as someone to engage in good faith going forward.
(...but also @ArjinFerman again, for pushing me to some reflection that might have otherwise ended with concluding bad faith from someone from now on.)
Le sigh. Let's get it on record, but also give Ilforte something to laugh at.
On the subject of Israeli nukes-
I, Dean the Motte Poster, totally believe Israel has nuclear weapons. I sincerely believe I have also repeatedly raised it in the past, unprompted, and enough times that the fact that you thought I was trying to hide this is one of my two reasons for responding. I don't expect anyone to pay too much attention to my past posts, but I'm fairly sure it's come up in the context of why 'and then the Arabs will overrun Israel' or 'and then Iran will wipe Israel off the face of the earth' and even in a long-form about how nukes don't deter proxy wars because look at Israel and Iran.
In the context of this post exchange, I did not address the issue of Israeli nukes (a) I thought my past position on this was common knowledge enough to move past it, (b) because I view it as irrelevant to the point I had made in the post 4bpp was responding to, and (c) because I misunderstood 4bpp's perception of why I'd done that, even as my reason for doing so was not explained on my part.
On the subject of Motte glow-
I refuse to answer questions about my IRL for personal reasons, not professional. I have two personal rules for the internet on top of usual internet secrecy. First, I deliberately never claim, confirm, or deny any professional affiliation. This calls to mind for most people the American espionage cliche of 'neither confirm or deny,' but it's a lot more basic than that. I find it incredibly trite, annoying, and unfalsifiable when people claim it on online, which I don't want to do to others. It also weakens your persuasiveness in other topics, since people will look for excuses to dismiss and a confirmed unrelated profession is an easier basis of dismiss than an uncertainty. Second, I keep my hobby accounts separate. The Motte is where I indulge in my geopolitics and culture war hobby, but people who see that here don't see me spurge on other things elsewhere, so they build a mental model of where the only thing I spurge about is geopolitics and (mostly American) politics. This compounds with the first rule, since people naturally ask/suspect that I therefore must the profession of the thing I talk most about, and I never give a clear answer or alternative.
As for the Motte government thing in particular, I've been not-so-subtly playing along with this theme since Ilforte accused me of being a Polish spook when I was between jobs years ago. The prospect seemed to annoy him at a time he was stanning Russia, so I played along and played it up. I do deep dive into a lot of American government stuff, but this is as often for personal pique (like reading the US National Security Strategy rather than just trusting g media coverage of it) as the fact that I've been subscribing to international relations media for literal decades.
On the subject of NDAs that make you toe a party line-
I am unaware of any sort of non-disclosure agreement- governmental or corporate or judicial- that can require people to take a party line on a topic on anonymous internet conversations. I also inclined to think the premise is dumb, given the monitoring and enforcement challenges of such a premise. On the chance I am wrong and they do exist in the world and not just bad espionage thrillers, then I am happy to say I think the premise is still dumb, and that a better uber-NDA would simply ban you from talking about a subject entirely. Requiring you to talk about it in a certain way to glow to internet audiences is antithetical to a large part of the point of an NDA, which isn't just to keep you from saying something but also to keep people from knowing you could say something.
I also think it's a dumb question to ask outright even if you do suspect it. Any sort of super-surveillance system that could compel someone to have to take 'the party line' in internet anonymous conversations has to catch them to enforce it. That means de-anonymizing their anonymity. If you thought that was how it worked, but also thought you might get an honest answer of yes, you might as well have held up a line to the panopticon going 'would you please incriminate yourself to the panopticon by breaking your promise to the panopticon?' It would also flag the person asking that question. Which trivially leads to de-anonymizing them.
Just stating your beliefs plainly would probably dispell any suspicion about your luminosity levels.
Okay, sure. Aside from the Israel thing, I assume you also mean what my position during this exchange was? I'll clarify it, and use it to clear the air with 4bpp.
In my opening, which 4bpp responded to, I am asking, quite literally, which of the big five nuclear powers is supposed to be convinced of Lizzardspawn's position.
I asked this question because I believe Lizzardspawn's proscription is bad, and as a prediction worse, and indicates a poor understanding of the international environment. I think there are a whole host of reasons why nuclear powers would not want normalize eachother nuclear first-striking states with 'a nuclear weapon program.' Three reasons, unstated but hopefully obvious enough to not need elaboration, are that civil nuclear programs for near-breakout are protected under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, it tends to be bad form to let your geopolitical enemies nuke your allies, and its even worse for you to nuke your own.
But this not-explicit argument was also meant to capture that the scope of 'nuclear weapon program' is incredibly broad. It can include everything across a spectrum of 'has it, but unannounced' (Isreal) to 'does not have it, but seeking others' (Saudi) to 'doesn't have it, but could quickly' (all the other breakouts). Israel and Saudi were both included examples of non-breakout states that could qualify as 'having a nuclear weapon program' despite not being breakout states. They were meant to be a pair showing opposite ends of a spectrum where breakout is in the middle between them, rather than Saudi being breakout as well and Israel being the odd state out. This was not well conveyed.
My intent was to allude to these unstated points by pointing at various ally/adversary clusters who might be nuked for breakout capacity (such as France/Britain and Russia over Germany/Poland over the European theater), and then a cluster of more ambiguous not-ally-but-partnerships, such as the middle east spectrum of 'not-so-secretly has nukes' (Israel, who works with the US), 'is-seeking-nukes' (Iran, who works with the Russians and Chinese), and 'is-not-necessarily-seeking-nukes-but-maybe' (Saudi, who works with both the US and China and-). The point of the answer of the question is to draw out that either a Big 5 nuclear country would be expected to nuke their own allies, let their archrivals nuke their allies, or nuke the ever-stable middle east that both the Europeans and the Chinese really like their energy exports from.
I also thought I was being clear in the second post that I was asking about the big five when I disagreed and did not engage with the premise of 4bpp's leading questions ("Is this to suggest...", "wish to participate in curious play," or the "or think...") and to instead return to my original question.
I viewed 4bpp's questions as leading, not interested in engaging in my question or the points I had made. I also viewed, and view, the form of asking with suspicion, as rather than ask a direct question to me, 4bp passively presented characterizations of positions I had not taken. He proposed what I 'suggested,' 'wished,' or 'thought' when I did no such thing. I have a long-standing irritation at my position being mispresented, but these were also framed in such a way that a non-answer could have been perceived as an answer, a sort of strawman by insinuation. Despite suspicion, I felt charity called for me to clarify if I had been misunderstood.
As for the questions themselves, I ignored them because I felt they were all non-sequiturs to my question of who in the big 5 was supposed to adopt Lizard's position. Whether Israel has nuclear weapons is irrelevant to which members of the big five would adopt Lizard's view. Whether I wish to participate in curious play over Israel's nukes is irrelevant to which members of the big five would adopt Lizard's view. Whether I think announcing nuclear weapons is analogous to breakout is irrelevant to which members of the big five would adopt Lizard's view.
The last question on public declaration did have the seed for a bad misinterpretation and miscommunication on my part, which showed in my third post.
In the third post, I was both surprised and a bit annoyed by 4bpp's closing (yet leading) question, which not only continued the insinuation-if-no-response from the previous question, but invited a new one.
I do find musing about someone's IRL to them to be bad form in the sense of a breach of internet etiquette. Particularly when it appears to be a setup to typecast them as a 'well of course you'd say X, you're Y.' Unfairly to 4bpp, my perception of his (question) was also shaped by a separate sort of 'you'd only say this because you're a X' argument elsewhere recently. This made the suspicion of bad faith from the previous questions worse, and contributed to a conclusion that my question and supporting points that had just been re-articulated were being ignored in order to make the leading questions.
I also felt the final question was bad as a matter of form, in the 'any response could be interpreted the same way' formation. Analogies to 'have you stopped beating your wife yet' came across, and didn't help. I didn't care so much about the government insinuation itself- as raised before I've leaned into it for the sake of teasing- but I am the sort of structural/formalist where if I feel the person is trying to insult me, I will at least hold them to do it better. "Romanes eunt domus" and all that, with an insistence on argument structure being my retort.
This contributed to tunnel vision, and where I deserve to eat crow.
As one of his two remaining paragraphs were about Israel, which I viewed as a non-sequitor, I felt it would be appropriate to briefly acknowledge and push past the first paragraph, of categorization. Here I did misunderstand 4bpp, and so my response was worse than unclear, but bad. In short, I perceived him as making an argument Lizardspawn did not make, when I was trying to draw attention (but didn't explicitly make an argument) about the laxity of Lizard's categorization. Instead, 4bpp was providing his perception of Lizard, and elaborating his question on why I included Israel as the only nuclear state. This was a fair request for clarification, and I did not catch it.
So, @4bpp, I do apologize for misunderstanding your question there. I did and do give you stink eye for that leading question, but I accept your response after that as genuine and worth trying for good faith in the future.
And with all that speaking clearly all spoke out, namaste.
I'm having de ja vu of a previous time you laughed at me not countering an argument that didn't really need to be countered, and for not using words I tend not to use unprompted. Which is even funnier because I have acknowledged/addressed/raised Israeli nuclear weapons in the past, and you recognize why it wasn't relevant now. Ah well.
Glad you're in good humor, Ilforte. You've been off-kilter the last few years since the move. Hope the family is well!
It's just that you listed it along with a set of countries that don't currently have nukes, discussing the hypothetical question whether someone now or in the proximate future would preemptively nuke them to prevent them from crossing the threshold if that were what it took.
The scope of 'has a nuclear weapons program' does rather run the gauntlet of 'already has' and 'could have soon' and 'has a nuclear power program,' yes. That was rather the point. It was a very poorly bounded claim, and returns to the question of 'who is supposed to agree with about their geopolitical friends/rivals nuking their friends/partners.
(Do you work some US-government-adjacent job that comes with speech obligations, to the extent you would even be allowed to disclose that? That would make a lot of things about my reality model click into place, given the number of times I have been frustrated with you arguing for the "party line" in the past.)
Mate. Think about what you just asked and how you asked it.
If I say 'yes,' you can take it as an honest admission and it validates your belief.
If I deny it, you can believe I am lying or am compelled to claim so and that it validates your belief.
If I don't say anything at all, you can believe I refusing to lie in a denial and use it to validate your belief.
If I reply without giving any sort of definitive answer, you can interpret it as a dodge for the same reason and use it to validate your belief.
Whatever you think of me or what I might do, I don't need to be under a nondisclosure agreement to disagree with the sort of reality model that believes it's more reasonable for someone to be under a nondisclosure agreement than to disagree with their sort of reality model. I am quite willing to disagree for free.
Dayum, third time is the charm. Still can't admit to any relative share of responsibility, can you?
Want to fall for it for a fourth time?
Regardless of the extent to which it is Venezuela's fault,
Wait for it.
There's a reason even those who try to blame the American sanctions studiously try to avoid having to establish any relative share of responsibility for the economic consequences of Chavez's, ahem, distinctive economic model.
Wait for it...
the US has actively sought to destabilize Venezuela. That means that the US has increased migrants and drugs flowing into the US so that Venezuela can be brought into the American zone of influence and get DEI, gay marriage and gender reassignment surgeries for kids.
Wait for it...
Why, I bet even you will studiously try to avoid answering that prompt, and will try to bypass that uncomfortable, overshadowing context once more.
Nailed it, two in a row with the same prediction from a day ago.
Want to walk into it for a third time in a row?
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
Setting aside that Venezuela is already a failed state causing migration and drug cartels, and has been for well over a decade-
Let's check for past predictions for a moment.
There's a reason even those who try to blame the American sanctions studiously try to avoid having to establish any relative share of responsibility for the economic consequences of Chavez's, ahem, distinctive economic model.
...and of course in response to that what you wrote...
That is an even stronger argument for not destroying Venezuela. Failed states cause migration and drug cartels. If Venezuela is struggling the last thing they need is sanctions and war.
As usual the military industrial complex is a leading cause of diversity and immigration.
..aaaand and wrote that despite...
Why, I bet even you will studiously try to avoid answering that prompt, and will try to bypass that uncomfortable, overshadowing context once more.
Called it!
They don't need to vote with one another. They only need to vote for the Democratic Party over the Republican Party, with the broader political machine papering the gaps and normal inter-party friction as competing sub-factions jostle for influence and favored candidates.
In terms of American party alignment, Somalis are very reliable voting block.
Both Jacob Frey and Omar Fateh ran as Democrats. Moreover, the Minneapolis mayoral elections are ranked choice voting, which is a system ideal for dominant political machines to prevent intra-party competition from compromising inter-party competition.
This is the party machine working as intended.
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