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FirmWeird

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joined 2022 September 05 23:38:51 UTC 

				
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FirmWeird


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The propaganda networks are in place, and the Palestinians have learned to play PR rope a dope by making sure that anything Israel does is seen as genocide.




They don't actually need to "play PR rope a dope" - what Israel is doing is nakedly and obviously an attempt at ethnic cleansing and genocide, to the point that high-ranking officials admit it and are currently wailing and moaning that they won't be able to continue the genocide due to the hostages being returned. When Israel starts talking about concentration camps and preparing settlers for the parts of Gaza they flattened and bulldozed, people don't need Yahya Sinwar whispering in their ears that something is wrong in order for them to correctly and accurately label something an attempted genocide. The majority of the civilised world can just look at the footage and evidence of what's happening in Gaza and call it what it is, and they would still have been able to do so even if all the Palestinian journalists had been killed.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It was a bad war, but what other choice did Israel have?




Other choice? Accept the deal and do a prisoner exchange in return for the hostages. No war, no ICC prosecutions, no IDF members committing suicide due to the depravity of their actions, Israelis would be able to travel/holiday without worrying about getting convicted for crimes against humanity/genocide, no Hezbollah rocket campaign destroying their economy, no Houthi rocket campaign making their ports go bankrupt...


Israel refused to take the hostages back multiple times because they preferred to go in and wipe out Gaza in order to try and ethnically cleanse and then settle the territory. Itamar Ben Gvir said multiple times that he had made sure to sink any deal involving the hostages being returned, and there's a decent chance that Smotrich resigns from government because getting the hostages back isn't worth not being able to murder more Palestinians and steal their territory.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Even if Israel for the last 50 years had engaged in solely defensive actions, accepted mass bombings as a thing that happens, and never did any counterstrikes, the Arab Palestinians would still try to genocide them.




How exactly do you know this? Do you have access to some kind of magical or scientific device that lets you understand people so well that you can definitively state how they would act in an alternative reality that's extremely different to our own? I personally don't think that the jews are such awful people that living near them for fifty years with no problems or violence would make people want to exterminate them. That said, you've left a few things out - would there still be an apartheid state? Would there still be settlements on Palestinian land? What exactly do you mean by "solely defensive actions"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why doesn't the US or some other nuclear power Simply (tm) operate nuclear power plants at a profit on foreign soil on behalf of the local government?




Because it is impossible to operate a nuclear power plant at a profit anywhere. I can't find a single example of a nuclear power plant that's run at a profit without a galaxy of government subsidies - the EROEI is not high enough to do so (and no, France doesn't count). You'd have to clear that particular hurdle first, and so far nobody has managed it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But why would Israel take that deal?




To save the lives of the hostages. They've given up and lost far more than they would have if they simply accepted the first deal that was offered to them - this is a worse outcome from any perspective other than "we need to wipe out the Palestinians for more lebensraum", and even that's debatable. Look at the big list of negative consequences from my earlier post and remember that none of this would happen if Israel just took the first deal.




But in the real world, that never works. To fail to defend yourself only invites contempt and more aggression, which applies as much in international politics as it does on the school play yard. If Israel did what you said, they would inevitably lose their country. And I would say they deserved it. Nothing is so contemptible as a person who doesn't defend their rights.




Actually, in the real world, when you ethnically cleanse undesirable populations for having the wrong religion you engender disgust and hatred in the majority of the rest of the world. Germany would have been better off if they simply gave the Jews the ability to vote and lived together with them - but they took your suggested course of action instead, and now Nazi Germany has been consigned to the dustbin of history. We're already seeing Israeli war criminals fleeing to Argentina to escape prosecution, but it is an open question as to whether or not history finishes the rhyme.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't believe that would be the case if there was a legitimate, good-faith effort to bring the two populations together and live in peace. It'd be a complicated process that required a lot of time and effort, as well as participation from the international community - you would of course have to have protections against retributive genocide. It wouldn't be easy or free of complications, but I think it'd be much better than the current apartheid situation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This statement becomes a lot less pithy when you factor in the actual history of the region. I may as well talk about how Israel brutally and evilly attacked Palestine for no reason on October 8 - you can make either side look good by arbitrarily choosing the moment at which you start counting the trading of blows.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think the fact that the Palestinians released some of the hostages because those hostages were kind to the Palestinian community before being abducted is a particularly strong argument for the idea that the Palestinians are evil monsters who just want to kill all jews for no reason.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My personal belief is that Israel should adopt a single-state solution with full democracy and franchise for everyone within the borders of Israel and Palestine. As for number 1... yes, I would prefer if they negotiated a return of the hostages. It might seem like a bit of a weak response if you hatched out of an egg on October 6th and have no prior knowledge of the region, but Israel has done far more and far worse to the Palestinians in the past. It would have been better to bury the hatchet and sue for peace on October 6th, but... well, 2 is accurate. I don't think there's any real arguments against this claim given that it is the official position of many members of the Israeli government. Not only do they want to do this, they have sunk multiple deals to return the hostages in order to keep the violence and ethnic cleansing going.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because their nuclear power system is failing, taking on vast amounts of debt and is on the verge of being nationalised due to financial problems, which is why it isn't an example of a successful, profitable nuclear power system.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Do you hold yourself to this standard on baseless conjecture?




The alternative world proposed above is so incredibly different from our own that I don't believe we can really draw an accurate picture of what happens in it. In the world being described there's no nakba and no system of apartheid. The Palestinians aren't just violent for no reason, they have a clear set of grievances with Israel and the USA that are extremely comprehensible, and those grievances simply do not exist in this hypothetical. The proposed world is so different from our own that I don't think it's really possible to draw meaningful conclusions from it - there's a very decent chance that 9/11 and the various US wars in the middle east also don't happen.




The Gazans, who voted in the Kill all Jews Party, will just get along in Israel if they have representation?




I believe that if you remove the causes of their grievances they will no longer be as disposed to violence. If you look back in history, there was a population of Palestinian jews who lived in the area without violence - there's actually direct historical evidence of Jewish and Arabic Palestinians living together in peace. Peaceful co-existence is possible, and a far more desirable state than what we have now.




Israel: a nuclear armed state, with 5th generation jet fighters, top tier intelligence agencies.




I do not believe Israel should be a nuclear-armed state. I'm more than happy for a united, single-state Palestine/Israel to have the Mossad shut down and their nuclear weapons disarmed in the same way South Africa's were.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And the Palestinians released some of the hostages with no conditions, so they're not trying to kill every ethnic Israeli they get their hands on. Absolutes make for poor arguments.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Except it's not a few months, it's 76 years.




Immaterial. The moment you deny the claims of the Palestinians to the land, you implicitly deny the much older and less substantial Israeli connection to the land. If the Palestinians don't have any claim after 76 years, the jews definitely don't after several thousand.




I'm not sure what you'd consider morally acceptable action on the part of the Israelis, unless it should be to just commit mass suicide to save the Palestinians the time?




One state solution with full democracy, or a two state solution. This would also have to include a tallying up of the damage caused by each side to determine if reparations have to happen too, not to mention trials for some of the more egregious acts - every single use of white phosphorous on civilian populations deserves criminal investigation at the least.




Leaving aside the fact that the Palestinians didn't control the region before 1948




I don't care to rehash the tired old argument about how the Palestinians didn't really exist, if you want to have that discussion go talk to somebody else and simply accept that I disagree.




If 9 million people who didn't choose to be born where they were accept getting slaughtered,




This isn't actually something that I said - please don't put words into my mouth. I in no way suggested that the Israelis accept getting slaughtered.




I'll repeat my question about whether you think Jews with central European ancestry are entitled to the land in Germany or Poland their ancestors lived on?




Depends on the individual context. There's a big difference between someone having their home stolen by the nazis, and someone selling off their property at the height of the Weimar republic and moving to America. That said, I was under the impression that Germany essentially already did this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm talking about the actual EROEI - this means including all of the energy required to build, staff and maintain the plant over its lifetime. Actually digging up the uranium and transporting it to the power plant might indeed be les than 1% of plant operating costs, but that doesn't mean you get to ignore the other 99% and leave them out from your calculations. A "couple of thousand tons of reinforced concrete" does actually require gigawatt years of power when you remember the complicated machinery that goes into nuclear reactors and the incredible importance of regular maintenance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maritime/naval usage is indeed the best use-case for nuclear power, and that's one of the reasons why the military uses nuclear-powered vessels.


As for the government regulations, I'm not actually too bothered by them on nuclear. I don't have a problem with laws preventing my neighbours from operating a backyard nuclear reactor or building a perfect replica of the demon core in order to test their reactions and screwdriver control. I'm sure a case can be made that those regulations are badly written and far too onerous, but I'm very happy that we do actually regulate them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #3
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
White people have also been genocided several times through history as well (European history is surprisingly brutal). They're still around, but if that's an argument against them getting an ethnostate then it also applies to the jews.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you aren't going to put in any effort, just don't bother. When I looked at this comment chain I saw you making provably false claims (i.e. none of the people involved in the planning of the Iraq war/PNAC were jewish) that don't even rise to the level of refuting the point you're trying to argue against (jewish influence played a part in the invasion of Iraq). Then, when questioned, you say that the debate isn't worth your time.


If I was an antisemitic troll trying to convince reasonable people to adopt my prejudices, I could not have crafted a better comment than yours if I was trying. Look, I can understand not wanting to get into endless interminable arguments about jews with internet losers who have nothing better to do - but you're better off just not engaging with the topic at all than trying to score cheap shots then fucking off and claiming the debate is beneath you when it turns out you didn't bring enough intellectual firepower to actually make a point. It makes your position look worse and their position look better, and I'm going to hazard a guess that you aren't actually an antisemite, nor do you want to lend their arguments additional credibility.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


All information you get from a suspect, voluntary, coerced, or via torture, is potentially a lie. Pretending that torture is different in this way is special pleading.




Flawed reasoning - the point being made is that using torture leads to a much greater rate of false positives, because when you torture people until they tell you what you want to hear they will frequently tell you what you want to hear in order to make the torture stop, even if they have to make up what you want to hear.


Are you going to really claim that a confession from someone who rats out their conspirators in order to secure a favourable plea deal is equally as reliable as the fruits of a torture chamber?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I found it incredibly disheartening to find out that she didn't have the same "resents normies but desperately wants to be accepted by them" complex as me




Why?


This complex doesn't seem particularly helpful or conducive to positive outcomes, and I'd say that her lack of it seems more psychologically healthy. It seems like you're aware that this is a maladaptive pattern - is it something you're working on resolving?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Damn, that's unfortunate, because I actually read multiple refutations of your position on TruthSocial. Your arguments are not new and have been defeated comprehensively elsewhere - but I have no desire of typing 5000 words (sic), so you'll just have to take my word for it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Being a result of energy blackmail as opposed to war is a meaningful distinction because the energy cutoffs could occur in non-war contexts as well




What?


I legitimately do not understand your position here. If I go to a restaurant that I've been a regular at and decide to chuck a huge tantrum and break some plates and then get banned from returning or doing business with said restaurant, the fact that they could have banned me from entering at any point prior to that does not mean that being banned as a result of my actions is no longer a result of my actions. What, precisely, is the distinction you're making here? How is it relevant to a given incident, at all, that a business could choose to stop selling to me for breaking their rules beforehand? All I can see is playing games with words to disguise the fact that disruptions in energy supplies are a direct result of sponsoring the war.




You can't have it both ways: either the Europeans lack fossile fuels, or the Europeans are still using Russian fossile fuels.




The Europeans lack the ready access to fossil fuels they had previously - but they are still using Russian fossil fuels anyway by paying middlemen like India, and this is having a noticeable impact on their economies.




You continue to misunderstand the design purpose of the sanctions, and chest-thumping bravado is not a superior alternative




The purpose of the sanctions was to reduce Russia's ability to wage war by targeting their economy, and to put pressure on the population in order to achieve a political goal (leadership change/stopping the war). These efforts have failed - the war is still happening and the Russian economy has not been destroyed.




Until they do, 'de-dollarization is proceeding far more quickly than it was before' is synonymous with 'the Russians are sanctioned from the dollar, and are trying to make a virtue of a weakness they've been lobbying to have reversed.'




Incorrect - China has been aggressively pursuing de-dollarisation and so has India. They're experiencing difficulties doing so, of course, because financial systems and currencies have a lot of inertia and moving parts. The Global Times, which is essentially a mouthpiece for the Chinese government, has explicitly stated that the weaponisation of the dollar is driving other countries away from it (though they also correctly note that this process takes time and a lot of nations have complicated linkages to the USD which will take time to unwind) - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1289549.shtml




The US dollar does not only serve as public good to the international community, it has also been used by the US as a strategic tool, and has become a pillar of US hegemony alongside military power. The US government has also increasingly weaponized it. De-dollarization is of course crucial and is the general trend, but the "de-weaponization of the dollar" is even more urgent.






This may be a retreat to a bailey, but it's still a bailey to the original claim of which types of resources matter between conflicts.




Ok, whatever - a distinction without a difference. I freely admit that a substantial portion of the resources spent on the Ukraine conflict could not be used in any prospective Taiwan conflict. This does not damage my point in any real way - the military equipment is one factor, and the drain on attention, time and decision-making are all relevant as well. Though that said, I will admit that I may have been unclear earlier when I said "at least among EU militaries". I did not exclusively mean EU militaries when talking about the reduction in western capability, and was including the US in that category.




But they wouldn't send significant amounts in advance, for the same reason they didn't go to Ukraine in advance




Huh? They did send significant amounts of aid to Ukraine in advance. I'd argue that "the defence minister mentions the event to the press" to meet the threshold of significant - (and no, I am not talking about the exercise that is the main thrust of the article, but the following quote) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29204505




Russia denies sending troops to aid the rebels, as alleged by Ukraine and Nato.






Over the weekend, Ukrainian Defence Minister Valery Heletey said Nato countries had begun arming his nation in the fight against the rebels.






He did not specify the type of weapons being delivered or name the countries involved.




And inserting some text here just to clearly mark the difference between a BBC quote and your post...




Setting aside that it's a poorly structured list in measurable and general claims, I don't bet in general.




The actual bet is very straightforward and specific - will the Ukraine regain control over Crimea and the breakaway republics when hostilities end? Though that said, given that you're not willing, I'm leaving the bet open for any takers, mainly because I don't think even the people arguing that the Ukraine will win this conflict take that belief seriously enough to put money on it (and I'd love to get some free, easy money from anyone who does).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The reason that he's running now is because the GOP establishment need to provide a candidate who can sabotage Trump. From the perspective of the GOP politicians currently in power, their preferred outcome is to continue to lose forever because that allows them to never actually carry out the promises they make towards their base, which would interfere with the money they receive from wealthy donors. Desantis is running now because attacking and damaging Trump is the entire raison d'etre of his political campaign - if he was actually trying to achieve conservative policy goals and govern effectively, he'd have to recognise the obvious reality on the ground (the Trump voting base, which conservatives cannot win elections without, is loyal to Trump and not the GOP brand) and work with Trump rather than against him.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Note that "what you want to hear" most is useful information.




You need to finish reading the sentence - "even if they have to make up what you want to hear". Interrogators do not have magical powers that can let them determine if information is useful or just useful-sounding. I have no doubt that a committed torturer could extract any kind of confession they wanted from me, even ones that aren't true. That's the entire problem with torture - you get an immense false positive rate that causes big problems for the reliability of information. Even your own hypothetical armchair scenario shows the flaw - if only one of your five suspects actually knows the location of the base or bomb that they've planted and the rest have to make it up, torture is worse than useless if you have any sort of time pressure or resource constraints.




because I'm not the one trying to make a sweeping claim. All it takes is one situation where torture works for your motivated reasoning to fall apart.




Go back and point out the "motivated reasoning" in my post, and make sure that this reasoning would fall apart with a single potential counterexample - because I couldn't find that argument in my post. My actual point is that torture is a technique with limited effectiveness due to a high false positive rate, and your argument that you can account for a high rate of false positives by spending time and resources investigating them does not even rise to the level of a refutation of my point. Yes, if you spend more resources you can account for the problems of torture, but the fact that these problems can be compensated for with time and money does not mean that they do not exist. When you look at it in the context of modern intelligence-gathering capabilities, torture is so far down the list of effectiveness that it is barely even worth talking about. We live in surveillance states that engage in deep and sophisticated algorithmic profiling of every single citizen and a lot of them have live video monitoring of important places. It is largely impossible to engage in commercial transactions at scale without drawing the interest and attention of those surveillance bodies, and if we're going to say "fuck Civil Liberties, maximal effectiveness now" I highly doubt any torture would actually take place due to the impossibility of keeping enough information secret from the panopticon that has been constructed around us for it to even be worthwhile.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
With regards to calling a girl a girl? Nothing, I explicitly said that the left is wrong they think that these concepts can be divorced from sex. They're right when they point out that a lot of our expectations regarding gender are created and reinforced culturally, and if you try to attack them on those grounds you are going to lose because they are right - that's not where the error is occurring. The problem arises when they expand the category of gender to include things that are really in the domain of sex, but that doesn't mean there isn't any use in being able to say that something is masculine due to an inherent property of human masculinity that transcends culture(sex) as opposed to something more local(gender).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


because when relaxed, the Palestinians use the opportunities granted to kill more Israelis.




Utterly meaningless aside that has shown up in several of your posts. If I punch you in the face and declare that I'm going to take your home from you by force of arms and then evict you with the help of a bunch of my well armed friends, do I then get to talk about how morally correct I was to do so because you keep trying to punch me in the face and take back your house? Your argument here only works because you remove those incidents from their historical context, and one can use the exact same technique to make all kinds of incorrect arguments (like my one above).