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FirmWeird

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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
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


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
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
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 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 July 29, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Climate change" Is a big, hard to define, but very scary bad thing. It's mythical and functions almost like a curse. Furthermore, it is THE virtue signaling issue. People (think) they get all kinds of social credit for driving an EV or using paper straws etc. It has weird touchy-feely connections to "mother earth" pseudo-religious traditions. Women under 30 probably have a higher likelihood of going to festivals like burning man and so having a very personal connection to these "vibes."




Climate change isn't hard to define at all - human activity produces greenhouse gases which cause an increase in global temperatures and adverse weather events while the world shifts to a new climate. It isn't a matter of vibes but one of rigorous scientific evidence, and younger people are more concerned with the issue because they're the ones who are going to be paying the price for it. While I have no doubt that there are a lot of cynical grifters in the movement and plenty of people who operate based on vibes rather than evidence, climate change is a real and serious problem, and one that the people actually profiting from it won't be alive to see the consequences for.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				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 April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Scary? What exactly is scary about that? I'm not trying to get an own here, I'm legitimately curious because the only thing that comes to mind is that you're scared of changing your own mind after a period of internal struggle. Changing your mind over a serious or contentious issue as a result of a period of internal struggle is generally regarded as a positive development by most people, and they use terms like "personal growth" to describe it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				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 June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Without having to put their own forces on the line, and at the cost of a fairly moderate chunk of the US military budget, the US is getting to incapacitate one of their major geopolitical threats.




I keep seeing this take in a lot of social media and I really don't think that it has any relation to reality. It isn't a "fairly moderate chunk of the US military budget" but a massive economic imposition and cost upon the rest of the west. Aside from the direct costs of sending money and arms to one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, the indirect costs from rising energy prices, economic disruption, inflation, sanctions, refugees and the like have made this entire affair incredibly expensive. If the de-dollarisation that the sanctions regime has spurred continues it could ultimately prove to be one of the most expensive mistakes in US history.


Even then, the cost in materiel matters as well. Western supply chains and reserves have been tapped out to funnel that equipment to Ukraine, and those stocks have been considerably depleted (at least among EU member state militaries). While that's bad by itself, it becomes even worse when you remember who Russia's biggest ally is - China. The Chinese government is, presumably, sitting back and rubbing their hands together with glee as they watch the west burn vast amounts of military equipment on a pyre. Every bit of kit that gets blown up in the Ukraine or sold onto the black market by some unscrupulous oligarch is a piece of kit that is not going to be used in any prospective defence of Taiwan - if the US is getting a pretty great deal, you're gonna run out of superlatives when you try to describe the one China is getting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Make it crystal clear that there's a rules based order and if you just cross boundaries in a war of conquest we will not make it easy.




Are you sure about this? The US' current policy is that if you cross boundaries in a war of conquest, invade other nations, bomb their hospitals and murder their children the US won't just go out of their way to make it easy for you, they'll make boycotting you illegal and declare criticism of your actions a public health crisis while supplying you with vast quantities of money and advanced weaponry. If you actually want to send that message, would you be fine with declaring Israel a rogue state and applying the same sanctions on them until they return to the 1948 borders?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's no real chance we start seeing some serious shit - we are already seeing serious shit. 2024 is the hottest year on record, beating out... 2023 for the top spot. Corals all over the world are bleaching and dying and we're already seeing temperature zones marching away from the equator and towards the poles.


I highly recommend the following article, because I think it is the most reasonable take on the issue that I've seen. https://www.ecosophia.net/riding-the-climate-toboggan/


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Climate change.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Communism might be responsible for more deaths than the Holocaust but all historical forms of racism put together are probably responsible for more deaths than communism.




I've been reliably informed by modern day whiteness studies scholars that racism cannot take place without white people, and "white people" were only invented as a concept in the 17th century. As such, the brutal and in many cases explicitly ethnically based conflicts of the past don't actually have anything to do with racism per se, so I don't think racism would actually have that high of a bodycount.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


help me




Sounds like the news of the death of god has finally reached you - I'd recommend giving Nietzsche a read if you're looking for a solution to that kind of problem.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Even if I took all of your post as sincere and true




For the record, I am being entirely sincere - and, to the best of my knowledge, true.




I'd still be running into confusion as to why the environmental movement has caused nuclear to 10x in price, inflation adjusted. The confusion isn't, "why does this particular person dislike shale?"




I don't believe the environmental movement has caused nuclear to inflate in price to such an absurd degree, but the position I take on nuclear is simple: show me the money. If it was possible to actually generate nuclear power sustainably and profitably, why hasn't anyone done it yet? How has the western environmentalist movement managed to trick every single government on the planet, including ones who are manifestly and directly opposed to them and the horse they rode in on? Too-cheap-to-meter nuclear power has been just a few years in the future for the entirety of my life, and it would be such a geopolitical game-changer that there's no way even the US government would ignore it. Can you honestly and earnestly say that Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Ali Khamenei are all so terrified of the US environmental movement that they are turning down technology that would immediately and dramatically change the geopolitical balance of power in their favour and crush the petrodollar? The environmental movement cannot even get western governments to agree to slow down the rate of increase of fossil fuel consumption, but they have a total veto over this kind of technology across the entire world? I can't see any way to square this circle, when the answer "It just isn't economical" explains it perfectly.




It is, "why does the general movement of people who dislike shale also dislike nuclear?"




Pollution and environmental damage is the unifying concern for the "general movement" as far as I can tell. If you believe that those sources of energy are only profitable because of unaccounted-for externalities, making them more expensive via regulation et al is an extremely sensible goal, and actually optimal in the long term.




I like shale because it is an avenue that circumvents the anti-energy caucus for now. I am in favor of all cheap energy, hydro, coal, oil, shale, etc. As long as it foils the anti-energy people, and keeps us advancing towards a day where energy is actually sustainable, I am good.




This is an incredibly dangerous and short-sighted belief! How confident are you that those energy sources are not bridges to nowhere or have ultimate costs which leave us further behind? I'm extremely confident that shale in particular falls into this category - an illusion that looks worthwhile simply because the actual costs have been converted into externalities that aren't accounted for, on top of being in a financial system which distorts economic realities and conditions. I believe the rationalist community term for this concept is "deceptive local maxima" but I may have just imagined this.




So called "green" energy is already overinvested, and mostly rubbish.




Green energy is far from overinvested - hydro and geothermal in particular seem like fertile ground for future investment, but you're right that it is mostly rubbish. Renewable energy sources simply cannot provide the same amount of energy fossil fuels do, and the lifestyles they can sustainably and comfortably support are most definitely not the incredibly extravagant ones that people in first world societies currently live. But that doesn't mean they're overinvested when you view them in the proper context. To use a metaphor I've stolen from someone else, a parachute is a terrible investment. You lower the resale value the moment you get it out of the box, you're gonna have trouble using it more than once, and ultimately you're going to be losing money on the purchase. But if you're aware that you're going to be pushed out of a plane at high altitude tomorrow morning, the parachute looks like a much smarter purchase than some FAANG shares.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As someone who considers themselves a green activist, de-electrification isn't really the goal per se.


The problem is that the cut-off date for a smooth, clean and orderly transition away from using fossil fuels is the far-off future of...1974. De-electrification isn't a goal anymore than having a car stop when it runs out of gas is a goal. There's no energy source that can take the place of petroleum and fossil fuels - nothing has the massive amounts of existing infrastructure, body of knowledge, energy density and EROEI to take their place, and the costs of retrofitting our society with the technology required to maintain current living standards with the far lower energy budget that renewables provide are so massive that it would not be possible from within the constraints of the current society.


Shale in particular is a really bad idea, because it has incredibly high depletion rates, lower EROEI than regular crude and causes substantial environmental damage. Those costs might not show up on a fracking company's balance sheet, but those consequences will show up elsewhere in society, in the form of less usable farmland, medical issues, water-pollution, etc. The main reason that shale looks good at the moment is the combination of unaccounted externalities, incredibly low interest rates/money-printing and a paucity of conventional light, sweet crude. This isn't a case of the environmentalists just wanting less electricity usage because civilisation is bad, but more along the lines of pointing out that eating the seed corn is actually a bad idea rather than a brand new strategy that older people were too dumb to see the benefits of, even if you have a new accounting system which claims that there's nothing wrong with eating said seed corn.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And given the apparent racial overtones of the art, who’s to say that Peterson isn’t a rather extreme member of the Alt-Right, rather than a progressive leftist, and is trying to depict blacks as vicious barbarians that must either be evicted or destroyed?




Contra




I'm not going to dispute that Peterson is a leftist,




From here it looks like you were either purposely trying to deceive people here, or are so stupid and incompetent that you cannot be bothered to spend ten seconds looking at an artist's body of work before trying to write intelligently about the topic. I don't want either of those to be the case so I'd really like to hear a good explanation for why you think this is acceptable behaviour in a conversation (not trying to backseat mod or anything, but if somebody did this to me in a real conversation I'd be seriously offended and want to stop talking to them).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They absolutely are, and a substantial amount of treasure is too. There have been American soldiers/mercenaries/people from Langley who died over there since the conflict began. The media isn't allowed to talk about them, but we aren't the media so we don't have to pretend that the US isn't involved or contributing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The reader will have guessed that, of course, Sam and Hilary are one and the same person, whose story is simply told from different points of view.




Actually, I did not - I took you at your word when you said that Hilary was "another" boy. If you're going to try and do something sneaky like that, you are at least obligated not to lie outright.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


My evidence for this is that such populations in adjacent states populated by persons similar to Islamic Palestinians have also been ethnically cleansed or genocided over the last century.




Have you looked at the history of the region before Israel? Palestinian jews were more than capable of living in peace with Palestinian arabs, and even in the earliest stages of the conflict the Palestinian movements called those jews their brothers.




In other words, we have centuries of evidence that polities consisting of Arab Muslims are evil,




When you start talking about how entire populations are just inherently evil you have departed from reality and polite society both. You can adopt this position on the motte, but you're forever in the same category as the Nazis and the white nationalists. If you want to support ethnic cleansing and genocide, you're free to - but good luck advocating this murderous and hateful belief to the rest of the world.




OTOH Israel's response to the provocations of its neighbors has been historically judicious,




I could say the same about Rome's judicious responses to the provocations of the rebellious hebrews. The Romans treated them so incredibly well, even to the point of building roads and aqueducts for them - but those ungrateful Jews just kept violently attacking them for no legitimate reason. Maybe the Jews were just inherently evil and full of hatred for Italians - after all, there were centuries of evidence proving that the Jews just kept on attacking the Romans unprovoked! If the Romans wanted, there would be zero jews living in Judea - but they were just too nice, too generous and too concerned with the casualties of their enemies. What moral titans!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				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 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


By the way it is not dissimilar to some issues here an now: organic and ethical farms are less efficient compared to industrial agriculture and that is why we have the system that we have now.




Organic and ethical farms are actually dramatically more efficient at turning energy into food than industrial agriculture. Industrial farming lets you turn petroleum/oil into food, and despite being less efficient (and causing damage to the soil to boot) the sheer amount of energy contained within petroleum lets modern industrial agriculture outcompete organic and ethical farming.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I disagree. I'm one of the people calling for a ceasefire, but at the same time I thought a "no fly zone" over Ukraine constituted suicidal imperial overreach and the start of WW3. I also don't believe that Israel has been seeking a ceasefire for about 20 years now - this claim just seems straightforwardly false to me. Have you heard the term "mowing the grass"?