FtSoA
9d ago
FtSoA
9d ago
What's your take on this analysis?
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/305894?objectPanel=transcription
FtSoA
9d ago
An industrial state putting huge resources into mechanically killing a slave labor force while it's in the middle of an existential war for existence just doesn't add up.
Well, ok, but the Germans did plenty of stupid things in WWII. Famously, Hitler was a bit of a madman and on a lot of drugs. The entire obsession with the Jews was immensely retarded. In a slightly different universe, the USA ended up nuking Berlin with a bomb largely developed by Jewish scientists, many with German heritage. The V2 project was immensely expensive for Germany, and did nothing to change the outcome of the war and there was never a plausible way it would.
It's one thing to broadly construe an actor as a rational agent, but to therefore eliminate the possibility that semi-rational actors do some self-defeating stupid shit is also a reasoning error.
And there's the classic counter-conspiracy logic of: "It would be harder to construct the Holocaust as a fake happening than for it to have actually happened."
Personally, I trust the CIA analyzing WWII aerial photography, which includes the dismantling of some of the execution facilities: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/305894 (I just happened on these, and it's really cool. The IG Farben chemical facility was surveilled from the air from April 1944 and inadvertently included coverage of Auschwitz and Birkenau--the chemical extermination camps of lore. Once the chemical plant was bombed, you didn't need as much labor anyway.)
but sheer common sense indicates that the murders, rapes, and local pogroms happened relatively incidentally and organically, while malnutrition and disease did most of the work in the camps.
My understanding is that a ton of this happened all over Europe and it's a very awkward subject. The Germans at least can be a scapegoat.
FtSoA
9d ago
I've been inactive for a hot minute, but the last time I was involved in a big HBD hullabaloo the most common position (hard to tell if it was actually a majority) was something like: "HBD is real and the societal solution to that is something like Classical Liberal Individualism." So nicely enough if you're already of a Classical Liberal bent then it's a solved problem either way.
(Obviously, with all due respect, fuck socialism tho. Historically, it's Western Socialists being out of step to think socialism and racism are somehow at odds. The Russians and the Chinese were/are far from race egalitarians.)
Obviously the ethnostate types don't need HBD to be real to justify their preferences. Real race scientists know how to distinguish the "good" whites from the "less good" ones, anyway. And, at a minimum, East Asians and Jews (boo hiss) are pretty swell by any objective measure of HBD I'm aware of.
Being an SJer and open-minded enough for debating core tenets is a rare combo.
FtSoA
9d ago
Famously, Scott's post on "witches" addresses this. Also, I think EY on "evaporative cooling."
Has a lot of use for modeling the group dynamics of just about anything, whether online spheres or say academia.
FtSoA
9d ago
I was raised religious and it's always fun to have to turn on my "religion modeling circuits" to keep them from totally atrophying.
FtSoA
11d ago
Weird that they went for Iraq and not Iran at the time, no?
Since Iran actually had a nuclear weapons program and was far more opposed to Israel than Iraq was.
FtSoA
11d ago
- They've been dealing with that for a couple of years now.
- That's a big reason they're so motivated to decisively end the threat from Iran.
FtSoA
11d ago
This take ignores the ideological motivations of the Islamic regime and analyzes them if this is just a par-for-the-course geopolitical rivalry.
It also ignores the Arab distaste for the Iranian regime.
FtSoA
11d ago
Thanks for the analysis.
Here are some issues I see:
- The decapitation strikes necessarily needed to happen right off the bat to hit the targets before they went into full defense mode. Gotta have a "surprise" to have a surprise attack. This was indeed before Israel had achieved full air superiority/dominance, as those operations in the early phases were in parallel.
- In the early phases, yes, using air-launched missiles is a way to avoid air defenses and increase aircraft range. Had the conflict continued more bombs would have been employed.
- I do not think this is an accurate description of how the interception rate went, but yes interceptors are expensive and finite.
Obviously, the Israelis have not tried to significantly restart the conflict because of Trump. I see no way to justify the view that Israel stopped because of a newfound fear of Iran's retaliatory options. Iran was almost entirely militarily ineffective on both defense and offense during this conflict.
I also think it's incredibly backwards to conclude from all this that Israel can't handle Iran alone. Certainly, it would be far harder without U.S. support, but that's a lot different than saying they couldn't do it.
As to the fate of the Iranian regime, frankly it's probably in the strongest position it's been in decades.
I can't even comprehend how someone could think this for some definition of "strong." In terms of military power, they've taken immense damage and been shown to be incapable of air defense. Everyone can see the craters and coffins. The Axis of Resistance is a shadow of its former self. For domestic power, they have maintained control of the public (and there have been no major attempts at protests, smartly), but the economy is now even more in shambles and everyone is even more paranoid than they were before about Mossad agents everywhere.
The advocates of negotiating with the US look like chumps and the hardliners who proposed building ballistic missile cities carved into mountains look like brilliant strategists.
This take is directly contradicted by the NYT article I cite. I'm not sure exactly how accurate that portrayal was or is now, but the IRGC hardliners look like they just died a lot.
I suppose the IRGC warrior caste might increase it's power relative to the clerical caste
I don't think this is a good way to map power dynamics in Iran. The IRGC is devoted to Khamenei and Islamic jurisprudence.
At this point if Iran wanted a nuclear weapon there's very little Trump or Israel could do to stop them
Assuming such activity was detected in advance, do you think Israel would not attempt nearly everything possible to do this? Do you think they'll be incapable of maintaining/reestablishing air dominance? Do you think they're bluffing about doing an airborne operation if necessary?
One could argue that the Islamic regime is better off than I make it out to be, but I can see no way to judge it as stronger than before the 12-Day War.
FtSoA
11d ago
I agree.
We've generally restrained Israeli desires to retaliate against Iran. E.g., my understanding is that they wanted to kill Soleimani for quite some time, but the U.S. did not want to risk an escalatory spiral.
I'm trying my hand at public writing. Evaluating the potential actions of a unique geopolitical actor like Iran is an interesting challenge, and there are a lot of strange ideas about it out there. Read the whole thing for an attempt to apply rational actor theory to Iranian leaders.
https://ftsoa.substack.com/p/assessing-the-troubled-future-of
Selected excerpts:
This is I think an unprecedented occurrence in history—enforcing a neutralization of an adversary’s key military programs from the air after an unnegotiated ceasefire. Iran invested an immense amount into its “mostly peaceful” nuclear program, its missile industry and forces, and its proxies as part of its strategy for regional domination and ideological opposition to the U.S. and Israel. For Iran to accept this neutering would effectively be an unnegotiated surrender of several of the Islamic regime’s key objectives, and acceptance of domination by its bitterest adversary. It would be untenable to admit that publicly. It seems hardly tenable to concede it implicitly.
There are perhaps three broad courses of action for the Islamic regime:
Open Defiance: As soon as possible, directly confront the U.S. and Israel by restarting military/nuclear programs and aggression.
Tacit Acceptance: Maintain defiant rhetoric, but do nothing to actually aggravate Israel or the U.S. indefinitely and focus on maintaining domestic control.
Covert Defiance: Maintain defiant rhetoric and domestic control, and “secretly” hit back at the U.S. and Israel via “undetectable” means like cyber warfare and terrorism, and attempt to “covertly” rebuild military/nuclear capabilities in a way that will actually work next time, like managing to rapidly build a nuclear warhead or figuring out how to actually shoot down an F-35.
Anyone remotely sane would recognize (1) is suicide by IAF. The problem with (2) is that eventually it’s going to be obvious to at least the hardline military and security class—the regime’s key believers and protectors—that Iran has in fact implicitly surrendered. And (3) means hoping that Iran can, unlike every other time, “get away with it” and actually put up a real fight down the road. Additionally, Iran’s economy and the regime’s popularity were already on thin ice before all this. Not great! Historically, (3) is the obvious choice for Iran as it’s something of a compromise between the hardline and the pragmatist camps. But in what manner and on what timeline and with what level of risk acceptance? The ongoing work to uncover Fordo is evidence for (3) being the chosen course of action. How long will the IAF permit that activity?
Given the above considerations, here’s where my gut is on the blurry probability of broad outcomes:
Possible, but unlikely:
Neutered Islamic regime at least tacitly accepts defeat and survives indefinitely as a shadow of its former self.
Quite possible, even likely:
Defiant Iran and Israel go back to war in coming weeks/months; economic and/or regime collapse.
Very likely:
Israel mows the grass; a mostly neutered Islamic regime survives indefinitely.
Very likely:
Israel mows the grass; economic and/or regime collapse within a few years.
I think it’s almost certain that Israel will have cause to mow the Iranian grass because I have a hard time imagining the Iranian regime, or at least some rogue hardline element, will not try to cross Israel’s red lines (and be caught doing so). I also struggle to imagine that pragmatist and reformist camps will transition the regime into something more tolerable without hardliners reasserting control. I have much less certainty about the chances of economic and/or regime collapse, but it’s certainly a very real possibility. Probably more likely than not in the coming year or two.
The obvious cop out is that any number of curve balls could enter the scene such that I am shown to have been insufficiently imaginative or wise. In my defense, President Trump did a 180 from “total surrender” and “regime change” to “ceasefire now” in like 72 hours. The Israelis and Iranians, however, are more consistent in their underlying goals and behaviors. The Israelis have been openly advocating for regime change, in recognition that’s probably the only real solution to Iran as an enduring threat. The Iranians remain at least rhetorically defiant. Something has to give.
Well if you can't trust a man like Himmler regarding the necessity of burning Jewish bodies en masse, whom can you trust? Just a public health intervention. Not a coverup. No sir.
"We did not want any wars with Russia." Wow, so true bestie. That's just what Hitler thought.
Ok but there's plenty of evidence of the German police and SS being involved in exterminations. "Wow the guy didn't write down war crimes in his journal, so that casts doubt on it" is not exactly a knock-down argument.
Does Hoss getting one thing wrong mean he got it all wrong? Does being tortured on the outset of his capture thereafter mean nothing he ever said could be taken as factual? Even if corroborated?
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/57323382?objectPanel=transcription&objectPage=2
Let's look at your assertion here:
Looks like this is the quote you take issue with:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/57323382?objectPanel=transcription&objectPage=3
Far as I can tell, Treblinka I was active in summer 1941 and Treblinka II, the extermination camp, was opened in 1942. The fact you seem totally ignorant of the difference between Treblinkas I and II would seemingly cast doubt on you actually having done your homework here. If you had, you'd presumably head some amateur like me off from pointing that out.
Auschwitz I was active in 1940 and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the extermination camp, came online in March 1942. However, executions by gas were happening well before the specialized extermination camps were built. The first Zyklon B gassings happened in August 1941, and the construction of Auschwitz II began the next month.
So the easy explanation here is that when Hoss said "extermination camps" as of 1941, he meant "concentration camps primarily for labor that were also doing exterminations at the time"; not "camps/facilities that had been built explicitly for mass extermination." Those efficiency upgrades came in 1942. There's no contradiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp#Gassings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp#:~:text=Construction%20of%20Auschwitz%20II%20began,were%20killed%20during%20medical%20experiments.
Also, it's funny to argue there's not a lot of great evidence for Treblinka II when like the whole point was killing off potential witnesses, the extermination camp was dismantled in October 1943, there was literally a coverup, and then the Soviets didn't exactly do a lot of historical preservation. That the guards were not likely to confess decades after the fact is not remotely surprising. Stangl did admit to the murders though, right? There is aerial photography showing evidence of the dismantled structures, and the allowed archelogy and ground radar has found evidence. The main witnesses for the prosecution were Poles who worked at or observed the railways. Later, declassified British intel of the German Transport Authority backed the numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_extermination_camp
Well I just disproved that assertion in short order. There's a very natural explanation, that you and your kind are misinterpreting the labels the man used and conflating the early phases of experimentation and low levels of execution with the later mass scale ones.
After all this, I have to ask, are the Revisionists just incapable of basic historical research? I had higher expectations, honestly. I'm used to debating QAnon types.
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