FtttG
User ID: 1175
FtttG
21d ago
In your estimation, how many Palestinians have died of malnutrition and preventable illness since this war began?
I've never found comparisons between how the Nazis treated the Jews and how the Israelis treat(ed) the Palestinians to be even remotely persuasive. The Holocaust was cold-hearted systemic murder on an industrial scale, whereas the Israel-Palestine conflict looks exactly like every other interminable conflict in the Middle East or North Africa for the last ~100 years. Even the much-ballyhooed apartheid legislation in Israel, in which Palestinians are subject to different legislation to Israelis, is also true of e.g. Syria.
I don't think anyone really disputes that the Palestinians, collectively, are oppressed. Where we differ is who we blame for oppressing them (the modal leftist pins the blame solely on Israel, whereas I would say that the Hamas leaders, the broader Arab world and Iran bear some of the blame); what the fact of their oppression implies for the moral rightness of their behaviour (the modal leftist believes that, because Palestinians are oppressed, they cannot be held accountable for their actions in the same way an oppressor could; I disagree); and what the fact of their oppression implies for the pragmatic pursuit of their goals (the modal leftist believes that, because Hamas was morally justified in committing the attacks on October 7th or firing rockets at Israel more or less indiscriminately, that therefore implies that doing so was a sensible goal; I disagree, as I am unable to fathom a hypothetical turn of events by which gunning down revellers at a music festival brings Palestinian statehood an iota closer).
FtttG
21d ago
Which is to say, Israel postures like it is responding to an existential threat, but it isn't.
Hamas alone does not present an existential threat to Israel, agreed. But for most of Israel's history, they weren't just facing a threat from Palestinians, but from the entire Arab world; and even today, as little as two years ago they were facing a combined threat from Hamas, Hezbollah, Qatar and Iran. I think it's fair to say these four belligerents combined constitute an existential threat to Israel.
The second biggest problem with Unsong is that Scott has disease of MCU writer; he cannot stop making jokes, even during serious moments, which completely ruins the dramatic tension.
Yes, thank you, you put it into words. No accident that the protagonist names his laptop after the Buffy the Vampire Slayer desktop that adorns it, so much of the dialogue has that "quippy" Whedon quality I find so grating. "Wouldn't it be funny if Christian archangels communicated like annoying teenagers on Tumblr?" Not especially, Scott, no.
Schizophrenic narrative structure that constantly jumps between past and present story threads involving completely different characters and locations
I actually don't mind this too much, I think it contributes to the sense of the fictional universe being huge and epic in scope. Although perhaps it might have been a bit less disorienting if there had been two chapters in the present-day A-story, then jumping back in time to provide backstory, then jumping back to the A-story for two more chapters etc.
About a hundred pages into my second read of Unsong. I previously read a print-on-demand edition of the web serial version, but when Scott announced an official print edition with some significant edits, I bought a copy. So far, the edits seem fairly mild: everything I liked and disliked about the version I previously read seems to have survived intact. The Kabbalah stuff is great, the alternate history stuff is great, the intensely literal-minded apophenia-laden interpretations of passages from the Torah and Talmud are great - but the glurgey interactions between the protagonist and his MPDG "t3h penguin of doooom!!" love interest positively make my skin crawl.
FtttG
30d ago
Where is the outrage over all the Palestinians who get sodomized or tortured in Israeli prisons?
I've seen this claim made dozens of times in the past few months, and never with a source.
FtttG
1mo ago
This is where I first heard about them (?).
Are you suggesting that the only reason people find Aella annoying is because they find her sexually desirable but know that they will never get this, they will never get this?
First off, textbook Bulverism. Second: I can't speak for everyone here, but I'm not attracted to people who smell bad, and even if she showered every day, she's not my type.
"If a man appears to dislike you, the only possible explanation is that he's mad because he knows he'll never get to fuck you" strikes me as both as a transparent cope and far more "objectifying" towards women than most comments I've made which have resulted in this accusation being hurled at me. Sometimes straight men just find you annoying for the same reasons they'd find another man annoying.
FtttG
1mo ago
It's a bunch of people getting together and harassing an outsider
If we were sending Aella nasty DMs, doxxing her, sending her death and rape threats, generating AI porn of her, circulating her nudes without her consent etc., you might have a point.
Someone saying "you know, I think so-and-so is something of an intellectual lightweight" on a forum is not "harassment". If you're so thin-skinned that you can't tolerate politely worded criticism like that, I don't think you have any business being a figure in the public eye (however broadly defined).
FtttG
1mo ago
I don't hate her. Whenever I see people paying attention to her I just feel vaguely exasperated, as I find her whole schtick kind of tiresome. I am disgusted by people who don't bathe frequently (unless they have a really good excuse, like profound mental illness or paraplegia or something) and I think that's an entirely appropriate response.
FtttG
1mo ago
Fair point. Still, how many actors can honestly say they've played the lead in a Soderbergh movie? It can't be in the triple digits.
FtttG
1mo ago
My personal experience of working at a building which hosted multiple nerd conventions makes me slow to privilege the idea that modern humans bathe too much.
FtttG
1mo ago
If the only thing I know about someone is that they refuse to bathe frequently, my opinion of them will be lowered significantly. Among other things, it's tremendously inconsiderate behaviour. It may well be the case that Aella is a genuinely intelligent and perceptive person in spite of being smelly and dirty: I'm just saying that, after reading a substantial chunk of her writing, I haven't seen any evidence that that's the case. I don't understand why so many people are falling over themselves to sing the praises of someone who ultimately just seems like a mid, pretentious sex worker who smells bad.
Has Gaza been ethnically cleansed, or is this ethnic cleansing ongoing? If so, that's news to me.
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