fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
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User ID: 3415
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
14hr ago
This is getting mildly circular, so if you'd like the last word after this comment I am happy to grant you it.
Certainly you are not responsible for the enemy. They're the enemy.
In basically every other adversarial scenario I agree with you. However given the vast power differential and background of this conflict, unfortunately Israel is somewhat responsible. Given they frequently interfere with Gaza/West Banks Sovereignty, borders, etc.
You break it, you bought it. With great power comes great responsibility.
Israel exercises massive power over the Palestinians, and frequently blows their shit up. Thus, they have found themselves in the unfortunate situation of being responsible for their enemies in some capacity, which is a lose/lose.
You cannot have a Marshall plan until the enemy surrenders. They have not and will not. I do not believe Israel has the capacity to take them over and completely remake their culture, nor would the "international community" accept them doing so.
I deeply fear you're correct in this. I genuinely don't see any other viable long term solution though.
Gaza can't stop being a suffering factory unless it develops economically. As long as it continues to be a suffering factory it will generate large amounts of angry young men who hate Israel. Israel can't let Gaza develop unless it's confident a measurable % of Gazan GDP won't become rockets. If Israel can't control Gaza's development, Gaza is doomed to the status quo, and the suffering factory will continue to generate Oct 7 events every ~20 years.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
16hr ago
Usually I unhelpfully reply "do a lit review!!!" to these sorts of questions
I had considered adding the caveat of "I am happy to do my own research, but if you have any pointers of where to start that would be much appreciated" but then got distracted and just clicked "Comment".
I appreciate your thoughtful answer
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
16hr ago
The word you're looking for is "war".
If you're stuck in a permanent war against an enemy you profoundly outclass militarily, economically, culturally, and politically, at a certain point you are responsible for the ongoing outcomes.
Israel has done other things, up to and including
I should be clear, I am no defender of the Palestinians, they are absolutely awful insane irrational neighbors. I am deeply thankful I live nowhere near a Muslim theocracy. While I rate the Israeli reconciliation attempts as "mediocre at best", they have tried, both sides are profoundly irrational at this point.
the best the Israelis can do
I think the answer to this is some flavor of Marshall plan + perhaps a rather invasive CCP-style police state to give young Palestinians a taste/goal of a better life while ensuring that the smallest possible % of GDP is turned into ballistic rockets. Also things like "not constantly encroaching on the West Bank with settler communities" would probably help as that rather calls into question the good faith nature of one of the sides.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
17hr ago
If the "ping" in "ping-ponging" is ethnic cleansing, would the "pong" be "ethnic dirtying"?
I just meant ping-ponging as having them shuffle back and forth across the strip, not a metaphor.
getting someone out temporarily because it's an active war zone and then bringing them back when it's safe is just good manners, not ethnic cleansing.
I agree, except with 2 caveats:
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I think shuffling a bunch of humans around an area as you bomb it into gravel in an effort to wipe out an organization who's primary recruiting tool is the anger generated in humans who are being shuffled around an area as its bombed into gravel is equal parts evil and stupid. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
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given this area will never stop being an active war zone (only more or less intense of one), and frankly given neither side has any interest in making it not that, I feel like "being wildly unwilling to create a lasting peace" somewhat offsets the good manners part of moving people around to keep them safe in the micro level (i.e. day to day or month to month), when on the macro level you have absolutely 0 interest in them ever actually being safe.
Were the latter just suckers, to take such risks only to have critics ignore their existence?
Yes
Amusingly, the Chen Sheng story strikes me as the perfect summary of how the Gazans feel. It's not quite as extreme, but this is literally how Hamas has a never ending string of young men signing up to get blown up
"The moral of the story is that if you are maximally mean to innocent people, then eventually bad things will happen to you. First, because you have no room to punish people any more for actually hurting you. Second, because people will figure if they’re doomed anyway, they can at least get the consolation of feeling like they’re doing you some damage on their way down."
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
17hr ago
Amusingly, we got sucked into bickering about definitions, which I had actually hoped to avoid by using "ethnic cleansing" over the much more volatile "genocide". Admittedly, I opened up pretty flippantly, so maybe that was the wrong word, although it felt amusing and volatile in the moment.
My core thesis is that I think shuffling a bunch of humans around an area as you bomb it into gravel in an effort to wipe out an organization who's primary recruiting tool is the anger generated in humans who are being shuffled around an area as its bombed into gravel is equal parts evil and stupid. I don't really care what we call it at the end of the day, there is a metric shitload of human suffering happening, much of which is being deliberately and callously applied.
Gaza is one of the most efficient generators of human suffering I've ever been made aware of. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
17hr ago
CBT and DBT have excellent evidence bases for instance and are meant to be highly structured with clear end points. We also have a pretty good understanding of what patients and situations should use each of those therapy modalities.
What is a good way to learn more about our understanding of best practices of when to apply which flavor of therapy?
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
17hr ago
It should be illegal to ask ChatGPT to write something that would take you less than 2 minutes to write yourself.
I would love to know what other minuscule things you'd outlaw as dictator of earth.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
17hr ago
That's an interesting and fair point, obviously a big mac in NYC is not substantially better than a big mac in Boise, but at the same time there is probably some amount of value for what you said about "big mac in NYC is worth more because you can eat it while being in NYC" because that is convenient.
I'll have to think on this more, would you mind expanding on the "But PPP would disagree with you there." part?
Also in general, PPP aside, I just think it's ridiculous to make sweeping judgements about the subjective value of things to people, it's not just clearly wrong, it adds very little value to a conversation to be like "I like X more than Y, thus X is better in all cases".
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
17hr ago
Sure, I agree with this for the most part, although "as they should" is really funny given the proven lack of efficacy in the real world.
I find the distinction somewhat unneeded because I'm only concerned with the actual effectiveness and not semantically splitting it into component parts.
My thesis is that telling your kids not to have sex is demonstrably a bad way of preventing teenage pregnancy, and to think otherwise is to be willfully ignorant, generally due to ideology.
I guess in general, what I'm also trying to say is that just because something is theoretically effective, if it actually isn't effective in practice then who cares. What matters is what real humans do in real life, not what hypothetical outcomes could happen if hypothetical humans did or did not do things (especially when we know the real humans won't act like the hypothetical humans).
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
It's lame you had to do this but I get it
I did really enjoy his ability to kick off an argument, although I get why the way he does it is against the spirit of this place
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
McMansions are better housing than NYC apartments. Literally- they're bigger, they have more amenities, it's harder for neighbors to affect you, they're less likely to be infested by rats, etc.
This is purely your opinion and given the price people are willing to pay per sqft, one that millions of people do not share with you.
NYC apartments have something McMansions can never have: location, location, location. This is the ultimate amenity.
You may not value it, which is fine, but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2d ago
yeah it's a fine method of birth control
It's statistically a mediocre method of birth control. In my opinion, recommending it is somewhat colored by ideological bias (either anti-sex, or anti-western medicine).
I would generally assume the ideological spread most likely to believe this are Christian/right leaning.
I'd simply tell her not to have pre-marital sex
A statistically even worse method of birth control. Recommending this is 100% colored by ideological bias.
Same assumption as above but more certain.
I wouldn't even be mad if she got knocked up
This is just a value judgement, but one I overwhelmingly assume/associate with the Christian/right wing area of human beliefs.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
6d ago
man-made horrors that are, unfortunately, entirely within my comprehension.
A boring dystopia indeed
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
6d ago
I don't think it's propaganda? I feel like genocide and ethnic cleansing are different ways of slicing the same flavor of activity by severity. I'd define ethnic cleansing as what I said above, and genocide as that + "with the intent to permanently eliminate the group".
Ethnic group: Palestinians
Religion: Muslims
Where are they getting moved: ping-ponging back and forth between the North and South of the strip, the Israeli's would be even happier to push them into Egypt, but they can't.
Israel has an easy time bc Israeli Jews don't live in Gaza, but if they did, they obviously wouldn't be getting shuffled around the strip. I don't think ethnic cleansing requires there to be unaffected people in the geography to contrast against the effected people.
I genuinely have no idea what's true at this point with this conflict but this is pretty on the nose, even for the Levant gang
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
6d ago
No?
In 2005 I wouldn't hold them responsible for Gazans starving, because they backed off
In 2025 I do, because they are very much controlling the inflow of goods and also levelling the area/generally wrecking lots of destruction
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
6d ago
"Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area"
I'd say we're basically there
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
6d ago
Yes exactly
Hence my opinion that the Israeli strategy is bad because it's inherently unsustainable and also profoundly not going to resolve anything.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
7d ago
You're right
I struggle to call this a war though. It's insurgency whack a mole with a sprinkling of ethnic cleansing
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
7d ago
Sure
My knowledge of the Vietnam war is shaky at best. My point is that insurgencies can win just by surviving and running out the clock
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
7d ago
Your enemy giving up and leaving is winning. It's a shitty way to win because you have 0 initative, but you still get what you want in the end.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
7d ago
You say this like we didn't just have the Afghan war, with the US military fighting dudes in pickup trucks and with AKs and jerry-rigged IEDs.
And the USA shit stomped them with an insane k/d ratio until they got bored and left. Dude's in cars with AKs are a nightmare but can't do much against a modern army.
How many people with AKs running around Boston would it take for the whole city to freak out and panic?
Not many, but I'm talking existential risk here, not "makes everything fucking awful for a week before dying"
Chat, is this Bulverism?
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