site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   37514 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There was a Hezbollah rocket attack on the Golan heights about 45 minutes ago. I don’t think it was that large overall, but one of the rockets hit a school soccer practice. Mass casualties confirmed, including at least four dead children. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been pulled into an emergency security meeting due to the incident. My gut tells me the response will be severe and that this will trigger a war between Israel and Hezbollah, which has already been brewing for some time.

Edit (7:30 PM GMT) Israeli media is reporting that Prime Minister Netanyahu has received approval from the United States for a major operation against Hezbollah.

Edit 2 (8:00PM GMT) Israeli authorities are saying at least 10 dead.

Edit 3 (8:47PM GMT) Massive GPS jamming occurring throughout the Mediterranean

Edit 4: (10:23PM GMT) Prime Minister Netanyahu has expressed condolences to the Druze community, dates that the attack “will not pass on silence”

Edit 5 (4:43AM GMT) Unconfirmed reports in Lebanese media of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon.

Edit 6 (5:10 PM GMT) Confirmed IAF air strikes on Lebanon occurring now.

Edit 7 (7:32 PM GMT) Israeli drones are airborne over Beirut. Israel is calling up medical volunteers to surge staff to hospitals in northern Israel in anticipation of large volumes of casualties.

Edit 8 (8:02 PM GMT) Municipal officials in Western and Northern Galilee regions are ordering residents into shelters

Edit 9 (3:04PM GMT) The Israeli Cabinet has given Prime Minister Netanyahu authorization for a strike on Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

Is there a way to determine the strike origin? I wouldn’t put it past Israel to false-flag themselves to enhance support for intervention in Lebanon. This attack helps Israel at zero expense (Druze were killed, not Jews), at the crucial time that Netanyahu is in DC looking for support, while covering up the story of the school in Gaza that was targeted.

  • -15

I'm curious where your put-past line is. Is Trump arranging for his own assassination attempt past it? What about Macron arranging the rail sabotage?

It is worth considering in cases where relatively few civilian deaths purchase a casus belli for an important conflict, and where the actor can’t be discerned. The rail sabotage would make sense for Macron if he were intent on blaming (say) Russia and also had a strong geopolitical interest in warring against Russia. Or consider the false flags used by Russia: https://it.usembassy.gov/how-russia-conducts-false-flag-operations/

In 1939, the Soviet Union shelled its own troops outside the Soviet village of Mainila near Finland. It then blamed Finland for the attack and invaded its neighbor in violation of the two countries’ nonaggression pact.

Implying that there isn’t a way to determine who launched the projectiles, it seems like a seriously attractive move by Netanyahu, and only at the expense of some Druze lives which don’t really matter to that coalition.

Unless this cozy little site has been infiltrated by paid actors, I suppose I may have to recalibrate the skepticism/cynicism Overton window of the average poster here. Not in a million years would I think it rational for Israel to false flag an attack on Druze children in the year 2024. Russia isn't the right analogy because, well, it's Russia! It's a large nuclear state that will doubtlessly continue to exist even if the rest of the world is turned into those that see it as a thug state and those that see it as a thug state that one can do business with. Israel has no such existential luxury, and so any attractiveness of creating a casus belli must be weighed down by the mortal expense of the loss of America's nuclear umbrella. The math is impossible and can only work if not only Netanyahu is crazy enough to believe it, but also the entire chain of command required to execute the false flag operation. This isn't something you can execute with three fanatical spooks.

At the risk of linking this mind-killing topic to another one that turned out to be mind-killing even relative to the normal toxic sludge nature of what we discuss here, I remember hearing a very similar line of argument for why Ukraine could not have been behind the Nord Stream bombing. Yet, when mainstream papers all over countries like Germany ran articles asserting that shockingly it was in fact the Ukrainians, the needle of public opinion regarding support for Ukraine in Germany and other Western countries barely twitched.

Regardless of whether you believe the it-was-UA theory, this should tell you that we overestimate the likelihood that people would turn on an important tribal ally for a moral transgression, even if that transgression harms said people. Just like with NS, in the hypothetical case that Israel did it, there will never be a situation where a leader will stand before a camera and swear that they ordered the attack (except in situations where it is too late for UA/IL anyway). For any evidence short of that, those who support them will surely find a way to continue believing a cocktail of "our allies wouldn't do that, their enemies are known to make things up, it wouldn't make sense for them because if it came out they would lose the support of people like me" that allows the supporter to treat the allegation as evidence for nothing except for the deviousness of the enemy's slanderous schemes.

What made the Ukraine - Nord Stream bombing story funnier, and helps explain some of that needle-not-shifting, was that it was the anti-Ukrainians/pro-Russians who most pushed in the 'it couldn't have been Ukraine' angle before the story broke, arguing on grounds that it was clearly beyond their capability and must have been the US instead, hence the credulity given to the Seymour Hersh article, while it was relatively pro-Ukrainian posters noting that the Ukrainians were potential culprits with means and motive.

The revelations that it was (probably) the Ukrainians were awkward for most people you'd expect to trumpet it, because it undercut a number of the propaganda narratives of the people previously most invested in the Nord Stream topic who you'd expect to trumpet it. The anti-Americans didn't want to acknowledge that their previous year of accusations would have been unfounded all the while, the Russians didn't want to acknowledge that Ukraine could destroy their infrastructure and thus Russia didn't have a monopoly on sabotaging underseas infrastructure to pressure the Europeans with, and the European energy-import/pro-Russia-business lobbies didn't want to have to acknowledge that the investments were far more vulnerable than previously thought (and not just from American pressure). Not only did it make previous positions wrong, but it undercut the arguments for Russia as an alternative when any 'break with the West, build a pipeline to Russia for your own interest!' project could be destroyed.

For the pro-Ukrainian factions, in turn, few of them had any major reason to be vocal about it. Setting aside that it had been inactive at the time and thus limiting the actual effect, the Nord Stream pipeline had been a long-standing friction point between Germany and most of its regional neighbors. Not only did its destruction given the German government the political cover to drop what had long been a priority project of the merkel era, it suited the interests of a number of the parties Germany had been ignoring the protests of to leave unstated that if Ukraine could sabotage such a pipeline, so could anyone else. The conspiracy theory before may have been only the Americans could, but the security-planning reality after was that anyone else could. No one, to my knowledge, has made any direct threat, but post-Nordstream Germany entered a series of substantial (and costly) policy changes to re-align itself with its neighbors.

(This is not as ominous as it may sound, and is far from the only European realignment on security / implicit capability threat terms. Political history ties the Franco-British alliance of the 20th century to the rise of Germany, but said changed also coincided with the rise in technological capabilities for the French to contest the English channel without needing a Blue Water navy thanks to torpedo boats. British-French relations shifted without an explicit threat, but with a coinciding sharp rise in the implicit relative costs if Britain chose a more confrontational approach. Similarly, the Franco-German conventional rivalry died with the advent of the French nuclear deterrent: with the value of conquest removed, cooperation becomes far more palatable than alternative arrangements. This does not mean that the French made nuclear threats to compel the Germans into the proto-EU.)

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats