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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Just the usual billion dollars a year of international aid adds up over time (albeit not as much as it would have if Gaza still had 20% of the population), once it's not repeatedly reset, and sitting next to a Mediterranean beach can't hurt.
I'm not sure how much Israel would contribute, but they were selling Gaza a third of its power while still getting missiles fired at them; that's a lot better than the US would have treated any adversary in the same circumstances.
Was my "several hours later" link broken? Ongoing attacks are very good evidence that attacks will be ongoing; that's not a matter of trust or distrust, just inductive reasoning.
More recently, Hamas proudly publishes video of digging up water pipes to turn into rockets. There's a weird example of horseshoe theory here, where fellow travelers sound affronted at "Hamas would do X" while Hamas brags "ha ha, look how awesome we are at X!"
This is why a surrender is a prerequisite to building up an economy. You need investment to support subsequent investment, not to be dismantled when there's enough of it to turn into another volley of pot shots.
Is there an issue with hyperlinks here? I'm not sure you read mine, and I can't even see yours. This is the sort of thing that requires a source.
Or is it that you're under the impression that insults are appropriate on TheMotte but sources are not? The opposite is true.
I'd hoped you would find it valuable to learn that you were so wrong about Gazan overpopulation; that magnitude of error is often a good warning sign that you've been deriving facts from conclusions rather than vice-versa. Discovering that just once should provoke introspection akin to finding "just one termite" in your walls. But the correction doesn't seem to have nudged your perspective at all, and now we see it didn't even elicit politeness, so further corrections this far down-thread probably won't be productive either. I'll stop here.
Not really when the 'grass gets mowed' every so often and everything that is build up is razed to the ground. And then there are all the restrictions that mean that they simply can't use the money to build a solid economy. From my perspective, all that aid just goes into a black hole.
Note that Israel has now been systematically destroying Gaza, so it takes enormous resources just to build back housing, hospitals, schools, etc. So even getting back to a aid-dependent economy with basic needs being met, will requires enormous investments.
You really think that after just razing most of Gaza to the ground, they will spend a lot of money to rebuild it???
It is very obvious that there is a conflict happening where both parties distrust each other immensely and use violence against each other. You keep spending effort to prove this (albeit in a rather biased way), as if it is in doubt and as if scoring brownie points about this matters if the goal is actual peace.
You undermine your own point with your 'inductive reasoning,' because if you limit yourself to extrapolating short term trends then your fantasy that a unilateral surrender is a reasonable thing to demand and would solve the problem is absurd. Because inductive reasoning would not make one conclude that the Palestinians would give up violence, especially when an oppressive regime governs them. And inductive reasoning would not lead one to conclude that Israel would suddenly change course and allow the Palestinians to actually build up a proper economy.
I put two hyperlinks in my previous post, and I can see yours.
That's an unreasonable request when it is a pattern of behavior that goes back a long time. Besides, modern search engines are fully enshittified now, so finding proper evidence has gotten ever harder.
It is a criticism of your beliefs, which is not a personal insult, unless you believe that I may not dismiss your beliefs.
Ultimately, the idea that all Palestinians can suddenly be made to no longer be violent, is absurd. It either requires the belief that the Palestinians are a hive mind, or that Hamas or whomever have a perfect way of controlling the behavior of every person. If your solutions are build on such absurd beliefs, then I cannot take them seriously.
Note that it is just as absurd to think that Israeli settlers and Israeli soldiers can be made to suddenly stop using unjustified violence against Palestinians.
Sorry for not fisking your entire comment. After all, even if you were right on this point, it still would not actually disprove my claims, that merely require that overpopulation exists, not a specific cause. But you are wrong:
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/g-s1-59633/gaza-buffer-zone-israel-military
And note that I never claimed that this is the only reason for overpopulation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link