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 -
Turns out USA did blew out Nord Stream: How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.
It was obvious to anyone paying attention, but now it's pretty much confirmed.
Of course I already see the people married to the opposite conclusion trying to discredit the journalist (on of the most decorated and impactful journalists of all time), and his sources: anonymous: (as if established publications didn't use anonymous sources).
Anyone who considers themselves a rationalist should have wide error bars on their conclusions for the pipeline bombing. Previously, there had been basically no evidence one way or the other as to who did it. People were just guessing based on their priors, which is fine, but being supremely confident in those guesses is bad epistemic hygiene.
This claim by Hersh is fairly weak evidence. The main problems:
Its only evidence is a single anonymous source. Journalists use anonymous sources all the time, but it still makes it less credible than someone who's willing to stake their reputation on the claim. Some of Hersh's previous claims (like his ridiculous Bin Laden story) used anonymous sources, but the claims crumbled under internal contradictions.
Most of the story is unfalsifiable.
One of the few bits that could actually be falsified, doesn't support Hersh's claim.
I'm not saying this claim is guaranteed to be wrong, but it needs a lot more evidence before it's convincing.
Yeah, obviously, because how much you believe this story is based entirely on Hersh's reputation. Most of this story cannot be verified, so you're trusting that Hersh did his due diligence on this anonymous source to make sure they weren't a Russian agent or some nobody that was blowing smoke out of their ass. Hersh's previous work should be concerning in this regard. He's a journalist who seeks to attack US foreign policy no matter what. He'll always err on seeing the US as the Big Bad. Sometimes this leads to him being right like with Mai Lai, other times it leads him to be wrong like with Bin Laden or Syrian chemical weapons.
You're just more likely to trust him because he's claiming something that conforms to your preconceptions.
Because the US, you know, the country that hacked control software of airgapped centrifuges and thus wrecked them wouldn't be able to, after months of preparation mess up badly secured data on a couple of websites in order to deflect attention ?
It's so weird how people online think (or want others to think i guess) that the existence of public transponder data somehow means that everything that happens in the air is 1:1 reflected by something like FlightAware.
Not to pick on you, but don't you think it's a lot more likely that prior to leaving on a super-secret mission that could start a chain of events leading to WWIII if discovered -- you might turn your damn transponder off?
Hersh says in the article it’s supposed be during BALTOPS during a routine NATO exercise, so not covert.
Tweet thread already addresses this: https://twitter.com/joey_galvin/status/1623755578773209088
The mines were said to be planted during BALTOPS, the sonobuoy deployed later. Both would have been covert in the sense that nobody was supposed to find out what was going on -- again I find it implausible that the navies of the world publicly distribute accurate locational data for all of their vessels at all times; perhaps even more implausible than air forces.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If an aircraft turns off its transponder, it becomes an object of interest for plane spotting types.
So, it's not exactly the greatest idea if you don't want to draw attention.
I would rather fly such a mission at night, certainly -- do you really think the military can't get a plane in the air without the internet noticing?
Europe is densely populated, and with current technology, it's probably prudent to assume every approach and exit path from a runway is being recorded at all times by cameras.
How many military airports in continental Europe have ~10+ km exclusion zones around their runways ?
I'd not even rule out stuff such as air traffic radar raw data being available somewhere.
Many problems with trying to be sneaky these days.
So populated, much dense
Are you for real? Even if the Russians have spys parked in some godforsaken fjord 24/7, what are they going to say? ASW plane takes off from ASW base, big news.
Unless the planes have been flying out without transponders all the time, a plane flying out without one or turning it off would be suspicious.
Especially if a plane did something this uncharacteristic around the time a pipeline blows up.
Especially as American ASW planes are capable of blowing up a pipeline by themselves.. although at present they probably have to fly low.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link