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 -
It just reads to me that you have a deep-seated personal reason to defend Israel at all costs. This is why you’re resorting to a litany of ad hominems rather than just explaining your position and why you disagree. I can understand why “the IDF is using dogs to rape prisoners” would be a horrifying thought for someone who loves Israel and who is eager to call critics antisemitic. After all, if they’re doing that, it would mean that there could be something wrong with Israel, which would prove the critics directionally correct. But we should still think dispassionately about the accusation. If Hamas does not stand to gain from the accusation, then it is unlikely that the accusation is manufactured. If the accusation is not true, then it is likely manufactured from the top brass, because the journalist interviewed the family members and friends of all the alleged victims, confirming their reports, and the Palestinians would not randomly decide to lie at the same time about the same thing undirected. As such, you are insinuating a widespread Palestinian conspiracy theory orchestrated by Hamas. But Hamas does not stand to gain on the whole from the accusation: (1) it will decrease their enrollment and morale, (2) there are already an abundance of horrible things that Israel has done to Palestinians, like mass starvation and other rape cases, which thus makes it unlikely that they would sacrifice their enrollment and morale in order to negligibly increase their messaging abroad. You disagree, but you don’t really articulate your disagreement to these points, you just kind of name call. I still have no idea why you think that a story about Hamas militants being raped by a dog would not harm the enrollment of Hamas militants and their morale.
"What the enemy does to prisoners" as a significant negative factor for enrollment is not how I model a typical recruit's mind at all. You don't enroll to get captured.
Much less the dog rape story is unlikely to marginally affect enrollment when compared to all the regular nightstick rape stories that are already there.
Israel has captured more than 2,350 Hamas affiliates, so it is a real outcome possibility for the militants.
"It's a real outcome" != "a modal recruit's priority".
"Alright, there are approximately 0.1% odds I'll get captured, per year... They might sodomize me with a chair leg, but I can risk that if it's to defend my homeland. ... wait, what's that? They using DOGS now?! Absolutely no chance then!"
It works much better as atrocity porn to rile them up than to deter them.
You are not modeling the modal recruit accurately.
The 13 known rape cases are not the minimum bound of rape cases, as the author notes.
The chance of being captured is at least 2,350 out of 20,000, given figures on the number of Hamas militants.
Humans respond to stories more than statistical probability. Humans will decide not to swim if they hear a story about shark attacks. The chance of a shark attack is much less than the chance of being placed in an Israeli rape dungeon, where there is the continual fear of being raped.
You are not imagining being a human in a social ecosystem which values familial honor more than anything and where rape is shameful, such that some families would kill their own child if they were raped. You are not imagining being a 75-90iq Hamas recruit. We live in “mattress girl” country where being a rape victim gives you support and arguably honor. It is very hard for us to imagine the mindset of an Islamist in Gaza.
All the rape stories are aversive. The dog rape is just extra subversive.
I keep having to say this: they do not need to be riled up in a demoralizing way when they are already riled up in better ways. The starvation, the land grabs, the grandmothers killed, the aid workers killed are all better focuses. This is why nations in history have never used “they’re raping our POWs” as their propaganda of choice, even in non-honor cultures. When Caesar was sent off to another king, the rumor of his being raped stayed with him his entire lifetime, harming him. And Islamic culture is even more rape averse than Ancient Rome, by a lot.
The 90 IQ Hamas recruit I'm imagining is not going to be moved by a dog rape story noticeably more than a regular rape story. They are both beyond the pale.
The explanation that best fits what I observe is that this story is intended for credulous Westerners primed to see Israel as a country uniquely evil even among the rest of warmongering nationalist states.
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
You've tried the "Are you a Jew?" gambit before.
I have explained my position in greater length and with more effort than your arguments are worth, frankly. The posts are right there. I disagree because you are using poorly argued motivated reasoning. I could just as easily (and more accurately) argue "It just reads to me that you have a deep-seated hatred of Jews and that's why you believe everything Hamas says." That would, in my opinion, be completely accurate, but I have instead focused on the details of what you are claiming, without myself claiming to possess absolute knowledge of things I cannot know, whereas you claim to know for certain what the truth is based on what you think you understand about Palestinians and Israelis.
I would be horrified at the thought of anyone using dogs to rape prisoners. I don't love Israel. I've told you this before.
Talk about projection. When you become emotional and use loaded, ideologically motivated arguments, you are not the one being dispassionate. I am.
Hamas does stand to gain from the accusation.
I notice you are just repeating your arguments even after I have addressed all your points. It's pointless to keep explaining logical errors when your tactic is, like other people with your particular obsession, to just hit the rewind button and go back to the start and pretend we haven't been over this.
This is untrue. Again, the posts are there.
I haven't called you any names. I have commented on your behavior a few times, but your description of the tone of my side of this argument is wrong and dishonest.
Your entire position from the start has been to deflect and screed about these two points I made in my first comment:
that Hamas is a Islamic honor culture where male rape is shameful and aversive, especially involving an unclean animal. To this, you claim I have no evidence. That is a wild response. You apparently didn’t read the original linked article where this was specifically noted, by someone who is a double Pulitzer Prize winner. (Let me guess: he hates the Jews).
that Hamas already has enough atrocities to show to the West, which means adding a dog into the mix does not help them over and above how it hurts them.
That’s really it. Because if you had to admit that a story of being raped by dogs is bad the morale and enrollment of Hamas given all available information, which is an intuitive argument, then your screeds no longer make sense. This is why you are afraid to plug the query into an AI of your choosing, which I suggested to you (but the AIs are antisemitic?). This would literally be the easiest way to determine whose intuition is motivated. Ask it to read all the available sociological literature on Hamas or relevant Islamic militant groups. I’ll wait.
No, it has not. This is dishonest. You know it is dishonest. Calling an argument a "screed" when it is clearly not is a dishonest rhetorical tactic.
Show me where is the emotive language in what I write, where is the meandering ideological flailing? I could more fairly characterize what you write "screeds" but I've avoided doing so.
I have repeatedly addressed your "honor culture" and "Why would Hamas lie about this?" arguments. I have repeatedly pointed out that I have more knowledge of the region, the history, and the people, which you cannot refute because like your extrapolations about Iran and what their motivations might be, you don't actually possess knowledge of these things, you just construct arguments-as-soldiers against your enemy.
You haven't even tried to refute my arguments, just hit the restart button and claimed I didn't address them. Now you're resorting to "You must be a Jew" again.
I mean, look at this:
Show me anywhere where anything I have said implies that a story of being raped by dogs is not bad. I've literally responded to this multiple times in various forms, and said directly that this (if true) is bad and horrifying. I have even acknowledged it might be true, while expressing skepticism. Yet you hit restart and write, ahem, a screed about how I am unwilling to admit that a story about being raped by dogs is bad.
You are just flatly making things up.
"Afraid." Note again the disingenuous, emotive language.
I don't need an AI to tell me things, and your query was framed in a way that naturally would give the answer you want. Yes, I too can write a prompt which will coax an AI to validate my priors. Here's one: ask the AI of your choosing if it would be advantageous for an insurgent organization to fabricate or exaggerate stories of their enemy raping people with dogs. What do you think it will say? Here's another: ask the AI of your choosing how difficult it would be to train dogs to rape people. Are you afraid to ask it that?
The fact that you think "Ask an AI if I'm right" is a convincing gambit shows how weak your actual knowledge is and how shaky your reasoning. And I am tired of the dishonest argumentation, which I have indulged longer than is sensible or reasonable.
This is a lot of text to say that you are unwilling to have the focal question in dispute judged by some third party AI. At the end of the day, one of us is willing to put their skin in the game, and one of us is not. The focal question — whether the story is likely to harm Hamas recruitment and morale — is something you were extremely confident about in your last replies. To quote:
Again, I answered every one of your points and you answered none of mine.
You are fooling no one. You're done.
ETA: To humor you, though:
I’ll treat this as a social/propaganda-effects question, not as advice for running a campaign. I’ll ground the answer in what is known about militant recruitment, honor/shame narratives, and rumor credibility.
🧭 Bottom line: low-to-moderate likelihood of reducing recruitment by itself; higher likelihood of short-term ridicule and reputational damage among fence-sitters, but also a real risk of backlash or martyrdom-framing. A single viral humiliation story rarely moves recruitment unless it is credible, repeated, locally believed, and attached to broader evidence of weakness, hypocrisy, or divine disfavor.
The “ritually unclean animal” angle could matter because dogs are often conventionally associated with impurity in Islamic legal/cultural discourse, though views vary by school and community; some authorities focus on saliva, others treat the whole animal as impure, and some traditions are more permissive. But that does not automatically translate into recruitment collapse.
Likely effects by audience
Committed militants and ideological supporters: little reduction. Hard-core supporters would probably dismiss the story as enemy lies, atrocity propaganda, or humiliation porn. Extremist movements often thrive on narratives of persecution and enemy depravity. Counter-narratives can backfire when they are seen as manipulative, hostile, or insulting to the in-group.
Potential recruits motivated by masculine prestige: possible deterrent. For young men attracted by images of battlefield honor, dominance, brotherhood, and invincibility, a viral story that makes the group look degraded or sexually humiliated could have some deterrent effect. ISIS-style propaganda, for example, has historically emphasized purpose, camaraderie, battlefield potency, and status; humiliation undermines that brand.
Local communities and families: modest reputational effect. Families already trying to keep sons away from militancy might use such a story as ridicule or warning. It could become a stigma: “joining them means dishonor, not heroism.” But this works best where the story is believed by the recruit’s own community, not merely circulated by enemies.
Hostile outsiders: high virality, low recruitment relevance. The story would likely spread fastest among people who already hate or mock the group. That creates visibility, but not necessarily persuasion among the target recruitment pool.
What determines whether it actually reduces recruitment?
The story is more likely to hurt recruitment if:
It is seen as true: video, multiple local witnesses, or confirmation by trusted insiders. It comes from in-group or neutral sources, not an obvious enemy government or rival faction. It fits an existing pattern: the group already looks weak, cursed, corrupt, cowardly, or sexually deviant. It becomes a durable joke or stigma, not just a one-day outrage cycle. It attacks status, not faith: “these fighters are pathetic frauds” is more effective than “your religion is dirty,” which would probably backfire.
It is less likely to hurt, and may even help recruitment, if:
It is transparently fabricated. It is framed as an attack on Muslims generally rather than on the militant group. The group can recast it as proof of enemy barbarity. The target audience values revenge, martyrdom, and humiliation-redemption narratives. The group has strong offline recruitment networks; extremist recruitment often depends heavily on peer ties, identity, community, and social reinforcement, not just media impressions. Probability estimate
For a single viral story, I’d roughly estimate:
Hard-core supporters: recruitment reduction near zero, possibly backlash. Fence-sitters / status-seeking recruits: some reduction, especially if the story seems credible. Broad recruitment pipeline: probably small effect, unless folded into a sustained credibility-damaging narrative. Best-case impact: the group becomes widely mocked as weak, polluted, and dishonorable among its own recruitment pool. Worst-case impact: the story is dismissed as vile enemy slander and strengthens grievance-based recruitment.
🎯 Most likely outcome: temporary reputational embarrassment, not a major recruitment shock. It could shave off some prestige-driven recruits, but it would not reliably depress recruitment unless it is credible, locally resonant, and paired with other evidence that the group is losing, corrupt, or spiritually illegitimate.
Ironically, ChatGPT is able to consider the question with more insight and subtlety than you are.
Here's my prediction: you will take a few isolated sentences from the above output and claim "See, ChatGPT agrees with me!" ("could have some deterrent effect") and ignore... everything else. Because it's "a lot of words."
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