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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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No I agreed that he didn’t represent the other positions charitably. People can make rational pro-Palestinian or 2020 election denial arguments. Which I do not believe you can on “What is a women” (besides a very narrow small percent of true abnormal chromosome people).

My guess is you don’t like me labeling the pro-Palestine people as being anti-might makes right, but I do think you need to take that view. It is a coherent argument to believe might does not make right. Otherwise Palestine was conquered 80 years ago and at some point they just need to accept that and quit fighting under traditional western doctrine.

"What is a woman?" is a question about the meaning of words, not about the world. And "We should, where possible, use words in a way which avoids hurting people" is a good (though in my view insufficient given that it makes it impossible to talk about sex-specific medical issues in non-technical language) rational argument for using the word "woman" in a trans-inclusive way - see any of the multiple Yud essays on this point, or Scott's "The Categories were made for Man"

There are a lot of insane transactivists who think that "What is a woman?" has an objective scientifically correct answer which includes transwomen, but you don't have to agree with them to avoid cancellation.

Given Hobson's choice on the issue, I would rather defend pro-Palestine in front of a hostile audience than TWAW*, but I would rather defend TWAW than a blatant lie like the MAGA position on the 2020 election.

* My actual position on this issue is that Israel is almost certainly the lesser evil, but I don't take sides in evil-vs-evil conflicts where I don't have a stake.

I'm a bit confused as to the "what is a woman" connection, but also my brain is somewhat more mushy than usual right now, and you are not making it easy with the slightly sloppy/casual grammar. I'll try to reread it when I am more lucid.

My guess is you don’t like men labeling be pro-Palestine as being anti-might makes right

(assuming men -> me) I do think "anti-might makes right" is a common motivating value among those who hold the pro-Palestine position, though by no means universally present.

Otherwise Palestine was conquered 80 years ago and at some point they just need to accept that and quit fighting under traditional western doctrine.

They were, and they did; that's why they co-locate military installations with schools and hospitals and cry crocodile tears when they get exploded. Western doctrine post-1970 or so really doesn't have an effective answer to "I guess I'll just kill myself, lol" (and the inability to shut down "what is a woman" is heavily related to this), mainly because Western populations are unwilling to permit/enforce that a belligerent that intentionally disregards Western laws of fighting gets to suffer the wages of disregarding Western laws of fighting (and 'we'll step in if you're about to get genocided' is very high on the list of protections those laws claim to offer).