site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   27788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Interpol doesn't give out warrants on a bare allegation,

  1. "A Red Notice is NOT an arrest warrant and is NOT based on any INTERPOL investigation"
  2. I was referring to an allegation by India, not Interpol

sometimes we refuse to extradite for minor charges, or things that would not be crimes in Canada -- bombing a movie theatre is not those, that's the point.

No, the point is that there are other causes for denial of extradition, including, most importantly, the severity of the sentence faced by the person whose extradition is being sought. In particular, Canada will not extradite a person if that person faces the death penalty if convicted.

More specifically, the point is that your claim that Canada will ignore the protections provided its citizens if another country simply files super-serious charges, especially given the abuses I note above re abuse of Interpol red notices.

but even so, it's been over a year with no action

  1. How do you know that there has been no action? Do you have any idea how long extraditions usually take? Did the Indian government ever actually file a formal request for extradition? If so, when? Because the article I linked to stated only that local authorities in Punjab were seeking extradition, but of course the treaty says, "The request for extradition shall be made through diplomatic channels," so that means it has to be made by the Indian federal govt, not the local govt.
  2. One reason it has been "over a year with no action" is that he has been dead since June. And, let's take a look at a famous recent Canadian extradition case: That of Meng Wanzhou. That Wikipedia page says that it took more than a year between the receipt of the extradition request in Dec of 2018 and the start of the first phase of the extradition hearing in January of 2020. So, where is your evidence that 10 months with "no [public] action" is

You didn't answer the question.

I stated my point very clearly, twice:

  1. "The Interpol reference might not mean much. There has apparently been quite a bit of abuse of Interpol procedures on the part of authoritarian governments in recent years."
  2. "My only point was that the fact that Interpol has issued an arrest warrant does not, in and of itself, necessarily mean anything."

OK, so all I'm saying that the Interpol Red-thingee means is that India feels it has enough evidence to charge this guy if he shows up back in India -- which is also normally enough to have a poke at extradition proceedings. (which may or may not succeed)

So if India wants this guy enough to order a hit, it seems weird that they wouldn't have tried a little harder to extradite him first. Unless Canada told them "you can try but we will say no".

(BTW one of the most consistently annoying aspects of conversations with you is your tendency to veer off the main point to nitpick things like calling an Interpol Red Listing (or whatever they call it) a warrant -- if you are going to do that you should at least take pains not to refer to it that way yourself at other times)

@jkf If you find @Gdanning annoying you should either not engage, or engage in a non-antagonistic manner.

Gdanning made the antagonistic comment about Canadians, but otherwise backed off and only addressed points about the argument.

@jkf you were antagonistic multiple times in a row, despite no escalation from gdanning. Consider this a warning.

Point taken on rising to bait, but for clarity what were the times that I was antagonistic other than asking gdanning if he was a moron after he asked me if I was one?

You didn't answer the question.

...

BTW one of the most consistently annoying aspects of conversations with you

I will push back on these -- there is a difference between antagonism and feedback. Gdanning does in fact have a consistent pattern of responding to posts with long lists of nitpicks that are often technically correct but have little to do with the thrust of the discussion; at other times they veer towards strawmanning. (as in this case when he spends quite a bit of time arguing that the Interpol 'warrant' doesn't prove anything for certain; like, yeah?) This is annoying, particularly because he does also often make interesting points -- but struggling through the tangents is an obstacle towards getting there.

In any case, accusing one's conversation partner of annoying behaviour is surely better than accusing him of being a moron -- is it your position that it's OK to call people morons then back off, so that they will be the ones catching mod flak if they remain annoyed?

I tagged him in the original mod comment to let them know that the antagonism was noticed and not appreciated. But I also couldn't tell that he specifically meant to call you a moron. He called Canadians morons, and often when I see people doing that they are often talking about the people in the government of that country. That seemed like it was potentially the case here.

Your phrasing was more of a problem than the thrust of your criticism.

(BTW one of the most consistently annoying aspects of conversations with you is your tendency to veer off the main point to nitpick things like calling an Interpol Red Listing (or whatever they call it) a warrant -- if you are going to do that you should at least take pains not to refer to it that way yourself at other times)

Switched to:

(I've noticed in conversations with you, that you have a tendency to veer off the main point to nitpick things like calling an Interpol Red Listing (or whatever they call it) a warrant -- I'm going to try and ignore all of these nitpicks unless I can see how it clearly relates to the main discussion.)

More comments

nitpick things like calling an Interpol Red Listing (or whatever they call it) a warrant

That wasn't my point at all. My point was that Interpol does not do its own investigation. And, the only reason I referred to it as a warrant is that you did; note that I initially referred to "Interpol procedures" and I did that precisely because I did not know for sure what specific Interpol procedures tend to be abused, and which is also why I said, "The Interpol reference might not mean much."

And, perhaps you might think about why you got so bent out of shape by a simple observation that the Interpol reference might not mean much. And that there has apparently been quite a bit of abuse of Interpol procedures on the part of authoritarian governments in recent years. Yet you took that as some sort of claim that there was a good reason for him not to have been extradited, which I did not say at all.

And that there has apparently been quite a bit of abuse of Interpol procedures on the part of authoritarian governments in recent years.

This seems to be a claim that you are just taking at face value and expecting me to do the same -- obviously Interpol doesn't go and investigate things, rather issues their "whatever you want to call thems" based on evidence provided by the country of origin.

So you seem to be suggesting that India (parliamentary democracy, not authoritarian government BTW) faked evidence to get Interpol to put this guy on their list, but wouldn't do the same thing to try to have him extradited from Canada? But would send assassins to shoot him on Canadian soil? I don't really get it.

This seems to be a claim that you are just taking at face value

Well, I provided a link, and frankly it is pretty common knowledge. The Heritage Foundation has written about it and federal law now requires that the State Department issue biannual reports on the practice.

So you seem to be suggesting that India (parliamentary democracy, not authoritarian government BTW) faked evidence

  1. No, as I said, "The Interpol reference might not mean much" and "My only point was that the fact that Interpol has issued an arrest warrant does not, in and of itself, necessarily mean anything." Note the tentative nature of those statements.
  2. Ostensible parliamentary democracies can be authoritarian. See, eg, Hungary. And if you are not aware of the trends toward authoritarianism in India in recent years, you should be. Again, it is common knowledge and has been a somewhat thorny issue re US foreign policy of late.

but wouldn't do the same thing to try to have him extradited from Canada?

As noted several times, neither you nor I know what efforts India made to extradite him, and we certainly don't know what evidence it gave to Canada in support of any application it submitted.

But would send assassins to shoot him on Canadian soil?

  1. I have not opined that they did. I simply noted that the Interpol action is not necessarily evidence of anything.

  2. However, yes, regimes sometimes prefer their opponents dead to the alternative of giving a forum to their views via a trial. Especially a leader of a secessionist movement. Moreover, an assassination gives the regime deniability, unlike a trial. So there is nothing inherently illogical about it.

So my initial comment on this was:

The big picture question is why wasn't he extradited already, considering that he's been wanted by India/Interpol since 2016 for involvement in what seems to be clearcut terrorism. (theatre bombing)

Given the history with Air India, he doesn't seem like somebody we would normally want to keep around, had India made a request to bring him back for trial -- I wonder whether it's wise for Trudeau to stir the pot too much on what did or didn't happen in between now and then?

How in the world would you interpret this as me having extreme certainty about the Interpol warrant or anything else to do with extradition?

It is simply that I wonder why nobody moved to extradite him between 2015 and now, and whether questions about this will make the Trudeau government look all that great. (depending on the answers to those questions, of course -- but anything that could be spun as "harbouring accused theatre bomber" is probably not politically beneficial for them)

The entire rest of this thread is extremely tangential to this point, which I will raise again as a persistent discussion pattern with you that would be better avoided.

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