naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
As a meta-comment on all the hawkish hot takes, I'd love it if we could gather all motte hot-takers in a no-holds barred cage fight so we could distinguish between the psychopaths, veteran fighters and pissant weaklings who try to compensate for their inferiority complex with words. I think we have to be alert to the possibility that people that talk a big game could easily wet their pants in real world life and I'd love to see who those people are.
Well I have no idea of that scenario obviously, not having been in it. I've done some minor karate/Kung Fu sparring to know my skills and strength are negligible on the curve and on the street I've come off second best in several encounters though usually extremely drunk and in my youth. I suppose I have a quiet confidence that trained and with weaponry I would stand my own under fire but it's completely hypothetical. My theory is there's some advantage to calibrating your actual skills and courage to reality, rather than some wishful ego conception, so that way when it comes to crunch you don't find yourself unable to bridge to reality.
Now of course, instigating war doesn't require the instigators to have courage, they can pass that on to others, as well as the moral torments of having directly killed innocent people.
I just think I'm tired of the over-confident manner of mottizens in general. Talk is so cheap, and real thinking so expensive. So little on here has any relevance, interesting as it may be, because there is no reality test. As far as I can tell a lot of commentary just reinforces the position and ego of the commenter without persuading anyone else one way or another. On average people just like the friction of their position relative to others rather than being willing to actually adjust their position or acknowledge epistemic deficits. I'm worried that the tendency for over confident takes is actually psychological compensation and that the motte is actually riddled with a bunch of right brain autists metaphorically jerking off in their parents garage.
I think if you advocate genocide in a hot take you need to justify your bona fides. ie you should have murdered someone, or been a war veteran, or had your family murdered or something.
This site is resembling Reddit with the confident geopolitical hottakes.
I think if you advocate genocide in a hot take you need to justify your bona fides. ie you should have murdered someone, or been a war veteran, or had your family murdered or something.
Agreed, definitely! I would therefore advocate for using this framework, and logic, to permanently silence Americans off the entire internet. The amount of ignorance demonstrated by citizens of the global hegemon is a massive net fail and the foreign policy conducted as a aggregate of and on behalf of that ignorance is, in my opinion, worth kneecapping an American with a shotgun and taking away their internet access every time they say anything about anything they know nothing about and have never experienced.
Luckily, or unluckily, we don't live in a world where people's feet are held to the fire every time they say anything stupid, so people can continue to spout their hot takes as they wish.
Can we do the same for everyone in all those foreign nations that we allegedly don't know anything about who cries out for American intervention every time they pick a fight with their neighbors and get in over their heads? I'd be more than happy for us to pull out of NATO, the Pacific, etc, and best of luck to all of the nations there dealing with China and Russia without us.
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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
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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.
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Notes -
As a meta-comment on all the hawkish hot takes, I'd love it if we could gather all motte hot-takers in a no-holds barred cage fight so we could distinguish between the psychopaths, veteran fighters and pissant weaklings who try to compensate for their inferiority complex with words. I think we have to be alert to the possibility that people that talk a big game could easily wet their pants in real world life and I'd love to see who those people are.
I assume you're confident in your gorilla warfare skills, then? Or assuming you're not eligible since your takes are insufficiently hot?
Well I have no idea of that scenario obviously, not having been in it. I've done some minor karate/Kung Fu sparring to know my skills and strength are negligible on the curve and on the street I've come off second best in several encounters though usually extremely drunk and in my youth. I suppose I have a quiet confidence that trained and with weaponry I would stand my own under fire but it's completely hypothetical. My theory is there's some advantage to calibrating your actual skills and courage to reality, rather than some wishful ego conception, so that way when it comes to crunch you don't find yourself unable to bridge to reality.
Now of course, instigating war doesn't require the instigators to have courage, they can pass that on to others, as well as the moral torments of having directly killed innocent people.
I just think I'm tired of the over-confident manner of mottizens in general. Talk is so cheap, and real thinking so expensive. So little on here has any relevance, interesting as it may be, because there is no reality test. As far as I can tell a lot of commentary just reinforces the position and ego of the commenter without persuading anyone else one way or another. On average people just like the friction of their position relative to others rather than being willing to actually adjust their position or acknowledge epistemic deficits. I'm worried that the tendency for over confident takes is actually psychological compensation and that the motte is actually riddled with a bunch of right brain autists metaphorically jerking off in their parents garage.
I think if you advocate genocide in a hot take you need to justify your bona fides. ie you should have murdered someone, or been a war veteran, or had your family murdered or something.
This site is resembling Reddit with the confident geopolitical hottakes.
Agreed, definitely! I would therefore advocate for using this framework, and logic, to permanently silence Americans off the entire internet. The amount of ignorance demonstrated by citizens of the global hegemon is a massive net fail and the foreign policy conducted as a aggregate of and on behalf of that ignorance is, in my opinion, worth kneecapping an American with a shotgun and taking away their internet access every time they say anything about anything they know nothing about and have never experienced.
Luckily, or unluckily, we don't live in a world where people's feet are held to the fire every time they say anything stupid, so people can continue to spout their hot takes as they wish.
Can we do the same for everyone in all those foreign nations that we allegedly don't know anything about who cries out for American intervention every time they pick a fight with their neighbors and get in over their heads? I'd be more than happy for us to pull out of NATO, the Pacific, etc, and best of luck to all of the nations there dealing with China and Russia without us.
Definitely! As soon as they become the world leader militarily, economically, culturally, etc. while still allowing their population to vote.
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