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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.

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Other than the BLM supporters? Even ignoring Darwin's absolutely embarrassing showing, there were more than a couple honest advocates.

The dark old days when we still had users who actually had different opinions.

And they're free to post here and now. Unless they feel such unbearable mental pain from seeing other posters' contrary opinions that they ragequit.

Unless they feel such unbearable mental pain from seeing other posters' contrary opinions

This is perhaps ironic on a thread where the OP is still frustrated years later by hearing a single user disagree with the dominant narrative here.

Reading through the thread, I have no idea which post you are attempting to reference.

The comment mine is responding to, gattsuru’s on darwin

Ah.

Unless they feel such unbearable mental pain from seeing other posters' contrary opinions

This is perhaps ironic on a thread where the OP is still frustrated years later by hearing a single user disagree with the dominant narrative here.

Darwin was quite notable both for his prodigious and sustained output and his dedication to dishonesty and bad-faith interaction at every possible opportunity. Describing him as a "single user" "disagreeing" is disingenuous in the extreme. He burned more charity alone than any ten other posters you could name.

Further, the entire point of that quote is that he wasn't the only one, which is in fact the truth. Unironic support for BLM was not rare, even when the rioting was in full swing. Even less rare was "BLM is bad, but less bad than every observed response to the rioting".

The point stands. Darwin is still free to post here, as are any of the others who think BLM is a good idea. The fact that the history of their previous positions and the observed results places them squarely in the center of a rhetorical kill-zone is their own fault.

It’s a stain on our free speech record to have banned him. Even as a skilled devil’s advocate, if we assumed he never believed anything consistently, he was valuable.

Well, let's look at a concrete example. Does this sort of post seem valuable to you? Because if that's not Darwin, it's someone doing a very, very good impression of him.

Leaving aside the questions of whether that is Darwin and whether Darwin actually posted like that in the past, would you agree that someone who habitually posts in that fashion is optimizing for heat, not light? @Soriek, same question.

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