naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed 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.
Well the whole government of Israel uses Israeli civilians as their excuse to genocide the Palestinian people yes.
Who knows how many IDF veterans were at that festival as well.
Too much heat, not enough light (or effort).
Looking upthread, I see that this is at the bottom of a chain of low-effort single-sentence back-and-forth--which you started, but which @AshLael and @sun should have known better than to feed. This thread is a good example of why we frown at short posts, even though many short posts are good and probably in some cases we should encourage shorter posts.
Oh it's heat to question the narrative that a government can just willy-nilly blockage, starve, bomb thousands of civilians because they're fighting 'terrorism'?
Do you have one (1) example of modding on this subject in the past 2 weeks that is targeting the pro-Palestinian-genocide side of theMotte?
I have seen plenty of people calling the Palestinian population as a whole animals or variation thereof, calling for their eradication including women and children or downplaying civilian casualties as business as usual.
Is that not considered heat or boo-outgroup or was it just wrapped in enough sentences that this kind of take is novel and interesting enough?
Oh it's heat to question the narrative that a government can just willy-nilly blockage, starve, bomb thousands of civilians because they're fighting 'terrorism'?
No, it's heat to make sweeping claims of attempted genocide without careful phrasing, furnishing of evidence, steelmanning your opposition, etc.
Do you have one (1) example of modding on this subject in the past 2 weeks that is targeting the pro-Palestinian-genocide side of theMotte?
I am not aware of anyone making pro genocide arguments here. You are welcome to point me to such arguments if you like. But we don't moderate substance, we moderate tone.
I have seen plenty of people calling the Palestinian population as a whole animals or variation thereof, calling for their eradication including women and children or downplaying civilian casualties as business as usual.
Have you? Did you report them? Can you link to some of them for me?
I extended this invitation here and received exactly one example in response. I found that example to be borderline at worst, and since it was made by a well-reputed user the benefit of the doubt fell in their favor. This is a reputation economy, so that sort of thing matters, too.
Is that not considered heat or boo-outgroup or was it just wrapped in enough sentences that this kind of take is novel and interesting enough?
It doesn't have to be novel or even interesting--it just has to be wrapped in enough epistemic humility, individual perspective-taking, minimally-heated phrasing, etc. I can't think of a way to successfully make a true rule-abiding argument for actual genocide here, since that would fail the test of writing about specific rather than general groups, writing to include everyone, etc. But there are many ways to argue for lots and lots of killing, or even for military action that is likely to result in collateral damage, if you make that argument in an evidence-heavy, anger-light sort of way. These are decisions real government officials have to make, after all, and so it would violate the spirit of this place to exclude such ideas from consideration.
This is in many ways unfortunate insofar as I am myself quite opposed to killing! I lean both toward isolationism and pacifism. But on this particular topic, there is a lot of heated rhetoric, and maybe there is even more heating of others' rhetoric--taking small claims and strawmanning them, basically, into genocidal mania.
The problem is not your view. The problem is that you're clearly super upset about the fact that people disagree with you, and so you have chosen to express yourself in a way that does not engender continued positive discussion on matters of substance.
No, it's heat to make sweeping claims of attempted genocide without careful phrasing, furnishing of evidence, steelmanning your opposition, etc.
But you modded me, not the poster I was replying to.
I’m not sure how you can describe the recent Palestinian attack on Israel other than it’s a hate crime and genocide. She then posted support for them with no qualifiers. That is being extremely charitable.
I'm not the one making a claim of attempted genocide here, I'm just asking the poster, who I thought -and I'm not alone considering the rating of that comment- was not evaluating the situation correctly, to consider if the situation was reversed.
The problem is that you're clearly super upset about the fact that people disagree with you, and so you have chosen to express yourself in a way that does not engender continued positive discussion on matters of substance.
I guess I have the option of reporting, but my previous reporting has been fruitless.
I am not even Palestinian, Arabic or muslim, but I would not be surprised if the heavy rhetoric here in the past few weeks
had turned off that audience or anybody sympathetic to them. The 'boo outgroup' factor.
I have tried to balance it out a little by attempting to make some of the most trigger-happy commenters feel some empathy.
I just spent way too much time looking in previous weeks' comments, and perhaps it's evidence that things are not that bad?
This one I definitely did report:
I've become blackpilled enough to believe that most Palestinians today, deep down, want the destruction of Israel and nothing less.
No evidence was provided to support this belief. Of course the user has a strong reputation so we can just take their intimate beliefs at face value
even if they can appear inflammatory.
Israel is held to a set of standards that sort of rhymes with international conventions but is in fact much stricter, while Palestinians are held to none at all.
No evidence is presented for this claim, is it not inflammatory?
I'm not saying that we necessarily need to have a heavier hand on moderation, but simply that there seems to be a slight double-standard.
But there are many ways to argue for lots and lots of killing, or even for military action that is likely to result in collateral damage, if you make that argument in an evidence-heavy, anger-light sort of way.
Some users are definitely pretty talented at that, like 2rafa.
I paraphrase a lot of her comments on the subject:
I'm not saying Israel should ethnically cleanse Palestine, and I'm not even zionist, but what other solutions do they have, pragmatically-speaking, tee-hee?
One example which was probably less cleverly crafted in the heat of the moment:
I think Israel has been remarkably restrained since the mid-90s, and I’d like to see technological superiority used to kill at least a substantial number of violent young men.
Retaliation would be limited, and in any case could be met by more destruction. Having been radicalized by the footage from today, I don’t consider these people’s lives to have substantial value.
And perhaps the rational, pragmatic, ethical-altruist way of handling Gaza is ethnic cleansing, but still, how is that not BOO OUTGROUP?
Would a comment similar to this a month ago have passed muster?
I think Western Europe has been remarkably restrained since the mid-90s, and I’d like to see technological superiority used to kill at least a substantial number of violent young men. Retaliation would be limited, and in any case could be met by more destruction. Having been radicalized by the Nice truck attack, I don’t consider these people’s lives to have substantial value.
or
I think US police has been remarkably restrained since the mid-90s, and I’d like to see technological superiority used to kill at least a substantial number of violent young men. Retaliation would be limited, and in any case could be met by more destruction. Having been radicalized by the BLM riots and ensuing crime wave, I don’t consider these people’s lives to have substantial value.
But you modded me, not the poster I was replying to
First, the bad behavior of others is not a cognizable excuse for your own.
Second, and less importantly, no one has yet reported the comment you linked to, and I had not personally seen it. Having looked at it now, if it got reported, would I have moderated it? Maybe, but I think I'm leaning toward no because the tone is sufficiently one of exploring-the-arguments rather than heatedly-insisting-on-a-point. But the question is kinda moot because, again, no one even reported the comment, so I never saw it.
I am not even Palestinian, Arabic or muslim, but I would not be surprised if the heavy rhetoric here in the past few weeks had turned off that audience or anybody sympathetic to them. The 'boo outgroup' factor.
I disagree. My impression is that the open anti-semites who dedicate a lot of time making a ruckus here have been rather thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to go all-out in their criticism of Israel, and the ones who do so while obeying the rules have not gotten moderated for it. My impression of anyone who feels that this forum is either "too pro-Israel" or "too pro-Palestine" is that they must just not enjoy dissenting views being aired openly, because we have numerous good posters here with a genuinely diverse array of views on the matter.
I'm not saying that we necessarily need to have a heavier hand on moderation, but simply that there seems to be a slight double-standard.
You're still missing the point. You're so focused on which side you think this comment or that is on, that you are ignoring the difference between rule-breaking comments and comments that don't break the rules. Let's look at Amadan's comment, as you quoted it:
I've become blackpilled enough to believe that most Palestinians today, deep down, want the destruction of Israel and nothing less.
Emphasis added. Notice how that is a report about Amadan's psychology? Notice how this is not a report about your psychology?
the whole government of Israel uses Israeli civilians as their excuse to genocide the Palestinian people
Now, you might think, "that's stupid, obviously I'm only saying things that I think." But these are the kinds of locution that put distance between us and the issues we are talking about, and enable people who disagree with one another to speak about matters of disagreement. The same is true of 2rafa's commentary; that user was specifically reporting on their own psychological reaction to the footage of Muslim Arab terrorists from Gaza massacring civilians. Of course, someone might think they can exploit this by just putting "IT SEEMS TO ME" in front of every rule-breaking thing they want to say, but that is in part why our reputation economy is the way it is--the more good someone contributes to the forum, the more likely the mod team is to believe that users are in fact reporting on their psychology, rather than violating the spirit of the rules.
And perhaps the rational, pragmatic, ethical-altruist way of handling Gaza is ethnic cleansing, but still, how is that not BOO OUTGROUP?
"Boo outgroup" is a phrase that describes a claim or report that has no substance beyond serving as a "boo light" against a target. But sharing footage of, say, 9/11 isn't "boo outgroup," and reporting it was done by Muslim Arab terrorists, isn't "boo outgroup." A political cartoon depicting a Muslim Arab with a bomb for a turban, well, that is arguably "boo outgroup," even though it might also be an understandable reaction to having one's family terrorized by Muslim Arabs. Criticism is not the same as "boo outgroup." But criticism that is more heat than light often is.
Your mistake--and this is a common mistake when people get modded here--is your failure to imagine that you might have actually done something objectionable, and so you are carping on about what other people got away with. But that's irrelevant. You probably "get away with" bad comments too, sometimes, because we just literally don't have the time to moderate everything precisely the way it should probably be moderated. I am doing my best to explain the rules to you so you can follow them, and you asking "but what about these other people" is not especially relevant, except where it helps you to better understand what you did wrong.
I have not seen a single pro-Israel comment modded.
It's possible that anybody willing to write comments in defense of innocent civilians in Gaza is not as apt to follow the rules, but still it's somewhat surprising.
My impression is that the open anti-semites who dedicate a lot of time making a ruckus here have been rather thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to go all-out in their criticism of Israel, and the ones who do so while obeying the rules have not gotten moderated for it. My impression of anyone who feels that this forum is either "too pro-Israel" or "too pro-Palestine" is that they must just not enjoy dissenting views being aired openly, because we have numerous good posters here with a genuinely diverse array of views on the matter.
My own impression is that the respectable rules regarding outgroup, light and heat etc which were rather strictly enforced in some cases in the past seem to have been somewhat relaxed in the past couple weeks since a lot of the 'high reputation' regulars have found a group that they really want to boo at for once.
And perhaps I'm being too harsh as I don't expect a lot of forums to be handling these events very well.
Arguably, anti-semites provide a valuable perspective that is (usually) sorely lacking in mainstream media, and it seems that one could hypothesize that taking into account that perspective may help in understanding, preventing and mitigating attacks against jewish populations.
What if the situation was reversed???
I've become blackpilled enough to believe that most jews today,
deep down, want to control the world and nothing less.
Objective statement about hypothetical antisemite self-psychology. Moddable?
"the whole government of Israel uses Israeli civilians as their excuse to genocide the Palestinian people"
Now, you might think, "that's stupid, obviously I'm only saying things that I think." But these are the kinds of locution that put distance between us and the issues we are talking about, and enable people who disagree with one another to speak about matters of disagreement.
It is true that I could have taken more time to add the Israeli government quotes about animals and other things they qualified the Palestinians with, as quoted by other users here. Perhaps my argument would have had more weight to support an existing intent to ethnically cleanse the area or at least dehumanize civilians to enable genocide later.
"but what about these other people" is not especially relevant, except where it helps you to better understand what you did wrong.
Well I do know that reputation matters in how you are treated and I also now understand that if I want to get away with calling for civilian bombing apologetics, some civilians are more fair game than others.
I'm also providing feedback on moderation / site usage for other users, who may or may not agree.
I have not seen a single pro-Israel comment modded. It's possible that anybody willing to write comments in defense of innocent civilians in Gaza is not as apt to follow the rules, but still it's somewhat surprising.
What's surprising is that you're still going on about this. Many people have made perfectly acceptable, unmoderated "defense[s] of innocent civilians in Gaza." It's the rule-breaking stuff that gets moderated, and yes--there are several posters who have decided that people writing criticism of Israel should be exempt from the rules. Well, sorry: you're not.
What if the situation was reversed???
You keep asking this, as though it were a magical talisman. Or as though it even meant something. Reversing the script is a common play here. It happens all the time. The answer here is: "the rules will continue to be enforced."
I've become blackpilled enough to believe that most jews today, deep down, want to control the world and nothing less.
Objective statement about hypothetical antisemite self-psychology. Moddable?
We have literally allowed that sort of thing from people, multiple times, for years. Some are still posting, and are well-known here. Sometimes they make posts like that so much that it becomes annoying, since they are just beating a dead horse instead of actually having a meaningful conversation about the topic, so they get modded for being single-issue posters. But sometimes they stay on the right side of the rules.
I'm also providing feedback on moderation / site usage for other users, who may or may not agree.
Thanks for the feedback. You don't seem to know enough about how things are done around here to offer insightful feedback, but that's okay, we all had to start somewhere. Hopefully you now understand the rules better, and will avoid moderation in the future by sticking to them.
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Notes -
Were Israeli fighters using the festival as cover? In any case, it wouldn't be justifiable to rape and pillage the civilians there.
Well the whole government of Israel uses Israeli civilians as their excuse to genocide the Palestinian people yes.
Who knows how many IDF veterans were at that festival as well.
Too much heat, not enough light (or effort).
Looking upthread, I see that this is at the bottom of a chain of low-effort single-sentence back-and-forth--which you started, but which @AshLael and @sun should have known better than to feed. This thread is a good example of why we frown at short posts, even though many short posts are good and probably in some cases we should encourage shorter posts.
Oh it's heat to question the narrative that a government can just willy-nilly blockage, starve, bomb thousands of civilians because they're fighting 'terrorism'? Do you have one (1) example of modding on this subject in the past 2 weeks that is targeting the pro-Palestinian-genocide side of theMotte?
I have seen plenty of people calling the Palestinian population as a whole animals or variation thereof, calling for their eradication including women and children or downplaying civilian casualties as business as usual.
Is that not considered heat or boo-outgroup or was it just wrapped in enough sentences that this kind of take is novel and interesting enough?
No, it's heat to make sweeping claims of attempted genocide without careful phrasing, furnishing of evidence, steelmanning your opposition, etc.
I am not aware of anyone making pro genocide arguments here. You are welcome to point me to such arguments if you like. But we don't moderate substance, we moderate tone.
Have you? Did you report them? Can you link to some of them for me?
I extended this invitation here and received exactly one example in response. I found that example to be borderline at worst, and since it was made by a well-reputed user the benefit of the doubt fell in their favor. This is a reputation economy, so that sort of thing matters, too.
It doesn't have to be novel or even interesting--it just has to be wrapped in enough epistemic humility, individual perspective-taking, minimally-heated phrasing, etc. I can't think of a way to successfully make a true rule-abiding argument for actual genocide here, since that would fail the test of writing about specific rather than general groups, writing to include everyone, etc. But there are many ways to argue for lots and lots of killing, or even for military action that is likely to result in collateral damage, if you make that argument in an evidence-heavy, anger-light sort of way. These are decisions real government officials have to make, after all, and so it would violate the spirit of this place to exclude such ideas from consideration.
This is in many ways unfortunate insofar as I am myself quite opposed to killing! I lean both toward isolationism and pacifism. But on this particular topic, there is a lot of heated rhetoric, and maybe there is even more heating of others' rhetoric--taking small claims and strawmanning them, basically, into genocidal mania.
The problem is not your view. The problem is that you're clearly super upset about the fact that people disagree with you, and so you have chosen to express yourself in a way that does not engender continued positive discussion on matters of substance.
But you modded me, not the poster I was replying to.
I'm not the one making a claim of attempted genocide here, I'm just asking the poster, who I thought -and I'm not alone considering the rating of that comment- was not evaluating the situation correctly, to consider if the situation was reversed.
I guess I have the option of reporting, but my previous reporting has been fruitless. I am not even Palestinian, Arabic or muslim, but I would not be surprised if the heavy rhetoric here in the past few weeks had turned off that audience or anybody sympathetic to them. The 'boo outgroup' factor.
I have tried to balance it out a little by attempting to make some of the most trigger-happy commenters feel some empathy.
I just spent way too much time looking in previous weeks' comments, and perhaps it's evidence that things are not that bad? This one I definitely did report:
No evidence was provided to support this belief. Of course the user has a strong reputation so we can just take their intimate beliefs at face value even if they can appear inflammatory.
No evidence is presented for this claim, is it not inflammatory?
I'm not saying that we necessarily need to have a heavier hand on moderation, but simply that there seems to be a slight double-standard.
Some users are definitely pretty talented at that, like 2rafa. I paraphrase a lot of her comments on the subject:
One example which was probably less cleverly crafted in the heat of the moment:
And perhaps the rational, pragmatic, ethical-altruist way of handling Gaza is ethnic cleansing, but still, how is that not BOO OUTGROUP?
Would a comment similar to this a month ago have passed muster?
or
First, the bad behavior of others is not a cognizable excuse for your own.
Second, and less importantly, no one has yet reported the comment you linked to, and I had not personally seen it. Having looked at it now, if it got reported, would I have moderated it? Maybe, but I think I'm leaning toward no because the tone is sufficiently one of exploring-the-arguments rather than heatedly-insisting-on-a-point. But the question is kinda moot because, again, no one even reported the comment, so I never saw it.
I disagree. My impression is that the open anti-semites who dedicate a lot of time making a ruckus here have been rather thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to go all-out in their criticism of Israel, and the ones who do so while obeying the rules have not gotten moderated for it. My impression of anyone who feels that this forum is either "too pro-Israel" or "too pro-Palestine" is that they must just not enjoy dissenting views being aired openly, because we have numerous good posters here with a genuinely diverse array of views on the matter.
You're still missing the point. You're so focused on which side you think this comment or that is on, that you are ignoring the difference between rule-breaking comments and comments that don't break the rules. Let's look at Amadan's comment, as you quoted it:
Emphasis added. Notice how that is a report about Amadan's psychology? Notice how this is not a report about your psychology?
Now, you might think, "that's stupid, obviously I'm only saying things that I think." But these are the kinds of locution that put distance between us and the issues we are talking about, and enable people who disagree with one another to speak about matters of disagreement. The same is true of 2rafa's commentary; that user was specifically reporting on their own psychological reaction to the footage of Muslim Arab terrorists from Gaza massacring civilians. Of course, someone might think they can exploit this by just putting "IT SEEMS TO ME" in front of every rule-breaking thing they want to say, but that is in part why our reputation economy is the way it is--the more good someone contributes to the forum, the more likely the mod team is to believe that users are in fact reporting on their psychology, rather than violating the spirit of the rules.
"Boo outgroup" is a phrase that describes a claim or report that has no substance beyond serving as a "boo light" against a target. But sharing footage of, say, 9/11 isn't "boo outgroup," and reporting it was done by Muslim Arab terrorists, isn't "boo outgroup." A political cartoon depicting a Muslim Arab with a bomb for a turban, well, that is arguably "boo outgroup," even though it might also be an understandable reaction to having one's family terrorized by Muslim Arabs. Criticism is not the same as "boo outgroup." But criticism that is more heat than light often is.
Your mistake--and this is a common mistake when people get modded here--is your failure to imagine that you might have actually done something objectionable, and so you are carping on about what other people got away with. But that's irrelevant. You probably "get away with" bad comments too, sometimes, because we just literally don't have the time to moderate everything precisely the way it should probably be moderated. I am doing my best to explain the rules to you so you can follow them, and you asking "but what about these other people" is not especially relevant, except where it helps you to better understand what you did wrong.
I have not seen a single pro-Israel comment modded. It's possible that anybody willing to write comments in defense of innocent civilians in Gaza is not as apt to follow the rules, but still it's somewhat surprising.
My own impression is that the respectable rules regarding outgroup, light and heat etc which were rather strictly enforced in some cases in the past seem to have been somewhat relaxed in the past couple weeks since a lot of the 'high reputation' regulars have found a group that they really want to boo at for once. And perhaps I'm being too harsh as I don't expect a lot of forums to be handling these events very well.
Arguably, anti-semites provide a valuable perspective that is (usually) sorely lacking in mainstream media, and it seems that one could hypothesize that taking into account that perspective may help in understanding, preventing and mitigating attacks against jewish populations.
What if the situation was reversed???
Objective statement about hypothetical antisemite self-psychology. Moddable?
It is true that I could have taken more time to add the Israeli government quotes about animals and other things they qualified the Palestinians with, as quoted by other users here. Perhaps my argument would have had more weight to support an existing intent to ethnically cleanse the area or at least dehumanize civilians to enable genocide later.
Well I do know that reputation matters in how you are treated and I also now understand that if I want to get away with calling for civilian bombing apologetics, some civilians are more fair game than others. I'm also providing feedback on moderation / site usage for other users, who may or may not agree.
What's surprising is that you're still going on about this. Many people have made perfectly acceptable, unmoderated "defense[s] of innocent civilians in Gaza." It's the rule-breaking stuff that gets moderated, and yes--there are several posters who have decided that people writing criticism of Israel should be exempt from the rules. Well, sorry: you're not.
You keep asking this, as though it were a magical talisman. Or as though it even meant something. Reversing the script is a common play here. It happens all the time. The answer here is: "the rules will continue to be enforced."
We have literally allowed that sort of thing from people, multiple times, for years. Some are still posting, and are well-known here. Sometimes they make posts like that so much that it becomes annoying, since they are just beating a dead horse instead of actually having a meaningful conversation about the topic, so they get modded for being single-issue posters. But sometimes they stay on the right side of the rules.
Thanks for the feedback. You don't seem to know enough about how things are done around here to offer insightful feedback, but that's okay, we all had to start somewhere. Hopefully you now understand the rules better, and will avoid moderation in the future by sticking to them.
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