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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 26, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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If the answer is that they are devout Muslims and Christians, then do we need to save them from their own irrationality by either somehow getting them to convert anyway

This is how Christians felt toward Jews for many centuries (forced conversion or expulsion) and it is widely considered to have been a Very Bad Thing. But also, this “irrational” belief is what enables them to exert their will to survive despite reduced quality of life. Can you imagine 21st century Americans behaving like the Palestinians if the Chinese decided to occupy their nation? I can’t. Their “irrational” faith along with its privilege of martyr status and expectation of post-life reward have actually resulted in a evolutionarily rational decision: fighting zero-sum against an arguably ethnic supremacist enemy. Religion has coincidentally allowed them to pursue their evolutionary motive with greater rationality.

Can you imagine 21st century Americans behaving like the Palestinians if the Chinese decided to occupy their nation? I can’t.

If you asked me this question four years ago, I would’ve replied the exact opposite. In elementary school, we were still taught the version of the story of the American Revolution with Paul Revere’s Ride and No Taxation Without Representation and free men casting off the yoke of Albion. I thus always went through life assuming that Americans, even 21st-century ones, were freedom-loving enough to respond violently if necessary to any infringement upon our fundamental rights as outlined in the Constitution and its amendments. Oh boy, was 2020 a wake-up call. I like to believe that those fabled Americans still exist in states redder than mine, but I can’t say that I have the same faith anymore.

Anyway. Sorry for the unrelated blogpost; you just triggered a little thought.

Can you imagine 21st century Americans behaving like the Palestinians if the Chinese decided to occupy their nation? I can’t.

It's an interesting what if. Neither the Americans nor the English have the experience of living under a foreign occupation, at least not since William the Conquerer. I hear this pointed out a lot to explain why American and English perspectives on ex-colonial nations seem so out of touch.

While they were never under a long-term foreign occupation I think the Ulster Scots would be very likely to hold to that type of irrational faith that is necessary for nation to survive under a foreign government. If Ireland ever unifies I don't expect them to stop being more British than the British themselves, and if America ever loses territory I don't expect their counterparts over there to give up either.