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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Why Not Simply: Gaza, some more.
As I understand it,
It seems that one way to defuse Hamas' tactic of using a civilian populace as an all-purpose shield and moral justification is to separate Hamas-ans from Gazans, prevent the Gazan class from providing aid to Hamas, prevent the Gazan class from attacking Israel, and then avoid mistreating the Gazan class. In other words, stop-the-world filtration:
(Yes I know it's evil, but it's less evil and seems back-of-envelope more practical than what they're doing now)
I don't understand why Israel isn't doing this, and prefers to do horrific things to civilians and take the international consequences on the chin. Is it just because it's reinventing concentration/filtration camps, and not even Israel can handle the international blowback of that tactic at that scale? Is the scale impractical? Is the expense impractical? Is the needed bandwidth of processing humans not doable within Israeli manpower constraints? Do they simply not care that much? Do Gazans prefer to live freely in the current war zone that much more than food, board, and light prison regimentation? Is "after combat operations end" too fuzzy of a line to trust? Is there no trust in being released after internment, or good conditions during?
The Palestinians and Israelis hate eachother, what you're seeing is hatred. You see these incidents where the Israeli soldiers shoot school children in the back and get acquitted:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/16/israel2
Or when Hamas suicide bombers blow up Israelis. Doing horrific things to civilians is a goal in and of itself. They've been doing this kind of thing for ages, shooting unarmed protestors, pregnant women. It's hatred.
The Palestinians resent getting kicked off their land, they resent getting bombed, gunned down, getting their water stolen/filled with toxic waste, demolished houses... There are these giant lists of complaints they have: https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Why would Palestinians trust Israel when they've spent decades suppressing and impoverishing them, so as to maintain and expand Israeli territory and control? There is a massive abyss of negative trust between both sides. Furthermore, Israel knows they aren't going to lose US support, America's leaders tout their unconditional love for Israel to anyone who'll listen. Trump was on Truth Social the other day saying he's far more pro-Israeli than Biden, who has himself been sending billions in extra military aid. So what cost does Israel pay for behaving heavy-handedly? The US will clean up the mess, they'll deal with Yemen and anyone else who tries to target Israel.
Plus there've been swirling allegations that Netanyahu helped Qatar to support Hamas - dividing Palestinians between the Authority and Hamas helps prevent them forming a state. Divide and conquer tactics.
Palestinians have had very healthy birth rates and population has grown faster than Israel. It’s a very big stretch to say they are impoverished. Impoverished perhaps relative to Western Society. Not impoverished by their ethnic cohort in other nations.
What sort of argument is this? The correlation between birth rate and affluence is pretty much a straight negative globally. Are you going to argue Nigerians in the US are poorer than Nigerians in Nigeria if the former have lower birth rates?
The correlation between birth rate and affluence is inverted, but in times of genuine famine and starvation birthrates do fall because women’s caloric intake is literally not enough to grow a child. This is widely historically shown, lean years saw fewer births well before contraception, with often greater than 50% falls.
Sure, but how intense does starvation have to get for this effect to overpower the fertility penalty of affluence and stability? Most African countries were outperforming industrial ones even in peak famine conditions.
I think it’s useful to put boundaries on things when people hyperventilate.
“Impoverish” feels to me like it’s doing that.
They were doing nothing close to starvation level fertility decline
They are likely doing as well as any other situated Arab group that isn’t an elite sitting on oil money. Better than many
If Israel never existed I have extreme doubt they would have been wealthier than they were under current arrangements
They are much poorer than they would be if they were Jew loving, eliminated any desire to harm Jews, and worked with the high HBD and foreign money Israel for economic development
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link