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FirmWeird

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joined 2022 September 05 23:38:51 UTC 

				
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FirmWeird


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
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User ID: 757


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


kind of hard to erase being caught trying to kill a child* when it's international news




Not at all! International news will actually help you erase the murder of children - look at how Hind Rajab's death was reported as the death of a "Palestinian woman" in the international press/media despite her being five years old.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Actually you'll find that vast swathes of it just unaccountably vanish into the private pockets of well connected individuals. Not only is that spending not worthwhile, the beneficiaries of it often use their newfound wealth to ensure their continued access to the levers of power and ability to give themselves more. It's strictly socially negative and solely for the good of private interests who are actively looting societal commons. Plenty of it wouldn't be worthwhile even if it was used!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But this is not the topic of the day, instead I was thinking on how, strategically, the Left could respond.




Destroy the democratic party. I'm serious - that's the most effective option they could take right now. Blow the entire thing up and make sure that nobody in the executive or administration of the party as it exists now has any influence, control or respect in the new party which replaces it.


Left wing political ideals and policies poll substantially better than the DNC does, and for good reason. The corruption and malfeasance in the DNC is so great that it simply is no longer fit for purpose. The DNC heard their base's views on Gaza, told them to fuck off, then got destroyed in the election. They handed Trump win after win(negotiating the ceasefire, banning TikTok) for no reason other than their own corruption. The DNC party establishment would rather lose to Trump than win with Bernie - they want to ensure they can continue to personally advance themselves even if it means throwing every single left wing political value into the toilet. They need to go. Yesterday.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The alleged reasoning is that the pardons only apply to those already convicted convicted of a crime




I have no opinion on the actual legal validity of this claim, but team Trump would be perfectly happy if this standard gets used because now all of Biden's ass-covering pardons are invalid and politically motivated prosecutions of the Biden family and Fauci are back on the table... which is why I think this novel legal strategy will fail or be withdrawn in short order.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The first lesson of history is that nobody ever learns any lessons from history.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Further, the knowledge that lawfare is a thing and that the state will come after you creates a huge chilling effect. How many people would be afraid to go to a protest if they had reason to believe that the state would start combing through their past to find something they could be jailed for? Or that tge state might well just make something up. Even expressing support might make you a target.




This is a good point and I feel like further adding that this was actually done to Trump in his first term - people who earnestly and in good faith signed up to work in this administration knew that the Eye of Sauron would be pointed directly at them. It claimed multiple scalps as well. While a lot of the people who ended up in trouble had actually done bad things, if the same standard and scrutiny was placed on just about anyone in Washington you'd be able to find deeds that were worse or just as bad.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's the original conspiracy theory claim - the FBI lying to cover up something else (most likely that the person planting the pipe bomb was working for intelligence).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can understand not wanting to doubt the sterling moral character of the US intelligence agencies, but this explanation is actually less realistic than the conspiracy approach. The FBI failing to follow a lead on a person who was potentially trying to blow up the president/vice president) because of a miscommunication with a telecom company is a level of incompetence that beggars belief. This is the sort of excuse that would get someone fired from their job at a supermarket or furniture store, and yet there was no corrective action for an investigation into someone attempting to blow up the president during the inauguration? Every single one of the points you raised could have been corrected within a few minutes by someone who actually wanted to investigate the situation, and yet nothing of the sort has happened - this is substantially less realistic than the idea that the FBI is malicious.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Who? Remember that whoever planted the pipe bombs had the ability to scramble and corrupt cellphone data after it was given to the FBI, and use magical powers to prevent the FBI from investigating further or getting the uncorrupted data from the telecom company by just asking them again. If you want to blame a foreign adversary, the US is completely owned and compromised.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I would appreciate hearing anyone’s thoughts on this.




As a conspiracy theorist, my belief is that this is Trump/his team discovering real, serious attempts on his life coming from within the government. The deep state likes to plan these things out in advance (to this date there is no non-conspiracy explanation for the January 6 pipe bomb affair), and suddenly shifting the location is going to throw a wrench into their plans.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Wait, would they be self-governing, or share a government with the Israelis? I think youve gone back and forth.




Democracy with full franchise. They'd be sharing a government with the Israelis, but both them and the Israelis would be voting for it. I just don't think a two-state solution is viable.




In the real world, it would take a kind of denazification on steroids, and whoever does it would be branded much worse than Israel is now.




I believe that if there was a serious, good-faith effort to bring the people together and achieve peace it could be done. Would it be easy and simple? Of course not - but I think it would lead to a much better outcome than the current state of affairs, or where that state of affairs is leading.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The explanation that I've heard is that Jewish culture in the shtetl selected heavily for verbal IQ as demonstrated by analysis, research and commentary on Jewish holy texts. If you wanted to have lots of kids the easiest way to do that was to be a distinguished rabbi and scholar - which is why the Ashkenazim are specifically advantaged with regards to verbal IQ, but less gifted in terms of spatial IQ. There's also a decent case to be made (though I'm not sure where the current research is on this) that the higher rates of certain mental/developmental disorders among Ashkenazim are the result of this process as well - potentially with a similar mechanism to sickle-cell, where you have an allele that confers a reproductive advantage when heterozygous but negative outcomes when homozygous.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But he still basically enforced the consensus while privately knowing it was wrong, until the political conflict underpinning Culture War took a significant turn.




I was under the impression that he did this on purpose and essentially told people who could read between the lines explicitly in "Kolmogorov Complicity And The Parable Of Lightning". You're totally right about what he was doing and he was always a HBD enjoyer, but he was very clearly pursuing a specific strategy to try and do as much as possible without getting the eye of sauron turned on him and his community. I think he was right to do so as well - the "cause" of HBD wouldn't really be served by Scott Alexander self immolating and tainting the reputations of a lot of other people who believed essentially the same thing, as opposed to what he actually did in continuing to allow his community to exist.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm sure that if you asked the jews of Auschwitz how they felt about Germans they would say and attempt to do many of the same things - is that evidence that the Jewish people are evil murderers full of hatred who need to be exterminated? It isn't terribly surprising that the man holding his son's lifeless, headless corpse won't talk positively about the people who murdered him.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Its the same as Women and Children. Given the footage of fi refights, it seems that Gaza has speedrun progressivism by allowing gender conversions for its fighters, and even age conversion for its grown men to suddenly be 'children'.




Hind Rajab's death was reported on CNN as "the death of a Palestinian woman" despite her being five years old. In the mainstream media at least the opposite of this was true, but I'm very willing to believe that it was the case on social media.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I mean both sides were playing the media game. Palestine did it much better.




To my knowledge, most of the "playing the media game" Palestinians did was sharing clips of what Israel had actually done to them on tiktok and other non-western social media. Have you seen the clip of the man carrying his child's headless body? Visuals like that are extremely confronting, even if the Israelis insist that the four year old was an enemy combatant. It wasn't some Palestinian marketing masterstroke that made Hind Rajab a household name, but the brutality and cruelty involved in her death and foiled rescue attempt.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think the fact that the Palestinians released some of the hostages because those hostages were kind to the Palestinian community before being abducted is a particularly strong argument for the idea that the Palestinians are evil monsters who just want to kill all jews for no reason.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Palestine as is, and as was ca 1970, can not self-govern in a way that keeps the terrorism in check.




My belief is that the violence springs from the grievances of the Palestinian people, and that this single-state solution would address the majority of those grievances from which the terrorism springs. I don't believe that the Palestinians are inherently violent and evil subhumans incapable of existing in polite society. The Irish and the English were fighting for a long time, but now that the Irish grievances are being addressed peacefully the terrorism has stopped. I see no reason why this can't happen in Israel/Palestine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


My evidence for this is that such populations in adjacent states populated by persons similar to Islamic Palestinians have also been ethnically cleansed or genocided over the last century.




Have you looked at the history of the region before Israel? Palestinian jews were more than capable of living in peace with Palestinian arabs, and even in the earliest stages of the conflict the Palestinian movements called those jews their brothers.




In other words, we have centuries of evidence that polities consisting of Arab Muslims are evil,




When you start talking about how entire populations are just inherently evil you have departed from reality and polite society both. You can adopt this position on the motte, but you're forever in the same category as the Nazis and the white nationalists. If you want to support ethnic cleansing and genocide, you're free to - but good luck advocating this murderous and hateful belief to the rest of the world.




OTOH Israel's response to the provocations of its neighbors has been historically judicious,




I could say the same about Rome's judicious responses to the provocations of the rebellious hebrews. The Romans treated them so incredibly well, even to the point of building roads and aqueducts for them - but those ungrateful Jews just kept violently attacking them for no legitimate reason. Maybe the Jews were just inherently evil and full of hatred for Italians - after all, there were centuries of evidence proving that the Jews just kept on attacking the Romans unprovoked! If the Romans wanted, there would be zero jews living in Judea - but they were just too nice, too generous and too concerned with the casualties of their enemies. What moral titans!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This statement becomes a lot less pithy when you factor in the actual history of the region. I may as well talk about how Israel brutally and evilly attacked Palestine for no reason on October 8 - you can make either side look good by arbitrarily choosing the moment at which you start counting the trading of blows.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying re: Egypt, but I don't know how that's relevant to the situation at hand. Palestine would be self-governing, with no need for Egypt to do anything. That said, who knows what Egypt would be like in that world - without the US interfering to help out Israel, the counterfactual Egypt is likely very different to our one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, and that means they met one part of the definition - but not the rest. If there's historical evidence of an actual attempt to ethnically cleanse the south and replace them with yankees, it would be news to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Do you hold yourself to this standard on baseless conjecture?




The alternative world proposed above is so incredibly different from our own that I don't believe we can really draw an accurate picture of what happens in it. In the world being described there's no nakba and no system of apartheid. The Palestinians aren't just violent for no reason, they have a clear set of grievances with Israel and the USA that are extremely comprehensible, and those grievances simply do not exist in this hypothetical. The proposed world is so different from our own that I don't think it's really possible to draw meaningful conclusions from it - there's a very decent chance that 9/11 and the various US wars in the middle east also don't happen.




The Gazans, who voted in the Kill all Jews Party, will just get along in Israel if they have representation?




I believe that if you remove the causes of their grievances they will no longer be as disposed to violence. If you look back in history, there was a population of Palestinian jews who lived in the area without violence - there's actually direct historical evidence of Jewish and Arabic Palestinians living together in peace. Peaceful co-existence is possible, and a far more desirable state than what we have now.




Israel: a nuclear armed state, with 5th generation jet fighters, top tier intelligence agencies.




I do not believe Israel should be a nuclear-armed state. I'm more than happy for a united, single-state Palestine/Israel to have the Mossad shut down and their nuclear weapons disarmed in the same way South Africa's were.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Even if Israel for the last 50 years had engaged in solely defensive actions, accepted mass bombings as a thing that happens, and never did any counterstrikes, the Arab Palestinians would still try to genocide them.




How exactly do you know this? Do you have access to some kind of magical or scientific device that lets you understand people so well that you can definitively state how they would act in an alternative reality that's extremely different to our own? I personally don't think that the jews are such awful people that living near them for fifty years with no problems or violence would make people want to exterminate them. That said, you've left a few things out - would there still be an apartheid state? Would there still be settlements on Palestinian land? What exactly do you mean by "solely defensive actions"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And the Palestinians released some of the hostages with no conditions, so they're not trying to kill every ethnic Israeli they get their hands on. Absolutes make for poor arguments.