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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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				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Your comment reminded me of an article that I read previously which explores one of the points you're making in great detail, specifically about the "bad guys always lose" kind of thinking that seems so prevalent in NATO. https://www.ecosophia.net/the-three-stigmata-of-j-r-r-tolkien/




The first of these habits of thought may as well be called the Orc Fallacy.  Orcs?  Those are the foot soldiers of the Dark Lord Sauron in Tolkien’s trilogy.  They’re bad.  They’re so bad they’re a caricature of badness.  Not only that, they don’t even pretend to believe in the rightness of their own cause; they know they’re on the wrong side, and glory in it.  In Tolkien’s world, no orc anywhere ever had a generous thought or did a kindly action.  The closest they get to loyalty is a kind of malicious team spirit, coupled with stark terror of what their bosses will do to them if they don’t follow orders. The closest they get to courage is bloodlust coupled with a clear sense of what everyone else in Middle-earth will do to them given half a chance. When they’re winning, they swagger; when they’re losing, they panic and run.  For all their apparent strength, in other words, they’re lousy soldiers, and their main function in the trilogy consists of showing up in vast numbers and then being slaughtered en masse by their outnumbered enemies.






As a literary device this sort of  gimmick has its problems.  As a basic assumption about reality, shaping the way that liberal politicians and bureacrats in the Western world think about the people they hate, it has much greater problems. There are plenty of examples, but the one that comes first to mind just at the moment is the fate of last summer’s Ukrainian counteroffensive.






According to recent news reports, the counteroffensive was planned out in detail by NATO generals. They’re the ones who insisted that the Ukrainian forces should drive south across Zaporhizhia province to the gates of Crimea, and their countries provided the Ukrainian army with the tanks and other equipment that would supposedly guarantee victory. They wargamed out the offensive in repeated exercises, always with the same results. At the heart of their plan, however, was the conviction that Sauron’s hosts would panic and run once the heroic defenders of the West came charging onto the scene. Since “orcs” is a standard slang term for Russians in Ukraine these days, it probably sounded like a slam-dunk.






Unfortunately for Ukraine, nobody seems to have made sure the Russian soldiers in Zaporhizhia agreed with this. As a result, those soldiers went on believing that they were the heroes of the piece, fighting to defend Mother Russia against neo-Nazis at their gates. Instead of milling around aimlessly while the Ukrainians got ready to attack, and then fleeing in terror and dying like flies once the assault began, the Russian forces dug themselves in, built three hardened defensive lines behind the line of contact, and then fought like tigers once the battle got going, mauling one elite Ukrainian armored brigade after another. By the time the counteroffensive ended this autumn, 150,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died uselessly, billions of dollars of NATO armored vehicles had been blown to smithereens, and the Russian Army still held firm.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Can you link the x-ray pictures you considered credible, so the debunking would be more direct?




https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-doctor-interviews.html


I'm just going directly with the story posted by the NYT. I tried looking for a debunking of the story, but the only ones I could find were on websites with huge DONATE TO ISRAEL NOW buttons which made me a bit skeptical of their motivations. I believed the story because there's a huge number of people talking about what they saw treating casualties in Gaza, and it is consistent with all the other reporting I've seen come out of the region. There have been multiple reports of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children for several years, and I don't see why the current circumstances would make them stop doing that.




For what it's worth, if you've got video evidence of the attacks, I'd certainly be interested in seeing it.




I do not. I honestly have no desire to go looking for footage of children being gruesomely murdered, no matter how much it might strengthen my argument on an online forum. I'm aware that this is a dodge, but I'm sure you can appreciate that not only is graphic footage of child murder extremely hard to stomach, it is also banned by almost all major platforms and is frequently removed after it gets too "popular". I regret seeing the clips that I have seen and have no desire to repeat the experience.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


No one does, because the only sources are Hamas. We can be generous and take their figure, which seems to be about 40000 last time I checked




This is the number of dead that they're able to verify, which is extremely difficult for a variety of reasons. There's another 10000 that are missing and can safely be presumed dead as well, and I believe about 90000 with severe injuries. I don't think we're going to get true or accurate casualty numbers until after the war ends, and even then I have my doubts.




I think the chances that story is true are almost nil.




I have seen too many photos of dead Palestinian children to give the story that little credibility. On top of that, Israeli murder of children is common enough even outside the conflict that there are a lot of reports of it from the west bank as well. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/19/west-bank-children-killed-unprecedented-rate


If you've got a comprehensive debunking of the x-ray claims I'd like to see it, but I've seen enough direct video footage of these kinds of attacks that I can't just brush the claim off wholesale, especially not on the basis of vibes rather than citations (admittedly a bit hypocritical of me given that I'm not posting the evidence I'm talking about either, but I'm sure you can understand why I don't save and archive all the videos of children being graphically murdered that I see).




I haven't heard this story, do you have a source?




https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1858304872963010840 Franceska Albanese makes the claim here.




A single example - that I'm fairly certain wasn't sanctioned by the government/military - seems insufficient to help build a case that Israel is acting with unprecedented levels of brutality towards Palestinian civilians.




https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-idf-palestinian-prisoner-alleged-rape-sde-teinman-abuse-protest/


There are countless claims from released Palestinian prisoners that rape and sexual abuse was endemic in Israeli prisons - and Israelis themselves (including high ranking government officials!) have protested any attempt to hold the perpetrators accountable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I suspect the majority of these people are only Jewish by parentage and don't actually live their lives in any way that's discernably Jewish (happy to be proven wrong on this)




This is an old argument that we've seen a lot of times before. "I suspect the majority of these people are only Scottish by parentage, and don't actually live their lives in any way that's discernibly and truly Scottish". But either way there's a decently sized population of orthodox jews who reject Israel for scriptural reasons as well.


Your second point is being litigated in another post so I won't respond to it here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Actually, I'm making that as a good faith argument - because it matches up with the reporting and figures that I've seen. Your comment doesn't match up with the sources I've read, but given the modern context I'm not terribly surprised that two people on opposite sides of a contentious issue have different ideas about the facts on the ground. If you have some really rigorous and verifiable data on casualty numbers in Gaza, please share it.


As for Hamas putting the civilians in harms way, I disagree with your framing - there are just too many instances of the Israelis murdering people who aren't anywhere near Hamas. Take all those x-rays of children's brains with bullets in them - in what possible world was it necessary to snipe those toddlers to go after Hamas? That surgeon who got raped to death in an Israeli prison was already in a prison, and that didn't stop Israel from doing what it did to him.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To the best of my knowledge the Palestinian Christians largely blame Israel for their dispossession - that's what all the members of their diaspora I've spoken to have said and it seems to be backed up by the statistics, but I might be being fooled. If you've got some strong evidence that the Palestinian muslims are responsible for the Palestinian christians being kicked out I'd love to see it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was referring to Lebanon - if you've got evidence of something similar happening to Russia right now I'd love to see it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As one of the people you're ostensibly talking about (given that I both think Ukraine should surrender to Russia immediately and that Israel should stop the genocide and either adopt a one or two state solution) I feel like that's not actually how I'd present those arguments. I think that Ukraine and Israel are in extremely different circumstances that make the comparison fruitless. Russia is a much larger and much more powerful state than Israel, and Israel faces a lot of serious problems that Russia simply does not. There's no state on Russia's northern border peppering them with so many missile attacks that large numbers of civilians are forced to abandon their homes and jobs to stay in Moscow hotels, and there's no group of rebels disrupting shipping to Russia to the point that major ports go bankrupt.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have no idea what you are trying to say - are you joking about the fact that the Israelis have already murdered huge swathes of the population?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you think that people opposing the transfer of weapons and advanced military technology to a nation currently engaged in what is widely agreed to be ethnic cleansing and genocide is "anti-Semitic" you're degrading the term and thoroughly stripping it of any ability to reach people or convince them that what you're criticising is in any way bad. The majority of people, especially on the left, will regard providing material support for a genocide to be infinitely worse than being told they're being racist against a population that they largely consider white - you are welcome to try and convince people on the left that Jerry Seinfeld and Sheldon Adelson are people of colour and victims of discrimination, but I don't think you're going to have much luck.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The question is what you hope to gain from it.




I'm not one of them, but there are a lot of young jews with left wing political views, and those views have a very clear and definite position on what's taking place in Gaza right now. The left wing generally views ethnic cleansing in defence of a blood-and-soil ethnostate to be one of the greatest possible crimes you can commit, the sort that would stain the history of a people forever (just look at Germany). You don't actually need to "gain" anything material from opposing something you consider deeply immoral(though I suppose this means that what they 'gain' is satisfaction of emotional needs), and the footage being posted to the internet by both Palestinians and Israelis is really impossible to ignore if you're young and on social media. If I knew that my country was taken over by ethnonationalists and was about to start burning jewish people alive in their hospital beds, I'd protest against it even if I wasn't gaining anything from it (especially so if my only relation to "my" country was that they have the same ethnicity as me and I lived somewhere completely different) and I don't think that's a particularly extreme or hard to understand position.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


(impossible to determine which comments may be valuable on ACT, for instance)




I can't even read comments on ACT. Every time I try to scroll down the website shits itself, goes blank and then tries to recover. It still blows my mind that a website in the modern day like ACT/Substack provides a much worse experience than a php forum from several decades ago.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm much more comfortable with no liability for the former.




Why? If the technology is proven and established with no problems, that is exactly the sort of situation where a liability shield provides the worst incentives. If we know that a given product is reliable and problem free, then shielding the manufacturer from liability gives them a direct incentive to reduce quality control and otherwise take risks/cut corners. If we know the technology works reliably, that's exactly when people SHOULD be liable for damages if they get nasty consequences from it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That was in no way a joke. He was already facing down a prosecution for not employing enough illegal immigrants for a job that has requirements which can only be met by legitimate citizens, his compensation payout being declared too high, etc. The lawfare was already happening, and I think there's a very good chance he would have been extradited abroad and prosecuted for misinformation/hate speech if Trump didn't win.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At least some of the post-mortem analyses and interviews with swing voters I've seen make the case that Trump did this on trans issues specifically - there's a reason "Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you" was statistically and anecdotally their most effective advertisement.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If you wanted to astroturf, going for a neutral to semi hostile media network might convince a Trump voter or two.




This is straightforwardly true, but the problem is the dem candidates. Kamala Harris had no real policies or positions, and could only really exist in a controlled and managed media environment that was willing to give her campaign editorial control over the finished product. She had so much negative baggage that she just wouldn't be able to answer without offending some part of her coalition, and she was a charisma void that meant she couldn't find ways around that. If she was forced to expose her personality and thinking for a solid three hours with no assistance, she would have tanked the campaign harder than she actually did.


When your candidate is so unappealing that they cause voters to peel off whenever they talk in an uncontrolled environment (Kamala even had trouble in extremely friendly environments too), you can only make appearances on friendly media, in friendly spaces. The correct answer is to run a real candidate who is speaking to people's issues and has an actual competent understanding of the world and social context - but when you have to advocate for policies which actively harm your constituents and provide a return on investment for all the lobbyists and donors who financed your campaign, you can't run a genuine candidate, so you're stuck with the kinds of disingenuous empty suits that ran the republican party before Trump showed up and still run the democrat party.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's weird because a lot of the manosphere is black. Especially in the post-Kevin Samuels era.




This is actually a surprise to me - I haven't been spending much time in the manosphere since Heartiste went down, so my knowledge might be a bit out of date. I recall even the black people in the manosphere generally accepted the premises of HBD back then, given that if what you're caring about is being able to have sex with lots of women being black doesn't really handicap you there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My personal belief is that the election was "stolen" but I take a very limited perspective that I don't think really provides the information you're looking for - I think that the amount of actual electoral fraud wasn't that much greater or smaller than what is normal for American elections, but the "steal" largely happened when the intelligence community knowingly lied to the public about the provenance of the Hunter Biden laptop. There have been studies done which plausibly make the case that this actually tipped the election towards Biden, and it isn't really something that anyone on either side of politics tries to disagree with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


She is against the MIC, the deep state (unelected bureaucrats) and forever wars.




I'm fairly confident these are the actual reasons behind her being attacked so much.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There's a sort of weird overlap between "manosphere" figures and antisemites like Fuentes




I don't think there's anything weird about it. The ideas in the manosphere (men and women are different and those differences reach the level of psychology and not just anatomy) are in the same category of unmentionable/cancellable beliefs that holocaust denial and regular old racism are in. If you're someone in the manosphere who wants to talk about those ideas seriously, the only places you'll be able to actually have that conversation is in the same places that let other unmentionable beliefs be discussed. I personally think that this is actually one of the reasons behind the rise in antisemitism and racism - if a young guy wants to learn how to actually have sex with women, he's getting a full course of banned and disreputable ideas.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
He hasn't been confirmed as gay, but screencaps of his gay porn browsing habits were accidentally released to the public and there are a lot of weird stories - I'm not going to explicitly detail the "Nick Fuentes: Cum Detective" story here for obvious reasons, but I give it a >90% chance that the guy who hates women, looks at shirtless images of athletic boys etc is gay.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is explicitly the case - if you watch the video he put out about he goes on to say "I'm your republican congressman", a direct quote from those advertisements.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, congratulations. The source for my argument now requires me to pay money to look at it instead of being free. As a result, you win the argument, because the imposition of a paywall changed the relevant facts on the ground - I hope you savour your victory and it brings you some measure of peace.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The source you provided does not seem to mention the Nova music festival even once




I was under the distinct impression that at least some of the hostages were taken from the Nova music festival. Of course there are other reports which claim that the IDF did fire upon the music festival, but Haaretz has a paywall up and so I can't actually verify the original source.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


How can it not be germane when it's one of the core points of contention?




Because this is a conversation on a specific subtopic - do Palestinian territorial ambitions matter in a larger context? Of course they do. But we're not having that conversation - we're talking about whether or not Israel wants to dispossess them and settle their lands, and whether or not Israelis have made statements to that effect in public. If you've got a good explanation for why Palestinian desires matter at all in this specific context then feel free to explain, but I don't think it'd change the actuality of the Israeli perspective on this either way.




if might makes right why doesn't it make right here?




When did I say that? My criticism was about not wanting my tax dollars to support them - it doesn't matter how mighty a given foreign military is, I still don't think they should get any of my government money.




what are you so bent out of shape about?




I am? News to me.