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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Dear "revisionists", where are all the Jews?


A couple of months ago, I had a discussion with the self-proclaimed "revisionist" @SecureSignals concerning the veracity of the Holocaust, always a fun topic.


There was a bit of back-and-forth on the archaeological evidence and witness testimony, which I eventually gave up on because SS (very subtle username, by the way) clearly knew much more about the subject than me, and could thus, as the saying goes, drag me down to his level and beat me with experience. Calculating the number of corpses that can fit in a given volume definitely felt like I was being dragged down a few levels.


A more fruitful line of questioning is that of where millions of Jews disappeared to. In response to SS's accusation that:




It's astounding how much nonsense you are willing to believe without any concrete physical evidence or without the claims even being remotely possible. But believing this story requires belief in the impossible, because the official narrative makes impossible claims only supported by witnesses who lack credibility and have an obvious motive to lie.




I said:




The best piece of physical evidence I have is the missing six million Jews. Where did they all go? If Treblinka was merely a transit camp, where did the Jews transit afterwards? Compare the pre-war and post-war census data in Europe, especially Eastern Europe. Even accounting for emigration, millions of Jews disappeared.






In general, I think census data is a reliable source for estimating the number of victims. I'm not familiar with the details of the Holocaust in Europe as a whole, so the best example I can provide is the Jasenovac concentration camp. Shortly after WWII, it was estimated that around 600,000 people were killed there. These estimates were widely accepted, including by the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Later claims went as high as a million or more. In the 1980s, two researchers independently arrived at much lower estimates based on demographic data. Eventually, after the end of communist censorship, a new consensus formed that the number of victims is around 100,000, an order of magnitude lower than previous estimates.






This shows that it is entirely to possible for new research to greatly lower the estimated number of victims. There is no conspiracy to suppress the truth. Indeed, despite the number six million being embedded in popular culture, some credible historians place it at closer to five million. Yad Vashem says "the number of victims was between five and six million".




SS replied with arguments as to why the "official narrative" on Treblinka is implausible, which I was unable to argue against because, as I said, I'm not familiar with all the details of every Nazi camp. It is possible that the consensus figures for a single camp are wrong. As in the Jasenovac example, this has already happened (though it should be noted that most of the victims at Jasenovac were not Jewish). Even if true, this is at most evidence that the consensus on Treblinka is incorrect. It says nothing about the other camps, where the vast majority of the murders happened. In my reply, I said:




You clearly know much more about Treblinka than I do, so I'm not sure if I can provide any good counterarguments. Let's suppose, then, for the sake of the argument, that the archaeological evidence for the "official narrative" is insufficient. That means we don't know what exactly was done with the Jews.






Other evidence exists for the claim that over 700,000 people were killed at Treblinka, such as the Höfle Telegram and the Korherr Report. But looking at them, thanks to the euphemisms used, I suppose they might also be interpreted as supporting the transit camp theory.






However, you did not address the question in my previous post: if Treblinka was merely a transit camp, where did the Jews transit from there? Where were the hundreds of thousands of eyewitnesses after the war who testified that they passed through Treblinka and were peacefully resettled?






And more broadly, demographic data has millions of Jews unaccounted for after the war. Where did they all go? Or do you accept the rest of the "official narrative" and are only sceptical with regard to Treblinka? Auschwitz had proper crematoria, with fuel and everything – do you believe that over a million people were killed there?




As far as I can tell, SS never addressed any of this. It seems some of the comments in the thread have since been deleted, which apparently hides all child comments when viewing the thread directly, though they are still visible on the profile page. This makes it hard to reconstruct the exchange, but looking at SS's profile, I can't find anything where he addressed my argument. From his post below on Holocaust education, we can infer that he does indeed believe that not just Treblinka but the entire Holocaust is fake, a position for which he has not provided any evidence.


So, to SS and any other "revisionists" who may be lurking: Where are all the Jews?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In principle, I could see this making business sense. If you want to get as much viewership as possible, you would want to produce both mainstream, broad-appeal content and content that appeals to various niches. Focus groups only represent the median viewer, so basing everything on their opinions would systemically exclude the potentially profitable minority viewerbases. And by minority, I don't just mean queer women of colour etc., it also applies to less-popular genres and such.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You seem to be assuming that the person you are replying to is Jewish, which their comment doesn't say.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Also is it that the argument is poorly supported that bugs you, or is it because you feel that it puts down women?






Would it feel any less offensive if someone gave "objective" proof for this?




She said very clearly that the poor justification for the claim rather than the claim itself is the problem.




I definitely do not enjoy people claiming that India being colonised by the British empire was good for us and civilized us unwashed barbarians. (...) It wouldn't be any less painful for me even if someone threw objective proof at my face by ripping open a portal to a parallel universe where India never went through successive stages of colonization and is still a cesspit of suffering.




Really? So it's just an axiom that everything bad in India is because of the "Britishers"? That certainly helps to understand Indians' beliefs, though it doesn't make me more sympathetic to them.


I don't have a portal to a parallel universe – the only place with technology that advanced was India 3000 years ago – but I can direct your attention to Ethiopia. The country had a long history of written language and a centralized government, and was under colonial rule only for about a decade before and during World War II. After the war, Italy even had to pay reparations, so the damage that did happen during this period was compensated. (The Allies presumably decided Italy's conquest was an illegitimate war of aggression unlike the totally just and lawful conquest of everywhere else by Western countries.)


And yet Ethiopia "is still a cesspit of suffering", with a GDP per capita significantly lower than even that of India. That's because it was a cesspit of suffering before the Italian occupation.


I'm not going to argue that British colonialism was a net positive for India, and the British certainly committed many unjustifiable abuses, but I do strongly object to the common Indian nationalist claim that India was extremely rich and developed in the 18th century before the British showed up and stole everything. It was poor when they came and it was poor when they left. The reason India is still poor is the 75 years of awful economic policy between then and now, and that can be blamed entirely on Indians. The UK didn't instigate the farm bill protests.


You explicitly chose this example expecting it to be unobjectionable, so I apologize if my objection was unexpected. If it helps, I share your distaste for Americans' views on Indian immigrants in software, especially the rhetoric surrounding H1B visas. And I am not American, I'm just constantly exposed to American politics thanks to the internet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Technology export controls? The ones meant for missiles and fighter jets and nuclear submarines? To block Americans from buying TikTok?


I apologize for the low-content comment, but I couldn't not mention how ridiculous this is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This sort of reinterpretation is already near-universal. There are a few libertarian weirdoes who think you can have a country of 330 million yeoman-farmers in the 21st century; everyone else invoking the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, etc., is already straying far from the original meaning.


When MLK said:




When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."




Do you think he didn't know that a large portion of those "architects", maybe even a majority, were slave-owners at the time they "wrote the magnificent words"? He was clearly already doing a "death of the author"-type interpretation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, they are separate and apparently unrelated parties. The genealogy appears to be as follows:


    

  • 

    CPGB (main British communist party for most of the 20th century) – dissolved in 1991
    

    • 

  • 

      

    • CPB – split from CPGB c. 1988 – extant
      • 

    

    • 

  • 

    Labour Party – extant
    

    • 

  • 

      

    • Socialist Labour Party – split from Labour in 1996 – extant
      • 

    

    • 

  • 

      

    • 

        

      • CPGB(ML) – split from Socialist Labour Party in 2004 – extant
        • 

      

      • 

    

    • 



The above is not exhaustive. There are a bunch of small far-left sects which are not included here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sorry, by "this", I meant the post I was replying to. I have edited the comment now to clarify.


The reason the post doesn't make me more sympathetic to the anti-trans side is that it was someone from the anti-trans side who saw this insane Stalinist sect post something anti-trans and then apparently decided that Stalinism isn't so bad after all as long as it keeps trans women out of women's toilets.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My understanding is that the CPGB dissolved in 1991, long before this question was mainstream enough for a party to want to take a stance on it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The "Communist Party of Britain" is a tiny Stalinist sect. The CPB should not be confused with the Communist Party of Great Britain. The CPB was formed as an offshoot of the slightly more mainstream CPGB in the 1980s when the leadership of the latter decided "hm, maybe totalitarianism and mass murder is bad". From the first paragraph of the CPB's Wikipedia article:




It is affiliated nationally to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign[10] and the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. (...) After the fall of the Soviet Union, the party was one of two original British signatories to the Pyongyang Declaration.




The Pyongyang Declaration:




The Pyongyang Declaration, officially titled Let Us Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism, was a statement signed by a number of political parties on 20 April 1992 that calls for the unity of the socialist camp and a vow to safeguard socialism. Representatives of 70 communist and socialist parties from 51 countries arrived in Pyongyang to celebrate Kim Il-sung's 80th birthday.




So you would side with (even vote for!) these Stalinists, North Korea apologists, wannabe mass murderers, these certified lunatics, because they said "trans bad"?


You will surely understand why your post doesn't make me more sympathetic to the anti-trans side.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Surely the great Islamic empires were great civilizations, at least during the "Islamic Golden Age"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are you suggesting that the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey was instigated by American and European intelligence services? This isn't even a fringe theory. As far as I can tell, it's just something you made up. Not even Erdogan has ever suggested anything like this.


I also object to your characterization of the National Coalition (presumably this is what you meant by "coalition") as "populist". According to the description above:




A center-right neoliberal party. Stereotypically the "party of the rich", focused on tighter fiscal policies and playing back the debt taken during this government. Long the only party to support NATO, only to now have their signature issue taken way.




And this bit from their Wikipedia article:




The party self-statedly bases its politics on "freedom, responsibility and democracy, equal opportunities, education, supportiveness, tolerance and caring"[14] and supports multiculturalism and LGBT rights. Their foreign stances are pro-NATO and pro-European orientated, and they are a member of the European People's Party (EPP).[2]




They are about as far from "populist", Trump- and Orban-style politics as one can get.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think we can reasonably speculate about the teacher's sinister ulterior motives given that they asked the principal to notify the parents and it was the principal who forgot.




Given all that, I have another question: Why Michelangelo's David?




Per the BBC article:




The lesson, given to 11 and 12-year-olds, also included references to Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" painting and Botticelli's "Birth of Venus".




Both images depict nudity. Note that it isn't claimed anywhere that this is an exhaustive list. It is quite possible that other artworks that don't feature nudity were discussed in the class, and the news reporting only mentioned these three because they are pertinent.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
An Interview With the School Board Chair Who Forced Out a Principal After Michelangelo’s David Was Shown in Class




On Thursday, the Tallahassee Democrat reported that the principal of a local charter school, the Tallahassee Classical School, was forced to resign after three parents complained about an art teacher showing a picture of Michelangelo’s 16th-century sculpture of David.




Reading the entire interview, the school board comes out looking only slightly more reasonable than was portrayed in the "mainstream media".


The chair of the school board, Barney Bishop III, insists that the David incident was only a small contributing factor, but when asked to elaborate why the board decided to pressure the principal to resign, he says:




based on counsel from our employment lawyer, I’m not going to get into the reasons.




To me, the overall tone of Bishop's statements suggests that the David incident was in fact a major reason, if not the sole reason, for the firing (sorry, "resignation under pressure"). Bishop says:




The teacher mentioned that this was a nonpornographic picture, No. 1. The teacher said, “Don’t tell your parents,” No. 2. (...) Three parents objected. Two objected simply because they weren’t told in advance. One objected because the teacher said nonpornography. Nonpornography—that’s a red flag. And of course telling the students, “Don’t tell your parents”—that’s a huge red flag!




The interview doesn't say in what context the teacher told the students not to tell their parents or that the images were not pornographic. (Maybe the original article does? I haven't read it because it's paywalled.) Out of context, it does sound suspicious. I suppose the first could have been a joke. As for the second, I'm not sure why the teacher would need to tell the students in the classroom that the images were not pornographic. In any case, my priors are that it is extremely unlikely that the teacher was a "groomer" trying to sexualize the kids.


The year before, the school had notified the parents that their children, who are 11 and 12 years old, were going to be exposed to the horror of a statue depicting a human. This year, the teacher teaching the class told the principal (the one who was later fired) to send out a similar notice, but the principal apparently forgot. This is an "egregious mistake":




98 percent of the parents didn’t have a problem with it. But that doesn’t matter, because we didn’t follow a practice. We have a practice. Last year, the school sent out an advance notice about it. Parents should know: In class, students are going to see or hear or talk about this. This year, we didn’t send out that notice. (...) This year, we made an egregious mistake. We didn’t send that notice.




Michelangelo's sculpture of David is "controversial":




Well, we’re Florida, OK? Parents will decide. Parents are the ones who are going to drive the education system here in Florida. The governor said that, and we’re with the governor. Parents don’t decide what is taught. But parents know what that curriculum is. And parents are entitled to know anytime their child is being taught a controversial topic and picture.






Parents choose this school because they want a certain kind of education. We’re not gonna have courses from the College Board. We’re not gonna teach 1619 or CRT crap. I know they do all that up in Virginia. The rights of parents, that trumps the rights of kids. Teachers are the experts? Teachers have all the knowledge? Are you kidding me? I know lots of teachers that are very good, but to suggest they are the authorities, you’re on better drugs than me.




The interview ends with the reporter saying "I just don’t think this statue is controversial", to which Bishop responds:




We’re not going to show the full statue of David to kindergartners. We’re not going to show him to second graders. Showing the entire statue of David is appropriate at some age. We’re going to figure out when that is.






And you don’t have to show the whole statue! Maybe to kindergartners we only show the head. You can appreciate that. You can show the hands, the arms, the muscles, the beautiful work Michelangelo did in marble, without showing the whole thing.




An article in the BBC relates this to the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, AKA the "Don't Say Gay" Bill. Personally, I think it's just typical American prudishness. In other Western countries, it is perfectly normal and unremarkable for statues with exposed penises and breasts (non-pornographic, of course) to be displayed in public, where they are easily seen by children of all ages.




At one point, in describing the school, Bishop says:




We don’t use pronouns.




Obviously the sentence is false if taken literally, as critics have pointed out. But does anyone know what he might have actually meant? They don't have pronoun badges? They don't put pronouns in their email signatures? They don't use trans people's preferred pronouns? I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious as to what leads people to say nonsensical things like this, what they understand the word "pronoun" to mean.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					




parts of his coalition are extremists








Again, word "extremist" is usually means not much more than "belongs to the party opposite to which I like, and doesn't want to come to our side". Which is pretty useless.




I think "extremist" is a perfectly reasonable description of "parts of his coalition", for example:




Bezalel Yoel Smotrich (...) is an Israeli far-right politician and lawyer who has served as the Minister of Finance since 2022. (...) Accused of inciting hatred against Arab citizens of Israel, he told Arab Israeli lawmakers in October 2021, that "it's a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn't finish the job and didn't throw you out in 1948."[5] He has called himself a "fascist homophobe",[6] and has stated that gay pride parades are "worse than bestiality".[4]




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


(The denial of a gender binary yet acceptance of transgender as a concept is not something I've ever seen a convincing answer for.)




There are many genders and a person can transition from their gender assigned at birth to any of them? I don't see any internal contradiction.


My own extremely fringe position that alienates every side in this discussion is that there are two genders and a person can transition from one to the other.




subject level




I believe the term you are looking for is "meta level".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


government IOU




Bonds? That's assuming the government won't become insolvent along with the banks. But if that does happen, your dollars will probably be worthless anyway, no matter their format.


Alternatively, $50 million is right around the price of a tonne of gold.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is not about the shooter's feelings. Calling a Black criminal "nigger" is offensive to all Black people because it denigrates the Black criminal for being Black, not for being a criminal. Likewise, misgendering a transgender criminal is offensive to all trans people because it denigrates the trans criminal for being trans, not for being a criminal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"It has not been conclusively ruled out" is as far as I'm willing to go in terms of supporting it. I think the role of culture is underestimated.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The current dispute in Israel is about Netanyahu's proposed judicial reform. It has nothing to do with the Palestinian conflict.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I for one believe the shooter should not be misgendered. Misgendering is disrespectful to all trans people. I guess I am a true believer.


There was a Reddit thread, a few months ago maybe, discussing a crime committed by a trans person. It was a murder or something similarly universally condemned. Some of the commenters were misgendering the perpetrator, others were criticizing the misgenderers.


One of the arguments brought up by the latter group was that you wouldn't call a Black person a "nigger", even if they have committed a vile crime. Using the word "nigger" is offensive to all Black people. It implies that being Black is bad in and of itself. Likewise with misgendering.


This is, of course, addressed to those who believe that misgendering trans people is not otherwise acceptable. Whether it is acceptable to misgender trans people in general, whether trans people really are their identified gender, etc., is a separate discussion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


https://transresistancenetwork.wordpress.com




A very important and representative organization, I am sure.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What about the Christchurch shootings? Anders Breivik? Both managed to get very high body counts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Schools in other countries don't need armed security.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Except, of course, the ones who were evicted to have their homes razed to build those lanes.


The evictions are just one of the many negative externalities imposed by the construction of huge roads. Some others are pollution (local and global), obesity (from people using their cars instead of walking or cycling) and infrastructure that the suburbs can't afford and need subsidies for.


At some point the harm from the externalities starts to outweigh the benefit of people living "where they want to live" – in scare quotes because where people want to live is dependent on what's on offer, and if the only available form of housing is sprawling lifeless suburbs criss-crossed by lifeless eight-lane highways, then that's where people will want to live. I assume you're not suggesting that, if higher density housing were built closer to the centres of cities, it would stay empty. That would clearly be absurd.