FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
User ID: 1175
If you are pro-Palestinian, you don't want either of those two outcomes, but it's not like you have more direct actions available than those that shift Israel's own cost-benefit calculus. The most obvious way to reorder their preferences is to make their preferred options worse by imposing external costs; since they are hardly Juche Korea and therefore significantly depend on foreign trade and military aid, turning international institutions and public sentiment against them is actually an effective measure.
This reasoning makes sense to me. Where the pro-Palestine movement loses me is that I can't envision any plausible pathway by which the above goals could be accomplished by any of the following:
- hurling cartons of milk at Joe Biden
- trying to ruin Ed Sheeran's career over his refusal to use the word "genocide"
- boycotting Jewish-owned businesses in Philadelphia
- burning down the Limoges city hall
and so on.
This is what I find so strange about the pro-Palestine movement. On the surface, their goals seem sensible and logical, and yet they're remarkably promiscuous about the tactics they use to accomplish these goals. The movement seems fundamentally allergic to discussions about costs and benefits, about message discipline, about effective coalition-building. Intent seems to be all that matters: as long as you wave a Palestinian flag and chant "from the river to the sea", anything goes. There's this staggeringly wide gulf between, on the one hand, the people talking about using targeted boycotts to put pressure on the Israeli economy, and on the other, deranged nutters engaged in orgies of impulsive violence and smashing up Jewish-owned businesses hundreds of miles from Israel. And maybe that's true of every sufficiently large political coalition, but what I find strange about the pro-Palestine movement is that the former group (the ostensibly reasonable moderates who are thinking in terms of long-term strategy) never condemn the latter group: the people calling for economic boycotts never say that the people smashing up Jewish businesses are doing a disservice to the cause.
And again, like you say, I'm vastly more sympathetic to the Israelis than the Palestinians, so if the pro-Palestine movement wants to keep shooting itself in the foot, maybe that's no big deal. (Although they can certainly do a lot of damage while shooting themselves in the foot. I felt pretty upset seeing photos of the burnt-out Limoges city hall.) But, like – aren't you more invested in actually accomplishing your goals? Do you think that throwing cartons of milk at Joe Biden is the best way to accomplish your goals? If so, you're entitled to believe that, I'm just – surprised. Perplexed, even.
I say deBoer is wrong about white/black relations: manipulating white people's attitudes towards black people clearly does work, or slavery would never have been ended.
But this is exactly what I was saying about instrumental vs. terminal goals. Manipulating white attitudes towards black people may have been a necessary precondition for the abolition of slavery, but no sensible person would pursue it as an end in itself. That is, if black Americans were offered the choice between a world in which a) chattel slavery was ended, but white American attitudes towards black Americans were unchanged; or b) white Americans felt no animosity towards black, but chattel slavery still existed as before – I imagine the overwhelming majority would pick the former.
And it need hardly be said that the abolition of slavery was a material win for the cause of racial equality, not a symbolic one.
In more concrete terms: if you accept that Israelis and Palestinians are primarily competing for the same limited resource (sovereignty over a strip of land) and so their utility is zero-sum, and believe that "purely symbolic" acts and attitude shifts for the Palestinian side do nothing, then why do they bother you so much? If meals > UN condemnations, then shouldn't a pro-Israeli be happy that pro-Palestinians waste their time on UN condemnations instead of providing them with meals (or all-expenses-paid drone pilot internships in Ukraine)?
What I would really like to see is a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, perhaps in the form of a two-state solution, albeit not necessarily. No more rocket attacks, no more suicide bombings, no more "mowing the grass". I think idiotic stunts like this reduce (however slightly) the likelihood of that coming to pass, as they make the pro-Palestine movement seem like a gang of petulant thugs who won't listen to reason and who will pursue blatantly self-destructive courses of action for no tangible end.
"Purely symbolic" nonviolent gestures like formal "recognition" of the state of Palestine or UN declarations don't bother me, except in so far as they amount to a maintenance of the uneasy status quo which has existed for decades. They don't bring a durable peace between the two peoples a millimetre closer. They seem like a tremendous waste of time and effort which could be better spent elsewhere.
About this time last year, @ymeskhout posted an article titled "I Hope Freddie deBoer Learns to Read Someday", in which he noted a peculiar inconsistency in deBoer's writing output. deBoer presents himself as an avid supporter of racial equality in the US, but has repeatedly emphasised that equality can only be achieved in terms of the real and the tangible, not the emotive, performative and symbolic. Meskhout cites four separate articles of deBoer's in which he makes variations on this basic point: ("Government has tools to fight Black poverty. It does not have tools to fight white hatred... Poverty lives in the world. Hatred lives in the head.", "What does this policy, argument, or claim do in fact, for real human beings, in material terms?... I can see hungry Black kids getting food. I can’t see white liberals 'holding space' for Black people.")
However, deBoer's demand for real, tangible, actual results vanishes as soon as the topic turns to his other pet issue, the cause of Palestinian nationalism. Here, unable to cite any material gains the movement has accomplished, he is more than willing to tout meaningless symbolic victories as a substitute ("the degree to which Palestine and Palestinian interests have gained ground in American public opinion can hardly be overstated"). In this regard, deBoer is far from alone: many pro-Palestine/anti-Zionist activists seem to prefer framing the conflict in terms of the symbolic rather than the material. To give a perfectly banal example, during the Ed Sheeran/Macklemore controversy, it was remarkable the number of people I saw on Instagram who seemed actively excited about Sheeran's supporting acts dropping out of his tour in protest of Macklemore's removal, as if their doing so in and of itself constituted a massive tactical victory for the cause. Even here, when I ask our pro-Palestine posters what the movement has actually accomplished in real terms, they will generally list things like changing responses to Pew surveys, the number of European countries which have "recognised" the state of Palestine, the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York, the emergence of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a potential frontrunner for the Dems in 2028 – all of which are certainly nice to have, but don't really have anything to do with the movement's ostensible goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state and/or dissolving the state of Israel. Charitably, one might argue that these are instrumental victories: that, for example, electing a mayor of New York who's sympathetic to the cause is a necessary precondition for establishing an independent Palestinian state, that the movement is patiently laying the groundwork for material victories they will achieve down the line. Less charitably, one might argue that the movement's symbolic performative victories are a consolation prize for its paucity of tangible ones, or indeed that the symbolic performative victories are the entire point of the movement and the ostensible goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state is just window-dressing.
Nowhere is the triumph of the performative over the material more apparent than in Ireland, one of the most rabidly pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist countries in the entire world. Ireland's economy is in large part propped up by the array of American tech companies with offices in its borders (Google, Meta, X etc.), none of whom the government can afford to alienate by being too overt in its hostility to Israel. Hence, visible displays of support for the Palestinian cause have been almost entirely symbolic in nature: boycotting the Eurovision Song Contest, attempting (and failing) to rename a park in south Dublin, calling for the Irish football team to refuse to play against Israel. It's rather staggering how emotionally invested Irish people get in such matters of objectively negligible consequence, a prime example of Sayre's law.
This week, Ireland is hosting a meeting of the European Political Community and an informal meeting of the European Council, for which significant chunks of the city centre in Dublin are closed off owing to security concerns. Numerous heads of state are in attendance, including Zelensky, Andy Burnham, Mark Carney among others. Joe and Hunter Biden were also in the city, during which they went to Trinity College so that Hunter could be honoured by the Hist debating society. (Trinity College is perhaps the most affluent university in the country, and also the wokest by a country mile.) As they were leaving the building in which the ceremony was being held, pro-Palestinian activists began pelting the Bidens with cartons of milk and accusing Joe of having "blood on [his] hands". Three have been arrested, including a man in his fifties.
Let's pause for a moment and consider the following:
- Joe Biden has not held public office for nearly two years. (How much say he had in American policy even during his time as President is still, as far as I am concerned, an open question.)
- While Biden did provide military support to Israel during his final year in office, this support was far from unconditional, and he was perhaps the only person restraining Netanyahu's more aggressive tendencies, warning him that he could cut off military aid to Israel at any time.
- Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, for which he is receiving treatment.
- Biden has dementia.
- Biden is eighty-three years old.
To sum up: pro-Palestine activists decided the best way to advocate for their cause was to hurl heavy objects at a senile octogenarian being treated for cancer, a man with no real power to help establish an independent Palestinian state in the unlikely event that he even understood what was being asked of him.
It is difficult for me to imagine an action which would make the pro-Palestine movement seem more like a gang of petulant, irascible thugs. (Presciently, in his acceptance speech Hunter observed that "We are living in an age of bullies.") Not only are the superficial optics of the thing utterly appalling, not only will this not move the needle on a Palestinian state one millimetre, there is no plausible pathway by which this action could possibly have moved the needle thereon. It's just childish emotional reasoning/magical thinking: Biden was the leader of the US, the US provided aid to Israel, therefore the leader of the US at the time must be punished, even if this has no measurable impact on our ostensible goal of "freeing Palestine" or even sets the movement back.
But I already know that no Irish person with any sympathy for the Palestinian cause will ever be able to bring themselves to condemn this temper tantrum, or to admit that it was a strategic miscalculation. At worst, they will defend it and say that Joe got what was coming to him; at best, they will deflect and say something to the effect of "oh boo hoo, poor Joe got a bit of milk on his coat. Just think about what the people of Gaza have to go through Every. Single. Day for eighty years". I will remonstrate with them. I'll ask them: let's suppose we grant your premise that Joe Biden "deserved" to be pelted with cartons of milk. What will the act of pelting him with cartons of milk actually accomplish for the Palestinian people? Does it improve their lives in any way? And I have this horrible feeling that all I'll get in response is an eyeroll or a blank stare.
It's like they don't even understand the question.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
it's a good time to reread Houellebecq's books
I've been meaning to check him out for awhile. Any particular ones you'd recommend?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
When I said "it's only 4% of your total mental bandwidth", I wasn't referring to your earlier estimation of how many of your comments here pertain to this topic. I was making a calculation based on the content of the preceding sentences.
(0.05 * 0.8 = 0.04)
That's all.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I have a lot more sympathy with incels than the people who conducted with this study, and have repeatedly argued (here and on the blog) that the panic about incel-motivated violence is completely unfounded. But I do recognise that, along numerous axes, incels are a systematically different demographic from non-incels. The idea that the average man from 1986 would resemble the average incel in 2026 just strikes me as a facially extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I do not think that publicly humiliating your wife by cheating on her is morally worse than sexually exploiting a minor child. I just think that publicly humiliating your wife by cheating on her is actually really evil, the same as sexually exploiting a minor child.
The way you worded this was really confusing. On its face "publicly humiliating your wife by cheating on her is actually really evil, the same as sexually exploiting a minor child" sounds like it means "publicly humiliating your wife by cheating on her is the same amount of evil as sexually exploiting a minor child". If you meant "publicly humiliating your wife by cheating on her is actually really evil, sexually exploiting a minor child is really evil, but they are not the same amount of evil", that was rather a clumsy way to word it.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
You're taking what I said out of context. I didn't say that this topic occupies a vastly disproportionate share of your mental bandwidth in toto. I said that it occupies a vastly disproportionate share of your mental bandwidth relative to other topics you discuss here. Let's say that, throughout a calendar year, 5% of your mental bandwidth is devoted to the various topics you write about on the Motte, and of that 5%, 80% is devoted to one specific topic. While it's a huge proportion of the mental bandwidth which is devoted to the Motte, it's only 4% of your total mental bandwidth.
Compare that with the singer Paloma Faith, so obsessed with Israel that she says "Free Palestine" to her children every night before they go to sleep. Compare with Robert Graysmith, who admitted that his obsession with unmasking the Zodiac killer led to the collapse of his second marriage. That is obsession. I accused you of nothing of the sort.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I just think that publicly humiliating your wife by cheating on her is actually really evil, the same as sexually exploiting a minor child.
Okay, if that's your opinion, fair enough. But I'm not interested in pursuing this discussion any further. Sorry to have wasted your time.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
Sure, 3% is the absolute floor of how many in the surveyed sample met all three criteria. But like, come on, it's obviously significantly higher than that.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I am sceptical. For one thing, I suspect rates of obesity among 2026 incels would be dramatically higher than among 1986 men.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
Well, you think wrong. I acknowledge that gender ideology occupies a vastly disproportionate share of my mental bandwidth relative to other topics I've written about, and yet no one would characterise me as "obsessed" with this topic in good faith.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
You want me to lose even more social status by spuriously claiming that I am obsessed with the topic.
You complain about me uncharitably putting words in your mouth. Where and when did I accuse you of being "obsessed"?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I suspect the average incel in 2026 would just be an average man in 1986
What makes you say that?
Let's try to build a profile of the "average incel" in 2026. I found this study from May of last year, which surveyed over 500 American and British incels about their beliefs, identity characteristics, socioeconomic status and so on. It found:
- Roughly 30% had an AQ-10 score that would meet the clinical referall threshold for an autism assessment (compared with the 1% of the population).
- More than one in three met the criteria for moderate depression or anxiety.
- One in five claimed to experience suicidal thoughts nearly every day.
- Half of participants selected the highest response for all three items pertaining to loneliness
- 50% lived with their parents
Do you think the "average man" in 1986 was an autist who lived with his parents and contemplated killing himself every single day?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
Where does more victimization occur: man humiliates his wife and family and company through infidelity; two pedophiles mutually share disturbing digital files between one another?
I don't dispute that there are ways to victimise people which do not contravene any existing laws. If you think publicly humiliating your wife by cheating on her is morally worse than sexually exploiting a minor child (and that the former should be punished under the law a correspondingly harsh amount), than just say that and stop making me play twenty questions.
Do you see now?
No, I do not. Again: I don't want to play twenty questions with you. I want you to express your opinions in plain language, and stop getting so offended when I (reasonably) misinterpret what you're trying to say.
I never said it was absurd.
Yes, you never said it was absurd.
But it would be nice if we could have a discussion that goes beyond namecalling or exasperation that the subject matter is being discussed.
How are we supposed to have such a discussion when you're being so cagey about what the "subject matter" even is?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
We don't know if this is an accurate description of the content, since the text of the law does not require this; it is much, much more broad.
Is it possible that a man arrested for sharing CSAM actually hasn't done anything wrong? Of course. Is my reflexive assumption that a man arrested for sharing CSAM hasn't done anything wrong? No, that would be ridiculous.
do you think the government ought to do this to Jensen Huang for his adultery?
No, because adultery is not a criminal offense, Huang and his mistress were both well in excess of the age of consent (as in, by multiple decades), and no one has even suggested their relationship was anything other than consensual.
Hm. If you can't see the relationship between the laws I'm afraid I don't know how to help you. Maybe you could find a basic analogies book and work through it?
I mean, I know the relationship you want me to see. You want me to think criminalising images and videos of children being sexually exploited is exactly as absurd as criminalising images and videos of adults engaging in consensual sex, fully aware that they are being filmed and that the footage will be distributed. But the former is reasonable and the latter is absurd, for reasons that are apparent to anyone who thinks that children lack the emotional maturity to engage in sexual congress with adults.
I can lead a horse to water but I certainly can't make it drink!
You're misusing this aphorism. "Leading a horse to water" in this context would mean "expressing the belief you hold, and presenting arguments in favour of it"; "making it drink" would mean "making me believe it". You're right that you can't make me share your opinions; you absolutely can express them and argue for them.
You haven't led a horse to water. You haven't explicitly expressed your belief that it's absurd to criminalise images and videos of children being sexually exploited, and made an argument as to why. You're hoping that, if shown a video of a man being arrested, I will automatically arrive at that conclusion on my own, without you putting in the legwork to persuade me.
If you don't want to express your opinions openly for fear of the mods rapping you on the knuckles, fair enough. Just stop acting like my failure to see the parallels you want me to see is evidence of stupidity on my part. I'm not stupid: I just don't agree with you. Not everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot.
Do you think the government is acting reasonably here?
Do I think the government is acting reasonably by arresting a man who shared images of children being sexually abused? Is this a trick question?
You do see the connection though, right?
Afraid not.
I'm such a broad and multifaceted writer calling this a hobbyhorse is little more than a veiled slur
Not at all. It's entirely possible for a person to write about a range of topics, and yet one of these consumes a disproportionate share of their mental bandwidth, they are far more emotionally invested in it than in any of the others, it raises their hackles more etc.. I imagine for just about every regular poster here, the topics that interest them follow a Pareto distribution, with 20% of the topics consuming 80% of their mental bandwidth. I write about a range of topics, and yet if someone were to claim that the absurdity of gender ideology is my hobby horse (or at least one of them), I could hardly dispute that.
Likewise with you. While you do write about other topics and participate in discussions about other topics, there is one specific topic that occupies a vastly disproportionate share of your mental bandwidth.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
New Year's resolution check-in:
- Posted my twenty-fourth article of the year last Friday, adapted from a comment I posted here last December about The Last Psychiatrist, narcissism and "identifying as" a morally upstanding person. Special thanks to @gog (whose summary of TLP's opinions I quoted at length, for context) and @FiveHourMarathon (who correctly pointed out that the examples in my comment were disproportionately left-coded, despite the phenomenon I was describing being a bipartisan one; I took this criticism onboard).
- Went to the gym three times last week. I can deadlift 1.82x my bodyweight, squat 1.33x and bench press 0.82x.
- Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.
How goes it @self_made_human, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble and @ThomasdelVasto?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I think your description is true of most femcels and some male incels. However, I think the number of men with whom literally no woman in the entire world would voluntarily have sex with under any circumstances is greater than zero. I doubt a woman meeting that description exists.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
From the first result of the search results page linked above. Obviously these photos are heavily filtered, but even so it seems the establishment employs a fair amount of "would"s. ("Would have sex with", I mean, not "would pay for".)
It is. But it's also the Tony Hawk meme.
More options
Context Copy link