site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26565 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

revealed preference by all the major nuclear powers is a preference to endure non-existential attacks and even lose wars rather than use them, even when the threat of counter-use isn't present.

The reason I gave Israel as the likeliest to launch a nuclear weapon is that for them any given war is far likelier to be existential, and there aren't many ways they can lose militarily that don't involve them getting destroyed as a nation. This isn't a suggestion that they would directly attack Iran, more that they would do something like launch a tactical strike in Lebanon as a show of force and to take out a large part of Hezbollah's capabilities.

I would bet almost anything that Israel's few nukes are targeted at the capital cities of their allies.

Why in the world would you think that?

Most likely because prominent Israelis and Jewish intellectuals keep saying so when discussing Israeli nuclear strategy.

I just read that whole article, nowhere does it say that israel has nuclear weapons targeted at its allies' cities.

No, it just has a couple people arguing that it would be a good idea and that they should totally do it. Maybe they reflect the views of the Israeli leadership, maybe they don't. It's only a couple years since we've gotten around to admitting that Israel even has nukes, and I certainly would not expect them to announce that they target "allied" capitols as a matter of policy when they won't admit the weapons even exist.

David Perlmutter In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter.

Israel has been building nuclear weapons for 30 years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past, and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow—it hurt the Romans not a whit, but Samson in Gaza? What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away—unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans—have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?[32]

In his 2012 book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III, the American Jewish author Ron Rosenbaum described this opinion piece as "goes so far as to justify a Samson Option approach".[33] In that book, Rosenbaum also opined that in the "aftermath of a second Holocaust", Israel could "bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)" as well as the "holy places of Islam." and that the "abandonment of proportionality is the essence" of the Samson Option.[dubious – discuss][34]

Martin van Creveld In 2003, a military historian, Martin van Creveld, thought that the Second Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence.[35] Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch (2003) as saying:

We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.[36]

Maybe these two are entirely unrepresentative. Seems pretty on-brand for the Israelis to me, but your mileage may vary.

Perlmutter isn't even Israeli. Creveld is, but as far as I can tell hasn't been in government, even in an advisory capacity. He's just some guy.

Like I said, I read the whole wikipedia page. I understand that as saying "we'll retaliate against anyone who attacks us, even european countries", not "we'll retaliate by nuking even the people who supported us." How would the latter make sense at all? What could there possibly be to gain by nuking your own allies?

What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away—unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans—have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?

Bolded for emphasis. He very clearly is not talking about people who are directly attacking Israel, but about a deliberate attack on people who see themselves as uninvolved third parties.

We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force.

Likewise here. Your understanding is that the author was describing a scenario in which the Vatican has invaded Israel?

How would the latter make sense at all? What could there possibly be to gain by nuking your own allies?

If they've allowed your country to be murdered, they weren't much of an ally, were they?

The problem for me is the source, this is just some fat Dutch born Israeli historian saying whatever comes to mind. His family were "staunch Zionists" that narrowly avoided the holocaust. This is just his personal has revenge fantasy about Europe and WWII. He doesn't have some kind of special access or insight into what Israel Nuclear stratagems are in place.

You can always find one nut on any side saying crazy shit.

I think that is a wildly weird and optimistic (for lack of a better word) piece of pro-Israeli propaganda there. I suppose if you're a mid tier Israeli professor or author who is trying to make a splash and maybe strike a little fear into the hearts of your enemies; it doesn't hurt from a game theory perspective to claim you have all of this capability to lash out wildly. But Israel is tiny and would be completely destroyed by any retaliation whatsoever nuclear or not, so hardly an actual plan for them to ever use...

Israeli is also a small area to cover with countermeasures that could take out missiles in boost phase. They do have subs, but they aren't exactly stealth tech nuclear boomers deep in the Indian ocean...just a dozen diesel electrics only one of which is really a modern missile sub.

What's your estimate of the Israeli nuclear arsenal? I can't see a reason they wouldn't build as many as possible. Ditto for the subs they bought; why presume they aren't all nuclear-armed? Presumably they have torpedo tubes? cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads can be launched from torpedo tubes, can't they?

Why would the Israelis not have a plan to use nukes? What's the point of having them if they aren't interested in using them?

I'd agree it's almost certainly propaganda, and of questionable connection to the Israelis actually in charge. No one who matters is terribly interested in clearing up the ambiguities, so it's hard to know.

Most countries aren't interested in actually using nukes. As evidenced by the past 80 years. They are a deterrent, a weapon of last resort. Israel has nothing to gain by pointing them at Paris or DC or Rome, a wildly speculative statement or 2 by people I've never heard of is hardly proof they are targeting Europe or the USA. They probably do have them pointed at Iran et al.

LOL what makes you say that?

I think Israel’s plan Z for Hezbollah is just ‘go full Gaza with disregard for civilian casualties in southern Lebanon, get Maronite collaborators to ethnically cleanse the Shiites from the survivors afterwards’. Nukes are for Iran.

I think if they had their backs against the wall they'd be more likely to take out Tehran. Tactical strikes against Hezbollah wouldn't make enough difference, nor send the final message that they'd want to send before being destroyed.

I doubt Israel's chances of survival will increase if they start lobbing nukes at Arab states. If anything, this might trigger a full-scale invasion of Israel by the whole Arab League to prevent them from detonating another one.

The point of strategic nukes is not to get advantage in the situations where you use them. The point is to decrease the probability that it comes to that point, to ensure that the need for their use remains counterfactual.

A general policy of "when faced with an existential threat, such as an invasion, we will nuke cities of the aggressor" will do fuck-all to stop an invasion. However, if you credibly pre-commit to following through on it, the chances that you get invaded in the first place will be much smaller because most countries do not consider the glassing of their cities an acceptable price for waging war.

Also, you can not invade to stop a country from using nukes. The time scales for launching nukes are in the minutes, the time scales for invasion are on the order of days.

But if the alternative is “Israel no longer exists, Jews get exiled again to face pogroms and potentially genocide,” the nuclear option is much more on the table and the consequences of it seem much less important.

And honestly I expect Israel to get more brutal, not less, as the world turns against them. A lot of the reason that Israel was willing to tolerate Palestinians and the chanting of “death to Israel” followed by rocket attacks is that Americans had their backs and they had access to American weapons. Now, there’s a move to basically treat Israel like South Africa to recognize the state of Palestine (which is less of a state than many American Indian reservations), and to divest and potentially sanction them. This backs them into a scenario in which they can no longer tolerate things that they would have before, and cannot assume that if something happens to them that they’d be allowed to respond. I think that world opinion on Palestine has made the response much more brutal than it would have been otherwise. This is their last chance to destroy the threat, and anything and anyone left is going to be untouchable in the future because the world won’t allow another invasion of “Palestinian” territory. So bomb the shit out of everything and hope you’ve given yourself a long enough head start to get ahead of the blowback.

With proxy wars like Hezbollah or other terrorist organizations, again, they aren’t given the right to invade to root out those things with conventional means, and the sponsors have spent millions to create these groups and arm them and give them intelligence, etc.

Is there a reason why Israel can't nuke the Arab League faster than they prevent them from doing so?

They don't have enough nukes. And if they nuke Cairo or Mecca, they will lose the last of their remaining goodwill.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats