site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4462 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 16, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Barbarossa Decree declared

Unlike Winston Churchill's genocide of Boers or America's extreme attempts to clear out insurgents in Vietnam, Germany was fighting an existential war and was going out hard on insurgents.

How many trials were provided to the people the US murdered with drone strikes?

Germany was fighting an existential war and was going out hard on insurgents.

This is unironically one of the funniest comments I've read all day. You realize that WWII Germany is basically the poster child for aggressive, expansionist war in modern history, right?

Against the 13 colonies of the United states which now includes Iraq, Syria and a bunch of other countries and the British empire and the Soviet union. You realize the Brits unprovoked annexed Iran during the war while already occupying roughly a quarter of the planet. Germany was taking back areas it lost 20 years earlier and that were German.

How that changes anything in terms of "has Germany was anti-slav during nazi times?"

  1. The Germans were so uniquely evil trope is used to justify all sorts of Soviet and Anglo-American imperialism. The Germans weren't uniquely evil or brutal.

  2. The Germans wanting to exterminate everyone who isn't German trope simply isn't true either. Germans wanted to restore Germany and have a more isolationist policy than most other countries at the time.

a more isolationist policy

Invading Poland and the ussr isn't really my idea of isolationism.

I never claimed either of those.

The Germans were pretty evil, but "uniquely" is a much stronger claim that's more difficult to justify. Making it would invite difficult to judge comparisons with everything ever done by every other country, which is why I didn't make it.

I also didn't claim they wanted to exterminate everyone who wasn't German. They treated civilians and POWs of Western allies about as well as you could ask for during a war AFAIK, including even Jews (Jewish soldiers that is, not so much civilians of other European nations they overran). And they were of course allied with Imperial Japan and Italy.

And they weren't quite as annihilationist about Slavs as they were about Jews and Gypsies, but they certainly weren't treated nicely. I think anyone attempting to make the argument that the Nazis were not anti-Slav is ignoring quite a lot of evidence and horrors.

I never claimed either of those.

well, it was reply to person who claimed this

The Germans wanting to exterminate everyone who isn't German trope simply isn't true either.

Well, they wanted to also enslave Slavs that were not planned to be exterminated. And assimilate some of them (Volksdeutsche, Goralvolk etc).

And they were not planning to expand German empire worldwide, they had no plans to invade and conquer say Japan AFAIK. They were not so delusional to plan extermination of USA population on grounds of not being German.

Not that it would make things for Poles/Ukrainians/Russians/etc better if Germans would win WW II.

The Germans weren't uniquely evil or brutal.

Large part of that is more-or-less hidden dual standards. Like with Russia right now large part of anger stems "but in Europe you are not allowed to do that".

(insert that 4chan post about toilet and kitchen here)

Also, there was vision that after WW I we learned better and we will have peace in Europe. France dropping bombs on Lisbon in September 2024 and killing 200 people would not be uniquely evil or brutal either. But I expect that outcry would be massive and far larger than what is triggered by far worse things in Africa. Mostly due to higher expectations.

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