site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   4400 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.

The "Hunger Plan" is a term that was never officially used, and was instead invented as a reference specifically to the supposed Nazi masterplan to exterminate the Slavic peoples of the USSR through manufactured famine. You'd think that the Wikipedia article on it will provide detailed evidence of this. What it describes instead are 1. the massive death rate of Soviet POWs in general (again, not all of them were even Slavs, and the idea that this was a pre-planned act of mass murder is suspect, as I mentioned in another comment in this thread) 2. Jews in ghettos not receiving sufficient food (again, this was a measure against Jews, not Slavs) 3. famine in German-occupied Greece (which has scarcely anything to do with the matter at hand.) Such Wikipedia articles are suspect in my eyes, because it's obvious that they were written by political activists.

For me it makes precious little difference whether Nazis caused millions of deaths according to some masterplan or through massive cruelty/incompetence/disregard. At minimum, they had no problem with causing millions of deaths in their war started together with their ally USSR.

See also Mao, killing millions through combination of badly broken leadership model and massive incompetence. It is not much better or worse than doing it as a deliberate plan, at most it has some different aesthetic. I guess that makes Mao largest and lamest loser ever and Hitler more demonic figure, but it is only aesthetics of not so great import, both caused terrible evil.

Intent, I think, very much matters if we want to examine if an ethnic cleansing (of Slavs, in this case) took place or not. But anyway, now that I checked this discussion again, it seems the original post was removed, so it's sort of pointless to continue, as it can no longer be seen what the original argument was.

Original post was about claim that Nazis were not anti-Slav. Which seem clearly false to me and does not require fully-deliberate extermination master plan to falsify.

it seems the original post was removed

very poor form

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