site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 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.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

the entire post-10/7 conflict in Gaza was a sinister plot for Israelis to expropriate Gazan land

That's silly only because there is nothing subtle about it. Israel was founded on taking land from the assorted Arabs that lived there before, and has repeatedly expanded by doing that over and over again. With everything it does, it grabs more land. Grabbing and holding land for its privileged ethnic group is its entire purpose.

But even here you're wrong; the unprovoked nature of the 10/7 attack,

Italics are not a substitute for an argument. You can't possibly be arguing that Israel did nothing to Palestinians before 10/7, so the only thing your argument can possibly rest on is saying that somehow what it did before is excluded from consideration as a provocation. Have you presented any argument for that, apart from "deaths dealt out tit-for-tat", i.e. saying that the "Palestinians started it", i.e. slicing up a sequence of mutual provocations in a convenient way?

This is what they are actually doing, probably to their detriment.

60% of Palestinian fatalities since 10/7 on the first infographic I could find are women, children and the elderly. I have seen plenty of pictures of whole blocks being levelled. If that is surgical precision, i.e. those killings were targeted and deliberate, I think we are deep in genocidal territory, though I'm sure its defenders will have a story about how they vetted everyone in those blocks they levelled and the children were terrorists too.

Note also that per the infographic, something like 2-3% of Israeli 10/7 fatalities are children, to 32% of Palestinian fatalities since then. And then you claim that the Palestinians are the ones killing indiscriminately?

the analysis of John Spencer, an instructor in urban warfare at West Point

Might be more interesting if it weren't by someone who would almost certainly lose their job if they came to a different conclusion.

Not a valid basis to wage war or attack random civilians.

Surely having your homeland invaded and occupied is a valid basis to wage war. I will concede that apart from a crazy fringe the Israeli side is not technically arguing that having random civilians on your side attacked is a valid basis to attack random civilians; instead they just engage in gaslighting and Soviet-level denials that they are attacking random civilians, all while continuing to do it. I am genuinely unsure if a greater evil masquerading as good is better than an unapologetic lesser evil.

Interesting way to describe the outcome of a lawsuit

Israeli court: "seems legit to me"