site banner
PaperclipPerfector  29d ago (text post)   35301 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Trump, in Shock Announcement, Says U.S. Will Take Over Gaza After Permanently Displacing Palestinians

U.S. President Donald Trump made the shocking announcement on Tuesday during a joint press conference with visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will pursue a plan where the U.S. assumes ownership of Gaza, shortly after calling for the permanent displacement of the Strip's residents.

"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we'll do a good job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out and create economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area," he said.

When asked if this meant that Trump would send U.S. troops to Gaza, he said "if it's necessary, we'll do that. We're gonna take over that piece and develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs. It will be something the entire Middle East can be very proud of."

Now there are a few problems with this. One is that Egypt and Jordan, the obvious candidates, are absolutely against it. Second is that it will be horribly embarrassing when an American soldier gets blown up by unexploded American ordnance that was donated to Israel. It's also somewhat incoherent - he's going to make it into some kind of big multicultural party zone?

"I envision the world's people living there. You'll make it into an international, unbelievable place. The entire world will be there - Palestinians also - many people will live there.

The US does have lots of leverage over Egypt though, their economy has been on the cusp of collapse for a while now. So maybe Trump's increased willingness to deploy coercion will bear fruit here.

Countries such as Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have falsely accused Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow Gazans to enter their territory.

-Israel's defense minister Katz.

Thanks, Drumpf.

One explanation for this I've seen is that it's about calling both sides on their distributed-motte-and-bailey positions. To quote commenter Fidelis over at the Dreaded Jim's:

Trump is revealing the true prefences of both sides with this. Zionists want the real estate with the Palestinians gone, but claim they just want safety and security from terrorists. Leftists want every Israeli murdered or castrated, but claim they just want the oppressor nation to stop persecuting the poor browns.

With this move, both sides are unable to rebuke without admitting what they were really after, or in the left’s case evolving some new reason the Israelis need to be murdered. It’s a brilliant play.

I don't see how Trump's plan would satisfy the leftist motte... Direct US control (ownership ?) of an area is the paragon case of "oppressor nation persecuting the poor browns".

Also it'd be a matter of time till some sort of mild violence kicked off between locals and US administrators at which point the wailing would be immense.

As per my ridiculous-fantasy-idea below, ideally, a US-run Israel-Palestine area would make both Israelis and Palestinians equal, even if in the "all are equally low before the emperor" sense.

Bizarrely the only "just" solution is one state encompassing the Palestinian territories and modern Israel with full rights for Palestinians and Israelis and the only way something like that could happen would be total domination, monopolization of force, and annexation/rule by the US.

That "just" solution simply is not possible if "full rights" includes political rights. You either have to curtail political rights of one group or allow them to curtail the rights to life and liberty of the other.

If there's anyone who can bring imperialism (with the eagles) back it would be Trump. Perhaps I'm a dreamer, but it's a beautiful dream.

Ah: the fifty-first state solution.

Simpsons predicted it.

Sex on prom night is as American as our fifty-first state, Saudi Israelia.

Maybe fifty-third or so, depending on how the rest of his term plays out.

Eight or nine years ago, it became clear Trump says things he doesn't plan on doing because he values the reaction he gets in politics/negotiations. He's been doing this for a decade and likely longer. He (or someone) wrote a book where saying shocking things while hiding what you want is how one should behave in business. And yet, every single time this happens people take Trump at face-value and attack/criticize the proposal.

IMO, this is never going to happen. Trump forced the Israelis to accept a ceasefire. Now, he is going to batter the Arabs; the immediate strong condemnation by Saudi Arabia was expected and desired. Then he's going to use the discontent to seek some achievable goal. If I had to guess, he's going to try to force the Arab states' repeatedly stated proposals for a Palestinian state which is the responsibility of a Muslim country or coalition.

If I had to make a prediction; if Trump manages to cut this gordian knot, it's going to be because he gets Saudi Arabia (or perhaps a Muslim partnership) to take ownership over at least Gaza. They will get a corridor which is either theirs or granted to them in order to project power and material by land from Saudi Arabia to Gaza.

Saudi Arabia will crack down viciously on violent extremist there. The Ummah will not object because it will be Muslims ruling Muslims. Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries will pour money and investment into the country and this will hugely benefit the people there. This project may even get Iran on board and serve as a bridge for conflicting Muslim factions. If something like this happens, it would be a great development in the region and deserving of world-history level accolades.

The classic "don't worry about it, he's just lying" defense.

I can see why it's exhausting, but you must admit he often just says dumb shit pretty often.

Also known as "bluffing". It's a thing in negotiations.

If I had to make a prediction; if Trump manages to cut this gordian knot, it's going to be because he gets Saudi Arabia (or perhaps a Muslim partnership) to take ownership over at least Gaza. They will get a corridor which is either theirs or granted to them in order to project power and material by land from Saudi Arabia to Gaza.

In what world would Saudi Arabia, or any other country, agree to this? Israel already tried to give Gaza to the Egyptians, and they didn't want it. Gaza is nothing more than a headache for any country with the misfortune of having sovereignty over them. Hell, Saudi Arabia doesn't even have any formal relations with Israel and doesn't recognize them, yet Israel is supposed to grant their military unlimited transit across their territory? Not to mention that Jordan would have to agree to this as well.

The world where Saudi Arabia isn't Egypt and the Arab League has had something like this proposal, known as the Arab Peace Initiative, for nearly two decades which offers totally normalized relations in exchange for the end of the occupation and a Palestinian state and has also been endorsed by Iran and Hezbollah. So, this world which we live in right now.

Is this speculated predicted deal the same as that? No, there are some differences. Is this deal likely? No, it's a prediction based on a difficult conditional.

Saudi Arabia and the Arab League isn't Egypt. One is stable and filthy rich and the other is teetering on collapse. Jordan will do what the US demands and so will Israel if someone who is seen as a rabid Zionist actually forces them to face consequences if they don't.

None of those initiatives offered a clear sovereign to rule over the Palestinian State and ensure that its territory is not used to launch attacks.

That's the missing piece. The (esp Arab) world does not want Israel to be that entity. But they don't want to step up and do it themselves. So all that's left is to periodically mow the grass.

Right, which is why Trump announced the US was going to do it themselves then to pressure the Arabs; do the Arabs want the US to administer it or would they prefer to do it themselves?

Eight or nine years ago, it became clear Trump says things he doesn't plan on doing because he values the reaction he gets in politics/negotiations. He's been doing this for a decade and likely longer. He (or someone) wrote a book where saying shocking things while hiding what you want is how one should behave in business. And yet, every single time this happens people take Trump at face-value and attack/criticize the proposal.

This, more or less. It's the literally vs seriously division all over again, and about as interesting as it was last time.

The distinction should however be turned on his supporters as much as his detractors. If you cannot understand someone's intentions from the meaning of his words, you can never, ever trust him when he claims to be on your side.

For it to be deserve to be turned on his supporters as much as his detractors, his supporters would need to not understand his intentions as much as his detractors.

I am far from persuaded this is the case.

Trump seems to be very interested in acquisitions and land. Maybe it's a legacy thing, or maybe he's just a real estate developer at heart. Possibly Bibi told him words to the effect of "we've got a nice patch of real estate for you on the Med, want to take it off our hands?" and Trump got suckered.

Possibly Bibi told him words to the effect of "we've got a nice patch of real estate for you on the Med, want to take it off our hands?" and Trump got suckered.

Yup, and in the same meeting Netanyahu gave Trump a gold plated pager and a regular pager as a “gift.” The hostile, esoteric symbolism of Bibi gifting Trump a gold pager is so clear it's infuriating our government is so captured by Israeli influence. A serious leader would have arrested Netanyahu on the spot for that insolence.

A serious leader would have arrested Netanyahu on the spot for that insolence.

I'm fairly certain that that would violate several international treaties.

Isn’t he wanted in most of the free world as a war criminal?

Today on "nefarious insidious things Jews can't get away with": making a pager joke.

Israel’s Netanyahu brings his dirty laundry to Washington. Literally.

Over the years, the Israeli leader has developed a reputation among the staff at the U.S. president’s guesthouse for bringing special cargo on his trips to Washington: bags and suitcases full of dirty laundry, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The clothes are cleaned for the prime minister free of charge by the U.S. staff, a perk that is available to all foreign leaders but sparingly taken advantage of given the short stays of busy heads of state.

“The Netanyahus are the only ones who bring actual suitcases of dirty laundry for us to clean,” said one U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the details of a foreign leader’s visits. “After multiple trips, it became clear this was intentional.”

The officials who confirmed the past uses of laundry bags included both political and career officials spanning the Trump and Obama administrations.

https://archive.is/K67pJ

Dirty laundry of course being an idiom which means “questionable activities that one wants to remain secret, but which someone else may use as blackmail.”

Reading the full article it appears that he is more of a greedy kleptocrat who wants free stuff, rather than a head of state making some devious underlying diplomatic statement. Interesting article though.

Do you really think that Netanyahu, worth $14m, brings his laundry all the way to America to save $6, when his own assistants undoubtedly do laundry for him back home? If this is a genuine belief, why would you think this?

What do you think it is?

  • a way to humiliate the White House staffers
  • a secret-not-secret hint that White House covers up Netanyahu's dirty business
  • "free shit" syndrome, corresponding, amusingly enough, to one of the Jew stereotypes
  • insert your own

Netanyahu doesn’t have it out for the random maid staff that the White House employs. It is just as free if they do laundry in Israel. It is either saying that America launders the dirty secrets of Israel or that Israel’s “dirty laundry” goes through America. Its either criticizing America’s intel sharing or showing symbolic dominance over America such that we do their dirty deeds for them.

Cool it with the anti semitic remarks

"Average Gold-Plated AK Fanboy vs. Average Gold-Plated Pager Enjoyer: a History of the Modern Middle-East"

Obviously the gifts that world leaders give each-other are symbolic. It always has been this way. The idea this is just a joke and there's no underlying symbolism intended by the people who designed and made the gift is just being willfully blind.

Netenyahu selling the idea of the US controlling Gaza while gifting him a gold-plated pager has meaningful underlying symbolism. It's not a joke, it's serious.

The obvious play here is for Trump to gift Netanyahu a gold plated copy of the The Protocols. As a joke, of coarse.

I think this is more a reflection of the gift's recipient than the gift's giver - would you expect the Israelis to give a golden pager to any other Head of State?

It's a reflection of both, it's layered with meaning. It's flaunting Israel's insolence to someone who is so enamored with Israel he's going to take it in stride.

Part of it is "we totally undermined Biden by just doing stuff and he couldn't stop us, but we really want to work with you so you're in on the joke." When the gift itself is portraying a bomb disguised as an innocuous object, as Netanyahu tries to drag the US into this mess further by appealing to Trump's own proclivities.

What proportion of allied Heads of State haven't done something undignified or distasteful in the interests of catering to Trump's ego? I agree that this was extraordinarily distasteful, but it's pretty low on my list of concerns about Israel, to put it mildly.

Worst. Deal. Ever.

The US gets: blowback, military escalation, and debt. The US receives: sand. Id rather they send a blank check and let Israel take all the flack.

Islamic terrorists have told the US for decades that the primary reasons for 9/11 and other attacks was US support of Israel, AND military boots on the ground in "Muslim lands". This comes from a straightforward reading of the Quran/Hadiths as understood by hundreds of millions. They sincerely believe that the creator of the universe wants them to dedicate their lives to killing US troops in Muslim unless they pay the jizya and "live in humiliation".

Saudi Wahhabists found Bin Laden so extreme on this issue (as they has made deals with the US gov't) and basically sent him to Afghanistan, where he was armed by the US and famously praised a freedom fighter.

Israel is doing pretty well. They're far from dire straits. The US should be hands off as possible. Financial support is quite tolerable as it goes to a small, stable democratic ally in a hostile region.

Islamic terrorists have told the US for decades that the primary reasons for 9/11 and other attacks was US support of Israel, AND military boots on the ground in "Muslim lands". This comes from a straightforward reading of the Quran/Hadiths as understood by hundreds of millions.

I'm confused on what your position is. There is a contradiction between the 'geopolitics/bin laden addressing americans' position and the 'theological/dabiq' position. A straightforward reading of the quran/hadiths says nothing about muslim lands and israel, it's in line with dabiq's position "We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers... We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited... What’s important to understand here is that although some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this particular reason for hating you is secondary".

They think Non Muslims should not be in "Muslim lands" unless they pay the tax.

No, they think non muslims should be fought, no matter where they are, until they are conquered and pay the tax, or convert.

Not geopolitics - but pissing-off the creator of the universe.

Right.

I think bin laden is lying, trying to sow division by appealing to the western left, when he talks geopolitics, about muslim lands and israel. His terrorist activity is not based on secular reasons at all. The west can support or not support israel or saudi Arabia, it won't impact islamic religious hatred.

A straightforward reading of the quran/hadiths says nothing about muslim lands and israel

My position is basically what Bin Laden et al have said about this claim. Namely, that it is untrue. They see the claim as true, and cite evidence in the quran/hadith, as well as classic and modern scholars. Of course, these are not universal interpretations, but they have been around hundreds of years, and are taught as valid to tens if not hundreds of millions of believers today.

My claim is that there is an unbroken Holy War in the ME, based on sincere beliefs in religious texts /scholars. It is the primary impetus for continued fighting. Geopolitical concerns are grafted on after the fact, and only insofar as they implicate religious concerns. While political concerns can be purely secular on the surface, religious concern precedes them. They have been saying this for decades.

Crucially, I claim that sincere, literalist religious beliefs best explains the actions of the most potent actors in the region (mostly because they keep saying it does). For reference they usually cite Quran 9:28, 5:21, 17:1, and Muhammed saying "Two religions shall not co exist in the Arabian Peninsula". In this light, Bin Ladens letter to America makes sense.

The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this. When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them. Therefore, the call to a historical right to Palestine cannot be raised against the Islamic Ummah that believes in all the Prophets of Allah (peace and blessings be upon them) - and we make no distinction between them.

Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures... It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge.

No, they think non muslims should be fought, no matter where they are, until they are conquered and pay the tax, or convert.

Yes. They are first and foremost devout Muslims (in their interpretation of Islam). However, they repeatedly express specific concern about non believers in "Muslim lands" and/or within the "Dar-Al-Salam" (abode of Islam), and/or being near Mecca and Medina, which "pollutes" the land in a purely spiritual sense.

They are no more or less religious than Israeli settlers, who claim Gods Law above all worldly concerns. Various documentaries allow them to speak in their own words. They believe all of Israel/Palestine belongs to them only because of the Bible/Torah.

The west can support or not support israel or saudi Arabia, it won't impact islamic religious hatred.

Certain Islamists and Islamic scholars say the opposite. While they will always hate non muslims, they constantly reiterate the specific religious problems related to US support of Israel (in religious terms), as well as US bases on "Muslim lands" (also in religious terms). They also explicitly state that even if the West were to depart these lands, they would still be fighting for global Islam because that is the entire purpose for human existence: to convert everyone to the one true religion, by force if necessary. But the presence in the ME and support of Israel are pointed out as aggravating, religious factors.

I think if anyone imagines taking Islamist and settler (post 1947) worldviews as literally, Biblically true, so much of the conflict makes sense. When asked, these two groups will tell you what their worldview is, and that they take it as literally, Biblically true.

Islamic terrorists have told the US for decades that the primary reasons for 9/11 and other attacks was US support of Israel, AND military boots on the ground in "Muslim lands". Saudi Wahhabists found Bin Laden so extreme on this issue (as they has made deals with the US gov't) and basically sent him to Afghanistan, where he was armed by the US and famously praised a freedom fighter.

The reason for US military boots on the ground was one Arab (Saddam) invading another (Kuwait).

bin Laden wasn't mad for military reasons, he was mad because he wanted to kill Iraqis but was passed over. It has about as much theological basis as a kid being butthurt they weren't picked for basketball.

In his own words, Bin laden repeatedly states his theological concerns as his sole justification for both wanting to kill Iraqis and Americans (esp in his 96 and 98 fatwas). He quotes scripture. His modern followers do likewise. They think Non Muslims should not be in "Muslim lands" unless they pay the tax. That's what they're upset about. Not geopolitics - but pissing-off the creator of the universe. They have stated this stated explicitly, many times, pointing to scripture, quoting specific passages, getting ascent from Imams and ulama. Bin Laden viewed the Baathists as apostates. That was is issue with them.

If you take the view that all these movements are sincere religious movements and really believe what they say, everything starts makes sense. The same goes for Hamas.

I posted bin ladens fatwas and writings recently, as well as this, which seems apt:

Dabiq Magazine 'Why We Hate You and Why We Fight You - 2016:

"One would think that the average Westerner, by now, would have abandoned the tired claim that the actions of the mujahideen—who have repeatedly stated their goals, intentions, and motivations—don’t make sense... There are exceptions among the disbelievers, no doubt, people who will unabashedly declare that jihad and the laws of the shari’a—as well as everything else deemed taboo by the Islam-is-a-peaceful-religion crowd—are in fact completely Islamic, but they tend to be people with far less credibility who are painted as a social fringe, so their voices are dismissed and a large segment of the ignorant masses continues believing the false narrative... We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers... we have been commanded to fight the disbelievers until they submit to the authority of Islam, either by becoming Muslims, or by paying jizya... We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited... What’s important to understand here is that although some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this particular reason for hating you is secondary... we will never stop hating you until you embrace Islam."

Why would you trust the words of a mass murderer? Or at least do you think he might possibly be disingenuous or not exactly forthright?

I don't think he necessarily deserves this level of credulity.

This is a common critique, but it is absolutely crazymaking. I don't intend to jump down your throat, so bare with me.

When a Christian says "I think gay sex is sin" and points the Bible, we don't sit around and questions if that's really why they don't condone homosexuality. We know why the Westboro Baptists say "God hates fags". Its not mysterious. We know why the Mennonites build barns, drive buggies, and live in their communities. They will tell us. We know why Mao opposed the bourgeoisie, and did his thing. We know why Hitler did his thing. We know why Spanish Inquisitors did their thing. Nobody questions it.

But religiously motivated Islamic terrorism seems to beget an isolated demand for rigor no matter how much it makes sense of otherwise bizarre behavior.

Incredulity doesn't necessarily follow from the actions of even a mass murderer. That has never been the case. Moreover, Bin Laden was not a lone, isolated actor. He was part of a wider movement, an ideology, with a long history of beliefs, documented in ancient texts, interpreted in the writings of modern Imams and ulama. His stated beliefs totally explains his actions, not only in war, but also in life. His actions and explanations were held consistent for decades. They make sense of the actions of millions upon millions of people (ie the Taliban, ISIS, the Muslim brotherhood).

Bin laden was first and foremost a deeply religious person. It totally explains every facet of his entire adult life. The Taliban is likewise deeply motivated by religion. So is ISIS. They tell us. They can trace their reasoning through modern scholarship of ancient texts in the exact same way as modern priests can legitimately claim that homosexuality is a sin under Christianity.

My argument is that if you take the perspective that the beliefs are sincere and literal, everything starts to make sense. I mean to seriously convince you of this. Charlie Hebdo, ISIS, the Taliban, and 9/11 - to name a few examples - become no less mysterious than an Amish person using a horse-drawn plough in 2025. Thousands of people will spell out in excruciating detail why they do what they do. As Dabiq printed, these actions are completely Islamic (to some minority of 1.8B Muslims), and people saying otherwise are peddling a false narrative.

No, that's well and good. No offense or anything. And I think to the same extent that I'm crazy making, you're sanewashing.

First off, the Amish don't really every engage in suicidal mass-murder. At baseline, I think we should take sane people who contribute to modern society in positive ways more seriously and people like bin Laden less seriously.

Bin laden was first and foremost a deeply religious person. It totally explains every facet of his entire adult life. The Taliban is likewise deeply motivated by religion. So is ISIS. They tell us.

Oh I fully agree. What I think though is that they have found justification within their religion for a set of beliefs that emerged in other ways.

As Dabiq printed, these actions are completely Islamic (to some minority of 1.8B Muslims), and people saying otherwise are peddling a false narrative.

Absolutely, Islam has this seed within it for those that want to find it. But the fact that a couple million found it and the remaining ~1.8B should make us realize that it it not sufficient. Something else has to cause bin Laden to radicalize and find, within Islam, the justification for his radical drive that did not happen to the modal Indonesian.

Cool. It's crazymaking to me, I don't think anyone intends it. I disagree about motivations. I find the evidence so overwhelming that in any other scenario nobody would ever disagree (of course I could be wrong, so I make my argument).

People readily see the connection between Christianity and homophobia without any prompting. Or between the Amish and the comparatively extreme lives they lead. People believe that antivaxxers don't vaccinate their kids because they believe vaccines would cause autism. We believe what those group say about the motivations for their actions. We even believe that psychotic people really believed their delusions when their actions and retelling make sense of their behavior.

What I'm am talking about is not isolated to Bin-Laden by a long shot (nor does it apply to all Muslims). I'm saying such people get specific beliefs from specific lines of text, they actually believe them, and that modern scholars have said that these are plausible beliefs given the text. That does all the heavy lifting of my argument. It explains the over-representation of homophobia in Christians, and Charlie Hebdo. It doesn't preclude ambient homophobia or psychopathy. Those reasons will always be there.

I do think Bin Laden was a psychologically normal person who merely had some unhelpful beliefs about the creator of the universe. And there are many thousands like him. This does not preclude sociopathy etc. as an exacerbating factor. Sincere beliefs like martyrdom, jihad, haram (all as understood by many) are the best explanation. We know this because of a disproportionate amount of specific, observed behaviors. That's what is analogous to the Amish - who just happen to beliefs and actions are far more benign, but are equally explained by their beliefs. It likewise explains why there are Islamic countries with sharia judicial and banking systems. Why else would they do these things? (The economic consequences of usuary prohibition in Islam is actually its own fascinating modern history. They get around it in complicated ways to this day, much like orthodox jews have a special light switch for use on Saturdays). The kosher light switch only makes sense because of Judaism. State sanctioned public beheadings for apostacy only make sense because of Islam. Christian gay-conversion therapy only makes sense because of Christianity. Secular factors play a roll (well, not so much for the light switch).

Complex form violence unique to Islam has popped up in Indonesia. The claimed reason of the perpetrator? Islam. This violence doesn't look anything like the Inquisition for a reason.

People readily see the connection between Christianity and homophobia without any prompting.

I dunno, live in a blue state long enough and the number of either LGBT accepting or outright queer churches sort of suggests that some folks a homophobic and those that are also Christian tend to draw from christianity their justification for it.

I could be wrong.

Complex form violence unique to Islam has popped up in Indonesia. The claimed reason of the perpetrator? Islam. This violence doesn't look anything like the Inquisition for a reason.

I agree, I think maybe we could agree there is a particularly etiology here in which sociopathic people, given the contents of Islam, gravitate towards it and specifically forms and types of violence.

IOW, I guess what you call an aggravating factor seems to be indispensable. And what you think is indispensable here, I see as providing an outlet and ultimately enabling rather than causal.

My argument is that if you take the perspective that the beliefs are sincere and literal, everything starts to make sense.

Sure... but nobody's that self-centered that they'd destroy most of the compromises set up to channel disputes among maximally self-centered individuals, right? Besides, when I do self-centered stuff, I'm lucky enough that it usually has some productive end, and the woo woo shit I might otherwise be partial to/where I work towards what makes observable, repeatable sense is generally... not, so naturally they'd have a sense of that and know when to moderate it.

This is the model that "reasonable citizens" have; that's why they can be defeated.

The US would be fools to occupy Gaza. It is not in their national interest and they would just inherit decades of hatred and terrorism.

It would be better for the Palestinians and the Israelis, but why would you do it? Madness.

Minor aside, but I was in the gym last night and they had CNN on. My favorite part was that the chyron read: “Kaitlin presses Trump on Gaza.”

There is a reason media is dying.

There's a reason the 'you don't hate them enough' meme is gaining strength.

I don't think this is a realistic solution but somehow think it's still more realistic than just going back to the pre-10/7 status quo of waiting until a bunch of Islamists launch another attack on Israel. If you start with the presuppositions that Israel should exist as a Jewish state, that Israel is an important American ally, and that coexistence with a Palestinian state isn't possible, what are you left with? I'm not saying you should adopt those presuppositions, but they seem to be what Trump is working from.

There's nothing left. Within those parameters there's no solution (besides genocide) except maybe to have stayed in Gaza and controlled enough of the border with Egypt to tamp down on smuggling and perhaps break the whole thing into a bunch of units that'd be expensive to manage in blood and money. But Trump, the alleged ally of Israel, was one of the people to push for the ceasefire because the war had bad headlines and everyone was exhausted.

So going back to the status quo is all that remains.

There's nowhere to put the Palestinians. Forcing them on Egypt or Jordan risks the entire state collapsing or worse, becoming a Palestinian launching pad.

Bring them to the US a la Freddie DeBoer? Even if Trump wasn't who he was, it'd make the American-born Irish's flirtations and funding of the IRA look mild in comparison. Even Europe must have limits to its masochism. There's ample evidence they're bad (or delusional) neighbors.

The displacement - Phase 1 - can't happen, and America simply isn't going to dedicate the necessary troops to manage a non-ethnically cleansed Gaza for Israel. So I guess Israel is just going to have to live with it and the US will send them weapons and a carrier if things get really hairy.

Putting aside the morality of demographic warfare, the Arabs have very successfully put Israel in a box here.

My perplexity about what the universe holds in store for 2025 is off the charts. No wonder that LLMs with knowledge cutoffs in early 2024 straight up think users are pulling their legs when discussing recent events.

I told Deepseek R1 that Donald Trump went from flipping burgers to crypto billionaire in a few months and it started arguing bitterly against me, refusing to accept that it was real and calling me disingenuous. It was kind of funny.

One is that Egypt and Jordan, the obvious candidates,

This is part of the problem. Everyone just assumes Palestinians can only go to Egypt or Jordan. There's a lot of land in Uruguay or southern Alaska. I hear Greenland is nice. Get creative people!

How about that old standby, Madagascar?

This sort of imperialist belief that you can just displace millions of people and create new countries by decree without considering the blowback is what got us this mess in the first place. If the natural local balance of power doesn't allow for a people to exist, then it will only be able to exist via continual foreign intervention.

The only real solution to fix the mess the brits created is to cut the funding and let things take their course. Either Israel can genocide the place and take it, or they get washed away in the tide of a religion that outnumbers them 2 billion to 15million.

Sitka, perhaps, for an Arab Policemen's Union.

You got the reference. :) Gold star.

I guess the ideal would be some relatively sparsely populated Muslim country. To be honest, somewhere like Niger or Mali would probably benefit tremendously from Palestinian resettlement.

That's like when Chinese exported their criminals to some African country.

Both the country and China were better off, because even 90 IQ Chinese crooks are way more capable than average natives.

Do you have a source on this? Not that I don’t believe you, but…

Tbh I saw it as a rumor on twitter. It's unclear if it's true:

https://www.dw.com/en/do-chinese-firms-employ-convicts-from-china-in-africa/a-67802241

In any case, if they're doing it it'd be true at least re: IQ.

Link doesn't seem to work.

Here's another.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/jul/29/china-export-convict-labour

Seems to be a long-standing practice. There's also pro-Chinese sources denying it. Dunno why - I think putting convicts to work is a great way of rehabilitating them.

What is this that you speak of?

One is also reminded of New Zealand PM Robert Muldoon’s famous quip that Kiwi emigration to Australia “raised the IQ of both countries”

Sounds like Trump wants to turn Gaza into a kind of international zone of centuries past (maybe post war occupation Japan is a better analogy)? Honestly, not a terrible idea when compared with every other option available. Of course, it can easily go horribly horribly wrong but literally every other idea seems equally likely to be horrible.

shortly after calling for the permanent displacement of the Strip's residents.

I hate hate hate modern journalism. At no point (at least based on the words actually said as reported in article) does Trump actually call for displacement of Palestinians. He is calling for the construction of an international zone in Gaza, which will include the local Palestinians. He is also calling for the creation of something like special economic zones for Gazan migrants in nearby (?) countries, this is honestly super unclear.

Trump is calling for a loss of sovereignity for Gazan and its inhabitants, which is arguably a bad thing (depending on your perspective), but at no point is he straight up calling for displacement. And honestly, Gaza has limited sovereignty anyway, and what sovereignty they do have is largely exerted by a terrorist group.

When Trump says the “Gaza thing has never worked” in reference to Palestinians going into Jordan, and then says that they should get “a good fresh beautiful piece of land”, I think he is talking about the permanent transfer of Gazans to elsewhere. He is not talking about a temporary dwelling while they fix Gaza.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Op1fqgmEQrU

I hate hate hate modern journalism.

Direct quote from the press conference:

Being in its presence just has not been good and it should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there. Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck.

I think Haaretz' paraphrasing is fine. You can try to put a positive gloss on it, but the plan is explicitly that Palestinians would be moved elsewhere. Trump isn't pretending that it's going to be temporary, and even if he was, once the Palestinians are gone I doubt the Israelis are going to let them back.

He is calling for the construction of an international zone in Gaza

Is he? Trump reiterates that the US will own the Gaza strip

Trump specifically mentions that Palestinians will be part of the 'international zone', though.

"I envision the world's people living there. You'll make it into an international, unbelievable place. The entire world will be there - Palestinians also - many people will live there. they tried the other for decades and decades, it's not gonna work.

International zones is history have typically been led by a major power, not literally the entire international community. Shanghai by the British and Americans, Tangiers by the French (with support from Britain and Spain) etc.

This is one of those times when people's ignorance of history is actually important rather than a meme. Palestinians will never trust that displacement isn't permanent, that's sort of their whole thing. No Palestinian who gets herded into a camp in Egypt or Jordan would really expect a Right of Return, and they'd be stupid to expect it.

Shock announcement indeed. I expected the US to continue to support and whitewash Israeli criminal behaviour, not literally perform janitorial duties.

Abysmal optics, all smiles and courtesies next to Bibi, announcing violent cleansing, US funded redevelopment, gift to Israel barely obfuscated by "they ALL want to leave", "uninvolved countries will pay", "everyone will live there afterwards". They way he was describing why the plan is needed today, an uninformed person would be excused if they thought a natural disaster struck Gaza, repeatedly.

I wonder if Trump seriously thinks this ends in any other way than Israel annexing Gaza or if he's just using it as an underhanded justification for America doing the dirty work. FWIW I think Bush was a true believer in "we have to bring Democracy to Iraq and liberate the Iraqi people", an intellectual justification which was also spun by Netenyahu himself. America isn't getting a Riviera in the Middle East, it's going to be gifted to the Israelis 100%.

If the US controlled Gaza as some kind of international zone there would be no reason for Israeli annexation. The settlers who wanted to live there could presumably just buy property from the locals and move in. Remember, extremist religious zionists aren’t hostile to Israel the way some ultra-orthodox are but they mostly don’t see expanding the cartographical boundaries of the modern Israeli state run by the knesset itself as imperative the way 19th century nationalists (or possibly Trump himself) did, they see it as a more amorphous ‘Jewish presence’ thing, ie whether settlers can buy land and live there unmolested. If Egypt let them live in the Sinai safely (impossible of course, even if the government itself allowed it) they would happily move.

I think Bibi has sold the idea of a US controlled Gaza to Trump in the same way Bibi sold Spreading Democracy in Iraq to Bush. It's not going to turn out that way. There's going to be some "realization", sooner rather than later and after the blood and treasure has been spilled, that it's in everyone's best interests to just hand the territory to Israel. It's going to happen.

People in the State Department and on the left in general want Trump to give funding to Hamas to "rebuild Gaza".

Their usual game is to play up the humanitarian disaster.

Arguing that the US should take over and rebuild with direct management counters that, because the pro-Hamas people suddenly have to argue that Gaza is fully capable of running itself.

I don't think it's any sort of real proposal, just an indication that US money isn't coming without control on the ground.

Arguing that the US should take over and rebuild with direct management counters that, because the pro-Hamas people suddenly have to argue that Gaza is fully capable of running itself.

Would hold true if "taking over and rebuilding" didn't involve kicking out palestinians.

(1) Making America complicit in ethnic cleansing is a moral stain on us forever, occurring in the 21st century where every nation should know better — this is not the mid 20th or 19th century; as Trump’s continual 1.7 million remark tells us, there are 500,000 dead in Gaza, and if America goes in these bodies will be placed on us and not Israel — the history books will surely be written so that we the ones who did it; (2) Hamas is still in operation, so American blood and resources will be spent on Israel again; (3) if you think Western culture bears the blood guilt of WWII, consider how Arab people will look at us for the next few hundred years — meanwhile, Jews being responsible for displacing* Palestinians would at once delete the holocaust from our whole collective storehouse of political metaphors, as it almost has now for the Left; (4) it’s naive to think America will ever “own” it, we will be responsible for trillions in rebuilding it for Israeli settlers, and then a president will come along whose donors / influences push him to give it away to Israel.

What? There are not 500.000 dead in Gaza. You should never take the numbers Trump throws out as serious. This should be obvious by now.

Was the expulsion of the Volga and Prussian Germans from their lands a moral stain on Americans forever?

"Oh, it was different" - no, it wasn't. It was exactly the same case. No one can argue with the results. And the Germans don't have a violent blood feud with America in the present day. Ethnic cleansing is a tool in the toolkit. And it works.

Are you referring to the post-WWII expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia?

There's no such place as Czechoslovakia.

If you're going to be pedantic, I would point out that there absolutely was a place called Czechoslovakia when Germans were expelled from it.

There was a nation of Czechoslovakia, which had existed for about twenty years at the time.

I'll be damned if I'm going to stop calling it that after I finally learned how to spell it.

And I told them "we promise we're not Chechnya" was a lousy tourism board slogan...

Yeah, that too. (My examples would be more on the Soviets.)

The overall point is that the architects of the post-war order did this: to question the righteousness of this cracks the very basis of our political morality. There's really no reason why, after expelling Germans for the holocaust, we can't expel the Palestinians.

Don’t call it that then. We should revive the moral distinction between moving a people under duress, which is a respectable policy of empire, and murdering them.

Ethnic cleansing is offering a people a choice between a suitcase and a coffin. Genocide is when the suitcase is taken of the table.

Yes, it is a moral stain on Americans forever.

No, it's really not. Nobody cares about it. That's the point.

I understand that you want people to care, because then you can continue to use the cudgel of ethnic cleansing against people, but the plain truth is nobody actually cares, it's all just special pleading.

Average person has consumed endless hours of one sided propaganda on the subject of WW2 and has likely never heard a detailed account of how Germans were treated immediately after the war. You might as well claim that since North Koreans think that expropriating the bourgeoisie was righteous therefore it was.

How about the rapid emigration of European-descended South Africans and Zimbabweans since the 1980s? That one feels somewhat more complicated, but still fits the definition provided.

(1) Making America complicit in ethnic cleansing is a moral stain on us forever, occurring in the 21st century where every nation should know better

How about if we make "ethnic cleansing" great again? If it's clear two peoples cannot live in close proximity without trying to kill one another, what else are you going to do? Genocide, relocation of one or the other (I think "ethnic cleansing" is a misnomer here; there's already an ethnically cleansed area -- namely Gaza. That wasn't sufficient), or constant strife seem like the only possibilities.

Worrying about the moral stain future progressives will impute will paralyze you.

How about if we make "ethnic cleansing" great again? If it's clear two peoples cannot live in close proximity without trying to kill one another, what else are you going to do?

"Let the retards fight" sounds like a far superior option.

Fair enough, but Trump is definitely leaning into American hegemony here, and while moving the Palestinians to Somewherelsabad might be bad for the US, I don't think it's some sort of moral horror given the current situation.

The plan to "Let them fight" keeps getting abandoned by demanding Israel stop fighting as soon as they get too close to winning

Sure, though it also gets abandoned by all the monetary and military support, and the "greatest ally" talk.

If the region got Under the Dome'd and external support no longer existed, Israel would not only still win, but they'd win even more than otherwise.

Good for them. I don't see a reason for anyone else to get blood on their hands in their name, though.

The most valuable support Israel gets is in the form of being allowed to buy US weapons. This could be counted as a form of military support, as not all nations get this privilege, but this isn't coming at US expense (quite the opposite). The US could stop providing monetary aid and Israel would still be the dominant military power in the region by some distance as long as the US didn't embargo them.

and the "greatest ally" talk.

I think they've moderated that to "greatest ally in the ME"? That's the only version I see.

I hate hate hate modern journalism.

This is a small point in your broader post, but it is an important one. Things like this make journalism and media untrusted and untrustworthy, and it has been getting worse over the past ~10 years.

(I think this was intended for a comment above mine by the way)

ethnic cleansing

If tomorrow, say, Sweden decided to deport its Somali population, would you consider that a permanent stain upon it as a nation, an affront to civilization?

If Finland deported the Sami, yes. Or if Denmark deported the Greenlandic indigenous. For Swedes, it depends on if they are citizens. If they are not, then it’s a policy choice to deport. If they are citizens, it is better to encourage them leave through (1) monetary enticement and (2) permitting Swedes full freedom of choice in businesses and institutions to exclude them if so desired and (3) enhancing native birth rates (which Israel is doing right now in Israel proper, and I don’t criticize this). It would be honorable for Israel to open up a pathway for Gazans to expatriate, and to pay them an honorable amount for loss of land both now and during the Nakba. How about $1,000,000 each? But would I want America to forcefully deport Native Americans to Mexico, where they are more similar to the indigenous by blood? No, that’s crazy. Not even America at her worst thought they should do that. The amount of land given to the indigenous is about 10 Israels worth in square miles.

it depends on if they are citizens

What if they simply stripped them of citizenship first? States can act. They can just do things. Citizenship is made up, it's a piece of paper, especially for Africans in Sweden.

This is definitely true, but are you really expecting good results from collapsing the whole house of polite fictions that keep us in the Rules-Based International Liberal Order regime?

The Rules-Based International Liberal Order, to the extent that it exists, would not collapse if a state decided to strip citizenship from its members.

If they are not, then it’s a policy choice to deport. If they are citizens, it is better to encourage them leave through (1) monetary enticement and (2) permitting Swedes full freedom of choice in businesses and institutions to exclude them if so desired and (3) enhancing native birth rates (which Israel is doing right now in Israel proper, and I don’t criticize this).

This isn't going to make people go back to Somalia.

Either you break the citizenship contract (or admit some citizens are more equal than others) or they're staying.

I’m not so pessimistic. I think Somalians would enjoy living like kings in Somalia, it would just require a “safe zone” in the country that makes migration attractive. Such a safe zone could conceivably be procured through diplomatic means and pressure campaigns on the Somalian government.

I don't think they could pay enough to get all the groups like Somalis out, and many of them won't want to leave regardless. At the very least, you will have to do the mean things that offering money is supposed to avoid first. And the consequences of that sort of thing is unclear.

I came from a safe poor country. We didn't live like kings but we were relatively well-off (middle class) by national standards. We still left.

Because if someone has a condition you can't get an MRI. You can't send your kids to a university worthy of the name (if you send them to the West as a non-citizen they'll squeeze you since it's the easiest way to raise tuition*, so there goes a chunk of that money). You can't always avoid the graft and corruption. You can't always avoid the shitty roads in the rainy season. You're constantly being taxed in a variety of ways: you have to organize your own electricity and water , have to dodge shitty cops, have to worry about family members on a small salary. There are very few good jobs and the economy is going nowhere.

And everyone knows that the West is better and no guarantee that you'll be first man in the village, for as long as European power maintains it, (and I'm being charitable in assuming that this is a thing that can be casually done and that Europeans have the will for pseudo-colonialism; the fact that you think it would be easy and would be done merely through diplomacy doesn't augur well) will be as good. It's inherently unstable and not a particularly bright future.

This shit might work on the Polish but I don't think there's any point in pretending there'll be anything genteel about ethnically cleansing people back to certain nations.

* At least in Canada. Much easier to raise fees on foreign students.

there are 500,000 dead in Gaza

That looks like an order of magnitude greater than most estimates. Where are you getting that number from?

2.3 million before the war, 100,000 known to have left. Trump on more than one occasion now has repeated that there are 1.7 million in Gaza. This means his advisors have told him this number. (Former real estate tycoon, he knows how to remember numbers briefed on, probably his deepest skill).

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259

Now the old are dying naturally and less are born than before, but from what I can tell there are still births and Gaza’s population pyramid probably means that the births and deaths are approximately equalized.

Bold move to assume all unaccounted for are dead. There's "known to have left" (100k), there's "known to have died" (around 50k in this case apparently), and the rest are "fate unknown" who can be in either group. And that's assuming the initial numbers (2.3M and 1.7M) are correct and comparable in the first place.

Trump was given the number 1.7 million presumably when he asked his intelligence advisor — conferred with all of the intel of the American Empire — how many people would need to be relocated from Gaza. The advisor gave him the number of living people in Gaza, not caring about “unaccounted for” or anything besides being alive. I think this number is accurate, because he has said it on different occasions now and because it’s the exact thing his brain is trained to remember. (He literally encodes it in his memory as a real estate project, you can tell by how he speaks about it, this is his savant-level skill and it’s a simple number to remember.) Determining how many Gazans are alive is a trivial task for the America intel community — use drones and satellites and movement tracking. They’ve wrangled them through corridors, they look at aid dispersal, the population isn’t exactly in hiding.

that's assuming the initial numbers (2.3m)

It’s the Lancet... we can assume it is trustworthy on this number.

conferred with all of the intel of the American Empire

You mean he asked the guys who are about to get Tulsi Gabbard for a boss after putting her on shitlist? And whom Trump generally disrespects? I can only imagine how eager they are to work full throttle for the occasion.

If I were Trump, I would be asking people from my shadow cabinet, or whatever passes for one. But those people do not wield the full intel power of the US right now, and haven't for at least four years.

the population isn’t exactly in hiding

In an active warzone? With your upper estimate of roughly 1-in-5 dead?! Yes the civilians wll be hiding.

It’s the Lancet...

Lancet means civilian medics, which in Gaza means palestinian authorities, directly or indirectly. See recent discussion about UNRWA. Trump's data, wherever it came from, it's not from the palestinians almost for sure. You risk getting large error, possibly large than the effect you'll looking from, just because it's not the same source. Palestinians, I would guess, have incentives to over-count. External observation, which you assume Trump relies on, will likely undercount.

God, I absolutely hate attempts to subsume so many different things under "ethnic cleansing" or genocide.

Gaza is a smoldering ruin. The US gov is, as far as I can tell, not indicating a desire to send its remaining denizens to a gas chamber. It seems they're being relocated, presumably with enormous amounts of US aid and direct support, with US forces probably being more palatable to the locals than Israelis would be, the place is being rebuilt from the ground up, at which point I presume return tickets might be booked.

If this is "ethnic cleansing" in a manner that deserves to be condemned, so am I when I do a bad job with my laundry.

at which point I presume return tickets might be booked.

"presume" and "might" are pretty big problems, setting aside the rest of the sentence. Trump's statement was characteristically vague and disjointed, but the return of Palestinians seemed like an afterthought and there was no mention of who would have sovereignty of the territory. I'm not going to accuse Trump of calling for ethnic cleansing based on the implication of ethnic cleansing... but the proposal has a discomforting "because of the implications" vibe, if you know that reference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing

https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethnic-cleansing

  • attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups

  • the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous

The Likud party platform calls for the Jewish state’s control over Gaza. Le Monde’s editorial board calls it ethnic cleansing. From the BBC:

Under international law, attempts to forcibly transfer populations are strictly prohibited, and Palestinians as well as Arab nations will see this as nothing short of a clear proposal aimed at their expulsion and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.

Ethnic cleansing is a term developed in the 80s, so it is obviously not defined by events before that. The assertion that Trump is rebuilding if for Gazans to return is… more than fanciful. If Jewish Israelis want to ethnically cleanse Gazans, they should do it themselves — with their own blood, money, and reputation.

Ethnic cleansing is good, actually. You want your places clean, after all.

Multiethnic countries don't work, or don't work for long.

The two countries that will be carrying out the ethnic cleansing have been multiethnic since their inception, though largely of one faith.

America has not been multi-ethnic since its inception.

I think we may be using different definitions. Was pre-1990 South Africa multiethnic under your framework?

But if for some reason the United States doesn't count as a long-term stable multiethnic country, Israel certainly does, as do Brazil, Singapore, Malaysia and Chile.

Singapore isn't even as old as my parents, and neither is Malaysia, and neither is Israel. None of them have survived a single human lifetime.

Chile and Brazil are at least old enough to even bother looking at, but at inception they were not multi-ethnic, either. Chile and Brazil were founded, much like the USA, as former colonies, and made up primarily of people from those home nations.

More comments

Enslaved Africans (and indentured servants from, among other places, Ireland) have been here since before the arrival of the Puritans in New England, and only about a decade after the establishment of Jamestown. Even if you exclude the Amerindians (which, fair enough, so do I) it’s simply a fact that a substantial portion of non-Anglo-Saxon people have always been a sizable part of the populace of this country, even if they were not integrated into the political fabric of society.

It's not like I'm ignorant of that fact. I excluded them, just as you did the Indians.

The country itself was very clear that they were excluded, too, when it was founded.

More comments

Ethnic cleansing is good

I don't think I'd go that far, but the Israel-Palestine issue is at the point that it's probably a good thing if "Ethnic cleansing" stops being a thought terminating cliche. By moving this possibility into the Overton window (still the extreme part of it), Palestinians might start having to reckon with the real possibility that continually starting pointless wars might soon get them punished in a way they seem to care about.

Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing is often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group.[6][7][8]

I am well aware of what the term means, even though those who care to define it can't find mutual agreement.

I think it's absolute bullshit as a concept in general, the arson, murder and jaywalking charges of international law.

I oppose your use of it to describe what, until proven otherwise, is a humanitarian intervention that will likely keep two inimicable foes from tearing out each other's throats, and with the US footing the bill for the repair work instead of confiscating the $3.50 left in Gazan accounts.

We might disagree, but I expect even you think that US peacekeepers would be a preferable alternative in the eyes of the locals, and with a better track record of not doing {all alleged Israeli war crimes}.

It would be funny if this were the first step in a rehabilitation of "population transfers".

Sadly, the attempts to equate two different crimes of differing severity led to the hyperbolic accusations of one and with it the discreditation of the other.

I don’t think this will happen, but it is a step toward my “preferred deal”, which is that Saudi Arabia takes control of Gaza and Area C (and possibly some of areas A + B) as an “Emirate of Palestine” under the suzerainty (and effective direct control) of the kingdom.

A resolution to the Palestinian question has 3 core roadblocks:

  1. It is politically untenable for Egypt or Jordan to resettle Palestinians (even if the governments wanted to, which they don’t) without the state being overthrown. Not only do the locals and governments not want them there (Egypt having dealt with the Muslim Brotherhood for decades, Jordan having been almost overthrown by Palestinian refugees), but the humiliation to the Arab world would be too much to bear and the states would be rendered catastrophically illegitimate in the eyes of the people. Even if the US somehow forced them to do it, it’s likely we would then have to directly and militarily defend one or both governments against populations hostile to them indefinitely.

  2. An independent Palestine has no safety mechanism against a Palestinian chim uhh decolonialist uprising other than Israeli invasion or carpet bombing, which raises the stakes and would lead to endless geopolitical tension without an off-ramp. It is therefore critical for another Islamic, preferably Arab, army, to take on the duty of pacifying the Palestinians when they start agitating too harshly or when various local terrorist groups form. Arabs and certainly the global Ummah don’t give a shit when Muslims oppress each other, so this is what has to happen.

  3. The extremist religious zionist settlers will advance until they are stopped. They are unlikely to invade the sovereign territory of Saudi Arabia, even guarded by the Saudi military. This provides a good way of slowly removing some of the more embarrassing settlements and permanently avoiding further escalation. The IDF will always find it difficult to police settlers given they’re a growing and valuable political constituency; the Saudis won’t.

How do you expect Saudi Arabia to project enough force to control Gaza? Are Israel and Jordan going to grant them a military corridor?

Certainly Israel would under this arrangement. Troublemakers would be quickly killed, and the Ummah wouldn’t care because the oppression was done by good khaleeji Muslims.

  1. Israel is an unsustainable state. Their population minus Palestinians and ultra orthodox who are a net drag on society is equivalent to that of Denmark and their land area is equivalent to New Jersey. At the same time they are more or less at war with everyone around them. They have two million Palestinian citizens that fundamentally hate them and they are at a numerical disadvantage compared to the Palestinians.

They are in a similar situation to south Vietnam, the Rhodesians or the French in Algeria. Their state is inherently going to be stuck in a mess that is slowly going to bring it down.

The idea of resettling the ghetto population of Europe in Palestine was incredibly poorly thought through. At least the British chose Australia to dump criminals in which was far more viable as a state.

South Vietnam did not fall due to an insurgency, it was conquered- after fending off a previous invasion functionally on its own so its backer concluded it didn't need help. There wasn't anything historically inevitable about this- absent politically driven leadership changes in the South Vietnamese army they might have beaten back that invasion too.

The Rhodesians were fine until they got sanctioned and embargoed. There would still be a Rhodesia if they could have imported weapons.

And Rhodesia would be a great place to visit.

They have two million Palestinian citizens that fundamentally hate them

They in fact don't hate them. Unsurprisingly, Israel is one of the best places in the middle east for Arab citizens too.

Please avoid using google amp links. It's bad for a lot of reasons.

Agreed. Unfortunately, it's really good for convenience.

I don’t know why you’re replying to me, I said here just last week that Israel was likely doomed.

Honestly Trump has very solid instincts. The US need greenland and panama. Canada should be US vassal and not have its own immigration policy. Gaza ethnic cleansing or being xinjianged is the only endgame for peace. It has been obvious for decades. The best way is for the Gulf states to employ subsaharan mercenaries and to pacify and administer the place, but unfortunately not much of an appetite for that.

Honestly Trump has very solid instincts.

Bit of a late reply to this topic, but the way I'd put it is that Trump has very straightforward instincts. He'll bring up the obvious-sounding solution to most problems presented to him. This can arguably be bad in certain cases (trade deficit? massive tarrifs!) but quite positive in others like this one, where the reason the obvious solution doesn't get talked about is to a large part due to decorum and an idealistic denial of reality.

I think it has a non-negligible chance of happening. Trump is the new face of America that does not pretend to play by normal countries' rules. The United States is a super-hegemon, a nation not facing even any plausible threat of competent adversary. They can take what they want, the way China/Russia/Iran/etc would very much like to be able to do but can't on account of the United States existing. In front of this face, sovereignty of almost every other country is a bluff that's easy to call. Nobody can militarily oppose the US, and most people on the globe buy into American culture and vision more than into their own regimes and bureaucracies. Certainly that's true of Egypt.

The actual shape of the deal will be about cleansing Gazans and providing security to settlers, though. Securing Israeli interests is one of the foundational, terminal values of the US.

Securing Israeli interests is one of the foundational

One of the foundational values of the US is pursuing the interests of a nation that didn't exist until 172 years after the declaration of independence?

The US of A was founded by Emma Lazarus in 1965, or so I'm told.

I think the chance is nonzero because Trump's sometimes unpredictable, but it's quite unlikely. The US has the technical ability to do it, sure, nobody outside can stop us. But it's a terrible idea politically. Just the deaths from Afghanistan withdrawal - which was a popular campaign promise - seriously hurt Biden, sending American troops to die to develop waterfront Gaza property will stop appealing to voters when Americans start dying. It cuts strongly against the 'no foreign wars' wing of the new GOP. It sounds like yet another Iraq or Afghanistan. Nearby Arab countries hate the idea, rightly recognizing it taking in millions of Gazans as a serious threat to their security and even sovereignty. And I don't think anyone other than Trump or Kushner in American politics really want it.

And all of that's a pity, because, if implemented competently, it's a great idea, and one of the only things that could properly resolve the conflict, and lead to a good outcome under liberal values. Move almost all of Gaza's population to a new area where we've built a bunch of buildings and control security and the flow of goods in and out makes suicide bombing and terrorist resistance a lot harder. And then, without a civilian population, you can obliterate whatever of Hamas remains underground with less collateral damage. Israel's Arab population proves that, whatever their average IQ, Palestinians aren't destined to be economically net-negative, so if the culture of the new settlement was managed well enough it could become self-sustaining economically reasonably quickly. This would all, of course, involve truly massive expenditures of money and manpower, and also something existing America would fail badly at if they tried, but if one really, really cares about the plight of suffering Gazans or Israeli victims of terrorism, it's the best solution. It's very unfortunate to be forced out of your ancestral homeland, but it's less bad than just dying or perpetual conflict. This is also plan moldbug.

Last time out, Trump surrendered to the Taliban. He should probably have hired the French to give his successor surrendering lessons, because Biden badly botched the implementation of the surrender agreement.

I am going to withhold judgement on whether this makes the United States a super-hegemon.

Would you contest the British Empire's might in 1842 because the Afghans beat them also? Or the power of the Cold War United States when they failed to prop up South Vietnam?

Or is this a side effect of the sort of American ignorance that has them insult French military might over the only war they seem to be taught about? We did try telling you about Dien Bien Phu last time, that didn't seem to help much.

I'm British - when I insult the French military record I am strictly trolling. I know you've been holding us to a roughly even record over the last 1000 years, you snail-eating sexual deviants.

We do have a better record against Afghanistan than the USA or the USSR, given that we did beat them at least once. But an honest appraisal of the military leadership of the British Empire is that we were off our game in the mid-19th century due to the lack of serious competition - the first Anglo-Afghan War was an embarassing defeat and the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny were unimpressive victories against weak opposition.

Seriously, I think the point about both Vietnam and the more recent Afghan War is that the US can lose a war despite overwhelming military force if they don't know what victory looks like it. The Powell doctrine (and the general state of opinion in the US armed forces which it reflects) is anti-Clausewitzian, in the sense that Clausewitz says that "War is the continuation of politics by other means" whereas Powell says that once you have started a war you should forget about politics and single-mindedly pursue victory, defined as defeating the enemy. The failure in Vietnam was that the US's political goals weren't to defeat the North Vietnamese in South Vietnam (which they did, repeatedly) - or to defeat the North Vietnamese in North Vietnam (which they didn't want to do given the wider political situation viz-a-viz the USSR) - it was to build a South Vietnam that could defend itself. The failure in Afghanistan appears to be that the US never had the foggiest idea what its political goals were beyond punishing the Taliban for supporting OBL. So having an overwhelming military advantage and beating your chest and saying "I am the hegemon" doesn't actually mean that you can get what you want.

I'm British - when I insult the French military record I am strictly trolling.

I'll allow it then, our ancient rivalry is dear and precious. And by the way I think your government renaming the HMS Agincourt is a disgrace and an insult to everyone that died there.

an honest appraisal of the military leadership of the British Empire is that we were off our game in the mid-19th century due to the lack of serious competition

I feel like the parallel is even more pertinent. The US decayed a bit from the time of Schwartzkopf from precisely this lack of serious competition.

Time will tell if the Americans can actually produce some pragmatic diplomatic policy and not just spectacular coups. Most of what we saw of Trump seems to have been for an audience of Americans primarily.

America did not, technically, have a military defeat in Vietnam. America withdrew leaving south Vietnam to its own defense, which it proved incapable of(although it held on for three years, unlike the afghan government’s three months).

withdrew

It's a Russel conjugation - I withdraw, you run away, he is routed.

The Vietnam withdrawal was literally based on the idea that South Vietnam was capable of defending itself, and they beat the first North Vietnamese invasion without American troops.

I guess America also didn't lose in Afghanistan technically. But as we all know, the art of war isn't that of winning battles, but that of making your enemy do what you want him to.

Dukat has a different take

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YDpxuWj2A7o

Dukat had moments of great insight, but Garak's assessment that Dukat was shortsighted was repeatedly proven correct.

Sure, the political goal of ‘stop the spread of communism but don’t roll it back’ was dumb, and poorly implemented because of factors in south Vietnam. But the limited goal of ‘achieve a south Vietnam that can defend its sovereignty with no U.S. boots on the ground’ was achieved. The withdrawal of US air support- and political factors in the south Vietnamese army- led to the ‘75 invasion succeeding where previous ones had failed.

The U.S. goal of ‘capitalist, essentially secular, American aligned dictatorship in south Vietnam which doesn’t require American army presence’ was a success. The decision not to provide air support following a leadership reshuffle in their army led to them getting overrun by north Vietnamese tanks. To be clear this goal wasn’t a stable equilibrium- south Vietnamese security would have required a comprehensive defeat of the north. But this wasn’t an afghan government, where it can’t hold together for three months without the marines propping it up.

Troop movements, fighting techniques, long supply chains by ship and overland before planes and railroads (in that part of the world) coupled with the nature of Afghan society and the Pashtun tribal structure made extending full control over Afghanistan in 1842 impossible absent the settling of large numbers of Britons in that territory, which is a pretty tough part of the world to live in when there were many other parts of the British Empire better suited to colonization.

France falling to Germany in a few weeks in WW2, on the other hand, was not an inevitability of history in, say, 1931.

It sure wasn't, Guderian made a risky move and got lucky. History remembers his success as the inevitable downfall of a disorganized mess of a French State, but I always have in the back of my mind the potential of a world where Gamelin doesn't panic, keeps his reserves and doesn't switch to the Breda variant.

There's a world where Italy may not even enter the war this early or honor the pact of steel if Germans stall in northern France.

But I'm not defending the incompetence of the 1939 French high command here, just the honor of my people's demonstrated ability at war throughout centuries.

Last time out, Trump surrendered to the Taliban.

I've seen people here say that we should credit Biden with the Afghanistan pull-out, nice that we're on the same page that's it's Trump who should be thanked for that.

The US is swimming in debt, is deeply divided and is being overtaken by China. The US is far less ahead than it was 50 years ago. Most of the countries in the region trade more with China than the US. The US portion of global GDP, population and military might is in decline. This is an awful time to get involved in forever wars containing direct ethnic cleansing over a tiny strip of desert.

Creating a giant refugee crisis on the border of Europe while impacting a bunch of countries in the middle east by engaging in mass ethnic cleansing is the worst PR imaginable.

Debt can be piled on infinitely, and a good war will write it off again. China is militarily a non-competitor (globally) and the US has too much of an edge in AI progress (that seems like a consensus Hail Mary at this point, along with space technology).

In any case the US must advance and legitimate Israeli objectives.

In any case the US must advance and legitimate Israeli objectives.

Why? what exactly does forever wars in the middle east and refugee crises deliver to the US? What is legitimate about an Israeli claim to Gaza?

Israeli interests define legitimacy.

Why?

Definitionally, that's the terminal value. Might have something to do with God, I don't know. In any case, asking such questions is unwise in my opinion. One should front-run the shifting consensus.

The consensus being redefined nowadays by people appointed by this guy:

https://x.com/RyanRozbiani/status/1886771208886096132

Whose terminal value? How did it become their terminal value?

This is mildly amusing. Exactly the kind of idea that I like, biased against islam and in favor of the most simplistic solutions as I am.

If he actually does it, it'd be very surprising and finally an actual solution to that shitshow. Crude, undiplomatic, inhumane, politically incorrect, engendering hostility and outrage, and actually a solution, unlike what any of the legions of tactful diplomats and politicians were able to effect for the last seventy-odd years.

I don't for a second believe that there's any chance of that happening, or even that Trump really intends to do it. Trump likes extravagant opening bids that he then immediately backs down from - as we've just seen with Canada and Mexico.

He's saying something absurd to grab attention and so that he can barter down from it later. I do not take it literally or even very seriously.

Muslim countries won't accept the Gazans because that would be collaboration with zionists, so more refugees for Europe...

Muslim countries wont accept Gazans because then they would be responsible for controlling them.

Potato, potahto.

If he actually manages to do it, which is silly to even contemplate and will never be allowed by Israel in a million years, it could be a very nice solution to this problem.

You just go in there, with the most powerful military in the world, and announce your intention.

We will give the profits of this special economic zone (minus a small cut for our protection), and a complete pardon, to any Gazans that sign up, to them in perpetuity and to their children. You will be as Saudis, as Emiratis, as Singaporeans, princes of one of the richest trading hubs in the world, friends of the United States. And it's the very people who used to bomb you and your children who'll envy you and seek to work under you. You will go from total destitution, to the richest people in the world.

But if you oppose us, the most powerful empire to ever exist, you shall be totally and utterly destroyed with no mercy.

Who wouldn't take that deal? Even if you're the head of Hamas, it's a damn good deal. The only flaw I see is that Americans have not exactly proven trustworthy, and that placing yourself at their mercy may not be the best of ideas. But Trump has a good pedigree here, what with the Abraham accords and the recent cease fire. He could make that personal commitment.

AMERICA has not proven trustworthy? Gazans waited one negative second before starting the Hamas Fatah civil war, where gazans cheered gleefully as Fatah (and Hamas) members were thrown off rooftops and shot in the streets. Israel tried a Singapore On The Med model with the gilded cage for Gaza following the 2005 pullout. All that happened was the Gazans tore down the infrastructure left behind for them, deliberately impoverished themselves to demand greater aid from externals, and plotted to slaughter the few jews who sought to help them by providing employment. If Hamas rolled through and said 'we are going to Tel Aviv to execute Netanyahu' half the Israelis might have closed the highways for Hamas. Instead Hamas wanted roads paved with blood.

Gaza is Hamas, Hamas is Gaza. A good deal is them ruling over a pile of dead enemies, even as the list of enemies grows ever longer and stronger with each passing day. Left to their own devices the BEST case scenario for Gaza is authoritarian strongman rule by a western ally who had the funds and thr institutional backing to keep dissident elements in check. Left to their own devices and Gaza will implode like Yemen, with the only question being how many neighbors it tries to take out before fizzling out.

There is no just world or fairness in international relations and one's reputation matters even to scoundrels.

Anyone in the middle east, in particular in the levant, in particular in gaza, is untrustworthy.

Yet, America's ability to broker agreements still relies on how those untrustworthy actors trust it.

You may see this principle at work in Ukraine: however much the Ukrainians have indeed violated Minsk, they are still unlikely to value a Russian guarantee of security because that has been violated before.

Now if you want to use the difficulty of the situation to just carpet bomb the place and build casinos on the graves of the locals who are all terrorists anyways, that's your prerogative. But I've always been a proponent of peace, diplomacy and armed neutrality, and I'm not going to change my mind because you consider some people savages, as if that's a novelty.

If he actually manages to do it, which is silly to even contemplate and will never be allowed by Israel in a million years, it could be a very nice solution to this problem.

Why would Israel not allow it? Being the neighbor of the US Outlying Possession of Gaza is a great deal for them compared to being the neighbor of Palestinian Gaza. It's not like Trump wouldn't let Israelis go to the resorts.

I think they want the land for themselves, frankly.

And it's the very people who used to bomb you and your children who'll envy you and seek to work under you.

But if you oppose us, the most powerful empire to ever exist, you shall be totally and utterly destroyed with no mercy.

If Israel wants to take Gaza over after it has been rebuilt it US would just give it to them, or maybe give them extra aid to "buy" it with.

People assume that US interests and Israeli interests are inextricably aligned, through lobbying and other mechanisms, but I don't see why that would be some unchanging law of the universe. The US has played allies against each other countless times before, and it even has involved Israel before too.

Donald the Dove strikes again. I'm beginning to think Trump really is a Manchurian candidate :V Simultaneously looting the country while tanking foreign relations and the economy. Xi Jinping really could not have asked for a better agent.

Just, like... what. There's helping an ally out and then there's doing a bit of light ethnic cleansing on their behalf.

Prediction: this is something Trump came up with on short notice (possibly suggested by Netanyahu) and didn't run by anybody and got defensive when people started poking him on it. It will be quietly dropped within a couple of weeks because simply admitting it was a terrible off-the-cuff idea would make Trump look weak and we can't have that. In the intervening time, Trump supporters will convince themselves that this is actually a great ideal; afterwards they will insist that he was misrepresented and the fact that you care about it is proof you have TDS.

I wonder if, having previously thought of himself as very Zionist, he realized that many were starting to think of Biden as more Zionist than him, and he felt he had to double down.

It would seem that Twitter has been ablaze with Blues chiding those who didn't vote for "Genocide Joe" in the wake of this news.

Trump: have you guys ever considered just ethnically cleansing them?

Trump: like, duh

Maybe he really is a genius? If he actually makes the Palestinians relocate and turns Gaza into American Ibiza he'll be the most competent President of my life.

His recent obsession with acquiring foreign territory is really strange. It’s been two weeks, and already there’s 4 or so territories that he’s consistently talking about trying to take.

I don’t know but I’m starting to set my assumption toward there being something even more wrong with his brain than I previously thought rather than him doing this in a posturing way or to get some kind of outcome.

I know Trump is just uniquely Trump but even for him this is getting pretty out there.

Consider the world in 50 years: will the US have more, less or the same territory? Until very recently I would have taken the under that the US would only exist as the Eastern Seaboard of the North American continent. A re-alignment and interest in territory expansion might be the thing that re-invigorates the nation and let's it kick it's decline down the road. I have no illusions that any of this will happen under Trump but boy am I glad to see the overton window thrown open. These things need to be discussed and not shunned as gouache or déclassé. I think a lot would need to change at the federal level to make increasing the number of states workable, but there's no technical reason our flag couldn't have 298 stars. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I’m extremely averse to all of this and I’ll tell you why.

It’s been a common trope that once the generation who knows war firsthand dies out then the naive people left behind will get the itch and repeat the horrors again for a new generation.

And right on schedule, the WW2 generation has finally died out and we’ve now got all three major military powers talking about annexation of territories for the glory of it.

You’ll probably say, but we’d only do things peacefully! No way current MAGA would ever launch a war of conquest!

And that’s comforting for me to believe and it might even be true, but the problem is that you’ve all done away with the Overton window so thoroughly that I have no functioning means of predicting just how far outside of it things might go.

A few months ago it would have been crazy to suggest that Trump would ever talk about taking foreign territory. He’s the isolationist America first guy! A few days ago it would have been ridiculous to suggest that Trump would ever talk about taking over Gaza. Sure Greenland sounds cool but Gaza, but come on, that one is wild.

I’m getting tired, boss, and it’s because I no longer have any functioning mental model of just how far people who want to expand the Overton window want to go. And the direction that it seems to be getting pulled in is one that triggers my “these guys might be the type to fuck around and repeat the horrors” sense. Sure no one sets out to do that, but it’s easy to imagine us getting drawn slowly along a road bad road. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but soon the window might get yanked back over there again.

It seems that no matter how crazy I think something might be, once it happens there’s masses of people who will come to argue for it and why it’s suddenly based, even if they wouldn’t have done so a week ago had I suggested the same idea.

Basically I don’t trust y’all with the window. I’ve graduated from my idealistic youth stage to now become conservative to slow down further changes to the Overton window until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

Opening the Overton window doesn't mean implementing every idea that flies in, it means we have a breadth of ideas that weren't previously accessible to us. That is precisely what has been killing us--an unassailable belief that nothing could be changed or fixed.

Anyway...

I do not want the US to be the only global power. I don't even necessarily want it to increase in size. I'm merely saying that the course we've been on since 2001 has been one of mass global suicide, partly because the heat death of the United States, post 9-11, guarantees chaos and war everywhere else on the planet. Until this month I was certain it was unavoidable. Now that very weird and unexpected things are being said, in public, by the president, I actually have a hope that we might change course.

For instance, try with all of your might to imagine a State of the Union address that doesn't begin with, "The state of the Union is strong!!!" and every dumbass congressperson rising to a standing ovation. It's performative disinformation top-to-bottom. What we have happening right now is another crack in the facade--one that was failing to hide our rotten core. Prior to Trump (and it should be said I never voted for him and am not a fan) our political class had no way to stop pretending. No way to be normal, rational or real. There is a game called "American politics" it consists of lying, laundering, lamenting and lambasting. The only time the public gets meaningful truth is by accident. The 2016 Republican primary debates laid this at our feet and the Biden/Trump debate burned it into our foreheads.

Gaza is another perfect case. The truth of the Palestinian plight is they lost all claim to their lands in 1948 by dint of being conquered militarily. Someone decided that instead of resettling them there'd be some kind of humanitarian compromise...or something. Well, the outcome of that "civilized" reaction is 80 years of misery and an increasingly intractable problem. Our modern Gordian knot. The only solution is to cut the knot. Curtis Yarvin Donald Trump is the first one to publicly acknowledge it. His prescription is probably wrong and his political capital such that he is unlikely to make it happen, but he's saying out loud what has been apparent for ages to anyone with a brain. Gaza as a paradise that might actually benefit Palestinians (as shareholders--not citizens) is now on the table.

This is consistent in regards to Panama, Greenland, Canada, Mexico--all places with decades long intractable economic and political problems that hinge almost entirely on the inability of politicians to deal with anything directly.

Here's another one that's coming: defaulting on our debt. Assume this will happen because the only thing that would prevent it from happening is actually Making America Great Again, i.e. rebuilding and re-centering our economy, taking the huge --and increasing-- financial hit that's waiting for us and ensuring we have a political class that serves the polity. If we default, we tank the global economy. Defaulting on our debt would be infinitely worse for Canada, Mexico, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan and even China than threatening them with tariffs. If it takes some economic saber rattling to wake people up so be it. We can't afford to be weak and we can't afford weak allies.

Anyway, I find all of this craziness refreshing and long needed. I've also been on this tip for 20 years; heterodox and contrarian to the max. Feel free to dump my opinions straight into the garbage, but I do reasonably well on Metaculus, so I can't be completely insane (that's my hope anyway). The levee was always going to break and frankly this is far more controlled and moderate than I imagined it would have been. The churning Earth--the tumult of the political class is like nothing I've seen in my life nor in my limited study of history since, maybe, FDR. People are bitching about how years are happening in weeks, but that's what it looks like when reality deferred asserts itself. I'm here for it.

That is precisely what has been killing us--an unassailable belief that nothing could be changed or fixed.

I think this is underappreciated, and I think this might genuinely be the very thing that tends to cause horrors like revolutions and the like: if the popular sentiment is that nothing can be changed, then it tends not to lead to anywhere great.

Policy Starvation.

The blackpill here is "the horrors must inevitably repeat, and nothing anyone does can change that," to borrow from Turchin's ideas.

I think that’s probably true and it’s some weird epiphenomenon of the human condition for whatever reason.

It doesn’t mean I’m going to cheer on the slide back into it.

Would you call the concept of mutually assured destruction a technical reason?

sure. I meant, there's technically a way to sew 298 tiny little stars on a flag. What if I sad 296 stars?

Sigh... can't we just have a president who doesn't get the country involved in other countries' business for a change? Let Israel and Palestine sort out their forever war, it's not our problem.

In his defense, in his first term Trump was the first President not to get the US embroiled in any new wars since Carter.

Might be the dumbest idea he's ever had. I think the Greenland thing has far better odds of happening. It'll crater his America first image, lose support with basically every voting group other than wealthy foreign donors and the small amount of zionist republicans. Even if he could magic all the hostile Palestinians out of there in an instant, he'd still be a powerless lame duck faster than much progress could be made on moving all the rubble that needs to be cleared to even start building.

...Damn. I have honestly pondered whether or not putting all of Israel-Palestine under American control so as to keep the Israelis and Palestinians from hating each other for long enough would actually be an improvement. Never thought anyone would actually even consider something in the ballpark of that idea, though.

Why? What's the point?

Should the US go in and annex the Congo and Rwanda to stop them fighting? Should America get involved in Ngorno-Karabakh? Annex Kurdistan and sort things out? Go into Kashmir? Annex Donbass?

Even if the US had the military-political power to 'fix' these things, which is very dubious... why even try? What does it gain for the US? How are US interests at stake in these places, such that the effort expended and risks incurred would be commensurate with the gains?

If someone on the other side of the city has a feud with his drug dealer/girlfriend/gambling partner/brother there's no reason to join this fight and impose yourself as judge and arbiter. It's a lot of work for no payoff. You'd need to be Superman to get away with it. And Superman would be bitterly resented even if everyone had no choice to tremble and obey.

And if you're not Superman...

The time to not get involved was generations ago, you must realize. There is little will to become uninvolved; therefore, one must either live with the current level of involvement (mild, but still causes issues here at home), or get more involved (painful and intense, but has the potential to end the issue for good).

I would contend that it actually does serve US interests because the status quo keeps causing issues for us. Downstream effects, the flap of a butterfly's wings, and so on. I made a similar point in response to 2rafa about the desire to just ignore Chinese aspirations to hegemony in favor of trying to focus on domestic issues: ignoring the outside world may actually make it harder to fix problems at home. If you let chaos fester far away, it will probably find you at home.

Firstly "putting all of Israel-Palestine under American control so as to keep the Israelis and Palestinians from hating each other for long enough" would make it extremely difficult to do anything about China.

Secondly, chaos finds its way to America precisely because of its support for Israel. First World Trade Centre bombing motive? US support for Israel. 9/11? Osama Bin Laden was heavily influenced by his anger over US support for Israel.

That's how it all started, 1918-1948, just with British as controllers instead of Americans. Clearly it didn't work out that way.

By the way, some British soldiers were lynched and their corpses booby trapped by Israelis. Doesn't sound like a good time.

By the way, some British soldiers were lynched and their corpses booby trapped by Israelis. Doesn't sound like a good time.

Google does not seem to find this, and neithjer is it in /r/britain on reddit.

This sounds more like: the US does the ethnic cleansing part, invests billions of dollars into cleanup and reconstruction, risks American lives and reputation, risks outbreak of regional war if some major attack on American troops happens, all to ultimately hand the land to Israel sort of deal. Not what you're suggesting. But to be fair Trump is being very vague here.

At least we're finally past the point of pretending that this is about Democracy, that's a relief. Imagine that the entire dialectic about the Iraq war was one side saying it was for Democracy and the other side saying it was Oil, and nobody in good standing was allowed to say that it was for Israel. That dialectic is impossible to enforce on whatever adventurism Trump is proposing here. Cats are out of bags.

Why do you think the Israelis spend so much money on AIPAC?

I am comfortable predicting that this will not happen.

For all the "I did not have [x] on my bingo card" jokes I've made, I did not have Trump takes over Gaza on my bingo card. My initial response is wonder just how much coke Trump and Rubio did before this meeting, but there are also clear upsides for all involved so maybe this will work out.

I am not convinced that Trump is serious about this. I get the impression he's trolling.

It's like buying Greenland. We haven't heard much about that recently, and even though buying Greenland isn't possible, he certainly could be a lot more obnoxious about still wanting to buy it than he has been. He's just mastered the art of saying outrageous things to get a media reaction that 1) earns publicity and 2) distracts them from attacking the things he actually wants to do. Notice that all the things Trump has actually tried to do this term have been things that he's clearly wanted to do for a while.

And Trump has already done things that are a lot more obvious trolling, like the DOGE name.

If taking over Gaza is still on the radar in two weeks, I'll be surprised.

I am not convinced that Trump is serious about this. I get the impression he's trolling.

I feel like there's this consistent sanewashing two-step going on with Trump's behavior. Whenever Trump picks a pointless fight, he's demonstrating toughness and making people understand they have to take him seriously. Whenever Trump says something indefensibly insane, he's trolling... which signals that people shouldn't take him seriously.

He's not trolling because it's insane, he's trolling because in addition to being insane, it's a one shot off-the-cuff thing that he hasn't spoken about before, and in the case of past trolling, hasn't spoken much about afterwards.

"Mr. President sir, we can't solve this problem with tariffs,"

"Well then, time for my other universal solution!"

"Tweeting at them, sir?"

"Please, have a little respect for Elon - it's just posting, now. And no, annexation!"

I feel like we ought to have better “Kremlinology” with regards to when Trump should be taken seriously. My gut is that this doesn’t mean anything, but that’s what I originally thought about DOGE.

The only real reason to think that DOGE wasn't meant seriously was the name. DOGE as a thing made perfect sense as something he'd do. And the name isn't going to affect what it actually does, and this isn't a GIMP situation where people really have a choice to stay away because of the name, so the name is just there to thumb his nose at the media.

The reason not to take DOGE seriously was the Musk was saying all the normal things that people who are not serious about spending cuts say, including starting with foreign aid, using headcount reductions as a proxy for spending reductions, talking about waste/fraud/abuse without specifics, and insisting that there is a lot more fraud in simple well-run programmes like Social Security than there actually is.

Most US federal government spending is Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, debt interest, and the military. Medicaid is mostly block-granted to the states. Social Security and debt interest are about cutting checks to people who are legally entitled to them, so levels of waste and fraud are very low. So if you are talking about cutting waste/fraud/abuse without talking about Medicare or the military, I am going to think you are a bullshitter.

To be fair, Medicare almost certainly has lots of fraud.

Absolutely - although it is the kind of fraud you are not going to catch at the point of disbursement because the frauds are more sophisticated than that.

The snarky view is that the reason DOGE isn't going after Medicare fraud is that Vivek Ramaswamy was planning to do an awful lot of it with Roviant's bogus Alzheimer's drugs. FWIW, I don't think this is true - if there was fraud at Roviant it was Theranos-style fraud on the investors, who have lost a lot more than Medicare on the whole sorry affair.

I think this is missing the point. If you want to make massive cuts you need to tackle entitlements. But if you just want to bend the cost curve whilst removing growth killing regulations, you need to tackle things like what DOGE is doing.

Second is that it will be horribly embarrassing when an American soldier gets blown up by unexploded American ordnance that was donated to Israel.

That's embarrassing, but mostly for the ordnance disposal teams. It's not like it's a surprise that there's American and Israeli weaponry used there.

It's also somewhat incoherent - he's going to make it into some kind of big multicultural party zone?

Think "Trump Gaza Resort and Casino". Probably also a military base, hopefully there will be some separation. It's prime real estate, or would be if it weren't for the people living there.

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