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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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
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.
It’s the Lancet... we can assume it is trustworthy on this number.
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.
In an active warzone? With your upper estimate of roughly 1-in-5 dead?! Yes the civilians wll be hiding.
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.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link