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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1

This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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Darwin was quite notable both for his prodigious and sustained output and his dedication to dishonesty and bad-faith interaction at every possible opportunity.

I disagree. He often made quality arguments and was willing to buck the status quo here from an underrepresented angle, something we should want more. He was no more inflammatory or bad faith than plenty of others here, but people reacted absolutely viscerally against him at a level disproportionate to his behavior.

The point stands. Darwin is still free to post here, as are any of the others who think BLM is a good idea. The fact that the history of their previous positions and the observed results places them squarely in the center of a rhetorical kill-zone is their own fault.

Imo that too easily absolves us as a community for failing to create the kind of debate space we set out to build. People get bitter and hostile in response to users who have actually tried to buck majority opinion here. I experienced this kind of thing enough from the times I tried to engage in actual culture war issues that I'm pretty unwilling to do it anymore, and I'm a very long time contributor.

Either way it doesn't matter much anymore, we are what we are here and my reply to gatt was meant to be light hearted, not a declaration of conflict or something.

Imo that too easily absolves us as a community for failing to create the kind of debate space we set out to build.

Whenever someone tries to make that argument, I always have the same question: can you name a community that does more than us in this regard. Particularly, do you know a progressive community that is as open to conservative opinions that is at least as open as we are to progressive ones?

I always have the same question: can you name a community that does more than us in this regard.

No, for our faults we're probably still the best forum you're gonna get on the internet. That may say more about the rest of the internet than us, but we still deserve a little credit.

Wait, are you talking about this guy? https://old.reddit.com/user/darwin2500/

Isn't he obviously just an obnoxious troll who posts in whatever community he can get a rise out of? If he came here and posted like that he'd be banned right away for good reason.

I'm not gonna look through his reddit profile cause I've always found that thing kinda weird, but pretty much everyone here assuredly (hopefully) sounds different on the non-motte subs they visit. While he was here he was a long-time familiar face on the quality contributions page.

I looked through the first page of Darwin's reddit profile and it is fine. Not clearly a troll.

But I do recall them being one of the more dramatic contrarian-against-the-local-contrarians on the old subreddits.

A true Mottezan at heart! He was definitely pretty contrarian and ruffled folks regularly, but also made the rare articulate defense of positions we don't see too often here, which I thought made for some interesting discourse.