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.
- 1849
- 20
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Russia is not actively attempting to genocide the natives.
USA should not be supporting the Ukraine government sending the average Ukrainian man who has not fled the country yet to his death.
Not sure what you mean by isolating. Foreign policy does not have to be a 2-position switch between Cuba-style blockade and CIA-led 'color revolution'. Perhaps the US could consider trading without meddling politically?
Boost what? It's certainly going to make european governments more authoritarian, but just because they police the migrants harder does not mean that they will stop oppressing the natives. If anything, the post-9/11 policies enacted by the West have mostly been used to send right-wingers to jail over facebook posts or mostly peaceful election results protests.
No matter how you call it: what they did in Mariupol, Nova Kakhovka, Bucha, Odessa and so on is not conductive to human flourishing. (and yes, this time they are less murderous than previously, though it is fairly low bar given Holodomor death toll)
Also, "is not actively attempting to genocide the natives." is passed also by EU. And basically everyone else. Clearing "they do not want murder your nation" bar is not sufficient to answer "Why the heck they would prefer to live under Russia?".
And after https://www.themotte.org/post/705/israelgaza-megathread-1/148670?context=8#context I will limit myself to commenting that I am hopeful that your beloved Russia will fall on its face with their latest imperialism attempt and will stop such activity for few decades.
What did they do?
What I remember from Mariupol was the Azov battalion taking civilian hostages underground into the metallurgy factory complex, much like what is claimed Hamas did, and the Russians waiting for them to come out or release the hostages.
Imo Russia has been far less destructive with Ukraine than the US with Iraq, or even previous wars in the area.
Encouraging invasion by millions of foreigners + discouraging native reproduction and sovereignty, branding right-wing nativist movements as 'nazi 2.0' etc counts as attempt at destroying European nations to me.
Perhaps the European population is broadly consenting to this destruction, and the intent is so diffuse and generalized that the finger cannot be pointed at any given group of people for this attempt, but the results are the same. What happened to the former countries that joined the EU should be a cautionary tale, not something a supposedly nationalist country should emulate.
Have you seen photos of Mariupol before Russian army arrived and after Ruski Mir?
(also, last time I checked it was less "hostages" and more "people hiding from rampaging russian army" - for typical and quite good reasons)
They attack civilians less than USSR and Nazi Germany. Congrats, if they would get worse than this it would be pretty amazing.
Still, to get "less destructive than EU" level they are quite far away. And fortunately for Poland it is not Russia vs Nazi Germany, so Russia would improve a lot to be attractive.
Your goalposts are moving quite fast. And yes, it is still less destructive (in both deliberate destruction and stupid self-destruction) than Russian epic efforts. Though that bar is so low that I am not happy about EU either. Being better than Russia is not enough.
Checked what? I know some people expatriated from Donbass who are considering moving back now that it's been made part of Russia, they don't seem to think it's so bad there.
No I was referring to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the Russian destruction of Chechnya.
White children are in minority in many Western cities, governments are either indifferent to Christianity or hostile, migrants are still coming. Give it 20 years and nobody will think of as Western Europe as fair-skinned and Christian.
You seemed concerned with the Ukrainian culture getting destroyed, but what is the Ukrainian culture? Does it not include Christianity?
the same could be said by German-occupied Europe even when they had full scale extermination programs
Then NATO was clearly less evil and destructive, despite having greater military power
(also, I am awaiting your explanation to your lie/4chan quality insult "Oh you're a holocaust denier?" (see https://www.themotte.org/post/705/israelgaza-megathread-1/148670?context=8#context ))
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link