naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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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.
Your country is perpetually blockaded by a neighboring country's government that doesn't want you to import anything without them first inspecting it. They cannot be persuaded by words alone to stop doing this. Therefore, you must attack them so hard that they beg for mercy.
(I'm sure there are other things Israel does to Gaza, but my understanding is that aside from imports, they do actually have sovereignty.)
They are a mostly peaceful group of activists who oppose the presence of black people in their community. They mostly hold marches which are mostly non-violent. They hide their faces for safety reasons.
Sometimes they burn crosses, sure, but you're the weird one for taking that as some kind of threat. After all, they're mostly peaceful. Only a small minority of Klan members are violent, and the ones who aren't violent.. well, they're not legally required to turn the ones who are violent in to the authorities, are they? You can't even prove they know anything about it! They could all be autonomous agents. The burden of proof is on you to prove there's coordination.
I wasn't actually asking you to steelman the KKK. I was pointing out that steelmanning is a bad thing to do here because that kind of steelmanning ignores the actual facts. It just isn't possible to honestly steelman Hamas or the KKK, any more than I could honestly steelman homeopathy or creationism.
They cannot be persuaded by words alone to stop doing this.
That's one of those things that's literally correct but misleading. They couldn't be persuaded by words, but they could be persuaded by Hamas stopping the rockets and terrorism, on top of some words.
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Notes -
Your country is perpetually blockaded by a neighboring country's government that doesn't want you to import anything without them first inspecting it. They cannot be persuaded by words alone to stop doing this. Therefore, you must attack them so hard that they beg for mercy.
(I'm sure there are other things Israel does to Gaza, but my understanding is that aside from imports, they do actually have sovereignty.)
Can you steelman the KKK now?
They are a mostly peaceful group of activists who oppose the presence of black people in their community. They mostly hold marches which are mostly non-violent. They hide their faces for safety reasons.
Sometimes they burn crosses, sure, but you're the weird one for taking that as some kind of threat. After all, they're mostly peaceful. Only a small minority of Klan members are violent, and the ones who aren't violent.. well, they're not legally required to turn the ones who are violent in to the authorities, are they? You can't even prove they know anything about it! They could all be autonomous agents. The burden of proof is on you to prove there's coordination.
I wasn't actually asking you to steelman the KKK. I was pointing out that steelmanning is a bad thing to do here because that kind of steelmanning ignores the actual facts. It just isn't possible to honestly steelman Hamas or the KKK, any more than I could honestly steelman homeopathy or creationism.
Oh.
I mean, did I ignore the facts of the situation re: Hamas?
That's one of those things that's literally correct but misleading. They couldn't be persuaded by words, but they could be persuaded by Hamas stopping the rockets and terrorism, on top of some words.
Wasn't there a lengthy period without Hamas-organized terror attacks before this one?
No, they still kept shooting rockets to kill Israelis.
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