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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   25101 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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The comment I was thinking of was linked in your first link, here, which was about self-defense and Tracing Woodgrain's comment that Kyle should have just let his attackers beat him as much as they wanted and hope they had the mercy not to kill him, rather than fighting back.
yakultbingedrinker's comment was very similar though.

@FCfromSSC this was the post of yours I meant, which was cited as justification for the schism.

I think even later a strong case can be made against escalating to deadly force. So far, 32 people have died during these protests, four for reasons other than being shot. It's impossible to get a precise count of the number of physical confrontations that have gone on, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect many more than that. Could they have killed him? Yes. Would they have killed him? From a probabilistic standpoint, I'd give it maybe 1-2% odds at most assuming he was passive/compliant.

Color me surprised.

In any case, I would still disagree that leftists generally were upset about arguments for self-defense. In the first place, it was an extremely aggressive argument in favor of self-defense, and in the second place, it wasn't just that argument, but also me arguing that if blues could justify lawless political violence, reds could and would as well. My posts in that era are not fairly summarized as "hey, maybe violence is justified in self defense". I still stand by the arguments I made, but I also lament that I failed to find a better way to make the point, and the damage that resulted.

Kyle should have just let his attackers beat him as much as they wanted and hope they had the mercy not to kill him, rather than fighting back.

That's not even close to what he said, he said Rittenhouse's life would have been better if he had not killed anyone, which was controllable on more bases than not pulling the trigger, i.e., presumably, not willingly walking into a riot by himself (which itself was a massive self-endangerment). There's a world where you can frame that as "Letting communities be besieged by rioters" or something, (although he evidently would have preferred the government step in), but he said absolutely nothing remotely resembling "you should let people beat you and hope they have the heart to be gentle."

Could they have killed him? Yes. Would they have killed him? From a probabilistic standpoint, I'd give it maybe 1-2% odds at most assuming he was passive/compliant.

He literally said Kyle should have been "passive and compliant" and let the attackers beat him, because he was replying to LotsRegret question specifying "when he was being pummeled by the people later."

Trace’s argument is similar to the pro-russia argument that if ukraine had simply rolled over and surrendered itself into russia’s power, a lot of people who did not ‘need to’ die 'probably' wouldn’t have, even if ukraine had the right to fight. Although I don’t recall you or @FCfromSSC making that argument (as opposed to other pro-russia commenters).

At no point have I ever argued that Ukraine doesn't have a right to fight. It seems to me that if it weren't for us intentionally trying to fuck around with Russia since the end of the cold war, there probably wouldn't be a fight for them to be involved in. Likewise, now that there is a fight, I do not agree that we have either an interest or a responsibility to involve ourselves in any way, and would be wiser not to. None of this has anything to do with Ukraine's rights or its interests. They can surrender tomorrow or fight till they either conquer Moscow or depopulate their country entirely. I don't care.

None of this has much bearing on what should be done when one is attacked. In Rittenhouse's case, self-defense was practical and an extremely good idea. There are situations where that is not the case, and it is better to give ground, make concessions, accept loses, etc. Defense is a means to an end, not a terminal goal in its own right.

Possibly because they're not against Ukraine defending itself. But if you want to point out inconsistencies, it's weird how you haven't brought up Trace making that argument re: Russia.

What do you mean? I don't have a database of everyone's arguments, I just have knowledge of both side's common arguments + sporadic recollections of commenter-specific ones.

I am pointing out an inconsistency in a hypothetical left-wing commenter who supports trace's argument here but denies it in ukraine's case just as much as his right-wing counterpart who does the opposite.

I'm gonna stop because the whole thing is petty one-up-manship, but I suppose pointing that out is precisely my point.

Probably best, because I’m very annoyed that I apparently can’t point out a double-edged inconsistency without being accused of left partisanship. If the blood spilled in avdivka is on ukraine’s hands, then the blood spilled in kenosha is on rittenhouse’s hands. I oppose all of these ‘utilitarian’ ‘yielding to the unrighteous’ arguments.

I don't think a single person here has ever argued that the blood spilled in avdivka is on Ukraine's hands. I don't think I've ever seen that point of view put forward anywhere, ever. It seems possible to me that you're arguing against a fictitious position, at least outside Russia itself.

Ah, thanks. Sorry for the confusion

Thanks for the link. I was having a hard time googling it. (It seems like a lot of twitter and reddit posts are no longer searchable?)

Tracing Woodgrain's comment that Kyle should have just let his attackers beat him as much as they wanted and hope they had the mercy not to kill him, rather than fighting back.

Man, it's not even that long ago, and I already forgot how far even the most respectable went back then...

I know this is not what this comment was about, but why was a 1-2% odds of Kyle getting killed assigned in this case?

Hypothetically speaking, if Kyle had not shown up with a rifle, perhaps he would have been fine, but what if I recall correctly happened was that one crazy guy, who kept antagonizing Kyle's crew all evening prior to the dramatic conclusion, ran after him and attacked him from behind, while a second character actually shot at Kyle.

While perhaps Kyle would have been fine if he hadn't started shooting, the combination of getting melee-attacked and a second character closing in on him with a gun does not give me a 98% confidence in his survival.

People routinely die from their head hitting the ground after getting punched, multiple grown men (convicted felons) ganging up on one person with no accountability in sight doesn't forebode well.

At least Kyle made a good example pour encourager les autres. When there's a riot and ACAB, sometimes punching nazis is not enough, especially if the nazis in question are full-grown teenagers with more martial instinct than half a dozen antifas combined.

A second (still uncaught and unknown!) character shot toward Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse raised his gun, and then latter Grosskruetz drew an illegally-concealed handgun and prepared to fire at Rittenhouse.

Charitably, Trace may have been examining things less in the red team exercise sense of what would have happened had he gone into the same environment and done all the same things except had the gone, and more making measures in a more frequentist analysis of what the typical counterprotester/counterrioter encountered. If you assumed only 32 deaths, a 1% fatality rate requires only 3200 confrontations.

Of course, then you dive into the actual facts on the ground, and the definition of 'confrontation' becomes very important. How many people were in a vocal disagreement that maybe involved a thrown punch? Tons. How many ended up completely alone and surrounded by a violent mob, including many who were illegally carrying concealed firearms?

And then we're back to conceding the public commons to whoever could get away with bringing the violent mob there.

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