I’m curious how you came by this assessment.
Oh, I agree. I think the RW model explicitly promotes the idea that even if you’re okay at the moment, it’s Armageddon elsewhere, and you’re next if the godless Democrats have their way.
I think this explains virtually all the dissonance between the economy’s strength and how consumers are actually behaving, and the belief that we are currently on economic fire.
But, yeah, they know damn well turkeys ain’t $500 where they live.
Same here, given this:
Over 70% doesn’t seem like a small fraction.
I’m going to use this space to call out Banquet_Bear for their intellectual dishonesty and cowardice in the Hamas thread, because in the last 24 hours they’ve demonstrated that they’re perfectly willing to make broad moral declarations, but absolutely unwilling to defend them or contemplate their consequences.
For some time now he’s been belaboring the same point - civilians are dying in Gaza, this is entirely Israel’s fault, therefore Israel is doing war crimes. When asked what Israel should do differently, they give no specifics except that they should “follow the laws of war” and “stop targeting civilians and start targeting Hamas”. When Babale and I have pointed out that Hamas is deliberately attacking from civilan positions, they either ignore this, deny it, or state that Israel should just “be more careful”. Babale and I both asked what specifically being more careful and targeting Hamas only would entail and look like - after taking no more than a minute or two to respond previously, they went quiet for several hours before declaring that they didn’t “owe” anyone an answer to that question.
Today they were campaigning in the name of child casualties and declared that they couldn’t imagine a scenario where the killing of a child was ever acceptable. I asked them to imagine one; an IDF soldier is confronted by a 17-year-old, who by the dictionary definition and the definition used by the UN (which they frequently cite as an authority) is a “child”, who yells “Allahu akbar!” (thus indicating their allegiance and motive) and aims a gun at them. I asked; is the soldier an unforgiveable child-killer if he kills the teen in self-defense?
They refused to answer and complained about the “Allahu akbar”, so I asked them to ignore that part and then answer the question.
They refused again and said it wasn’t cut and dry because the IDF soldier is Israeli (which, for someone who claims to profess that Hamas is in the wrong, sure sounds like saying that Hamas killing Israelis is justifiable). So I stripped the hypothetical down to the bare bones and asked them to consider an armed teenager jumping them on the sidewalk and unambiguously stating their intent to kill.
They declared that the hypothetical was now off-topic and disengaged.
This is a pattern of refusing to think about what their moral declarations would actually mean or what consequence they would have in the real world, and an utter refusal to address the possibility that anything Israel is doing might possibly be justified. I don’t know if this is because they’re arguing in bad faith and don’t believe Israel has a right to defend itself, or they simply don’t want to acknowledge that something they consider “bad” might actually be justifiable. But it’s cowardice and dishonesty either way and it strongly suggests the former.
It’s actually impressive how you both went round and round for a ridiculously irrelevant hypothetical shitpost.
Unless you believe all of those children dying in Gaza are Hamas.
“Is the death of children ever acceptable” is highly relevant to any moral judgment of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Their refusal to address even an extreme outlier of a hypothetical shows an unwillingness or inability to defend their absolute declaration that it is not. A reasonable person should have no problem saying that deadly violence is acceptable to defend your own life even when the attacker is underage.
I don’t.
I love it when someone shows their whole ass in another thread, then comes to the Pit to make sure everybody knows what a fucking choad they’re acting like.
I just want to say, “thank you!” for taking this out of the MPSIMS thread and to the pit.
Seems like you agree it’s irrelevant.
It continues, of course. They were asked what Israel should be doing to free the hostages and they fell back to declaring that Israel should “stop war-criming”.
When asked what to do after that, they actually managed to cough up a concrete proposal and said Israel should negotiate since hostages were freed during the cease-fire.
When pointed out that Hamas broke the terms of the cease-fire, stopped negotiating, and made unreasonable demands, they deflected and tried to claim Israel broke it first.
It’s clear that they’re operating off of two axioms;
- Everything Israel does is bad
- Maybe Hamas does some bad stuff, but there’s no time to worry about that because #1
I’ve been arguing with Banquet_Bear a lot, and this isn’t the first time. I butted heads with them in the “Was Fukushima a nuclear disaster” thread, where I found them exceedingly obstinate. There was a Japanese team that decided that Area X was too dangerous because of radiation levels Y, despite Y being far below a level that causes any measurable health effects. But BB refused to admit they might have been wrong.
I think BB is extremely naive, and tends to latch on to sources that seem authoritative (Gazan hospital directors or Japanese disaster response teams) and then dismiss conflicting information in highly moralistic terms (so US DoE studies on the harms of radiation are compared to Fallout-universe propaganda even if BB conceeds that their content is factually true, for example).
I strongly suspect the root cause of our disagreement is that I am a utilitarian and he is not, and so we will never see eye to eye on issues of morality. In another thread I said something along the lines of, “I support trans rights because studies show us that letting people live as the gender they identify as produces the best outcomes for trans people”, and BB chastised me for this because apparently I should be supporting Trans rights because it is “the right thing to do”, with no guidance on how one is to determine what “the right thing” is in any given situation - which leads me to suspect that BB is not a utilitarian.
That’s a very deep philosophical disagreement that is sure to echo up to just about every moral judgement the two of us might make.
But frustrating as I find Banquet_Bear, sickening as I find some of the arguments he has bought into hook, line, and sinker - I don’t think he’s intellectually dishonest, and I am not sure how cowardice comes into play when we are all just posting on a message board.
Well, yeah, that’s pretty obvious, but that’s just a function of where they get their news.
I say “cowardice” in a moral sense - they refuse to contemplate the consequences of their beliefs, because the implications thereof are problematic and/or intolerable. If killing a child is never ever acceptable, then one would have to conclude that if a child is trying to kill you and you have no means of escape other than to use potentially deadly force yourself, you would be morally obliged to let them. That’s a problem for anyone who believes human life has value and that people have the right to self-defense, so they refuse to go any further and just double down on the original assertion. It’s a cop-out that allows them to avoid more difficult questions like “Why is killing a child wrong?” and “What circumstances could make killing a child OK?”, which are clearly disturbing but have to be asked when talking about war - just declare that it’s wrong, period, no exceptions, no further questions.
Well, sure, and that’s the same issue I had with them in the nuclear thread. “The Japanese agency said it was dangerously radioactive, so it was dangerous.” “But they said radiation levels were X, and the US said this is safe” “That’s US propaganda” “But the US said that at radiation level X cancer rate goes up by 0.0000Y. Are you saying that’s not true?” “No, I am saying even if true it is propaganda”.
But again, that’s not intellectual dishonestly - that’s a morality system other than utilitarianism. Which is horrible, I know; but it isn’t intellectually dishonest.
I’m going to go with @Babale’s interpretation. Yes, I have often found BB to fond of moral absolutes. It’s not how I work, or how most of the people I get along with work, but it’s not exactly uncommon either.
And they (Banquet_Bear) seems to always side with the underdog, at least as long as there’s any moral equivalency involved in the conflict. Sometimes even if -I- perceive that there’s no/minimal moral ambiguity, they do.
So, yeah. It doesn’t endear their absolutism to me, although giving the benefit of the doubt, I too find they’re sincere in their beliefs. The refusal to entertain debates that require an interpretation of said ambiguity is a common dodge for people who don’t want to compromise on moral absolutes.
So, maybe slightly dishonest, but then again, we’re demanding a relative morality, which they may (as others do) find extremely dishonest, or a slippery slope they refuse to engage with.
NOTE - I’m giving my opinion on how BB is as a poster, not on the debate regarding Israel. Which is a dodge of my own because I cannot be sufficiently impartial and I’m completely aware of it.
Perhaps there’s a more elegant term for it, but it definitely feels like it’s not done in good faith - constantly insisting that Israel should somehow Do Better, while tacitly saying that nothing Israel ever does can possibly be Good Enough.
I have some issues with @Banquet_Bear 's posting style (but not most of his content), but it very much appears you have a single axiom:
- Smapti is always right
I’ve been wrong plenty. Especially around 2015 or so, and for many of the same reasons I find fault with B_B now - I had settled on a moral absolute I considered all-important (I.e. that the law is sacrosanct and must be upheld no matter what), and I refused to make allowances for some of the unfortunate implications of that absolutism, such as insisting that fugitive slaves were in the wrong because they were the lawful property of their owners, or that trans teens should be misgendered because a minor can’t change their name or birth certificate without parental consent.
I have a great deal of angst/disgust/distrust? of how Israel is behaving. I’m in complete support of them defending themselves; the Hamas attack was brutal and disgusting. However, I don’t think Israel is conducting themselves like a civilized nation anymore. I am perfectly willing to admit I have no answers to how this mess can be stopped but a scorched earth approach seems to be the order of the day. I am not talking about a 17 year old militant. I’m tired of seeing small children and babies dying in the arms of rescuers or being unearthed from tons of rubble. I do not care what religion, philosophy, politics, color, ethnicity, they are. I’m tired of the death of children everywhere and the very visible deaths in Gaza. And the “settlers” should all be tried for trespass and the violence they commit. Hamas? Yeah, horrible terrorists. Israel? Ask Bebe. He’s the only one with the power to stop and I don’t think he’s interested.
I’m gonna’ try not to respond to any replies here because it would be a hi-jack even for the pit.
Every little bit helps.