[ivape]

When you speak to someone from MAGA, can’t you tell when they are being amicable but still obviously support all the crazy MAGA stuff? They call this a dark trait that sociopaths have, an unusual propensity to use amicability and charm to appear perceptively reasonable. Good examples of this are Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan, where often they just seem like well meaning balanced people. It’s manipulative behavior. If you want to see a masterclass on it, check out Steve Bannon’s podcast.

So, while there are people that can present an allegedly reasonable take, the reality is that it’s just a polite smile in front of underlying beliefs and emotions. People in tech should be well acquainted with this type of abuse because we see it all the time in leadership and general corporate nonsense.

Having a back and forth conversation over time is truly violating to one’s self with such people. It’s almost like they think you are stupid. I think given the state of affairs, it’s fine to be more obtuse and blunt with such people so as to draw a red line where they are not allowed to run their manipulation. Genocide is a pretty clear red line.

In short, don’t worry about being so polite. Genocide apologists are running game with the mental gymnastics.

[bawolff]

When you start to dehumanize the other - believe everything they say is just a front for their true evil beliefs, regardless of if you have any evidence of that or especially if your evidence is race, religion or national origin of the speaker - That is the road to facism, and something I disagree with in the strongest possible sense.

[ivape]

Yeah, I get you. It's just ...

https://youtube.com/shorts/MuPfkxQns1k

I'm having a hard time being nice. What are people supposed to think? We're supposed to walk away from stuff like that and go "yeah there's two sides to this, we should reserve judgement"? There's no two sides to this. Israel over-corrected after Oct 7, the same way America did after 9/11. They destroyed a city, and then funneled it's citizens into a ghetto in the south. Those. Are. The. Facts. I just provided you the definition of ethnic cleansing.

Also, labeling a human as manipulative is not de-humanizing. Manipulation is a property of a human. It's just a matter of how egregious it is, but you won't escape it. Five year olds will manipulate. You've done it, I've done it. Me and you are doing it right now, but we try to do it in good faith and limit it to just persuasion in discussion. It's a spectrum. Some people are using the ability to justify a genocide.

There's a form of normalization that occurs with egregious manipulation (serious manipulation is abuse, so we normalize abuse). For example, it is becoming normalized to discuss two sides to a genocide.

There is the genocide on one side, and then the normalization of "well, what is a self-respecting nation that wants to defend itself supposed to do otherwise?". The whole construct is part of the manipulation. I'll give another example, Rogan normalizes a lot of heavy right-wing opinions around, well, normal discussion. It'll be embedded inside of a discussion about pop culture. This is a very very troubling form of it. It almost makes you think it's "normal" to entertain the absurd extremes. If you were to confront either of them about this normalization, they'd stay consistent and give you a normal response:

Rogan: Hey, I'm just a comedian!

Israel: Hey, just defending ourselves!

As if the rest of us are literally retarded.

[bawolff]

> yeah there's two sides to this, we should reserve judgement"?

Of course not, for starters there is significantly more than 2 sides of this multifaceted conflict.

You should not reserve judgemdnt. You should still listen and try and understand everyone's perspective before coming to your judgement, otherwise what is the point?

> There's no two sides to this. Israel over-corrected after Oct 7, the same way America did after 9/11

While 9/11 might be a good comparison for how a society can become radicalized after an attack, i dont think its a good comparison in general. The geopolitical situation is totally different. The scale of the attack is different. There was no hostages taken, no sexual violence, etc. They are very different situations. First and foremost because there was basically no possible way for al-qaeda to do a second attack, you can only really fly a plane into a tower once; after that pilots got reenforced cockpit doors. In comparison Hamas is right next door, and does potentially have the capability to do a second attack. That doesn't necessarily mean i think everything Israel does is justified, but self-defense claims should be evaluated in that context.

I think Israel has a reasonable argument for self defense here. That is not a blank cheque, there are limits to what self-defense allows, but it does seem pretty clear that some military action would be justified self defense here given the circumstances.

Vs say usa in iraq which was pretty preposterous as they didnt have anything to do with 9/11.

> I just provided you the definition of ethnic cleansing.

To nitpick here, ethnic cleansing isn't a war crime/crime against humanity. The crime is called "forced displacement". Ethnic cleansing started as a euphamism by war criminals who thought it sounded less bad, but it kind of stuck because it actually sounds worse. That said, i think its better to talk about forced displacement because that has an actual definition, is mentioned in the Geneva convention, etc

> Also, labeling a human as manipulative is not de-humanizing

It depends why you label then that. If you label based on people's words or actions, then of course it is not. If you label them as manipulative based on their membership in a group instead of the person's own actions, i would say it is dehumanizing.

> There is the genocide on one side, and then the normalization of "well, what is a self-respecting nation that wants to defend itself supposed to do otherwise?"

The people who say Israel is defending itself generally dispute the characterization of Israel's actions as a genocide. The vast majority believe (or at least claim to) that genocide is not acceptable in self-defense (im sure you can find some crazies who say otherwise of course).

Quite frankly, this isn't a totally crazy position, things are still a bit up in the air on this. The ICC when it charged israeli leaders with various crimes did not charge them with genocide. The ICJ hasn't ruled yet. Its not like there is a consensus among experts on this topic.