[theobreuerweil]

This is exactly what I was trying to point out. You've made some reasonable points here, but that doesn't offer any evidence for the hyperbolic statement that Israel is pure and undiluted evil. Israel could be a bad place without that statement being true.

This might seem like a silly distinction to some but what I find depressing about modern culture wars is how "we disagree on these points" seems to morph into "you and everything you represent is terrible". Nuance matters.

[bell-cot]

You seem a bit over-focused on the literal truth value of that "Israel is pure and undiluted..." statement.

Vs. 99% of educated and rational people recognize that as a bombastic/emotive statement. Arguing its truth value is like kitchen-testing whether a cookie recipe turns out worse if you replace "2C sugar, 1/2t salt" with "2C salt, 1/2t sugar".

And sadly, such bombastic/emotive mis-statements are far, far older than our modern culture wars.

[theobreuerweil]

It’s very possible that things were always this way, you’re right. My own perception is that politics has become more divisive and less respectful in my own lifetime, and I happen to think that social media makes this worse, but that’s admittedly just an opinion.

To the emotional statement: I think I’d get a reaction if rather than saying “I don’t think Go is a good language” I said something like “Go is objectively the worst programming language ever devised”. I get your point but if you feel emotional about something then say so - IMO the parent comment did much more than that.

[gruez]

>You seem a bit over-focused on the literal truth value of that "Israel is pure and undiluted..." statement.

>Vs. 99% of educated and rational people recognize that as a bombastic/emotive statement.

That's a cope. Words have meanings, and being able to make and walk back on misleading/false statements with "I was being bombastic/emotive and it wasn't meant to be taken literally" absolutely poisons any sort of attempt rational discourse. "Israel committed war crimes" becomes not a statement about whether Israel broke international laws but whether you support Israel or not, "fake news" becomes not a statement about whether the news story was conjured from thin air but whether you like the story, etc.

[bell-cot]

Words have meanings, and "%" obviously means division by zero.

If you logically disproved the "Israel is pure and undiluted..." statement - say, by finding one saintly-pure Israeli preschool teacher - would anyone outside the Temple of Ultimate Pedantry really care?

Vs. if you took that statement to mean "I am very angrily anti-Israeli", might you find it quicker & easier to communicate your own position? Or at least make it a bit difficult for people (who you obviously don't like) to deny your interpretations of their positions?

[gruez]

>If you logically disproved the "Israel is pure and undiluted..." statement - say, by finding one saintly-pure Israeli preschool teacher - would anyone outside the Temple of Ultimate Pedantry really care?

Do you think Trump supporters actually cares whether the stories he calls out as "fake news" were actually fake or just displeased the president? Or whether the election was "stolen", or he simply didn't like the way it was conducted?

>Vs. if you took that statement to mean "I am very angrily anti-Israeli", might you find it quicker & easier to communicate your own position? Or at least make it a bit difficult for people (who you obviously don't like) to deny your interpretations of their positions?

But why add all that extra stuff about being the most evil? If you just wanted to express his displeasure at israel, you could have just said "I'm mad at israel", or even "israel is evil". The fact OP went out of his way to say that "israel is the most evil" suggests that he thought he had something to gain from doing so, like adding the fib makes his argument more convincing or something. Same with Trump calling stuff "fake news" instead of just saying "I don't like this story about me".

[bell-cot]

> Do you think...?

Most don't. A few (and more of the swing voters) care somewhat. Good reason to not spend (waste) time getting picky on the details, eh?

> But why...?

Some combination of social signalling/performance - "look at my uber-ultimate loyalty to the anti-Israel cause!!!" - and an ancient human tendency to exaggerate for emotional emphasis. Anecdote: Back in the 1900's, one of my nieces routinely referred to her kid sister as the "spawn of the devil" and similar. Why? Until the birth of the younger, the older niece had been the baby of the family, and had her own bedroom. Plus normal sibling rivalry. Fast-forward 2 decades from that - and the two nieces were on perfectly friendly terms. The older one both got the younger one a nice office job, and was happy to have the younger one babysit her own small children.