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Of course you don't care if I answer your questions or are interested in answering mine. It is clear that you are not here to actually engage but are simply trying to set traps and "show my true colors".
But you didn’t actually “show” anything except that you’re committed to an absolutist framing as well as wording (evil) that I’ve rejected from the start and never used. When I listed positive Palestinian traits, that wasn’t me “admitting” anything - it was me answering in good faith from my framework, where cultures are judged on a spectrum of traits rather than flipped wholesale into “evil” or “not evil.”
The way you then dismissed those positives as irrelevant only proves my point: your argument only works by smuggling in the assumption that any evil trait cancels out all good ones. That’s the fallacy of composition I’ve been calling out from the start.
I believe cultures have multiple traits, some humane, some inhumane, and we evaluate them comparatively. That’s different from your absolutist approach - and that’s where our disagreement actually lies and where you try to set a trap.
Plus, it seems like it is actually you who doesn't think too highly of Palestinian culture yourself, the way you speak about it in these past posts. Who would've guessed, huh?
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On September 13 2025 04:37 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course you don't care if I answer your questions or are interested in answering mine. It is clear that you are not here to actually engage but are simply trying to set traps and "show my true colors".
Yeah, I know. I'm glad it worked.
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On September 12 2025 08:38 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2025 08:27 Nebuchad wrote:On September 12 2025 07:29 KwarK wrote:On September 12 2025 03:42 Nebuchad wrote:On September 12 2025 03:37 KwarK wrote:On September 12 2025 03:16 Nebuchad wrote:On September 12 2025 03:05 PremoBeats wrote:
I don't. The post you quoted portrays my view. And I think it is correct, otherwise I wouldn't type it out.
On top - as a separate issue-, you misrepresented/paraphrased my view (which I hold and think is correct) as me saying that Palestinians are evil people with evil values (which I don't think). I don't hold that view, that you project onto me, hence I reject it. Explain the difference between saying the West is morally superior to Palestine and saying Palestinians are evil. Not the person you asked but surely the difference is evident based on the meanings of the words used. They're different words with different meanings and so the difference between their meanings is the difference between their meanings. I can't imagine that I found your posting attractive when you had good politics, that's one of my biggest regrets. Assume a person imagines Palestine to be good and the West to be even gooder. They would imagine the West as superior without Palestine being evil. Superior is a relative judgement, it places A above B in a subjective ranking. Evil is a categorical judgement. It places B in a box, absent any need for A. The difference between the two is that they're different words which describe different kinds of judgements. They're just different. They’re simply not synonyms. The difference between them is evident from the different meanings. Is there perhaps another meaning to your question that I'm not understanding? It feels like you're asking someone to explain the difference between 2pm and "later". One is categorical, one is relative. As a person with (presumably) the capacity to assert the probability of different propositions, do you reckon that it's likely that someone who is talking about the level of morality of Palestinians, in the context of defending Israel's actions in Palestine, is trying to say that Palestinians are good people, but not as good as people in the West? It depends on the individual and their outlook and level of misanthropy. I think most people think most people are fundamentally good, or at least capable of being good. It’s quite unusual to go full Gregory House hating people. Palestinians deserve an awful lot of grace given what has been done to them. I mean: in an accurate rendition of history, Palestinians are analogous to white people. They were part of a larger group which created an imperialistic and supremacist project and abused the minorities around them viciously for centuries. Later on, one of these minority groups was able to establish a state and all of the local white nations attempted to exterminate them, used religious ideology to cast themselves as superior and their enemies as devils/subhuman, and refused to ever countenance any realistic proposals for peace. Or barely ever. Yeah, I can understand why the people are crazy by virtue of their conflict with Israel, the problem with that line of reasoning though is that its bullshit. The Arab world has been religiously, racially, culturally intolerant for centuries while advocating for Empire and conquest for centuries.
That doesnt justify war crimes or dehumanization against them (fuck, im white, im clearly not for slaughtering people due to their crazy history and deeply flawed society), but to absolve them of their belief system 'because of what happened to them' is both condescending and historically illiterate. Lets treat Arab societies like they are fucking adults and hold them accountable for what they've done and who they are. Palestinians are a big part of the reason why Palestinians are in the mess that they are.
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United States43232 Posts
On September 13 2025 04:45 Ze'ev wrote:
That doesnt justify war crimes or dehumanization against them (fuck, im white, im clearly not for slaughtering people due to their crazy history and deeply flawed society), but to absolve them of their belief system 'because of what happened to them' is both condescending and historically illiterate. Lets treat Arab societies like they are fucking adults and hold them accountable for what they've done and who they are. Palestinians are a big part of the reason why Palestinians are in the mess that they are.
Nah, that's a dumb take.
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On September 13 2025 04:39 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2025 04:37 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course you don't care if I answer your questions or are interested in answering mine. It is clear that you are not here to actually engage but are simply trying to set traps and "show my true colors". Yeah, I know. I'm glad it worked.
Funny how you think you achieved something, while in reality you publicly deconstructed your own argument perfectly.
As KwarK and I explained, absolute/categorical judgements and relative judgements are different things with different meanings - a distinction you still don’t seem to grasp.
You argued that the absolute judgement “homophobia is immoral” somehow renders a culture that exhibits it entirely evil, because you reject relativity in that context. Under your framework, Palestine is indeed “evil.” But I never accepted that framework or your wording. My position has been clear: cultures are an amalgamation of inhumane/immoral and humane/moral traits. And I believe that Palestinian people’s resilience, their hospitality, their positive mindset, their generosity despite scarcity, and many other traits carry significant weight in how their culture is experienced and judged, outweighing traditional shortcomings.
You don’t want to accept that, which is fine... but the irony is that in trying to unsuccessfully trap me, you ended up portraying Palestinian culture as defined only by its worst traits, thus triggering the trap yourself.
Meanwhile, your absolutist framework collapses into meaninglessness, since by your standard every culture is evil, as all have at least one immoral trait.
You never addressed follow-up questions about homophobia in Islam or about the logical holes in your framework, because doing so would have exposed its flaws even more. And this is consistent with your style of communication, as a few months ago you admitted to only seeing Islamophobia as my motive, and now you openly admit to only trying (unsuccessfully) to set traps. Those admissions on top of your illogical framework - painting Palestine and all other cultures evil - as well as only quoting the parts of posts where you think you have a leg to stand on, speak for themselves, and make further engagement pointless... but as we both seem to be happy with what we achieved, this "discussion" can finally rest.
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It's my opinion that it's not possible to judge a group of people as morally superior/inferior to another group of people (i.e. relative) without considering further context such as the unique circumstances of each group (which is also relative).
If we went by only the former, then while comparing two individuals we can conclude that the average billionaire is more intelligent than the average McDonalds worker. I contest such a claim based on the fact that billionaires grow up in a vastly superior environment, giving them a very big mental edge over low earners due to access to better education, better housing, better nutrition, better medical treatment, isolation from bullying and other abuses, less stress, etc. etc. These are factors that provably improve the overtly demonstrated intelligence of a person. When accounting for such differences, then the intelligence difference also tends to disappear.
And I'd argue it's the same with morality. This is why I agree with Mohdoo's comment. He's spot on.
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Looking at the circumstances can add a layer. But I wouldn't want some kind of moral relativism (not that you are arguing for it) to stand in my way to stop the Aztec shaman from performing a human sacrifice, from helping little girls that are about to get their clitorises cut off or a battle against homophobia/legal inequality (or even the things you mentioned about the West). I don't want context to become a shield against criticism.
At that moment I don't care if the rationalization is a voice someone heard in their head, a century old traditional, cultural practice or a principle a human supposedly got from god a couple of hundred years ago.
These circumstances also wouldn't change the actual result. But it would give us more room for understanding and how to deal with the situation.
Because if we'd do an IQ test with the billionaire and the McDonald's worker, the context explains the disparity but the present result would be a reality; the same is true for a culture that has more inhuman or immoral traits incorporated than another at this point in time.
Thus, context should be not about excuses but about understanding why practices exist and deciding the best course of action to stop them. Simple condemnation wouldn't work most probably.
If that is what you are proposing I can agree wholeheartedly.
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On September 13 2025 14:32 PremoBeats wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2025 04:39 Nebuchad wrote:On September 13 2025 04:37 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course you don't care if I answer your questions or are interested in answering mine. It is clear that you are not here to actually engage but are simply trying to set traps and "show my true colors". Yeah, I know. I'm glad it worked. Funny how you think you achieved something, while in reality you publicly deconstructed your own argument perfectly. As KwarK and I explained, absolute/categorical judgements and relative judgements are different things with different meanings - a distinction you still don’t seem to grasp.
If you want to come back to the conversation, answer why you think that having good food and being hospitable, when you also want to oppress women and kill infidels and minorities, makes you morally "good but not as good as the West", as opposed to, you know, "evil".
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United States43232 Posts
Nebuchad what you’re doing here looks a lot like “what is a woman?” style gotcha debating made in bad faith. Cultural relativism is a pretty huge philosophical debate that and you’re trying to force Premobeats to solve it for you. Maybe just make a whole new topic to address the subject of cultural relativism and whether it means anything to ascribe an ethical value to a culture when a culture is made up of huge numbers of individuals who live their lives in different ways making different moral choices each day. Then people who want to solve that specific issue can weigh in on it there.
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On September 14 2025 00:25 KwarK wrote:
Nebuchad what you’re doing here looks a lot like “what is a woman?” style gotcha debating made in bad faith. Cultural relativism is a pretty huge philosophical debate that and you’re trying to force Premobeats to solve it for you. Maybe just make a whole new topic to address the subject of cultural relativism and whether it means anything to ascribe an ethical value to a culture when a culture is made up of huge numbers of individuals who live their lives in different ways making different moral choices each day. Then people who want to solve that specific issue can weigh in on it there.
I'm doing none of those things, you're being a silly goose. Premobeats asserts that it's a mischaracterization of his position to claim that he thinks "Palestinians have evil values". His explanation of why it's a mischaracterization is that he only thinks their values are morally worse than those of the West, and that is different from saying they are evil values. The only way that this is true is if those values are good, but not as good as those of the West, otherwise it is not a mischaracterization of his position to say that he thinks Palestinians have evil values, whether he is thinking in relative or absolute terms.
As a result I am now having fun with him because it's obvious what he believes, but he doesn't get to say it. It's a bit like cheating, really.
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United States43232 Posts
Disagree. It’s more complicated than that and you know it. It’s exactly like the “what is a woman” thing.
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On September 14 2025 00:36 KwarK wrote:
Disagree. It’s more complicated than that and you know it. It’s exactly like the “what is a woman” thing.
You're wrong, I don't know it at all. I believe what I say here is 100% correct.
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On September 13 2025 18:48 PremoBeats wrote:
Looking at the circumstances can add a layer. But I wouldn't want some kind of moral relativism (not that you are arguing for it) to stand in my way to stop the Aztec shaman from performing a human sacrifice, from helping little girls that are about to get their clitorises cut off or a battle against homophobia/legal inequality (or even the things you mentioned about the West). I don't want context to become a shield against criticism.
At that moment I don't care if the rationalization is a voice someone heard in their head, a century old traditional, cultural practice or a principle a human supposedly got from god a couple of hundred years ago.
These circumstances also wouldn't change the actual result. But it would give us more room for understanding and how to deal with the situation.
Because if we'd do an IQ test with the billionaire and the McDonald's worker, the context explains the disparity but the present result would be a reality; the same is true for a culture that has more inhuman or immoral traits incorporated than another at this point in time.
Thus, context should be not about excuses but about understanding why practices exist and deciding the best course of action to stop them. Simple condemnation wouldn't work most probably.
If that is what you are proposing I can agree wholeheartedly.
I'm arguing the inverse. I'm not trying to justify Palestinian terrorism such as that of Hamas. I am trying to show that the alleged "superior morality" is more of a myth, because I think it's a consequence of the circumstances (or the lack of certain circumstances). The immoral fraction of a population is revealed under certain pressures. Sometimes the pressure is real and tangible, other times it's propaganda that causes radicalism. Sometimes both.
When we don't observe the immorality of a population, that's what I consider the true oddity. Many people are immoral, and the chance of a person developing immoral values is equal given that the circumstances are also equal. So why don't we see equal immorality in every population? It is an oddity, not a normality.
It could be that people are well fed when growing up in a wealthier region and thus have less reason to act out. It could be that they're less exposed to lies and misinformation of a propaganda campaign. Or sometimes we don't notice their immorality because we're blind to it (e.g. it remains unreported or we close our eyes to it), but the people exist nonetheless.
I believe in something akin to the tabula rasa. The realization that a population doesn't show the same immorality as some other populations makes me understand that immorality is created, not born.
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On September 13 2025 05:03 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2025 04:45 Ze'ev wrote:
That doesnt justify war crimes or dehumanization against them (fuck, im white, im clearly not for slaughtering people due to their crazy history and deeply flawed society), but to absolve them of their belief system 'because of what happened to them' is both condescending and historically illiterate. Lets treat Arab societies like they are fucking adults and hold them accountable for what they've done and who they are. Palestinians are a big part of the reason why Palestinians are in the mess that they are.
Nah, that's a dumb take. Nah, it isnt. I have Jewish family members and people who grew up in Jordan, Oman, Israel and all over the middle east. My wife has a masters degree in history specifically the palestine region. Antisemitism and religious extremism predates this conflict; Westerners love to pretend Arab culture is just like ours. Its the material conditions! Its the social conditions! No, its the culture. This conflict isnt about self determination, its about Muslims wanting to rape, kill and torture jews. You are an ignorant white saviour.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Finally, the viewpoint of open racism that was missing from the conversation, I'm (unironically) happy 
Can you link to some works by your wife? (PM is fine I understand if you don't want to dox).
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United States43232 Posts
On September 15 2025 23:49 Ze'ev wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2025 05:03 KwarK wrote:On September 13 2025 04:45 Ze'ev wrote:
That doesnt justify war crimes or dehumanization against them (fuck, im white, im clearly not for slaughtering people due to their crazy history and deeply flawed society), but to absolve them of their belief system 'because of what happened to them' is both condescending and historically illiterate. Lets treat Arab societies like they are fucking adults and hold them accountable for what they've done and who they are. Palestinians are a big part of the reason why Palestinians are in the mess that they are.
Nah, that's a dumb take. Nah, it isnt. I have Jewish family members and people who grew up in Jordan, Oman, Israel and all over the middle east. My wife has a masters degree in history specifically the palestine region. Antisemitism and religious extremism predates this conflict; Westerners love to pretend Arab culture is just like ours. Its the material conditions! Its the social conditions! No, its the culture. This conflict isnt about self determination, its about Muslims wanting to rape, kill and torture jews. You are an ignorant white saviour.
The dumb take is
1. Adults are perfectly rational perfectly informed actors
2. Nothing experienced before becoming an adult influences the decision of adults
3. The norms of the society around the adults does not influence adults
4. Therefore all adults should make decisions rationally according to my own perfectly informed and perfectly rational beliefs
The exceptionally dumb take, and this is where you come in, is
1. The above is irrefutable, so completely undeniable that we don’t even need to debate it, everyone must accept it
2. And yet some people seem to excuse irrational decisions by adults
3. Therefore those people must think they’re not adults. They must agree that all adults are perfectly informed and perfectly rational and independent of any societal or nurture factors because everyone agrees on that. Therefore implicit in their disagreement is the belief that the people aren’t adults.
4. Therefore they’re infantilizing them.
5. Therefore they’re the real racists.
We’ve all seen this a hundred times before. It’s pretty common in America, people who point to historical factors that disadvantage African Americans are told that they’re being condescending and infantilizing for not believing that African American adults can simply ignore context by virtue of being adults.
Yours is a really dumb take. You must be really dumb. If this is surprising to you then I’m sorry. The people who interact with you on a daily basis have been poor friends to you by not letting you know before now.
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What was Israel up to in Gaza over the weekend:
Short video from Al Jazeera
More then 1500 homes destroyed.
Systematically leveling high rise buildings.
Using drones to shoot at a hospital.
Displacing 900.000 people ordering them to leave for a camp that does not have enough resources for them.
What, exactly does any of this have to do with Hamas?
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On September 16 2025 03:50 Jankisa wrote:What was Israel up to in Gaza over the weekend: Short video from Al JazeeraMore then 1500 homes destroyed. Systematically leveling high rise buildings. Using drones to shoot at a hospital. Displacing 900.000 people ordering them to leave for a camp that does not have enough resources for them. What, exactly does any of this have to do with Hamas?
Fuck all. Not that Israel stans will recognise it of course.
Israel should be an international pariah at this point, but I imagine the usual excuses will be found.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8641wv0n4go
A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
A new report says there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out since the start of the war with Hamas in 2023: killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births.
...
To fulfil the legal definition of genocide under the Genocide Convention, it must also be established that the perpetrator committed any one of those acts with specific intent to destroy the group in whole or in part.
The commission says it analysed statements made by Israeli leaders and alleges that President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have "incited the commission of genocide".
It also states that "genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference" that could be concluded from the pattern of conduct of Israeli authorities and security forces in Gaza.
I don't really think there is any reasonable way of concluding that Israel isn't committing a genocide.
Especially when Israel's response can basically be summarised as, "nuh-uh they started it!"
Israel needs to realise that Hamas' atrocities don't excuse their own atrocities.
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EPT
