Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Supplementary Material 2: Dissident Dialogues, Bloodbaths, & Genocidal Debates (Patreon)

Published:
2024-03-22 00:48:48
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

The adventure in formatting continues with the second Supplementary Material episode.

On this episode:

Sam Harris Devotees

Dissident Dialogues

Lex's important message about idolism

Trumpian Bloodbath & Media Criticism

Lex Fridman's Israel-Palestine Debate

Finkelstein vs. Destiny

Genocidal Debates

Links

Lex Fridman Podcast: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris

Dissident Dialogues – A PLACE FOR DANGEROUS IDEAS

Guardian News clips from the 'Bloodbath" speech

Joe Rogan & Jonathan Haidt Disagree About Donald Trump BLOODBATH Comment

Lex's anti-Idol Tweet

Guardian Article (2015): Israel exonerates itself over Gaza beach killings of four children last year

UN investigation (2015) that covered the beach bombings and reached more critical conclusions

The Globe and Mail (2015): Account from a reporter

Files

Comments

Adam Sher

DtG staring into the abyss of despair

Christopher McLaughlin

If you haven’t read Noah Rawlings account from within the Forbidden Courses at antiwoke University of Austin (in Dallas) you’re in for a real treat! Street Epistemologist and self-professed jujitsu practitioner Peter Boghossian is so much funnier than I realized.

Andy First

I want to be clear that I saw your tweet Chris and I got the Star Wars reference at the time

Linda Sears

Do you think Lex feels unloved for not being part of the Dissident fest?

Trees

The second clip of Trump wasn't chosen for an article because it's not news. Trump has repeatedly said he wouldn't respect the election. He's not actually saying that here. It doesn't take much charity to interpret him as saying no more elections will occur because liberals will end them, ie "Democracy hangs in the balance". So basically he's saying something less threatening than what he's already said before. At this point in American politics, saying the next election might be the last is kind of cliche. The Dems have been saying similar things for years, so a headline criticizing Trump for it also creates an opening for what-aboutism. Trump hasn't directly threatened violence, so the "bloodbath" would be news if only it was true. Obviously there's a partisan thing here, but I think some of it is also just a desire to break something novel.

Jesse Rimler

It’s a real shame that Norman Finkelstein is the go-to guy for the left on Palestine. I find Destiny pretty unbearable, but when he pointed out in the debate that Finkelstein hadn’t learned Hebrew or Arabic, it’s not a bad point. Why would a scholar devote his life to studying the conflict and not learn the languages of those in conflict? And Finkelstein shoots himself in the foot by resorting to ad hominem.

Jesse Rimler

Also agree that this debate culture is pretty gross. It’s wrestling for the extremely-online.

Dr Badmouth

Alright. I was unfortunate enough to listen to the 5hr debate. Here are a couple of my takes/observation. - I do think normies can discern things from the more shallow bloodsports debate (which is good) - Destiny the debate bro he is did spend many boring hours researching the studies on his stream so it's not like he just performed - much has been made about Dolus Specialis (special intent) and it's such a stupid argument because it is a type of mens rea but Finklestein was the one who challenged Destiny on this even though (like Chris pointed out) NF claims to have read the paper and it does show up 4 times. - previous point is emblematic of a lot of what happened during the debate at some points. Getting stuck arguing pedantic meaningless things but Norm is the cause of most of this. You actually hear Destiny during the break bemoan that they're not going to talk about anything interesting because they keep up drowning in the shallow end

Hayden Setlik

Finally someone has a reasonable take on the Trump bloodbath thing. In a speech where he all but threatens another Jan 6 situation if he loses AND proposes a tariff that would cause entire sections of the economy to grind to a halt overnight, it's annoying that his use of "bloodbath" is what people want to talk about. I can already sense that Joe Rogan and Elon will be bringing this up as yet another failure of the woke MSM until like 2037.

Neil vdp

I’m just stumbling into this Patreon space after bumping into the paywall, I’m glad I encountered it 😆. Nothing substantive or insightful from me, just here for the parasocial. Nervous about my grammar all of a sudden 😂

Kat

Yeah, sorry for Chris's genocide denial. Regarding the 4 kids on the beach, Chris says it was likely accidental, simply because killing 4 kids accidentally would look bad for Israel (or whatever the excuse was)? That's really, really underestimating the malice of racism. There are too many incidents where Israeli killing of unarmed civilians was clearly intentional for this to be passed off as likely accidental. Chris Hedges documented one where IDF soldiers taunted some Palestinians kids who were playing, saying some rude things about their mothers or something. The kids then approached the soldiers and threw some stones - from far away, the stones couldn't reach the soldiers. The soldiers shot the kids with high-powered rifles. He called it shooting kids for sport The shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh is another case which could only be an intentional murder by the IDF. This is from the Goldstone Report investigating crimes of both sides of the Israeli attack on Gaza of 2008-2009: "In Chapter XI of the Report, for example we detail a number of specific incidents in which Israeli forces launched direct attacks against civilians with lethal consequences. These were, with only one exception, where the facts establish that there was no military objective or advantage that could justify the attacks." The IDF marines or whoever have the binoculars and such with the power to determine whether or not the kids on the beach were armed. Clearly they weren't. And why make up the story about the fisherman's shack being some kind of militant hideout? The "tragic accident" cover story becomes less believable when they make stuff up. You may not like Finkelstein's style, I get that, and he doesn't get every detail right, but I mean, Destiny's point that killing people in war doesn't necessarily mean genocide? He's right, simply killing people in war doesn't imply genocide. Significant amount of the SA case were exactly providing evidence of genocidal intent by Israeli elected officials. Sixteen of seventeen judges agreed there was genocidal incitement by leading Israelis. That's a very plausible case. So, I'm not giving you a pass on your genocide denial.

SHOUNAK SARKAR

Hey guys, my 2 cents. With regards to the Trump discussion, the Bulwark (moderate conservatives) did a nuanced discussion on it. Highly recommend checking it out. It’s their latest The Next Level Show with Sarah, Tim & JVL. They do the best political analysis IMO. I do agree that we all need to be careful & be in full possession of facts & their context before we comment on them. It’s a thing gurus are often guilty of and therefore yeah the bloodbath thing is where the media slightly overshot in their criticisms. However what strikes me is the asymmetry. On the right, u have dedicated trolls & douchebags like Kisin & others who constantly misrepresent data, facts, science, liberals etc but they NEVER issue apologies when found to be wrong. It’s frankly amazing! And tbh the mainstream media are the ones who went back & self-corrected their first impressions, so credit for that. Also u can’t forget that Trump often deploys violent rhetoric with regards to immigrants, protesters, the left etc. he recently said that immigrants are poisoning the blood of Americans, which is literally Nazi rhetoric. He actually did incite an insurrection in the past, so context is important. But yeah as Matt said, it’s stunning how intellectually dishonest these right wing culture warriors & budding authoritarians are but they pay no price for their inconsistencies. While the left constantly self-flagellate. I know the answer isn’t to lower our standards BUT this also needs to be pointed out everything a similar thing happens.

Tim Tripp

To me Trump used bloodbath in an ambiguous way but as you said taken in context it sort of makes sense but......ya never know with him. Boy he sounds old.

Ethan Milne

“5 hours is too long” — a little rich coming from DtG lmao

Níall

I love you all

Kat

From Euromed Monitor, 20 March 2024: A survivor who asked to be identified only as “M.K.” confirmed that Israeli soldiers repeatedly took prisoners into the [Shifa] hospital’s morgue area, that gunshots were then heard, and that the soldiers left without the prisoners. “The soldiers detained me and handcuffed me in the hospital courtyard; I was left undressed for more than nine hours,” M.K. stated. “About four times during that period, I saw soldiers lead groups of detainees—[always] at least three people and [never] more than 10—into the hospital buildings, particularly the morgue building where bodies had previously been kept,” added M.K. “Gunshots were heard, with the soldiers then leaving the area to bring another group there.”

Loki

I like the new format. Its nice to get more regular content from you guys and seems like smaller chunks of material makes that more manageable for you guys.

Paul Bowman

Yeah, the thing about the shooting of the kids had to be accidental because the soldiers wouldn't do it deliberately because it would make the IDF look bad, is just naive - regardless of the other merits of the case. There's a great book on the Vietnam war by Mark Baker called "Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There", which is just verbatim accounts from vets. Those necklaces of ears were not a myth. Scared witless American teenagers, soon figured out there was no comeback for just murdering Vietnamese civilians, so many of them just did. Not every war is like Belfast. There's a spectrum between Belfast and Nam, and following the many, many accounts, of new atrocities, day in and day out, the inescapable conclusion is that what the IDF is doing in Gaza is a lot closer to Nam than anything else. So its entirely plausible that young IDF draftees will just kill Palestinian kids for the hell of it. Especially if they've been ideologically prepared to think of Palestinians as vermin and cockroaches - which is very much part of the discourse in Israeli social media and mainstream media both (I have Israeli anarchist comrades who attest to this stuff, I'm not pulling it out of my backside). That aside, the close temporal proximity of covering Hasan Piker and Vaush on this topic is instructive. Just because they are on opposite sides of this polarisation doesn't make one of them any more acceptable than the other. Ditto Finkelstein. There are two types of people who put themselves forward as champions for a cause: those who are prepared to put aside their ego and do whatever is necessary for the greater good of the cause; and those who could never put aside their ego, because the cause, and their defence of it, is in fact just another extension of their ego. For me Finkelstein is in the latter camp. Or as we say in Hiberno-English, "a gobshite". Regardless of what position he's arguing for. Finally, as I was writing this, it struck me that my "two types" actually seems to have some resonance with the de-individuation vs identity fusion dichotomy. Maybe that difference in commitment to a cause is itself a matter of personal ideological schemas, rather than an objective fact for all people in all contexts?

Roland Weber

I'm beginning to like the title "Supplementary Material". For reasons of practicality, we'll be abbreviating it as "SM" anyway, which is conveniently ambiguous: > As episode 2 has shown, SM can be painful. In honour of the fact that you used to do these sections Before the Decodings, we might even call them BDSM. 😄

Jovan Popov

Your entire conversation looked so much more favorably on Destiny than on Finklestein - completely ridiculous - how can you possibly be serious academics? Did you notice how Destiny had his capital D insignia emblazoned on his shirt - surely not the psychotic behavior of a guru... I understand we can challenge Finkelstein, but you have to give him his due, he received his PhD at Princeton, so, yes, I imagine he is a bit of an authority - to put him in the same comparative sentence as Destiny and still come away with the former just being a loud, angry man that might be an academic ("Finkelstein he is some kind of academic, right?" you asked twice), is just not fair. You focus on the tone of Finkelstein without getting much into the substance or context of his arguments - look at how he was so angry at Destiny, now please imagine you are 70 years old, you have published more than a dozen books on a subject, spent over 40 years in academia fighting for a cause only to be told by someone HALF YOUR AGE, "Did you even read the material", "you lied about this!", "you're a pop historian!" I would love to see you both, wonderful academics you are, not blow a gasket!! I personally work in academia, I'm the same age as Destiny, and if someone half my age called me a liar or challenged that I had actually read the material for which I am an authority I would have gone mental!! I agree that Finkelstein has his issues but I would expect much more intelligence from Guru-decoding academics that you would pick apart Finkelstein and only quibble with Destiny on one point - that maybe when he said nuking Palestine wouldn't be genocide maybe he went a little too far??? Are you serious??

Jonathan Cano

FYI: what brought me back as a patreon was the Sam Harris /Making Sense/ parody about the "rest of the show being behind a paywall, if you can't afford, ask and we will ignore you, etc...". Perfect parody of the music (I got it immediately). I think that joke was the best part of the episode.

Anna J

(Apologies for the many edits - my mind becomes untidy when I'm sleep deprived). With the caveat that I am agnostic wrt whether the IDF kills children intentionally on a mass scale (my position is that it's more likely they just do not take enough care to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties, be they children or adults - or like others have said they know children will die as a result of their campaign and this is taken as acceptable collateral damage) I thought the argument "it doesn't make sense for them to target children, it would just make them look monstrous...." is a poor one. Implicit to this argument is "they wouldn't do it because regardless of whether it is something they want to do, it would be foolish strategically because of how it would make them look", right? This ignores a few facts about attitudes towards Palestinians in present day Israeli society and also the position of Israel on the world stage. What would be the consequences if they were to do such things? Or more importantly what do the IDF / Israel government believe would be the consequences? This is where it breaks down, because if history is anything to go by Israel knows that other war crimes or violations of international law it has committed have gone largely unpunished... The Israeli public by and large do not care/are more preoccupied by the security of Israelis. There has not been a political appetite in Israel for the Palestinian cause for many years. The reasons for this are complex and somewhat understandable but the point remains. The mass protests that were going on prior to Oct 7 were about judicial reforms, not Palestinian rights. Despite them happening on a backdrop of one of the deadliest 18 months for Palestinian civilians in the West Bank in years. It is also not a fringe opinion in Israel that being a Palestinian child (esp an older male child) is not incompatible with being an enemy combatant. You often see these justifications being trotted out when children are knowingly targeted in the West Bank (they were throwing rocks, they were a look out for terrorists etc). The rest of the world? Sure you'll get some grumblings and lip service but in reality the protection and financial support of the US (and UK, Australia etc) has allowed Israel to act w impunity for decades now. Only now, after 30K dead civilians is only 5 months, a preliminary ICJ hearing, mass worldwide protests, Biden taking a hit at the polls, are you are starting to see the smallest cracks in American support. Still, the money tap pouring billions into the war on Gaza remains on. At the time of the beach killings Israel's violations of human rights of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were well documented, basically status quo in Israel, and had been allowed to continue with impunity, with the US veto (and funding) ensuring that Israel can continue with doing what it wants to do, to continue the killing of civilians, continue the occupation, continue expanding the settlements, continue with the illegal arrest and imprisonment of Palestinian minors, continue with providing army and police cover or at best turning a blind eye to Settler violence - even though in doing these things it breaks international law and is condemned by well respected worldwide humanitarian organisations. In the above context (if you accept that my description is accurate of course) I don't see how you could argue that concerns over looking monstrous would be a compelling reason for the IDF to not deliberately target children, as looking monstrous has never really harmed them that much before. (Also it's useful to remember that not all systemic and widespread and even top-down policies that deliberately target civilians are explicitly put in writing or put out in official orders or even spoken about openly at length.. but that's a separate issue).

David Noble

Largely agree with everything said except the point you guys made at the end. It really does matter what you think on the topic of Israel/Palestine, especially if you are a US citizen. Because you can organise to put pressure on Biden to stop Israel. US support is extremely important for Israel, both in terms of resources and diplomatic connections.

David Noble

I couldn't say how many it will influence, honestly. As for how much people will consider it come election time, that depends on a few things. We don't know when the conflict is going to be resolved, it could still be going in November so it will be on people's minds. The "undecided" vote is significant, a lot of people are very angry with Biden for supporting a genocide. Also, younger generations are more war weary and older generations are dying off. American exceptionalism isn't so strong anymore, foreign policy may not have mattered so much in the past but times change.