2024 Presidential Election Shittastic Shittacular

[-FX-]

No wait. That is a different H

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Miss Shelby

What is a charter school?

A charter school gets public money but operates largely independent of the state's public school system. Per ECS:

Charter schools are semi-autonomous public schools that receive public funds. They operate under a written contract with a state, district or other entity (referred to as an authorizer or sponsor). This contract — or charter — details how the school will be organized and managed, what students will be expected to achieve, and how success will be measured. Many charter schools are exempt from a variety of laws and regulations affecting other public schools if they continue to meet the terms of their charters.

Predictably, some charter schools are superb and some are complete train wrecks.

[-FX-]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Predictably, some charter schools are superb and some are complete train wrecks.

Why this is so, is a great mystery.

[Crumb]

If I was Kamala Harris I would probably be drunk a lot right now, too. But why would I be paying attention to Harris right now? She lost the election.

[It's Me!]

Vivek flexes his knowledge about the future of military weaponry as he weighs in on Pentagon spending. I don't know exactly what his military credentials are, but I assume they're substantial ... right? RIGHT?

MSN

[It's Me!]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Predictably, some charter schools are superb and some are complete train wrecks.

Yep, some are phenomenal, but half have their charter revoked within their first 15 years of operation.

https://networkforpubliceducation.or...omises-PDF.pdf

There are a whole slew of reasons why a majority of charter schools fail, but I suspect one of the biggest reasons is because authorizers (institutions the state puts in charge to oversee these schools) grant charters to groups that - while they may mean well - have no experience operating a school, and have no idea how to select or manage a school leader who can oversee said operation. And the way the states fund these schools, often as these charter schools flounder and fail, they're pulling money away from the surrounding public schools which are producing much better outcomes.

[Pyrrho]

Originally Posted by It's Me!

Vivek flexes his knowledge about the future of military weaponry as he weighs in on Pentagon spending. I don't know exactly what his military credentials are, but I assume they're substantial ... right? RIGHT?

MSN

War is a business. This will merely route money to different corporate coffers.

[Miss Shelby]

Originally Posted by Crumb

If I was Kamala Harris I would probably be drunk a lot right now, too. But why would I be paying attention to Harris right now? She lost the election.

well she is still a sitting VP. I can't believe her staff didn't take it down.

[Stephen Maturin]

The House of Reps in the 119th Congress will have 220 Republicans and 215 Dems. The GOP flipped eight seats, and the Dems flipped nine.

[LarsMac]

Originally Posted by -FX-

Why this is so, is a great mystery.

There is no great mystery here

.

[Miss Shelby]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

A charter school gets public money but operates largely independent of the state's public school system. Per ECS:

Predictably, some charter schools are superb and some are complete train wrecks.

Your post piqued my interest enough to ask my daughters about them, and specifically around our area about them. My younger graduates in a few weeks. Education always being her passion. Since she was 10 I called her my little liberal. My other her education is in childhood education but expands into medical humanities. They are texting me now and I’m learning.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Welllllll, sort of, but not really. The bill in question is heinous. It would have given the Treasury Department unilateral authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit deemed to be a "terrorist supporting organization."

Due to some strange procedural machinations, this one would have needed a 2/3 supermajority to pass. It didn't get the supermajority, but "won" the vote 256-145.

Fifty-two Dems voted in favor of the bill. Reminds me of the Shrub War on Terror days, when many a Dem - including luminaries like Diane Feinstein - regularly rolled over and submitted upon the mere mention of "terrorism."

This one will definitely be back in the 119th Congress, and without the supermajority requirement.

ICYMI, it passed the House a week later.

[Stephen Maturin]

It did indeed! Turned out they didn't need to wait for the 119th. It got far fewer than 52 Dem votes then, but still passed comfortably (219-184). It moved on to the Senate in early December, where it sat until the 118th Congress ended. This one will be back for sure.

[viscousmemories]

I am going to beat a dead horse in this post, so if that doesn't interest you scroll now.

The truth is that until a week ago I hadn't read this thread (or really any threads) since my last post in November. Mostly because I didn't think it was worthwhile to spend time defending myself against a dogpile of critics on an internet forum, especially when most were more interested in interrogating and mocking my use of an LLM than respectfully responding to the substance of my comments. But also the whole thing was just incredibly depressing.

I used to enjoy debating contentious topics here--even when they became heated--because I expected a modicum of respect and benefit of the doubt from people even when they strongly disagreed. I'm not so deluded anymore, but for some reason I still feel a need to put a pin in this before I go on with my life.

The post I made that kicked things off was a response to Stephen Maturin suggesting that Ukraine might become "a generations-long guerrilla war" under a Trump admin. I wrote:

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I don't know. I listen to a lot of John Mearsheimer, and he has been saying for at least six months that Ukraine was in a no-win situation and would be better off cutting its losses and giving up the oblasts Russia has already occupied in exchange for peace and a declaration of neutrality. The alternative, he argues, is just prolonging that inevitable outcome but entailing the loss of a lot more people and territory along the way. His logic being that the only way Ukraine can win is if NATO joins in the shooting, and that isn't going to happen because of the nuclear threat.

Unlike me (or anyone else here, as far as I know), John Mearsheimer is widely regarded, globally, as an expert on international relations whose bona fides are impeccable. Plenty of people disagree with his theories and analysis, but never once have I heard (outside this forum) the claim that he is a "stupid fucking idiot" and shouldn't be taken seriously. Not once.

fragment's perfectly reasonable rebuttal to that was:

Originally Posted by fragment

There's no reason for Ukrainians to think Putin will accept and respect for more than a few years any peace deal that gives Russia anything less than de facto control over all of Ukraine.

But here's where things went off the rails, and I posted a reply so egregious and bereft of sense it invited braying ridicule and caused serious concerns about my sanity, intelligence, education, and moral fiber.

Some time previous to this discussion I had learned (via his Substack) that Mearsheimer had established some relationship with a service that uses AI to aggregate his writings, interviews, lectures, etc., enabling people to post queries on a website and get responses that simulate chatting with him directly. The one time I had played with it before it gave me an incorrect response. I immediately noticed the response was incorrect because it was a question I had recently seen him answer differently, but because the app cites its sources I quickly realized it was because it was relying on some comments he had made in late 2023 even though he had changed his stance in early 2024. I went on with my life.

In retrospect I guess people might disagree as to whether paraphrasing someone else's argument counts as making the argument oneself, but from where I was sitting I hadn't made an argument in my original post, I had just paraphrased John Mearsheimer's argument. Yes I found the argument compelling, but as I said I'm not an expert in international relations and he is, so I deferred to paraphrasing him. So when fragment responded, I read it as a rebuttal of Mearsheimer, not me.

So I decided to use mearsheimer.ai to craft a response in the form that Mearsheimer himself would likely respond. This is what I got (and posted):

Originally Posted by mearsheimer.ai

The idea that Putin wants to control all of Ukraine is a misinterpretation of his strategic objectives. Historically, large-scale invasions require massive troop deployments, as seen in Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, which involved 1.5 million troops for a much smaller territory. Putin's deployment of 190,000 troops was insufficient for such an ambitious conquest, suggesting his goals were more limited.

Moreover, shortly after the conflict began, Putin engaged in negotiations with Ukrainian President Zelensky, facilitated by Turkey and Israel, which underscores his interest in resolving the conflict diplomatically rather than through full-scale occupation. These negotiations focused on NATO's presence in Ukraine, which Putin perceives as a direct threat to Russian security. This context highlights that the principal cause of the conflict was NATO expansion, not territorial ambition, and the West's actions played a significant role in escalating tensions.

Yep, that's what I would expect Mearsheimer to say. I know this because I've heard him say it quite recently. So I could have dug through his archives and found him opining on the specific topic, or, it occurred to me, I could use that AI-powered archive of his output to find it for me. I chose to do the latter because in the moment I didn't realize the grave implications it would have.

Originally Posted by fragment

What the hell is Mearsheimer's AI? Since when did you start citing LLMs as credible sources?

Whoa, what? From my point of view I wasn't even making an argument, much less "citing LLMs as credible sources" to support an argument. But even if paraphrasing someone else's argument is tantamount to making an argument, I wasn't citing the tool. I was using it to paraphrase Mearsheimer. This reaction made as much sense to me as someone saying "since when do you cite google as a credible source? Don't you know that sometimes google's results are inaccurate??"

After that the discussion devolved into the aforementioned dogpile of critics, most of whom couldn't (or wouldn't) acknowledge the difference between relying on AI to make arguments and using it as a search engine, or who can't grasp the difference between "maybe the US should be using its leverage to end the war in Ukraine rather than prolong it" from "I am Russian asset want to have Putin's baby".

Is it possible that Mearsheimer's analysis is completely wrong? Of course. Did one single person in this thread post one single citation to any contradictory analysis? No, not one. Not a single one. Just an onslaught of well-poisoning, ad hominem, strawmen, and honestly what appears to be just good ole' fashioned Russophobia. If I missed a citation please bring it to my attention.

All that being said, I'm sorry I ever waded into the topic because I just don't have strong opinions about the war in Ukraine. The only reason I opined in the first place is because I had heard an argument that made sense to me and decided to share it. My focus has been almost entirely on Palestine for the past year plus. It just so happens that one of the people who speaks a lot about Palestine is Mearsheimer, so I pick up his opinions about Ukraine too. In general I don't seek out information about it.



* I even admitted it, although in fairness I didn't realize I was 'admitting' anything. I thought I was just posting an aside about a "pretty handy (if sometimes inaccurate) tool".

[LarsMac]

Wow.
Sorry you got yourself caught up in it.

In short, I think Fragment had it more correct about Ukraine, though.

Mearsheimer must not have been listening when Putin said that Russia will settle for nothing less that returning Ukraine to the Russian Empire where it belongs. (and, every other former satellite of the old USSR should be on their guard, and making as many friends as they can with NATO and the West. - not that I have a lot of faith in NATO after the Donald gets his fingers in the works.)

I think that the Free World as we have long known it is basically F#cked.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I used to enjoy debating contentious topics here--even when they became heated--because I expected a modicum of respect and benefit of the doubt from people even when they strongly disagreed.

I feel like you've adopted a Greenwaldian tendency to attribute bad faith motivations to people who disagree with you, so I'll just note that it goes both ways.

Unlike me (or anyone else here, as far as I know), John Mearsheimer is widely regarded, globally, as an expert on international relations whose bona fides are impeccable. Plenty of people disagree with his theories and analysis, but never once have I heard (outside this forum) the claim that he is a "stupid fucking idiot" and shouldn't be taken seriously. Not once.

This is just an appeal to authority. I mean, really. And the fact that you haven't heard caustic criticism from him elsewhere is probably mostly just a function of the sources you read. And that other IR academics would probably refrain from using phrasing such as "stupid fucking idiot" even if they thought what he's saying is stupid and fucking idiotic. But you certainly can find other IR scholars describing his recent commentary in quite negative ways.

And at any rate, who gives a shit? Unless we're obliged to defer to his expertise, despite the existence of many people with similar credentials who disagree with him. You act like he's the only expert on international relations.

It's also the case that sometimes people who did things worthy of respect earlier in their careers go a bit off the deep end, descending into crankery in later years.

I went over this in the other thread:

Originally Posted by erimir

I understand you find this all very impressive, but you do realize that there are lots and lots of people with doctorates in history and international relations and Slavic studies and so on, right? And you know how many crazy people have doctorates?

Unless your position is that the overwhelming consensus of academic experts agrees with Mearsheimer and Sachs, it really is pretty fucking irrelevant that they're professors with degrees.

I don't really feel like going through the effort at this moment to compile a list of respected professors and experts who disagree with Mearsheimer, but surely you can understand the idea in principle. As just one example that took me one minute, Igor Lukes is a professor of international relations who supports US aid to Ukraine. He has two doctorates. That must mean he's twice as right as Mearsheimer, who only has one.

So if Mearsheimer says one thing, and this other professor says another, it's not enough to go "just agree with the PhD-haver and not with the random anonymous internet poster." You evidently dismiss some experts and not others. Presumably you do so using your own judgment. You'll need to do better than whining that you can't possibly be an idiot if a doctor professor agrees with you.

And so sorry, but for me and others, you're just a random anonymous internet poster who is far from an authority whose selection of the One Authority on International Relations seems suspiciously like "this is a professor who agrees with me, so now I've decided, coincidentally, that he is the Supreme Authority on the topic of international relations."

from where I was sitting I hadn't made an argument in my original post, I had just paraphrased John Mearsheimer's argument. Yes I found the argument compelling, but as I said I'm not an expert in international relations and he is, so I deferred to paraphrasing him. So when fragment responded, I read it as a rebuttal of Mearsheimer, not me.
[...]
Whoa, what? From my point of view I wasn't even making an argument, much less "citing LLMs as credible sources" to support an argument.

You're presenting arguments you find compelling. You're very defensive of Mearsheimer and spend a substantial amount of time singing his praises (Why, he has so many honorary degrees! Nobody else has ever said a nasty word about him, aside from you Russophobes!), and evidently spend so much time following his work that you're aware of special Mearsheimer chatbots. So I don't really buy this suggestion that you're merely reporting someone else's opinions. You're obviously endorsing his views.

You are making an argument, and your argument is basically "John Mearsheimer says this, and you should agree because he is an expert on international relations." The fact that the meat of the argument (what Mearsheimer says) is a second-hand argument doesn't mean that you're not putting it forth.

who can't grasp the difference between "maybe the US should be using its leverage to end the war in Ukraine rather than prolong it" from "I am Russian asset want to have Putin's baby".

As I was saying about respect going both ways.

Is it possible that Mearsheimer's analysis is completely wrong? Of course. Did one single person in this thread post one single citation to any contradictory analysis? No, not one. Not a single one.

People put forth arguments, what is with this apparent total reliance on appeal to authority? fragment made cogent points, does he need to cite an academic in order for it to be worth considering? Or is it like we're going to stack the credentials of the cited academics up next to each other to decide which argument is correct?

If you simply don't have the ability to evaluate any of the arguments on their own merits without a citation to an academic, then I don't know why you insist on discussing it (or other IR topics, such as Israel-Palestine) in the first place! Given the existence of respected IR academics who disagree with Mearsheimer, on what basis do you credit all his views and disregard theirs?

Just an onslaught of well-poisoning, ad hominem, strawmen, and honestly what appears to be just good ole' fashioned Russophobia.

I mean, your argument has basically been appeal to authority with little other substance to it, but I wouldn't mind you explaining how there's no substance to anything fragment or I said on the topic except a series of logical fallacies. It would be more interesting than simply citing Mearsheimer again, or talking about how valid it is to use an AI Mearsheimer again. Spending most of your post on this surface-level shit about the LLM bot and then blasting everyone else's opinions as nothing but a pile of fallacies with literally no supporting argumentation. Then acting like it's everyone else who hasn't put forth any substance.

I also wouldn't mind you addressing the parallels between encouraging Ukraine to simply appease Putin by giving up the Donbas and Crimea (which you evidently think is a good idea, since continuing the conflict just results in more casualties) and encouraging the Palestinians to make peace on very disagreeable terms with land swaps and so on (which you seemingly don't endorse, even though continuing the conflict results in more casualties), since I notice you haven't engaged with that point.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by erimir

I feel like you've adopted a Greenwaldian tendency to attribute bad faith motivations to people who disagree with you, so I'll just note that it goes both ways.

You just poisoned the well by comparing me to Glenn Greenwald while attempting to convince me that you aren't arguing in bad faith. Honestly that is :chefskiss:, thanks.

This is just an appeal to authority. I mean, really. And the fact that you haven't heard caustic criticism from him elsewhere is probably mostly just a function of the sources you read. And that other IR academics would probably refrain from using phrasing such as "stupid fucking idiot" even if they thought what he's saying is stupid and fucking idiotic. But you certainly can find other IR scholars describing his recent commentary in quite negative ways.

And at any rate, who gives a shit? Unless we're obliged to defer to his expertise, despite the existence of many people with similar credentials who disagree with him. You act like he's the only expert on international relations.

Yes, it is an appeal to authority. It is not, however, a fallacious appeal to authority, because John Mearsheimer, whether you like it or not, is an authority on the subject. For an appeal to authority to be fallacious I would have to be citing someone who was not actually an authority on the topic.

But yeah, who gives a shit what some expert says? Some anonymous rando on the internet is telling me in a quite authoritative and condescending tone that there are many people with similar credentials who disagree, but can't be fucked to supply a single one. What more do I need to convince me?

You're presenting arguments you find compelling. You're very defensive of Mearsheimer and spend a substantial amount of time singing his praises (Why, he has so many honorary degrees! Nobody else has ever said a nasty word about him, aside from you Russophobes!), and evidently spend so much time following his work that you're aware of special Mearsheimer chatbots. So I don't really buy this suggestion that you're merely reporting someone else's opinions. You're obviously endorsing his views.

Yes, when I quote an expert on a topic and people start throwing completely unsupported shade on his credentials I am going to point out that he is in fact quite well-respected in his field. That of course doesn't make me a Mearsheimer fanboy, no matter how badly you want that to be true.

And yes, I follow his work so closely I'm aware of a chatbot! It took reading a whole sentence in a newsletter to accomplish that feat, but I somehow managed to find the time.

It was Jeffrey Sachs who has 42 honorary degrees. If you don't have the decency to be ashamed of your condescension at least try to be accurate. And yes, I cited that as evidence that, despite your desperate wish that it wasn't so, Jeffrey Sachs is widely regarded as an expert in his field, and in particular in Russian history and politics. Pointing this out doesn't make me a Sachs fanboy either, again despite what you want so badly to be true. It's just a statement of fact.

You are making an argument, and your argument is basically "John Mearsheimer says this, and you should agree because he is an expert on international relations."

If only my argument was what you decided it was you could quote me saying it!

As I was saying about respect going both ways.

I don't want or need your respect. You lost mine when you referred to people who oppose the genocide in Gaza as "the pro-Palestine crowd".

If you simply don't have the ability to evaluate any of the arguments on their own merits without a citation to an academic, then I don't know why you insist on discussing it [...]

If you are arguing that citing an expert on international relations in a discussion about international relations is some kind of questionable behavior, you are a fool or a troll, and I don't think you're a fool.

surface-level shit about the LLM bot

Like it was my idea to make the use of a fucking LLM the centerpoint of the entire discussion.

I also wouldn't mind you addressing the parallels between encouraging Ukraine to simply appease Putin by giving up the Donbas and Crimea (which you evidently think is a good idea, since continuing the conflict just results in more casualties) and encouraging the Palestinians to make peace on very disagreeable terms with land swaps and so on (which you seemingly don't endorse, even though continuing the conflict results in more casualties), since I notice you haven't engaged with that point.

And this is the icing on this shit cake. "What about Ukraine" in response to any criticism of the genocide in Gaza is the shitlib's (that's you) "all lives matter". To quote Elon Musk: Go. Fuck. Yourself.

[LarsMac]

The modern equivalent of "Fiddling while Rome Fell":
American democracy is in crisis. We have a playbook on how to defend it.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

You just poisoned the well by comparing me to Glenn Greenwald while attempting to convince me that you aren't arguing in bad faith. Honestly that is :chefskiss:, thanks.

I think I've pointed out ways in which you behave this way in the past, and in this thread, and in the linked Ukraine thread. I mean, you're claiming that people are motivated by Russophobia and trolling right in this thread without actually providing any evidence of it - these are examples of you attributing bad faith to people who disagree with you! Right here!

Yes, it is an appeal to authority. It is not, however, a fallacious appeal to authority, because John Mearsheimer, whether you like it or not, is an authority on the subject. For an appeal to authority to be fallacious I would have to be citing someone who was not actually an authority on the topic.

It would be less so if you were actually doing much work around the appeal to his authority. Why does appealing to his authority counter fragment's argument that there's no reason for Ukraine to expect Putin to be satisfied by only getting the Donbas and Crimea?

What exactly was your argument for why Putin would stop in that scenario? Well, Mearsheimer doesn't think so. Oh ok then.

An appeal to authority is fine when we're talking about something sufficiently esoteric and one in which there is universal/near universal consensus among authorities, I don't think either of those hold here.

But yeah, who gives a shit what some expert says? Some anonymous rando on the internet is telling me in a quite authoritative and condescending tone that there are many people with similar credentials who disagree, but can't be fucked to supply a single one. What more do I need to convince me?

My point is that even if I find a bunch of authorities, it wouldn't prove anything!

Like, you're saying "Oh yeah, so I'm doing an appeal to authority? Well why don't YOU appeal to authority?!"

But to just point out how you apparently fail to fucking read, please direct your attention to this part of the post you're replying to right now:

Originally Posted by the post you're replying to, immediately prior to this dumb point

I went over this in the other thread:

For more detail, Igor Lukes is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University who specializes in Central Europe and Russia.

Now, I could find you some others, such as Dan Drezner (of IR at Tufts) or Paul Poast (of IR, one of Mearsheimer's UChicago colleagues). But would that convince you? I'm guessing the chances are basically nil anyhow. You wouldn't change your mind on the basis of their authority anyway.

As I was saying, given that there are people who could reasonably be called authorities on both sides, you'll need something aside from credentials to decide who is right!

That of course doesn't make me a Mearsheimer fanboy, no matter how badly you want that to be true.

We're quibbling over semantics of what counts as a "fanboy" but I would describe you as a fan of Mearsheimer's work, yes. Not sure why you're taking issue with that. Are you not?

And yes, I follow his work so closely I'm aware of a chatbot! It took reading a whole sentence in a newsletter to accomplish that feat, but I somehow managed to find the time.

In what newsletter? Why did you read it? How much did you read it before you got to that line?

You can describe all sorts of things as requiring reading only a line. Why, yes, I did know that Thorin Oakenshield's father was the grandson of Thror, King Under the Mountain, but all it required was reading a couple sentences in The Lord of the Rings, so don't accuse me of being a FAN of Tolkien. Well, when you put it that way, anything can sound trivial.

But whatever, that's not the point.

It was Jeffrey Sachs who has 42 honorary degrees. If you don't have the decency to be ashamed of your condescension at least try to be accurate.

lol this is especially funny given the above.

And yes, I cited that as evidence that, despite your desperate wish that it wasn't so, Jeffrey Sachs is widely regarded as an expert in his field, and in particular in Russian history and politics. Pointing this out doesn't make me a Sachs fanboy either, again despite what you want so badly to be true. It's just a statement of fact.

It doesn't matter whether it's Sachs or Mearsheimer, because my whole point was that these things are not evidence.

If only my argument was what you decided it was you could quote me saying it!

I realize this is about Sachs, but tbh it was too perfect for me to feel it's worth it to go searching for a similar statement about Mearsheimer... but what, exactly, would you say is unfair about paraphrasing this:

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I don't mean to question your expertise on international relations, random anonymous internet poster, but people with insanely impressive credentials (like this stupid fucking idiot who only has 42 honorary doctorates) have a different opinion about what would be best for the Ukrainian people, and I find it compelling.

as "Jeffrey Sachs says this, and you should agree because he is an expert on international relations."?

Yes, you also said you find it compelling. But you didn't lay out the reasoning and why you find it compelling. You laid out his credentials. You are, in this very post I'm replying to, saying, yes, it's an appeal to authority, then defending the validity of an appeal to authority, and then getting mad that I paraphrased your argument as an appeal to authority!

I don't want or need your respect. You lost mine when you referred to people who oppose the genocide in Gaza as "the pro-Palestine crowd".

"The pro-Palestine crowd" is what you regard as so derogatory? I'm describing them as being on one side of a conflict to group them together more generally (I understand there are quite a few gradations in terms of pro-Palestine positions people take). Being on a side in a conflict doesn't inherently make them wrong, it's just a way of referring to them generally, and a fairly neutral one. Is it the word "crowd" rather than "activists"? I was trying to include people I wouldn't call activists per se. And not imply that they're all organized under one umbrella, because they're not.

If you are arguing that citing an expert on international relations in a discussion about international relations is some kind of questionable behavior, you are a fool or a troll, and I don't think you're a fool.

So what were you saying about it being unfair to describe this as Greenwaldian accusations of bad faith?

And you were complaining about straw men. Now, I'm not going to accuse you of bad faith, because I don't know if you are intentionally giving a straw man, or simply didn't understand my arguments (perhaps, because, as established above, you didn't actually read everything I wrote). My argument is not that it's invalid to cite experts on international relations. My argument is that you should be able to engage in discussion beyond merely citing authorities and have the ability to engage and describe their arguments and you should not dismiss a counterargument simply because it does not come with a fucking citation.

Like it was my idea to make the use of a fucking LLM the centerpoint of the entire discussion.

It wasn't my idea to make it the "centerpoint" either. People mocked you and you got very about it. It's you bringing it up at this point.

And this is the icing on this shit cake. "What about Ukraine" in response to any criticism of the genocide in Gaza is the shitlib's (that's you) "all lives matter". To quote Elon Musk: Go. Fuck. Yourself.

I believe the topic of the discussion right now is Ukraine, not Gaza. So if I'm engaged in whataboutism here, then what I'm actually doing here is "what about Palestine?" not "What about Ukraine?"

And the easy response to this is to just be consistent (the way one could be, you know, critical of the Soviets and critical of Jim Crow). There are plenty of people who, unlike you and Mearsheimer, think that what Israel is doing in Palestine is wrong and Palestinians should resist and be supported without turning around and arguing that what Ukraine should do is lay down their arms and appease Putin. You're acting like this is an argument for Palestinians to get fucked, but it's actually more the opposite. I'm asking why you think the Ukrainians should accept something you'd never ask the Palestinians to accept. It's true that I think the Palestinians probably should settle for less than you would say they should, but I wouldn't argue that, for example, they should achieve a peace which consists of simply ceding territory to Israel, agreeing not to engage in any activities which would make them capable of resisting future incursions from Israel nor would I trivialize the notion of Netanyahu handpicking the Palestinian leader with a sarcastic "god forbid"

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Oh my god, regime change? Well then by all means, load more Ukrainians up with arms and send them into the grinder. God forbid the regime changes (into a regime the US didn't hand-pick, of course).

You see, I would find it entirely understandable that Palestinians would reject a peace deal which requires them to allow Israel to choose their leaders, even if I think they would be better off being willing to give up some territory/do some land swaps.

But I'm asking about consistency here. You're saying Mearsheimer's views on Ukraine are persuasive to you. I'm asking why those arguments don't apply to Palestine. There can be differences that make the situations sufficiently different to explain why the Ukrainians should just give up, but the Palestinians should not. I will say I don't really see what those would be. If the principles behind Mearsheimer's views don't apply in Palestine, why do they apply in Ukraine?

If I were going to attribute a bit of bad faith, I would say that I suspect the "go fuck yourself" here is mostly because you don't have any way to defend the inconsistency. Because if you did, demonstrating how wrong I am would be a better "go fuck yourself" than saying "go fuck yourself". Certainly, it is more satisfying in my book. But I will instead just note that this is not the first time you've responded to an argument with indignation rather than substance. It does seem "go fuck yourself" is the best you've got here.

[davidm]

The appeal to authority fallacy occurs when one says x is true just because some authority about the topic says x is true. Not sure if either of you are doing that here, but just sayin’. It’s perfectly OK to appeal to an authority’s argument.

[viscousmemories]

As I was saying, given that there are people who could reasonably be called authorities on both sides, you'll need something aside from credentials to decide who is right!

I only brought up Sachs and Mearsheimer's credentials in response to (really profoundly ignorant) claims that they are "stupid fucking idiots". I never once said they are right because they are credentialed.

Maybe you think it's reasonable to call a distinguished professor with a laundry list of publications and honoraries and accolades a stupid fucking idiot and dismiss what they say because their politics don't align with yours, but that's not how I measure someone's competence.

arguing that what Ukraine should do is lay down their arms and appease Putin

This is one of the strawmen I've read over and over that has no relationship to anything I wrote.

It wasn't my idea to make [using an LLM] the "centerpoint" either. People mocked you and you got very about it. It's you bringing it up at this point.

This is the most ironic part of this whole exchange. As you cleverly noted I didn't address any of the original arguments in my long post on Saturday. That's because the purpose of that post was that I felt I owed some kind of explanation for why I had dropped the conversation, and the reason was that being the target of a dogpile full of mockery, uncharitable interpretations, and misrepresentations is so frustrating and exhausting that I didn't want to come around here for two months. If I thought we could have the debate without that happening again I'd be all for it. So far the jury is still out.

"The pro-Palestine crowd" is what you regard as so derogatory?

Imagine describing people who support equal rights for homosexuals as the "pro-gay crowd". Maybe that doesn't sound bad to you, but it sounds gross to me.

You're saying Mearsheimer's views on Ukraine are persuasive to you. I'm asking why those arguments don't apply to Palestine.

My answer is that they are dramatically different situations. An occupying power with total air, land, and sea domination over a region relentlessly bombing it, assassinating doctors, journalists, teachers, women and children, and destroying hospitals, mosques, museums, etc. versus two independent nation-states with powerful militaries at war with each other are different to the point that comparison is ludicrous.

As an aside I feel a bit dirty for using the term 'shitlibs' (which I have never uttered before), but I have noticed that a lot of "liberals" like to grandstand in their support of Ukraine so they can virtue signal support for human rights and opposition to tyranny without having to talk about the genocide in Gaza, especially in the run-up to the election, because the latter quite baldly implicated the Blue Team. Maybe that was an unfair interpretation of your motives but I don't know.

[erimir]

Right. The problem is that vm is basically dismissing arguments made by others (critiquing his favored authority) on the basis that they aren't citing authorities and doesn't seem very interested or willing to delve into it beyond the appeal to authority.

Originally Posted by erimir

My argument is not that it's invalid to cite experts on international relations. My argument is that you should be able to engage in discussion beyond merely citing authorities and have the ability to engage and describe their arguments and you should not dismiss a counterargument simply because it does not come with a fucking citation.

When it is pointed out that engaging with Russia diplomatically and providing military support to Ukraine are not contradictory (in fact, the military support for Ukraine may give Russia more incentive to come to the table, as making further gains will appear unlikely, or they might even have their position worsen), vm's response is to just cite Sachs's 42 honorary degrees and dismiss the argument as coming from an internet rando. No engagement with the point made and acts like we mere mortals cannot even contemplate such claims without professorships in international relations. Well, as I pointed out,

That's more of what I take issue with.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I only brought up Sachs and Mearsheimer's credentials in response to (really profoundly ignorant) claims that they are "stupid fucking idiots". I never once said they are right because they are credentialed.

I pointed out that exchange you had with itsme:

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I don't mean to question your expertise on international relations, random anonymous internet poster, but people with insanely impressive credentials (like this stupid fucking idiot who only has 42 honorary doctorates) have a different opinion about what would be best for the Ukrainian people, and I find it compelling.

Which does seem to be generally an appeal to his credentials.

Maybe you think it's reasonable to call a distinguished professor with a laundry list of publications and honoraries and accolades a stupid fucking idiot and dismiss what they say because their politics don't align with yours, but that's not how I measure someone's competence.

I rather doubt we couldn't find a case of you doing so, but whatever.

I think you're also to some degree overinterpreting what was said. Saying that Mearsheimer's opinion on this matter is idiotic doesn't mean that the person is just generically an idiot. It might be someone has phrased that as "Mearsheimer is an idiot" but I'm guessing if pressed seebs would not say that the totality of everything Mearsheimer has ever done in IR is idiocy. Maybe I'm wrong.

This is one of the strawmen I've read over and over that has no relationship to anything I wrote.

You're arguing the US should cease military support. So, I guess it's more like the US should lay down Ukraine's arms instead.

The point is that Ukraine should have a weaker military in order to achieve a better outcome diplomatically. Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, to me.

Imagine describing people who support equal rights for homosexuals as the "pro-gay crowd". Maybe that doesn't sound bad to you, but it sounds gross to me.

Well, to be honest, I think that the pro-Palestine crowd encompasses a lot more than just people who want equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis. In fact, there are a number of factions who I would describe as "pro-Palestine" who explicitly do not want that.

So, sorry, but I don't think that there's anything equivalent to Hamas amongst the gay rights movement.

I don't know exactly what post you're referring to and a search of "pro-Palestine crowd" or "Palestine crowd" don't bring up any posts of that phrase or a similar phrase other than this discussion.

My answer is that they are dramatically different situations. An occupying power with total air, land, and sea domination over a region relentlessly bombing it, assassinating doctors, journalists, teachers, women and children, and destroying hospitals, mosques, museums, etc. versus two independent nation-states with powerful militaries at war with each other are different to the point that comparison is ludicrous.

I don't see how offensive realism applies in one and not the other based on this. I also don't think that some of those things there would be differences in kind, but rather degree. Russia has done a number of those things to Ukraine, and other different but also horrible things (such as kidnapping Ukrainian children). We also know that it's possible that things are happening in areas controlled by Russia that we won't find out about until later.

But sure, they are obviously quite different situations. But I don't see anything in your description that explains why the reasoning doesn't apply to Israel.

Israel might not be a "Great Power" but it is a regional power. Why do you say it's NATO's fault for antagonizing Russia, but results since October 7 are not Iran's fault for funding Hamas and Hezbollah and not merely antagonizing but attacking Israel, for example?

Would you see Israel wanting some level of control over Palestine's foreign policy and military capabilities as equally valid to Russia wanting the same over Ukraine?

Why is it apparently unobjectionable for Putin to depose the leader of Ukraine (no worse than the current situation, in your mind, it seems)? Would you apply the same reasoning to Netanyahu deposing the Hamas government of Gaza (which, after all, hasn't even held elections in almost 20 years and can hardly be called a legitimate government)?

I don't see why Israel's more brutal actions make this reasoning less applicable - if anything, it seems to me that it would make it more applicable, not less.

Why wouldn't there be an argument that, essentially, as support for Ukraine gives them false hope of victory, and prolongs the war, various actors support of Palestine/Hamas gives the Palestinians false hope of victory? And the consequences in casualties, being even worse on a per capita basis, make it even more imperative to force them into a diplomatic solution that is far from their ideal?

I see a bunch of arguments focusing on how wrong Israel's actions are, but the wrongness of Russia's actions is not your focus in saying why Ukraine should accept essentially a Russian victory. You even seem to see it as beside the point (yes, Russia is behaving badly, but that's how things are, not how we want them to be). So why don't you encourage the Palestinians to accept essentially that Israel has won and cut their losses to prevent things from getting worse?

Why are the situations different with regards to those questions? How does Israel bombing mosques and hospitals make this "realism" apply less?

If Russia had taken and held Kyiv for the last 3 years and done even more damage to the Ukrainian people, would you be saying it's even more important to provide military support to them? If instead of 40k some civilian deaths, it were some 20x larger to be more equivalent to the per capita death toll in Gaza (nearing a million civilian deaths), you're saying that the arguments you've been making for why Ukraine should cut their losses would apply less? That would seem to be the implication.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by erimir

The problem is that vm is basically dismissing arguments made by others (critiquing his favored authority) on the basis that they aren't citing authorities and doesn't seem very interested or willing to delve into it beyond the appeal to authority.

This is a really great example of why these discussions are so frustrating and exhausting, to the point where it seems almost certain that you are trolling. I have already explained why nothing I wrote can be reasonably assessed as a fallacious appeal to authority, yet rather than just admit you misused the term you are now doubling and tripling down on the accusation, molding its definition to fit your use case.

When it is pointed out that engaging with Russia diplomatically and providing military support to Ukraine are not contradictory [...]

I already explained why I didn't engage the substance of some of the arguments (refresher: looking for actual arguments was like trying to find a needle in a mountain of dogshit) but I'll respond now.

No shit. However, as I pointed out before the issue isn't that it is impossible to use diplomacy and force simultaenously, but that NATO (dominated by the US, though that seems lost on some here) has explicitly rejected diplomacy since the very start of the war in favor of encouraging and supporting a continuously escalating armed conflict that, it seems, is destined to end badly for Ukraine.

Saying that Mearsheimer's opinion on this matter is idiotic doesn't mean that the person is just generically an idiot.

I really can't be fucked to go back through the whole thread on this point, but whether it was said explicitly or not the clear implication from multiple people was that Mearsheimer and Sachs are ignorant crackpots and anyone who cites them is a deluded fool. Somehow I found that offensive.

You're arguing the US should cease military support. So, I guess it's more like the US should lay down Ukraine's arms instead.

The point is that Ukraine should have a weaker military in order to achieve a better outcome diplomatically. Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, to me.

I know you believe that the US is just a benevolent mentor who only does what is best for the Ukrainians, per the Ukrainians, but in the world I inhabit the US actually has strategic interests of its own that it will pursue at any cost to Ukrainian lives. That's why the US and NATO scuttled the peace negotiations in Turkey at the start of the war, and why they want to keep funneling weapons to Ukraine despite analysis (now growing in the mainstream) that suggests doing so is only prolonging the misery for Ukraine.

Well, to be honest, I think that the pro-Palestine crowd encompasses a lot more than just people who want equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis. In fact, there are a number of factions who I would describe as "pro-Palestine" who explicitly do not want that.

So, sorry, but I don't think that there's anything equivalent to Hamas amongst the gay rights movement.

You wrote:

Originally Posted by erimir

I don't know why it seems to be accepted among certain pro-Palestine crowds that 40k-some deaths is the maximum bad things can get.

In context it was obvious you were referring to people, like myself, who were expressing very legitimate concerns about the Biden administration's unequivocal support for Israel's genocide in Gaza, and using that reductive phrasing to dismiss them (us) as irrational. You seem to think "pro-Palestine" is just some isolated political issue a certain small segment of the population is unreasonably attached to, and not what it actually is: shorthand for anti-genocide, anti-ethnic cleansing, pro-human rights.

I don't see how offensive realism applies in one and not the other based on this. I also don't think that some of those things there would be differences in kind, but rather degree. Russia has done a number of those things to Ukraine, and other different but also horrible things (such as kidnapping Ukrainian children). We also know that it's possible that things are happening in areas controlled by Russia that we won't find out about until later.

But sure, they are obviously quite different situations. But I don't see anything in your description that explains why the reasoning doesn't apply to Israel.

Israel might not be a "Great Power" but it is a regional power. Why do you say it's NATO's fault for antagonizing Russia, but results since October 7 are not Iran's fault for funding Hamas and Hezbollah and not merely antagonizing but attacking Israel, for example?

Would you see Israel wanting some level of control over Palestine's foreign policy and military capabilities as equally valid to Russia wanting the same over Ukraine?

This whole section is a wlld ride, I honestly can't follow it. I think the answer is that offensive realism is a theory about how nation-states interact, and what is happening in Palestine is that one nation-state, Israel, is commiting genocide against a group of people who it occupies.

Why is it apparently unobjectionable for Putin to depose the leader of Ukraine (no worse than the current situation, in your mind, it seems)? Would you apply the same reasoning to Netanyahu deposing the Hamas government of Gaza (which, after all, hasn't even held elections in almost 20 years and can hardly be called a legitimate government)?

I didn't mock the idea of regime change because it's "unobjectionable", but because the idea of the US clutching its pearls over something it has done countless times all over the world forever was absurd.

Why wouldn't there be an argument that, essentially, as support for Ukraine gives them false hope of victory, and prolongs the war, various actors support of Palestine/Hamas gives the Palestinians false hope of victory?

I never said (and wouldn't say) that the issue with supplying weapons to Ukraine is that doing so "gives them false hope of victory", but yes it undeniably prolongs the war, especially accompanied (as it is) by a total lack of any diplomatic efforts. The only near comparison is the US continuing to supply weapons to Israel to commit genocide (another $8 billion of which Biden sent on his way out) which I also oppose.

I see a bunch of arguments focusing on how wrong Israel's actions are, but the wrongness of Russia's actions is not your focus in saying why Ukraine should accept essentially a Russian victory.

It is beyond absurd to suggest that Ukraine shouldn't "accept essentially a Russian victory" if the facts on the ground are (as they seem to be) that the end result is likely to be essentially a Russian victory. You (and US/NATO, apparently) seem to think every last Ukrainian dying in war and the loss of all their territory is preferable to "letting Russia win". My point all along has been that nobody needs to "let Russia win". If "winning" means taking (and holding) the four oblasts Russia is currently occupying it seems like they are going to win. The question is how many more people have to die and how much more land will Ukraine have to give up before that apparently inevitable outcome materializes.

You even seem to see it as beside the point (yes, Russia is behaving badly, but that's how things are, not how we want them to be). So why don't you encourage the Palestinians to accept essentially that Israel has won and cut their losses to prevent things from getting worse?

Again, this is just an insanely inapt comparison. The Palestinians have been struggling for a ceasefire since the beginning, and it has been repeatedly scuttled by the US and Israel. Most Palestinians would undoubtedly be thrilled to find a diplomatic resolution. They would not (and should not) reject one in favor of fighting until the death against unbeatable odds. That would just be stupid.

If Russia had taken and held Kyiv for the last 3 years and done even more damage to the Ukrainian people, would you be saying it's even more important to provide military support to them?

Counterfactuals are wild. I have no idea what I would be saying in this alternate timeline.

If instead of 40k some civilian deaths, it were some 20x larger to be more equivalent to the per capita death toll in Gaza (nearing a million civilian deaths), you're saying that the arguments you've been making for why Ukraine should cut their losses would apply less? That would seem to be the implication.

The biggest reason the comparison between Ukraine and Palestine is irredeemably batshit is that "cutting their losses" in Ukraine amounts to giving up some territory, and in Palestine it would mean accepting the complete annhiliation of an entire nation of people. Despite what I have read on this forum, the latter is not in the cards for the Ukrainians. Not now, at least. Yes I can hear the objection that it might happen in the future, but anything might happen in the future. The idea that Ukraine fighting to the last Ukrainian now somehow makes it less likely that Russia will try to take more of it in the future is beyond unconvincing.

[LarsMac]

So what does any of this have to do with "The Greatest Country in the world "hiring arguable the Stupidest mealy-mouthed money-grubbing shitbird to run the nation?

Just askin'