mikedilger on Nostr: Interesting. So I think we are getting closer to the crux of the things I want to ...
Interesting. So I think we are getting closer to the crux of the things I want to notice.
On a moral basis I find rape and torture and roasting babies alive to be very wrong, I find it inexcusable despite any history, and I find it inexcusable even if they might have some alternate moral code that excuses it, because we are the actors here and we choose not to excuse it (you may see this point differently and instead call something "absolute", but functionally we end up in the same place). So on these points I think we agree.
As to what Hamas did on that day I think there is a lot of misinformation and I don't just reflexively believe a claim until I see stronger evidence. For example, if one side says Hamas roasted babies alive, and the other side denies it, and there is no video or photo evidence, I'm leaning towards "it didn't happen." Where both sides agree, I lean towards "it did happen". And where there is strong video/photo evidence, I lean towards what that implies. With AI this is going to get much much messier. The roasted-baby picture was tagged as AI generated, then untagged as such - we don't really know if it was AI generated or not. Nonetheless it doesn't prove Hamas did the roasting or even that that picture came from a recent event. I don't take any offense to being corrected on the facts, but I also don't just accept what someone tells me happened actually happened. But it is ok - I can work with a superposition of possibilities in my head, and we can debate as though it did happen, without me being sure.
But that was not the part where I think we are getting closer to the crux.
What you have laid out is an argument that 'extential threats require extential responses' and that this is 'rational'. You didn't couch that in morality but you could have, but I'm glad you didn't because it simplifies the discussion.
I see it as moral versus strategic. Sometimes groups of people discard morals and act instead in their strategic interest. It is in Israel's strategic interest to eliminate a threat to them, despite the moral issue that innocent people are going to die as a consequence.
So my point is that Hamas engaging in terrorism does that same thing. All the moral opprobrum brought about in accusation against Hamas may be justified, but it misses the point that strategically Hamas has no other card to play. Strategically their hope is to enrage Israel to such a degree that they react disproportionately and perhaps even invade Gaza, triggering a wider war that engages Islamic Arabs in neighboring states who otherwise have not been getting involved. And under a "trolley problem" ethos, one can perversely twist this into being moral in the long term if it leads to the Palestinians becoming free, even though it involved moral violations.
I do not claim it is moral. I am not defending terrorism. I think all these twistings of morality are just games people play to manipulate each other. Hell, I don't even believe in absolute morality, so I don't even believe there is any standard upon which to judge such twistings. But recall that such twistings are made of other events, of Hiroshima, of Dresden, that in a wider trolley-problem ethos they were moral. The problem is that such a twisting can be made out of anything.
Long-term strategy often is the primary motivator, and moral explanations are usually the tool for influencing people after the fact.
On a moral basis I find rape and torture and roasting babies alive to be very wrong, I find it inexcusable despite any history, and I find it inexcusable even if they might have some alternate moral code that excuses it, because we are the actors here and we choose not to excuse it (you may see this point differently and instead call something "absolute", but functionally we end up in the same place). So on these points I think we agree.
As to what Hamas did on that day I think there is a lot of misinformation and I don't just reflexively believe a claim until I see stronger evidence. For example, if one side says Hamas roasted babies alive, and the other side denies it, and there is no video or photo evidence, I'm leaning towards "it didn't happen." Where both sides agree, I lean towards "it did happen". And where there is strong video/photo evidence, I lean towards what that implies. With AI this is going to get much much messier. The roasted-baby picture was tagged as AI generated, then untagged as such - we don't really know if it was AI generated or not. Nonetheless it doesn't prove Hamas did the roasting or even that that picture came from a recent event. I don't take any offense to being corrected on the facts, but I also don't just accept what someone tells me happened actually happened. But it is ok - I can work with a superposition of possibilities in my head, and we can debate as though it did happen, without me being sure.
But that was not the part where I think we are getting closer to the crux.
What you have laid out is an argument that 'extential threats require extential responses' and that this is 'rational'. You didn't couch that in morality but you could have, but I'm glad you didn't because it simplifies the discussion.
I see it as moral versus strategic. Sometimes groups of people discard morals and act instead in their strategic interest. It is in Israel's strategic interest to eliminate a threat to them, despite the moral issue that innocent people are going to die as a consequence.
So my point is that Hamas engaging in terrorism does that same thing. All the moral opprobrum brought about in accusation against Hamas may be justified, but it misses the point that strategically Hamas has no other card to play. Strategically their hope is to enrage Israel to such a degree that they react disproportionately and perhaps even invade Gaza, triggering a wider war that engages Islamic Arabs in neighboring states who otherwise have not been getting involved. And under a "trolley problem" ethos, one can perversely twist this into being moral in the long term if it leads to the Palestinians becoming free, even though it involved moral violations.
I do not claim it is moral. I am not defending terrorism. I think all these twistings of morality are just games people play to manipulate each other. Hell, I don't even believe in absolute morality, so I don't even believe there is any standard upon which to judge such twistings. But recall that such twistings are made of other events, of Hiroshima, of Dresden, that in a wider trolley-problem ethos they were moral. The problem is that such a twisting can be made out of anything.
Long-term strategy often is the primary motivator, and moral explanations are usually the tool for influencing people after the fact.