That was the point. That some of assertions are obviously unproblematic.
While many of the assertions are arguably problematic, none of them seem unreasonable, or even weakly supported.
Could you nominate one of the assertions as unreasonable, or weakly supported. Choose one as an obvious deal breaker, something that a reasonable person should obviously reject.
I’m not interested in joining the debate about the assertions. I only object to Constant’s use of an unfair rhetorical trick; namely, interpreting the interlocutor in a way such that (s)he sounds silly. That some assertions in a paragraph of text are obviously unproblematic is hardly worth pointing out. It would be very difficult to write a longer stretch of text consisting purely of dubious statements.
For illustration, consider this fictitious dialogue (edited to give a better example):
A: The proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem is incorrect. That’s as obvious as that two plus two is four.
B: That sounds overconfident and is probably false.
C: It would help to pinpoint one particular false claim. Do you for example disagree that two plus two is equal to four?
C’s reaction is an unfair distraction although it’s not obvious that A’s assertion is wrong. If C isn’t an idiot he must see that B’s objection is directed towards the claim that the proof is faulty, not against the fact that 2+2=4.
I only object to Constant’s use of an unfair rhetorical trick; namely, interpreting the interlocutor in a way such that (s)he sounds silly.
Actually, you took my words out of context and in effect are spreading falsehoods about what I was saying. The immediately preceding and following sentences are absolutely critical for understanding my argument. By extracting just the one sentence, you falsely make it seem as though I am uncharitably interpreting the interlocutor, and not only do you falsely make it seem this way, you explicitly state this interpretation.
OK. I believe it was not your intention to uncharitably interpret your opponent. Still, I think a reasonable interpretation of Mercy’s comment is that he’s objecting to all other assertions except the one about non-existence of Franco’s dictatorship and existence of Israel and the reason why he didn’t remove this clearly correct claim was simply because it was located in the middle of the quote. Therefore I still consider your choice of example distracting, but since it wasn’t intentional, I retract my downvote.
not only do you falsely make it seem this way, you explicitly state this interpretation
I prefer stating my opinions explicitly to making something seem that way.
Still, I think a reasonable interpretation of Mercy’s comment is that he’s objecting to all other assertions except the one about non-existence of Franco’s dictatorship and existence of Israel
I think that your interpretation of Mercy would be both wrong and uncharitable to Mercy because there are other plainly true and easily verifiable assertions in that comment.
I was not satisfied with making a reasonable interpretation which might nevertheless be false, because I wanted to know what Mercy actually was objecting to. I didn’t want to have to guess.
My comment was in fact no interpretation at all but a request for clarification. It was obviously that. Mercy understood it as that sam0345 understood it as that and explained this to you.
The real question is whether I should have made a reasonable but possibly false interpretation, or whether I should have requested clarification.
Now in my opinion Mencius Moldbug’s passage is itself reasonable from beginning to end. In my view, the real difference between the different parts of it is not that some are true and others false, but that some are easy to check and others are hard to check for a variety of reasons, one of which is that most people have such a superficial understanding of alliances and conflict that they would not know how to even begin to check to see whether there was an alliance or a conflict. Take for example North Korea. Everyone in North Korea loudly sings the praises of the great leader. Superficially, it looks like they all love him. Ie, it looks like an alliance. But I think many Americans by now are savvy enough to realize that the reason they praise the great leader so loudly is that they are all terrified of the state. So, not an alliance at all, but enslavement.
Well, North Korea is a pretty obvious example, which is why I picked it just now. However, there are, I think, other less obvious examples.
Now, since I think that Moldbug’s quote is reasonable from beginning to end, I would like to know what part of it Mercy objects to, and it’s not obvious to me which part that is because I am not a psychic. In order to illustrate that not all of the quote is false I picked one part of it that is not false. But from my point if view, none of the quote is obviously false. What part, then, to pick? I picked the part that was easiest to check as my illustration. Not, mind you, the truest part, since I think it all could be true.
Whatever your opinion about Moldbug is, and even if you are not a psychic, you had to suppose that Mercy is not disputing that Israel exists. The question
Is it your contention that Franquista Spain has survived to this day, or that Israel has not survived?
was rhetorical, and rhetorical questions are problematic tools in a rational debate. It could be understood as a mere example of a true (albeit trivial) statement in the quoted text, it could also be understood as an indirect claim that your opponent doesn’t know that Israel still exists. In political debates question of form “do you say that [something obviously false]” are much more often used as indirect accusations than for other purposes, which was why I have interpreted it as such. Since you say that was not your intention I believe you. But still your reply, if it was meant as a request for clarification, would be much better without the whole second paragraph.
you had to suppose that Mercy is not disputing that Israel exists.
That would have been careless. I was asking for clarification. It would have been needless and careless to make and incorporate assumptions about what Mercy was saying, into my very request for clarification.
But still your reply, if it was meant as a request for clarification, would be much better without the whole second paragraph.
The whole second paragraph was fine. It was only the single sentence taken out of context that became ambiguous. You’re the one who did that.
Assuming that your debate partner knows such an elementary fact as that Israel exists isn’t careless, it’s what charitable interpretation is supposed to be based on.
These are not mutually exclusive. It is indeed charitable, but one should make assumptions, even charitable ones, only when they are necessary to proceed. And it was hardly necessary to assume what the person was saying in my very request for clarification, since the point of the clarification was to obviate the need to make any such assumptions.
It’s hardly ever necessary to make assumptions; one can always proceed with literal interpretation of what has been said. But one shouldn’t. We have probably different preferences as for debating style.
So which of these six assertions do you suggest is obviously unreasonable.
Note that 6 is not a position taken by Mencius, but rather an uncharitable inference, you are arguing that if what Mencius says is true, then the Palestine lobby is much stronger than the Israeli lobby, which obviously it is not.
What Mencius says is that there is no Palestinian lobby, because the Palestinian lobby is Harvard and the State department, which is indeed much stronger than Israeli lobby.
Now proposition six is not a position of Mencius, but your refutation of Mencius.
Consider: The PLO lives off aid to Palestinians. Aid to Palestinians is provided by “The international community”, which is in practice pretty much the State Department, Havard, and their NGO proxies. If we assume that he who pays the piper calls the tune, then the various US peace initiatives are best understood as various US presidents trying unsuccessfully to get the State Department to accept the existence of Israel as permanent and unchanging reality, that cannot and should not be changed, however sad, regrettable and unfortunate that reality might be, that the various US presidents were not so much unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a peace between Israel and the Arabs, nor even between Judaism and Islam, but between the Pentagon and the State Department.
So which of these six assertions do you suggest is obviously unreasonable.
That’s a question for Mercy, but it can be that (s)he finds unreasonable all except the fifth. No.5 is the only obviously reasonable one.
Note that 6 is not a position taken by Mencius, but rather an uncharitable inference, you are arguing that if what Mencius says is true, then the Palestine lobby is much stronger than the Israeli lobby, which obviously it is not.
I have paraphrased that for brevity. Still can’t think about meaning of “A is a piece of dental floss compared to the arm-thick steel cable that is B” significantly different from “A is much weaker than B”.
Downvoted for uncharitable interpretation. The citation includes at least six assertions
The pretend enemies are actually best defined as partial clients.
[The enemies’] friendship is only with one side of the American political system.
If their “anti-Americanism” actually reaches the level of military combat, the war is a limited war and essentially a civil one.
Right enemies include: [list of countries].
[These countries except one] don’t exist anymore.
[T]he “Israel lobby” is [much weaker than] the Palestine lobby.
and you selected the only unproblematic one for illustration.
That was the point. That some of assertions are obviously unproblematic.
While many of the assertions are arguably problematic, none of them seem unreasonable, or even weakly supported.
Could you nominate one of the assertions as unreasonable, or weakly supported. Choose one as an obvious deal breaker, something that a reasonable person should obviously reject.
I’m not interested in joining the debate about the assertions. I only object to Constant’s use of an unfair rhetorical trick; namely, interpreting the interlocutor in a way such that (s)he sounds silly. That some assertions in a paragraph of text are obviously unproblematic is hardly worth pointing out. It would be very difficult to write a longer stretch of text consisting purely of dubious statements.
For illustration, consider this fictitious dialogue (edited to give a better example):
C’s reaction is an unfair distraction although it’s not obvious that A’s assertion is wrong. If C isn’t an idiot he must see that B’s objection is directed towards the claim that the proof is faulty, not against the fact that 2+2=4.
In your fictitious example, it is obvious what A is objecting to
In the actual discussion in question, it is not at all obvious what you and Mercy are objecting to.
Actually, you took my words out of context and in effect are spreading falsehoods about what I was saying. The immediately preceding and following sentences are absolutely critical for understanding my argument. By extracting just the one sentence, you falsely make it seem as though I am uncharitably interpreting the interlocutor, and not only do you falsely make it seem this way, you explicitly state this interpretation.
OK. I believe it was not your intention to uncharitably interpret your opponent. Still, I think a reasonable interpretation of Mercy’s comment is that he’s objecting to all other assertions except the one about non-existence of Franco’s dictatorship and existence of Israel and the reason why he didn’t remove this clearly correct claim was simply because it was located in the middle of the quote. Therefore I still consider your choice of example distracting, but since it wasn’t intentional, I retract my downvote.
I prefer stating my opinions explicitly to making something seem that way.
I think that your interpretation of Mercy would be both wrong and uncharitable to Mercy because there are other plainly true and easily verifiable assertions in that comment.
I was not satisfied with making a reasonable interpretation which might nevertheless be false, because I wanted to know what Mercy actually was objecting to. I didn’t want to have to guess.
My comment was in fact no interpretation at all but a request for clarification. It was obviously that. Mercy understood it as that sam0345 understood it as that and explained this to you.
The real question is whether I should have made a reasonable but possibly false interpretation, or whether I should have requested clarification.
Now in my opinion Mencius Moldbug’s passage is itself reasonable from beginning to end. In my view, the real difference between the different parts of it is not that some are true and others false, but that some are easy to check and others are hard to check for a variety of reasons, one of which is that most people have such a superficial understanding of alliances and conflict that they would not know how to even begin to check to see whether there was an alliance or a conflict. Take for example North Korea. Everyone in North Korea loudly sings the praises of the great leader. Superficially, it looks like they all love him. Ie, it looks like an alliance. But I think many Americans by now are savvy enough to realize that the reason they praise the great leader so loudly is that they are all terrified of the state. So, not an alliance at all, but enslavement.
Well, North Korea is a pretty obvious example, which is why I picked it just now. However, there are, I think, other less obvious examples.
Now, since I think that Moldbug’s quote is reasonable from beginning to end, I would like to know what part of it Mercy objects to, and it’s not obvious to me which part that is because I am not a psychic. In order to illustrate that not all of the quote is false I picked one part of it that is not false. But from my point if view, none of the quote is obviously false. What part, then, to pick? I picked the part that was easiest to check as my illustration. Not, mind you, the truest part, since I think it all could be true.
Whatever your opinion about Moldbug is, and even if you are not a psychic, you had to suppose that Mercy is not disputing that Israel exists. The question
was rhetorical, and rhetorical questions are problematic tools in a rational debate. It could be understood as a mere example of a true (albeit trivial) statement in the quoted text, it could also be understood as an indirect claim that your opponent doesn’t know that Israel still exists. In political debates question of form “do you say that [something obviously false]” are much more often used as indirect accusations than for other purposes, which was why I have interpreted it as such. Since you say that was not your intention I believe you. But still your reply, if it was meant as a request for clarification, would be much better without the whole second paragraph.
That would have been careless. I was asking for clarification. It would have been needless and careless to make and incorporate assumptions about what Mercy was saying, into my very request for clarification.
The whole second paragraph was fine. It was only the single sentence taken out of context that became ambiguous. You’re the one who did that.
Assuming that your debate partner knows such an elementary fact as that Israel exists isn’t careless, it’s what charitable interpretation is supposed to be based on.
These are not mutually exclusive. It is indeed charitable, but one should make assumptions, even charitable ones, only when they are necessary to proceed. And it was hardly necessary to assume what the person was saying in my very request for clarification, since the point of the clarification was to obviate the need to make any such assumptions.
It’s hardly ever necessary to make assumptions; one can always proceed with literal interpretation of what has been said. But one shouldn’t. We have probably different preferences as for debating style.
So now you agree with my careful avoidance of assumptions?
So which of these six assertions do you suggest is obviously unreasonable.
Note that 6 is not a position taken by Mencius, but rather an uncharitable inference, you are arguing that if what Mencius says is true, then the Palestine lobby is much stronger than the Israeli lobby, which obviously it is not.
What Mencius says is that there is no Palestinian lobby, because the Palestinian lobby is Harvard and the State department, which is indeed much stronger than Israeli lobby.
Now proposition six is not a position of Mencius, but your refutation of Mencius.
Consider: The PLO lives off aid to Palestinians. Aid to Palestinians is provided by “The international community”, which is in practice pretty much the State Department, Havard, and their NGO proxies. If we assume that he who pays the piper calls the tune, then the various US peace initiatives are best understood as various US presidents trying unsuccessfully to get the State Department to accept the existence of Israel as permanent and unchanging reality, that cannot and should not be changed, however sad, regrettable and unfortunate that reality might be, that the various US presidents were not so much unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a peace between Israel and the Arabs, nor even between Judaism and Islam, but between the Pentagon and the State Department.
That’s a question for Mercy, but it can be that (s)he finds unreasonable all except the fifth. No.5 is the only obviously reasonable one.
I have paraphrased that for brevity. Still can’t think about meaning of “A is a piece of dental floss compared to the arm-thick steel cable that is B” significantly different from “A is much weaker than B”.
“A” is not the (entirely nonexistent and wholly unnecessary) Palestinian lobby. It is Harvard and the state department.
B, not A. Anyway, have you read the original quotation by Moldbug? Here is the relevant sentence, for your convenience:
Palestine lobby is written explicitly there, and it’s even not in quotation marks as “Israel lobby” is.
I’m sorry, but this is not a reasonable debate. I retreat.
Moldbug also says the Palestine lobby does not exist. You are taking a fragment out of context.