I know it's commonplace, but let's consider whether extreme expression has any rational substance to it, whether it's somehow more meaningful than an argument with actual reasons.
Outrage is a weapon. Do we want it to be? I think (apologies to the parent comment) it should be disqualifying, shunned, excluded. It's a demonstration that they have no reasoned basis and will not contribute.
> It always baffles me that people are in such a defeated state of mind that graffiti is just simply accepted and seemingly nothing is done about it.
As usual, the answer is found by examining assumptions: 1) It's somehow bad, and 2) People strongly want it removed. (And by accepting those two assumptions as true, and it's also true that the street art remains, that argument infers despair.)
I and many people don't think it's Bad (avoiding a specific definition, an endless discussion). I don't mean it's always Good or never Bad, but generally IMHO it ranges from easily ignored to decent to some really inspiring stuff.
And I find it generally inspiring that some kids have the spirit, creativity, initiative, and determination to do it; to express themselves and not be suppressed by society. Adults have so much agency; it's great to see kids seize some, and in a harmless way (they aren't injuring people, risking anything, etc.). I see the suppression of graffiti as telling kids to be 'seen and not heard'. People embrace billionaires who break rules and then kill and impovrish on a mass scale; all these kids are doing is painting something.
I'd almost advocate that kids have free reign to paint public property (that would seem to get out of control, and any announced limit may be an invitation to break it). It's their city too, and adults should have to live with what the kids have to say. (Still - how could that work? Any undecorated or unfinished surface?)
I understand you may not agree; we need to find a balance.
You're right, but let’s be honest, most of “spray painting” is just tagging. Even as a kid I found big spray painted murals “cool”, but thought tagged places as “ran down”. I met a guy a few years ago who told stories about spray painting large murals in underpasses, but gave up when others started to tag over his creations.
I obviously don’t have a solution to this, but it’s hard to argue how spray painting is net good even for kids.
> it’s not something everyone can stick their heads in the sand about because it makes them uncomfortable.
That's a strawperson and you know it; IMHO that argument is sticking one's head in the sand to avoid the unconfortable issues raised in the article and by others: Many extreme warmongers are out there now; there's a powerful tide of embracing violence and hate, and we know where that leads.
> Many extreme warmongers are out there now; there's a powerful tide of embracing violence and hate
Sure. But that still violates the author's dichotomy: a hateful warmonger wants death. If you're an amoral war profiteer, your fodder are folks who want death. Dividing the audience into people who care about money only and people who care about death (presumably the good guys in the author's view) makes no sense.
I think it's a strawperson, a distraction, to take it literally and criticize it. That's not the main issue or point of the article. They can't flesh out every point in detail.
That's really looking for problems. The Palantir CEO said things much more extreme:
As the moderator asked general questions about the panelists’ views on the future of war, Schmidt and Cohen answered cautiously. But Karp, who’s known as a provocateur, aggressively condoned violence, often peering into the audience with hungry eyes, palpably desperate for claps, boos or shock.
He began by saying that the US has to “scare our adversaries to death” in war. Referring to Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, he said: “If what happened to them happened to us, there’d be a hole in the ground somewhere.” Members of the audience laughed when he mocked fresh graduates of Columbia University, which had some of the earliest encampment protests in the country. He said they’d have a hard time on the job market and described their views as a “pagan religion infecting our universities” and “an infection inside of our society”.
> He began by saying that the US has to “scare our adversaries to death” in war. Referring to Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, he said: “If what happened to them happened to us, there’d be a hole in the ground somewhere.
You cited this as an example of an extreme opinion, but this is bog-standard MAD that’s been a big part of the US strategy since the Cold War.
We don’t want to go to war -> Enemies won’t attack us if they think they can’t accomplish their goals by doing so -> Make sure they understand they will die if they attack us -> no war! (At least, in theory.)
You may disagree with that opinion but it’s not at all extreme, that’s the mindset most of the military has. And it is rooted in the desire to prevent large scale conflict.
> this is bog-standard MAD that’s been a big part of the US strategy since the Cold War.
That's not MAD as I understand it: The essential challenge of international relations is to create non-escalatory situations - situations where parties won't be compelled or tempted to engage in a escalatory cycle that lead to warfare, which is often unwanted by all parties to it but unavoidable. Obviously, that can't be allowed to happen with strategic nuclear weapons.
Parties that are 'scared to death' tend to escalate; they are human; they panic, they imagine things and act on their fears. It's the warmongers and basement generals who imagine 'scared to death' tactics.
MAD was designed to create a stable, non-escalatory, trusted situation. There were treaties limiting weapons and their deployment, hotlines, verification. Weapons were spread out, including in the triad (at sea, in air, and on land), to reduce the ability of the enemy to knock them all out, and thus to disincentivize a surprise attack.
MAD is only used with nuclear weapons afaik, and only with Russia and now, probably, with China.
This is bog-standard MAD that’s been a big part of the US strategy since the Cold War.
Except it's not "standard MAD". In fact MAD doesn't apply at all to the Oct 7 attack (which was evil and awful and all that -- but objectively not at scale sufficient to trigger a MAD response).
Instead he's calling for an unhinged, completely disproportionate response (nukes). That's simply not what MAD is or how it's supposed to work. In any case it's objectively not (contrary to what he claims) how the U.S. responds to such situations.
It's just bluster, meant to push people's buttons. And he's doing to push his product, basically (yes in part for ideological reasons -- but at the end of the day, as a sales tactic).
Enemies won’t attack us if they think they can’t accomplish their goals by doing so
What you're referring to is general deterrence strategy. That's not what MAD is. It has a very specific meaning and you're getting it completely wrong.
>"If what happened to them happened to us, there’d be a hole in the ground somewhere.”
And what keeps on happening to Palestinians, had that happened to them, what will it be? But I get it, pretty standard for a war monger and profiteer to invoke false narratives on the mission to sell more weapons.
> He said they’d have a hard time on the job market and described their views as a “pagan religion infecting our universities” and “an infection inside of our society”.
Really sounds like something right out of the mouth of a certain dead fascist
> The silver lining is that the people with less scruples might also be less competent and their solutions more fragile resulting in operational failure when deployed, in turn saving humanity.
Think of the complete lack of agency, the powerlessness, of that perspective. 'If we do nothing, maybe they'll shoot themselves in the foot.' It's 'freeze' in the fight/flight/freeze response to danger.
In fairness, the parent didn't say that's all we'll do, but few talk about actual actions, solutions, with full agency and responsibility.
The solution isn't a silver lining to a cloud, it's what we will do to make a better world. If we don't make one, who will?
> if you refuse to build it, someone with less scruples will.
Every time you see an argument for the inevitability of X - especially something frightening - know that it's just an old rhetorical tactic, even cheap playground trash talk. It's comic book lingo. They want you to quit; they are afraid of what you will do.
The ability of the extreme right to promulgate talking points seemingly directly into people's beliefs, bypassing the moral, spiritual, and reasoning parts of their brains, is surreal. People just parrot stuff that is paper thin, that can't withstand even a little scrutiny. I know there is much research and obviously much practice on how to do that, but the effectiveness is extreme. Even people who have expertise and have known better for decades start parroting nonsense.
> “Before we get self-righteous,” [former Chair of the Joint Chief's of Staff, retired General Mark] Milley said, in the second world war, “we, the US, killed 12,000 innocent French civilians. We destroyed 69 Japanese cities. We slaughtered people in massive numbers – men, women, and children.”
I think to a great degree, with nobody standing up to this force and few barely acknowledging it, people have capitulated to it - what else can they do? - just accept what it says and does. And they have jumped on the bandwagon.
From an article on domestic politics in Israel [0]:
> It was the pictures of Palestinians swimming and sunning at a Gaza beach that rubbed Yehuda Shlezinger, an Israeli journalist, the wrong way. Stylish in round red glasses and a faint scruff of beard, Mr. Shlezinger unloaded his revulsion at the “disturbing” pictures while appearing on Israel’s Channel 12.
> “These people there deserve death, a hard death, an agonizing death, and instead we see them enjoying on the beach and having fun,” complained Mr. Shlezinger, the religious affairs correspondent for the widely circulated right-wing Israel Hayom newspaper. “We should have seen a lot more revenge there,” Mr. Shlezinger unrepentantly added. “A lot more rivers of Gazans’ blood.”
It's not the content of the words - to engage in and debate the content is to play their fool - it's the power, the effect. They want to push the envelope as far as possible, open things up for extremism. It's a well-known strategy, well-used for propaganda, but people seem to have forgotten every lesson of the 20th century. From the OP:
> But Karp [Alex Karp, Palantir CEO], who’s known as a provocateur, aggressively condoned violence, often peering into the audience with hungry eyes, palpably desperate for claps, boos or shock.
It's a demonstration of power, a show of force; it's an attempt at intimidation, and many have abandoned even the extremely successful, powerful fundamentals of freedom, democracy, and the Enlightenment. In the US, even moderate Democrats jump on the bandwagon; look at many of them parroting the ridicule of even the idea of protest. I have little compassion for leaders; it's their job to stand up and IMHO they are effectively cowards responding to bullying; they are aligning themselves with the bullies instead of standing up to them.
Sadly, even ordinary people are infected and parrot those things, without even examining the dynamics or content, much less the power. The world desperately needs a leader - a Churchill, a Lincoln, just about anyone - to stand up to it, to show people there are other, much better ways. Despite the BS propaganda, I think people are yearning for it, and that leader would find a world ready to embrace a good way to live.
> The world desperately needs a leader - a Churchill, a Lincoln, just about anyone - to stand up to it, to show people there are other, much better ways.
The Churchill who authorized the bombing of Berlin? The Churchill who authorized the bombing of Dresden?
The Lincoln that authorized Sherman's march to the sea with its intentional destruction of civilian areas to break the will of the south to fight?
The Lincoln who suspended habeas corpus?
I think Churchill and Lincoln were far more willing to use force in the service of what they saw as right than people think they were.
If everyone with flaws is disqualified, or is equal to everyone else with flaws, then it all loses meaning.
I'm not certain those were flaws in forsight, or necessarily even in hindsight. Regardless, those leaders did not preach or lead on the basis of fear, hatred, an ignorance.
Why not introduce furry mammals that don't need a large expanse of nature, but can adapt to and live directly in the urban environment. Something that could live in all sorts of corners of the city, even underground, and consume unwanted food from humans ...
I'm joking a bit, but I'm serious. Why are beavers better than rats?
They are larger and build damns and many other differences, so they fill different niches. The idea is to restore the pre-industrial ecosystem as best we can. Maybe their natural land management will improve the quality of the wetlands, or maybe it will cause flooding of nearby human occupied land and cause them to be quietly removed. Maybe they will become prey to wolves and lynx, or maybe they will need to be culled because those predators probably won't be released in London.
I know it's commonplace, but let's consider whether extreme expression has any rational substance to it, whether it's somehow more meaningful than an argument with actual reasons.
Outrage is a weapon. Do we want it to be? I think (apologies to the parent comment) it should be disqualifying, shunned, excluded. It's a demonstration that they have no reasoned basis and will not contribute.