People are getting so caught up in Israel’s genocidal bullshit (which is heinous and horrific, to be explicit so I don’t get dog piled) that they seem to be forgetting that Hamas is a literal terrorist group that would happily kill us all, and also subjugates Palestinians. They did take hostages, they have killed some, and they have treated them all very poorly by all accounts. You can hate both sides of this one guys, it’s pretty easy.
Thanks for posting the article and your thoughts, Mr. Squid.
People have been so trained to pick a team and stick to it that the basic humanity of the situation has become difficult for some folks.
It’s not hard. Killing or harming innocent people or causing death or harm to come to them indirectly is bad. Conflating different groups of people to justify harm or death is not an excuse.
Yknow, I won’t even say it’s not hard. It can be so hard when you’re bombarded by horrific images and stories every day. It sucks and it puts people into very passionate mindsets. Passion is the death of reason though, and we’d all be better served engaging our super ego a bit, taking a deep breath, and saying “Hey, I’m upset right now, but I need to try to look at this objectively”. You don’t have to shove anything under a rug. You don’t have to make excuses for anyone. Just… try to think separate from your feelings. It’s a useful exercise.
Israel is committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Hamas committed horrific acts of terrorism on Oct 6 and had continued to commit horrific acts concerning the hostages. We can keep going and listing every little thing going back millenia, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that both of these groups are religious extremism writ large, deserve condemnation, and are actively persecuting the Palestinian people.
I’m not so sure I really agree that it’s useful to try and separate the emotion and passion from how we respond. Most people engage better with emotional appeals than appeals to logic. It’s also worth keeping in mind that Israel is responsible for the success of Hamas, if they had been willing to live peacefully alongside palestinians then none of this would have gone as far as it did. The majority of Palestinians wanted peace and reconciliation decades ago. It’s only after Likud’s continued fascist antics that palestinians lost hope in that peace process.
I don’t think we should completely neglect our passions. They make us who we are and define our truest selves! Passion is blinding though. Anyone who has ever felt true passion about anything knows this. It takes both passion and cold logic to achieve truly good things. Passion is inherently the stronger of the two though, so you have to set it aside (temporarily) to truly indulge your logic. Then put those together.
I definitely do not agree with using passion as the center of your political movement. That’s demagoguery, by definition. It’s common and we’re all susceptible to it, but it’s not a good thing.
I agree with you re: the origins of Hamas. It truly could not matter less right now. Hamas exists, and they’re doing terrible things to Palestinians and Israelis alike, just like Israel is. They’re both issues we need to solve and I’m not willing to set one aside for the other.
I don’t think it’s truly possible to completely isolate your feelings to make a decision entirely based on logic. It’s one of those little tricks our brain pulls on us, we think we’re being objective, but our reasoning is driven by our emotions even if we think they’re not.
We’re very emotional creatures, and our brains are able to convince us of almost anything, including that we’re making decisions based on pure logic. But we can’t, we’re always in our feelings even when we try not to be. And the history of people who have put “logic” before emotion is extremely dark - eugenics, scientific racism, essentialism, and Ben Shapiro.
Just something to think about. I’m not telling you that you’re wrong or bad or anything like that, I’m sure you aren’t, you seem like a good person who has great intentions. But beware that your “logical” deductions may be very heavily influenced by your emotions even when you try your best to prevent it.
I’m just not sure I’ve gotten my point across to you bc93. I’m not asking anyone to become an emotionless automation. That’s of course a nightmarish outcome. That’s full logic, no passion. Bad. In that same exact manner, all passion, no logic is also horrible. The history of people who have done that is also extremely dark. Nobody is advocating for either of those though!
When I tell someone to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes”, I am not asking them to lose their sense of self or to base their final decision entirely on that other person. It’s a thought mechanism we use to emphasize our sense of empathy, which gives us a new perspective that we fold into our amalgamation of ideas.
I’m not asking for anyone to turn their emotions off forever, or even deluded enough to think you can do that fully at all, in the same way that I don’t expect anyone to fully convert their brain into another person’s to empathize. It doesn’t matter, it’s still a useful exercise in part.
That’s all I’m asking for. There is a lot of nuance and complexity to all situations, and passion is blinding. I’m not a Buddhist, but they have a concept of Bonno, those passions that inspire us to actions that harm ourselves or others. I don’t think Buddhists are quite on the same level as Ben Shapiro and the Nazis just because they recognize that passion can be blinding.
I think we more or less are on the same page - just to clarify though, my reactions have been specifically motivated by this line in your original message: “try to think separate from your feelings” - there is no such thing as thinking separated from feelings. We can’t do that. All we can do is try to consider other people’s perspectives as best we can, learn what our biases are and how they shape our thinking, and accept that we will never be fully objective or unbiased.
To believe that you’re capable of acting without bias is dangerous, but it’s just as bad to disregard the perspectives of others.
I’ve never said that people should ignore any attempt at logic and just focus on their passions, but the modern cult of rationality and stoicism is ironically hugely lacking in self-awareness and rationality.
I’ve never said that people should ignore any attempt at logic and just focus on their passions, but the modern cult of rationality and stoicism is ironically hugely lacking in self-awareness and rationality.
I’ve never said that people should ignore any attempt at passion and just focus on their logic, but the modern mobs of righteous indignation and fury are ironically hugely lacking in empathy, tolerance (not of intolerance, before that gets tossed at me), and pragmatism.
I agree that we mostly seem to be on the same page, but I really need to stress that I have not asked people to be soulless and I think that’s a mischaracterization of my asking for people to set their passion aside as much as possible as an exercise which is inherently temporary. We’re both just looking for balance here.
I don’t think there is many people who support hamas. ISIS needed to be cut down when they went on their rampage but let’s not pretend they weren’t created by the result of the US occupation.
Support? Nah, that’s rare to the point of non-existence. I completely agree with your second sentence and I think people who are not willing to make the concession from the first half because of the second, substituting Hamas for ISIS, are doing themselves and Palestinians a massive disservice. Explanations are not excuses, and the behavior of both Israel and Hamas in the modern era cannot be excused.
I’m just a member of the LGBT community. But also, I am an American, which means kinda, but not directly. Hamas does not have a rosy view on people from the US.
But also… Hamas terrorizes Palestinians as well, so not sure what point you’re trying to make here.
Edit: Not sure who replied, but I have you blocked. Just didn’t want you to have to wait for a response.
I keep saying it. Hamas knew what it was doing, and literally the whole world danced to the song they put on, and I’d be legit shocked if the ones in charge that came up with the attack are actually in the strip.
Hamas attacked Israel in one of the most aggressive and heinous methods that has been seen in a long while, the Israel that has a history of retaliating with absolute and overwhelming force with zero chill, at a time when the leadership of Israel was looking for an opportunity to invade. So Israel is gonna Israel, and now the Palestinians in Gaza who would go against Hamas, as you said that would be happy to subjugate the Palestinians, are going to be more supportive of Hamas where the two-state solution isn’t even being as supported as it once was because the calls for revenge are coming.
Regionally, Israel gained it’s zero-chill attitude because it was surrounded by countries that want to exterminate it, it’s required western backing to keep there. But Egypt and Israel haven’t been quite at each others throats as much anymore, and Saudi Arabia and Israel were working out a deal. This put Israel back at square one in terms of local diplomacy.
Western countries have had to be the supporters to Israel, it kinda exists in that sort of meddling. When Israel attacked the strip, there were multiple countries ready to throw in and escalate it from a small war to a full all out multi-national war. That much rattling sabers means the west continues its support, even when they hand the weapons to Israel to say ‘don’t use it over here.’ and watches Israel do just that.
The west supporting Israel has only helped fan the flames of anti-semetic rhetoric with the feeling of Israel pulling an excess of political power upon itself. The right wing hawks are willing to help keep escalating the war because, well they’ve never had a problem starting wars in the Middle East. The political left is tearing itself apart because it typically is a coalition of differing beliefs, the US is having a problem that the not-ultra-right wing party of the Democrats got where they are because depending on the state it was coalitions of Muslim and Jewish voters, both of whom are mad and are threatening to stay home despite the other runner is someone who will make things worse, which could be the sort of thing to rally the religiously held Muslim countries together.
What angers me is how much of this I predicted when Hamas attacked. I’m just a guy who works on equipment, one would hope the world leaders would see this exact same train of thought and turn off the music instead of getting in line and waltzing to the beat.
People are getting so caught up in Israel’s genocidal bullshit (which is heinous and horrific, to be explicit so I don’t get dog piled) that they seem to be forgetting that Hamas is a literal terrorist group that would happily kill us all, and also subjugates Palestinians. They did take hostages, they have killed some, and they have treated them all very poorly by all accounts. You can hate both sides of this one guys, it’s pretty easy.
Thanks for posting the article and your thoughts, Mr. Squid.
People have been so trained to pick a team and stick to it that the basic humanity of the situation has become difficult for some folks.
It’s not hard. Killing or harming innocent people or causing death or harm to come to them indirectly is bad. Conflating different groups of people to justify harm or death is not an excuse.
Yknow, I won’t even say it’s not hard. It can be so hard when you’re bombarded by horrific images and stories every day. It sucks and it puts people into very passionate mindsets. Passion is the death of reason though, and we’d all be better served engaging our super ego a bit, taking a deep breath, and saying “Hey, I’m upset right now, but I need to try to look at this objectively”. You don’t have to shove anything under a rug. You don’t have to make excuses for anyone. Just… try to think separate from your feelings. It’s a useful exercise.
Israel is committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Hamas committed horrific acts of terrorism on Oct 6 and had continued to commit horrific acts concerning the hostages. We can keep going and listing every little thing going back millenia, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that both of these groups are religious extremism writ large, deserve condemnation, and are actively persecuting the Palestinian people.
I’m not so sure I really agree that it’s useful to try and separate the emotion and passion from how we respond. Most people engage better with emotional appeals than appeals to logic. It’s also worth keeping in mind that Israel is responsible for the success of Hamas, if they had been willing to live peacefully alongside palestinians then none of this would have gone as far as it did. The majority of Palestinians wanted peace and reconciliation decades ago. It’s only after Likud’s continued fascist antics that palestinians lost hope in that peace process.
I don’t think we should completely neglect our passions. They make us who we are and define our truest selves! Passion is blinding though. Anyone who has ever felt true passion about anything knows this. It takes both passion and cold logic to achieve truly good things. Passion is inherently the stronger of the two though, so you have to set it aside (temporarily) to truly indulge your logic. Then put those together.
I definitely do not agree with using passion as the center of your political movement. That’s demagoguery, by definition. It’s common and we’re all susceptible to it, but it’s not a good thing.
I agree with you re: the origins of Hamas. It truly could not matter less right now. Hamas exists, and they’re doing terrible things to Palestinians and Israelis alike, just like Israel is. They’re both issues we need to solve and I’m not willing to set one aside for the other.
I don’t think it’s truly possible to completely isolate your feelings to make a decision entirely based on logic. It’s one of those little tricks our brain pulls on us, we think we’re being objective, but our reasoning is driven by our emotions even if we think they’re not.
We’re very emotional creatures, and our brains are able to convince us of almost anything, including that we’re making decisions based on pure logic. But we can’t, we’re always in our feelings even when we try not to be. And the history of people who have put “logic” before emotion is extremely dark - eugenics, scientific racism, essentialism, and Ben Shapiro.
Just something to think about. I’m not telling you that you’re wrong or bad or anything like that, I’m sure you aren’t, you seem like a good person who has great intentions. But beware that your “logical” deductions may be very heavily influenced by your emotions even when you try your best to prevent it.
I’m just not sure I’ve gotten my point across to you bc93. I’m not asking anyone to become an emotionless automation. That’s of course a nightmarish outcome. That’s full logic, no passion. Bad. In that same exact manner, all passion, no logic is also horrible. The history of people who have done that is also extremely dark. Nobody is advocating for either of those though!
When I tell someone to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes”, I am not asking them to lose their sense of self or to base their final decision entirely on that other person. It’s a thought mechanism we use to emphasize our sense of empathy, which gives us a new perspective that we fold into our amalgamation of ideas.
I’m not asking for anyone to turn their emotions off forever, or even deluded enough to think you can do that fully at all, in the same way that I don’t expect anyone to fully convert their brain into another person’s to empathize. It doesn’t matter, it’s still a useful exercise in part.
That’s all I’m asking for. There is a lot of nuance and complexity to all situations, and passion is blinding. I’m not a Buddhist, but they have a concept of Bonno, those passions that inspire us to actions that harm ourselves or others. I don’t think Buddhists are quite on the same level as Ben Shapiro and the Nazis just because they recognize that passion can be blinding.
I think we more or less are on the same page - just to clarify though, my reactions have been specifically motivated by this line in your original message: “try to think separate from your feelings” - there is no such thing as thinking separated from feelings. We can’t do that. All we can do is try to consider other people’s perspectives as best we can, learn what our biases are and how they shape our thinking, and accept that we will never be fully objective or unbiased.
To believe that you’re capable of acting without bias is dangerous, but it’s just as bad to disregard the perspectives of others.
I’ve never said that people should ignore any attempt at logic and just focus on their passions, but the modern cult of rationality and stoicism is ironically hugely lacking in self-awareness and rationality.
I’ve never said that people should ignore any attempt at passion and just focus on their logic, but the modern mobs of righteous indignation and fury are ironically hugely lacking in empathy, tolerance (not of intolerance, before that gets tossed at me), and pragmatism.
I agree that we mostly seem to be on the same page, but I really need to stress that I have not asked people to be soulless and I think that’s a mischaracterization of my asking for people to set their passion aside as much as possible as an exercise which is inherently temporary. We’re both just looking for balance here.
I don’t think there is many people who support hamas. ISIS needed to be cut down when they went on their rampage but let’s not pretend they weren’t created by the result of the US occupation.
Yep. Netanyahu publicly supported Hamas for just this reason - he knew they’d eventually provide justification to invade Gaza.
He and far too many Israelis don’t want to work with the Palestinians to find a solution. The same can be said for the Palestinians.
Too many people in power who just want more of it.
Support? Nah, that’s rare to the point of non-existence. I completely agree with your second sentence and I think people who are not willing to make the concession from the first half because of the second, substituting Hamas for ISIS, are doing themselves and Palestinians a massive disservice. Explanations are not excuses, and the behavior of both Israel and Hamas in the modern era cannot be excused.
deleted by creator
I didn’t post the article, just to be clear.
Lol whoops, saw the mod tag and just assumed since you’re also a pretty prolific poster.
Who is “us all”? Are you colonizing Palestinian land and terrorizing Palestinians?
I’m just a member of the LGBT community. But also, I am an American, which means kinda, but not directly. Hamas does not have a rosy view on people from the US.
But also… Hamas terrorizes Palestinians as well, so not sure what point you’re trying to make here.
Edit: Not sure who replied, but I have you blocked. Just didn’t want you to have to wait for a response.
Wonder why they don’t appreciate the people sending the bombs used to Genocide Palestinians. It must be the LGBT thing.
I keep saying it. Hamas knew what it was doing, and literally the whole world danced to the song they put on, and I’d be legit shocked if the ones in charge that came up with the attack are actually in the strip.
Hamas attacked Israel in one of the most aggressive and heinous methods that has been seen in a long while, the Israel that has a history of retaliating with absolute and overwhelming force with zero chill, at a time when the leadership of Israel was looking for an opportunity to invade. So Israel is gonna Israel, and now the Palestinians in Gaza who would go against Hamas, as you said that would be happy to subjugate the Palestinians, are going to be more supportive of Hamas where the two-state solution isn’t even being as supported as it once was because the calls for revenge are coming.
Regionally, Israel gained it’s zero-chill attitude because it was surrounded by countries that want to exterminate it, it’s required western backing to keep there. But Egypt and Israel haven’t been quite at each others throats as much anymore, and Saudi Arabia and Israel were working out a deal. This put Israel back at square one in terms of local diplomacy.
Western countries have had to be the supporters to Israel, it kinda exists in that sort of meddling. When Israel attacked the strip, there were multiple countries ready to throw in and escalate it from a small war to a full all out multi-national war. That much rattling sabers means the west continues its support, even when they hand the weapons to Israel to say ‘don’t use it over here.’ and watches Israel do just that.
The west supporting Israel has only helped fan the flames of anti-semetic rhetoric with the feeling of Israel pulling an excess of political power upon itself. The right wing hawks are willing to help keep escalating the war because, well they’ve never had a problem starting wars in the Middle East. The political left is tearing itself apart because it typically is a coalition of differing beliefs, the US is having a problem that the not-ultra-right wing party of the Democrats got where they are because depending on the state it was coalitions of Muslim and Jewish voters, both of whom are mad and are threatening to stay home despite the other runner is someone who will make things worse, which could be the sort of thing to rally the religiously held Muslim countries together.
What angers me is how much of this I predicted when Hamas attacked. I’m just a guy who works on equipment, one would hope the world leaders would see this exact same train of thought and turn off the music instead of getting in line and waltzing to the beat.
Ah yes the people being Genocided inside of a concentration camp are actually the Genocidal ones.
Please remind us how israel gladly came to peace with the PA and totally doesn’t commit ethnic cleansing on the West Bank.