Hamas and the hospital Don’t trust and try to verify Did Israel “create” Hamas? When there’s no negotiating partner America’s role in the Middle East Enter Iran… Gauging Palestinian public opinion A massive media failure One-way root causes And much more!
The framework through which MD and other liberals look at the conflict is a western one, that of rational actors who ultimately want the same things that we in the west want, namely prosperity and freedom. This is why they search for false parallels and even moral justifications for what we saw on October 7th, and what Jews in the region have been seeing for hundreds of years. There has to exist some rational explanation to justify the lense through which we view the world, that if X happens, it's a reaction to Y. It's the same framework that guides those who believe violent crime is a response to poverty, for example, or that 9/11 is a response to American aggression. It's an incredibly narrow and self-centered framework that puts American values and norms -- which Israel shares but many of its neighbors don't -- in the forefront. It centers Americans, if you will. I think we need to be able to look at hundreds and thousands of years of hatred and incitement in the eye to understand, and to attempt to undo them.
We should listen to Hamas and their supporters in the west when they talk, and believe them when they say the ultimate goal is annihilation of Israel. This is the first starting point on understanding the conflict, any attempt to explain that away weakens that hate that is so clearly stated, and pokes enough small holes in an otherwise clear Hamas ideology to allow well-meaning westerners as well as vile antisemites something very weak to lean on (mixed metaphors inspired by MW). This hate pre-dates settlements, it pre-dates the establishment of Israel, it even pre-dates the existence of the Palestinian people. It can't and shouldn't be explained away by lesser evils on the Israeli side, this creates a false moral equivalence that compares quest for genocide with blemishes on the records of those who deal with the genocide. Kind of reminds me of the cartoon of a Hamas terrorist holding a sign saying "kill Jews", and a well-meaning American pleading with an Israeli: "can't you just meet him in the middle"?
Does Israel do things that add fuel to this hate? Sure. But to paraphrase something Kmele once said about police and race - if we need the number of errors or violence committed by Jews to reach zero as a starting point, we'll never solve this conflict. Yes, really shitty extreme settlers exist, yes, there are violent elements in Israeli politics - I'm embarrassed by them as are a majority of my fellow Israelis who have been taking to the streets to protest the last year or so. But society is judged by how it treats extremism and violence, not by the absence of it. Every Israeli knows the story of Elor Azaria, a soldier who in 2016 killed a palestinian terrorist who had just stabbed a fellow soldier. The problem is Elor killed the terrorists when he was already on the ground, neutralized. He was charged with manslaughter by an Israeli court. The incident caused a huge stir, because these are the frank and open discussions we are having every day in Israel.
So this is my plea to stop with false equivalencies, to stop weighing Hamas atrocities in one hand against the imperfections of a democratic society on the other, because your hand will fall off. It does a disservice (to put it mildly) to Israelis, as well as Palestinians who want to drop the hatred and commit to peace and prosperity.
Love, an Israeli who wishes we could all see the world through a western-libeals lense, and who for some reason still believes in peace
Well said. One of the more annoying conceits of prosperous, decadent Western societies is to believe that evil doesn't exist. *If WE just did a better job of uNdErStAnDiNg, surely, WE could solve this problem.* We, who can take peace and prosperity for granted, have a duty to study the lessons of history and learn what it teaches about the darkness within the human soul. And we don't have to look too hard. History is full of those lessons.
In the present crisis, it really just comes down to one question: do you think Israel has the right to exist or not? The rest of the questions tend to answer themselves after that.
Thank you for stating this so well, Yael. Worldview matters. It is a mistake to believe that other cultures share our (the West’s) view of what is moral and good. Hamas has stated that they exploit Israelis’ love of life. When you have one culture who holds up suicide bombers as martyrs and are willing to treat the weakest among them as human shields, you aren’t reasoning with people who share your core values.
Which raises the 800-pound gorilla in the room that few people outside Sam Harris will want to raise. How much of this is simply rooted in Islam itself? The close people get to fundamentalist interpretations of almost any religion the more that religions flaws, anachronisms, and moral dubiousness comes out. Islam is mired in Fundamentalist interpretations right now and it is a disaster for every country where Islam is the official law of the land. The hypocrisy of those who would tell us that a society under Westboro Baptist's law would be the greatest hell on Earth, but the same type of worldview enacted in a third of the world is a harbinger of doom.
I think you're right to say regardless of the religion, Fundamentalism is almost always in tension with liberalism and pluralism. There is no way to escape violence when someone is claiming for religious purposes, we cannot tolerate the existence of something.
This comment was more eloquent and interesting than most opinion pieces I've read since October 7th. Though in Duss's defense, I'm not sure he would disagree with much of it.
Good parallel pointed out by Moynihan re: "Defund the Police®" and "From The River to The Sea®", in that a hefty majority don't realize what either saying connotes, they're just looking for a slogan that they can chant and signal their fellow tribe members with.
There’s a lot of overlap, in the protesters and the slogans/buzzwords. I like to imagine people showing up and asking, “Which thing is this? What are we marching about?”
How do we understand "The Palestinians"? What level of popular support does Hamas have? We all want to believe that Hamas does not represent "The Palestinians," but how do we know that? This convo with Matt Duss was a really good one and provided a lot of valuable insights, but I wonder if we're projecting our ideas about what we want to believe the Palestinians think. It strikes me that of all the people that could be denouncing Hamas as not representing the Palestinians, it's mostly not the Palestinians or Arabs saying that. It's us saying that. In a recent pod with Eli Lake, there was a shared sentiment that the Palestinians in Gaza largely didn't support the atrocities of 10/7. Where is the evidence of that? Where are the Palestinian and Arab voices denouncing what Hamas did? The Arabs seem to have reflexively rallied to the Hamas flag. I want to believe because the alternative is very ugly. But what is the truth?
Yeah I think there is a lot of evidence that a significant plurality of the population support Hamas and another decent chunk is at least ok with it. Yeah the population is very young, that also means they are likely dumb and brainwashed.
Thank you for this very good conversation. I’m not quite sure it’s completely accurate to say the Gaza Strip is occupied. Israel withdrew in 2006 or something like that -- Bush was president. The “blockade,” isn’t for food and other stuff it’s for dual use technology because Hamas was using stuff like water pipes for tunnels instead of building infrastructure that would improve the lives of Palestinians living in the strip
They have also lobotomized themselves to ignore that this is the ONLY conflict on Earth where you can use the "but they may not be allowed to go home!" excuse to refuse to let refugees escape to your territory.
Imagine the US or Europe try to use that to justify not accepting ANY group of people who are desperately trying to leave a war zone or alleged genocide (Syrians, Afghans, Sudanese, Rohingya, Azeris, or, in fact, Palestinians). But UNHRC's response to Egypt? Crickets.
A few lies of omission from Duss about the peace process, but overall a nice, civil conversation. Strongly recommend Haviv Rettig Gur as a guest from a centrist Israeli perspective.
Some people use "From the River to the Sea" to mean "End the Occupation", in the exact same way that some people use the Confederate Flag to represent States' Rights.
I want to like this, but I am not 100% sure how you mean it.
I am assuming you mean that some people are using it to just make a vague gesture at political sympathies while others are using it as coed hateful language, and that it is difficult to know which is which.
So if you mean that +1.
If you mean everyone who is doing this on both sides is a secret hateful racist, I am not sure I agree.
One can believe in States' Rights in competition with an ever expanding federal government (as I do), but once you pair it with a Confederate Flag, we know you mean States' rights to discriminate against black people.
Likewise, one can be for "Ending the Occupation" (an anachronism in regards to Gaza since 2005, but okay), but as soon as you pair it with "From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free", you have to be ignorant to not know that that has always meant making the entire area of Israel/Palestine Judenrein.
It's amazing how much people go out of their way to pretend the Palestinians at large are completely incapable of making their own decisions and then use that to justify whatever position they want to take. Like sure Bush wanted the Fatah to have elections, and he did support them afterwards even though he wanted the Fatah gone as well, but they weren't forced to have elections by the US.
Or as another example, yeah it's a bit ridiculous to expect the non-Hamas people of Gaza to rise up against Hamas. Yet they have zero problems communicating demands via protest or through charity/NGOs in Gaza. And those demands are always very one-dimensional with no attempt to try anything that isn't some variation of punish Israel and give us what we want with no negotiation.
The people of Palestine have literally burned or ignored every potential off-ramp they've had leading up to this current situation. I'm not even talking about rejecting what the Palestinians felt was bad peace deals, even one of the polls mentioned in the podcast outright had an alternative solution as one of the polled questions, one that has never been actually attempted as far as I'm aware. That doesn't excuse Israel's actions (not just now, but in general) nor is there any guarantee that some other solution would be successful, but the complete lack of any attempt is very telling and anyone who just casually overlooks that is showing willful, intentional, ignorance at best. At worst, directly condoning terrorist actions taken by Palestinians regardless of whatever someone actually says.
Not an exact quote, but the exchange where Michael asked what would happen if Israel did all the things that “pro-Palestine” talking heads repeat ad infinitum...If they in an instant conceded every single ask for them OTHER THAN ceasing to exist as a state...what would happen? Would there be peace? A strained pause and an admission that there would probably still be attacks is the only honest answer one can possibly give. That really sums up “the conversation” in elite circles, doesn’t it?
I recently started asking this question to people and following up with “under what circumstances would a military response from Israel be justified, especially if Palestine becomes a recognized state - what right to defend itself does Israel have?”
I’ve watched person after person visibly shift from honest assessment of the question to one that only makes sense in the imaginary world they have created for themselves on faith alone. Until that changes, I can’t imagine taking the revolutionary cosplayers seriously. They’ve given me no reason to.
The “solution” long term is Israel and the US making the Palestinians and their supporters/betrayers in Egypt/Lebanon/Iran/Jordan come to terms with the fact that they have lost a half dozen wars over this plot of land and no longer have claim to it. Move the remaining population as refugees into adjoining countries.
That is a certainly a more generous settlement than would be offered if the shoe was in the other foot.
The west has tried to be the good guy here for 70 years and it has reaped endless terrorism and human misery.
Assuming his beard is still like on his Bill Maher appearance: what was that all about? It's just a standard-issue beard. I think Michael and Matt are gaslighting my judgment of beards.
I think I may have gotten Biden grossly wrong. Thanks Matt. I hadn't known about his position on Syria and it occurs to me there might be a lot about him I probably don't know and have also gotten wrong because I have always viewed him dismissively.
Definitely a helpful convo for me given my personal leanings w/r/t Israel. I can, especially during times of unbelievable barbarism like October 7, overlook the fact that there are many reasonable Palestinians that do not want Israel’s destruction and simply want to live a free and normal life. I just wish these people were louder.
I have a friend here in my neighborhood that’s Palestinian, great guy lovely family, very Pro-Palestine. But their only public statement is “We hope that the human rights of all are respected.”
The history and tensions between Palestinian citizens and Israel surely complicates matters for many, but most want to only live free, happy, and prosperous lives
This idle thought brought me back to my at Occupy Wall Street where we had no microphones. Meetings were conducted by one person saying a thing, then everyone within hearing distance saying that thing, then everyone else being on the shit end of a game of telephone. It took forever to discuss anything, and statements had to be tweet-sized which had a now-predictable impact on the level of discourse.
The advantage of a microphone - or megaphone, as I originally said - is that the message is carried as it was spoken to many many more people, and you don’t get a “telephone game” effect that washes out or alters your words.
At the end of the day, the problem is believing that those in the megaphone actually speak truth and/or represent the position of a group or community. So often they don’t, but low-context observers can be awfully damn credulous of the loudest voices.
The above can create a “negative microphone” effect, I.e. a muffler on the voices of those not in agreement with those highlighted voices as the possessors of those voices grow to think their opinion is retrograde/beyond the pale/etc and then just don’t express themselves outside of private conversation with trusted parties.
I heard Bob Wright mentioned as a possible guest. I have listened to him a fair amount ( to the detriment of my sanity) and I find him to be intelligent and totally disingenuous. He has a tendency to hand wave away points that he can’t disprove. Matt Duss ( with whom I have a lot of disagreements) is far more intelligent and far more honest than Bob Wright
This was an excellent episode.
And thank you Yael for your wonderful comment that expressed my views far better than I ever could
First of all, I love you guys (3 of you at least)
The framework through which MD and other liberals look at the conflict is a western one, that of rational actors who ultimately want the same things that we in the west want, namely prosperity and freedom. This is why they search for false parallels and even moral justifications for what we saw on October 7th, and what Jews in the region have been seeing for hundreds of years. There has to exist some rational explanation to justify the lense through which we view the world, that if X happens, it's a reaction to Y. It's the same framework that guides those who believe violent crime is a response to poverty, for example, or that 9/11 is a response to American aggression. It's an incredibly narrow and self-centered framework that puts American values and norms -- which Israel shares but many of its neighbors don't -- in the forefront. It centers Americans, if you will. I think we need to be able to look at hundreds and thousands of years of hatred and incitement in the eye to understand, and to attempt to undo them.
We should listen to Hamas and their supporters in the west when they talk, and believe them when they say the ultimate goal is annihilation of Israel. This is the first starting point on understanding the conflict, any attempt to explain that away weakens that hate that is so clearly stated, and pokes enough small holes in an otherwise clear Hamas ideology to allow well-meaning westerners as well as vile antisemites something very weak to lean on (mixed metaphors inspired by MW). This hate pre-dates settlements, it pre-dates the establishment of Israel, it even pre-dates the existence of the Palestinian people. It can't and shouldn't be explained away by lesser evils on the Israeli side, this creates a false moral equivalence that compares quest for genocide with blemishes on the records of those who deal with the genocide. Kind of reminds me of the cartoon of a Hamas terrorist holding a sign saying "kill Jews", and a well-meaning American pleading with an Israeli: "can't you just meet him in the middle"?
Does Israel do things that add fuel to this hate? Sure. But to paraphrase something Kmele once said about police and race - if we need the number of errors or violence committed by Jews to reach zero as a starting point, we'll never solve this conflict. Yes, really shitty extreme settlers exist, yes, there are violent elements in Israeli politics - I'm embarrassed by them as are a majority of my fellow Israelis who have been taking to the streets to protest the last year or so. But society is judged by how it treats extremism and violence, not by the absence of it. Every Israeli knows the story of Elor Azaria, a soldier who in 2016 killed a palestinian terrorist who had just stabbed a fellow soldier. The problem is Elor killed the terrorists when he was already on the ground, neutralized. He was charged with manslaughter by an Israeli court. The incident caused a huge stir, because these are the frank and open discussions we are having every day in Israel.
So this is my plea to stop with false equivalencies, to stop weighing Hamas atrocities in one hand against the imperfections of a democratic society on the other, because your hand will fall off. It does a disservice (to put it mildly) to Israelis, as well as Palestinians who want to drop the hatred and commit to peace and prosperity.
Love, an Israeli who wishes we could all see the world through a western-libeals lense, and who for some reason still believes in peace
Well said. One of the more annoying conceits of prosperous, decadent Western societies is to believe that evil doesn't exist. *If WE just did a better job of uNdErStAnDiNg, surely, WE could solve this problem.* We, who can take peace and prosperity for granted, have a duty to study the lessons of history and learn what it teaches about the darkness within the human soul. And we don't have to look too hard. History is full of those lessons.
In the present crisis, it really just comes down to one question: do you think Israel has the right to exist or not? The rest of the questions tend to answer themselves after that.
Thank you for stating this so well, Yael. Worldview matters. It is a mistake to believe that other cultures share our (the West’s) view of what is moral and good. Hamas has stated that they exploit Israelis’ love of life. When you have one culture who holds up suicide bombers as martyrs and are willing to treat the weakest among them as human shields, you aren’t reasoning with people who share your core values.
Which raises the 800-pound gorilla in the room that few people outside Sam Harris will want to raise. How much of this is simply rooted in Islam itself? The close people get to fundamentalist interpretations of almost any religion the more that religions flaws, anachronisms, and moral dubiousness comes out. Islam is mired in Fundamentalist interpretations right now and it is a disaster for every country where Islam is the official law of the land. The hypocrisy of those who would tell us that a society under Westboro Baptist's law would be the greatest hell on Earth, but the same type of worldview enacted in a third of the world is a harbinger of doom.
I think you're right to say regardless of the religion, Fundamentalism is almost always in tension with liberalism and pluralism. There is no way to escape violence when someone is claiming for religious purposes, we cannot tolerate the existence of something.
This comment was more eloquent and interesting than most opinion pieces I've read since October 7th. Though in Duss's defense, I'm not sure he would disagree with much of it.
If these radicals gave 1/100th the benefit of the doubt to everybody as they give to Hamas, our cancel culture problems would cease to exist.
If everyone gave the benefit of the doubt to everyone else, we would all be better off.
Good parallel pointed out by Moynihan re: "Defund the Police®" and "From The River to The Sea®", in that a hefty majority don't realize what either saying connotes, they're just looking for a slogan that they can chant and signal their fellow tribe members with.
"From palaver to my degree, we hate those who disagree."
Or something.
There’s a lot of overlap, in the protesters and the slogans/buzzwords. I like to imagine people showing up and asking, “Which thing is this? What are we marching about?”
How do we understand "The Palestinians"? What level of popular support does Hamas have? We all want to believe that Hamas does not represent "The Palestinians," but how do we know that? This convo with Matt Duss was a really good one and provided a lot of valuable insights, but I wonder if we're projecting our ideas about what we want to believe the Palestinians think. It strikes me that of all the people that could be denouncing Hamas as not representing the Palestinians, it's mostly not the Palestinians or Arabs saying that. It's us saying that. In a recent pod with Eli Lake, there was a shared sentiment that the Palestinians in Gaza largely didn't support the atrocities of 10/7. Where is the evidence of that? Where are the Palestinian and Arab voices denouncing what Hamas did? The Arabs seem to have reflexively rallied to the Hamas flag. I want to believe because the alternative is very ugly. But what is the truth?
Yeah I think there is a lot of evidence that a significant plurality of the population support Hamas and another decent chunk is at least ok with it. Yeah the population is very young, that also means they are likely dumb and brainwashed.
Thank you for this very good conversation. I’m not quite sure it’s completely accurate to say the Gaza Strip is occupied. Israel withdrew in 2006 or something like that -- Bush was president. The “blockade,” isn’t for food and other stuff it’s for dual use technology because Hamas was using stuff like water pipes for tunnels instead of building infrastructure that would improve the lives of Palestinians living in the strip
And for some convenient reason people completely forget that Gaza borders another country, Egypt, that's blockaded them completely.
They have also lobotomized themselves to ignore that this is the ONLY conflict on Earth where you can use the "but they may not be allowed to go home!" excuse to refuse to let refugees escape to your territory.
Imagine the US or Europe try to use that to justify not accepting ANY group of people who are desperately trying to leave a war zone or alleged genocide (Syrians, Afghans, Sudanese, Rohingya, Azeris, or, in fact, Palestinians). But UNHRC's response to Egypt? Crickets.
A few lies of omission from Duss about the peace process, but overall a nice, civil conversation. Strongly recommend Haviv Rettig Gur as a guest from a centrist Israeli perspective.
Second Haviv
Some people use "From the River to the Sea" to mean "End the Occupation", in the exact same way that some people use the Confederate Flag to represent States' Rights.
Some people also say "gas the jews" to mean "make sure they have oxygen!"
See how retarded that argument is?
I feel like you're making my argument for me:
If people say "Gas the Jews" means giving more oxygen, they probably want to gas Jews.
If people use a Confederate flag to represent states' rights, they probably want their state to discriminate against black people.
If people say "From the River to the Sea" to mean "end the occupation", they probably want Israel wiped off the map.
Correct. We agree.
I think there IS an argument to be had about states rights, just not over the ownership of humans
I do as well.
This!
I want to like this, but I am not 100% sure how you mean it.
I am assuming you mean that some people are using it to just make a vague gesture at political sympathies while others are using it as coed hateful language, and that it is difficult to know which is which.
So if you mean that +1.
If you mean everyone who is doing this on both sides is a secret hateful racist, I am not sure I agree.
One can believe in States' Rights in competition with an ever expanding federal government (as I do), but once you pair it with a Confederate Flag, we know you mean States' rights to discriminate against black people.
Likewise, one can be for "Ending the Occupation" (an anachronism in regards to Gaza since 2005, but okay), but as soon as you pair it with "From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free", you have to be ignorant to not know that that has always meant making the entire area of Israel/Palestine Judenrein.
Stand and slow clap!
It's amazing how much people go out of their way to pretend the Palestinians at large are completely incapable of making their own decisions and then use that to justify whatever position they want to take. Like sure Bush wanted the Fatah to have elections, and he did support them afterwards even though he wanted the Fatah gone as well, but they weren't forced to have elections by the US.
Or as another example, yeah it's a bit ridiculous to expect the non-Hamas people of Gaza to rise up against Hamas. Yet they have zero problems communicating demands via protest or through charity/NGOs in Gaza. And those demands are always very one-dimensional with no attempt to try anything that isn't some variation of punish Israel and give us what we want with no negotiation.
The people of Palestine have literally burned or ignored every potential off-ramp they've had leading up to this current situation. I'm not even talking about rejecting what the Palestinians felt was bad peace deals, even one of the polls mentioned in the podcast outright had an alternative solution as one of the polled questions, one that has never been actually attempted as far as I'm aware. That doesn't excuse Israel's actions (not just now, but in general) nor is there any guarantee that some other solution would be successful, but the complete lack of any attempt is very telling and anyone who just casually overlooks that is showing willful, intentional, ignorance at best. At worst, directly condoning terrorist actions taken by Palestinians regardless of whatever someone actually says.
This. The residents of Gaza made this bed, they support the government THEY elected.
Not an exact quote, but the exchange where Michael asked what would happen if Israel did all the things that “pro-Palestine” talking heads repeat ad infinitum...If they in an instant conceded every single ask for them OTHER THAN ceasing to exist as a state...what would happen? Would there be peace? A strained pause and an admission that there would probably still be attacks is the only honest answer one can possibly give. That really sums up “the conversation” in elite circles, doesn’t it?
I recently started asking this question to people and following up with “under what circumstances would a military response from Israel be justified, especially if Palestine becomes a recognized state - what right to defend itself does Israel have?”
I’ve watched person after person visibly shift from honest assessment of the question to one that only makes sense in the imaginary world they have created for themselves on faith alone. Until that changes, I can’t imagine taking the revolutionary cosplayers seriously. They’ve given me no reason to.
The “solution” long term is Israel and the US making the Palestinians and their supporters/betrayers in Egypt/Lebanon/Iran/Jordan come to terms with the fact that they have lost a half dozen wars over this plot of land and no longer have claim to it. Move the remaining population as refugees into adjoining countries.
That is a certainly a more generous settlement than would be offered if the shoe was in the other foot.
The west has tried to be the good guy here for 70 years and it has reaped endless terrorism and human misery.
Re: Matt’s beard and appearance: Coincidentally, today is Tom Petty’s birthday.
Assuming his beard is still like on his Bill Maher appearance: what was that all about? It's just a standard-issue beard. I think Michael and Matt are gaslighting my judgment of beards.
Or our collective memory of Tom Petty.
I think I may have gotten Biden grossly wrong. Thanks Matt. I hadn't known about his position on Syria and it occurs to me there might be a lot about him I probably don't know and have also gotten wrong because I have always viewed him dismissively.
This is why I love this production.
Glad you guys did this. I enjoyed the Real Time debate between Matt and Bill/Jamie.
Thank you for this!
“Sympathetic to the massacre,” Matt? Please, I saw the videos. They were practically ready to deep throat Ismail Haniyeh.
We need stricter Duss/Welch differentiation in these comments.
This adds even greater confusion to the Walsh/Welsh mess!
I don't know which of the others is Welsh but pretty sure ours is from Long Beach.
Definitely a helpful convo for me given my personal leanings w/r/t Israel. I can, especially during times of unbelievable barbarism like October 7, overlook the fact that there are many reasonable Palestinians that do not want Israel’s destruction and simply want to live a free and normal life. I just wish these people were louder.
It’s hard to be loud when everyone gives the megaphone to the other people
I was about to say almost exactly this.
I have a friend here in my neighborhood that’s Palestinian, great guy lovely family, very Pro-Palestine. But their only public statement is “We hope that the human rights of all are respected.”
The history and tensions between Palestinian citizens and Israel surely complicates matters for many, but most want to only live free, happy, and prosperous lives
“All Lives Matter” has become very in vogue all of the sudden
What if we just did away with microphones?
This idle thought brought me back to my at Occupy Wall Street where we had no microphones. Meetings were conducted by one person saying a thing, then everyone within hearing distance saying that thing, then everyone else being on the shit end of a game of telephone. It took forever to discuss anything, and statements had to be tweet-sized which had a now-predictable impact on the level of discourse.
Mic check!
The advantage of a microphone - or megaphone, as I originally said - is that the message is carried as it was spoken to many many more people, and you don’t get a “telephone game” effect that washes out or alters your words.
At the end of the day, the problem is believing that those in the megaphone actually speak truth and/or represent the position of a group or community. So often they don’t, but low-context observers can be awfully damn credulous of the loudest voices.
The above can create a “negative microphone” effect, I.e. a muffler on the voices of those not in agreement with those highlighted voices as the possessors of those voices grow to think their opinion is retrograde/beyond the pale/etc and then just don’t express themselves outside of private conversation with trusted parties.
I feel like many people in this situation just want everyone in charge to shut the fuck up with arguing points and figure it out.
I heard Bob Wright mentioned as a possible guest. I have listened to him a fair amount ( to the detriment of my sanity) and I find him to be intelligent and totally disingenuous. He has a tendency to hand wave away points that he can’t disprove. Matt Duss ( with whom I have a lot of disagreements) is far more intelligent and far more honest than Bob Wright
This was an excellent episode.
And thank you Yael for your wonderful comment that expressed my views far better than I ever could