For what it’s worth, you seem to be agreeing with the person you replied to. Their main point is that this break down happens primarily because people identify as Rationalists (or whatever else). Taken from that angle, Rationalism as an identity does not appear to be useful.

These people are just narcissists who use (often pseudo)intellectualism as the vehicle for their narcissism.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-c...

In other words, your question ignores so much nuance that it’s a red herring IMO.

Still, since he/she was so willing to make a claim of genocide (implicitly) I was wondering that, were it a false claim, would it be equally "blatantly shitty social behaviour, narcissistic use of (often pseudo)intellectualism for his/her narcissistic behaviour" as the behaviour he/she was calling out?

I'm pretty certain I understand the reality of the situation (in fact I'd accept reasonably short odds that I understand it better than anyone participating in the discussion on this story).

And yes, I have some. One is that false claims of genocide are equally reprehensible to denying true genocide. But I'm not sure why my beliefs are particularly relevant. I'm not the one sitting publicly in judgement of a semi-public figure. That was voidhorse.

Did you want to discuss in more detail? I'm happy to, but currently I interpret your comment as an attempt at sniping me with snark. Please do correct me if I've misinterpreted.

As others have pointed out, the fact that you would like to make light of cities being decimated and innocent civilians being murdered at scale in itself suggests a lot about your inability to concretize the reality of human existence beyond yourself (lack of empathy). It's this kind of outright callousness toward actual human beings that I think many of these so called "rationalists" share. I can't fault them too much. After all, when your approach to social problems is highly if not strictly quantitative you are already primed to nullify your own aptitude for empathy, since you view other human beings as nothing more than numerical quantities whenever you attempt to address their problems.

I have seen no defense for what's happening in gaza that anyone who actually values human life, for all humans, would find rational. Recall the root of the word ratio—in proportion. What is happening in this case is quite blatantly a matter of an inproportinate response.

I'm struggling to follow, sorry.

I certainly agree with you that a false accusation is not worse than the actuality (I don't know why you brought up "possibility") of mass murder. Very far from it. But why does that imply that it's better than the defence of mass murder? After all, the "defence" here is not engaging in the practice, it's just saying something like "I condone that". Or did you think that by "defence" I actually mean committing the mass murder?

The reason that emotive false accusations are very, very harmful is that they can cause mobs to murder in (supposed) retaliation. Here's a story about someone in the UK who was killed by a riled-up mob, due to a false accusation:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3535839/Father-42-k...

One ought to be very, very cautious about making accusations that can rile up mobs.

Regarding your other comments directed at me personally, such as "you would like to make light of cities being decimated and innocent civilians being murdered at scale", "inability to concretize the reality of human existence beyond yourself", "outright callousness", "approach to social problems is highly if not strictly quantitative", "you view other human beings as nothing more than numerical quantities", they are completely unfounded speculation on your part. They are rude and completely inappropriate for a reasoned discussion.

Regarding proportion, do you believe the actions of the UK and USA against Nazi Germany were "proportionate"? Proportionate to what? What did Nazi Germany ever to do the USA?

Still, for the record, other independent observers have documented the practices and explained why they don't meet the definition of genocide, John Spencer and Natasha Hausdorff to name two examples. It seems by no means clear that it's valid to make a claim of genocide. I certainly wouldn't unless I was really, really certain of my claim, because to get such a claim wrong is equally egregious to denying a true genocide, in my opinion.

>John W. Spencer is a retired United States Army officer, researcher of urban warfare, and author. [1]

lmao, if I find two people from the military or law who deny the holocaust, then will you deny it too? Actually, maybe you shouldn't answer that.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Hausdorff

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Spencer_(military_officer...

In any case, this is really going off topic. All I am interested in is in voidhorse's answer to my simple question. That doesn't require retreading many of the the dark corners of human history.

In one case, naming two people who studied the events in Gaza and denied that it's a genocide was sufficient. In the other, you required a higher threshold of evidence. Arbitrary reasoning.

If there's a genocide I would really like to know about it. All right-thinking decent people should. But the people pushing the idea that there is one don't seem to be applying sufficient rational skepticism and don't seem to be willing to engage in intellectual discourse on the topic, so they're really not winning me over.

Here's one of the big questions I find it hard to get an answer to: how is what's happening in Gaza materially different from what happened to Germany and Japan during WWII, or to the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war?

Now that we've cleared up that I'm not interested in answering your questions without some reciprocity, you can prove to me that the Holocaust was real. If you do, I'll respond in kind. If you won't, then you're out of luck. Knowledge is a gift, and you are not owed anything.

On a forum like HN I think it's reasonable to be asked to justify strong claims that one makes. However, I wasn't even doing that. Rather, I was asking whether voidhorse thought false claims of genocide were equally bad as defence of genocide. It turns out the answer is no: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44320889. I disagree, but fair enough, other people think differently.

So, I have what I originally asked for.

I don't actually have any questions for you. I was only asking since I perceived you were trying to convince me of something. If you're not, that was just a misunderstanding on my part, and no need to continue the conversation. I'm not trying to persuade you of anything! That said, I'm happy to continue to participate in a process of reasoned discussion and inquiry if anyone wants to, but firstly it's going wildly off topic. and secondly I don't see the standards of discussion so far to as particularly high.

> the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

I didn't read the arguments of the people you cited because you didn't bother to link to them, but looking at their credentials, I'm not sure either of them are in a position to solidly refute the scores of footage and testimony to the contrary. The only people I've seen defending this have some kind of personal attachment to Israel, but come on, man, you can maintain that attachment and still condemn horrific acts committed by the state when they happen.

Under your dictionary definition, would you say that the Allies in WWII committed genocide of Germans and Japanese? If you say "yes", then I suppose you're entitled to your interpretation, and I know exactly how seriously to take it. If you say "no" then perhaps you could explain what is the difference between WWII (where proportionally far more civilians were killed) and the current Gaza war.

> you can maintain that attachment and still condemn horrific acts committed by the state when they happen

I agree. And one can refrain from condemning horrific acts that one is not certain happened.

I'm happy to continue the discussion if you like, but all I'm really after is your answer to this simple question: do you see defence of true genocide as equally bad as false accusation of genocide? I would be content with a simple yes or no. Or does the question make you uncomfortable somehow?