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10 votes
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A weakened Hezbollah is being goaded into all-out conflict with Israel – the consequences would be devastating for all
24 votes -
The eye test image mystery
6 votes -
USA: "The undecided voters are not who you think they are"
37 votes -
Your politics are boring as fuck
17 votes -
Anti-immigration mood sweeping EU capitals puts strain on bloc’s unity. From Germany’s border checks to France’s vow to restore order, rejection of open borders could threaten Schengen zone.
13 votes -
US Republicans’ electoral college edge, once seen as ironclad, looks to be fading
23 votes -
Tildes Video Thread
Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you. It...
Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.
It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...
Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!
1 vote -
How the Islamic State weaponizes imitation in its propaganda
4 votes -
Tildes Video Thread
Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you. It...
Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.
It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...
Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!
9 votes -
Data finds US Republican areas search more frequently for transgender porn
41 votes -
Infantry war at Pokrovsk: why Ukraine's key eastern front started (and continues) to crumble
6 votes -
The shapeshifter: who is the real Giorgia Meloni?
7 votes -
Finland's President Alexander Stubb has called for expansion of the UN Security Council, abolition of its single state veto power, and suspension of any member engaging in an “illegal war”
41 votes -
Eerie video essays
Hello! I'm currently in the mood to listen to some spooky video essays in the background while I do other things, but I need some recommendations. The general vibe I'm going for would be something...
Hello! I'm currently in the mood to listen to some spooky video essays in the background while I do other things, but I need some recommendations. The general vibe I'm going for would be something like blameitonjorge, where there's an eerie style of narration and maybe some mood music. The topic doesn't have to be lost media, it can be anything. I'm also familiar with Night Mind, Nexpo, Inside a Mind, and Wendigoon. Any good suggestions?
20 votes -
An Israeli and a Palestinian discuss 7 October, Gaza – and the future
8 votes -
Disappointing systems in Ukraine - From imprecise precision munitions to explosive IFVs
12 votes -
Operating on good faith in a bad faith environment—the implications
I've been reconsidering things about honesty in the wider context of politics. I think honesty is at the heart of a good faith approach. You have to be both honest about the limitations of your...
I've been reconsidering things about honesty in the wider context of politics. I think honesty is at the heart of a good faith approach. You have to be both honest about the limitations of your own thoughts, you have to seriously consider the opinion of the person you're talking to, and you shouldn't attack their person in any way.
It's assumed in ethically liberal communities that honest and constructive conversations are the way to go to get political power, in the positive sense. "They go low, we go high." This is, of course, true in some contexts. An entirely bad faith approach to people would result in alienating potential allies. Having a good faith approaches also gives you some sort of moral argument, which you can leverage.
With this being said, this claim, that it is the only way, is extremely insufficient in several dimensions.
First of all, there are a lot of situations where bad faith approach, where you ridicule and attack your opponent, mock them, or even lie about them, etc. work. A recent example is the Couch Fucker bit about J.D. Vance. It's obviously not true, but it was a very useful piece of propaganda. It just caught on, because he really did seem like the kind of guy to do that. A similar example was misinterpreting a certain search, and saying he was searching dolphin porn. Again, he looks like the type to do that. A third example is the AI-generated images about the MAGA crowd bringing fake semen cups to support J.D. Vance. It's not real but it caught on, because the MAGA crowd contains a lot of people that seem that self-unaware and cultish.
Second, the "good faith first" approach ignores a key dimension of politics—the conflict. "Ideal citizens" in liberal democracies, or people looking up to liberal democracies and their ideals, like to imagine that a properly ethical, positive, constructive dialogue-based approach will triumph over bad actors. Gestures widely at the world This is simply not true. There are a lot of situations where such people fail.
The reason for this is that conflict is not "clean". It is conflict. It can be hard or soft in a wide spectrum, but one would have to ignore pretty much reality itself to claim there are only soft conflicts in the world. The good faith approach, which I outlined above, assumes that you can still overcome the hard conflicts with their "clean" approach (unless it's open war).
This is not true either. There are a lot of, and increasingly, bad faith actors in democracies or semi-democracies that are undermining them in every way they can. They want to take people's rights away, make them poorer, conserve or institute hiearchies, and a lot of them also want to kill you. A major chunk of the far right population would be delighted to genocide the people you love and yourself. And a bigger chunk of the right-wingers are sympathetic to them.
This is not a war in the conventional sense, but it's a serious hard conflict. So, the stakes are not just losing an election and then putting up with some leaders with "differences of opinion". Stakes are much higher. If or when they succeed, a lot of people will suffer at the hands of these weirdos. Some of them will even directly or indirectly get killed.
In light of this context, approaching bad faith actors in bad faith is within reasonable ethical limits, and it's the strategically sound option. This is, again, not a black-or-white thing. Not every situation requires the same strength or variety of bad faith response, neither ethically nor strategically. A context-sensitive approach is required.
This context-sensitivity, in other words flexibility of mind, is at the core of what I'm trying to illustrate here. Black-or-white thinking about having to choose between good faith and bad faith leads to ruin. It's a spectrum. A person ought to assess the situation at hand, and respond properly.
For example, on Tildes I try my best to approach topics from a place of good faith. I think this approach on Tildes mostly works, because a) people here in general try to operate on good faith b) people here seem to try to distance themselves from populist and rash arguments c) it's left-leaning to an extent, and definitely very anti-far right, so less insane opinions.
I neither would want to be bad faith here nor would see any point in it. However, on places like big social media sites (Reddit, Twitter, etc.) I don't really see the point. They are rife with fascists and fascist sympathizers. I saw plenty of naive people -I've been those people- try to explain things earnestly to them, assuming that their opinion is simply based on ignorance and misunderstanding, and not on active ill-will and a conscious choice to hurt people.
Before any objections, I will say that I am aware of the nuances. Not every right-winger is the same (and I have not made that claim), and even among far-right people there are ones who can be persuaded, because they simply are ignorant. But in vast majority of the time, these actors are operating on bad faith. They are not interested in constructive arguments, they are interested in spreading their filth in order to hurt people.
Keeping this in mind, it can be seen that a better counter to their claims is some variety of bad faith. In other words, more ostracization by labeling them things like weirdos and incels. More couch fucking, more dolpin porn, more cups of cum.
33 votes -
Donald Trump trials - Georgia election interference state court case - Megathread
Texts, documents hint at convicted witness bail bond business owner Scott Hall's wide ties to Coffee County breach, Trump allies ahead of trial Hall played a part in various post-election events,...
Texts, documents hint at convicted witness bail bond business owner Scott Hall's wide ties to Coffee County breach, Trump allies ahead of trial
Hall played a part in various post-election events, and he's taken a plea deal. He will testify in the Georgia 2020 election trials.
Hall's alleged involvement following the 2020 election reaches beyond the small south Georgia county. This includes personal relationships with those close to the former president.
Several media outlets, including CNN, have reported that Hall is related to David Bossie, chairman of the conservative group Citizens United who briefly led the former president's post-election legal challenges. Bossie's name appears in the Fulton indictment.
In late November 2020, David Shafer introduced Hall to a group of individuals including Robert Sinners, a current spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State's office who then worked for Trump's campaign. In the email, Shafer said Hall was "looking into the election" on behalf of the former president at Bossie's request.
This is described in Act 4 in the indictment, though Sinners is referred to as "unindicted co-conspirator Individual 4" by Fulton prosecutors. Sinners has since disavowed the post-2020 election activities that took place in Georgia.
Hall may also know about the letter former Justice Department official Jeffery Clark wanted to send that alleged the agency "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia."
34 votes -
Kamala Harris’ lead dips in national US polls and it’s very close in the key states
28 votes -
Post-Positivism is not yet normalized in international relations
6 votes -
Unexceptional exceptionalism: The use of force by great powers and international instability
4 votes -
Challenge or opportunity? EU-China economic cooperation and the Belt and Road initiative.
4 votes -
Laboratories at home and abroad: Russian information operations pre-deployment
9 votes -
Congressional insider trading: Is it real? And can we use it to our advantage?
9 votes -
I never expected to run for office—here's what I learned
32 votes -
Diggnation producing new episodes
3 votes -
America is losing Southeast Asia: Why US allies in the region are turning toward China
19 votes -
Where do you fit in the US political typology?
29 votes -
The New York Times is a fluffer for Donald Trump on Arlington Cemetery desecration
19 votes -
Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris: Who is leading in the US presidential election polls?
35 votes -
Russia and Ukraine on the offensive - Kursk, the Donbass and escalating long-range strikes
22 votes