No Notes, No Net

No one wants World War III.

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On today’s Ruminant, unencumbered by any pretension to organization, Jonah waxes eloquent on everything from the spy balloon over Montana to the breakdown of organized religion. After beginning with a dive into the rhetoric surrounding the war in Ukraine, he directs his ire towards the cult of victimhood that seems to dominate public life. Stick around for a particularly eggheadish discussion on the nature of policing, American racial progress, and why individual choice matters.

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  1. Avatar photo
    C C Writer

    Hey! On my tablet (on which I play back podcasts, because I'm not going to sit in front of my computer for over an hour to listen to them) this one ended at 1:17:something. Not fair! FIX THIS!!!

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    Daniel.Standage

    I’m glad you got the extra sleep, Jonah. That was a brilliant pod!

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    Azjauthor

    A really great podcast, with many good points. I didn't like the ending, though, to be honest. You began early on with the very valid point that you shouldn't strawman your opponents ... but then you ended by saying that just because someone believes crimes happen because of reasons that are outside of their control, that person also believes you have no justification to lock up rapists and murderers. You don't have to "blame" (in a moral sense) the rapist/murderer as a fully free agent who is choosing these actions to recognize that it may be a good idea to keep people who engage in these behaviors off the street. Even in a fully deterministic society, where everyone are just playing out our programming and we decide that we want to apply to moral judgment whatsoever, it would completely make sense that we don't want people whose programming includes raping, murdering, and stealing to just be left to do their thing without intervention. That reason for locking people up exists completely independently of any claim about their moral culpability.

    The only case where punishment qua punishment becomes an issue is where a person commits an illegal act, but you're fairly certain that they would never commit that act again. These would be precisely the cases where the situation of the original crime would seem to be highly unusual, an otherwise ordinary person pushed into an extreme act. And that's precisely the situation where we'd expect the punishment to be mitigated in comparison to someone whose circumstances have conditioned them to be a criminal on a recurring basis.

    As you said, if you're going to criticize something, you should be able to point to someone who is actually making the claim. Is there anyone out there, of any significance, who is actually arguing that rapists and murderers should just be allowed to wander around and perform this behavior? I've listened to a lot liberals over the years, and have never once heard anyone (including people who want to "abolish" the police) who actually believe that's the case.

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    Ben Connelly

    Some leftists think violence is a social construct created by toxic masculinity, so if we defund the police and make white men go to therapy and dismantle the patriarchy or whatever, we will have solved the problem of violence.

    Or something like that. I think it’s patently ridiculous, but what do I know? I’m a straight white guy

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    Dusty

    A few points of pushback on the Ukrainian part.

    1) At one point you say, maybe offhandedly, that Putin "just wants to watch the world burn." To me, that's just lazy commentary. I think there's a real instinct among us to fall into a "they're opposed to us because they're evil" answer, but I can think of a whole lot of reasons why Putin, Xi, or whoever is opposed to Western hegemony. Some of those reasons may be right and some may be wrong. Some of those reasons may actually be evil and some may not be. Acknowledging that doesn't make one pro-Putin or anti-Ukrainian, but just saying that "some people just want to watch the world burn" doesn't seem to me to even attempt to try to know one's enemy.

    2) On the Abrams, for me the question isn't who is going to operate the Abrams but rather who is going to *maintain* the Abrams. I am fairly confident that any tanker can learn to operate an Abrams reasonably well with a few months of training. I am less certain about the maintenance part. The Abrams operates with dozens - maybe even hundreds (been awhile since I've been around them) - of computer modules that are in something like an airplane's black box. Running diagnosis and repairing these when they malfunction (which happens all the time) is its own MOS in the U.S. Army (94Y)- separate from what is just a general Abrams mechanic (91A). I assume a mechanic on a T-72 can transition to an Abrams and get the general gist of it (though I don't think it'd be that easy). But on the computer front, who in the Ukrainian military is going to be doing this?

    3) Finally, World War II metaphors are totally appropriate. But so are World War I metaphors. I think it's totally legitimate for people to be concerned that what is essentially a regional conflict could explode into a global conflict via a network of alliances because it has happened before. Now to be fair, I actually haven't heard many of the Ukraine skeptics actually make this point, and that's because most of them are arguing in bad faith and/or are idiots. But not everyone is, and I think some of them raise some points that - while maybe are ultimately incorrect or secondary - are legitimate points worthy of discussion and debate.

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    Paterfamilias

    You were on fire at the end and should have kept going. Next episode pick it up where you left off.

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    Paterfamilias

    Yes. A Remnant Live. Make it happen.

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    Christophe

    Great ranting towards the end, need more of that energy

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    George.Skinner

    One of the truly disillusioning things about the whole gas stove brouhaha is seeing people immediately line up behind what they perceive as their ideological position. News outlets like the Washington Post have been filled with articles about how induction ranges are better, and most recently a piece on “how to reduce the health impact of your gas stove if you can’t replace it right away.” All of this because one consumer protection official got out over his skis proposing a ban based on a questionable meta analysis suggesting a link to asthma, and they saw the right wing line up against it.

    This is pitiful. We do not have to adopt a policy or accept a conclusion simply because it’s been proposed by somebody on our side of the ideological divide. We also don’t have to reject it if it comes from the other side. We’re never going to solve any problems if we can’t engage in a discussion based on facts and merit.

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    Matthew Thirteen

    I certainly agree with you, Jonah, that the reaction to balloon or drone as you refer to it Sunday is a bit overblown. I am curious why you suggested on Sunday that it could have been popped over Alaska. You are, of course, familiar with AK. It appears to have flown along or south of the Brooks range where winter is in full swing-temperatures in the negatives with snow covering the ground. The area is very remote as well. Is it not easier to recover and exploit what remains of it just off the south east coast where the conditions are more favorable for such a mission? Thank you

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      George.Skinner

      I think the concern with bringing it down earlier had more to do with the weapons used to do it than the actual balloon falling. In terms of falling debris, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to temporarily evacuate an area around the balloon’s location. The bigger problem was that explosive cannon rounds wouldn’t be triggered by impact with the balloon envelope - they’d just keep on going and THEN explode when they hit the ground. If an air-to-air missile like the one eventually used didn’t fuse and detonate, same sort of problem.

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