Given the ever more obvious case that genocide is going on in Gaza, I had been thinking that Scott Aaronson’s going quiet on the issue meant that he was starting to realize that this had become indefensible. Turns out I was very wrong.
In his latest blog posting, he explains that the current situation in Gaza is analogous to an evil murderer kidnapping your child and strapping her to train tracks before an oncoming train. If you pull a lever to divert the train it will instead kill five of the murderer’s children. This situation provides for him a definition of Zionism:
Zionism, to define it in one sentence, is the proposition that, in the situation described, you have not merely a right but a moral obligation to pull the lever—and that you can do so with your middle finger raised high to the hateful mob…
Zionism, so defined, is the deepest moral belief that I have.
Scott formulates this as an abstract moral dilemma, but of course it’s about the very concrete question of what the state of Israel should do about the two million people in Gaza. Scott’s answer to this is clear: they want to kill us and our children, so we have to kill them all, children included. This is completely crazy, as is defining Zionism as this sort of genocidal madness.
Update: More from Scott, it seems that those opposed to what Israel is doing in Gaza are “brain-eaten zombies”. He’s also convinced that the zombie problem is mainly academics in the humanities. I hear that there’s a statement about what is going on in Gaza signed by thousands of prominent scientists that will soon be made public. A lot of very prominent brain-eaten zombie scientists out there, it seems.
Of course he’s still not allowing comments on his blog. For other discussion of his blogposts, see here and here.
Update: I’ve deleted quite a few comments from people who wanted to tell me that there was no genocide going on in Gaza (and if there was, it was the faulty of the Palestinians). Yesterday the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution (by an 86% majority vote) characterizing the Israeli actions in Gaza as genocide.
Update: More from Scott about how victimized he is, especially by some troll (see here) sending him an anti-semitic graphic that he then put up on his website as “woitwordview”. He seems to agree with me that he is “psychologically troubled”, but sees the fact that almost everyone is telling him this as indicating that “all the moral progress of humanity depends on psychologically troubled people” like himself.
For some idea of what is going on here as classes start, take a look here, here, here and here.
Just saw this from the university. Trying to figure out what it’s about, it seems that a couple students walked through campus holding a sign saying “some of your classmates were IOF criminals committing genocide in Palestine”.
I’ve recently decided that, in order not to become as psychologically troubled as Scott, I need to get out of here and detox for a while. Leaving for a week-long trip to Paris tomorrow, now shutting down comments here. Will try to spend more time thinking about Wick rotation, and less about Columbia and things like whether someone in the IDF read Scott’s “Deep Zionism” post and decided to do this, or the slaughter going on in Gaza that we’re not supposed to say anything about.
“Steve’s toenail clippings constituted a greater contribution to particle physics than would the life’s work of a hundred billion Peter Woits.”
Silly personal attacks like these are undeniable evidence that Dr Aaronson’s brain is broken.
Scott’s post seems to fit the standard “Shoot and Cry” theme in Israel literature and cinema where the protagonist (someone in the IDF) is “forced” to commit an atrocity against the Arabs. It’s a pretty standard device and has been analyzed extensively as a way to deflect responsibility for one’s actions and maintain purity/innocence of one’s values/motives. No deeper introspection is needed.
It’s certainly depressing to see Scott, along with several other great scientists I admire, turn out like this but that’s the path he chose. History won’t judge him kindly.
Bob Sinclar,
For a “Rationalist” he really is going all out with the irrational vituperation and incoherent argumententation. As the genocide proceeds and the bodies pile up, it’s not going to be pretty to see where he goes with this.
Yet another anonymous,
The reason I am blogging about this here should be clear if you’ve followed these postings
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?cat=35
Crazy accusations from those like Scott have been weaponized to do a huge amount of damage to the community and institution where I work. Just one example: every day now I go through security checkpoints to get to my office. We’re told the checkpoints are there for the security of Jewish students, whose physical safety is endangered by antisemites.
Another way of saying why I’m writing about this: there’s a mountain of lies from Scott and his Fascist allies about what’s going on and I don’t like lies. Also, wholesale slaughter of innocent people in Gaza is not a good thing, and the fact that many other bad things are happening isn’t a reason for not discussing that one.
Scott is lowering himself into a very morally unpleasant set of incentive structures.
Scott’s greatest fear is of the entire world, led by “the global far left”, publicly shaming and ostracizing him. But what he has done, entirely of his own choosing, is to create a situation where the left is indeed likely to publicly shame and ostracize him. If we define the left as “anyone who dislikes mass murdering children”.
As he doubles down on genocide, he’s putting himself in a position where society really is likely to reject him, where the only people who will stand by him and have his back are… the far right. You know, the fascists in power in Texas and the United States.
I dearly hope that Scott Aaronson’s principles turn out to be genuine.
Btw, that picture he attached at the top of his latest blog post is named “woitworldview.png”, suggesting he created it himself, which is quite disturbing to say the least.
One of the downsides of supporting a genocide is that people will call you out for doing so, and it’s going to be extremely hard to flip things around and convince the world you’re the victim, especially when dozens of innocents are getting murdered, day after day, with no end in sight and with your full support.
Bob Sinclar,
Looks like he created it with some prompt to an openai tool to generate a graphic showing how antisemitic Peter Woit is.
Not doing much to change my conclusion that he needs help for his mental health issues.
To me, the standout feature of Aaronson’s trolley allegory is that it is ridiculous, absurd, impossible. No man would sacrifice his five children in order to make another man lose face in the community. No matter what culture, or what conflict is happening, this is not a thing. It is telling that the chosen analogy for zionism is fundamentally fake. There is no intellectually honest way to support the mass slaughter of innocents.
Originally I had no interest in commenting, but given some of the criticism’s of Peter I felt it was worth making a couple of points. First of all a big thank you to your bravery Peter, I wish we had more academics willing to take such an ethical stand, especially in such troubled times.
People are correct that there are many bad things happening in the world. However, the conclusion that nothing should be said about Israel because of this is such ludicrous whataboutary that I wonder if some of the commenters are just too young to understand the issues involved. Israel is not being singled out. There is a context for every ethical stance, and for people in the US, Israel’s actions are more pertinent because they involve US funding and US political support. This means that many ethical Americans feel their government has a certain complicity in the current genocide, and as such agitate to stop this support.
This strikes me as a very worthwhile ethical stance.
I want to echo Greg Guyson’s praise of Peter. Peter’s bravery, basic decency, belief in human rights for all, and the grace with which he has handled the utterly vile abuse that has been hurled at him is truly remarkable. It is a wonderful example to all of us on how to comport ourselves in truly difficult times.
Paul Krugman, in his newsletter the other day, had this to say about Trump: “Trump’s foreign policy doctrine appears to be Oderint dum metuant — let them hate as long as they fear — supposedly the favorite motto of the Emperor Caligula.”
I believe this doctrine also describes the philosophy of the present Israeli government and those Zionist-fundamentalists like Scott Aaronson. In spite of all their attempts to convince themselves and others, they must realize their actions cannot be justified on moral or legal grounds. They’re just killing “Amaleks” because some scripture of dubious origins says they should!
Insightful thread on Scott’s essay. Please free to link it in your blog: https://x.com/VikingFBR/status/1962222479008841730
I normally enjoy the Shtetl-Optimized blog but the most recent posts have taken on a disturbing aspect. They’re obviously emotionally charged, and that I sympathise with. There also seems to be a false dichotomy underlying a lot of the stress and questionable argumentation: annihilate or be annihilated. Yes, there are hard security and cultural integration problems in front of Israel. Those are not the same thing as the dichotomy presented.
Sent from the Republic of South Africa, where a related problem was ultimately resolved in a different way.
Wow. Speaking only for myself I would back Peter against a myriad of toenail clippings. Scott has gone of the deep end here.
I’ve read all the comments and they are quite diverse. None mentioned that Israel is a state formed by terrorists using terrorism. I’m using my own definition of terrorism here. Violence not supported by a particular state. Otherwise they are freedom fighters.
Happy almost birthday,Peter.
Many of the commenters have evidently read a different blog post from the one I read. It does not strike me as especially brave and decent of Peter to describe Scott’s position as “we have to kill them all, children included”. This vile accusation remains standing, even though Peter absconded from it in one of the first comments (while mockingly trivializing it as a difference between “all or just some”), and has since found time to update the post.
There is no reasonable way to read Scott’s post this way, and the fact that it *was* read this way – together with the many comments that blithely accuse him of endorsing genocide – seems to me only to underscore the words he wrote in the update to his first post (about arguing with anti-Zionists).
its funny, an example of the horrible stuff flooding his inbox
is an image from his own imagination.
JamesT,
The analogy with how apartheid was ended has been a major factor in the student protests here at Columbia. The student groups took as their model the 1980s protests here, which focused on calling for divestment from South Africa. This led them to the (to my mind self-destructive) tactic of occupying Hamilton Hall.
The hugely successful campaign to paint these protests as antisemitic and dangerous to the safety of Jewish students was partly motivated by seeing how much traction the protesters were getting. Those behind the campaign were desperate to avoid something happening like back in the 1980s.
Not sure where I read this, but evidently one model the Israelis are considering for how to deal with the West Bank is the Bantustan system, with Palestinians confined to localized “homelands” ruled by local puppet governments.
I didn’t want to engage further with this reprehensible thread, but for the record:
Obviously I did not and would not generate that cartoonishly antisemitic image. One of Peter’s fans sent it to me, calling it a “diagram” that would help me understand the situation in the Middle East, trying to get a rise out of me. Now he’s sending me emails about how the image isn’t antisemitic, since it obviously only targets Orthodox Jews (!). Yes, I had to pick a name when I saved the image, so I called it “woitworldview.png.”
Blaming me for an image sent to intimidate me — as commenters here are now doing — is a tiny example of the pattern that repeats through the millennia, of Jews getting blamed for whatever gets done to them, if necessary via bizarre conspiracy theories. Blamed for the Holocaust, blamed for October 7, blamed even for antisemitic cartoons. This illustrates why I’ve given up on engaging with militant anti-Zionists: what’s the point, if anything you say will get reflected through a funhouse mirror, twisted to fit some image of a scheming genocidal villain?
One other thing. What I did, in simply saying that I had better ways to spend Labor Day weekend than facing down a never-ending zombie army in my comment section, seems infinitely more honest than what Peter did, in opening up his comment section but then censoring the vast majority of comments defending me — as I found out when the submitters of those comments emailed me. The one honorable thing Peter has done here, at least for now, is to let me answer his and others’ libels.
Anatoly,
If you take Scott’s argument at face value, it’s clear that the number “five” is not relevant to it. By the principles of “Deep Zionism”, you need to be willing to kill an arbitrary number of children, up to and including all of them. If Scott has an upper bound on the number, maybe he could let us know. For lower bound we can take at least several tens of thousands, since that’s the number of child corpses already, and for Scott it’s not enough.
In his comment here he clarifies that he only wants to kill children up to the number necessary to get rid of the problem of Hamas. He also elsewhere has argued that virtually the entire population of Gaza shares the desire of Hamas to kill him and his family. So, as long as there are living Palestinians in Gaza, there are going to be Hamasniks there out to kill him and his children. This implies that one is going to need to keep killing children til they’re pretty much all gone.
> He also elsewhere has argued that virtually the entire population of Gaza shares the desire of Hamas to kill him and his family. So, as long as there are living Palestinians in Gaza, there are going to be Hamasniks out to kill him there. This implies that one is going to need to keep killing children til they’re pretty much all gone.
Or, you know, their preferences might change as they reap what they’ve sown. They’re actually changing already, as every opinion poll from Gaza shows. Still no majority for ousting Hamas, sadly, but we’re getting there.
Scott,
Thanks for clarifying the origin of the image, although I should point out that your choice of name for it, was, well, libelous.
As for comment moderation, I’m following my usual policy of trying to keep the discussion focused and sane. I’ve deleted half or more of the incoming comments, probably deleting more attacking you than ones defending you. The latest one I deleted explained that you had “turned into a despicable douchebag”.
As for the ones defending you and attacking me, lots were just general hostility (for these commenters I’m the “despicable douchebag”). A lot were deleted because they were variants on your argument that “we need to kill a lot of children because of Hamas”. There are two problems here. One is that I don’t want to engage in a discussion with anyone that starts off “we need to kill a lot of children because”. The other is that basically the only argument we ever hear from the pro-genocide crowd is “because of Hamas”. There are obvious reasons this is not a good argument, zero chance that the person making the “because of Hamas” argument will listen to them (I tried for a while with Udi, but gave up).
Vladimir,
Your argument that one must kill their children until they stop wanting to kill Israelis is basically an argument for extermination of the population.
The notion that Israel is fighting against an existential threat is not mutually exclusive to the idea that they are also committing war crimes. One can support the continued existence of Israel and the Jewish people while also acknowledging that Israel’s killing of Palestinian children is a bad thing.
You can still commit war crimes, even if you are on “the good guys’ team”. Both the western and eastern Allies in WWII committed war crimes of various degrees, ranging from the debatable, such as strategic bombing, to the more clear-cut, such as the mass rape of civilians in liberated/conquered territory and the bombing of submarines flying the Red Cross flag towing lifeboats filled with civilian women and children.
The world is not black and white, good and evil. Thinking so, and thinking that one can come to “the objectively correct moral decision” using bizarre convoluted trolly problems, is naive and foolish.
Peter,
I don’t share your dim view of the Palestinians. I think they’re mostly normal human beings, and will therefore surrender long before they’d be in danger of actual extermination. Indeed, I think they would have given up on their cause of destroying Israel decades ago, if it were not kept on life support by the Soviet Union, its Western useful idiots and their intellectual heirs.
Maybe it’s worth saying a bit about the Steve Weinberg business. From what I know, Weinberg did in many ways share Scott’s views. It’s well known that in 2007 he refused to travel to Britain on the grounds that the British were “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic”. See here
https://robertwjensen.org/articles/weinbergs-claim-of-moral-high-ground-rings-hollow-in-face-of-bigoted-remark/
for a quote that would probably reflect his current view of the genocide:
“Don’t romanticize Palestinians just because they are primitive.”
As for Scott’s argument that “I’m right because even though almost everyone disagrees with me, Steve Weinberg would have agreed with me”
First of all, it’s obviously an absurd argument. Secondly, Weinberg is no longer with us, so who knows what he would have thought about “Deep Zionism”. My guess would be that he would be pro-genocide, on Scott’s side, but not sympathetic to Scott’s definition of Zionism, or the crazy blogposts in general. He might have been the only possible person in the world who could have talked some sense into Scott, too bad we’ve lost him.
Vladimir here hit the nail on the head, succinctly exploding the “genocide” fantasy — which remains a fantasy (or, often, a Freudian projection of the accusers’ own wish for Israel’s Jews), no matter how many international committees of the world’s antisemites ratify it.
Did the Allied victory in WWII necessitate killing all Germans and Japanese? Of course it didn’t. Yes, there was much less concern for civilian life than (for example) Israel is taking right now, but even then, the war continued only until unconditional surrender. And then it stopped, with the liberation not only of the entire rest of the world, but the German and Japanese people themselves. Millions of German and Japanese children were given their futures back.
I find it striking that not one commenter here, not one, even tried to address the WWII analogy. If they did, either they’d have to convict the Allies of “genocide” in WWII, and recommend surrender to Hitler as an alternative, or else they’d have to admit that, for them, defensive war against an avowedly genocidal enemy only counts as “genocide” when the defenders are Jews — when they’re no longer just quietly lining up for the gas chambers or for the Hamas gunmen’s bullets to the head.
Scott,
One reason people are not discussing the WWII analogy here is that, as I explained, I delete attempts to argue one way or another about justifying the mass murder of children through things like bad analogies. It’s the kind of thing you seem to really enjoy a lot, but makes me sick to my stomach.
As for you and Vladimir’s argument that the way to go is to keep killing their children until the parents don’t hate you anymore, if that’s not genocide, I don’t know what is.
Scott,
Actually, that’s enough. If you want to carry on your arguments for killing children, and engage in lunatic rants about everyone being an antisemite, you have your own blog, can do so there.
Peter,
After reading your blog for many years, but never commenting, I have decided to do it now. I was moved by the text that you linked to Association of Genocide Scholars, thank you.
My timing being poor, I see that it is too late to intervene now with what I would have liked to say, as you have decided to stop the discussion with Scott. It was precisely this very point that I wanted to make, so thank you.
I have been debating Scott in my head for a few months now but, as I said, refused to comment. I fear that there is no illumination in doing so. As a rule, I am very critical of curtailing speech, including your blog. I understand why you do it, but it bothers me in principle, that you filter the comments. In fact, this is something that, even until a few days ago, I appreciated about Scott’s blog: namely, that he allowed all opinions -this, of course, was never going to stand in the face of his radicalization.
But now, I have to ask, against all my principles, that you stop platforming genocide’s apologists like Scott and Vladimir. I use the word platforming deliberately as I spent at least the last 5 years opposing, as much as I could, the use of that awful word by an unhinged vocal crowd.
I am in London and short of time. I don’t expect you to post this. I will try to write more coherently in the future, but I also want to thank you for your courageous stand.
Hernan Souto,
You’re mistaken to think Scott doesn’t filter comments at his blog. But, at this point anyone moderating a blog comment section has to filter comments. Otherwise these things very quickly become useless as they get filled up with idiocy and the efforts of trolls.
As Scott complained about, I have to a large degree been deleting comments from apologists for genocide, and I’ve tried above to explain why. What I have allowed is Scott to express himself, and a couple cases like Vladimir. I think it’s worthwhile to air these because they are being very straightforward in the case they make for mass murder, and allowing this gives one the opportunity to understand what is driving the genocide.
One thing that is behind the genocide is the faction in Israel that believes that all the land from the river to the sea should be Jewish land, Palestinians don’t belong there and need to be forced to leave. This is the settler ideology that is ruling the West Bank. For this faction, Hamas and Oct. 7 are a convenient excuse for pursuing their long-term goals. These people haven’t shown up on this blog.
Something that is remarkable about Scott is that he is very straightforward and guileless. He explains clearly exactly what he thinks: the Palestinians want to kill his family, so they need to be killed. Anyone who objects to this logic also wants to kill his family and is an antisemite. I think this argument is, unspoken, perhaps the main driver of the genocide. Platforming it here like this I think is useful, since it makes clear what is going on. Seeing clearly what is going on is what is rapidly changing public opinion. The majority of the US population now realizes genocide is happening. Reading what Scott is saying (we have to kill the children of this unarmed population because they hate us, so are a threat to us) is going to just increase this realization by more people. The generic reaction to Scott’s “Deep Zionism” posting is not “oh, I see now, mass murder of children makes good sense”, but “my god, these people really are deranged genocidal murderers, is there any thing we can do about them?”.
The WWII analogy is straightforward, Scott: supporting a goal or mission does not mean endorsing every action taken in its pursuit. For a modern parallel, I didn’t support Trump in the most recent election and wish he weren’t president. That does not mean I support assassination attempts against him. I oppose any and all political violence against Trump or anyone else.
The same holds for WWII. I believe the Allied cause was just, and I’m glad they prevailed. But that doesn’t mean every action taken was moral, wise, or even effective. The firebombing of Dresden, for example, was horrific, immoral, and counterproductive. It consumed resources that could have been better spent elsewhere, and it left a permanent stain on the Allied record. I would have supported Nuremberg-style trials for those who orchestrated that atrocity—and to the extent any of them are still alive, I would support doing so today (alongside the trials of Hamas’ and Israel’s leaders).
This principle extends beyond distant history. I am an American who worked in New York City after 9/11. I vocally opposed the reckless military adventurism that followed. It was not only immoral but also counterproductive to my safety, and to the safety of other Americans, that even a single innocent Middle Easterner (of any nationality or faith) was killed in our name. If the U.S. had simply reinforced airplane cockpit doors, and slowly and methodically pursued, captured, and tried only the actual perpetrators, the country—and the world—would be in a far better place today. I have no doubt U.S. service members and leaders committed crimes in those wars, and I would also support a process to investigate and hold anyone guilty accountable.
Yes, I acknowledge one can concoct fanciful hypotheticals: a truck filled with explosives barreling toward an elementary school, with a child inside, and the only way to stop it is with a bazooka that would also harm the child. In that narrow case, I might reluctantly support the action. (But only with a truly heavy heart at the tragedy of it; and certainly not with my middle finger raised toward anyone.) But Gaza is nothing like that. The Gaza perimeter is fortified, and there is substantial defensive forces in place to respond to any attempted repeat of 10/7. There is no bomb dropped on a refugee tent or hospital that even remotely resembles such a situation.
One of your many mistakes, Scott, with respect to this ongoing debate is anthropomorphizing “sides.” There are as many shades of Zionism, anti-Zionism, and pro-Palestinianism as there are people in those camps. You don’t disprove someone’s argument by pointing to some bad actor who happens to share a loosely similar conclusion has said something odious or made a fallacious argument. Similarly, the logic and morality of your position is entirely determined by our facts and reasoning; and has nothing to do with if some big shot (or his, ehh, toenail clippings) approves of it or not. It is intellectually dishonest—as you so often do in your tirades—to take a statement, brand it a “euphemism,” and then insist that “after cutting through the bullshit” it’s really some other odious belief you’ve magically divined really lies in the speaker’s heart. I can only imagine what you’ll claim I “truly meant” after you put my statement through your magic decoder ring.
For me, the issue is simple: an innocent child—any child, anywhere, of any faith or ethnicity—is an infinitely valuable and precious being. They do not inherit the politics, debts, or sins (or virtues) of their parents or the state they were born into. Any response to “why did this child have to die” that invokes religion, God’s purported promises from 3,000 years ago, opinion polls, 1948, the partition plan, the intifada, October 7th, the Holocaust, WWII, or any other event the child had no part in—is the real bullshit, Scott.
Having read some of Steven Weinberg’s books and papers and listened to him speak, and having great respect and admiration for his intellect, it’s so disappointing to see that even great physicists succumb to ethnic bigotry and are not more enlightened human beings.
I am glad I am not a student with a Palestinian sounding name in Professor Scott Aaronson’s class. I can imagine the ethics complaints: “I don’t think the professor can assess my work fairly because he believes that my family and I should be killed before we have a chance to kill him and his family”. That would be a fun committee to be on!
Actually any student with a Muslim name might be right to worry about this. You know, for instance: Abdus Salam.
I’m the guy who made the cartoon that Scott posted on his blog. Scott won’t let me explain myself at his blog, so I’m going to try to clear things up here, if that’s okay.
I regret the way the image turned out and how it was received. For the record, I didn’t intend to create an antisemitic caricature. I intended to create a caricature of fundamentalist/Haredi/ultraorthodox Jews, whose literal interpretation of the Torah and beliefs about being “God’s chosen people” and “God giving all of Palestine to the Jews” are the animating ideology behind the genocide in Gaza. They voted Netanyahu into power with the most far-right cabinet in Israeli history (United Torah Judaism, etc).
I was extremely upset to read Scott’s celebration of the slaughter of children, and decided to get a rise out of him and upset him out of spite. In retrospect, this was not a smart decision, but it was done in the heat of the moment.
Here’s what I wrote to Scott, which does a good job explaining the cartoon and my beliefs.
Scott,
In my prompt to generate the image, I explicitly asked for a “stereotypical Haredi/orthodox Jew,” not for a “stereotypical Jew.” Two visual cues (the large, unkempt beard and the black hat/kippah) indicate a specifically Haredi/orthodox Jew. I concede that the large nose could be interpreted as an antisemitic caricature, though. I did not ask for a large nose in my prompt, and apparently the AI has picked up on some correlation between jewishness and large noses in its training data, which is of course regrettable. So, I apologize for sending the image without first removing the large nose. That was my only mistake. No other visual cue in this cartoon indicates Jews generally, as opposed to orthodox Jews.
And as I said, it’s completely fair to target orthodox Jews. It’s not a race, not something you’re born with, not an unalterable characteristic. It’s a CHOICE. A choice to follow an idiotic premodern lifestyle based on a shit book written by bronze age tribesmen. A choice to shame your daughters for having premarital sex and a choice to refuse to vaccinate your children. A choice to vote for messianic far-right nationalists bent on genocide, because your retarded ancient book tells you that you’re God’s chosen people and Palestine is your land. Didn’t you used to share my opinions about these Haredi assholes? What happened?
I have partially Jewish ancestry myself, but I’m an atheist—a strident, unapologetic atheist, I freely admit. Fuck the people who say that mocking religion is offensive or wrong. Religions are retarded belief systems that cause war and suffering (like the genocide in Gaza). It’s okay to shame people who wear stupid black hats and have gross beards because they literally believe in some ancient book. And I drew the guy as a demon because messianic genocidal ideology is demonic. And it shows how terrified the Palestinians are. It’s called metonymy. Read about it. Read about literary devices.
And yes, I sent it to get a rise out of you, because your genocidal screeds pissed me off and I decided to make it your problem. And no, I didn’t try to “intimidate” you. Get over yourself.
A comment on a couple of the above comments:
Even though I want to discourage a discussion of Scott’s attempts to justify genocide, the one by Amanda S. was unusually thoughtful so let that through.
On the other hand, Cartoon guy is the opposite, trafficking in dumb and ugly stereotypes of different sorts of Jewish people, without understanding much at all about them. Personally my policy when I get stupid things sent to me is to ignore them, Scott is known for his willingness to engage with all sorts of people. The comment is here partly because it’s worth seeing what he’s dealing with, but also because I was curious where that image came from, and thought others might also want to know. Please don’t take this as an invitation to engage with Cartoon guy or discuss his nonsense.
I’ve not seen anyone reference this from Timothy Gowers:
https://mathsandsoundingoff.wordpress.com/2025/06/23/to-what-extent-is-the-war-in-gaza-justified/
the Timothy Gowers post referenced by Mike is excellent, a detailed and careful analysis of an ugly and emotional situation — I am sure it will anger zealots of both sides.
All,
If you’re interested in this sort of debate, the Gowers post is worthwhile. For reasons discussed above, I don’t though want to moderate that kind of discussion here. In addition, note that Gowers explains that his post was written as somewhat of a response to earlier versions of Scott’s views about killing innocents in Gaza, and that clearly didn’t work out.
As many of you know, Scott Aaronson has published Shtetl Optimized, an excellent STEM blog, for a couple decades. I am a longtime participant, and have always admired Scott for being an all-around smart guy, his willingness to put his opinions out there on pretty much everything, and his good insight. Occasionally a bit prickly, but not bad for someone who answers a zillion things a day. I can only recall one prior episode of Scott posting crazy stuff (buying into the “universal tech civilization growing at the speed of light” theory), and I assume that was a joke.
So, what happened to that Scott, you ask? Dunno – possession by demons appears to be the most likely. Or, radicalization by a secret religious / cultural nationalism cult? Maybe an RFK Jr. type radioactive brain worm? In any event, his friends and readers need to step up and try to break the downward spiral. I am using this back channel to try to out shout the demons with some harsh reality takes, and maybe get to the “real Scott”, in hopes that he wakes up and smells the coffee. Wish me luck.
A few remarks for Scott. I am sure you can argue these points forever. I am not going to – they speak for themselves.
1. “Blaming me … pattern that repeats through the millennia, of Jews getting blamed for whatever …”. Oh, so the reaction to posting crazy stuff is due to everyone picking on Scott for being Jewish? Get real – most people don’t give a rat’s ass if you are a Jew, a Muslim, a nudist, or snort ecstasy at EDM raves. How many would even know that you were Jewish if you didn’t bring it up all the time?
2. The “Deep Zionism” essay – primarily a math model accompanied by complexity theory type arguments to justify genocide. WTF? This is batshit crazy! You will be hearing about this one for the rest of your life.
3. “who were sympathetic to Israel immediately after October 7, but then gradually read the room, saw which side their bread was buttered on, etc., etc. and became increasingly hostile.”. This is insulting and total bullshit. That has little to do with reading the room, and everything to do with a genocide unfolding before our eyes. Get real.
4. What is the deal with the constant insulting of Peter? You should be embarrassed to sound like Donald Trump going on about Barack Obama. I could go on.
Dude – touch grass.
Peter, kindly save me a seat in the “snarling nobodies” section in case I am banned from SO for disagreeing with Scott.
I’m commenting here just to give a point of view on nthis whole thing, coming from a lebanese, who knows a thing or 2 about the region. I hope Scott A reads this as he seems to read the comments here.
1- I don’t have any sympathy towards the palestinians, as they have wreacked havoc in my country, I had to take arms against them in my younger years (1975-1979)
2- same goes for israel, it did some of the damage in lebanon
3- why does it matter if you call something genocide or not? killing millions of chinese, like Mao did, is not called genocide, but does it make it acceptable? Killing 100k palestinian is not a genocide, but does it make acceptable?
4- I understand Scott’s feelings. I’ve heard little lebanese kids, when asked ‘what job to you wanna have when grown up?’ say ‘Martyr’. Like nobody told them that is not a job, but a one time trick that you cannot do again? I understand that many israelis feel that they are no more safe in their country. I don’t buy into the colonial thing, neither in the promised land (being an atheist, no God here to promise anything).
5- what makes the current situation catastrophic is that neither side has got any idea of a solution that may be applicable. Israel can bomb the hell out of Gaza but as long as it has no idea about what to do with all the palestinians once bombing stops, they are pushing the problem under the rug. There will be no peace while this thing goes on.
6- What the hell are they doing in Syria? Does Israel think that partitioning Syria is good for them? Fomenting a bloodshed there is good for them? (that is not to say that many syrians are acting like they don’t care about their blood being shed).
I think that this whole region is becoming more and more governed by criminals on all sides, and as long as they go on like this, there will be no end in sight to the bloodshed.
ghassan salem,
Thanks for your perspective. Especially to the point is:
“Israel can bomb the hell out of Gaza but as long as it has no idea about what to do with all the palestinians once bombing stops, they are pushing the problem under the rug.”
A large part of the current Israeli government does have a very explicit publicly expressed idea about what to do with the Palestinians: keep killing them and their children until they leave. The rest of the government claims to have no idea what they will do, but everything they are doing indicates that they are going along with the genocidal policy of their colleagues. Scott’s argument for mass murder of children is designed to prove that this is the only rational and ethical thing for Israel to do.