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AlphaOmega comments on Open Thread, November 16–30, 2012 - Less Wrong
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I think what Viliam_Bur is trying to say in a rather complicated fashion is simply this: humans are tribal animals. Tribalism is perhaps the single biggest mind-killer, as you have just illustrated.
Am I correct in assuming that you identify yourself with the tribe called "Jews"? For me, who has no tribal dog in this particular fight, I can't get too worked up about it, though if the conflict involved, say, Irish people, I'm sure I would feel rather differently. This is just a reality that we should all acknowledge: Our attempts to "overcome bias" with respect to tribalism are largely self-delusion, and perhaps even irrational.
I might be identifying myself with the tribe "Nice polite intelligent occasionally badass people who live in a close-knit national community under a liberal democracy", but I really couldn't give a damn about their relation to the Jewish people I know, or to Jewish history, or to any such stuff. I just look at the (relative) here and now of the Middle East and what the people there seem to act like.
I don't personally know anyone from Israel, I just find the Israeli nation massively more sympathetic than its hostile neighbours, observing from afar. I don't know if you meant something like that or not.
I'm wondering if you can unpack what you find "massively more sympathetic" about them?
Let's not really get into this. This conversation is in danger of losing a meta level anyway.