On the subject of legitimacy, I recommend a history book: *Inventing the People* by Edmund S. Morgan. The Amazon page has a decent blurb:
> This book makes the provocative case here that America has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathers invented the idea of the American people and used it to impose a government on the new nation. His landmark analysis shows how the notion of popular sovereignty―the unexpected offspring of an older, equally fictional notion, the "divine right of kings"―has worked in our history and remains a political force today.
It's a myth, but it's our myth. I don't know of a better one. (But "complicit" is a weasel-word that should raise your suspicions that someone is trying to guilt-trip you.)
There's a somehow related paradox that has to do with simple addition and large numbers of people. A hundred million people paying someone $1 for a song they like could make someone fantastically wealthy even though no single person decided to do that. Voting systems work by the same principle. So do viral memes and social media pile-ons.
There are individual actions. There's an algorithm, which could be a very simple one. There's a result, which is somehow the responsibility of the individuals or perhaps whoever decided on the algorithm. It wouldn't work without a system to do the counting.
The world is big and we are small in comparison. Our actions often have an insignificant effect and yet, we should pay attention to how they add up.
I'm barely hitting your object-level questions here, but the question of civilian casualties here as part of war I think is interesting. You seem to treat October 7th as an attack that can only be met by direct retaliation against the perpetrators/hardening against future attacks.
But if the perpetrators are embedded with civilians, are you picturing some sort of post-Munich Olympics style campaign as the "correct" response? Or just shrug your shoulders say "bummer" and harden your border?
On the subject of legitimacy, I recommend a history book: *Inventing the People* by Edmund S. Morgan. The Amazon page has a decent blurb:
> This book makes the provocative case here that America has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathers invented the idea of the American people and used it to impose a government on the new nation. His landmark analysis shows how the notion of popular sovereignty―the unexpected offspring of an older, equally fictional notion, the "divine right of kings"―has worked in our history and remains a political force today.
It's a myth, but it's our myth. I don't know of a better one. (But "complicit" is a weasel-word that should raise your suspicions that someone is trying to guilt-trip you.)
There's a somehow related paradox that has to do with simple addition and large numbers of people. A hundred million people paying someone $1 for a song they like could make someone fantastically wealthy even though no single person decided to do that. Voting systems work by the same principle. So do viral memes and social media pile-ons.
There are individual actions. There's an algorithm, which could be a very simple one. There's a result, which is somehow the responsibility of the individuals or perhaps whoever decided on the algorithm. It wouldn't work without a system to do the counting.
The world is big and we are small in comparison. Our actions often have an insignificant effect and yet, we should pay attention to how they add up.
I'm barely hitting your object-level questions here, but the question of civilian casualties here as part of war I think is interesting. You seem to treat October 7th as an attack that can only be met by direct retaliation against the perpetrators/hardening against future attacks.
But if the perpetrators are embedded with civilians, are you picturing some sort of post-Munich Olympics style campaign as the "correct" response? Or just shrug your shoulders say "bummer" and harden your border?
It seems clear to me the correct frame was of October 7th as an act of war. If enemy combatants embed with civilians during a war, the fault for civilian deaths is on them, not on the attackers (this is relatively straightforward interpretation of international law - see eg here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/13/israel-hamas-war-gaza-idf-palestinians-civilians-hostages-tunnels-human-shields/).
See also, the Battle of Mosul back in 2016-2017, where coalition airstrikes killed somewhere around 6k civilians at least (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mosul_(2016%E2%80%932017)). Somehow I missed the news cycle calling for ceasefires then).