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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 11th, 2023

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  • Your and his age are gonna be major variables here. Conversations and relationships work very differently at different life stages.

    You sound like you’re maybe a teenager? Try asking interesting questions that require some thought to answer, but still leave room for your friend to give an easy thoughtless answer if they want to. Where do you think we’ll be in X years? What’s something you thought you wanted but as you’ve gotten okay have realised you actually don’t? What do you think we do now thar future generations will think is crazy? Listen to his answers and ask followup questions.

    Personally, I’ve always been most impressed by directness, honesty, intelligence and courage.



  • Yeah, the point that the musicians seem to be making, from the very brief quotes he shares (I haven’t been following this independently), is about the efficacy of music boycotts as a tool for political change. You can object to a nation’s political actions and still think that performing music for your fans in that country will make things better.

    The author just insists that Israeli government genocide is bad and that the ordinary citizens are complicit. I think the implicit logic must be: bad people should be punished, depriving them of music punishes them. While it might satisfy a craving to hurt the bad guys, I think it’s much harder to claim that this would help stop the genocide.

    I think the musicians have a stronger case that actually performing would be more likely to change people’s minds and improve the situation. Plus the broader benefits of keeping music and art apolitical, rather than trying to make everything in life a tool for political manipulation. I’d have actually been really interested to hear some substantive arguments about those points, but was disappointed to discover that, as you say, it was just a hit piece.