Steelman the case for the Holocaust.

[Nessie]

Could the Holocaust revisionists here, steelman the strongest historical evidence that corroborates and proves the Holocaust included mass gassings, shootings, burials and cremations, in the most favorable way you can.

Please note that I am asking for evidence, not argument. History is proved by evidence, in the form of eyewitnesses who saw what happened, contemporaneous documents, physical items, imagery, archaeological forensic and circumstantial evidence.

Please also note, since the Holocaust was a massive event, covering multiple countries, involving millions of people, there is not going to be a smoking gun, one piece of evidence that proves it all. Instead, there will be lots of individual pieces of evidence, that needs to be logically and chronologically pieced together.

[HansHill]

>Asks for a steelman
>Doesn’t want arguments

You’re a moron. A steelman is an argument, or rather a set of arguments, as a form of rhetorical dialogue.

You will have an issue with this because you don’t know what you are asking for as always, but here is a perfectly reasonable steelman:



The NSDAPs reign in Germany is antithetical to, and incompatible with, modern Liberalism. This sets the stage for policies and systems of governance that can be viewed as unethical to the modern Liberal mind, such as expressly targeted race laws, and the removal of civil liberties at the State’s discretion.

The NSDAP ws a vocal opponent of world Jewry, began enacting race laws during peace time, removal of civil liberties, which only accelerated with the onset of WW2.

The infamous concentration camp network has entered the Western consciousness as arguably the most harrowing and impactful vision of the Third Reich. It is here that dozens of firsthand eyewitness claims have circulated about abuses ranging from ill treatment, and targeted violence, right up to conveyor belt styled, all purpose killing machines, viz-a-viz, the homicidal gas chamber.

These claims all cumulate around one central premise: Jews walked in, a poisonous substance was introduced, and failed to walk back out again.

While the methods and procedures have be hotly contested, leading NSDAP figures have confessed on record to this basic premise, arguably the most notable of which being Rudolf Hoss at Nuremberg, along with several others.

These confessions, along with the known rhetoric of the NSDAP, demonstrable removal of civil liberties in the Third Reich, dozens of eyewitness victim claims, all corroborate in that the “missing Jews” have not been geolocated post war, and under Orthodoxy, it is taken as conclusion that they were indeed gassed as claimed.

[Nessie]

>Asks for a steelman
>Doesn’t want arguments

You’re a moron. A steelman is an argument, or rather a set of arguments, as a form of rhetorical dialogue.

I know that, but I am pointing out that history is normally evidenced, rather than argued. So I was making an adaptation, and asking for the best evidence.

You will have an issue with this because you don’t know what you are asking for as always, but here is a perfectly reasonable steelman:

The NSDAPs reign in Germany is antithetical to, and incompatible with, modern Liberalism. This sets the stage for policies and systems of governance that can be viewed as unethical to the modern Liberal mind, such as expressly targeted race laws, and the removal of civil liberties at the State’s discretion.

The NSDAP ws a vocal opponent of world Jewry, began enacting race laws during peace time, removal of civil liberties, which only accelerated with the onset of WW2.

The infamous concentration camp network has entered the Western consciousness as arguably the most harrowing and impactful vision of the Third Reich. It is here that dozens of firsthand eyewitness claims have circulated about abuses ranging from ill treatment, and targeted violence, right up to conveyor belt styled, all purpose killing machines, viz-a-viz, the homicidal gas chamber.

These claims all cumulate around one central premise: Jews walked in, a poisonous substance was introduced, and failed to walk back out again.

While the methods and procedures have be hotly contested, leading NSDAP figures have confessed on record to this basic premise, arguably the most notable of which being Rudolf Hoss at Nuremberg, along with several others.

These confessions, along with the known rhetoric of the NSDAP, demonstrable removal of civil liberties in the Third Reich, dozens of eyewitness victim claims, all corroborate in that the “missing Jews” have not been geolocated post war, and under Orthodoxy, it is taken as conclusion that they were indeed gassed as claimed.

I think that is a reasonable steelman. There is corroborating eyewitness and other evidence to prove gassings. That millions of Jews, arrested by the Nazis, disappeared and the Nazis could not account for their whereabouts, is circumstantial evidence, that corroborates the eyewitness and other evidence.

[HansHill]

Thank you Nessie, however just to be very clear - engaging in good faith on a topic of debate requires as a pre-requisite that both sides understand the other, and this is where the idea of the steelman comes from.

I will meet you halfway and say its probably easier for a revisionist to do this, as most (or all) revisionists are former believers, and previously held these opinions genuinely. However, this is also negated by the fact that the anti-revisionists here, have by their own acknowledgement, spent decades on this topic, studying it and debating it in depth, and claim to understand it intuitively.

In light of the above, its very telling that neither anti-revisionist here is able to afford the same courtesy to revisionists, despite it being 1 a pre-requisite to honest debate and 2 seemingly a walk in the park for you guys.

Instead, falling back to:

"I can't steelman your position because its wrong" hilariously exposes you as a bad faith actor from the outset. LOL

**Edit

I know Archie has also offered to serve up a steelman of his own, and I await his, as I'm sure it will be even more comprehensive than mine.

[Nessie]

Thank you Nessie, however just to be very clear - engaging in good faith on a topic of debate requires as a pre-requisite that both sides understand the other, and this is where the idea of the steelman comes from.

I will meet you halfway and say its probably easier for a revisionist to do this, as most (or all) revisionists are former believers, and previously held these opinions genuinely. However, this is also negated by the fact that the anti-revisionists here, have by their own acknowledgement, spent decades on this topic, studying it and debating it in depth, and claim to understand it intuitively.

In light of the above, its very telling that neither anti-revisionist here is able to afford the same courtesy to revisionists, despite it being 1 a pre-requisite to honest debate and 2 seemingly a walk in the park for you guys.

Instead, falling back to:

"I can't steelman your position because its wrong" hilariously exposes you as a bad faith actor from the outset. LOL

I am being honest. I cannot create a case for any so-called revisionist argument that certain key events, such as the use of gas chambers in the Kremas, did not happen. That is because history is usually proved by evidence. For example, to prove that the Kremas were not used for gassings, you would need eyewitnesses, who worked there, to say that there was no gas chamber inside the Leichenkeller and instead it was only ever used to store corpses. Or, a document that recorded those not selected to work at the camp, were transported to another place. Or circumstantial evidence around the operation of the buildings, proving that those not selected to work, were never sent to the Kremas. You have no such evidence, so you try to argue that gassings cannot have happened there.

An accurate steelman case for the Holocaust, would be that 100% of the eyewitnesses who worked inside the Kremas, SS camp staff, German engineers and Jewish Sonderkommandos from various countries, all agree, it had a gas chamber and ovens that coped with continuous, multiple corpse cremations. They are corroborated by SS and Topf & Sons documents that record the ordering, design, construction and use of gas chambers and multiple corpse cremation ovens. They are also corroborated by the circumstantial evidence of those not selected for work being sent to the Kremas, the mass theft of all of their possessions and their subsequent disappearance from Nazi records. I can also evidence motive, opportunity and guilty conduct after the crime.

I do not try to argue what document that records the pouring of concrete inside a gas chamber, is referring to. I look to other evidence, to find out what happened, such as the people who worked there, who said the gas chamber was used to gas people. Eyewitnesses describe the gas chambers as being made to look like showers. When a shower head and part of a gas mask, is found in the ruins of Krema II, that is physical evidence to corroborate the eyewitness claim.

The steelman threads are helping to highlight the different approach historians and so-called revisionists have, evidence versus argument.

[Archie]

...
An accurate steelman case for the Holocaust, would be that 100% of the eyewitnesses who worked inside the Kremas, SS camp staff, German engineers and Jewish Sonderkommandos from various countries, all agree, it had a gas chamber and ovens that coped with continuous, multiple corpse cremations. They are corroborated by SS and Topf & Sons documents that record the ordering, design, construction and use of gas chambers and multiple corpse cremation ovens. They are also corroborated by the circumstantial evidence of those not selected for work being sent to the Kremas, the mass theft of all of their possessions and their subsequent disappearance from Nazi records. I can also evidence motive, opportunity and guilty conduct after the crime.

I do not try to argue what document that records the pouring of concrete inside a gas chamber, is referring to. I look to other evidence, to find out what happened, such as the people who worked there, who said the gas chamber was used to gas people. Eyewitnesses describe the gas chambers as being made to look like showers. When a shower head and part of a gas mask, is found in the ruins of Krema II, that is physical evidence to corroborate the eyewitness claim.

The steelman threads are helping to highlight the different approach historians and so-called revisionists have, evidence versus argument.

A bit of advice. You would do well to anticipate the counterarguments that you should know are coming. You don't necessarily have to address counterpoints right away (this can be saved for later rounds/rebuttals), but it is unwise to present arguments that are predictably going to collapse with easy counters. For example, you make a big deal about how the witnesses supposedly all agree, but this is easily undercut by pointing out that they "agree" on stuff that is now universally acknowledged to be false, and challenging your implicit assumption that the testimonies are independent.

The witnesses (including people who supposedly "worked inside the Kremas") all "agree" that they were burning ~10,000 bodies a day which is totally ridiculous. Suddenly these "eyewitnesses" don't look very convincing. Rather it looks like sensational Communist propaganda.


Your usual approach to counterarguments is to simply ignore them (often by saying critical analysis is not allowed because, in your mind, that is "fallacious") and then you simply reiterate your original point without modification.

Another tip I would give you. Statements like the following, I think are a mistake (even from your side's perspective): "They are corroborated by SS and Topf & Sons documents that record the ordering, design, construction and use of gas chambers and multiple corpse cremation ovens." You are overplaying your hand. You do this habitually. The problem here is that if someone follows up and asks to see these "records" with "designs" for "gas chambers" what you have to show them will not measure up to what you have promised in that sentence. And then your credibility is shot. This is one of the main things that turned me away from the anti-revisionist side early on. If you make a bold claim and I do several hours of research to confirm it and I find out you are lying to me, I'm not going to be happy with you.

[pilgrimofdark]

Revisionist: "As a thought experiment, restate a revisionist argument in the most charitable way you can."

Nessie: Maybe if you stopped outright lying, you wouldn't be such an idiot. The more I get to know you, the nicest thing I can say about you is that you're a cheap Nazi supporter.

Revisionist: "Wow."

Nessie: Your turn. Say the nicest thing you can about me.

<-- you are here. You are now in a trap of Nessie's making where, no matter what type of response you provide, he can passively-aggressively bully you and declare your response inadequate.

This Thread's Trap of Contradictory Demands

Nessie: "Steelman the case for the Holocaust."

Also Nessie: "Please note that I am asking for evidence, not argument."

Definition of steelman: "A stronger version of an argument that one is about to critically analyze." (Wikipedia)

The trap: Give me a stronger version of an argument. Don't give me an argument.

You: *provide argument based on definition of steelman*
Response: I asked for evidence, not an argument, you lying cheap bogus idiot! You're bullying me! Why is he allowed to bully me?

You: *discuss evidence*
Response: You don't even understand the definition of steelman, you Nazi-supporting denier! Stop bullying me! He shouldn't be allowed to bully me!

You: *point out impossibility of complying with thread request for argument without argument.*
Response: Your unwillingness to walk into my trap so I can passive-aggressively bully you just shows your inexperience and frankly idiotic inability to respond. Because I constructed the thread to make any response wrong, you engage in denial and supporting Nazis through flawed, bogus reasoning and illogical mistakes. This is bullying me. Why is everyone on this forum allowed to bully me and only me? I don't deserve any of this, although I expected it from a forum full of idiotic liars.

[edit: added the third response.]

[HansHill]

<-- you are here. You are now in a trap of Nessie's making where, no matter what type of response you provide, he can passively-aggressively bully you and declare your response inadequate.

Hilarious, although to be fair he did accept my steelman. He would be a fool not to in public since I have been known to demonstrate rhetorical competence from time to time

[Nessie]

....

A bit of advice. You would do well to anticipate the counterarguments that you should know are coming. You don't necessarily have to address counterpoints right away (this can be saved for later rounds/rebuttals), but it is unwise to present arguments that are predictably going to collapse with easy counters. For example, you make a big deal about how the witnesses supposedly all agree, but this is easily undercut by pointing out that they "agree" on stuff that is now universally acknowledged to be false, and challenging your implicit assumption that the testimonies are independent.

The witnesses (including people who supposedly "worked inside the Kremas") all "agree" that they were burning ~10,000 bodies a day which is totally ridiculous. Suddenly these "eyewitnesses" don't look very convincing. Rather it looks like sensational Communist propaganda.


Your usual approach to counterarguments is to simply ignore them (often by saying critical analysis is not allowed because, in your mind, that is "fallacious") and then you simply reiterate your original point without modification.

I disagree that I ignore counter arguments, and would like you to show me where I have.

I also disagree with your claim that I have said critical analysis is not allowed. What I have done, is point out critical analysis that is flawed, logically or evidentially, is wrong. I then explain what the flaw is, which you then ignore and you repeat your analysis without modification.

For example, the witness estimations as to how many corpses were burned.

Ask AI - how good are people at estimates?
AI Overview - People are generally not very good at estimations, often falling prey to the planning fallacy (underestimating time/effort) due to overconfidence and focusing on best-case scenarios.

I would not expect the witness estimations to be accurate, or even believable. There is documentary and circumstantial evidence that between the four Kremas and outside pyres at Krema V and the farm house/bunker gas chamber, thousands could be cremated each day. It is entirely possible that each witness gave a figure for the most they think were cremated in a day and each one over-estimated. Your critical analysis fails to take studies into witnesses how well they remember, estimate and recall, into account and is therefore flawed.

Another tip I would give you. Statements like the following, I think are a mistake (even from your side's perspective): "They are corroborated by SS and Topf & Sons documents that record the ordering, design, construction and use of gas chambers and multiple corpse cremation ovens." You are overplaying your hand. You do this habitually. The problem here is that if someone follows up and asks to see these "records" with "designs" for "gas chambers" what you have to show them will not measure up to what you have promised in that sentence. And then your credibility is shot. This is one of the main things that turned me away from the anti-revisionist side early on. If you make a bold claim and I do several hours of research to confirm it and I find out you are lying to me, I'm not going to be happy with you.

I disagree with that as well. The Topf & Sons evidence, from statements by the engineers and documents recovered from them and at Auschwitz, corroborate extremely well. The witnesses describe gas chambers, ventilation and mass corpse cremation ovens, that are also described in the documents. I say you are playing down how well that evidence corroborates, because you need to claim that German engineers, somehow did something that you argue is physically impossible to do, when it was a design and construction task that was well within their capabilities.

[pilgrimofdark]

Obviously satire, but I said I'd do this thought experiment.

Surprisingly difficult to be this relentlessly uncharitable. I encourage others to give it a try and live in this headspace for a while.

Background:

• Nessie's steelman of revisionism here
• My steelman of Nessie's steelman of revisionism here

Steelman of the Holocaust in the Style of Nessie's Steelman of Revisionism

Because so-called Holocaustophiliacs, really lying idiots, have no strong arguments, it is difficult to steelman their incoherent lies, which are full of illogical absurdities, rampant plagiarism, vulgar insults, and a total disregard for their most important witnesses.

So-called Holocaustophiliacs, really Nazisploitation flick addicts, have produced more Holoporno movies than they have found individual corpses in any single huge mass grave at Sobibor (6). Their inability to count leads them to create new imaginary disciplines in the field of mathematics to arrive at their pseudoscientific conclusions like 6+2+1 = 250,000. Serious mathematicians, like those who have advanced beyond second grade arithmetic, regard this dishonesty with disgust, and rightly so.

This is why it is difficult to be nicer to them, although I am trying my best.

Holocaustophiliacs repeatedly display their willingness to outright lie when counting the number of individuals involved in writing a single eyewitness account. They see papers with handwriting from 2 or 3 people and state that it is 1, because they are frankly idiots. When it is pointed out that the combined 5 authors point to homicidal chlorine, they double down on their false narratives, lies, and untruths by saying chlorine = gas = diesel = death, so it doesn't matter what any of the 6 people pretending to be 2 witnesses actually wrote.

They are forced to declare that 7 = 2, because admitting that each "eyewitness account" was written by up to a dozen people leads them to believe there may have been more Jews alive at the end of the war than at the beginning, living and working in various clandestine printing press operations. This superficial understanding is another incoherent conclusion caused by their lack of training in basic math and because they are easily duped by logical fallacies.

This is why I can not take them seriously enough to steelman their flawed arguments based on outright lies. This is the nicest I can be expected to treat these dishonest plagiarists.

The passive-aggressive cry-bullies who believe in the Holocaust constantly degrade their own star witnesses, claiming they suffer from undiagnosed memory disorders and PTSD, not having the intellectual ability to realize that this doesn't make the witnesses more credible. So-called Holocaustophiliacs claim that eyewitnesses become more believable when diagnosed with severe mental disorders decades after they died. They present these undiagnosed cognitive defects as evidence of truth-telling, because they are incapable of identifying truth from lies, due to their chronic gullibility to lies and constant lying themselves.

Not a single one of them has ever made an honest argument, another reason it is difficult to steelman their positions, which are all logically flawed.

In their typical lying manner, they diagnose their opponents with a different set of mental diseases than the ones they attribute to their favorite witnesses, including "anti-semitism" and "supporting Nazis." When they psychoanalyze their opponents, instead of presenting these inappropriate psychiatric diagnoses as evidence of truthfulness, as they do with their favorite witnesses, Holocaustophiliacs claim without evidence that their opponents' mental defects are a sign of dishonesty. Inconsistency is habitual from these untrained and unlicensed psychoanalysts, until an authoritative historian provides the official version of the lie that they will never read, but will believe regardless, which they will then all plagiarize from each other for the next several decades.

The second an opponent points out their plagiarism and incoherence, they will immediately abandon it, deflecting to a new lie that their opponents have "ignored 20 years of research" despite their original lie only appearing 4 years ago. This inability to construct a coherent timeline is a reflection of their incompetence and lack of training. In addition to math, they have a fraudulent way of telling time where people can exist in multiple places separated by dozens of miles at the same exact moment.

These cheap attempts at overturning the Gregorian calendar in favor of a dishonest and chaotic chronology is one of the only things they are consistent about. I can give them credit for their consistency in always lying. This is why they prefer eyewitness statements manufactured 60 years after an event over contemporary accounts. Their limited intellectual ability means they can not tell the difference between 1944 and 2008.

Because they have no strong arguments and can only steal each other's second-hand plagiarism, so-called Holocaustophiliacs engage in bullying and denigration of their opponents, which is something I would never do. Most evidence their claims using words and phrases plagiarized from Deborah Lipstadt, whom they refer to as "Lalka," that is "the Honey-Flavored Lips of the Holocaust," which is why they are so prone to cheap vulgarity, epithets, and derogatory insults, a clear sign of their insecurity and lack of education, which they can only cover up with bogus lies and fallacies.

When swear words don't work to convince others, they dupe lawmakers around the world to enact and enforce laws against public expressions of doubt about a core tenet of their identity: "The Holocaust," a fictional 1978 NBC miniseries they have never watched but base their identities around.

Possibly their strongest argument, which is another weak flaw, is that all of their witnesses read each other's books so can have the same exact "memory," even of places they've never been. This ability to "remember" someone else's second- or third-hand "memories" is a superficial and dishonest form of providing corroboration by never keeping witnesses separate, in fact the opposite. They encourage group writing projects (which they call "underground archives") and book clubs (which they call "official investigations") where "Holocaust memoirs" are collaboratively-manufactured and plagiarized amongst the participants in the same manner the historians will do later. When those same witnesses are no longer together to share group memories, they begin hallucinating, at which point the unlicensed psychiatrist-historians immediately diagnose them with a host of mental disorders.

In conclusion, these are the strongest, in reality weakest, arguments to prove the Holocaust: vulgarity, swear words, plagiarism, lying, unlicensed psychoanalysis of involuntary subjects, and jailing opponents. When these tactics can only coerce and not convince, they rely on their next strongest argument: passive aggressive cry-bullying that their feelings are hurt.

The nicest thing I can say about them is that, due to their inability to tell the truth and stop plagiarizing and swearing, it is difficult to steelman their arguments, because they are outright liars and frankly idiots.

I see them on this forum and X all the time and call them out as idiots everyday. When I give them a chance to convince me and they fail, they get uncomfortable and react by bullying me, which shouldn't be allowed.


edit: typos

[Stubble]

I thought you said this was satire pilgrimofdark, that reads like a simple statement of facts.

[Archie]

Thank you Nessie, however just to be very clear - engaging in good faith on a topic of debate requires as a pre-requisite that both sides understand the other, and this is where the idea of the steelman comes from.

I will meet you halfway and say its probably easier for a revisionist to do this, as most (or all) revisionists are former believers, and previously held these opinions genuinely. However, this is also negated by the fact that the anti-revisionists here, have by their own acknowledgement, spent decades on this topic, studying it and debating it in depth, and claim to understand it intuitively.

In light of the above, its very telling that neither anti-revisionist here is able to afford the same courtesy to revisionists, despite it being 1 a pre-requisite to honest debate and 2 seemingly a walk in the park for you guys.

Instead, falling back to:

"I can't steelman your position because its wrong" hilariously exposes you as a bad faith actor from the outset. LOL

**Edit

I know Archie has also offered to serve up a steelman of his own, and I await his, as I'm sure it will be even more comprehensive than mine.

Since Nessie refused to steelman revisionism in the other thread, I feel no obligation to reciprocate here in this thread. If BA posts his steelman of the Holocaust here, I will post a brief one of mine.

But what I would really like to see is an attempt from either of them to put forth their best case for the Holocaust in long form. I would love to see what they could do. (Can you imagine a long form essay by Nessie? ) If either of them do this (or anyone else), I will do a long pro-Holocaust essay. At some point I will probably do this anyway just because sometimes I feel like we are shadowboxing due to the lack of quality anti-revisionist materials (i.e., concise, well-argued, not gish-gallopy, not ad hominem).

[HansHill]

I really wish the Holoboys would get their sh*t together and take you up on this offer. It would be in their best interests too, since Archie is a demonstrably skilled debater, he might even get a few converts back to Orthodoxy

[bombsaway]

I would do one but it takes time, and it doesn't look like it would be worth it for me. If the Codoh site linked to it on the main site in an accessible way, so anyone browsing for a few minutes would see, I would put a lot of effort into it. It could link back to the forum post for further discussion.

I think my outline would be to go through the strongest pieces of evidence

And then a general description of the documentary evidence, and why that would be difficult to fabricate

Then the same for witness evidence and physical evidence.

Then I would talk about the lack of a viable alternative hypothesis, would describe why the revisionist one is not viable. Not based on positive evidence, but critique of existing evidence. Any positive hypotheses are asserted on the basis of a process of elimination type approach... I would demonstrate this in detail, with numerous examples. I would describe why asserting mass events purely on the basis of 'process of elimination ' opens you up to a multitude of failure points where you can go wrong.

Finally I would philosophize about what believing in something actually means, that map is not the territory, that we can never truly know, but we can still assert things in a probabilistic manner, especially when no viable alternative has been provided.

[Archie]

I would do one but it takes time, and it doesn't look like it would be worth it for me. If the Codoh site linked to it on the main site in an accessible way, so anyone browsing for a few minutes would see, I would put a lot of effort into it. It could link back to the forum post for further discussion.

I think my outline would be to go through the strongest pieces of evidence

And then a general description of the documentary evidence, and why that would be difficult to fabricate

Then the same for witness evidence and physical evidence.

Then I would talk about the lack of a viable alternative hypothesis, would describe why the revisionist one is not viable. Not based on positive evidence, but critique of existing evidence. Any positive hypotheses are asserted on the basis of a process of elimination type approach... I would demonstrate this in detail, with numerous examples. I would describe why asserting mass events purely on the basis of 'process of elimination ' opens you up to a multitude of failure points where you can go wrong.

Finally I would philosophize about what believing in something actually means, that map is not the territory, that we can never truly know, but we can still assert things in a probabilistic manner, especially when no viable alternative has been provided.

I don't run the main CODOH site, but I can offer to make a pinned post here in the Debate forum for this challenge to ensure high visibility. I will make a brief, neutral OP explaining the invitation and laying out some basic guidelines. Any submissions would be posted there without comment. Similar to how I have it with the Beginner's Guide articles.

viewtopic.php?t=70

Any discussion would be in separate threads to keep it clean.