Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
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User ID: 297
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
3d ago
Will it harm you to believe in an ancient Levantine civilization that spread across the Americas without leaving behind any archeological or anthropological traces? No, not in itself. Nor would believing that the Archangel Gabriel dictated the Quran to an illiterate 7th century Arab goatherd. Nor would believing that the sun revolves around the Earth.
For me, anyway, epistemic hygiene is pretty close to my terminal value. Truth is the highest virtue. Without truth, no other principles are meaningful. Yes, I know, no one can ever know the truth, we're all fumbling towards the closest approximation of the truth we can perceive, but you should be striving towards it, not averting your eyes from it. You and @2rafa are basically saying "Truth is less important than other things, like living in a nice community with people who make life pleasant even if they believe silly things."
I cannot adequately express how strongly I disagree with that.
I could live in that community. I could agree to follow their rules. I could tolerate their silly beliefs. I could not lie about what I believe. (I mean, if my life depended on it, I guess I would pretend. I'd feel dirty about it, and murderously resentful.)
I understand why some people choose to believe things that are beneficial to them, or at least go through the motions of believing and studiously avoid looking behind the curtain. But I can't do it and I kind of look down on people who do, to be honest.
To take this slightly out of the religious context: I live in a very blue bubble and most of my friends and family are very woke. Despite being pretty liberal compared to the average Mottizen, I'm basically a dissident now. I have never lied about what I believe, but I do frequently stay silent when certain topics come up, because it's not worth the fight. Recently, even my silence has occasionally been noted and my inability to make convincing sounds of affirmation is probably going to lose me some friends.
I resent this, and I don't see it as being a lot different than pretending to believe in the Angel Moroni and Joseph Smith's golden tablets, if my social relationships depended on pretending to take them seriously.
On the subject of "Believing things that are convenient, or at least pretending to believe them because they are pro-social," I'm going to bring up a more pertinent example for you. I have made the point before that if HBD is true, it's going to be a very hard sell to, for example, black people, that they should just accept their lot in life (specifically, the lot that white supremacists would like to assign to them). I got downvoted and scolded for that on the mistaken assumption that I was advocating the Noble Lie, that we should pretend HBD isn't true even if it is. But that is never what I said. What I did say is that I can sympathize with people who are unwilling to believe something that might be true but which has brutal implications for them and their loved ones, and that whatever social contract we negotiate based on that is going to have to take that into account. But other people would absolutely embrace the Noble Lie. Indeed, I personally think a lot of liberals have–on HBD issues, on trans issues, on immigration–in other words, they know the truth but pretend not to, and will actively attack those who speak it. This is, from their perspective, pro-social. You, I am pretty sure, would disagree. But in the realm of religious beliefs, the Noble Lie is what you are advocating. "Even if Joseph Smith never discovered any golden tablets and the Lammanites didn't exist, pretending to believe it gives me access to a great community." Well, okay then. I understand why you would make that decision. But I don't respect it.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
3d ago
Uh, okay.
I mean, you do you and I hope this gives you whatever you are looking for, but for myself, I have occasionally considered joining a church (again) for the community and such, but I am just fundamentally incapable of lying to myself, and also fundamentally incapable of believing in mythology. So to attend a church knowing that I consider all their beliefs (at least on the spiritual and metaphysical and cosmological level) to be bullshit would just feel like I'm being an insincere actor. To say nothing of the LDS's ... well... utterly nonsensical prehistory.
Yeah, I'm aware most churches (including the LDS) would be happy to have me in the congregation even as a disbeliever. I can see the pull it has for you personally (hot, chaste young girls eager for marriage and babies). But for me personally it would still feel deeply dishonest.
@self_made_human made some good points. Most missionary churches are geared towards picking up young disaffected people like you. And I don't underestimate the power to "fake it til you make it." Eventually you may come to sincerely believe.
I will say all the Mormons I know are very pleasant people and if I were to consider a church and could overlook not having a speck of faith in me, I'd consider the LDS strongly. (Honestly the greatest trial for me in terms of adhering to their rules would be giving up coffee.)
But the lack of faith and the requirement to at least pretend to believe a lot of bullshit things would be a dealbreaker for me.
I kind of feel like you're someone entering a cult, eyes wide open, saying "Sure, I see their game, but it won't work on me," even as the bait is perfectly obvious. But there are worse cults to fall in with, I guess.
Good luck.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4d ago
This is low effort sneering. Don't do this.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5d ago
It's in this comment.
That said, I question @samiam's ingenuousness. His example of one side's political narrative is a 2012 LiveJournal post from GRRM, hmm?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6d ago
Is this is an essay you are recycling from elsewhere, or something you wrote years ago? The focus on Obama (in the present tense), without mention of three presidential administrations since, and other dated references, is odd.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8d ago
It wasn't meant as a boo outgroup.
Yes it was.
I just thought it's a good shorthand descriptor that everyone here would understand. Apparently not.
Of course we understood it. You're sneering at the people you hate. Making broad generalizations and then saying "Well of course I don't mean literally every single one of my outgroup" does not make it acceptable.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8d ago
Knock it off with "shitlibs." This isn't that kind of place even if the majority sentiment agrees with you.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
12d ago
That was three years ago. The question was why he's temporarily gone quiet on Twitter, just when a lot of stuff that's right in his wheelhouse is happening.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
13d ago
I don't really disagree with that, but it's not relevant to the argument. I can think of a lot of jobs I think are net negative.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
13d ago
An ancap argument is essentially the same argument.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
14d ago
The US was founded by people who rebelled against an overseas government they considered illegitimate (albeit for quite selfish reasons of their own). They were not against the very concept of government and notwithstanding that Thomas Jefferson quote everyone likes so much, they were not advocating regular revolts and coups.
The founders would be aghast and agog about many things in today's world. However, one thing you can definitely say about them is that they anticipated and expected that the future would be very different from their own time and they knew they could not anticipate or dictate to future generations what government they would choose. They set down guidelines and checks and balances they hoped would stand the test of time, but even in their era there were cracks showing, and there was violent disagreement over the Constitution itself and the Bill of Rights.
There was also no shortage of nepotism and incompetence and self-centeredness among the elites, from the era of Virginia's dominance to Tammany Hall, and most certainly within the Confederacy.
The founders, if you took to the time to explain to them how institutions like the NSA came about, would eventually understand the concept of intelligence and national security, be concerned about privacy and individual rights, but would probably be a lot more upset about rise of federalism following the Civil War. (Though they would probably understand why and how the Civil War happened.)
Please put to rest this tired argument made by people like you and Kulak that "The Founding Fathers lived for violence and wanted regular bloodbaths, would be horrified that you have allowed (Thing I Don't Like), and cry from the grave for you to slaughter your political opponents." That is not who they were and it was not the world they sought.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
14d ago
If you declare "My ideological opponents (including people who work in fields I disapprove of) are not productive citizens" you are not striving to create a just system, just one that rewards your ingroup and punishes your outgroup.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
14d ago
Federal law requires employers to submit an I-9 employment eligibility verification form for all employees. Employees have to provide suitable documentation proving they are eligible to work legally in the US. Technically you can't require someone to be a US citizen, but proof of citizenship would be one way to prove you can legally work here.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
14d ago
It is a strange situation. U.S. employers are usually required to confirm US citizenship or legal residency and work authorization before hiring someone, and while some employers are notoriously lax about this, school districts and other state institutions usually are not. If you don't produce a birth certificate and social security card at some point before your first paycheck, you won't be able to keep your job.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
15d ago
Besides being antagonistic, you are obviously having a moment. One day timeout.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
16d ago
Oh man, do I have to actually go watch that chucklehead's monologue? I couldn't stand him even before the Kirkening.
Fine, warning rescinded.
Don't make personal attacks.
ETA: Warning rescinded, I am not sufficiently Kimmel-versed.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
18d ago
SF/F is as mainstream as capeshit now. Being a LotR or SW fan doesn't make you part of an isolated little nerd subculture anymore.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
18d ago
If you like epic fantasy, I really like his Shadows of the Apt series (it was his debut). It's big and bloated and goes on for a while and some of the middle volumes are kind of filler, but I was never bored. For science fiction, I love Children of Time (it has David Brin/Uplift vibes), but The Final Architecture is a close second. All of his stand-alones are also good. Service Model and Alien Clay were his recent Hugo nominations and I thought they both deserved it.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
18d ago
Having to say "yes sir, no sir" to a cop who rolled up with an attitude and is clearly looking for an excuse to fuck you over is one thing, but I have watched a lot of bodycam footage where the cop just asks "License and registration, please" from some guy who ran a red light and what should have been a routine stop turns into chaos and a felony charge because bro's monkey brain decides the cop is out to get him and he's not going to "show his belly." If you are barely restraining an urge to attack a cop because he pulled you over, you're not eating shit from an unjust authoritarian system, you have impulse control problems and you are poorly socialized.
This also seems to happen at airports a lot. Cops show up, tell an upset (often inebriated) passenger that they have to leave because the airline is refusing to board them, and give them every opportunity to leave peacefully until it's clear they aren't leaving any other way but being dragged kicking and screaming.
Can cops be power-tripping assholes? Sure, but I am skeptical that's what happened here. Especially in the age of bodycams and everyone around filming any public interaction with the police, I would bet money that O'Keefe wound up in cuffs only after refusing every opportunity not to escalate to that point.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
18d ago
I read the first Mistborn series, knowing nothing about Brandon Sanderson, and thought "This author has to be a Mormon." I looked him up afterwards and yup, bingo.
Sanderson is a mid author who has become enormously popular through a combination of prolificacy, pure nerd appeal, and writing books that are unsophisticated yet reliably entertaining, like fantasy potato chips. I have read about a dozen Sanderson novels, and eventually they all run together. He does worldbuilding made to be written as RPG splatbooks, and his characters basically win by figuring out the exploits in whatever game system their GM has given them. The plot and character beats are the same, the dialog always has the same tone, and you can be assured it will always be LDSComics Code Approved.
I really liked The Way of Kings and thought I'd invest myself in a long epic fantasy series, but I should have known better since I never got past the first Wheel of Time book (the series which Sanderson famously finished after Robert Jordan died). The second Stormlight book was so boring and tediously Sandersony that I bailed on the series and have pretty much given up on him, though I'll probably read something else eventually. He always writes pretty good series starters, and they just get worse as the series goes on. I started the second Mistborn series and never read more than one book. Cytonic turned to shit by book three. Elantris (his debut novel) is so badly-written I question the literacy of people who praise it. Steelheart tries to be grimdark superheroes but it's pure YA. In fact, almost everything Sanderson writes is YA, but it's YA for M:tG-playing nerds, with only chaste Mormon romance and no problematic, messy, and challenging females (no, not even Vin or Shallan- powerful/crazy is not the same as scary) so dudes can enjoy it without either thinking too hard or being challenged.
I'm being critical but, like I said, I've read about a dozen of his books, so clearly he is doing something right. The ideas are cool, and there is a certain comfort in knowing what you're getting. I keep picking up the next one thinking "Maybe this one won't suck by book two." But he's a harder sell for me nowadays. Increasingly everything he writes reads like someone writing fanfic of his own work.
I have nothing but respect for his dedication and his drive, and he really, really loves what he does. I can overlook his dorkiness and Mormon cosmology that always inserts itself into the books. I ignore the whole Cosmere thing-- I am not a fan of tying every single book into the same multiverse and I don't care about how Hoid is going to appear this time, like Stan Lee always making a cameo in MCU films. But for prolific reliably entertaining authors, Stephen King and Adrian Tchaikovsky both have just as much range and are far superior writers.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
19d ago
A new Jussie Smollet case? Another Nurse Karen versus black kids on rental bikes?
Former 'The Bear' writer handcuffed on train after alleged complaint from white woman
Alex O'Keefe is a writer for FX's The Bear and a former speechwriter for Elizabeth Warren. He's also black. On September 18 he was apparently arrested and taken off an MTA train when a white woman told him to correct his posture and he refused.
At least, that's how it's reported on Black Enterprise, which obviously has the most inflammatory version. Most other news sites, such ABC (above) and Newsweek ('The Bear' Writer Arrested on Train After Complaint From White Woman) also seem to be describing what at first glance is a pretty egregious case of "White Karen sics cops on a black man for being uppity." So egregious that I was immediately suspicious. I mean, really? A white woman just points her finger and has a black man arrested for his "posture"? In 2025, in the Bronx?
Well, reading the ABC and Newsweek articles, there are a few additional details.
Police responded to a complaint of a 31-year-old "disorderly passenger" on a train at Fordham Metro-North station in the Bronx when "a conductor reported a passenger occupying two seats had refused to remove his feet from one of the seats," according to authorities.
According to the MTA rules of conduct stated on its website, riders are subject to a $50 fine for occupying more than one seat by lying down or placing their feet up. If a rider ignores a violation notice from an officer, they are subject to being ejected, the rules state.
"When he continued to refuse to exit, delaying service for several hundred other riders for six minutes, the passenger involved was handcuffed and removed from the train, where he was issued a summons for disorderly conduct, a violation, without further incident at approximately 1048 hours, and allowed to board the next train to complete his trip." MTA police told ABC News in a statement.
So he was not actually arrested - he was cuffed and "detained," then allowed to board the next train.
Supposedly one of the woman's friends said "You’re not the minority anymore.”
There is plenty here to make this another scissors incident. I have watched enough bodycam footage on YouTube to imagine it going several ways. Maybe Karen really was being a bitch and didn't like seeing a black guy "manspreading." The cops arrive in authoritarian asshole mode, O'Keefe protests, winds up cuffed and taken off the train.
Alternatively, O'Keefe was spreading himself across two seats, the old lady wanted to sit in one of them, O'Keefe decides no white lady is going to make him move, and when the cops arrive and ask him to please move his feet, he goes into Aggrieved Asshole mode.
Or something in-between. I have seen variations of both these scenarios play out. I doubt this will blow up into a huge story since O'Keefe wasn't actually arrested, but I have definitely seen it in several places now, in some cases described as a near-lynching and something something Trump.
The woman's friend saying "You’re not the minority anymore” is one of those details that strikes me as so on the nose (remember "This is MAGA country"?) that I just don't know what to think. Is it fabricated? Did someone really decide to offer up the perfect soundbite like that? Or was it in the context of a longer exchange between her and O'Keefe (a context conveniently omitted in all reporting)?
Your Mormon apologia isn't of much interest to me–I can get similar superficially convincing treatises on why Catholicism or Protestantism or Islam is Actually Very Sound and Rational and The Best Way to Understand God from their adherents. You've chosen to believe, and it looks to me very much like you wanted a religion and went shopping and chose the one that suited your goals and lifestyle. Cool. But choosing which things you believe ala carte is very much against the spirit of most religious practices. That is of course between you and your faith. Whatever.
But your defense of the Noble Lie is profoundly unconvincing and even amoral. Adopting a false belief system and pretending to believe in it is wrong even if you find it instrumentally useful.
If someone accidentally agrees with all of your political positions because he thinks God told him you're a prophet, you might appreciate his support, but it would still be wrong of you to encourage him to believe you are a prophet. Telling an adopted child he's an actual biological child? In fact, I do believe you should tell an adopted child the truth (at an age-appropriate time and in an age-appropriate manner), and that not doing so is, in some sense, evil. There was another thread recently about Santa Claus. I don't have strong beliefs about letting little kids believe in imaginary things, but I will say there is definitely a point at which you should stop encouraging it. I am not saying telling a lie is never, ever justified under any circumstances, but in my opinion, those circumstances are extremely limited, both in situation and time.
If you think religious Noble Lies are good because it makes believers behave in an appropriate manner, I wonder why they can't be persuaded to behave without those beliefs. I am sure you are familiar with the old dialog between a Christian and an atheist: the Christian tells the atheist he's scary because without belief in God, the atheist can just decide that murder is good. The atheist responds that the Christian is scary, because he's saying it's only his belief in God that keeps him from murdering.
Needless to say, I find the atheist position more convincing. I think people should be convinced murder is bad without resorting to "Because God says so." If you want people to live a Mormon-ish lifestyle, you should be able to sell them on the virtues of that lifestyle without fables about Lamanites and golden tablets.
As for measuring them by who hates them, that seems a particularly poor way to choose who's right. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. In my blacker moments I won't say the thought of voting to make wokes cry hasn't occurred to me, but I've never considered joining a church to own the libs.
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