Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
No bio...
User ID: 297
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
25d ago
If you're genuinely failing to understand the point, then this explains a great deal. I don't really want to speak for @crushedoranges but saying you understand why someone feels the way they do does not necessarily mean you feel the same way. That is in fact one of the purposes of the Motte, to explicate your viewpoint in a way that people who don't share it can understand why you hold it.
I am not sure what to do about you if you lack this basic perceptual ability, because if someone says "I understand why people being called Nazis would decide to embrace the label" and your interpretation is "You're a Nazi," there is a pretty large inferential gap that isn't conducive to heated engagements.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
25d ago
Your diagnosis of me and Hlynka is comically off-base. Also, the brief moratorium on HBD posting was before my time as a mod.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
25d ago
It's been noted and he's already gotten a couple of warnings. That said, one person's "ragebait" is another person's outside-the-local-overton-window argument. We're not going to mod someone for being aggravating and unpopular. Failing to engage in good faith is another matter, but we're not mind readers.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
25d ago
You know, I appreciate that you immediately thought better of that post and deleted it, but I'm still giving you a one-day ban because it was up long enough to attract four reports and you really need to control yourself.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
25d ago
What exactly are you asking? Are you confused? Are you not sure what the OP is asking? Do you not know any of the referenced details? Are you just trying to express disdain for the topic in the lowest effort way possible?
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
25d ago
This appears to me to be engaging in bad faith. Either that or it's a low effort attempt at a zinger. Either way, don't do this.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
26d ago
Amusing that that list omits words like "stupid," "dumb," "blind," "lame," and "crippled."
That was one of the record-scratch moments that turned me, back in the day. Getting told I was ableist for saying something (not even a person!) was stupid.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
28d ago
We are generally lax about modding when it comes to insulting public figures, but "Lobster Daddy" doesn't really express much but your contempt and seems meant only to provoke people. Don't use whatever cute nickname some person's enemies use for him on Twitter.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo ago
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.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo ago
This is low effort sneering. Don't do this.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo ago
Knock it off with "shitlibs." This isn't that kind of place even if the majority sentiment agrees with you.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo ago
An ancap argument is essentially the same argument.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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
Letting the hate flow through me
1mo 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.
Didn't happen - pretty sure we've never imposed a topic ban in the Motte. (We have occasionally told individual posters to grind something other than their singular axe for a while.)
More options
Context Copy link