Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
No bio...
User ID: 297
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1hr ago
I'm approving this comment despite it being your first and only one so far. It's a bad comment, it's nothing but "You suck," and if you just spun up an alt to attack someone you don't like, congratulations, you got your dig in, but if you post more in this vein this account will be banned.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1hr ago
Accepting these as the choices is still accepting the incel-yellers frame. There is a possibility that the complaints the men have do in fact have validity and are not merely some sort of injured pride.
All three can be true. This is what you absolute conflict theorists ignore: the people you hate may be making bad faith accusations, but their accusations may also have more than a little truth to them. Of course you won't acknowledge the latter because admitting your enemies have a point would be conceding ground to them, which conflict theorists (who do not care about the truth, only about winning) can never acknowledge. But your enemies still might have a point.
There are actual incels, and incel-adjacent misogynists, and some of them have been legitimately injured by feminists and have reason to be resentful, and some of them are just shitty people who can't get laid for good reason, and some are just plain old misogynists resentful that they can't get laid as much and as easily as they would like.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
2d ago
This is nothing but personal antagonism.
Which since you have a long record of this, gets you a ban for another week.
Maybe stop dancing to @BurdensomeCount's tune, since he clearly knows exactly how to make you lose it.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
3d ago
More effort, please. We do not allow "I agree!" or "This" or "Nuh-uh" posts.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
5d ago
You're being antagonistic and rage-posting throughout this thread. Go take a walk or something.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
5d ago
Avoid low effort comments. "No, you're wrong" is not an argument.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
7d ago
2-day ban for egregious obnoxiousness.
Being a snarky asshole is as detrimental to the discourse here as dropping sneering boo-outgroups or sarcastic, condescending insults directed at other people. The mods have always been willing to listen to people complaining/venting about our moderation. But if you all you want to post is neener-neener sneers directed at us by way of expressing how much you think we suck, we don't actually have to put up with that. And your record of low-effort spiteful antagonism is bad enough that I am very comfortable telling you to knock it off or else.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
7d ago
Glad to hear it. If you were under the impression that our rules of civility and discourse require anyone (including the mods) to be sympathetic to Nazis, you should have been disabused of that long ago. You are allowed to be a Nazi here. And people (including mods) are allowed to say they don't like Nazis. If you think that makes me a "cringe reddit mod," go try being a Nazi there.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
7d ago
I feel so special to get my very own call-out. Read, reread, and read and read again the reasons explained with ever-so-much-more-patience than you deserved why people grinding their axes get modded. Tell yourself it's "our own personal sacred cows," despite ample visible evidence to the contrary, if that helps you cope, and then go about with your rules-abiding participation.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
8d ago
The actual challenge is that Holocaust deniers are a very highly motivated group of people who swarm to free speech forums because they are instantly banned in most other places. And the majority of them, whether they consciously or unconsciously realize this or not, are not really interested in having a real debate - they want to proselytize. And the majority of them have a poor understanding of history and/or poor critical thinking skills.
Yes, this is why @SecureSignals annoys me. I agree with the revisionists that historians have become lax/afraid of critically examining anything to do with the Holocaust and that has resulted in pretty shoddy research and a lot of historical misconceptions. And yes, it has culture war impacts. All interesting things to discuss, and normally I'd welcome that. But the fact that @SecureSignals doesn't actually give a single solitary damn about truth or historical accuracy, but throws up walls of text about "history" to obscure his actual agenda is sleazy and dishonest. That and his habit (like another certain frequent hit-and-run poster) of dropping by just long enough to rile people up before disappearing when the counterarguments stack up.
The combination of these things means that when a large enough group of them come to any given forum, they tend to mess up the place by derailing as much discussion as they possibly can into the service of their own interests while also not actually making particularly good arguments. In this, ironically, they are similar to the woke.
And this is why he got banned this time. I know it looks like a topic ban for wrongthink. It's not. It's a ban for repeatedly trying to shit up the place after we told him to at least pretend he's here to engage in general discussion once in a while.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
8d ago
Speak plainly and drop the sneering sarcasm.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
11d ago
People don't usually go religion-shopping, though. They don't evaluate which one gives them a "better deal." The young Westerners converting to Islam right now are doing so because of Palestine and because Islam is anti-establishment and "decolonialist" in a way that Mormonism is not. Will it become a real trend? Probably not, but I wouldn't completely rule out some sort of surge in Muslim converts.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
11d ago
This post alone is not the reason he was banned.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
11d ago
If your political beliefs really crystallized in the 90s, you're going to find the valence of many of your beliefs sliding right (or being reduced to rhetoric rather than policy, or just losing salience). It doesn't necessarily make you right wing relative to the general population, but it probably makes you more right wing than you used to be.
Am I more right-wing, or are liberals more left-wing? If "free speech" used to be left-coded and now it's right-coded and I am still pro-free speech, who changed?
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
You can of course choose which individuals you do or don't feel are worth engaging with. But you're just kind of retreading old ground - yes, by nature of being more devoted to actual free speech than most forums, we give a platform to witches, and a lot of people don't want to engage with witches or a place that tolerates their presence. But most people here aren't in that category. You don't have to be a witch to be comfortable here, you just have to be capable of tolerating the presence of witches.
And that said, "an enemy to be marginalized or liquidated" is not a promising start for someone with an rdrama username, so if you're just here to get a few dunks in before you're banned, why not just go away? (On the other hand, if you are actually here to engage, welcome.)
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
You and @hydroacetylene are both falling into the trap of assuming any one subgroup or what you see in particular forums is indicative of a billion people. Muslims are much like Christians - you have your "Cultural Muslims who don't really believe," you have your "Aid Al-Fitr and Aid Al-Adha Muslims" who only remember they're Muslims on important holidays, you have your "Imperfectly practicing Muslims" who maybe feel a little guilty about smoking and drinking and premarital sex but still do it, you have your devout Muslims who actually take it seriously, go to the Mosque regularly, but think the extremists are kind of crazy and embarrassing, you have your super-serious Muslims who wear hijabs if not niqabs and thawbs, do the five-prayers-a-day thing without fail, and generally follow the religion to the letter, and then you have the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Taliban, ISIS, etc., for whom Islam may be a serious part of their identity but is also instrumental to their political goals.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
So far, you have deleted everything you post, including all the top-level posts you use to start threads with. And your posts mostly look very much like trollbait.
At this point, I am convinced you are posting in bad faith. I am banning you, effective immediately, but if you would like to DM the mod team and explain yourself, we will hear you out.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
The majority of people (of all races) prefer their own race, sure. But fifty years ago, the almost universal reaction if you asked white girls if they'd date a black man would have been "Ew." Now, the majority will at least pretend to approve and a substantial minority actually will. Likewise, fifty years ago, black culture was widely considered low class and undesirable. Now, we've had lots of culture war discussions about the elevation of African American culture, for better and for worse. So it is not inconceivable to me that the perception of Muslims and Islamic culture could undergo a similar transformation, especially given that, to be honest, Islam actually has a lot more going for it to begin with. I just don't think the disgust reaction you perceive is going to endure - the stereotype of Arabs as a bunch of bearded camel-jockeys is already pretty outdated.
As for learning Arabic, there's a huge difference between becoming conversationally fluent and learning enough to get by with praying and reciting the Quran. (You know there are a bazillion apps now to help converts with that exact thing, right?) Most atheists don't seriously engage with the Bible because they don't consider it worth their time. Someone who actually converts to Islam would have to consider the Quran worth their time. Sure, the average TikToker is not going to have the dedication or sincerity to stick with it, but "needs to learn the language" is not the huge barrier you think it is. (There are many Muslims, including Arab-American Muslims, who speak little or no Arabic.)
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
Okay, well, I am not going to try to talk you out of this kind of irrational doomerism. I'll just point out that in the vastly unlikely event of the Taliban or their equivalent actually taking over the world, I cannot imagine their end game being any less bad than whatever bug-eating transhumanist dystopia you imagine the "western elites" are going to inflict on us.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
Okay, I genuinely don't understand what your point is or where you think the stand should be made, then. If you are not arguing that every public forum should allow Holocaust denial and nigger-posting, then what?
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
I am very skeptical that you're actually serious. This is the sort of edgy "Well, I guess I'm on Team Sauron then" take that young people use to express their disgust with The Man. The reality is that you have a pretty good life under the Western elites, however much their policies and hypocrisy might disgust you, which you would not have under the Taliban.
"Well, they'd forcibly convert me to Islam, forbid me all Western decadences, my wife and daughters would have to stay inside for the rest of their lives or risk beatings or worse, and the economy under their management would almost certain drop below third world levels, but at least I wouldn't have to call anyone by their preferred pronouns!"
If you actually are serious, you either know very little about the actual Taliban, or you have become so blackpilled by the culture war that you've become the sort of person who will blow himself up to spite your neighbor.
You just tried to roast me for being too slow to see how terrible wokes would become once put in charge. It's hard to take seriously an assertion that the Taliban would be less bad.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
You overstate the degree both to which beards and Muslim robes are "pussy repellent" and the difficulty of spreading Islam for linguistic reasons.
I think your tirade about how Islamic men are aesthetically unappealing looks like projection. Apparently they are unappealing to you. People used to say similar things about black men (some still do), and yet black men have no trouble attracting white women in the west (another contentious culture war issue). If Islam were to become truly popular, I don't think women would be going "Ewww" at beards. (And Western Muslims generally do not walk around in thawbs and kaffiyehs.)
As for Arabic, what you say is true, but only to a point. Translations of the Quran are allowable for people who can't read Arabic, it's just understood to be an imperfect approximation. Serious converts are expected to try to learn Arabic, but trust me, Muslims will welcome a convert whose Arabic is shitty or nonexistent. Islam achieved spectacular success in spreading itself even in non-Arabic-speaking countries. Iran and Indonesia and Malaysia are not Arabic-speaking countries, and while most do learn some Arabic for religious purposes, very few are fluent. A spread of Islam in the West would result in a lot more Arabic classes and many more Americans and Europeans knowing a smattering of Arabic, but mostly getting by with translation apps.
Now, whether a real Western Islamic wave could survive contact with liberalism and wokeness is an interesting question. We've seen the friction in a few places (the much-mocked "Queers for Palestine", the shock of liberals in Loudon County, Virginia discovering that Muslim parents weren't keen on their kids being transed, etc.).
Right now, Islam in the West is very much a youth movement, in the current moment largely motivated by sympathy for Palestine. A lot of young people are posting their TikTok and Instagram "reversion" stories about how after seeing the beautiful strength and resilience of the Palestinian people they decided to "research" (pardon my mocking laughter) Islam and took the shahada like, a week later. Yeah, once they are actually told they need to follow Islamic rules about dress (and the hijab stops being cute and fashionable), sex, alcohol, gender roles, and attitudes towards queerness, we'll see which one bends.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
Yes, it is on the slippery slope. My point is that you can't decide you will never put any restrictions in place that are on a "slippery slope" or you cannot have restrictions at all. Do you want a place with zero restrictions? We've talked about this many times before. We know what those places look like.
Everything else is just negotiating where the line will be.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
12d ago
Once you've reached "no Holocaust deniers" you've already set your feet on the slippery slope known as "viewpoint discrimination".
Here's the thing about slippery slopes: they exist, but every rule is a "slippery slope" of some kind. Maybe you think a hobby forum shouldn't draw the line at Holocaust denial. Fine, let the Holocaust deniers have free reign (and drive off almost everyone else). How about white supremacists talking about how we should send all the niggers back to Africa? Would that be okay? If not, then whoops, there you are practicing "viewpoint discrimination" again.
Even here, we don't allow people to actually call other people niggers. And we've gotten complaints about that.
No, they aren't, because they are also bad-faith conflict theorists.
Calling Elon Musk an incel is obviously ridiculous, but it has nothing to do with whether incels and incel culture does in fact exist. And if you take your position, which is that you can never admit your opponents might even accidentally be right about something because that would be giving them a "win," then you are no longer able to actually distinguish between what's true and what's not, only between what helps your cause and what doesn't.
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