Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
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User ID: 297
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
5hr ago
My dears, my darling, my honey, my sweetie-pie:
Stop this.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
2d ago
Getting bogged down in the details of what Scientology, as an organization, is capable of today is totally beside the point that they prove a conspiracy of the type I outline is possible, and easier than ever. Maybe not for them, as they aren't what they used to be. But for someone sufficiently motivated.
The details are relevant because you're claiming that "Scientology once succeeded in conspiracy shit" is evidence that someone else could do the same thing today, and I don't think that sort of conspiracy (a literal cult trying to destroy an individual with social engineering) is so easy to do today, especially in the dispersed online way you are proposing.
Who knows, maybe in 20 years people will be leaving the Current Year cult, spilling the secrets of the things they were "forced" to do at the time.
There is no Current Year cult. There's trans activism, BLM, Free Palestine, whatever else you want to categorize under the broad umbrella of "wokeism," but I am fundamentally disagreeing with you that these things are engineered by shadowy cabals somewhere or being manufactured by a bunch of Silicon Valley nerds doing A/B testing on memes. You don't need to wait for anyone to "spill secrets" - we already know how it happens, through social pressure and conformity and agreeableness, not because someone did some Ludovico conditioning on them or inserted fnords into their social media. There are plenty of people who have "escaped the Woke cult" and talked about how and why they bought into it in the first place.
People like Crowder have been declared "fair game" by the successor ideology.
Basically anyone has been declared "fair game" by the successor ideology. The result is Twitter pileons, sometimes deplatforming, but
Imagine some "rogue employee" at Facebook deciding "LOL, I'm going to manually add Crowder and Mrs Crowder's accounts to the 'hate algorithm' list."
You seem pretty invested in a very science fictional notion for someone saying you don't really believe this. "Facebook can plug you into a hate algorithm and pretty soon you and your wife are heading for divorce" is kind of like Shiri's Scissor - it's a great concept, works for a short story, but I've seen too many people (including here) take this kind of dystopian brain hacking far too seriously and literally.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
2d ago
As it happens, I've read several books about Scientology also (including the one by David Miscavige's niece), and the problem Scientology has today is the same one a lot of your hypothetical conspiracies would have: yes, in theory the technology exists to do all these nefarious things, but the pulling it off secretly and without opposition is a lot harder. Scientology nowadays has a real recruiting problem and almost all growth is via next generation members raised in the cult, because anyone can get on the Internet and look up "Xenu," and for every dirty trick Scientologists try to pull online, there are thousands of motivated opponents ready to fight back in kind.
Scientology used to run these operations against reporters and succeeded in bullying the IRS into giving them tax exempt status, but it's not likely such tactics would work as well today (if you've seen their attempts to discredit ex-Scientologist critics like Leah Remini, they just look lame and desperate).
Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman, is very critical, and yet the church was actually pretty cooperative with her (and to my knowledge, never attempted to intimidate or harass her).
People like conspiracy theories because they have a pleasant explanatory power: things I hate are engineered by shadowy, evil cabals acting in secret. If only they could be exposed or fought! Clearly these things cannot happen organically, or because thousands of factions often acting at cross-purposes bring about a lot of the things I don't like. But people just aren't that organized, they aren't that efficient, they aren't that secretive. The same reason you should be afraid of the state of the world (because there are no "grown ups" in charge somewhere, who have the will and the means to pull a few levers of power and keep shit from getting out of control, the economy and global politics are all basically running on daily ad hoc decisions far more than long-term planning) is the reason you should not get too wrapped up in the idea of Illuminati conspiring to make your life worse.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
2d ago
Conspiracies require conspirators. There cannot be conspiracy in SV to bring down a leftist media outlet, since leftists control it at every level. If one guy does have this goal, he is acting as a lone wolf.
Are you saying Peter Thiel was a lone wolf, or are you claiming Gawker was not a leftist media outlet?
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
2d ago
The subtext here seems to be that women specifically can be socially influenced to dump their husbands because they see other women dumping their husbands. Am I wrong?
I think as a "jk... unless?" theory, this is about as plausible as any conspiracy theory. Could "Silicon Valley" theoretically target some individual and try to destroy his marriage? Yeah, I guess there are enough people with the social engineering and technical skills, and the money, to engineer some sort of anti-Crowder campaign. But, uh, who, exactly? And why? Crowder might have been targeted on social media; we know this doesn't take a whole lot of coordination, just a few activists in the right places at Facebook and Twitter. But deliberately trying to destroy his marriage? With this level of deep psychological warfare? What boardrooms and labs was this plan cooked up in, and is Stephen Crowder really the lowest-hanging (or most hated) fruit for them to target?
It doesn't add up, on so many levels.
Let me recommend another book to you: Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue, by Ryan Holiday.
It's actually really good, and interesting. As you may recall, Peter Thiel set out to destroy Gawker, for a variety of reasons (not "because they outed him" - that is covered in more detail in the book), and he did so by secretly funding a lawsuit against them brought by Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan. The details are fascinating, but the point I am making in recommending this book is that Peter Thiel, an actual Silicon Valley billionaire with the money to fund James Bond villain schemes, engaged in an actual conspiracy to destroy an enemy, and even his "conspiracy" was fundamentally just mundane lawfare with an extra layer of intrigue. Now, maybe some other billionaires are in fact funding secret projects to sow divorce amongst their enemies via social contagion, but when you look at what we can see real people actually doing, it seems very difficult and very unlikely (even for billionaires!) to pull off these sorts of shower thought Illuminati schemes.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
2d ago
I haven't read the Prince of Nothing series, but surely you've read Neal Stephensen? "We used to be p-zombies until (some of us) actually became sentient (maybe)" is the premise of a couple of his books.
While I sympathize with your take in general (I too know people who will just swallow The Latest Thing uncritically and there's no point talking to them about it), it's not stupidity and it's not new. People are largely group-thinkers and want to go along to get along and also lack the necessary time or energy to dig deeply into the particulars of whether a particular claim is true. Even here on the Motte we see people sometimes show up and plaster a laundry list of highly risible deepity-sounding assertions in a wall of text, and they rarely get much more than vibes-based pushback because who wants to hunt down each and every bullet point to dispute it? And on the rare occasions when someone does that, the deepity-poster disappears and returns after a while to do the same thing.
Jesse Singhal is slowly driving himself mad on Twitter because he keeps doing this with trans activists: "No, look at these fifteen studies I have carefully analyzed which show that what you are saying is not actually true!" he says for the fifteenth time, thinking that this time, Facts and Logic will make them stop calling him a transphobic Nazi.
There isn't some "elite" class of human capable of actually thinking. What we have are agreeable people who don't think most battles are worth fighting (especially at the cost of career and reputation and friendships) and a few highly disagreeable people (often on the autistic spectrum) who absolutely will fight over these things. I hesitate to say that the latter actually have much to do with building bridges and advancing civilization, even if we probably do need a few of them around.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
7d ago
Don't be a dick.
When we (mods) read comments on the main page, and not by looking in the comments filter, it's not always obvious that a comment we're replying to is currently in the new-user filter and thus not visible to anyone else.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
8d ago
More like permabanned for being naughty over and over and over again arguing with everyone.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
8d ago
Tone-policing and telling people not to be antagonistic has always been a thing here. If you can't call out the witches civilly, don't spin up a new alt just so you can do it uncivilly.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
9d ago
Your enemies are never going to concede that calling Elon Musk (with 10 kids by 3 attractive women) an incel is at all wrong.
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.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
9d 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"
9d 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"
11d 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"
13d 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"
14d 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"
14d 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"
16d 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"
16d 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"
16d 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"
17d 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"
18d ago
Speak plainly and drop the sneering sarcasm.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
21d 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"
21d ago
This post alone is not the reason he was banned.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
21d 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?
No one is telling you how to feel your feelings. You know that having feelings and how you express them are two different things.
You get cut more slack than you know because people (including me) actually like you quite a lot, despite your inability to control your feelings and your tendency to respond to even the least little bit of poking with explosions. So be assured that the contempt you are showing me now and have shown me in the past is not taken personally.
That said: replying to a mod telling you directly to stop doing something with a foot-stamping "No, not gonna, you can't make me, you're not the boss of me" temper tantrum is an escalation with a response that you clearly chose. So yes, banned.
I don't need or want to deal with this nonsense right now, so I will let the other mods decide when or if to end your ban.
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