Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
No bio...
User ID: 297
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
8hr ago
Monsieur's dissatisfied snapping of fingers is duly noted.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
8hr ago
Debatable. It looks like he wrote or edited some of it himself, and like I told him, we don't really have a rule about how much of your post can be written with AI assistance. Also, since I've already talked to him about it, it seems kind of unfair to go back and delete the post now.
If he keeps doing this, the mods will discuss it and we will likely remove such posts in the future.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
9hr ago
Well, FWIW, I unfortunately have now flagged you as "that guy who uses AI" and I will skip over your posts without reading them from now on, unless I am required to skim them because you've been reported.
It's one thing to use AI to do grammar checking or even bounce ideas off of. But it's pretty clear you used AI to do large chunks of your writing for you.
Right now our rules about AI usage are sort of fuzzy; someone obviously posting an AI-generated post is going to have that post removed, but it's hard to prove something is AI-generated, and we don't really have a rule about how much AI is too much. You deserve credit for owning it, but you need to know most people don't want to read what an AI thinks, or what an AI writes after you typed what you think into a prompt.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
12hr ago
My stance: It shouldn’t have been a QC
No comment on the rest of your post, but I will comment on this.
First, complaining that a post you didn't like or think was deserving received a QC is one of the most tedious of complaints. QCs are necessarily subjective. Not everything that gets nominated is selected for a QC, I assure you. There are people who automatically AAQC any post that expresses a view they agree with. Even the shittiest boo outgroup hot take will get some AAQCs from certain people, just because it validates their feelings and they love seeing their outgroup get shat on. @naraburns is the one responsible for choosing which nominated posts actually get listed. Obviously that means the list leans towards what he deems to be worthy, but I know he does not just choose posts he likes or agrees with.
You thought a particular QC wasn't interesting enough or didn't really support its argument? Okay. Whatever. That's just, like, your opinion, man.
But more importantly, it inspired you to write this long post in response, which is very much the raison d'etre of the Motte. To get people to test their ideas and receive effortful responses. Now, we've seen the argument before "If a terrible, low effort post provokes a lot of discussion, doesn't that make it a good post?" Well, no, but on the other hand, you complaining that a QC didn't measure up and then writing a long rebuttal to explain why... sort of does make that argument.
I also want to add that your mention of using AI made me raise my eyebrow, because a lot of this text looks kind of like AI generation. I don't think you wrote it entirely with AI, but if you are using AI to "fill out" the volume of your post, then you don't really have any standing to be complaining about the quality of someone else's post.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
2d ago
I always thought Eowyn was Tolkein's weakest character. Iron age aristocrat women didn't sit around demanding the right to kill and die like their menfolk.
Do we really know that? I mean, undoubtedly very few did. But Eowyn is an exceptional character. I'd be willing to bet that a tiny percentage of women throughout history did indeed wish they could go out and fight and do glorious deeds. Probably a very tiny percentage - but it's not so silly to make one such woman a character in a fantasy novel.
It's funny, Tolkien gets a lot of flack from leftists for being "too white" and his problematic depictions of brown people (the usual accusation being that orcs are meant to represent POC), and also for being "too male" (not enough Strong Female Characters).
Yet when you point out that in fact he did have a handful of Strong Female Characters, and that he even admitted that one shouldn't assume that orcs are all born evil - rightists will scoff and say it's totally unrealistic to have a woman who ever wants to take up arms, or orcs who aren't mindless spear-fodder.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
2d ago
The factual history is:
You were banned for an uncharitable bad faith post. I added in the ban message that factoring into the ban was the fact that multiple people had noted the nature of your post, and your responses were belligerent and filled the queue with reports.
You demanded that I point specifically to the other posts that were bad.
I declined, because I wasn't going to argue with you about each post in the thread.
You claimed this was unfair.
You still think this is unfair.
Your claim that the mods "Use secret reasons they won't tell you about to ban people they don't like" is false.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
ROFL. I can't remember the last time I reported a comment. You're off your rocker. (EDIT: I don't think you can claim with a straight face that there hasn't been even one comment in say, even the last two weeks, that I "didn't like".)
After looking it up, I do owe you an apology for this. I was writing this on the phone (which is no excuse) and I conflated you with another user with a similar name. So I was wrong about your reporting history. Mea culpa.
I stand by everything else I said, though.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
Just like ignoring a jury summons, this works until it doesn't. Yes, you can get away with it often. You can also get fucked when someone actually bothers to take the next step instead of saying "Eh, fuck it."
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
If upvotes mean ‘more of this’ and (like most commenters) fuckduck was largely upvoted, shouldn’t there be a presumption of adding value to the forum, that cannot be annulled by you simply finding me annoying?
No. People can reliably get lots of upvotes with a flaming hot "I hate my outgroup" post. We don't mod by upvotes.
If you're admitting to being fuckduck, consider yourself being given grace for not being given another ban for ban evasion.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
Again, "I don't like your explanation" is not the same thing as "You didn't give me an explanation." You're also rather shamelessly ignoring the complete explanation you were given because you'd rather point at where I said you were being obnoxious throughout that thread, and claiming that because I refused your demand to litigate each and every one of those posts that you did nothing wrong and were just modded for "secret " reasons. Secret reasons that were spelled out for you more than once.
Honestly, I had mostly forgotten you (except inasmuch as you show up in the report queue) so I don't know what you think you've accomplished here by dredging up a time you got modded two years ago. But the reason you got modded was clearly stated and everything you claimed in this thread, about mods not telling you why you got modded, has been categorically refuted. It's false and you know it's false. You're just embarrassing yourself, but go on, champ.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
It's clear from your response that you still can't point to anything specific.
Bud, that thread you're still salty about? You got a lengthy explanation from me telling you exactly why you were banned. " When you came back and complained some more, I pointed this out to you again.
"I don't like your explanation" is not the same as "I have a secret list and will ban you for reasons we will not explain."
I am not "seething"; I'm simply responding with a specific example of a particular pattern that was described. That's better than you can do.
There is no kinder way to put this: you're lying. This has never happened on the Motte and you know it has not happened. Your own example is contradicted by anyone who actually clicks on your own links. I don't know what you hope to gain here, maybe convince people who engage in no critical reasoning, or maybe just poke mods because you're still salty two years later, but it's unproductive, and it's also ironic because if we were a fraction as arbitrary and petty as you claim, you would not be able to engage in this behavior.
"The mods have an unfair grudge against me and ban me for no reason!" cries the guy who posts blatantly dishonest attacks on the mods and is allowed to do so without consequences.
Many such cases.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
4d ago
But sometimes it's all worth it.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
4d ago
Considering how often I write lengthy explanations of mod decisions (including my own), I consider complaints like yours (still seething over a slap on the wrist two years ago!) to be nothing less than disingenuous. Especially given that you are one of our most irritating serial reporters who reports every post you don't like. So getting a warning two years ago is cause for outrage and lingering resentment, but you want us to warn and/or ban anyone who says anything that chaps your fragile hide?
I'm calling you out here on this where I don't normally make an issue of people who click the report button frivolously because I think the juxtaposition between what you think would be just moderation where you are concerned and what you think would be just moderation where people who are not you are concerned is illustrative.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
4d ago
You've had multiple warnings for low effort snarling. Banned for two days.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
5d ago
We were never actually kicked off. However, we'd had several warnings from the "anti-evil" squad, who ignored all our requests for clarification or further dialog. It was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, and Zorba eventually made the decision to pull the trigger. He might or might not have done this before it was necessary, but I doubt we'd have been allowed to remain much longer.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
Old School Renaissance/Revival. Basically, D&D going "back to its roots" (generally 1st or 2nd edition AD&D, depending on who you ask, but sometimes Basic or even Chainmail). There are a host of Old School "retroclones" which are all variations on the old "6 stats, class/level, d20" fantasy game, but the aesthetic is generally to appeal to 70s and 80s kids disenchanted with everything post-TSR and all the newer games. Unsurprisingly, there is a large overlap between OSR fans and gamers sick of "woke D&D," though it's by no means an entirely right-wing or anti-woke movement.
I'm going to add to what @cjet79 said because starting a thread on this topic would have been fine, but what made this low-effort was not merely its shortness but that you made absolutely no effort to contextualize or explain what you were talking about.
You may have assumed, because it's all over Twitter, that everyone would know what you were talking about. But as several commenters below have demonstrated, there are people who do not actually spend any time on Twitter and had no idea what this is about. There are people who barely know who Sydney Sweeney is. There are people who don't know anything about her jeans ad that caused this controversy. There are people who do not know about the interview with GQ journalist Katherine Stoeffel that has become what you refer to as a "scissors" moment.
If you want to start a top-level thread:
(1) Provide context. Do not assume that everyone else is an Online as you. Do not assume that everyone else is going to know what events and people you are referring to. Not everyone has seen the latest Trump news. Not everyone knows what WotC announced about D&D (some people, believe or or not, even in this nerdy space, barely know what WotC or D&D is). And definitely not everyone knows who a C-list actress known for having "great genes/jeans" is or why she's controversial for fifteen minutes.
(2) Provide something of a conversation starter besides "Hey guys, what do you think of this?" The bare minimum of effort, besides providing some context, would be offering your own opinion on the subject. Or why you think it's gone viral. Or why you think it's a Shiri's scissors. Something.
Here is my contribution: the tldr, for those still ignorant, is that Sydney Sweeney is a hot blue-eyed blonde actress/model who did an American Eagle jeans ad very obviously capitalizing on her great titslooks and making a genes/jeans pun. This triggered a lot of predictable nattering in leftist spaces that Sweeney and American Eagle were Darkly Hinting about white supremacy. Sweeney was then interviewed by GQ features director Katherine Stoeffel, in which Stoeffel asked her about the ad and the reaction to it. Her question was read by many as a passive-aggressive demand for Sweeney to essentially apologize and assure everyone she's not a racist; Sweeney responded with essentially "no comment." What made it go viral, besides the feminine-coded passive-aggressive language of Stoeffel and Sweeney's directness in response, is the contrast in their appearances and facial expressions. Stoeffel is a mid-looking woman in the presence of a woman infinitely hotter than her, and her facial expressions radiate hesitancy and lack of confidence, while Sweeney fixes her with a direct and assertive stare in return. This has been micro-analyzed to death by many, many people. Some have called Sweeney's look a "death stare" and said she is "smirking" or indicating contempt with the slightly upturned corner of her mouth, others have defended Stoeffel and argued that she was actually trying to be kind to Sweeney and let her defuse the charge. If you watch the whole interview, it's not nearly as confrontational or unfriendly as you might think from just watching those most-captured few seconds. Sweeney's obviously a professional who knew that question was going to be thrown at her, and Stoeffel probably was not trying to "gotcha" her. I am always skeptical of the sort of micro-analysis that assumes you can mind-read and infer everything someone is really thinking from their facial expressions and tone of voice. But certainly the visual effect combined with the cultural moment had all the ingredients to make this go viral and become a CW "scissors."
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
This has driven a lot of the growth in the OSR scene... which is interesting because now you can watch in real time as outsiders and entryists accuse the OSR community of being full of fascists, while inside the community it's roughly divided between "I just want Old School orcs" and "We must make it clear that the OSR community is a welcoming and inclusive space."
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
You and @HereAndGone both - stop taking personal shots at people however annoying you may find them.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
You are, actually. Burdensome has a different pattern (and iirc is Pakistani, not Indian).
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
On the one hand, yes, but on other hand, no?
See, you read it "That was gross, why would you do that, Stephen King? Why, why have an underage teen gangbang in the sewers? Ewww, what were you thinking?"
That is how I see a lot of people react to that scene. And I can't really blame them. I attribute a lot of that, like I said, to King's being high at the time (most of his books written since he got sober lack the kind of raw, deranged energy you see in his earlier books), and also, honestly, King has some squirming eels in his head that he has been trying to exorcise for half a century with his writing.
But--
Yes, Becky's father is abusive, and is probably going to start sexually abusing her soon (which he may have done even without the influence of Pennywise), and as an adult she follows that sad predictable pattern of partnering with a man who reminds her of daddy. She's been traumatized and abused (like all the kids were) by her fucked up childhood. Pennywise was a metaphor for the rot in Derry, and more generally, in good old small town American society. This is a theme that is evident in most of King's books. Especially his horror books. Sure, they're about space aliens and ancient eldritch spider-demons and vampires and psychics and other weird shit, but basically they're about how fucked up some people are, and how a little pressure will really twist the insanity dial.
So Becky and her friends face Pennywise the monster who basically turns everything terrible about their childhoods and makes it explicit and violent and feeds on the blood and pain.
They are kids who were forced to grow up too early, both by their mundane life experiences and by facing Pennywise. They can't handle it. Some of them break because of it.
What we see in the sewers is, yes, a big "friendship affirmation ritual" to counter the influence of Pennywise and it would have been a lot more palatable as a group hug. But these are kids who don't exactly have healthy role models or good examples, and... they're also all horny pubescents. So this is what comes to their minds.
I'm not going to say there was no other way King could have written it, and it's fair to say "Really, Stevie, what were you thinking?"
But a heartwarming little "friendship is magic" moment just wouldn't have had the same effect. There was both a bonding and denial effect amongst the kids, a "We really did that?" that among other things ensured that when they were called back to Derry years later, they'd come. And it was symbolically the end of their childhood (something a hug would not have accomplished).
King himself has kind of made this point. From anyone else, I'd roll at my eyes at "I wasn't really thinking about the sexual aspect of it" but from Stephen King, yeah, I believe it. Especially from 1978 to 1986...
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
8d ago
Eh, I hated it because it felt like it was just taking a spite-filled dump on the source material. The sequel makes it even worse when he takes an even more spite-filled dump on CS Lewis.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
8d ago
to "uh yeah no Stephen I didn't really need a pre-teen orgy in the middle of a good scary horror novel").
Point of order: it happens at the very end.
And while it was a very, um, off-putting scene, I still find myself defending it inasmuch as I understand what King was trying to convey there. In his very unfiltered and probably-written-on-a-coke-bender way. I mean, the entire book was full of really unpleasant things happening to children - that was the point.
Now if you want skeevy, let's talk Piers Anthony (or not).
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
8d ago
You spent time on DLP, didn't you?
But seriously, it's amazing how much that series resonates with basically everyone who read it, across generations. People can hate on Rowling all they like, but I think Voldemort and Umbridge references are going to be as durable as Shakespeare quotes.
So, speaking as someone who's been accused of giving special protection to Jews on the Motte and even being a Zionist myself:
I've been a subscriber to Bari Weiss's Free Press for a while but I'm cancelling my subscription. Why? Because every damn issue is about how Nick Fuentes or Zohran Mandani or whoever said anything negative about Jews or Israel is an existential threat. I have mostly enjoyed the Free Press's coverage on issues, but it became very, very noticeable that they're iconoclasts and contrarians (or at least willing to platform heretical views) about everything except Jews and Israel. On that topic, any synagogue in the country being spray-painted is worthy of a headline, and no article will ever suggest Israel is anything but a victim of calumny.
I get that it is personal for Weiss, but it's like every Jew became unhinged after October 7. To be fair, so did the Left, and now the Right's anti-Semites are crawling out of the woodwork. It's hard to blame Jews too much for feeling like everyone is out to get them more than ever when it really does seem like everyone is out to get them more than ever. But it's also a little hard to feel sympathetic to people like Weiss who think articles mocking everyone else's idpol are hilarious but don't you dare make light of hers.
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