Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
No bio...
User ID: 297
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
22m ago
I believe both. Old people can be comfortable if they earn it, but unless they're my family I'm not willing to make the comfortable at my expense.
Except you also say old people who worked and saved ("earned it") should be "cleared out." So you don't want them to be given anything, and you don't want them to keep anything they earned, you basically just want everyone but your parents put on an ice floe once they can no longer work?
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1d ago
I'm not interested in posting a rebuttal or contrary perspective. I'm not even saying the OP is wrong about Platner. I know almost nothing about him except what was posted here.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1d ago
You're affirming my priors.
Look, usually for such a low effort boo-outgroup post I'd just give you a warning, or maybe even let it pass depending on obnoxious and how deep in the thread it is. But I meant what I said-- you are a sockpuppet who just created this account, you are probably a ban evader, and when I look at your comment history, it's mostly just you being a jerk.
I'm sure you'll be back with another account, but this one is done.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1d ago
I kind of have to respect such a dedicated hater, but... what is this post but a very long boo-outgroup? I mean, technically it's "Boo Graham Platner," but more generally it's "Boo leftists, Boo Democrats, Boo anyone who votes for Graham Platner." What are you offering here other than "Here is a list of all the things he said that I hate/think are mockworthy"?
If you want to start a thread about why a particular politician sucks, we would like it to have more content than just "He's on the other team."
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1d ago
Yes. I understand that you think what you think and you feel what you feel. Does it surprise you that I disagree on every particular? So be it.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1d ago
I respond with great restraint to people with grudges taking swings at me. You are allowed to have a subjective opinion that is different from my subjective opinion, and I am allowed to assign the value I think is appropriate to your opinion. You are also allowed to message other mods if you want to discuss me or any other mod matters with them. I say this a lot, and I'm serious about it, but no one does this. Maybe because they think it won't do any good, and if the outcome they are hoping for is to see me removed as mod, they are probably correct that they aren't going to get what they want, but we mods really do have internal discussions about members, about reactions to moderation, and about our reactions to members. We do tell each other "Hey, I think you were out of line there" or "I need to back off where this person is concerned" or "If you are getting too worked up about this, maybe you should take a break."
As for No_one, he had one of the longest mod logs on the site. A string of abusive, sneering antagonistic comments with warning after warning and ban after ban, until we told him he was looking at a permaban. I was indeed the one who dropped the final permaban on him, but he was warned or banned by multiple mods at one time or another.
Yes, it is a shame that "interesting" posters flame out and get banned. When we tell them that if they keep doing something they will be banned, they should consider not doing that.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
2d ago
They get holidays, movies, medals and awards. Free healthcare, free college, VA checks as pension and discounts at every store.
In the US, at least, this is not true. The GI Bill is not "free college", you only get (cheap) healthcare and a pension if you did a full 20 years ( or are classified as disabled,.which granted, has turned into widespread grift), and "discounts at every store" is a gross exaggeration. Maybe a free coffee on Veterans Day.
The reflexive "Thank you for your service" does annoy the hell out of me.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
4d ago
The boo outgroup rule does not mean " leave your priors at the door."
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
5d ago
I don't really disagree with any of that, but I think calling something "The criterion of embarrassment" is really just giving a lofty name to a reasoning tool that, as you say, is not dispositive by itself. An admission against self interest is a piece of evidence, but it's just one factor. It relies on assuming that our account of who claimed what is entirely accurate, that our understanding of their motives and interests is entirely accurate, and it's rarely the case that you have a single person or entity making a claim that would be unambiguously against their self interest to be believed.
Remember that position the next time you are modding somebody for "we don't say the Democrats are demons round these parts".
What are you even arguing here? Are you equating "Angels don't exist" with "Democrats are demons"? Are you trolling me?
ETA to your ETA:
But that suddenly does not come into play here? We can all go in with "Given angels do/don't exist, here is evidence for them existing/not existing" and that's fine?
Yes. You still haven't answered my very simple question: what is, in your view, an acceptable way for atheists to express disbelief, since you now seem to literally be arguing that it should be a bannable offense?
Someone saying "Angels do not exist" is not booing their outgroup. (Unless angels do exist, in which case I guess they could be offended?)
If we go deeper into a discussion, inevitably it will end up "yeah but that's stupid/okay you think you believe that but the real explanation is a natural one"
People are allowed to tell you there are natural explanations for your beliefs. I have actually banned people for calling religious believers stupid.
And we don't need another round of pointless fighting and name-calling.
It is perfectly possible to have religious discussions with believers and atheists without name-calling. If you think it's "pointless fighting" because minds rarely change, welcome to the Motte. Which other subjects do you think we just shouldn't talk about?
Again, I answered every one of your points and you answered none of mine.
You are fooling no one. You're done.
ETA: To humor you, though:
gauge the likelihood that an Islamic militant group would face reduced recruitment after a viral story that their militants are getting raped by a ritually unclean animal.
I’ll treat this as a social/propaganda-effects question, not as advice for running a campaign. I’ll ground the answer in what is known about militant recruitment, honor/shame narratives, and rumor credibility.
🧭 Bottom line: low-to-moderate likelihood of reducing recruitment by itself; higher likelihood of short-term ridicule and reputational damage among fence-sitters, but also a real risk of backlash or martyrdom-framing. A single viral humiliation story rarely moves recruitment unless it is credible, repeated, locally believed, and attached to broader evidence of weakness, hypocrisy, or divine disfavor.
The “ritually unclean animal” angle could matter because dogs are often conventionally associated with impurity in Islamic legal/cultural discourse, though views vary by school and community; some authorities focus on saliva, others treat the whole animal as impure, and some traditions are more permissive. But that does not automatically translate into recruitment collapse.
Likely effects by audience
-
Committed militants and ideological supporters: little reduction. Hard-core supporters would probably dismiss the story as enemy lies, atrocity propaganda, or humiliation porn. Extremist movements often thrive on narratives of persecution and enemy depravity. Counter-narratives can backfire when they are seen as manipulative, hostile, or insulting to the in-group.
-
Potential recruits motivated by masculine prestige: possible deterrent. For young men attracted by images of battlefield honor, dominance, brotherhood, and invincibility, a viral story that makes the group look degraded or sexually humiliated could have some deterrent effect. ISIS-style propaganda, for example, has historically emphasized purpose, camaraderie, battlefield potency, and status; humiliation undermines that brand.
-
Local communities and families: modest reputational effect. Families already trying to keep sons away from militancy might use such a story as ridicule or warning. It could become a stigma: “joining them means dishonor, not heroism.” But this works best where the story is believed by the recruit’s own community, not merely circulated by enemies.
-
Hostile outsiders: high virality, low recruitment relevance. The story would likely spread fastest among people who already hate or mock the group. That creates visibility, but not necessarily persuasion among the target recruitment pool.
What determines whether it actually reduces recruitment?
The story is more likely to hurt recruitment if:
It is seen as true: video, multiple local witnesses, or confirmation by trusted insiders. It comes from in-group or neutral sources, not an obvious enemy government or rival faction. It fits an existing pattern: the group already looks weak, cursed, corrupt, cowardly, or sexually deviant. It becomes a durable joke or stigma, not just a one-day outrage cycle. It attacks status, not faith: “these fighters are pathetic frauds” is more effective than “your religion is dirty,” which would probably backfire.
It is less likely to hurt, and may even help recruitment, if:
It is transparently fabricated. It is framed as an attack on Muslims generally rather than on the militant group. The group can recast it as proof of enemy barbarity. The target audience values revenge, martyrdom, and humiliation-redemption narratives. The group has strong offline recruitment networks; extremist recruitment often depends heavily on peer ties, identity, community, and social reinforcement, not just media impressions. Probability estimate
For a single viral story, I’d roughly estimate:
Hard-core supporters: recruitment reduction near zero, possibly backlash. Fence-sitters / status-seeking recruits: some reduction, especially if the story seems credible. Broad recruitment pipeline: probably small effect, unless folded into a sustained credibility-damaging narrative. Best-case impact: the group becomes widely mocked as weak, polluted, and dishonorable among its own recruitment pool. Worst-case impact: the story is dismissed as vile enemy slander and strengthens grievance-based recruitment.
🎯 Most likely outcome: temporary reputational embarrassment, not a major recruitment shock. It could shave off some prestige-driven recruits, but it would not reliably depress recruitment unless it is credible, locally resonant, and paired with other evidence that the group is losing, corrupt, or spiritually illegitimate.
Ironically, ChatGPT is able to consider the question with more insight and subtlety than you are.
Here's my prediction: you will take a few isolated sentences from the above output and claim "See, ChatGPT agrees with me!" ("could have some deterrent effect") and ignore... everything else. Because it's "a lot of words."
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
6d ago
What I'm getting at is that discussions of this type, even on here, are not going anywhere except in circles. None of us are starting from the ideal scientific position of agnosticism until we have evaluated the empirical evidence.
If you only think a discussion could be worthwhile if you start from a position of genuinely having no priors, then it will be very difficult to discuss anything. Where are you going to find someone who genuinely has no priors on "Do angels exist?"
So while OP can legitimately ask "believers, why do you believe?", we are not going to get any further than "so you are basing it on subjective experience", because either the philosophical and metaphysical explanations as to 'this is my chain of reasoning here' will be dismissed as irrelevant or even nonsense, or the whole 'okay yeah but Science' gets invoked as with you and "no way to verify it objectively".
Only if you assume the objective is to convince someone what you believe is true. Maybe someone just genuinely wants to understand what your experiences are and why you find them convincing. I might not believe you've actually seen an angel, but I would be interested in what you actually saw and why you don't think other explanations are convincing. "Dismissed as irrelevant or nonsense" is uncharitable- yes, some people would do that, but no one is asking you to justify yourself to a hostile non-believer.
Hence, "you say you saw an angel, well I believe you believe it was an angel" (but it was not so).
"but it was not so" is framing it as an arrogant atheist presuming to be able to state the nature of reality with absolute certainty. I wouldn't say "You definitely did not see an angel." I would say "I very much doubt whatever you saw was an angel, and it will take more than your subjective experience to convince me." You may think that's "logic splitting," but if you reject anything but uncritical acceptance of your experience as truth, then yeah, you won't be able to discuss it with anyone without going in circles.
Eyewitness evidence isn't, personal experience isn't enough, yet if I said I saw Joe Malone smashing the window of O'Malley's chemist shop and grabbing stuff out of it, I would not be interrogated on "well I believe you believe you saw that, but since you're basing this on nothing other than subjective feeling of signals your eyes sent to your brain, how can we ever know it was indeed Joe or that Joe was there?" grounds.
No, because we know it's possible for Joe Malone to smash a window. We might inquire as to whether you'd have any reason to lie about seeing Joe Malone smashing a window, but there is no argument that we don't even know if smashing windows is possible. These are two entirely different categories of claims.
Some things are taken as a priori existing and possible, others dismissed as a priori impossible, and here we are back where we started.
Again, "dismissed" is rather harsh, but yes, people are going to begin with priors. You think it's unfair to begin with a prior against angels, yet I'm sure many other supernatural and metaphysical beliefs, you'd begin with very strong priors of skepticism and doubt.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
6d ago
Your entire position from the start has been to deflect and screed about these two points I made in my first comment:
No, it has not. This is dishonest. You know it is dishonest. Calling an argument a "screed" when it is clearly not is a dishonest rhetorical tactic.
Show me where is the emotive language in what I write, where is the meandering ideological flailing? I could more fairly characterize what you write "screeds" but I've avoided doing so.
I have repeatedly addressed your "honor culture" and "Why would Hamas lie about this?" arguments. I have repeatedly pointed out that I have more knowledge of the region, the history, and the people, which you cannot refute because like your extrapolations about Iran and what their motivations might be, you don't actually possess knowledge of these things, you just construct arguments-as-soldiers against your enemy.
You haven't even tried to refute my arguments, just hit the restart button and claimed I didn't address them. Now you're resorting to "You must be a Jew" again.
I mean, look at this:
Because if you had to admit that a story of being raped by dogs is bad
Show me anywhere where anything I have said implies that a story of being raped by dogs is not bad. I've literally responded to this multiple times in various forms, and said directly that this (if true) is bad and horrifying. I have even acknowledged it might be true, while expressing skepticism. Yet you hit restart and write, ahem, a screed about how I am unwilling to admit that a story about being raped by dogs is bad.
You are just flatly making things up.
This is why you are afraid to plug the query into an AI of your choosing
"Afraid." Note again the disingenuous, emotive language.
I don't need an AI to tell me things, and your query was framed in a way that naturally would give the answer you want. Yes, I too can write a prompt which will coax an AI to validate my priors. Here's one: ask the AI of your choosing if it would be advantageous for an insurgent organization to fabricate or exaggerate stories of their enemy raping people with dogs. What do you think it will say? Here's another: ask the AI of your choosing how difficult it would be to train dogs to rape people. Are you afraid to ask it that?
The fact that you think "Ask an AI if I'm right" is a convincing gambit shows how weak your actual knowledge is and how shaky your reasoning. And I am tired of the dishonest argumentation, which I have indulged longer than is sensible or reasonable.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
6d ago
Look, I already have reasons to believe you are a sock puppet, and when you come in with what is pretty clearly a personal grudge and make pointed jabs at your bete noir, I am inclined to just ban you.
If you want to argue with someone (you will notice I am having a similar argument with her in this thread, but without the personal attacks), don't do it with the intention of getting under their skin, whatever your beef is. I won't warn you again- you're a "new" account I already consider disposable.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
6d ago
The left would rather have violent schools in which children kill each other regularly than impose discipline.
Buddy, how many times do we have to tell you to stop doing this?
When you post these beer can boo-thoughts, you start spewing transparent nonsense and anger. There is a form of argument in which "The left would rather have violent schools in which children kill each other regularly than impose discipline" could be expressed as the predictable outcome of their revealed preferences, but that would be too much work for you, so you just say crap like this, which no leftist would agree with. So is every leftist literally in favor of violent schools in which children kill each other, and they are all lying if they say they aren't? Maybe you actually believe that is the case, but if you do, you need to bring some pretty solid evidence for such an inflammatory claim.
Here is your rubric: if you are claiming every (or almost every) member of group X believes something, and you know damn well they would all say "No we don't," then that's a clue that you are arguing something that is, at best, contested and you can't just assert it because you like talking about how terrible group X is. (I'd give you a few "shoe on the other foot" tests but you know them, we both know what they look like, you'd probably just brush them aside.)
Really and truly, I want you argue better and stop doing this. Not because I am a tender-hearted lefty who is offended that you probably lump me in with the people who want stabbed children and shitting on buses, but because there is a reason we have rules against naked culture warring and boo outgrouping. It degrades the discourse. It contributes nothing of value, sheds no light, explains nothing. It's just tribal signaling. You will get upvotes from people thinking "YEAH!!! You tell 'em! Fuck leftists!" and maybe that gives you a dopamine hit, but no one (I hope) really wants the board to become the kind of place where that's all people are doing (and if we allow it, that's all people will do).
Stop this.
I'm holding off on banning you because like most of your posts of this nature, it's just a minor instance of boo-lighting by itself, and we really don't want to ban someone who's a long-time member since the olden days, who often does write things of value. But you are now in that "How often do we let him keep getting away with this?" zone.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
6d ago
It just reads to me that you have a deep-seated personal reason to defend Israel at all costs.
You've tried the "Are you a Jew?" gambit before.
This is why you’re resorting to a litany of ad hominems rather than just explaining your position and why you disagree.
I have explained my position in greater length and with more effort than your arguments are worth, frankly. The posts are right there. I disagree because you are using poorly argued motivated reasoning. I could just as easily (and more accurately) argue "It just reads to me that you have a deep-seated hatred of Jews and that's why you believe everything Hamas says." That would, in my opinion, be completely accurate, but I have instead focused on the details of what you are claiming, without myself claiming to possess absolute knowledge of things I cannot know, whereas you claim to know for certain what the truth is based on what you think you understand about Palestinians and Israelis.
I can understand why “the IDF is using dogs to rape prisoners” would be a horrifying thought for someone who loves Israel and who is eager to call critics antisemitic
I would be horrified at the thought of anyone using dogs to rape prisoners. I don't love Israel. I've told you this before.
But we should still think dispassionately about the accusation.
Talk about projection. When you become emotional and use loaded, ideologically motivated arguments, you are not the one being dispassionate. I am.
If Hamas does not stand to gain from the accusation, then it is unlikely that the accusation is manufactured.
Hamas does stand to gain from the accusation.
I notice you are just repeating your arguments even after I have addressed all your points. It's pointless to keep explaining logical errors when your tactic is, like other people with your particular obsession, to just hit the rewind button and go back to the start and pretend we haven't been over this.
You disagree, but you don’t really articulate your disagreement to these points
This is untrue. Again, the posts are there.
you just kind of name call.
I haven't called you any names. I have commented on your behavior a few times, but your description of the tone of my side of this argument is wrong and dishonest.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
Okay. This is no different than your being offended that I don't believe in angels. Sure, a lot of people might be upset to hear love described as nothing more than a physiological process.
So what? It's true or it's not true. If it's not true, then it does you no harm that I believe it. If it is true, it's true whether or not that upsets you.
Believing love is just a product of evolution doesn't make it not important or real.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
I am not sure where you got the idea I was claiming to be neutral on the existence of angels. I am not neutral. I do not believe in angels. Of course that is going to be my baseline.
So if we talk about angels and you tell me angels exist, what do you want me to say? The most respectful and charitable thing I can say is "I believe you believe." I mean, sure, I might be interested in why you believe. I would listen with what I think is an open mind. But open minded doesn't mean I'm starting with the premise that maybe they exist and maybe they don't. What else would you ask of me? I
I did not say anything like"I'm going to trigger your over-sensitive fragile little ego.' If you took that approach towards me, well, I'd assume you weren't really trying to discuss anything.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
You were just unwilling to consider the Fallujah Dog Rape Thought Experiment.
I did consider it. I answered it. I pointed out why your thought experiment was not applicable because you were falsely equating one thing with a different thing. You of course did not refute this, just ignored it and now pretend it wasn't answered.
The problem with your farcical debate tactics is that "thought experiments" is all you have. Not facts. Not logic. Not historical understanding. Not nuance. Just thought experiments, rhetorical devices, and arguments as soldiers.
I note you have not responded to a single other point anyone makes when rebutting you, as usual. Do you actually know anything about Palestinians and Muslim culture besides what you have gleaned from the Internet about dogs and "honor culture"? No, you do not. Do you have an explanation for why these dog rapes are being publicized, if they are so devastating to morale and recruitment? No. Do you have evidence that Hamas recruitment is down and would-be fedayeen are now staying home for fear of Israeli rape dogs? No. Are you able to explain why you find Israeli rape dogs credible, but the Holocaust and Hamas rapes are not credible? You cannot, because the answer would give the game away.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
I'm not trying to fight! But what am I supposed to say to 'you're logical chopping there with "I believe you believe you experienced that"?
Let's say you say you saw an angel. I can:
- Believe you.
- Assume you're lying or delusional.
- More charitably, assume you experienced something that you can't explain or prove but which you believe was an angel.
It seems only (1) will not offend you. Problem: I don't believe in angels. You cannot convince me angels exist. What do you want from a non-believer that doesn't get your back up?
Love is at least a relatable experience. And we know humans experience emotions because even sociopaths do. Love can be explained as an evolutionary adaption in our neurology, but that doesn't make it not real.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
But that's it in a nutshell right there: not real. By what metric? Science, which tells us that gods and spiritual experiences are not things that happen, so it's not real and here's the real explanation.
Science doesn't "tell us that gods and spiritual experiences are not things that happen." Science provides a methodology that tests the nature of observable reality.
If you tell me there is a God that exists that is outside any means of testing his existence, and you have spiritual experiences that no one who is not you can verify, science doesn't, strictly speaking, say "That's not real." It says "There is no way to verify that."
People can of course choose to believe in things that cannot be verified. I imagine if I had a spiritual experience that I was convinced was real, I would believe it was real regardless of whether it could be detected by anyone else.
Since I don't, however, and since such experiences fall outside anything explainable with what we know about the universe using observable and testable criteria, you can get offended that I disbelieve, but why should I believe?
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
You seem to be attacking straw New Atheists who mostly aren't actually here.
I have a lot of reasons to disbelieve in a Holy Spirit even while believing you and my mother are sincere (and not crazy) when you claim to have experienced it. I don't need a "scientific" explanation to debunk every single supposed miracle in the Bible. I can just accept that every culture has these stories and lots of people experience things that are, IMO, either misunderstood or not real.
Also, STEM and religion aren't automatically mutually exclusive.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
7d ago
Well, if you are not unhappy, you are not unhappy. What you describe seems like a pretty joyless existence to me, but there have always been loners who genuinely don't like socializing with anyone. I don't anyone here is going to try to persuade you that you must make friends and must have a relationship to make your life worth living.
We express disdain for being called boomers because to the degree that "generations" exist, GenX is a generation with different life experiences and upbringings and career paths than our boomer parents.
If you just want to call everyone older than you who owns a house "Boomer," we can't stop you.
But we probably can stop your campaign to take our stuff because you want it.
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