domain:arjunpanickssery.substack.com
Mantergeistmann
9hr ago
I'd say it's more coming into a bar, and wondering why some of the regulars are discussing with the bartender whether another of the regulars (who, over the course of many nights before you got here, established a rep as a bit belligerent once they've had too many) should be cut off. Doesn’t mean it's not a drinking establishment, or that you're not welcome to belly up and order, but that there's backstory and conflict (like with any established group!) that you weren't around for. Don't let that worry you.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
9hr ago
I'm sad that this has been your first week here. It's not every week that two prolific posters are banned. This is actually one of the only places left on the Internet where you can say any idea, as long as it's said civilly. Unfortunately, it can be hard for some people to keep it civil, to the point where I think many posters have forgotten what civility even looks like.
I could make an effort post on why gay sex is morally terrible and it wouldn't be moderated - as long as I wrote it as if I was trying to convince a close gay friend, using the friendly language one would use with someone you will inevitably see every day. It would be downvoted terribly, because that kind of sentiment is wildly unpopular here. But it wouldn't be moderated. If I made the same post, with the same argument structure, but with some homophobic slurs added in and in the tone of a drill sergeant, it would be moderated in much the same way you see here.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
9hr ago
We’d really prefer it if you didn’t leave… we need new people to prevent this place from slowly withering away.
In any smaller and more tight-knit space it takes some time to get acclimated to the local customs, but that’s just like… normal.
yofuckreddit
9hr ago
God, just the review summaries at the bottom. The way American LLMs simp the user to is just viscerally disgusting at this point.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
9hr ago
I'm getting a "you barged into our secret club" kind of vibe.
I for one do not believe you barged into our secret club.
birb_cromble
9hr ago
RFK Jr. fires two top staffers in leadership shakeup
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has fired two of the department’s top aides in a leadership shakeup, a spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.
There are two things I'd like to discuss here: the procedural and the inside baseball.
One of the most interesting aspects of the second Trump presidency is that unelected officials are being fired, and that the news is reporting on it.
Historically, firing high ranking officials was not uncommon. In recent years, however, it seems like it has gotten more difficult to do so, up until 2025.
What has changed? Is this entirely downstream of recent court precedent, or has the executive fundamentally changed in some way compared to Biden and Trump I?
There's a lot of supposition and kremlinology below, so if you're not into that, feel free to skip this section.
Moving on, I've seen a few rumors floating around that these firings are due to the officials in question approving the Moderna COVID vaccine while RFK jr was on vacation. If this is true, and that's a big if, it's interesting for a few different reasons.
Historically, federal officials had a lot of power to ignore and subvert the will of their bosses. Usually though, it's passive behavior. Appointed bosses come and go, so sandbagging on unpopular orders is a common strategy. Sometimes (like military leadership lying about force dispositions in Syria), they'll go so far as to elide or bend the truth on topics that won't get back to the president until its too late to matter. Rarely though, do they engage in something that would go against the will of their appointed Boss in a way that is both active AND verifiable.
Give all that - if the reason for the firing is true, it has some interesting implications.
- It's possible that these officials knew RFK jr didn't want the approval to go through but did it anyway, with full knowledge of the consequences
- The officials thought they could get away with contravening the wishes of the appointee Boss without consequences
- They genuinely thought that the approval was in accordance with the wishes of their appointed Boss.
- Somehow the bureaucracy is so automated that these officials didn't even know the approval happened at all.
To be honest, I'm not sure which possibility is most interesting, because they all have a lot of downstream implications for federal government.
- If #1 is true, this is a rare case of a public official making a principled stand and accepting the consequences. I respect that, even if I disagree with the stand itself. It makes me wonder if it might cause other officials to take similar stands.
- This possibility (#2) is interesting because it makes me realize that I don't actually know what the stated purpose of agency officials is. Is their highest goal to serve the purpose of the agency, or the will of the electorate? Even if they claim one or the other, what processes do we have to ensure that's true?
- Possibility #3 is interesting because it implies that these individuals either see a VERY different RFK Jr than the public sees, or they have a fairly warped view of his positions. It seems odd that someone could climb the DC power ladder and lack the skills to suss out the intentions of their appointed Bosses, so if this is true, it suggests that RFK jr has very different public and private positions.
- Possibility #4 is more terrifying than interesting. The fact that it's boring and awful and suggests that no one actually has a hand on the tiller makes me think it's also the one that's most likely to be correct.
Totalitarianit
9hr ago
People can either read this as another unimpressive attempt by a left-leaning individual to fixate on a single tree despite there being an entire forest, or they can look at it as unintentional satire, which is what it really is. Lecturing Americans about immigration policy as if the last decade(s) of UK immigration disasters simply didn't exist is actually funny.
Your legal framework and its habit of prioritizing everyone but its natural citizens has landed the UK exactly where it is now. You brag about these laws that, while intended to protect individual rights, have led to a system where every single removal attempt is open to countless appeals and human rights claims. The UK and whatever it once was is basically done for. It's so bad that to say that it has an identity crisis is to assume that the is still has any identity left at all. This has been the UK's "infinite wisdom" which, ironically, will prove to be not-so-infinite.
So while people like you brag about the process, people like me look at the results, and the results of the process you're defending are undeniable.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
9hr ago
It is very kind of you to believe that Count isn't being disingenuous. Donning saintly levels of forbearance and patience:
We're less concerned with what's in a user's heart of hearts and more with the mess they make on the floor. The relevant question for us isn't "Does he believe it?" but "Is he posting in order to start a fire?" This is where you get the "sincere troll." This is the user who may genuinely hold an opinion, but chooses to express it in the most inflammatory, condescending, and insulting way possible, because the hostile reaction is a core part of what they want. The outrage is the point, not a byproduct.
Let's grant that Count sincerely believes the UK's legal system is superior. The sincerity of that belief doesn't make phrases like "steaming pile of shit" or telling an entire country to "apply for readmission to the human race" anything other than deliberate, high-octane provocation. He knows it's inflammatory. He chooses those words precisely because they're inflammatory. That's baiting. You can already see the fish biting in this thread.
Sincerity isn't a defense for deliberately "waging the culture war," which is explicitly against the rules. He's not just expressing an odious opinion; he's lobbing a grenade wrapped in an opinion, and he does it over and over again. Whether he's a nihilist who believes nothing or a zealot who believes everything, the result for the thread is the same: heat, not light.
We don't moderate beliefs (or at least we try not to), we moderate behavior. And his behavior is consistently that of someone trying to start a fight, and then scream about police brutality.
Since I have your attention, I must remind you that you're on thin ice yourself. Your posts are popular, you've got AAQCs, but you're flying too close to the sun. Do yourself a favor, and take extra care to couch your language in a manner that minimizes opportunities for it to be misunderstood. This is for our sake too, I do not look forward to the shitstorm in the comments that will ensue if we have to bite the bullet. Don't make us, please.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
9hr ago
If he expressed his Great Replacement desires in more formal language, perhaps referring to genetic groups instead of "mayos", would his posts be under less scrutiny?
I'm not a Burdensome Count sympathizer, but I am under the impression that this forum is one where you can express any idea, as long as it's done civilly. The civility requirements do seem to be more stringent on the left than the right, probably because when someone insults the Left there's not a lot of push back.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
9hr ago
I didn't. Smollett's story had more red flags than the Chinese Parliament. This one at least has the chance of being a series of bureaucratic fuckups -- those are a lot more common on the ground than MAGA fans of Empire who carry around bleach and a noose in a Chicago winter.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
9hr ago
· Edited 8hr ago
Guatemala denies that Chilean green-card holder was deported from the United States
The Guatemalan Migration Institute said in a statement that it coordinates with ICE on all deportations from the United States and that no one matched Leon’s name, age or citizenship.
ETA: The reporting in this story is horrendous.
As far as I can tell, it's possible ALL the info comes from this "Nataly". Nobody reporting on this had anyone check on Mr. Leon in Guatemala City. The story about Leon being handcuffed and his wife left for 10 hours in the immigration comes from unspecified "family", NOT from the wife. Sure, she doesn't speak English... you don't have a single Spanish-speaking reporter? This isn't a Khoisan click language, it's common!
FoundViaTwitter
9hr ago
I'm getting a "you barged into our secret club" kind of vibe. That's fair! I didn't mean to disturb whatever exactly this place is.
I'll go back to my internet space. I'm nobody, so this feels a bit silly, but this will be my final comment. Apologies for the intrusion.
yofuckreddit
9hr ago
- I also keep an internal picture of everyone in my head.
- It's cheating since your picture is on your substack, but my internal vision was fairly accurate
- If you're not exhausted, I'll echo the clamor for "do me!"
Arnaud
9hr ago
Can't speak for the cane sugar, but the gluten sensitivity thing is real from my experience.
Cut out gluten in a desperate attempt to sort out some digestive issues years ago and it helped a lot.
If I eat gluten in moderate quantities nowadays it results, like clockwork, in a headache, brain fog and later indigestion.
So yeah, sample size of one but I'm sold.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
9hr ago
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design..."
Which is to say there's a pattern here. Sure, sometimes things happen by accident. But when the "accidents" all point in the same direction, and aren't corrected either before the fact or after the fact even when warning or complaint is given, there's good reason to believe they're not accidents.
WhiningCoil
9hr ago
I thought trolling was definitionally disingenuous? As in, he's saying all that shit to fuck with us, but didn't actually believe any of it. Probably isn't even who he says he is? That's what makes trolls so odious, there is no there there. They don't actually believe anything. Mere stubbornness to concede a point does not qualify one as a troll. A person can have odious but sincerely held beliefs, but that doesn't make them a troll.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
9hr ago
No, but police officers do demonstrably lie and frame people sometimes.
In this case it's also relevant that all of this was publicized while BLM was protesting, but largely this case was ignored. There is probably a good effort post on the (lack of) interactions between civil libertarians and "defund the police" types.
yofuckreddit
9hr ago
The music in Frozen 2 is better, but the plot is barely comprehensible, and I hate the characters. The tendrils of wokeness are too obvious: Anna treats Kristoff like shit, Elsa is selfish and navel-gazing, and surprise-surprise, the old whites murdering the native magical browns are why everything sucks.
It's obvious Frozen 1 was rushed out and had serious story thrash but at least it's earnest. My kids barely watch the sequel but will see 1 any time.
iprayiam3
9hr ago
It's just left-wing and not right-wing.
The immediate admission that you don't know BC's posting history, demonstrates that you're offbase with that categorization.
BC, and Alexander Turok, have both in recent days been defended against bans as 'left wing' being punished. But neither is remotely a leftwing poster.
You're not banned yet! You can totally keep it that way.
I genuinely can't. I get that the mod consensus is that I know exactly what I'm doing, and it's all on purpose, and I delight in thumbing my nose at the rules and skirting by with just enough plausibility to avoid punishment. But I honestly try. I really do. It's just that all my life experience is so utterly divorced from your realities, that my heartfelt best behavior effort post like this gets met with sneering dismissal by one of the people who decides when my next ban (which I've been informed will be permanent) happens. Like I said, I wrote and rewrote that post 3 or 4 times, feeling deep in my bones that no matter how I phrased it, while still saying what I needed to say, I'd probably eat that last permanent ban for it for some errant turn of phrase I enjoyed, or being inflammatory, or having "more heat that light" whatever that's supposed to mean anymore. Every post I make I make like it's my last, because I honestly don't know what the fuck I'm doing wrong. It just comes down to our lived realities are too different, and to preserve yours, I'm going to get shuffled out the door at some point.
Edit: I want to elaborate further. I ended my effort post with "So it goes to be conquered." I agonized over that last sentence. I loved it. It was the thesis of the entire post. It was the most important sentence. When I was in school writing essays I always told "Tell em what you're gonna say, say it, then tell em what you said." I must include that sentence. But it's also the most dangerous sentence. Instead of seeing an effort post, someone might just see inflammatory rhetoric, bullshit anecdotes, more inflammatory rhetoric. Permaban. But if I don't include that sentence, there is no point to any of the rest that I wrote. Probably makes them even worse as it's just a series of inflammatory anecdotes with no reason to state them at all.
I can't control how you people read that. Even when I try to include context, half the time the context just gets ignored and a single sentence, or sentence fragment, or single word gets plucked out as being ban worthy. Sometimes large portions of my post are skipped, rewrote or concatenated together out of context to achieve the perception of greater offense than a plain read of the entire post would have produced! There is no fixing this.
Arnaud
9hr ago
The kid is sleeping like a log
Sleeping through bombardment, a veteran already.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
9hr ago
https://www.themotte.org/post/2269/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/348537?context=8#context
I did write a longer explanation, so you don't have to just take my word for it!
Fair question. The line between a passionate, strongly-worded argument and trolling can be blurry, and if this post existed in a vacuum, without any knowledge of Count's antics, it would have been unobjectionable. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum. The problem isn't the topic: it is the user, the pattern, and the presentation.
To put it plainly, trolling isn't just about what you say, but why and how you say it. The goal of this forum is to "optimize for light over heat." Trolling optimizes for heat, exclusively. Count does occasionally provide light too, but in the same manner that lighting your house on fire helps find the keys during a blackout.
Breaking down this specific post:
-
Performative, Over-the-Top Language: The post isn't structured for discussion. It's a screed. Phrases like "total emptiness of its own fundamental depravity," "steaming pile of shit," and "apply for readmission to the human race" are pure flamebait. They're designed to provoke outrage, not invite reasoned disagreement.
-
Deliberate, Gratuitous Antagonism: The constant, almost comically exaggerated praise for the UK system versus the condemnation of the US isn't a good-faith comparison. It's tribal button-pushing. "august by American standards, by our standards there is terraced housing within 5 minutes walk of me that is older" is a perfect example. It adds zero substance and exists only to be condescending and get a rise out of American readers. It's a classic "Boo outgroup!" move.
Now, the crucial part: context.
BurdensomeCount has a long, long history of this exact behavior, for which he has been repeatedly warned and banned. His schtick is to take a kernel of a real argument and wrap it in layers of aristocratic, elitist, and often racialist provocation. You can see it all over his comment history (make sure to sort by negative votes):
- His entire "dissolve the people and elect another" argument where he calls for replacing "low human capital natives" with "elects" (migrants).
- His frequent use of terms like "low tier people," "mayos," and "proles" while positioning himself as a superior "elite human capital" finance professional.
- His open admission that he wants to "punish" Europe by flooding it with migrants to watch "progressive modernity" collapse, and that he does this with "glee."
He isn't arguing to understand; he's arguing to provoke, to feel superior, and to watch the fireworks. He knows exactly which buttons to press. This latest post is just his standard formula applied to a new news story: find a legitimate grievance, crank the rhetoric to 11, lard it with condescending UK-vs-US bait, and serve it up to see who bites. And people will bite, they will get mad, while Count laughs away or engages in performative denialism.
In short, he's not engaging with the culture war; he's waging it, which is explicitly against the rules of the thread. He's a "masterful" troll in that he's very good at it, but that doesn't earn him an indefinite pass.
I like Count. He amuses me, like a monkey that is very good at flinging shit. He also annoys me and tars other migrants by association, coming off as immensely entitled, ungrateful, and willing to bite the hand that feeds. But that is a personal stance, and not what he's being modded for.
His mistake is to assume that the Motte runs like an actual court of law. While this particular comment wouldn't sway a judge, Lady Justice might be blind but I'm not. We know Count.
AmericanSaxeCoburgGothic
Happy to be here! Goal is to post the most exclamation points.
9hr ago
Long ago I would similarly devour Agatha Christie books, my favorite was Lord Edgeware Dies. Since I read them when I younger, I wonder how much of the social situations went over my head and how enjoyable it would be to reread them now.
Yes. 100%. It would be quite trivial to rephrase everything he has to say in a manner that is minimally inflammatory. Some opinions will inherently piss people off, no matter how politely stated. We account for this, and let them stand.
I'm going to sacrifice even more of my lunch-break, and take on the burden of providing an example of how Count could have made the same point without breaking the rules:
The second version makes the exact same three points:
The difference is that the rewrite focuses on systems, policies, and ideas. It critiques without insulting. It frames the point about national character as an analytical observation from a historical figure, not a childish insult. It invites a counter-argument ("Actually, sovereign immunity is vital because...") rather than a flame war ("How dare you call us a steaming pile of shit!").
That is the standard. It's not about what you say, but about making a good-faith effort to say it in a way that contributes to a discussion. Count consistently and deliberately chooses not to.
We can't please everyone, but even the perception of such bias is concerning. Take it from me, that we take this concern seriously, and have been debating it internally. I'm not going to name names, but a certain someone, who is a right-wing darling, will not enjoy it if we decide that we need to make an example.
Of course, that's an extreme outcome, and we generally try not to make examples for the sake of it. Many lengthy explanations have been written about why the perception of anti-leftist bias might exist here, including even in its absence. I can't rule out that it isn't, in fact, absent, but take my word for it that we care about fairness as well as the appearance of fairness.
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