@Amadan's banner p

Amadan

More equal than others

11 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 05 00:23:21 UTC
Verified Email 

				
User ID: 297


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Amadan


								

								

								
								
									
								
								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
More equal than others

				
				
				

				

					11 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 00:23:21 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 297


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
							
								Verified Email
							
						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					All
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Midterms Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, no, you are required to uphold and defend the Constitution, and if someone literally said "I don't believe in the Constitution and I want to destroy the Republic," there'd be a good case to deny that person office. But whatever you might suspect about certain elected officials, merely holding political or religious views contrary to what the Founders would have approved of doesn't mean someone isn't capable of following the Constitution.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Superintelligence




Please, please, please, for the love of Ahura Mazda, stop this.


I know, it's petty, and of all the things Trump has done that I dislike, declaring that AI should be called "Superintelligence" shouldn't be at the top of my list, but it is absurdity of the highest order to issue an Executive Order based on a shower thought. "Superintelligence" actually has a meaning in the AI field, and other than trolling people I can't even see what Trump's point was in doing this. Is it supposed to "own the libs" who hate data centers? Why the heck would you immediately switch to the new term like a Party member just notified of the latest un-words?


I agreed with most of the points in your top-level and thought it was a good and thoughtful post, for whatever that is worth.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You misunderstand what we mean by consensus-building; you don't get to express disdain for your outgroup as long as you're in the majority, and you are not allowed to recruit for a cause or assume that "everyone" is on your side. It is probably true that the majority of people here are right-leaning and unhappy with the electoral results. That doesn't matter. This isn't a right-leaning forum for you to rally support against the electoral results.




And doesn't this from you: "almost certainly a sockpuppet, and very likely a ban evader, consider yourself on notice and on our radar" constitute name-calling and bullying?




No, it constitutes an observation and a warning.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Midterms Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think the clause speaks for itself, but if unclear, my appeal is to the logic that the Founder's intent should prevail and be respected.




That logic is not in the Constitution. You may believe we should "respect the Founder's intent" (and that only Christians should be allowed to hold office) but that's not what they wrote.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What the hell? You two are behaving terribly. I just gave @georgioz a one-day ban for his "FUCK YOU" crash-out, but your much calmer but just as unnecessary ad hominems are no better. You're not arguing, you're just trading sneers and seeing who can out-condescend the other. You can take a day off too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


FUCK YOU.




I don't know why this topic got you so emotional, but even with your long record of AAQCs, this is not acceptable. Take a day to cool off.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I find your view abhorrent disgusting and I would strip you of citizenship if I could.






Are you young? Are you white? You seem like you are from a foreign culture? You talk like your Indian.




You've been warned to stop doing this, and as I noted last time, every time you are warned you cool it just long enough to hope we'll forget.


We don't forget.


Ad hominems like this are about as clear-cut a violation of the rules as you can get without a straight-up "fuck you."


One month ban. Next time probably permanent.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do not throw your two cents into a slapfight that doesn't involve you because you are harboring a grudge.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You posted this in two places. If you hadn't already gotten multiple responses in both places, I'd delete one. This post is borderline in itself; we try to give lots of leeway to people bringing their best and most interesting/borderline-crazy ideas, but I am already frowning at all the posts that amount to "We lost/We are in trouble/this is a disaster for us" and your entire post amounts to an appeal to a consensus that does not exist here. Since you are also a newly-rolled account, almost certainly a sockpuppet, and very likely a ban evader, consider yourself on notice and on our radar.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm gonna let that go 'cause it's funny, but really, not appropriate for a top-level post.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Midterms Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I see once more we have thought of the novel idea, "What if we could make it so our enemies don't get to vote?"


I'm sorry to inform you that if the American people want to vote for communism or Shariah law or the Hunger Games, the Constitution does not in fact prevent that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Midterms Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Tried reading it once. Bailed after a chapter. I seriously do not get the appeal of some of the works recommended in rat-spheres.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Midterms Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Past that time, Shai LeBeouf, Shai LeBeouf, Shai LeBeouf.




Would you be kind enough to explain this to those of us who don't want to read horrible web fiction to get the reference?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa. A heavily fictionalized novelization of the life of Miyamoto Musashi, the "Book of Five Rings" guy. Yoshikawa originally wrote it as a serial, which shows as there are lots of tangents with side characters. It's obvious Yoshikawa just made a lot of stuff up, but it's great soapy fun.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Freddie at least claims to believe that genetic racial differences don't exist and all disparities are because of historical disadvantages and social inequality. I don't know what his answer would be to "Why shouldn't we research it" but I assume he would assume no good could come of it. Maybe because like Pinker, he secretly knows what the results would be, or maybe because he assumes the research would be done in bad faith and produce untrustworthy results.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do you or @TheAntipopulist perceive any irony whatsoever when you realize you are defending Darwin and insisting he was treated unfairly, but complaining that we put up with TrannyPorn too long?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, of course I too think I am open-minded and available to be persuaded, and that you are not, and there we are. But to break this down to the fundamental point of disagreement, I dispute that in order to mod "fairly," one has to share political opinions with the person being modded, and therefore leftists can only fairly be modded by (or in consultation with) other leftists. May I remind you that Darwin got argued with a lot, but was actually rarely modded here?




You should know that most people aren't available to be persuaded on most things.




This may be true, but then why the fuck are we here?


No, nobody gets persuaded in one thread to change their worldview, or even their opinion on one topic. But I do think my opinions on a number of things have changed over time, partly because of my participation here. In some aspects, I have become more liberal; in other cases, much less so.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but your responses are still dripping with contempt with the "(yawn)" and the "Jesus". I have a feeling that if darwin did that to other users then he absolutely would have been told to knock it off by the mods.




Not really. It's true we discourage sarcasm and snippiness, but if you've been paying attention as closely as you claim to, you also know we generally have a pretty high tolerance for it and only mod when it does cross over into obvious antagonism or an attempt to derail threads into "Nuh uhs."


Yes, I will own that sometimes I am sarcastic and jaded. Mostly I keep it in check, but sometimes my exasperation shows. I cannot honestly say I feel much guilt over this, because I do not censure people for things I would not censure myself. Could I be more dispassionate and a model of toneless civility? Yes. I am sorry not to be able to conform to your customer service expectations. The expectation that mods are never allowed to so much as yawn at a tiresome critic is not a reasonable expectation.


Your claims about why leftists are being banned and rightists are not: well, I flatly disagree, I think you are wrong, I think you are arguing that the sky is green and gravity is sideways, and I think nothing I say is going to disabuse you of this because we had almost this exact same exchange a year ago and nothing has changed. Yes, I am being a bit sarcastic and jaded with my "sky is green and gravity is sideways" crack because I am exasperated.


But as per your suggestions:




Hire a genuine leftist or two into the mod team and then consult them when issues arose in regards to modding leftists.




First of all, I reject your implicit assumption that the mod team is all rightists and we are biased against leftists. You are simply - pardon my exasperation - not just wrong, but fucking wrong. Maybe none of us qualify as "leftists" nowadays, but we are definitely not all rightists. Honestly, I think only one of us identifies as rightist and one another identifies as moderately conservative. Like, that's it, man. So how "leftist" do you think your proposed sensitivity consultant mod needs to be to restore fairness to moderation?




Have stricter rules regarding tone when it comes to users interacting with other users.




We could do that. Back on reddit, we'd occasionally have periods we tongue-in-cheek called "reigns of terror" where for a week or two, tone moderation became much stricter and bans were handed out more easily. Usually this was when we sensed the temperature going up and an increase in antagonism and low-effort sneering making conversations less pleasant. There was, unsurprisingly, a mixed reaction to this, with some considering it a needed corrective, but most thinking it was just mods going off on a power trip (and of course, always, always, we were persecuting viewpoints we didn't like). We haven't done it since coming here because the community is smaller and we really don't want to hand out bans like candy. But honestly, I just mostly disregard your opinion of the tone here since you're clearly only seeing meanness in one direction and you only care about meanness in one direction. I will say that most of your proposed rules from NeutralPolitics are more or less the rules of the Motte. You are not wrong that we don't enforce them that strictly, and perhaps not as strictly as we used to. So it is worth discussing amongst ourselves. Maybe it is time for a "reign of terror" or at least a "reign of increased strictness."


But here is the problem: none of that would make you happy. Because you are the kind of person who will never believe that we are being fair, no matter how we adjust the dials. So, there is that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As the "bad mod" (yawn) who "chased Darwin away," let me point out that no one is keeping him away. And I personally have committed to not trying to rub my last post that apparently shamed him into silence in his face if he ever returns, even though I absolutely do not respect how he tucked tail and ghosted when finally pressed on some bullshit he'd been saying for a long time. But I cannot promise others will not.


About liberals: you are right and you are wrong. Leftists do not get extra mod scrutiny. Jesus, how many times do we have to go over this? Once again, in the same thread we're being accused of being extra-strict with leftists and also of giving them too much leeway because we don't want to drive them off. Look, it's a known problem. The site has converged mostly to the right, and leftists get reported more, and the mods are very aware that a leftist is going to show up in the mod queue more often and thus we cannot help but be hyper aware of leftists who are annoying people. And we have to balance "Is this person really out of bounds?" with "Are we just seeing this person more because everyone reports him?" It's... the Darwin problem, basically.


We still have some liberals here (raises hand) and even a few leftists. Yes, I get that it's hard to be a leftist here. I sympathize, but also I don't. This, also, is old ground I'm repeating for the umpteenth time, but the convergence here is not because we drove away all the leftists. It's because leftists drove everyone else off every other site, and we still see the pattern here where sometimes a leftist will show up and participate for a while, and then leave in a huff when they realize they're not allowed to just call people Nazis and that we don't ban leftist-feeling-hurting viewpoints.


That was a ramble, but I feel like a lot of you are just rehashing things we already know. So, like, what are your concrete proposals?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Man, I know you love dredging up old shit, but if you want to relitigate threads from eight years ago, talk to the people who were mods then.


Look, we do our best. I can't say anything that hasn't already been said. The next time @guesswho or someone like him goes on a tear, there will probably be discussion about it in the mods channel. There already is frequent discussion along the lines of "This poster is super fucking annoying but he's not reeeeally breaking the rules, what should we do about it?" And usually the consensus is "Let him have his leash." Is that the wrong consensus? Maybe it is. Maybe we should just start dropping banhammers the moment someone becomes super fucking annoying. But be careful what you wish for, as they say.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, how many times do we have to distinguish between de jure and de facto applications of the law? You're just repeating the same point for the fourth time. What I asked for was very specific, not yet another example of "Well, we know it's usually men arrested for abuse."


Also, from my understanding, more and more police departments are in fact treating allegations of abuse from either sex seriously, to the point that now it's sometimes the husband or boyfriend saying "Wait a minute!" when the cops arrive, hear both sides, and put cuffs on the woman because she put hands on him first. (Watch a lot of police body cam videos and you see this often - the cops are no longer ignoring it when a woman slaps or scratches or throws things.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Perhaps I responded with too much heat, but it is tiring being constantly accused of playing favorites, privileging certain perspectives, or just being unreasonable and unfair when every single one of us tries our honest best to be as fair and impartial as we can humanly manage.


"Animal Farm" to me suggests an Orwellian hierarchy where we make a pretense of equality but are actually treating one group as clearly more equal than others. Hardly a method of rewarding good behavior, but merely an arbitrary caste system.


That's not the intention with the policy of granting more (but not infinite) slack to posters with a positive record over posters with a negative record, but I suppose if you must see it that way, fine. I disagree because basically anyone can join the ranks of the "privileged" by being a good poster and not being a bad poster.  But I realize there will always be people who see themselves as being persecuted, and rather than observing the consequence of their own actions, it must be because the mods are unfairly twisting the rules to punish people they don't like.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


What would you tell the female voters who accuse you of misogyny for favoring the ability of abusive men to kick women out of the house?




I'm not a politician, so I am not concerned about that.


For someone who's the #3 He-man Woman-Hater on the Motte, I really don't understand your cringing attitude towards the prospect of female disapproval. I get that it's harder when you're out there in the dating market, and I won't lie, I am glad not to be there, but still.




Anyway, I admit to laying a bit of a trap because its been red states passing laws aimed at protecting female rights, Which do try to draw a very direct black and white gender distinction.




Yes, I figured that, but as I expected, they aren't actually what I asked for. And even by your own admission, they are actually "textually reciprocal" (i.e., de jure they apply both ways, even if it is pretty obvious that no one is worried about trans men being excluded from men's spaces). So... you gave me oranges and said "Look at them unfair apples! Gotcha!" Uh, right.


I'm not even convinced "normies" buy the "protecting girls" framework here. To the degree leftists are in favor of trans rights bills, they see trans women as an oppressed underclass, but I am deeply skeptical as to how many really and truly perceive them as "girls," in the way that provokes the male protective instinct you are so despairing of.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Can you point out any previous serious pushback against laws that explicitly favor women/protections for women?




No. But I can't recall any recent laws that made a black-and-white distinction like what you are hypothesizing. If you can show me a law (in the US) that literally says, for example, "Abuse is defined as a male hitting a female," or something like that, I will reassess my opinion.




Would YOU vote against that?




Would I vote against a law that explicitly defines abuse in such a way that men hitting women is abuse and women hitting men is not? Yes, I would.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Darwin Question gets brought up over and over, but no one has ever offered concrete policies we should change, just "calibrate your tolerance" or "be quicker to ban people on vibes." There isn't a good solution. You have to think of it as a classification problem: moderation that allows some of the people you want to stay also allows Darwin. Moderation that would ban Darwin is also going to ban the sleazy tacticians, bad faith propositions, and devil's advocates for your side.