PJ's Authoritarian thread: C-SPAM edition

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ross perot in hell: Jul 9, 2019; by VideoGames

people are radicalized because of lovely modding actually

# ? Aug 31, 2019 15:47

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# ? May 28, 2024 16:51

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

ross perot in hell posted:

now permabanned e/n mod

this would be a good username

# ? Aug 31, 2019 15:57

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

people are radicalized based on their material conditions. more people have radicalized in various ways because material conditions have worsened - inequality, poverty, capitalist alienation, economic stagnation. trying to explain away radicalization through this dumb psychobabble poo poo is liberal refusal to accept reality - that american liberalism has failed to benefit most people, and so they have radicalized in seek of new solutions.

It was Adorno who came up with the category of the authoritarian personality, and I think he�d tell you that there were other reasons why people became nazis, but he�d probably also tell you that the f scale describes something real that has consequences for how history plays out.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 16:10

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

Ice Phisherman posted:

So I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here. It's been something I've been thinking about for a while and I've been struggling to put into words that I'm truly satisfied with. But here it is anyway.

I would say that most people are more susceptible to radicalization due to their material conditions. However, many people are radicalized due to their social conditions and perceived social status degrading. Most of this happens on the right wing.

In this case, I think that the evangelicals are the most radical and likely to be further radicalized towards political action and violence. They exist pretty high on the social hierarchy in the United States and have been pandered to directly since the 1980's and Christian supremacy (and the white supremacy that lies underneath it) have been waning for over a decade, and waning quickly. Affiliation with cultural Christianity is falling and even the evangelical base of around 25% of the population has been dropping as well. And that's as of 2014, which is five years ago.

https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

It's now primarily old people who are overwhelmingly religious. The older you are, the more religious you are. The younger you are, the less likely you are to be religious.

https://www.prri.org/research/american-religious-landscape-christian-religiously-unaffiliated/

The chart titled "A Generational Shift In Religious Identity" is pretty interesting here. Also you can mouse over it for more information.

The new data is from 2017, and you're seeing a crash in religious affiliation, especially among young people. 26% of age 65+ are evangelical protestant, who are probably the most politically active and arch conservative, outside of a few left wing holdouts. Maybe 5% of the population there. But most of them are right wingers. And that falls from 21% for 50-64, 14% for 30-49 and 8% for 18-29. Meanwhile, no religion/unaffiliated/agnostic/atheist goes from 12% for 65+ to 18% for 50-64 to 26% for 30-49 and 38% for 18-29. And that's probably continuing to accelerate because it's now two years later. We're most likely looking at half of all 18 year olds being non-Christian, meaning some other religious identity or unaffiliated, potentially right now. And if not now, then soon.

I'm guessing, and it's not a huge leap, that evangelical protestants are looking at the demographics numbers like one might look down the barrel of a loaded gun. They're loving terrified. Not of dying exactly, but dying out and losing cultural supremacy. And with the waning of their cultural supremacy goes white supremacy, or at least how they've cloaked it for as long as the notion of whiteness has existed. They can't push white supremacy openly unless they have religion to get well meaning Christians to largely passively go along with their social dominance programs. If you tell some zoomer kid that Jesus loves him, he might look up from his Twitch stream long enough to shrug. Maybe.

Christians absolutely need young people to continue their traditions, just like any tradition. No young people and your tradition becomes like the old Greek gods, a series of myths. And those young people are just abandoning the church. A lot of those places are rural and in a rural town, a pastor or preacher can wield an enormous amount of power to enforce social orthodoxy primarily through fear of being labeled an outsider. What you're seeing though is the gutting of rural America. Young people leave for the cities because there's no future in rural America unless that future includes heroin or meth. And there's this enormous transfer of primarily young people to cities and around them to the point that 50% of all people in the US live in or near a city. And this shatters the social control of the church which required proximity and control over a small amount of people to enforce social orthodoxy. Their ability to project authority is short reaching. Likely no further than twenty or thirty miles. Maybe the county. Maybe. And maybe more if they're one of the cults that enforce worship through holding your family as social hostages like say, Jehovas Witnesses.

So I suppose you could consider the loss of the church's young people material conditions. Less kids, less tithing, less control. But what these primarily old, primarily crazy, primarily politically active people desire is to preserve their cultural supremacy through any means possible and right now that looks a lot like stacking the courts and waiting for a new Great Awakening. Also supporting Donald Trump who give lip service towards them and enforce their social programs despite not knowing a loving thing about Christianity. Anything to staunch the bleeding. The thing is, those young people aren't going to come back because the places that they're fleeing are normally dying. The social control of a church plummets when there are other competing churches near it and honestly, who has time for church and tithing when you're struggling from the ugly side of capitalism?

The demographics of the Catholic church for example is growing older and older if you're white, but trends younger if you're Hispanic. No longer is the Northeastern part of the US the bastion of Catholicism. It's becoming more Southern as that's where Hispanic people are settling in large numbers. The same goes now for evangelical protestants. But in their case, because their religion is primarily a vessel for white supremacy, or at least it's married to the concept, they're totally unwilling to accept that America is becoming less white and less religious, because their cultural power and supremacy depends on whiteness and Christianity. If not for their white supremacy, they could make overtures towards say, evangelical Hispanic, African American, Asian, etc communities. Or hey, just mainline Christians. But because of their racism, they're unwilling to reach for allies in their political struggles. Their racism and social status is more important to them than surviving. And so they will not change. Or at least they won't change until they feel like it's change or be defeated. And it's a good chance that they'll just be defeated.

If people that they view as inferiors: Women, minorities, LGBTQ+, non-Christian religions, atheists, etc, gain in social power, they feel diminished because their social prestige wanes as that gap is closed. Further, they're experiencing a demographics crisis, so their ability to gain, wield and retain political power wanes in return.

So I have to disagree with you. For religious people, which is most people, who are only going to get crazier as their political power wanes, what motivates them isn't material conditions, or not just material conditions. It is that their social prestige is not just declining, but on the chopping block. And if evangelical Christianity declines too much, those churches in those rural areas will simply cease to exist. So goes their excuse for social control, for white supremacy. The mask falls off and they increasingly reach for hate and violence which will be totally naked of any vestments of Christianity. And that's pretty loving scary for normal people.

I worry intensely about this, because a dying mule always kicks the hardest. Cultures that are on their last legs will go on a kind of death ride to try and reestablish themselves and it is almost always incredibly violent. I doubt so called centrists will do what's necessary to put that violence down. They'll shriek about what happened to discussion and decorum while chuds are reaching for their AR's.

Also, the left in the US is still weak, though it is growing in numbers and organization for the first time in 50 years or more. It does not have the institutional, monetary and people power that Christianity and white supremacy do though, and I think that those two forces are the only forces that really have a chance at present of directly opposing the horrors of capitalism in a real way. It's like watching two people you hate beat the poo poo out of one another, but at some point when one is totally beaten down you know, you just know, that the other is going to turn on you. And I think it's going to be the smiling devil that is capitalism, because capitalism is the force that is eroding the old pillars of the US: Christianity and white supremacy. Not for good reasons in particular, but because it's a force that atomizes everyone and corrodes all social bonds to make people marketable.

So on the left, yeah, people go left and radicalize left because of material conditions. However, people stay or go right wing because of either their social prestige waning, their material conditions worsening or both. And I'd say that people on the left push for more social prestige, because if African American people had the same prestige that whites do, they wouldn't get murdered for wearing a hoodie or basketball shorts.

I'm pretty sure in a few more years that your average church isn't going to be old. It's going to be abandoned and maybe re-purposed. You see this happening right now in a lot of cities. My old church that I mostly stuck around to play youth basketball at is about 60+ years old on average now and they don't really have kids. When those oldsters are gone, the church dies. The kids that remain aren't large enough in numbers to replace them. And when the church goes down, the social group breaks apart. And it's possible that entire sections of cities or even small, rural areas may hit a critical mass where there just aren't enough religious people to sustain a church. And in a rural area, there goes the entire social fabric. Gone. And often it's that leadership and sense of community, often lovely and often authoritarian and often racist, that keeps the community on life support instead of dying.

Unless there are serious, fundamental changes in the future, real investment in rural America and increasingly, suburban America, Christianity will almost completely be the domain of the old. It will white-knuckle onto its power as it navel gazes, going into a near total bunker mentality, the kids it holds onto will be even more bizarre and abused to the point that your average young Christian will be socially like the modern Pug dog. Socially inbred and unable to exist in the world without extreme amounts of help. Or you'll have people show up to church because it's basically a party and their attachment to Christianity will not be anything spiritual, but their attachment to spectacle.

I also don't believe that the loss of Christianity as an identity is a good thing. Not because Christianity is inherently a good thing, we've seen what happens when people who love hate or money get a hold of it, but because there's not a lot to offer in terms of identity to your average young person. And this makes them susceptible to malformed, bolt-on identities like fascism or shallow, consumer identity from capitalism.

disagree with this. the rise of christian fundamentalism is a (misguided) reaction against capitalism, much as most popular conservatism is, not anger at a perceived loss of "social prestige".

in rural poor communities (and poor immigrant communities, as well), the primary communal and social binding has historically been the church (or other religious institutions). regardless of how flawed and backwards it was, the church was the institution people turned to when in need, to develop noncommercial relationships, etc. it was an alternative source of strength and power people could turn to aside for the Market. these traditional communal relationships are not compatible with capitalism, which must seek to alienate and atomize every individual to extract as much profit from them as possible and continue growth - turning every social encounter into a commercial & financial one, down to tearing apart social relationships as basic as the family.

secular liberal individualism otoh is entirely compatible with capitalism, and so it advances as these traditional, precapitalist values & institutions decline, reinforced by capitalist media and popular culture. facing the destruction of their last alternative to raw capitalist individualism, christians have radicalized and revolted against it. it doesnt matter, they will lose or (as is more common) be easily coopted by the likes of Reagans and Trumps.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 16:11

T-man: Aug 22, 2010; Talk shit, get bzzzt.

hey guys have you heard of this Marx character????? woah mind blown man thanks for the insight. somehow ive never heard of him here on this dead gay /leftypol/ - and that's not a compliment

# ? Aug 31, 2019 16:23

Ice Phisherman: Apr 12, 2007; Swimming upstream
into the sunset

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

disagree with this. the rise of christian fundamentalism is a (misguided) reaction against capitalism, much as most popular conservatism is, not anger at a perceived loss of "social prestige".

The current Christian Conservative movement came directly out of the defeats from the civil rights push. People think it started around Roe v. Wade, but you could trace it back further to wins like Brown v. Board of Education.

Hell, if you trace it further back to pre-civil war times. The Southern Baptist church for example split off from the Baptists specifically over the slavery question because Northern Baptists didn't want the Southern preachers spreading their specific brand of slavery based theology in the North. The others would be the Old School Presbyterians (as opposed to the New School) and the Methodists.

The churches splitting over theology in their history was not a reaction against capitalism. It was a reaction against slaves being recognized as people and not farm equipment. You could connect the wishes of the wealthy to own slaves to capitalism, but that wealth didn't touch the vast majority of the poor whites. What everyone participated in though was a social order based on slavery and by having slaves, poor whites could content themselves with a false feeling of superiority. If African Americans suddenly became equal to poor whites, this would wildly upset the social order, because poor whites were only content to be subjugated by the wealthy plantation class because even the dumbest, most inbred, ringworm infested bastard among them could feel superior because they were white and slaves were not.

Capitalism was a part of this equation, but it was the inferior part. This was wrapped up in identity and authoritarianism.

quote:

in rural poor communities (and poor immigrant communities, as well), the primary communal and social binding has historically been the church (or other religious institutions). regardless of how flawed and backwards it was, the church was the institution people turned to when in need, to develop noncommercial relationships, etc.

Churches are definitely where commercial relationships are formed. Religious, friendship, marriage, etc. The church is, or was in a lot of cases, a cultural nexus. A general meeting place for people to form social bonds, and not just religious ones.

quote:

it was an alternative source of strength and power people could turn to aside for the Market. these traditional communal relationships are not compatible with capitalism, which must seek to alienate and atomize every individual to extract as much profit from them as possible and continue growth - turning every social encounter into a commercial & financial one, down to tearing apart social relationships as basic as the family.

In this I agree. Capitalism and religion are not compatible. Not because capitalism seeks to destroy religion, but because it seeks to destroy all social bonds in order to make people marketable. If you destroy all of a person's social bonds, take their culture, their history, their sense of self, then they become a commodity and commodities can be bought and sold. We call these people slaves.

quote:

secular liberal individualism otoh is entirely compatible with capitalism, and so it advances as these traditional, precapitalist values & institutions decline, reinforced by capitalist media and popular culture. facing the destruction of their last alternative to raw capitalist individualism, christians have radicalized and revolted against it. it doesnt matter, they will lose or (as is more common) be easily coopted by the likes of Reagans and Trumps.

They'll lose, I agree. Because the church has been in retreat from capitalism for hundreds of years. Where capitalism flourishes, the church wanes. However, secular liberal individualism is not compatible with capitalism. Liberal free markets for example will not survive capitalism. They'll deteriorate into monopolies, seek rent and destroy any attempt to unseat them as they sit upon their vast hordes of capital. This includes government as the capitalists seek regulatory capture. Individualism is compatible with capitalism, but the beast that is capitalism will only purr and show you its furry belly to rub while you're rich. If you're poor, it will hiss and bite and scratch because your worth is only determined by the contents of your wallet and that beast can sniff it it out.

Your worth as an individual has a price tag and so individualism doesn't flourish very well when there's such a heavy caveat.

Ice Phisherman has issued a correction as of 16:48 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 16:38

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

Humans were being lovely to each other for dumb reasons long before Capitalism.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 16:45

Ice Phisherman: Apr 12, 2007; Swimming upstream
into the sunset

T-man posted:

hey guys have you heard of this Marx character????? woah mind blown man thanks for the insight. somehow ive never heard of him here on this dead gay /leftypol/ - and that's not a compliment

# ? Aug 31, 2019 16:50

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

Conservatism, which reinforces, defends, and seeks to expand existing hierarchies, is not anti-capitalist. Conservative Christianity, which jettisons everything credible or praiseworthy about Christianity in favor of depicting all existing hierarchies as analogues of the Master-Servant relationship between God and Man, is especially not a challenge to capitalism; it is the dominant ideology of capitalism. It doesn't want to create or sustain communities, it wants to define communities as hierarchies of dominance and power that are not in any sense incompatible with the atomized world capitalism seeks to build.

Don't conflate liberal and conservative religion in your analysis; they are weapons aimed at different targets

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:04

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

Ice Phisherman posted:

The current Christian Conservative movement came directly out of the defeats from the civil rights push. People think it started around Roe v. Wade, but you could trace it back further to wins like Brown v. Board of Education.

Hell, if you trace it further back to pre-civil war times. The Southern Baptist church for example split off from the Baptists specifically over the slavery question because Northern Baptists didn't want the Southern preachers spreading their specific brand of slavery based theology in the North. The others would be the Old School Presbyterians (as opposed to the New School) and the Methodists.

The churches splitting over theology in their history was not a reaction against capitalism. It was a reaction against slaves being recognized as people and not farm equipment. You could connect the wishes of the wealthy to own slaves to capitalism, but that wealth didn't touch the vast majority of the poor whites. What everyone participated in though was a social order based on slavery and by having slaves, poor whites could content themselves with a false feeling of superiority. If African Americans suddenly became equal to poor whites, this would wildly upset the social order, because poor whites were only content to be subjugated by the wealthy plantation class because even the dumbest, most inbred, ringworm infested bastard among them could feel superior because they were white and slaves were not.

Capitalism was a part of this equation, but it was the inferior part. This was wrapped up in identity and authoritarianism.

what was the point of that superior identity and authoritarianism in the south? poor whites did not support slavery out of raw malice, but because they were placed in better economic and class positions because of it (and this is not universally true - unionism was much stronger in the south than is often recognized, especially in poor parts of the south that were not dominated by the plantation economy like Appalachia and less fertile hilly regions). the civil war was fought over slavery, the conflict between free labor vs slave labor, between a pseudo-feudal planter elite in the south vs the capitalist industrialist elite in the north. it was absolutely rooted in economics and a struggle over the future of the American class system.

racism was for much of Americas history beneficial to capitalism, as it is a tool to divide the working class. you can even see this with the baptist churches - a united baptist church could have been used as a rallying point for populist movements across the country. id argue racism it has become less useful & actually more of an impediment to capitalism in the last few decades as the first world working class has been so broken and weakened by neoliberalism, and it shuts out potential skilled labor and markets. in a much more negative way race also parallels the church as an alternative social institution to capitalism - finding solidarity with your race, helping people based on a common race and perceived superiority, building community with people because of their race, hating and attacking people based on their race.

I agree with the rest of your post more or less. i didn't mean to exclude building commercial relationships as a part of church community, just to specify it was also where noncommercial, communal relationships could be built.

Nevvy Z posted:

Humans were being lovely to each other for dumb reasons long before Capitalism.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:13

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

Pope Guilty posted:

Conservatism, which reinforces, defends, and seeks to expand existing hierarchies, is not anti-capitalist. Conservative Christianity, which jettisons everything credible or praiseworthy about Christianity in favor of depicting all existing hierarchies as analogues of the Master-Servant relationship between God and Man, is especially not a challenge to capitalism; it is the dominant ideology of capitalism. It doesn't want to create or sustain communities, it wants to define communities as hierarchies of dominance and power that are not in any sense incompatible with the atomized world capitalism seeks to build.

Don't conflate liberal and conservative religion in your analysis; they are weapons aimed at different targets

popular conservatism is rooted in dismay and reaction against the destruction of traditional, precapitalist traditions and social relationships with raw secular individualism. it is very successfully manipulated by capitalist media and politicians to serve the exact opposite ends, and is ultimately a dead end against capitalism. we can see this with fascism in the 20th century, which often gave lip service to working class & socialist concerns but at the end of the day only strengthened and empowered capital vs labor when in power.

id say things like megachurches and stuff are the complete defeat of religion, as it is turned totally into a capitalist enterprise, though. but that is a relatively new development.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:21

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

RandomPauI posted:

Maybe it's the insomnia talking, but this comment really rubbed me the wrong way. Sociology is a living science with fields that are concerned about the past, present, and future in micro and macro scales.

yes. so is history.

Jazerus posted:

gently caress off back to d&d if this is the kind of "moderation" you think is appropriate in cspam

what is CSPAM to you, exactly? be precise.

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

lol

putting the c*nservatives into place by bursting into flames and running to the hall monitor at the absolute lightest criticism, except:

ross perot in hell posted:

shengji is our version of that now permabanned e/n mod whose modding style was basically cyberbullying and ignoring actual abuse in favor of trying to score cool points

the rites of ostrakismos for slights against annointed ~posting presences~ and demands for genuflection and absolution were also a shakesville thing which is what reminded me of this thread so strongly. and also a slashie thing, on SA and elsewhere. thank you for conforming to the stereotype perfectly.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:25

Ice Phisherman: Apr 12, 2007; Swimming upstream
into the sunset

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

what was the point of that superior identity and authoritarianism in the south? poor whites did not support slavery out of raw malice,

So the KKK burned crosses in peoples' yards and lynched them due to economic anxiety.

There is also pure, primal, dumbass hatred for the other and the need to establish hierarchies where you get to feel good about yourself by default because other people are considered bad and lesser than you by default.

It's a lovely human thing that lovely humans do. Even non-lovely ones who just accept that that's the way things are. Not everything is capitalism.

quote:

the rites of ostrakismos for slights against annointed ~posting presences~ and demands for genuflection and absolution were also a shakesville thing which is what reminded me of this thread so strongly. and also a slashie thing, on SA and elsewhere. thank you for conforming to the stereotype perfectly.

Thems a lot of three dollar words to say a whole lot of nothing.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:36

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

Prester Jane posted:

He wants a pretense to find someone socially acceptable to bully/harass- and I've become it for whatever reason.

Literally his entire schtick is arguing that posters who engage with my work on any sort of an intellectual level are both me crea
ting a cult+well-intentioned Goons playing into my delusions/harming me. He's had weird meltdowns that got him probated simply because someone agreed with something I wrote.

His problem is with me not the content of my work; more specifically his problem is with someone so much lower on the social achievement ladder than himself garnering so much attention by doing work he regards as illegitimate/unsanctioned. So he has appointed himself gatekeeper of this thread and will disrupt any conversation that does not take every available opportunity to poo poo on me. (Any response he writes itt will walk a country mile to find a way to poo poo on me.)

Just ignore him and move on imo.

work is what you have not done. you are POSTING. posting is what you do when you are procrastinating doing work; posting being distinct from work is why people post banmes or request probations when finishing their theses or dissertations and that nobody wants to tell you this is peculiarly mean even for somethingawful. this is not a classist argument; you can perform actual intellectual work with no money because you are on the internet RIGHT NOW! the internet is one of the greatest class-equalizing tools to ever exist in human history and you're pissing it away posting gutfelt reckons about people you do not like very much! what appears to you, for the moment, to be a lovely dying forum as one facet of a series of social media is, in actual fact, a distraction from a gigantic indexed and searchable database encompassing most information ever to be known to human experience. you can find that information right now, and synthesize that information into a construction that exists outside of your lived experience so a criticism of such may be distinct from a criticism of YOU.

Ice Phisherman posted:

Thems a lot of three dollar words to say a whole lot of nothing.

its very concise, you just don't like it.

Willie Tomg has issued a correction as of 17:46 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:38

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

Ice Phisherman posted:

So the KKK burned crosses in peoples' yards and lynched them due to economic anxiety.

There is also pure, primal, dumbass hatred for the other and the need to establish hierarchies where you get to feel good about yourself by default because other people are considered bad and lesser than you by default.

It's a lovely human thing that lovely humans do. Even non-lovely ones who just accept that that's the way things are. Not everything is capitalism.

it is rooted in class conflict, absolutely. the KKK were paramilitary enforcers of a class system in the south based on race, rooted in the economic system of slavery & then sharecropping. it was to maintain a poor underclass, with racial superiority used as justification and motivator. unless that is recognized it cannot be overcome and defeated through socialism.

and yes, in 21st century america it literally all comes back to capitalism.

Sheng-Ji Yang has issued a correction as of 17:43 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:41

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

Willie Tomg posted:

work is what you have not done. you are POSTING. posting is what you do when you are procrastinating doing work; posting being distinct from work is why people post banmes or request probations when finishing their theses or dissertations and that nobody wants to tell you this is peculiarly mean even for somethingawful. this is not a classist argument; you can perform actual intellectual work with no money because you are on the internet RIGHT NOW! what appears to you, for the moment, to be a lovely dying forum as one facet of a series of social media is, in actual fact, a distraction from a gigantic indexed and searchable database encompassing most information ever to be known to human experience. you can find that information right now, and synthesize that information into a construction that exists outside of your lived experience so a criticism of such may be distinct from a criticism of YOU.

its very concise, you just don't like it.

why does this make you so goddamn mad

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:44

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

Willie Tomg posted:

work is what you have not done. you are POSTING. posting is what you do when you are procrastinating doing work; posting being distinct from work is why people post banmes or request probations when finishing their theses or dissertations and that nobody wants to tell you this is peculiarly mean even for somethingawful. this is not a classist argument; you can perform actual intellectual work with no money because you are on the internet RIGHT NOW! what appears to you, for the moment, to be a lovely dying forum as one facet of a series of social media is, in actual fact, a distraction from a gigantic indexed and searchable database encompassing most information ever to be known to human experience. you can find that information right now, and synthesize that information into a construction that exists outside of your lived experience so a criticism of such may be distinct from a criticism of YOU.

its very concise, you just don't like it.

chill

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:44

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

Ghost Leviathan posted:

why does this make you so goddamn mad

because i have seen this song and dance play out half a dozen times on SA and in all of them i'd say the best possible outcome any of them produced was Bro Aziz getting some bitchin' corduroy pants.

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

chill

ok.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:49

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Willie Tomg posted:

what is CSPAM to you, exactly? be precise.

putting the c*nservatives into place by bursting into flames and running to the hall monitor at the absolute lightest criticism, except:

the rites of ostrakismos for slights against annointed ~posting presences~ and demands for genuflection and absolution were also a shakesville thing which is what reminded me of this thread so strongly. and also a slashie thing, on SA and elsewhere. thank you for conforming to the stereotype perfectly.

lol i would think that your pretentious posting and sheng-ji's moderation approach were dumb in the context of cspam for any thread. the fact that it's one thread in particular just makes your pathological projection of your belief that prester is somehow different from anyone else even more obvious. cspam has no place for this weird forums grudge that has been imported from d&d where the worst posters in that subforum elevated her as uniquely bad and then accused people who thought that was ridiculous of elevating her as uniquely good.

look the bottom line of what i'm saying here is, the cspam folks posting seriously in here aren't deluded. this frame of analysis has genuine use alongside traditional marxist analysis even if it is in an unpolished state. nobody thinks prester jane has a direct line to the truth. i even agree with you that prester doing more research into pre-existing academic work would be a good idea, but your approach is ridiculous.

this deserves a thread where it can be discussed with the usual cspam rules of making shitheads gently caress off instead of this d&d-style "ignore trolls, probate prester for existing" special case that is reserved for this thread. that poo poo is literally what this thread and most cspam posters left d&d to get away from in the first place. our silly modding culture is not an excuse for evilweasel style discourse policing and hasn't been since boosted was ousted. that is the whole point of cspam.

Jazerus has issued a correction as of 17:56 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:54

Ice Phisherman: Apr 12, 2007; Swimming upstream
into the sunset

Willie Tomg posted:

because i have seen this song and dance play out half a dozen times on SA and in all of them i'd say the best possible outcome any of them produced was Bro Aziz getting some bitchin' corduroy pants.

This thread and the previous one have been going on for a few years now. If someone was going to do something weird and hosed up it probably would have happened already.

Should I send you some pants?

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:56

LordSaturn: Aug 12, 2007; sadly unfunny

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

chill

so why does willy get this and jane gets probed

# ? Aug 31, 2019 17:57

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

LordSaturn posted:

so why does willy get this and jane gets probed

the made-up-on-the-spot rule against telling someone to :frogout:

as if that wasn't literally a cspam tradition

Jazerus has issued a correction as of 18:05 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:02

T-man: Aug 22, 2010; Talk shit, get bzzzt.

LordSaturn posted:

so why does willy get this and jane gets probed

Transphobia, and stupid D&D drama.

Prove me wrong.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:08

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

Jazerus posted:

lol i would think that your pretentious posting and sheng-ji's moderation approach were dumb in the context of cspam for any thread. the fact that it's one thread in particular just makes your pathological projection of your belief that prester is somehow different from anyone else even more obvious. cspam has no place for this weird forums grudge that has been imported from d&d where the worst posters in that subforum elevated her as uniquely bad and then accused people who thought that was ridiculous of elevating her as uniquely good.

look the bottom line of what i'm saying here is, the cspam folks posting seriously in here aren't deluded. this frame of analysis has genuine use alongside traditional marxist analysis even if it is in an unpolished state. nobody thinks prester jane has a direct line to the truth.

this deserves a thread where it can be discussed with the usual cspam rules of making shitheads gently caress off instead of this d&d-style "ignore trolls, probate prester for existing" special case that is reserved for this thread. that poo poo is literally what this thread and most cspam posters left d&d to get away from in the first place. our silly modding culture is not an excuse for evilweasel style discourse policing and hasn't been since boosted was ousted. that is the whole point of cspam.

i never read the d&d thread. my impression is purely from this thread, where she refused to address any criticism of her All Encompassing Theory of Everything from the get go and instead accused anyone disagreeing with her as harassing her. i dont care about whatever d&d grudges exist but if youre going to post a thread in cspam dont whine when people disagree, which it mostly seems all this thread does. though i like the actual conversation the last couple of pages.

Jazerus posted:

the made-up-on-the-spot rule against telling someone to

as if that wasn't literally a cspam tradition

made up rules on the spot are also a noble cspam tradition

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:09

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

T-man posted:

Transphobia, and stupid D&D drama.

Prove me wrong.

Probably also a good chunk of bigotry against the self-admitted mentally ill!

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:09

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

T-man posted:

Transphobia, and stupid D&D drama.

Prove me wrong.

transphobia lmao what the gently caress are you talking about

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:10

T-man: Aug 22, 2010; Talk shit, get bzzzt.

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

transphobia lmao what the gently caress are you talking about

I mean, you've been harassing a trans woman for how long now? Your reasoning doesn't explain why you are still here, and so invested in coming back. (CC: Willie Tomg) The reason people are whining is because you keep probing Jane and making GBS threads up the thread telling us to read Marx. It's CSPAM. We've all read Marx, or at least watched enough youtube videos stoned like non-nerds. How long do we have to tell you until you realize that you might have a problem with the person, not the ideas?

I'm sure you have plenty of trans friends tho.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:17

ZenMasterBullshit: Nov 2, 2011; Restaurant de Nouvelles "À Table" Proudly Presents:
A Climactic Encounter Ending on 1 Negate and a Dream

It's hosed up that Willie didn't also eat the dreaded sixer for also posting like a tool, but Prester Jane also bad.

Holy poo poo centrism was right.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:21

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

i never read the d&d thread. my impression is purely from this thread, where she refused to address any criticism of her All Encompassing Theory of Everything from the get go and instead accused anyone disagreeing with her as harassing her. i dont care about whatever d&d grudges exist but if youre going to post a thread in cspam dont whine when people disagree, which it mostly seems all this thread does. though i like the actual conversation the last couple of pages.

made up rules on the spot are also a noble cspam tradition

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

transphobia lmao what the gently caress are you talking about

the d&d thread did devolve into harassment for years without punishment which is maybe why pj is sensitive about it. the moderation wrt to people implying that she's formed a cult, when this whole thing is about her observations of the way the cult she was raised in but escaped operated, has not exactly inspired confidence that you understand the disagreements well enough to punish people reasonably. joke sixers are one thing; using my report, which you ridiculed, as a reason to examine the thread and punish the person i was saying was being harassed, and then basically saying this thread is uniquely rules-free wrt bullying, that is something else entirely.

the non-moderation related conversation has been good in the last two pages tho i agree, if you keep posting reasonably like that maybe we'll get somewhere

Jazerus has issued a correction as of 18:24 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:21

Happy Thread: Jul 10, 2005; by Fluffdaddy; Plaster Town Cop

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

lol

It is weird as gently caress to see a moderator breach trust by snitching on the user's reports, in any situation. An environment where posters don't feel safe to anonymously report things is not an environment that promotes informed moderators.

It's weird as gently caress to see. Especially at a moment when the individual doing the reporting was *in the right*. Did you give up and throw your hands in the air when you couldn't immediately work out the context for the report? A cursory glance over this thread for the last few months would have revealed that this thread is pretty obviously peaceful whenever Willie Tomg wasn't around. Boring, even. Mostly just a chill laundry list of instances of authoritarian behavior spotted in the news. But for Willie's increasingly obsessive crusade it would have stayed that way. And by the point they were reported, Willie was having this weird meltdown with incoherent grammar that absolutely is the sort of posting that moderators are *always* tipped off about. It should not have even stood out among reports.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:24

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

T-man posted:

I mean, you've been harassing a trans woman for how long now? Your reasoning doesn't explain why you are still here, and so invested in coming back. (CC: Willie Tomg) The reason people are whining is because you keep probing Jane and making GBS threads up the thread telling us to read Marx. It's CSPAM. We've all read Marx, or at least watched enough youtube videos stoned like non-nerds. How long do we have to tell you until you realize that you might have a problem with the person, not the ideas?

I'm sure you have plenty of trans friends tho.

ive only come to this thread via reports, which are almost always pj/someone saying someone is harassing prester jane when theyre just disagreeing with her. gently caress off.

Dumb Lowtax posted:

It is weird as gently caress to see a moderator breach trust by snitching on the user's reports, in any situation. An environment where posters don't feel safe to anonymously report things is not an environment that promotes informed moderators.

It's weird as gently caress to see. Especially at a moment when the individual doing the reporting was *in the right*. Did you give up and throw your hands in the air when you couldn't immediately work out the context for the report? A cursory glance over this thread for the last few months would have revealed that this thread is pretty obviously peaceful whenever Willie Tomg wasn't around. Boring, even. Mostly just a chill laundry list of instances of authoritarian behavior spotted in the news. But for Willie's increasingly obsessive crusade it would have stayed that way. And by the point they were reported, Willie was having this weird meltdown with incoherent grammar that absolutely is the sort of posting that moderators are *always* tipped off about. It should not have even stood out among reports.

reports are not some sacred trust and dumb ones are posted all the time. saying that post is targeted harassment is ridiculous, but i posted it because it happens over and over again with this thread. its definitely some weird legacy of d&d i guess but in that case this thread should be in d&d and not here.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:27

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

reports are not some sacred trust and dumb ones are posted all the time. saying that post is targeted harassment is ridiculous, but i posted it because it happens over and over again with this thread. its definitely some weird legacy of d&d i guess but in that case this thread should be in d&d and not here.

this thread became a complete shitshow in d&d as fishmech and the like increasingly gained free reign there. the point of moving here was to escape the legacy of d&d and talk about this in a reasonable subforum, which hopefully might have included moderation against the people actively importing that legacy

also: that post in isolation was not targeted harassment. the sum total of willie's meltdown is. should i have written "nice meltdown" as the report reason instead?

Jazerus has issued a correction as of 18:42 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:31

Happy Thread: Jul 10, 2005; by Fluffdaddy; Plaster Town Cop

Meltdown aside, Willie is not even substantively correct in their argument. Willie's repetitive take in this thread is that everything worth saying has already been said by academics. When we've gone out and found outside sources for this thread, that's not enough for Willie, who says that we must understand everything with maximum academic rigor before EVER opening our mouths. Willie would have Prester and everyone else spend a lifetime attempting to read every academic paper on the subject, never to run out, before ever speaking up about anything we see. The fallacy of that, if it's not obvious, is that Prester and ourselves have a stated goal of reaching out to help people who are relatively even less informed than we are. It has helped people to recognize when they're being rhetorically taken advantage of by cult logic.

This thread is necessary because inner/outer narrative and compaction are helpful concepts to many people, allowing less informed people to quickly and efficiently sniff out certain abusive behavior. They are easy labels to digest and thus have taken hold better than anything else most people have heard of. The only advocacy we do in here is the continued spreading of those concepts to people who could benefit from them, whether it currently has the same or better academic rigor than a self-help book. That does not mean we have formed a cult, you goddamned moron. We do not secretly want to create an in-group and out-group. The bad faith in that accusation is impossible to miss now given your months-long obsession and your unhinged meltdown a few posts up. All the more because nobody has actually been harmed by this mundane rear end thread. For you to continually bust in here over the course of months to make it all about you is the only harm that has ever been brought in.

Happy Thread has issued a correction as of 18:50 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:32

Happy Thread: Jul 10, 2005; by Fluffdaddy; Plaster Town Cop

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

reports are not some sacred trust and dumb ones are posted all the time. saying that post is targeted harassment is ridiculous, but i posted it because it happens over and over again with this thread. its definitely some weird legacy of d&d i guess but in that case this thread should be in d&d and not here.

My entire point still stands and you should not be proud of that.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:34

T-man: Aug 22, 2010; Talk shit, get bzzzt.

Jazerus posted:

this thread became a complete shitshow in d&d as fishmech and the like increasingly gained free reign there. the point of moving here was to escape the legacy of d&d and talk about this in a reasonable subforum, which hopefully might have included moderation against the people actively importing that legacy

who mods the mods

think about it :11tea:

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

ive only come to this thread via reports, which are almost always pj/someone saying someone is harassing prester jane when theyre just disagreeing with her. gently caress off.

You sure seem to be angryposting a lot if you're just a humble post janitor here to check up on reports. Which report, exactly, made you go into Marxist class analysis again?

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:39

Happy Thread: Jul 10, 2005; by Fluffdaddy; Plaster Town Cop

Nor should you be proud of probing the OP for protecting their thread, while only saying "chill" to the person who is way over-dedicated about griefing the thread and resuming the campaign every time it gets boring and peaceful and drops off the front page on its own again. Not to mention that this time they're showing up incoherent and sound like they're drunk or worse.

Sheng-Ji, I've defended you in this thread, and I've defended Willie in this thread, and my patience has run out.

Happy Thread has issued a correction as of 18:46 on Aug 31, 2019

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:43

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

It feels like a lot of people here want to have their cake and eat it too. If you're going to argue that Narrativism is a predictive theory that can be applied to explain current social phenomena better than other theories then you need a better response to well criticism than "stop trying to gatekeep me."

If this was a thread about one person relating their personal experiences and anecdotal observations about how group behaviour and mental health interact then I think that would be a different kettle of fish. But instead we're getting a bunch of ideas that are expressly designed to look like a rigorous academic theory of group psychology. Let's not fool ourselves: you put your ideas in this particular format because you want to borrow some of the prestige that rigorous academic models inherently have. When you assign special terminology and develop a system of thought and claim it all relates together in a specific way you're relying on the fact that your readers have been taught to view these as signs of rigor and predictive power.

If you present a big theory of everything that is set up to more or less mimic an academic theory of group psychology then guess what? You're going to get people critiquing your ideas ion the same terms that you presented them. Complaining about this as "gate keeping" is ridiculous.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:49

Tighclops: Jan 23, 2008; Unable to deal with it; Grimey Drawer

Helsing you should stick to making effortposts in canpol

the modding in this thread is shameful, gently caress's sake

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:52

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

Tighclops posted:

Helsing you should stick to making effortposts in canpol

the modding in this thread is shameful, gently caress's sake

agreed, itd be much better off in d&d

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:54

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# ? May 28, 2024 16:51

Happy Thread: Jul 10, 2005; by Fluffdaddy; Plaster Town Cop

Helsing posted:

It feels like a lot of people here want to have their cake and eat it too. If you're going to argue that Narrativism is a predictive theory that can be applied to explain current social phenomena better than other theories then you need a better response to well criticism than "stop trying to gatekeep me."

Nobody is arguing that! Nowhere above did we say that we want to challenge an academic field. That's all you. That's projection of what I can only assume is your D&D style urge to search for the perfectly optimal lesson that academics can use to heal the unwashed, and assuming that we want that too instead of something much more practical. The people ITT advocate for awareness of a few helpful concepts, not overhauling academia for gently caress's sake. If you're arguing based on how Prester stated that she wanted her theories to have academic rigor someday, and if you're saying that she went too far with it, then congratulations, you are arguing with a schizophrenic on the internet while everyone else patiently waits for you to stop.

# ? Aug 31, 2019 18:58

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > PJ's Authoritarian thread: C-SPAM edition

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