I call censorship by the religious majority

December 11, 2005 5:11 PM

I call censorship by the religious majority
posted by cbrody to Etiquette/Policy at 5:11 PM (206 comments total)

when? why?
posted by amberglow at 5:12 PM on December 11, 2005

The post at http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/47501 was deleted evidently because too many users objected to it... but why? Admittedly, the poster editorialised in an irritatingly overbearing way, but isn't mefi supposed to be about the links? The thread was generating some interesting discussion. Was it deleted because the majority opinion disagrees with the poster's point of view?
posted by cbrody at 5:12 PM on December 11, 2005

Are you serious? Did you even read the thread of whose deletion you are complaining?
posted by Saucy Intruder at 5:14 PM on December 11, 2005

I call battleship by the Port Authority
posted by sciurus at 5:14 PM on December 11, 2005

Mob rule asserts itself again. It sucks.
posted by Rothko at 5:14 PM on December 11, 2005

I was just about halfway through the article when I went back to check the comments to find the thread gone. This is disappointing, the article was excellent and a worthy FPP.
posted by ScottMorris at 5:16 PM on December 11, 2005

A shitty post got deleted and it happened to have to do with your ideology of choice. Cry me a river.
posted by kjh at 5:17 PM on December 11, 2005

Actually, it was deleted because A) it wasn't a manifesto, it was a very long rant B) it supported agnosticism, not atheism C) it was written in an extremely argumenative style and D) many users believed it to be of poor quality.
posted by mystyk at 5:17 PM on December 11, 2005

I call bajingo at the closest sorority
posted by sciurus at 5:19 PM on December 11, 2005

Saucy Intruder: yes
posted by cbrody at 5:19 PM on December 11, 2005

I don't like how the post was introduced but I am rather shocked that this was cut from mefi. I have never seen nor expected this here.
posted by cmacleod at 5:19 PM on December 11, 2005

The post was a single link op-ed of the religious kind. These types of trash are deleted on MetaFilter all the time. Try finding better material to support your diatribe and your audience won't be so quick to dismiss the post next time.

I say this knowing full well that people post their agendas here all the time and are not deleted because they have a smidgen of substantiation in the form of linkage.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 5:19 PM on December 11, 2005

Actually, it was deleted for no other reason than, quote: "People don't seem to like it, no sir."
posted by Rothko at 5:19 PM on December 11, 2005

What would be left if argumentative posts were deleted on Metafilter?
posted by ScottMorris at 5:20 PM on December 11, 2005

ScottMorris: "What would be left if argumentative posts were deleted on Metafilter?"

The banner at the top and a shitload of taglines.
posted by mystyk at 5:21 PM on December 11, 2005

An argument requires logic and proof. The deleted post was a rant.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 5:22 PM on December 11, 2005

Metafilter is crap, long live Metafilter.
posted by fire&wings at 5:22 PM on December 11, 2005

mystyk:

A) And your point is? How does it break the guidelines?
B) Again, your point? "Atheism" and "agnosticism" are both imperfect words to describe ways of thinking that don't require a belief in the supernatural. How does this make the article worthless?
C) Oh, that's too bad. We didn't want an argument.
D) I didn't know there was a flag for "poor quality". It doesn't show up on firefox 1.5
posted by cbrody at 5:23 PM on December 11, 2005

SeizeTheDay: "An argument requires logic and proof."

No, a *valid* argument does. If you don't know the difference, read your local paper's opinion section, then listen to any speech given by BushCo top dogs in the past 5 years.
posted by mystyk at 5:25 PM on December 11, 2005

Oh, please. More posts with bullshit editorializing and control-freak set-ups should be deleted.
posted by mediareport at 5:25 PM on December 11, 2005

cbrody elucidates "The post at http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/47501 was deleted evidently because too many users objected to it... but why? Admittedly, the poster editorialized in an irritatingly overbearing way, but isn't mefi supposed to be about the links? The thread was generating some interesting discussion. Was it deleted because the majority opinion disagrees with the poster's point of view?"

I was going to comment in the thread you point too. But the post was deleted before I had a chance to comment.

Good job, mathowie or jessamyn, really on the ball deleting that FPP.

The problem was probably with the article. A few examples of the rhetoric used in the text are poisoning the well, and (previously mentioned) begging the question
.

Because such "non-argumentative rhetoric" creates logical fallacies the article comes off as overbearing and obnoxious. Not really a sound, logical treatise giving solid inductive reasoning and evidence drawing a conclusion supporting atheism.

And, for the record, I believe I am part of the areligious human aspect of MetaFilter.

Is "areligious" correct, or should the term be "non-religious?"
posted by Colloquial Collision at 5:27 PM on December 11, 2005

Not quite sure why you're being condescending to me, mystyk, since I agreed with your comments, but "thanks" for the lesson.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 5:29 PM on December 11, 2005

cbrody, when a lot of users consider a post to be of poor quality (including the ones who agree with the premises), it probably is of poor quality.

There is a flag for that. It's called "Noise."
posted by mystyk at 5:29 PM on December 11, 2005

SeizeTheDay: I'm just in a quirky mood. Sorry to offend. I suppose I am splitting hairs.
posted by mystyk at 5:30 PM on December 11, 2005

It would be interesting to know what percentage of those who flagged it as "noise" are themselves non-religious. I would put it at, oh, around 0%.
posted by cbrody at 5:32 PM on December 11, 2005

Actually, it was deleted for no other reason than, quote: "People don't seem to like it, no sir."

You know there was more to it than that, Rothko. Sure, the line is glib, but it was about as crappily framed as a post about religion can get.
posted by mediareport at 5:33 PM on December 11, 2005

Are you claiming that something on Metafilter got deleted because Mefites are too religious?

::dies laughing::
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:33 PM on December 11, 2005 [2 favorites]

The religious majority? On Metafilter? You know that the religious majority around here is made up of a coalition of atheists, agnostics and christian-baiters, right?
posted by jacquilynne at 5:34 PM on December 11, 2005

I don't know, cbrody. I'm non-religious and that was my flag-of-choice.
posted by mystyk at 5:34 PM on December 11, 2005

It's not "Noise" it's called censorship. Which is fine but disappointing since Mefi has shown a great deal of tolerance for differing opinions in the past. It's interesting as I never imagined this community to be so religiously sensitive - or even religious.
posted by cmacleod at 5:35 PM on December 11, 2005

oh my god, the flag system works! HOW THE FUCK IS MEFI SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE???!!!

maybe if we could flag the DELETION, then mathowie would have to UNDELETE BY MOB RULE!!! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!


I didn't see a lot of religious folk clamoring for the destruction of that thread, just people who appreciate good threads and hate bad ones.
posted by shmegegge at 5:35 PM on December 11, 2005

I hope there's a margin of error in there somewhere, because I meet your criteria.

Again, please read the freaking thread.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 5:35 PM on December 11, 2005

Man, the Metafilter religious authority owe me three fitty!
posted by selfnoise at 5:40 PM on December 11, 2005

Religious people are pretty much morons- what the hell is so wrong with them they didn't figure this out on their own? Seriously, the author of the linked article said it well on the very first page- why don't we have words for not believing in astrology or crystals or chakras? And why aren't all the crazies like konolia, with her "Y'all is going to hell, and that's my suffering victim/conquering hero fantasy, thank you very much!" schtick, properly labeled as "athiests" for not believing in Zeus or Thor or Tiamat (the dragon, not the Mefite)?

Religious people are stupid, that's hardly news. But their stranglehold on the military, government, and economy is fucking terrifying. You thought Osama's crew was scary with 19 hijackers? Imagine someone as crazy as Osama... with more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined?! Yeah... that is some scary shit, right there. Knowing that our government and military ranks are being infiltrated by crazy people who believe in End-Of-Days- and are all too happy to nudge us over the cliff to fulfill their rapturous fantasies- should terrify anyone who isn't already insane.

Religious people are crazy people, they believe in crazy things. And that would be okay in the "we all believe weird things" way if they didn't have as a facet of their religions this utterly juvenile desire that your God has to be "the most AWESOME god ever, infinity plus one times a bajillion awesome!". 6-year-olds arguing over who's dad could beat up the other's dad are the exact same way. Except we laugh at their silliness. Same damn psychology, you freaks. You don't have faith- you have a dehumanizing narcissism dressed up as faith. Your god is nothing more than the small-penis-compensating SUV to end all SUVs. You religous people are nuts, you're infantile, you scare the living shit out of me, and I hate and fear you all as a bunch of retarded shitflingers who are going to kill us all one day, somehow.


But enough about the looney tunes crew. Why the hell was that thread deleted?

The OP was hitting at something with his defensively worded post that is also frustrating- something the original author also noted: this tendency of even non-believers (and those of you who claim belief in God but do nothing about it are in that category: you're just such humongous pussies, you don't dare not believe, but put no conviction into your faith, make no lifestyle changes) to pussyfoot around the fact that the religious, and in the USA that means the Christians, are dangerously mentally ill people, the inmates running the asylum. It is not okay for the corridors of power to be inhabited by fundamentalist jihadists of any flavor, that it endangers us all. But you're too chickenshit to take that position.

You're not special, you clique of "Moderatists". You people who seem to think the correct response to any disagreement is to straddle the middle line, wherever it may lie- even as determined lunatics push their side of the line so far that the middle has crept where insanity used to be- or to blithely dismiss the disagreements themselves as pointless and utterly unhip.

It's like the blue and gold is a sea of jonmc's: a bunch of aging posers who think you take on a shiny veneer of coolness by bashing the athiests along with the batshit fundies, that somehow taking this "I'm above it all" middle ground marks you as somehow bright, clever, and hip. What idiots! The author was making a reasonable argument, one we've seen here at MeFi before but which gains some power the more people speak the shibboleth, that religion is more than just a quirky eccentricity to be tolerated as mostly harmless, like your friend's fondness of Coast-to-Coast alien conspiracies, but is now a full-blown craziness that is armed with the technology and the willpower to destroy our species. Religon + femur: relatively harmless opening sequence to "2001". Religion + nuclear submarines: we're all dead! Rather than be seen as "uncool" by taking a stance, or believing something, or actually suggesting a geniune opinion- which at least konolia, in all her simpering addle-brained mealymouthed stupidity had the guts to actually do- you blue and gold morons feel that you had to make sure everyone knew you weren't someone so uncool as to actually believe something, or stand for something- one way or another.

Fucking post-modern post-ironic assclowns. The worst goddamn sin to you lot is to actually be sincere about something.

Argh!
posted by hincandenza at 5:41 PM on December 11, 2005

ThePinkSuperhero
I was just about to say that. Censorship by the religious majority? Here?

cbrody
It would be interesting to know what percentage of those who flagged it as "noise" are themselves non-religious. I would put it at, oh, around 0%.
Have you ever been to this site before? I'm new here and make claim to being an expert, but you seem to be under the impression that MetaFilter is some sort of bastion of hardline religious types. You claim to have read the thread, but you obviously didn't. The linked article was terrible. The way the FPP written was terrible. Everyone in the thread said so. It was an awful FPP and deserved deletion. And for the record, I'm an atheist and I flagged it as noise.
posted by Sangermaine at 5:41 PM on December 11, 2005

I suspect it was the post, not the substance of the linked article, that prompted the deletion. The article probably would have survived if it weren't presented in such a taunting fashion. (Yes, I'm totally speculating.)
posted by brain_drain at 5:41 PM on December 11, 2005

deleted evidently because too many users objected to it... but why?

Yeah, y'know, reading the thread would probably answer that question for you. Siddown and count how many comments were variations on "this post sucks," many of which were posted by avowed atheists.
posted by Gator at 5:42 PM on December 11, 2005

Your favorite post sucks.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:42 PM on December 11, 2005

the religious majority

::Cackles. Joins The Pink Superhero in fatal laughfest.::
posted by kosem at 5:44 PM on December 11, 2005

P.S. As an aside, although users should certainly be encouraged to compose their [more inside] prior to making a post, can we allow for more than one minute before pressing for the missing "when? why?"
posted by brain_drain at 5:45 PM on December 11, 2005

I'd also note that the first person who pointed out the thread sucked- Ethereal Bligh- did so two minutes after the thread was posted. That suggests that either Ethereal Bligh == Evelyn Wood... or he knee-jerked the "it sucks" not based on the content of the link at all. And apparently a good deal of hipster MeFites jumped on that same bandwagon without reading the article either.

Which makes the defensive wording of the original poster fully justified, in retrospect: the MeFite crowd did pretty much exactly what was expected of it.
posted by hincandenza at 5:49 PM on December 11, 2005

hincandenza elucidates "I'd also note that the first person who pointed out the thread sucked- Ethereal Bligh- did so two minutes after the thread was posted. That suggests that either Ethereal Bligh == Evelyn Wood... or he knee-jerked the 'it sucks' not based on the content of the link at all."

Or Ethereal Bligh reads very fast.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 5:51 PM on December 11, 2005

Rather, a self-fulfilling prophecy, on the part of the poster.
posted by Gyan at 5:51 PM on December 11, 2005

It would be interesting to know what percentage of those who flagged it as "noise" are themselves non-religious. I would put it at, oh, around 0%.

I believe that you are suffering under a gross misapprehension.
posted by cortex at 5:51 PM on December 11, 2005

hincandenza: "Religon + femur: relatively harmless opening sequence to "2001". Religion + nuclear submarines: we're all dead!"

This line just needed to be repeated. That should go on a T-shirt.
posted by mystyk at 5:52 PM on December 11, 2005

...since Mefi has shown a great deal of tolerance for differing opinions in the past

lol
posted by brownpau at 5:52 PM on December 11, 2005

I'm with cbrody here: Finder's introduction was tendentiously put, but the article it points to was as "valid" as anything else we see around here. Not that the article is perfect, as atheism rejects all gods and not just YHWH, but as a rejection of theism as commonly understood in American society this is a minor distinction. Then too, the stated reason for the deletion did not concern Harris' imprecise reasoning -- not that linking to something logically fuzzy gets much other stuff deleted either.

Perhaps someone should repost the link with a less combative introduction? Is that allowed?
posted by davy at 5:53 PM on December 11, 2005

Yes, I was being overdramatic. But I still don't see why the post was deleted, after a number of good comments were made in the thread (after all the "noise" about the post sucking). We atheists (or brights or agnosts) had better start making more of a noise or the fundies will destroy us along with themselves. I'm with hincandenza if you hadn't guessed. Oh well.
posted by cbrody at 5:54 PM on December 11, 2005

hincandenza: "...or he knee-jerked the "it sucks" not based on the content of the link at all. And apparently a good deal of hipster MeFites jumped on that same bandwagon without reading the article either.

Which makes the defensive wording of the original poster fully justified, in retrospect: the MeFite crowd did pretty much exactly what was expected of it."

When I saw the post, there were no comments yet. I actually read all 4 pages before I even thought of commenting, but by then decided that what needed to be said had been.
posted by mystyk at 5:54 PM on December 11, 2005

Uh, Colloquial Collision? You might want to read this

There was a reason I put "either Ethereal Bligh == Evelyn Wood" in my comment.
posted by hincandenza at 5:54 PM on December 11, 2005

When hincandenza gets his rant on, he doesn't mess around.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:54 PM on December 11, 2005

Oh, wait, you ARE suggesting Mefites are too religious?

::really dies laughing::
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:54 PM on December 11, 2005 [1 favorite]

...since Mefi has shown a great deal of tolerance for differing opinions in the past

lol

My failed attempt at sarcasm.
posted by cmacleod at 5:55 PM on December 11, 2005

You know, there are times to let a post live and be negatively reacted to. Part of what MetaFilter is excellent at is challenging bullshit. Now, there's bullshit that's not even worth challenging, and I agree that that kind of post should be deleted. But in this case it seemed like a decent enough article for plenty of people to take at face value. And if people thought it was fatally flawed, how is it not valuable to let them explain why? The first dozen comments do nothing to this effect, unfortunately. And it's sad to see the admins cave to mob opinon after that kind of shitting-in-thread frenzy instead of deleting such comments and encouraging the thread to take a more intelligible course to completion.
posted by scarabic at 5:55 PM on December 11, 2005

hincandenza elucidates "There was a reason I put 'either Ethereal Bligh == Evelyn Wood' in my comment."


Oops.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 5:56 PM on December 11, 2005

Are you claiming that something on Metafilter got deleted because Mefites are too religious?

::dies laughing::

Agreed. cbrody - you've got the "reglious majority" all wrong, here. Atheists are the majority on MeFi, or at least the head-plurality-in-charge.
posted by scarabic at 5:58 PM on December 11, 2005

Sorry, cmcleoud. Your failure is my failure. Hold me.
posted by brownpau at 6:02 PM on December 11, 2005

I'm a bit lost...
So people are, in fact, crying over spilled milk?

I thought the post was crap. Definately an F. The link itself was maybe a C-. Many people generally agreed.

So now it's deleted. I wouldn't have done so if it were my call, but it's not gonna keep me up at night and I can't figure out why you care so passionately about it. Maybe the suggestion of re-writing it should be heeded.
posted by mystyk at 6:02 PM on December 11, 2005

A single link to an opinion piece rarely makes a good post. Telling the readership that they're not allowed to comment except in ways approved by the poster is not good form and gets the ensuing discussion off to a bad start. Generally speaking, thanks to my fellow nonbelievers on this site, we do discussions of religion about as well as we do obesity and Israel/Palestine, so it's not surprising if an inflammatory post about a four-page bit of insufferable wankery that says nothing new, and does so at length, gets the yank. This may be a borderline case, and many posts that deserve deletion stay up, and many posts that might have stayed up get deleted, but the ump has made the call. Deal.
posted by mcwetboy at 6:03 PM on December 11, 2005

this thread needs a jpg of a poopin' elephant. huh huhuhuhuhuh.. POOP.
posted by keswick at 6:07 PM on December 11, 2005

I think it's clear how you feel, mystyk. What do you hope to accomplish by attempting to belittle the other opinion?
posted by scarabic at 6:09 PM on December 11, 2005

well, this was fucking productive. After this weekend, even I'm sick of this place. Some people never left high school, many here never left sophmore year of college.
posted by jonmc at 6:13 PM on December 11, 2005

that thread was a goner from the moment i made my brilliant comment about covetous cavemen.

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
posted by quonsar at 6:19 PM on December 11, 2005

If you believe there's a "religious majority" on MetaFilter, then you're probably a bigot.
posted by cribcage at 6:19 PM on December 11, 2005

Any post that demands "read this" and "refrain from [doing _____ in MY thread dammit]" should be scrubbed from the front page, without exception. GYOBFW.
posted by DaShiv at 6:20 PM on December 11, 2005

If you believe there's a "religious majority" on MetaFilter, then you're probably a bigot.

or paranoid. or simply hoping for your fist "look! look! I'm being repressed!" experience. (clue: being shouted at on a wesite dosen't count, junior)
posted by jonmc at 6:23 PM on December 11, 2005

Hey, maybe the deletion was just divine intervention.

*ducks*
posted by konolia at 6:31 PM on December 11, 2005

I support this and all furture deletions.
posted by LarryC at 6:32 PM on December 11, 2005

I'll support much of what has already been said. The linked editorial was ok but not great. And the text introducing the link was pretty bad for a FPP. There are a number of problems with the FPP: link to an op-ed, personal editorializing on the front page, an issue that has been done to death on the front page, and a rather inflammatory tone.

On occasion, good discussion can salvage a lame post. But the discussion was just beating a dead horse from all sides.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:36 PM on December 11, 2005

Konolia, then the divinity will have to delete this thread as well to cover her divine traces.
posted by cbrody at 6:36 PM on December 11, 2005

*ParanoidBigot heads to bed hoping for dreams of being repressed by a dead horse*
posted by cbrody at 6:47 PM on December 11, 2005

Hey, guys, check out the front page. There was a resurrection.
posted by konolia at 6:49 PM on December 11, 2005

Call me cynical, but I think it might've been better to wait a day or two before reposting it. It's just going to get bogged down in the same garbage now. I'll be happy to be proven wrong, however.
posted by Gator at 6:51 PM on December 11, 2005

Hey, guys, check out the front page. There was a resurrection.

Nah, more of a reincarnation.
posted by gsteff at 6:52 PM on December 11, 2005

hincandenza: you're accusing me of being "above it all?" Freud called it projection. You're basically just petulant about the fact that the world dosen't think you're as brilliant as you do. Get over it.
posted by jonmc at 6:58 PM on December 11, 2005

It would be interesting to know what percentage of those who flagged it as "noise" are themselves non-religious. I would put it at, oh, around 0%.

I am not a religious person, and I flagged it as noise.

The FPP in question was a shit post that linked only to a poorly written rant. On top of that, the poster (Finder) decided to put some good old-fashioned flamebaiting in the FPP itself, which became the butt of several quips and jokes in the thread. The post was disliked by a lot of people, so it got deleted. Please get over it.
posted by secret about box at 6:58 PM on December 11, 2005

I don't believe in MetaFilter.
posted by Eideteker at 6:59 PM on December 11, 2005

It slipped my mind to flag it, but I was not in favour, and noted that I wasn't religious.
posted by maledictory at 7:01 PM on December 11, 2005

As a devout atheist (heh), that was a really crap FPP. Needed deletion. As for reposting it (in a better form), well that's surely just trying to wind up the admins, and why would anyone want to do that?
posted by wilful at 7:01 PM on December 11, 2005

I didn't think that it was structured very well and seemed destined for the pit, hence my hilarious "'bright' idea" joke. I apologize.
And, for the record, I'm a nihilist.
It's exhausting.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:02 PM on December 11, 2005

This notion that MeFi athiests have had their freedom of expression restricted by Matt simply because now they just won't be allowed to make the same goddamned points for the 5,000th time this month is hilarious. If you must make those points again, please wait for a post that is not a classic troll. A FPP in which the poster lectures the readership twice on how to respond to the article, and wears his contempt for the "other side" on his sleeve, automatically sucks. If you must cloak yourself in martyrdom, please save it for a post that was worth a shit.

(and just to preempt, I conisder myself a "soft" athiest or agnostic, depending on how you want to parse those terms).
posted by pardonyou? at 7:03 PM on December 11, 2005

...and I can assure that unless I explicitly say otherwise, I am always being sincere and honest here, my friend. Put that in your this is not a pipe and don't smoke it.
posted by jonmc at 7:05 PM on December 11, 2005

I'm an atheist, and I tagged it as noise. It wasn't about religion that it got cut, it was because it was junk.
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:05 PM on December 11, 2005

Gosh, cbrody, I see that in addition to not believing in god, you also don't believe in HTML.

Also, Merry Christmas! I'll be praying for you as we celebrate the birth of our Lord.
posted by stet at 7:06 PM on December 11, 2005

WHAT
THE
FUCK
METAFILTER?

*flees spreading cloud of deadly stupid gas*
posted by loquacious at 7:07 PM on December 11, 2005

i agree with pardonyou?

the entire universe just shifted.
posted by quonsar at 7:07 PM on December 11, 2005

I didn't remove it, but that post sucked. This post however....
posted by jessamyn at 7:12 PM on December 11, 2005

sucked like an Shop-Vac on steroids
posted by jonmc at 7:12 PM on December 11, 2005

hincandenza's rant was fucking hysterical. I'm going to memorize it and perform it at parties. I just have to get my hair-yanking and bug eyed stares down and it'll be perfect.
posted by shmegegge at 7:16 PM on December 11, 2005

i agree with pardonyou?

the entire universe just shifted.

Hehe. My diabolical plan is working perfectly. Welcome to the dark side, my friend.
posted by pardonyou? at 7:16 PM on December 11, 2005

nTM, if he wants a posterboy for postmodern irony and detachment, he'll have to make a better choice than yours truly. I've ranted against that more than anyone else here.

His username reveals that he's a fan of David Foster Wallace. So am I, and I read the essay he cribbed most of his ideas from, too. He just picked a visible user name thinking everyone would salaam him with praise. Unfortunately, it also reveals him as a clueless opportunist with poor reading comprehension.

Go fuck yourself, kid.
posted by jonmc at 7:23 PM on December 11, 2005

i call shotgun!
posted by keswick at 7:25 PM on December 11, 2005

Pickled eggs, stat!
posted by konolia at 7:26 PM on December 11, 2005

*praises hincandenza with salami*
posted by quonsar at 7:28 PM on December 11, 2005

genoa or kosher? they're both good, but genoa is better on a snadwich.
posted by jonmc at 7:30 PM on December 11, 2005

I don't believe in MetaFilter


A Metheist?
posted by dgaicun at 7:50 PM on December 11, 2005

Who shall we attack today? Let's see what the Amazing Divining Strawman has to tell us!

(you'll have to imagine the wheel noises from the Price is Right going boop-boop-boop)


posted by Eideteker at 7:50 PM on December 11, 2005

boop-boop-boop!
posted by quonsar at 7:52 PM on December 11, 2005

th-th-th-that's all folks!
posted by jonmc at 7:53 PM on December 11, 2005

I see some names missing in that list!
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:53 PM on December 11, 2005

As an interesting contrast, this post still exists, even though it quotes lengthy Christian scripture and includes the following non-sarcastic lines, written by the poster: "...a testament to the true meaning of Christmas", and "at least once every holiday season Linus steps out to center stage to explain the true meaning of Christmas".

Additionally, the post itself appears verbatim on the poster's blog.

It appears as though the post stayed up because it concerns a piece of pop culture that MetaFilter users find endearing (along with virtually everybody else in American society).

The deleted Atheist Manifesto post, it seems like Finder was trying to 1) urge people to actually read the article to which s/he'd linked (since s/he knew that, because it involved a contentious, emotionally-charged issue, the usual responses are well-known and could have been scripted in advance and are therefore useless for meaningful discussion) and 2) encourage those whose knees have an impolite tendency to jerk to sit and think for a second and formulate an interesting response before commenting.

The Charlie Brown post quotes Christian scripture and twice mentions that such a thing as "the true meaning of Christmas" actually exists and suggests that A Charlie Brown Christmas has something specifically to do with it.

Granted, the Charlie Brown poster later said "I think my sentences on "the true meaning of Christmas" came off as too heavy-handed" and that he's "not religious".

But what is substantively different about these two posts? That one directly addresses a contentious, emotionally charged issue and that the other indirectly addresses a contentious, emotionally charged issue but places it secondary to a universally recognizable cartoon?

Conclusion: Moderation on MetaFilter is inconsistent and sometimes baffling.

And cows go moo.
posted by gramschmidt at 7:53 PM on December 11, 2005

And it's the weekend and I'm not reading each and every word but instead trusting the bazillion flags and complaints in that thread.

...and scene!
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:55 PM on December 11, 2005

=> In the deleted Atheist manifesto post...
posted by gramschmidt at 7:55 PM on December 11, 2005

Tell me the names and I'll add them to the next one. It's anyone's guess who the subject of the next pileon will be!
posted by Eideteker at 7:57 PM on December 11, 2005

Eideteker, yuck: in-line non-moving images are bad enough.
posted by davy at 8:00 PM on December 11, 2005

For the record, I flagged the post as noise, and never even read the article. The whole tone of the post sounded like noise and I don't read noisy posts. I just flag them. It had nothing to do with religian.
posted by Roger Dodger at 8:00 PM on December 11, 2005

Instead of listing those I suspect will anger the crowds next, I've got an even better idea. We'll start a betting pool for the next pileon. Who is with me?!
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:04 PM on December 11, 2005

Yesssssssssss.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:04 PM on December 11, 2005 [1 favorite]

Moderation on MetaFilter is inconsistent and sometimes baffling.

Your user numbers 17928 and this is news to you? Welcome to Mefi. We do the best we can, thanks.
posted by mediareport at 8:13 PM on December 11, 2005

Yes, mediareport, you've read the penultimate line in my comment.

Now read the ultimate one.
posted by gramschmidt at 8:22 PM on December 11, 2005

Done? Great. Now you're up with the rest of us.
posted by gramschmidt at 8:24 PM on December 11, 2005

Whew. That was close.
posted by mediareport at 8:54 PM on December 11, 2005

well, i'm still glad i got to read this suitable for framing saucy intruder quip.

while i know how much you hate it, please indulge me while i...

metafilter: you're not special, you clique of moderatists

mediareport, you're moderating now?
posted by 3.2.3 at 9:00 PM on December 11, 2005

As an atheist the essay and FPP was irritating for one major reason, that it tried to define atheists and what atheists want and what they think. That's just fucking annoying. I sure as hell don't want every Christian in American to try to prove the existence of god, that's just retarded. I don't care what other people believe. This guy just hasn't gotten to that stage yet. I'm a level 2 atheist, and these lv1ers are just embarrassing.
posted by delmoi at 9:01 PM on December 11, 2005

Go fuck yourself, kid.
posted by jonmc at 7:23 PM PST on December 11

Cool post, jon.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:09 PM on December 11, 2005

And cows go moo.
Moo with me! That's right. Come on, MOOOOOoooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by jmd82 at 9:12 PM on December 11, 2005

mediareport, you're moderating now?

Betsy to heavens, no. Just mouseover any user name and you get the user number. And if that's not what you're referring to, 3., then I don't have a clue what you're talking about.
posted by mediareport at 9:38 PM on December 11, 2005

Put that in your this is not a pipe and don't smoke it.

I liked this quite a lot.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:40 PM on December 11, 2005

Wait, there are levels of atheism?

The only levelling I'm willing to do is in Kingdom of Loathing. If I have to level at atheism I'm finding me a new non-religion.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:42 PM on December 11, 2005

You can go split class though--a good way to start, and though it gets harder to level up after the first few, you'll have likely lost interest by then anyway.
posted by hototogisu at 9:50 PM on December 11, 2005

The post sucked and the comments sucked even more as the thread went on. Man, the only thing lamer than a Konolia comment on the topic of religion is some twenty something atheist twerp's response thereto. Pointlessness times cluelessness equals the square root of utterly ridiculous. Hannah Arendt once coined the phrase the Banality of Evil but, man, that was just the Banality of Banality there at the end. I feel embarrassed for God and Reason both.
posted by y2karl at 9:59 PM on December 11, 2005

Hey you guys remember that post about the guy with the hole? Wasn't he on the gulf coast? I wonder what happened to his hole? You know the guy I am talking about, the dude that was eating snakes and trying to shoot things from his secret hole. Okay, carry on.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 10:06 PM on December 11, 2005

That post was awesome.
posted by hototogisu at 10:12 PM on December 11, 2005

Wait, there are levels of atheism?

Yes, and Level 0, aka "white belt in atheism" is where you go around posting this on the internet:

"Religious people are pretty much morons- what the hell is so wrong with them they didn't figure this out on their own?"

Level two is the most commonly populated: people who mock those who profess faigh and claim that science is their system of understanding yet know almost nothing about science themselves.

A level 6 practicioner thinks nothing of being struck by lightning indoors while performing superstring calculations with one hand and mastubating to child porn with the other. By level 7 you are able to eat a donut off of St. Peter's ass at the pearly gates and still not believe. Level 8 is God himself on one of those really-hung-over, low-self-esteem days, when he really just doesn't believe in himself anymore.
posted by scarabic at 10:13 PM on December 11, 2005

...mock those who profess faith...

You can mock me but I never professed good typing skillz.
posted by scarabic at 10:14 PM on December 11, 2005

I mock you for your alternative system of ordinal numbers.
0, 2, 6, 7, 8. That's the real problem with you heathens: you can't fucking count. No wonder Christians think you don't know what you want.
posted by hototogisu at 10:19 PM on December 11, 2005

Level 8 is God himself on one of those really-hung-over, low-self-esteem days, when he really just doesn't believe in himself anymore.
And, somehow, that's the picture of God I have in my head when Ge takes a look at our world. Either that, or The Big Man Himself is chillin' up there with a cold one and the Junkyard Dog, laughing his head off at us for taking this life too damn seriously. And that goes double for people who take teh internet toooo damn seriously.
posted by jmd82 at 10:21 PM on December 11, 2005

I'm leaving for work now. When I get home this thread had better have some animated gifs.
posted by sveskemus at 10:26 PM on December 11, 2005

When I was a very young child growing up in Transylvania, I fought The Creator and I won. I devoured his all-soul and became "Faeteor" which means "devourer of all-souls" and then I devoured myself.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 10:36 PM on December 11, 2005

"Look at this place. This is where God would come if He had to stop doin' blow!"
posted by Rothko at 10:44 PM on December 11, 2005

But weretable and the undead chairs, the important quesiton is what came out your aft end? Was it stinky?
posted by Mr T at 10:47 PM on December 11, 2005

The important thing to remember is that many people are afraid to abandon religion because they're afraid that in doing so, they will have to stop being judgemental assholes who believe they're intrinsically better than other people because of some belief they hold. Every one of these boring, pointless, identical discussions reminds us all that this simply isn't true.

Man, I think its time to quit Metafilter again. Insert door hitting ass comments here. I think I'll quit smoking again while I'm at it.
posted by nanojath at 10:57 PM on December 11, 2005

"Man, the only thing lamer than a Konolia comment on the topic of religion is some twenty something atheist twerp's response thereto."

We're a mix of many generations here, but on some topics a person's age becomes much more obvious. If I think of the majority of the aggrieved/preachy atheists as about 20, it makes a lot more sense. I don't know if I was ever this obnoxious as an atheist when I was young. Probably was. These days, I get more worked up over astrology.

Someone mentioned upthread that I posted the first comment and couldn't possibly have read the linked article. Well, no, I didn't. Didn't need to in order to recognize the post was bad. I can imagine that a link to someone's blog entry might be a mediocre post, but it would have a lot going against it out of the gate. This particular post was like the perfect storm of bad posts. It was obvious.

By the way, scanning this thread it looks to me like a pretty good portion of the people, including me, who complained about the post are atheists. It's possible that the majority are atheists. Which perhaps might be a potential lesson for the person who claimed that it was 0%.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:59 PM on December 11, 2005

Someone mentioned upthread that I posted the first comment and couldn't possibly have read the linked article. Well, no, I didn't.

Well, at least you admitted you didn't read the link. Points for honesty.
posted by Rothko at 11:02 PM on December 11, 2005

Have none of you read through to the end of Kazantzakis' Askitiki?
posted by nicwolff at 11:11 PM on December 11, 2005

What do you see? Hairy, blood-splattered beasts rising in tumult out of the mud. Hairy, blood-splattered beasts descending in tumult from the mountain summits

They may not have read it but they are gamely reenacting it.
posted by Mr T at 11:29 PM on December 11, 2005

I didn't "admit" anything. Not following the link(s) in a manifestly crappy post before you comment is not something to be ashamed of.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:34 PM on December 11, 2005

nTM, if he wants a posterboy for postmodern irony and detachment, he'll have to make a better choice than yours truly. I've ranted against that more than anyone else here.

His username reveals that he's a fan of David Foster Wallace. So am I, and I read the essay he cribbed most of his ideas from, too. He just picked a visible user name thinking everyone would salaam him with praise. Unfortunately, it also reveals him as a clueless opportunist with poor reading comprehension.

Go fuck yourself, kid.

Well that's just pathetic, jonmc. I picked the name because it was a great, fun book, which happened to still be in mind way back when I picked this username several years ago. It also the only thing of his I read in its entirety (gave a shot to his short writing collections, but just couldn't get into them) and am sure as shit not "cribbing" some essay of Wallace's and passing it off as my own. I think if I was trying to come up with a username to engender praise, I'd do better than a relatively obscure reference to a book that didn't exactly outsell "The Da Vinci Code". Wellhung von Cocksmeister, Smarty McBrainiac, or mathowie are all usernames I could have chosen to give me more plaudits by virtue of my username.


The case remains that over the years I've seen you post, jonmc, you seem to be as knee-jerk a wanna-be hipster as anyone I've seen. If someone says "This show rules", jonmc can be counted on to come in and bash tv watching in general or the hordes of people who, god forbid, have lowered themselves to the utterly uncool level of actually liking something. TV, movies, music- just about any pop culture out there, jonmc seems to coming rolling along to tell us all how his denim jacket and smokes, blue-collar "above it all by being below it all" common man schtick reveals him to be some kind of Buddha Sixpack of detachment and insight.

You remain to me the MetaFilterian archetype of above-it-all wanna-be coolness, and thus a useful shorthand in this context for people who try to stay above the fray in such topics, as if sullying yourself by having an opinion, or taking sides, was the worst imaginable offense; that taking some "I'm too good to believe anything" tack makes you profoundly wise.

So I say to you in hearty retort: Fuck you very much, you passionless weenie.
posted by hincandenza at 11:46 PM on December 11, 2005

...they will have to stop being judgemental assholes who believe they're intrinsically better than other people because of some belief they hold.

Thankfully, that statement doesn't apply to the legions of back-patting atheists on MetaFilter.
posted by cribcage at 11:47 PM on December 11, 2005

This thread is getting good bad closed.
posted by brain_drain at 11:53 PM on December 11, 2005

I call censorship by the absurdist minority
posted by Mr T at 12:02 AM on December 12, 2005

Fish.
posted by donpedro at 12:04 AM on December 12, 2005

Considering some recent events, I have some concerns regarding hincandeza's credibility and or reality. The very fact s/he classifies jonmc as a 'hipster' exposes his/er nature as an obvious robot. (jonmc is about as hip as a home schooled freshman at Yale with his thumb in his mouth and a faint smell of desitin [no offense]).
posted by Mr T at 12:22 AM on December 12, 2005

'hipster' fits as hincandenza indirectly defined it--the snobbery of the anti-snob, through and through.
posted by hototogisu at 12:27 AM on December 12, 2005

I believe in Protein Folding.
posted by Rothko at 12:33 AM on December 12, 2005

I believe in Rothko.
posted by TwelveTwo at 12:37 AM on December 12, 2005

Hototogisu, I suspect you are the same person as hincandeza being both names are devilshly hard to spell... Any Who...
posted by Mr T at 12:40 AM on December 12, 2005

Personally, I have difficulty with "Mr T". It's all nonsense to me anyway.
posted by hototogisu at 12:47 AM on December 12, 2005

I duno about the FPP that got delted, but this post is awesome!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 1:02 AM on December 12, 2005

Fucking post-modern post-ironic assclowns. The worst goddamn sin to you lot is to actually be sincere about something.


Take it to the Bridge !
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:34 AM on December 12, 2005

I believe the world is four thousand years old
posted by matteo at 3:52 AM on December 12, 2005

oh, and i like jon but "Buddha Sixpack" made me laugh. it'd also be a great name for a sockpuppet account
posted by matteo at 3:54 AM on December 12, 2005

I would like to continue my campaign here to replace the word hipster with trendnik. Okay, I'm done.
posted by Captaintripps at 4:18 AM on December 12, 2005

His username reveals that he's a fan of David Foster Wallace. So am I, and I read the essay he cribbed most of his ideas from, too. He just picked a visible user name thinking everyone would salaam him with praise. Unfortunately, it also reveals him as a clueless opportunist with poor reading comprehension.

Go fuck yourself, kid.
posted by jonmc at 7:23 PM PST on December 11

Coming back to this kickass and highly substantive post wherein jonmc takes the high road of attacking someone for their username, I'm interested in which essay you're referring to, jon, because I have literally read them all and am not quite sure to what you could possibly be referring.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 5:18 AM on December 12, 2005

P.S. He picked that username four and a half fucking years ago; don't lump him in with the five dollar crew like yours truly.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 5:20 AM on December 12, 2005

This was hilarious, and worth the price of admission.
posted by OmieWise at 5:44 AM on December 12, 2005

I'm home. What? No animated gifs? WTF Metafilter!?
posted by sveskemus at 6:29 AM on December 12, 2005

Fishie fishie fish.
posted by mediareport at 6:45 AM on December 12, 2005

jacquilynne: The religious majority? On Metafilter? You know that the religious majority around here is made up of a coalition of atheists, agnostics and christian-baiters, right?

Can you say "load of crap"? I thought you could!
posted by lodurr at 6:48 AM on December 12, 2005

hincandenza, I have to ask, do you have problems with reading comprehension?

If someone says "This show rules", jonmc can be counted on to come in and bash tv watching in general or the hordes of people who, god forbid, have lowered themselves to the utterly uncool level of actually liking something.

Seriously, I've defending fucking The King Of Queens, Creed and Twisted Sister for crying out loud, and not as kitsch, I despise the whole idea of kitsch. I hate all the stupid ironic, aren't-these-people-lame video links that people post. I can only guess that you simply decided you don't like me and pay no attention to the substance of what I actually say.

Optimus: The essay is called "E Pluribus Unam," and it covers many of the same points that hincandeza tried to lay at my feet. And quite frankly, I didn't even care about this silly spat until I was told in irc that hincandenza decided to launch an unsolicited (and completely wrongheaded) personal attack on me.
posted by jonmc at 6:56 AM on December 12, 2005

and by "picking a highly visible username," I meant me. By attacking someone visible around here, you make yourself feel big. Or maybe a metal fan in a denim jacket stole your girlfriend. I don't know and I don't care. But I'd appreciate it if you stayed out of face.
posted by jonmc at 6:59 AM on December 12, 2005

and anyone who's ever met me can tell you that your incomprehension of me is not only pathetic, it's downright comical.
posted by jonmc at 7:02 AM on December 12, 2005

For the love of all that is holy, would someone pleeaeeeeease get this man some pickled eggs???????
posted by konolia at 7:05 AM on December 12, 2005

Every time Konolia posts, God kills himself.
posted by y2karl at 7:15 AM on December 12, 2005

Boy, everyone sure is cranky this morning.
posted by konolia at 7:34 AM on December 12, 2005

Betsy to heavens, no. Just mouseover any user name and you get the user number. And if that's not what you're referring to, 3., then I don't have a clue what you're talking about.

oh noes, i play with the user numbers constantly (did i just admit that?).

sorry to cornfuse. i was talking about:

Moderation on MetaFilter is inconsistent and sometimes baffling.

[...] Welcome to Mefi. We do the best we can, thanks.

i read that that "we do the best we can" wrongly. sorry. it sounded like first person plural of the moderators. i just thought since you hosted jessamyn once that maybe, oh nevermind, i was gonna congratulate you or something...
posted by 3.2.3 at 7:35 AM on December 12, 2005

That's a pretty good essay, but I disagree that hincandenza cribbed from it. It seems more Purdy-ish, but what do I know.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:41 AM on December 12, 2005

hincandenza: . . .Zeus or Thor or Tiamat (the dragon, not the Mefite). . .

One and the same, dammit!
posted by tiamat at 7:51 AM on December 12, 2005

Can you say "load of crap"? I thought you could!

Is it your contention that the majority of Metafilter posters are religious people? I suppose it's possible that the unreligious are just a really, really vocal minority, but most religion threads are a massive pile-on of the non-religious accusing the few religious participants of being stupid or unthinking. If there's a religious majority out there in MeFi land, they really ought to work harder on their PR.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:03 AM on December 12, 2005

No point arguing with sociopaths, hincandenza. MeFi has become almost infinitely more interesting and useful once I plugged in the greasemonkey killscript.
posted by solid-one-love at 8:16 AM on December 12, 2005

Is it your contention that the majority of Metafilter posters are religious people?

No, it's my contention that they're not a "coalition of atheists, agnostics and christian-baiters." Anyone who thinks they are is seeing Metafilter through a very distorted lens.
posted by lodurr at 8:18 AM on December 12, 2005

It would be interesting to know what percentage of those who flagged it as "noise" are themselves non-religious. I would put it at, oh, around 0%.

Don't be any more of a moron than you can help. I've been an atheist longer than you've been alive (maybe twice as long, if I'm guessing your age correctly), and I know plenty of other people who objected to the post are nonbelievers. You know why we objected (usually in a gleefully humorous way)? Because it was a crappy post. Get over it.

Or: what EB said.
posted by languagehat at 8:28 AM on December 12, 2005

Apparently the distortion also lead me to believe that most Mefites, religious and otherwise, had a sense of humour.

"It is my belief that the majority of Mefites are not, in fact, religious, thus your argument that the religious majority caused something to happen is spurious."

Is that a dull enough way of making my point for you, lodurr?
posted by jacquilynne at 8:29 AM on December 12, 2005

Dull? Sure. Clear? Also. (And by all means, continue to hide your hostility behind humor.)
posted by lodurr at 8:32 AM on December 12, 2005

Who do you imagine I'm hostile towards? Besides you?
posted by jacquilynne at 9:37 AM on December 12, 2005

Oh man.
posted by gramschmidt at 9:59 AM on December 12, 2005

Wow. I heart hincandenza.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:22 AM on December 12, 2005

Get in line, fff.
posted by Eideteker at 10:31 AM on December 12, 2005

Had I a womb, I would offer to have hincandenza's puppies.
posted by solid-one-love at 11:24 AM on December 12, 2005

Jesus and I were having drinks last night and watching a basketball game. He says get over yourselves. kthxbye.
posted by bardic at 11:26 AM on December 12, 2005

and by "picking a highly visible username," I meant me. By attacking someone visible around here, you make yourself feel big

[snort]
posted by scarabic at 11:38 AM on December 12, 2005

I believe the world is four thousand years old
posted by matteo
Dog years, right?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:07 PM on December 12, 2005

hincandenza is moving into the realm of the delusional. jonmc is one of the most positive members of this community, bar none. it's nice to know, though, that ny dumb shit can come in and just start letting everyone know just precisely who really gets on his nerves after a whopping 10 minutes of site membership.

dildo.
posted by shmegegge at 12:26 PM on December 12, 2005

*any
posted by shmegegge at 12:28 PM on December 12, 2005

If my cats were not fixed, I would let one of them have kittens and I would name one of the kittens hincandenza, and then I would sacrifice all of the other kittens to the first kitten, and then I would eat the remains. Amen.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 12:29 PM on December 12, 2005

hincandenza is moving into the realm of the delusional. jonmc is one of the most positive members of this community, bar none. it's nice to know, though, that any dumb shit can come in and just start letting everyone know just precisely who really gets on his nerves after a whopping 10 minutes of site membership.

dildo.
posted by shmegegge at 12:26 PM PST on December 12

Uh, he's been a member since May 15, 2001. You've been one since December 28, 2004. I hate regdate callouts as much as the next guy, but you're barking up the wrong tree here, little doggie.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 12:35 PM on December 12, 2005

I've had a member for over 25 years.
posted by Eideteker at 12:39 PM on December 12, 2005

shmegegge, thanks for the kind words, but this thread (stupid as it is) wasn't about me until hincandenzas screed. I probably shouldn't have bothered responding, but that's water under the bridge. I thought this thread had been deleted, frankly. Far as I'm concerned go back to arguing about religion, because quite frankly I don't even have a dog in this fight anymore.
posted by jonmc at 12:39 PM on December 12, 2005

(flagged as pissing contest, too)
posted by Eideteker at 12:41 PM on December 12, 2005

meh, so he's not a newbie. my bad.
posted by shmegegge at 12:41 PM on December 12, 2005

shmegegge, you are perfectly correct: jonmc is one of the most positive members of this community.

He also does have the old "all how his denim jacket and smokes, blue-collar 'above it all by being below it all' common man schtick" down pat.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:50 PM on December 12, 2005

Every time Konolia posts, God kills himself.

no, it was Tookie and Mumia and John Seigenthaler who killed God. they killed Richard Pryor, too
posted by matteo at 1:05 PM on December 12, 2005

*any

drats. i was more entertained by "that ny dumbshit."
posted by 3.2.3 at 1:09 PM on December 12, 2005

fff: and I'm only offering this explanation since, even though you occasionally irritate me, I have some measure of respect for you.

I never asked for that persona, it was more or less thrust upon me, and if I embrace the "average guy," label on occasion it's "average," in the "nothing special, ordinary" sense, not the "representative of all people," sense, although I have no control over how someone chooses to percieve me. And I've never been comfortable with judging huge swaths of people harshly, for whatever reason. And I can assure you that I've never altered an anecdote, opinion or taste to suit any kind of persona, unless I was being explicitly facetious.
posted by jonmc at 1:13 PM on December 12, 2005

and I haven't owned a denim jacket in decades for what it's worth.
posted by jonmc at 1:14 PM on December 12, 2005

I respect you and am irritated by you, too, on occasion. Usually when it seems you're playing the "King of Queens" sort of meme in an entertainment thread...
posted by five fresh fish at 1:50 PM on December 12, 2005

I'm not going to spend time defending jonmc, who is fully capable of defending himself, since it's clear that he needs no representation and i'd really just be grinding an axe for my own benefit and no one else's.

I would, however, like to share my perception of his role here, since it's come up in that sort of "what do YOU think of jonmc" kind of way.

I've always seen him as being passionately against precisely the sort of apathetic "seen it, and i've so seen it i'm bored of it now" hipsterism that hincandenza has described. yes, he has adopted at times the regular joe persona, but only in defense of music which has been unfarily criticized for any number of bullshit elitist music snob reasons in links posted here. Furthermore, he has specifically joined in in celebrating good music mentioned here, rather than adopting the attitude described by hincandenza. non-musically, he tends to say what he means and stick up for himself, a la the remarkable battle betweeen himself and SuperSnob (ewkpates).

In other words, anything but above it all, and anything but what hincandenza has described. this is, as near as i can tell, because hincandenza suffers from some form of clinical delusion, no matter how old a member he is. I suspect, though I could easily be wrong, that people reading hincandenza's thesis have simply read the name "jonmc" and then read whatever they thought of jonmc as into what he said, without realizing that he actually described the very opposite of jonmc. You wanna see people acting the way jonmc described? check the sarah silverman thread, and tell me if he's there.
posted by shmegegge at 6:22 PM on December 12, 2005

you know, because I'm not going to spend time defending him here.
posted by shmegegge at 6:23 PM on December 12, 2005

shmegegge: thanks again for the kid words, but for the life of me, I have no idea what battle with ewkpates you're talking about.
posted by jonmc at 6:37 PM on December 12, 2005

advice for shmegegge: don't let your apparent loathing for hicandenza become your particular schtick. It doesn't look good on you.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:16 PM on December 12, 2005

Man, I was really drunk yesterday. Whoo-wee!

Well, not really. But I'm hardly someone to praise- I'm fairly sure that the last 5 of years of growing older, and by leaps and bounds more cynical, about my country and my fellow human being, are driving me batshit crazy. Like, literally over the edge kind of mad... it's depressing, to say the least.

I don't dislike jonmc- I just have for whatever reasons taking in my head him as an example of what shmegegge says he is not. Maybe it's selection bias, or maybe I'm still pissed about jonmc crapping on an Arrested Development thread to tell us he likes King of Queens. :) Fair or unfair, he's become my shorthand for what shmeggege describes him as not being. I've been known to lash into someone unfairly or otherwise in the past- I guess I'm a cranky old uncle or something.

If I am crazily passionate- or at least half that- about these matters, it's because it grates on me deeply to see people be cavalier or detached from things that simply are too important to be detached from. Teaching peasants in 8th century China to be content and at peace with their world, no matter the political turmoil, is a far cry from the highly interconnected world we live in. Our media, our economies, our technologies, and our disconnect from the ability to survive outside this modern edifice are joining with our fundamentalism, intolerance, and willful ignorance in this country. I really do believe that it's more than just "c'est la vie", that we live in most interesting times.

Religion to me is not really tolerable, it represents a grave threat- not the happy, inconsequential "I believe in god and go to church on christmas eve and think good things should happen to good people" token spirituality kind, but the Intelligent Designin', West Point grad end-of-days-nuclear-submarine-commanding, Pat Robertson praying for assassination squintin', God told me 'bout Iraq invadin', secret extralegal citizen detainin' psycho hosebeast religious fervor.

It scares the living crap out of me, and I am as at a loss to people who can be so blithe about it as I am confounded by those who still maintain that Gore and Bush were the same, or that global warming is still just a theory. I accept that have been wrong many times, and will be wrong many more, but I won't excise the energy from my beliefs. And these days, for some years now, I've become disheartened to say the least that the inmates are running the asylum, that crazy violent psychopaths are wearing the lamb's garb and are gonna bury us all under their house with bags of lime.
posted by hincandenza at 12:39 AM on December 13, 2005

Good for you for coming back to this thread to address some of the concerns you raised. Your original post was strange to me because I've never really associated laissez-faire hipness with a tolerance of religion. Sure, a kind of moral relativism and middle of the road tolerance of a lot of things, but religion just isn't particularly one of them. So, while I'm sympathetic to your general point I was confused about how you chose to make it.
posted by OmieWise at 5:38 AM on December 13, 2005

I'm not going to spend time defending hincandenza, who is fully capable of defending himself, since it's clear that he needs no representation and I'd really just be grinding an axe for my own benefit and no one else's.

[Stipulate the next three paragraphs, where I defend hincandenza while sharpening my hatchet.]
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:15 AM on December 13, 2005

jonmc: I was referring to the meta thread about the askme question wherein someone wanted to know what to do about the fact that her boyfriend's friends were racists.

advice for fivefreshfish: you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm responding to what he said, and that's it.
posted by shmegegge at 4:49 PM on December 13, 2005

that was an epic battle? More like some piddly-ass bullshit from what I could see.

and I think Triple-F is merely tired of all the As The MeFi Turns shit around here. Frankly, so am I.
posted by jonmc at 5:25 PM on December 13, 2005

Religion to me is not really tolerable, it represents a grave threat... It scares the living crap out of me...

In other words...
posted by cribcage at 9:13 PM on December 13, 2005