Mofluencer Wars

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Kishkumen wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 4:29 pm
Doctor Steuss wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 4:14 pm
It always kind of makes me chuckle when I see/hear someone referred to as “one of the most prominent ex-Mormon figures,” when I’d wager 99.9% of ex-Mormons have no idea who they are.
We need to come up with a term for the tiny fishbowl that is the Mormon Studies/Sunstone/BYU/Mopologist/Bloggernacle world that we are on the fringe of here at DM. We get caught up in it because so many of us are connected to it and drawn to it.
Hrm. A Mormon bubble. A mubble?

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Kukulkan
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by Kukulkan »

WhistleBlower wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:10 pm
This is just one of the places where I've chosen to post this information, not really even because I'd like to convince you all of anything. I want John to know that people are tired of his hypocrisy and the fact that he has the gall to speak out for abuse victims is appalling.
You seem to be more concerned with slinging accusations than actually taking action to find this 'Rosebud' justice. If a crime was committed against me I would for sure not be trying to convince people I don't know on a fairly small internet forum of such a story. If the accusations carried criminal activity I would report them to the authorities. If they were moral or ethical in nature I would release information that shows such immoral or unethical behavior on the accused part and evidence that clears my name.
WhistleBlower wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:10 pm
I would be more than happy if Open Stories Foundation booted John and was able to continue on with someone who has integrity. If you actually read what I wrote, you will see that I acknowledge that MS and Open Stories Foundation has done very very important work. But it's all clouded by John's lies, manipulation and abuse.
I did read what you wrote, I never said you thought that MS and Open Stories Foundation have not done important work. If you actually read what I wrote, I made the argument that even if John Dehlin was 'taken down' that MS and Open Stories Foundation would continue on relatively unharmed. With this knowledge, it makes your posts here even more questionable considering you claim to have inculpatory evidence that John Dehlin has actually carried out the actions you accuse him of. Release it, leak it, clear the air. You've presented us with a 'he said she said' situation and asking us to believe you 'just because' is quite naïve of you.
WhistleBlower wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:10 pm
My motivation is to get John to go away. He's not deserving of the influence he has in the progressive Mormon world.
As I said above, provide the evidence of his actions that you claim to have. This is a pretty simple equation. Accusations + Evidence = We believe you. Accusations + No Evidence = We don't believe you. If the world operated in the way you want it to operate, and we believed everything you said 'just because', the world would be an incredibly dark and terrifying place.
WhistleBlower wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:10 pm
If you want to call that a personal vendetta, fine. I'm sure there were plenty of people who characterized the Harvey Weinstein scandal as a personal vendetta. The film industry is better off now that he's gone. Progressive/ex Mormonism will be better off when John is gone as well. That is my goal.
As others have said, the fact that you seem to be posting this information on a fairly fringe Mormon/exmormon forum does seem to imply your intentions are personal in nature. In the very example you provided, accusers came forward and worked with law enforcement to provide evidence that eventually ended Harvey Weinstein up in prison. It's strange that you use him as an example considering this example is in direct contradiction of your accusations. As I outlined above: Accusations + Evidence = We believe you. If your intent was to seek justice for Rosebud, you would take action to clear her name and to show that John Dehlin is truly guilty of his heinous crimes. But no, you post here without evidence of any action on anyone's part trying to convince internet strangers of his guilt. Quite strange in my opinion. :?:

Let me make this clear. I am willing to believe anyone who accuses anyone of any crime as long as there is evidence to support that.
"I advise all to go on to perfection and search deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Godliness." -Joseph Smith
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Kishkumen
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by Kishkumen »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 4:55 pm

Hrm. A Mormon bubble. A mubble?

- Doc
That works!
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Symmachus
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by Symmachus »

WhistleBlower wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:27 pm
But John is a classic narcissist -- and I believe he suffers from at least one personality disorder.
Diagnosing narcissistic personality disorders seems to be an ex-Mormon expertise.
(who/whom)

"As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them."
—B. Redd McConkie
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Kishkumen
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by Kishkumen »

Symmachus wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:51 pm
Diagnosing narcissistic personality disorders seems to be an ex-Mormon expertise.
It seems to be the most common armchair diagnosis du jour period.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
honorentheos
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by honorentheos »

WhistleBlower wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:10 pm
My motivation is to get John to go away. He's not deserving of the influence he has in the progressive Mormon world..
Interesting motivation.

I'm curious - is it accurate to say the reason this is being argued on the internet in order to reduce or damage Dehlin's reputation in the post-Mormon community is due to the evidence of wrong doing being unable to clear legal hurdles for either criminal or civil lawsuits? I recall the civil claim against the board of Open Stories Foundation was pulled. The reason given for this was Open Stories Foundation didn't employ enough people to meet a necessary standard in New Hampshire.

Is it fair to assume that the online warfare waged against reputations and influence is the extent of meaningful activity? Or is there an active lawsuit making it's way through the system?
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by honorentheos »

To be candid, it's difficult to read the Rosebud accounts and not come away seeing it as so much sour grapes. She claims her work is what made the machine go, and her removal from Open Stories Foundation caused so many logistical challenges they cancelled their conference afterward while lying about the cause instead of fessing up to how important she was to the operations of the organization. She then went on to found and organize a competitor in Circle the Wagons that ultimately failed, at least in part due to the costs and obligations of organizing and carrying out conferences outpacing the strength of it's funding support.

So Dehlin isn't deserving of being the face of a successful organization, of being given professional regard, or seen as an honest ally of the people he professes to have given his life work to help. This is argued by at least someone who feels they were the reason the organization was successful, are truly qualified as a professional, and who truly supports the groups Dehlin apparently is claimed to only give lip-service to supporting?

Ok.

To be clear, I don't care about Dehlin and agree he comes across as self-serving and insincere. But Rosebud strikes me as void of self-knowledge.

It's what makes Whistleblowers stated motivation interesting.
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Symmachus
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by Symmachus »

If the following has been mentioned in this thread or one of the others on Kwaku, I ask forgiveness for missing it. Between my work on Jaredite metrics and filling orders at the drive-through here at the Parowan Wendy's, I sometimes miss things on the threads...

Gad's earlier comments about Kwaku seem nearly to hit the mark. He is very likeable, though I reserve judgment as to whether there is any "there" there (does anyone have a link to his discussion with the Calvinist?), particularly for someone barely 20 years old. The lack of a "there" has been a problem for apologists in Mormonism since Nibley. Granted, Kwaku is not going to fill that kind of role (nor does it appear to me that Hannah Seariac will), yet I can see him as a worthy successor to the Petersonian aggressiveness that characterized the late FARMS period. What hurt those guys was that they deeply craved the stage-setting and roles of being intellectuals (and they had it for a while) and thought that these would provide them with legitimacy, but basically all they really wanted to do was trash talk their ideological foes on blogs and comment sections. That misapprehension of their function and abilities ruined the Mormon intellectual life they inherited. But since Kwaku doesn't apparently feel the need for the accoutrements of professor cosplay and has a much clearer view of what his role can be and what his talents are, he will probably have a wider audience and thus broader influence. The Church is lucky to have him on their side for now.

Pursuing that vein a bit, I can't help but see Kwaku's attempted take-down of John Dehlin against the misfired attack done by Greg Smith in 2012. That proved to be a kind of massive self-own and the catalyst that brought down the Maxwell Institute as it was then constituted, which led to the exile of the once proud princes of Mormon apologia. Wanderers now in the land of AM-radio boomerism, not only have they had no impact against John Dehlin after all these years but they actually helped his cause while hurting themselves.

I know that most of the stuff in the video is old news around here, but consider the readers of "Rosebud" on the one hand against the viewers of Kwaku on the other. Nobody who has any belief or allegiance to the Church is going to be swayed that much by what anyone here writes, whereas such people will eagerly take the inoculation against Dehlinism from Kwaku. That's one audience that will be impacted, but there is another one, because I also think Kwaku's video is likely to have more influence among the progressive Mormon types and progressive Dehlinites. The libertarian sort of ex-Mormons are already suspicious of John Dehlin and probably wouldn't be bothered all that much by the contents of the video anyway. Among progressives, though, a certain value system obtains where race and gender are the categories that define both the baseline norms and also the highest aspirations. Added to that, the alleged violation of these values erases a great deal of Dehlin's authenticity, the defining feature of a progressive leader. Going after these, I prophesy, will be much more effective in combating progressive anti-Church-ism than anything the old FARMS crew could even imagine. The FARMS people were idiot partisans; Kwaku just might end up being Zhukov.

The one surprise in the video for me was that Kwaku didn't pursue Dehlin further on race within the assumptions of the progressive moral universe. The damning part, from within that world view, wasn't just that he appears to have lied about calling 911 but that he, the white progressive perceiving himself to be under violent threat because of a harmless meme retweeted by a young Black male, did not interrogate his own white fragility but instead essentially weaponized the appearance of calling the police. In race progressivism, even threatening to call the police is to deploy the enforcement mechanism of structures of white supremacy.

Some bishop and his mistress are complaining about their order. Gotta run.
(who/whom)

"As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them."
—B. Redd McConkie
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Symmachus wrote:
Sun Apr 25, 2021 4:31 pm
Between my work on Jaredite metrics and filling orders at the drive-through here at the Parowan Wendy's, I sometimes miss things on the threads...

...

Some bishop and his mistress are complaining about their order. Gotta run.
Sublime.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Physics Guy
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Re: Mofluencer Wars

Post by Physics Guy »

Just don’t envy the bishop. He’ll hold it against you when he orders his tomb.
I was a teenager before it was cool.
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