More Good Foundation

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

More Good Foundation

Post by _Kishkumen »

I think the time is right to remind ourselves of the More Good Foundation, a non-profit organization that exists to spread the LDS Gospel online.

See: https://www.moregoodfoundation.org/

The website contains an interesting invitation:

Are you looking for ways you can get involved with More Good Foundation and learn ways that you can share your beliefs online? We have many opportunities available for volunteers.


All of this look anodyne, but consider the subtext within the context of our world of information wars. To promote your ideas, you must demote those of others. Trolls show up in comments sections and Facebook group threads. The more distraction from the goals of any group, the better for those who oppose them.

Years ago, as you may recall, DCP and others showed up in the comments section of the TIME Lightbox webpage to raise a stink about some photos of rural Mormons he and others felt portrayed Mormons in a negative light. The results were not pretty for the More Good team, who ended up looking hypersensitive and bizarre in their exaggerated response to a sympathetic photo journalistic presentation of a childhood past.

As you may be aware, these wars have become more subtle, more sustained, and more disconnected from reality over time. Conspiracy theories are promulgated to destroy reasoned discussion or, more crudely, any conversation those in power do not want to see.

Disinformation has been active for some time on MDB. Be on the lookout.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Everybody Wang Chung
_Emeritus
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Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:53 am

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _Everybody Wang Chung »

It’s obvious that Smokey is Stephen Smoot.

Smokey was Smoot’s nickname in high school. Smoot/Smokey must really hate this place to spend so much time and energy trying to disrupt it. Mopolegetics at its finest.

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up.
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."

Daniel C. Peterson, 2014
_Res Ipsa
_Emeritus
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Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:37 pm

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Kish, I think it’s a real stretch to infer a connection between that sentence on the MGF website and Smokey.

Everybody Wang Chung— that’s an absolute slur against Smoot. Are you really claiming that Smoot would argue that a true interpretation of Mormonism would say that the Jews aren’t the people of the Old Testament and incite hatred against Jews?

Think about it. Smokey is the LDS’s worst nightmare: any actual anti-Mormon could use his posts as anti-LDS propaganda. If he were to successfully equate Mormonism with Christian identity, all the PR work off the last decades would be undone in a flash. Any apologist who tried this as a tactic would be out of his ever loving mind.

Folks around here are way too quick at “identifying” posters.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
_canpakes
_Emeritus
Posts: 8541
Joined: Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:54 am

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _canpakes »

Everybody Wang Chung wrote:It’s obvious that Smokey is Stephen Smoot.

Smokey was Smoot’s nickname in high school. Smoot/Smokey must really hate this place to spend so much time and energy trying to disrupt it. Mopolegetics at its finest.

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up.

Hmm. Interesting. I was half-kiddingly wondering if Smokey was Smoot’s emotional doppelgänger, based on the tone and content of his recent blog post about exmos. : ) Regardless, the LDS environment that chaperoned Smokey into his adulthood seems to have been powerless to prevent the creation of something much worse than any exmo I’ve ever encountered.
_Smokey
_Emeritus
Posts: 497
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 2:47 pm

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _Smokey »

Watch as I turn this post into hate speech with this one weird trick!

Kishkumen wrote:I think the time is right to remind ourselves of the More Good Foundation Israeli Hub, a non-profit organization that exists to spread the LDS Gospel advocate for Israel online.

See: [url]https://www.moregoodfoundation.org/https://www.israelihub.com/[/url]

The website contains an interesting invitation:

Are you looking for ways you can get involved with More Good Foundation and learn ways that you can share your beliefs online? We have many opportunities available for volunteers.The Israeli Hub is a digital advocacy center.
Our mission is to develop cutting-edge technologies to help pro-israel and Jewish activists communities around the world who fight against hate speech online and advocate for Israel


All of this look anodyne, but consider the subtext within the context of our world of information wars. To promote your ideas, you must demote those of others. Trolls show up in comments sections and Facebook group threads. The more distraction from the goals of any group, the better for those who oppose them.

Years ago, as you may recall, DCP IDF and others showed up in the comments section of the TIME Lightbox webpage countless websites to raise a stink about some photos of rural Mormons names of Holocaust victims he and others felt portrayed Mormons Jews in a negative light. The results were not pretty for the More Good team IDF, who ended up looking hypersensitive and bizarre in their exaggerated response to a sympathetic photo journalistic presentation of a childhood past well-intentioned, respectful Ordinance.

As you may be aware, these wars have become more subtle, more sustained, and more disconnected from reality over time. Conspiracy theories are promulgated to destroy reasoned discussion or, more crudely, any conversation those in power do not want to see.

Disinformation has been active for some time on MormonDiscussions.com. Be on the lookout.
Dr Shades is Jason Gallentine
_Lemmie
_Emeritus
Posts: 10590
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:25 pm

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _Lemmie »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Everybody Wang Chung— that’s an absolute slur against Smoot. Are you really claiming that Smoot would argue that a true interpretation of Mormonism would say that the Jews aren’t the people of the Old Testament and incite hatred against Jews?

I don’t think Everybody Wang Chung is claiming that. More like the vitriol and bile written by Smoot is a good analog to the hatred and bigotry written by smo.

Think about it. Smokey is the LDS’s worst nightmare: any actual anti-Mormon could use his posts as anti-LDS propaganda.

:lol: I’m afraid that just makes your argument weaker. Smoot’s posts about his fellow Mormons who have different ideas about the Book of Mormon geography, even his posts stereotyping why some people leave the lds church also make excellent anti-lds propaganda. SmiggilySmooty’s “Bukake bestiality” is just icing on the cake. (I know, I know. I apologize.)
Folks around here are way too quick at “identifying” posters.


True. Obviously I am neither currently a big ole catfishing male, nor am I a poster from the early 2000s who also posts on TBM boards, two completely opposite “identifications” smo has hurled at me.

But clearly there are some issues here that need to be brought out into the open. In order to suck up to DCP, did this troller decided he had no choice but to be a plagiarizing mopologist? Too funny.
_Res Ipsa
_Emeritus
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Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:37 pm

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Lemmie, he literally said that Smokey is Smoot. Smokey literally claims that Jews are not God’s Chosen People.

This looks way to much like the connect the dots of a conspiracy theory to me.

He clearly cuts and pastes Jew hating crap from Internet sites without attribution. Connecting that in any way to Peterson is an enormous stretch.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
_Lemmie
_Emeritus
Posts: 10590
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:25 pm

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _Lemmie »

Res Ipsa wrote:....Smokey literally claims that Jews are not God’s Chosen People....

You were not in the mood for my irony, apparently, so I apologize if my light-mindedness offended you and I’ll just respond to this part. Smo is a troll trying to take down a discussion board. I don’t believe him when he says ANYTHING, let alone that he believes the idiocy he is posting, whether he plagiarizes it or not.
_canpakes
_Emeritus
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Joined: Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:54 am

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _canpakes »

Res Ipsa wrote:Lemmie, he literally said that Smokey is Smoot. Smokey literally claims that Jews are not God’s Chosen People.

This is completely compatible with Smokey’s position given that he claims that the imaginary Lehi and his family were not Jews.

One can absolutely be a card-carrying patron of the LDS Church while simultaneously push and post the stuff that Smokey is here, to the level of promoting items that they know are not true, but that serve their particular purpose.

Religion has been warped to justify hatred against and murder of others for millennia, by millions. That reality does not exclude the members of any ‘Church’, nor did it expire in 1830.
_Res Ipsa
_Emeritus
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Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:37 pm

Re: More Good Foundation

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Lemmie wrote:
Res Ipsa wrote:....Smokey literally claims that Jews are not God’s Chosen People....

You were not in the mood for my irony, apparently, so I apologize if my light-mindedness offended you and I’ll just respond to this part. Smo is a troll trying to take down a discussion board. I don’t believe him when he says ANYTHING, let alone that he believes the idiocy he is posting, whether he plagiarizes it or not.


Guilty. I did not catch your ironic intent. I don’t believe anything he says, except I believe he is a Jew hater and has adopted Christian Identity as part of his religious beliefs.

ETA: no offense taken.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
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