Also, like, from a Christian point of view with historical and anthropological contexts for the Bible in mind, scripture doesn't have a perfect record on child abuse or even child pregnancy, sexual assault, incest, etc. etc. It's people like Shad who talk about Christianity and scripture (implicitly Mormonism and the Book of Mormon) granting access to objective moral truths about questions of good and evil that reveal their own self-serving ignorance. I don't know how more people don't see it. I guess it plays to a certain audience.

"My side (except some libertarians who I'm going to ignore after this sentence because it's convenient)..."

​@@CH4R10T_TV Also worth mentioning since Shad is a mormon that the founder of his cult married and violated a literal child in the 19th century. He also used the religious threat of being eternally seperated from their families to coerce women and said child into the marriages. Shad literally follows a cult of CSA.

​@@CH4R10T_TVOne of my partners going on two years grew up under and around conservative Mormons. Right-wing Mormonism is, indeed, exactly like this. If not worse. There's a sort of Orwellian character to the Religious Right: There is a Correct and Orthodox Way to feel, and think, and speak, and act; any deviation from the singular prescribed frame of mind or action is considered inherently wicked and, often, treated as outright subhuman.

​@@CH4R10T_TVAlso, hyper-orthodox Mormons believe in some bizarre hybrid of consensus ethics and absolutist deontology. It's incoherent, except in its service of authoritarianism.

Toss it down the ol' memory hole

@@SpoopySquid money* hole but close enough

As someone who grew up in a Souther Baptist church, they square that circle quite easily. Before HP, magic was always the worst thing ever and always evil. After HP and once the pastor's daughter and son liked reading it, "well there's good magic and bad magic and the book teaches good lessons and ..." so you see, if it benefits them, it's ok. She's on their side now so water under the bridge. Really sad. Glad I ran far, far away from that church when I could.

​@@jod791I mean this explains why there's such irritating people in every other respect because they have been enculturated in an environment where they never have to admit they were wrong about anything.

H8 fills all the holes.

I worry more about Shad’s kids being indoctrinated into his bullshit.

@Private-Potato I think about guys like Shad every time the """school choice""" dispute in America comes up, as well as the "Think Of The Children" rhetoric around queer issues. We've gotta have something in the order of a million dudes who think like he does, and some of them want this exact posture towards a child's upbringing to be standardized.

@@CH4R10T_TV Yeah Shad is practically the poster child for “school choice” and “parents rights” groups.

On the bright side' Jazza doesn't agree with his brother or the rest of their mormon family

THE ART GUY??? IS HIS BROTHER??

You made me think of Prof Dave's ordeal with James Tour. If you go to the first video, it's mild critique delivered bluntly but Dave gives him a lot of grace. The grace Tour spends the next couple years tearing to shreds, leaving no doubt -- he did not deserving that grace. It's one of the wildest unmaskings I've ever seen. A creationist Rice uni chem professor is basically doing an Illuminaughti & ruining his entire life bc he doubled, tripled, seventh-upled his vitriolic lashing out at anyone questioning him but bc he's having to appease the faith-heads after pushback from a science communicator he's showing his entire @ss to his colleagues. It led to a lot more eyeballs on him & now his work is looking like it's built on lies & he exploits his students + rants religiously at them --- reminder: university chemistry class --- & it's bc he had zero self control & felt compelled to zealously the defend his "faith" by lying about the nature of reality + the work of real scientists.

I do want to give charity to this perspective; I think it's right up against the line. Something a therapist of mine once advised is that when someone hurt you, it can be helpful to write down all the stuff you'd say to them and then burn the letter instead of sending it (sending it can be more harmful for multiple reasons). I suppose I don't think that act is, as Klavin put it for book-burning, "The act of a savage." Maybe it appeals to something a little raw and emotional in all of us. I think the distinction you might be picking up on is that it comes from a different place; letting go of some part of yourself ("I don't need this anymore") is fundamentally emotionally very distinct from trying to control a part of someone else ("I can't let others see this").

@@CH4R10T_TV 100% agree. My actions were for my own edification, not for the purpose of removing a text from the world. If my copy of Atlas Shrugged were the only copy in the world, I would feel very differently about burning it.

After my oldest son came out as gay but before I came out to myself and everyone else as trans, I found myself looking at all of my Orson Scott card books and I didn't burn them but I did leave them into the trash including a signed 1st edition of xenocide. I had just learned of his sudden right turn into raging homophobia and I was like I don't want any of this guy's s*** anywhere near me. It just feels good to get something so evil away from you. I know no one's ever going to dig those books out of the landfill and read them and they'll rot there under people's diapers and unfinished orange juice and coffee grinds.

putting the "Shad" in "ScHADenfreude"

Just moved out of a basement flat. I had a deal with the spiders but they broke it all the time. They get to stay alive if I don't see them inside my house. I swear they thought when I cleaned I was making it nice for them or smthg.

I see, really? I never got the full details about that. It's wild how positivity can run counter to someone's brand and their algorithmic engagement. You'd think at a certain point you'd take the hit and just not be a shitty clicks-obsessed gremlin, but he's gotta fund the Shadlands castle somehow I suppose. Good for Oz I suppose, although I'd wonder why he'd come back if he's not getting anything for it, going to do free stuff for your old boss feels kind of crazy.

I would have as well, but I'm almost certain Brandon Sanderson can't be totally unaware and is probably in agreement with Shad at least partially; Sanderson is himself a Christian conservative. I know for a fact he openly wrote a blog post about being against gay marriage, making a lot of the standard (now even outdated) conservative arguments about how gays should get a different label for their rights and how god will punish the world otherwise. Sanderson is also a Mormon, and I tend to assume when I see a Mormon writing or making political commentary that they agree with the foundational mythology of Mormonism, which includes certain rather horrific views of certain specific racial groups. Not every Mormon (especially those who leave the LDS church) holds those beliefs, but they're profoundly fundamental to the church doctrine. I don't anticipate a Sanderson disavowal.

@@CH4R10T_TVI remember that Sanderson wrote it in the mid 2000s. Since then, i think he’s retracted that opinion. Regarding Shadiversity, he did write a reddit post that acknowledged the problematic elements that Shad has and since then has distanced himself. As a fan of Sanderson and have listened to his podcasts and read his books, i think he’s better now about LGBT elements in his stories.

I'm pretty sure I saw a Jazza (Shad's artist brother) and Sanderson colab video in my feed some days ago. Shad must be green like grass with envy about that one and it's kinda even better than Sanderson disowning him. That snub must burn! 🔥🔥🔥

​@@CH4R10T_TV FWIW, Sanderson has apologized for the things he's written in those blog posts and credits the discussions that ensued after he wrote them with people educating him on the topic as helping break him out of a conservative mindset. That said, he still predominantly associates with other Mormons and hires almost exclusively from those with a Mormon background (I think that's probably why Shad was chosen as his "weaponry consultant", considering that even just among KZfaqrs there are people with way more actual expertise on the subject). He has an FAQ section entirely on his religion and a full sub-article on his views on LGBTQ+ people. I personally don't feel comfortable supporting him financially knowing that he's very dedicated to the church and unwilling to condemn them (and that a chunk of his considerable wealth is going to the church), but he's said that he fully supports LGBTQ+ rights and has been voting in-favor for the past decade and a half (he also supports ordaining women in the church, so I think his views on gender are also more liberal). In terms of Shad himself, the last thing Sanderson said about him 5 years ago (before the launch of the Knights Watch channel but after Shad made a video about Patreon deplatforming Sargon and a bunch of other rightwing nuts) is that he doesn't necessarily endorse his political views but won't distance himself from Shad based on it either (and the whole "I have friends from every part of the spectrum and we mustn't create echo chambers" type of reasoning). He also said that he has some red lines and if those are crossed he would distance himself, but that at that time he didn't think Shad was anywhere close to that line (and he agreed with Shad's views on deplatforming). His full comment is in a thread on r/brandonsanderson on a post called "Brandon Sanderson with Shadiversity + Announcement!". More recently, he was tagged in another reddit post that was questioning the extent of Shad's involvement and whether Sanderson still holds by the comment he made the last time the topic came up, but he has not answered it (could be that he didn't see the tag, could be that he doesn't want to say). I guess we'll know more once the new Stormlight book comes out this year whether Shad is still credited as a consultant (and if he is, whether Sanderson will denounce him or will fence-sit the way he does with the church). Sanderson was in a Jazza video quite recently though, and I would be surprised if they weren't linked with each other thanks to Shad (I mean, Jazza is more famous than Shad and he is also into fantasy and tabletop stuff, so _maybe_ they got introduced to each other some other way, but I would imagine Shad would get brought up even so). But we also know that Jazza has left the church and has publicly disavowed Shad's views, so I don't know if this collab reflects on Sanderson's working relationship with Shad in any way.

Yeah I've heard "in the country" and "from the country" before -- I went to school in a rural area -- but I guess it was just the way it was said that sounded odd to me for half a second.

@@CH4R10T_TV Shad doesn’t exactly ever earn the benefit of the doubt on… anything… so fair to think it sounded weird. Esp in the context of the nationalism/xenophobia etc that come packaged with that sort of ideology.

It's aussie mate, the country means you didn't have any fast food places. I grew up in the country as a teen, we didn't have stop signs in town because there was never any traffic.

@@julesmasseffectmusic I’d include world region/national differences in what I was talking about, but was really just giving an example that even within the same country Ch41ot is from that in some areas it isn’t unusual. At that, a lot of the regional differences within the US about what words we use come from what other parts of the world an area has the most ties to from immigration etc.

As a 5 foot Ozzie I have a deal, they stay above 6 feet they live, got below they die. Saves on mossie spray.

Don't feel bad for having been a fan, be proud of not being a fan now that you know better!

It's a promise. >:3c

He is a man of many talents.

I think he was trying to invoke the "Hitler Ate Sugar" trope from TVTropes (basically the Reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy) without understanding what the trope is about. Ironically, "his side" are the ones who tend to do this with the whole "Hitler was a vegetarian, so shut up vegetarian!" and "it was called National Socialism, so socialism is evil" type of arguments.

I like "Algorith"; makes it sound like the Old Ones.

@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 Algorith the eternal scourer

CH4R10T really needs to revisit this video after reading his book. The things I've heard about that book - sheesh.

@ivanpetrov5255 I'm working my way through it now, but when I finally make my review, I want to have a section dedicated to addressing some of the parallel discourse around in on KZfaq, including videos like this that Shad has made. It's a really interesting bit of context.

Except when shad dies he gets to rule a planet. 😂

I'll take it under advisement. Thanks for speaking up.

Australia doesn't let your employer control your healthcare.

Vast majority are against burning books but not as many against BANNING books. Worst time to have autocorrect lol