Comment on About the historical relationship of Islam to the United States by resolutionaryman

Parent Post: About the historical relationship of Islam to the United States · In Reply To

resolutionaryman · 5/10/2026, 3:24:47 AM · permalink

6th Point: The historical 'reverse' which you omit.

Your narrative of unique 'Islamic predation' only survives if you ignore the other half of the Mediterranean fleet. During this exact era, the Knights of Malta and the Order of Saint Stephen operated a mirror-image system of Christian privateering.

These Christian orders were legally commissioned to hunt, plunder, and enslave Muslims on merchant vessels. Major Italian ports like Livorno and Naples were the 'Barbary Coast' of the North, serving as hubs for the sale and labor of hundreds of thousands of Muslim captives. If you were a Muslim sailor in the 1700s, you were just as likely to be chained to the oar of a Christian galley as the reverse.

The Conclusion:

The 'predation' you describe wasn't a theological mandate unique to Islam; it was a Mediterranean-wide business model of state-sponsored kidnapping practiced by both sides for centuries. By isolating only the Muslim actors, you aren't providing a 'historical analysis'—you are providing a curated grievance.

If the act of enslaving 'outsiders' and stealing cargo makes a religion 'evil,' then by your own logic, the Christian Mediterranean orders of the 18th century earned that same label. Or, we can stick to the more rational conclusion: Government is evil, and pirates—regardless of their holy book—will always find a verse to justify a heist.

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saarnok · 5/17/2026, 1:28:03 AM · permalink

I don't believe I ever made any claim about "unique" Islamic predation.  
  
What I made was a statement about the whitewashing, verily the crystalwashing of Islam engaged in by BHO and largely echoed by many leftist talking heads before and since.  
  
While I've been away for most of the week attending to matters of significantly greater import to me than soj.ooo, I've nonetheless been replaying your responses or rather the impression your responses left on me in the interim.  
  
While I do not accuse you at this time of conscious straw-man inventions, I'll still point out that there are multiple points in contention here.  
  
Predation of American vessels was indeed practiced by Islamic countries, which ultimately led to the showdown with same, resultant with the first foreign treaties with same precisely because, according to Islamic authorities, they were at odds with us owing to our lack of Islamic status.  
  
If you'd like to argue otherwise, I'm quite sure you will do so with aplomb.  
  
Another well known user was banned from this pocha precisely because they would not make an argument for whatever the hell their position is.  
  
Perhaps you're unaware of the irony of presenting lgbtcwok (lgbt(cat walked on keyboard)) people as representative of the tolerance and lack of evil inherent in Islamic regimes.  
  
I am not unaware. Referencing modern anti-Western movements being tolerated by anti-Western regimes doesn't move me from my contention that Islam is evil.  
  
You'll perhaps notice that I will typically resolve towards single points while others typically attempt to expand their points.  
  
I don't use AI to help write my responses.  
  
I write slowly, and perhaps not even as quickly as I should.  
  
But, my ideas, my words, are mine.

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resolutionaryman · 5/17/2026, 12:36:18 PM · permalink

I hear you on preferring single points and on writing slowly and deliberately. That’s a valid style choice, and I respect the care you’re taking with your words.

Where I disagree is the implication that tool-use (or tool-nonuse) is a proxy for the value or authenticity of what’s being said. “My ideas, my words, are mine” speaks to process and provenance—not automatically to rigor, originality, or insight. A person can write slowly and still be shallow; a person can use tools and still do serious thinking and produce genuinely personal work.

It reminds me of food forensics: sometimes you can guess whether something was microwaved or oven-cooked based on certain signatures, but that doesn’t tell you whether the meal was thoughtful, skillful, or good. People can also imitate or obscure those signatures, and observers can become overconfident, treating weak cues as decisive evidence.

So I’m not especially interested in policing methods. I’m interested in whether the argument holds up: Is it coherent, specific, and responsive? Does it survive scrutiny? If it does, I’ll credit it. If it doesn’t, the fact that it was written slowly by hand won’t save it.

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saarnok · 5/18/2026, 12:43:39 AM · permalink

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resolutionaryman · 5/18/2026, 2:47:36 AM · permalink

I think we agree more than we disagree.

For me, the boundary lies entirely between delegation and augmentation. If someone uses AI to think for them, I share your concern. But if it’s used to accelerate the articulation, organization, and exploration of ideas a person already holds, it becomes a cognitive lever—no different than a calculator for an engineer or a word processor for a writer.

You made a great point that AI output often feels "not enough like you." I agree completely. Left to its own devices, AI produces sterile fluff. The tool only becomes meaningful when a human actively shapes, rejects, redirects, and curates it until it accurately reflects their intent.

To use a culinary parallel: a master chef might use a food processor or a sous-vide machine to eliminate manual friction, but the presence of the machinery doesn't dictate the recipe. The tool doesn't tell you where the judgment resided.

As for why someone wouldn’t “just go chat with an AI directly”—people could also read raw encyclopedias instead of talking to a teacher, or read blueprints instead of hiring an architect. We don't seek out creators for raw data; we seek them out for perspective, lived experience, taste, and accountability. An AI can generate information, but it cannot live a life.

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saarnok · 5/18/2026, 4:14:25 AM · permalink

All analogies are flawed by nature. Criticizing someone for using an imprecise analogy isn't particularly apt.  
  
I don't feel as though your analogies here are really apt either, though I appreciate that coming up with apt ones would be really difficult.  
  
I just came off of an AI trying to make me it's tool, to be a bit hyperbolic.  
  
In one of my previous lives I wrote or spoke for other people, attempting to convey thoughts they wished they'd come up with on their own. One was a radio interview where I all but took over for the guy who was supposedly being interviewed, much to the gratitude of both the host and the subject of the interview. But, here's the thing. The thoughts expressed in that interview were mine, regardless how entirely the alleged subject agreed to them.  
  
That's a really weird situation to be in. To realize the guy they're listening to is actually "saying" your words. Sure, he agreed. Sure, I was the "tool" in this scenario. But, here's the thing. It wasn't him. It was me.  
  
And when I generate an AI artifact, so far; that's not me. Or at least that's not sufficiently me.  
  
I'm not quite getting that you understand I'm not so much as even questioning your use of these tools. I'm just telling you what I think most people are thinking, probably subconsciously and at least beyond their ability to articulate properly.  
  
And, I write slowly. Because it's just me.

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resolutionaryman · 5/18/2026, 6:47:44 AM · permalink

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resolutionaryman · 5/17/2026, 4:38:38 AM · permalink

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