oh, come on. Frankly, I think demonizing each other is the real damage being done online and in the media lately.
I'm happy to admit I downvoted the above comment because it's jumping to conclusions and charged with hyperbole.
I think what's more concerning is the decisive language and open calls for conflict I've seen on social media. ...and I think we need to really pause for a moment and remember back, maybe 5-6 years ago to see how we got here...
When Obama was President, the ADL reported that there were, maybe 2000, Nazis and KKK members in the US. Tho THOUSAND. That's it. No one talked about the KKK or Nazis. How did we go from that to people accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being a Nazi?
At first, I was surprised that certain things became more mainstream on Reddit - like the open disdain for the concept of "compromise", the acceptance that their own news sources are biased, and the downward spiral of political posts to simply posting insults - there isn't even an effort to make an argument anymore.
Initially, I chalked it up to the extremist tendency of the two-party system - but I'm starting to think there is something more sinister going on. There are too many new accounts demanding violence. Too many international posters with no skin in the game voting for the worst responses. Too many threads where people refuse to discuss and talk only about punitive, and often violent, actions. This is conveniently exactly what the FBI reported Russian online teams were doing4 years ago. Maybe they're still at it?
I hope you'll join me in not throwing name calling around. Encouraging more intelligent discourse - at least on HN? ...and try to believe me when I say that I honestly believe(d) some idiot intern just posted an upside-down red triangle.
I'm being downvoted into oblivion in this thread, that's ok, I'll go ahead and burn what little karma I have left to attempt to make my point.
Our passions are easily manipulated. When you have sacred cows and official truths, you enable the very thing you're trying to fight.
Take a look at the "I punch Nazi's" crowd. That sort of outrage reaction was understandable in the context of Nazi's.
Yet that sentiment was exploited. The definition of a Nazi was expanded to include anyone who voted for Trump, for example.
Violent attacks based on politics became normalized.
For the folks who are downvoting the comments I've made in support of freedom of expression and critical thought: can you honestly not understand the dangers of the path you're going down?
It seems that it's become completely normal to dehumanize people amongst people on the US right.
It's become so normal that every other thread here will refer to "degenerates" or similar terrible terms for political opponents, and sadly the moderators seem to think this is normal as well.
If you're slightly to the left of Hitler and live in the US, you should arm yourself now, before it's too late.
I think the growing Nazi movement is a far more serious sign of an unhealthy political culture than some anti-nazi hyperbole on twitter.
I agree we should be careful not to paint with too broad a brush but it's obvious the GOP has a very very real Nazi problem (the man they elected President went on tv yesterday and normalized them). Maybe some of the hyperbole will serve as a wake-up call to the fake centrists who whisper "I'm against Nazis" and shout "the reaction to Nazis is the real problem here".
I used to think it was fairly easy to identify who was/is a "Nazi" or Nazi sympathizers (The Daily Stormer obviously passed the smell test). What I'm concerned about is that the scope of who's included in that group seems to be expanding. Immediately after Chancellorsville plenty of Liberal pundits, on and off Twitter, explicitly stated there was no difference between Republicans and the NRA and Nazis, which is of course a ludicrous statement. But people don't think it's ludicrous anymore. It seems a reasonable expectation at this point that this expansion will continue, because anyone who doesn't sufficiently condemn/signal their agreement with policing speech in this manner might find themselves branded a "Nazi sympathizer". Is this where we're headed? I sincerely hope not, because it's going to lead to a frightening trend of self-censorship. This is a sign of a seriously unhealthy political culture.
I've seen plenty of people, these last few days, using those exact same acts of violence to label every Republican a Nazi. It's been hard to avoid on social media. I've seen an equal number insisting that the definition of Nazi is crystal clear and anyone who suggests otherwise is covering for Nazis.
Thing is, the latter never seem to aim their ire at those who are actually stretching the definition of Nazi to tarnish their political opponents. It's always aimed at those who observe this happening and criticise it.
Looking at this thread, references to Nazis, KKK etc. are fairly frequent.
One of the curses of the woke movement is the loss of the ability to distinguish between really bad things and banalities. Nothing is banal anymore.
If a Cuban guy writes something unflattering about SV women in his book, it might not be pretty, but it is a far cry from "let's roll our armored brigades through the continent, enslave unwanted ethnic groups and gas millions of people as subhumans" or "lynch blacks and terrorize entire cities".
Signatories of the "fire him" letter do not seem to distinguish that anymore. That is the fruit of the victim mentality tree, watered with everyday Twitter outrage. Nothing is banal and every crisis must be escalated to verbal equivalent of nuclear war.
I wonder if tech rotted our minds. Social networks are full of vicious, all-out conflicts that nevertheless do not cause any visible physical destruction and fatalities - or at least, most of the time. Thus, we are losing our ability to de-escalate, compromise and move beyond. But precisely this ability is the core of diplomacy, as opposed to constant wars that plagued the world previously. This is a dangerous way to go. It feels like a prelude to the religious wars of the 1600s and 1700s. [0]
Have you considered that we see the growing use of Nazi lingo because the amount of violence being committed by neo-nazis is rising?
You can say 'believe whatever you want', but what we've clearly seen is that belief turning into action. This in turn is why platforms are taking action against them.
I definitely agree that it's tricky, and I don't think "Nazis" are the only threat we face today. Anybody whose approach to discourse is to shout down ideas rather than engage with them in good faith or just ignore them and walk away is suspect, IMO.
For instance, after 2020 so far I'm definitely at the point where I have serious doubts about the judgment of any Trump supporter or even any Republican voter, but if they try to have a real conversation with me it's not like I'm going to start yelling and throwing punches. On the other hand, if they're driving around outside a hospital screaming at nurses and threatening them, I'd be more in favor of "sanctions" against that person because I think that sort of conduct goes beyond mere expression. The right seems to delight in conflating violence and threat with free expression.
Illiberalism seems to be winning, unfortunately. The purity spiral crap on the left is just as upsetting to me as the right's zeal for ignorance, even if I don't think it's doing nearly as much damage right now.
It becomes a problem when people subscribe to the "punch a Nazi" theme and then label all Trump supporters as Nazis. It's an 'end justifies the means' mentality which is troubling.
I'm not defending them at all, and if I came across that way then I've clearly had a failure to communicate. Please believe me when I say that I absolutely do not defend, agree or otherwise support such people because I do not.
Taking a few steps back, the thing I was trying to hit on was that we're approaching a lot of issues/disagreement today as if one side is somehow on the same level as those groups simply because they share a base idea. "Trump is the next hitler". "Remoaners should be hung for treason" etc.
There is a difference to me between nationalists who have a political view I disagree with and groups of extremists who call for genocide. I think it's dangerous that we aren't just censoring the people who make those calls, but those who promote the political ideas which lay behind both groups. It's a slippery slope.
Calling for violence against is incitement and largely illegal although I don't know the specifics. I'm fairly sure if I stood up in the middle of my city and called for a group to be killed then I would be stopped though and I think that;s fair. Calls like that are the point beyond the end of "my fist" going back to the quote.
All I've been trying to say is, we increasingly brush off and dismiss people on one side or another of debate as being the extreme of either of those sides and this is to our detriment. We're either "lefty loony EU slaves" or "racist bigots" and it's a pattern I see growing.
Everyone has a right to an opinion. Nazi groups want hyper-nationalistic government polcies? Then talk about it. They are calling for murder? No, that's not the same thing.
Nazis and white supremacists are still shown in a negative light. In fact, I'd say it's even more negative now with people openly suggesting violence against them ("punch a nazi"...). I think the problem with all of this, and one that we're experiencing now is the widening of the definition of nazi and white supremacists. That's where the danger lies and that's where free speech is most valuable. Once you say it's ok to censor nazis then the game changes to redefining your opponents as nazis.
A lot of people will say people who wear MAGA hats are white supremacists for instance. It's a slippery slope, and a dangerous one.
That's great until the mob with torches are outside your door calling for your blood. Intolerance will always win if you insist on every issue being a "both sides" debate. It's the same as trying to argue with a creationist, antivaxer or flat earther; there cannot be a reasonable discussion if one or more sides have no facts to stand on (master race bollux was bad science back in the 1920s and hasn't gotten better).
No one is loosely throwing around the term Nazi, these groups self identify as American nazis, carry fucking nazi flags, are on video chanting "jews will not replace us". Also these groups aren't new; they've been around for years technology has just amplified their voice. You don't need The Daily Stormer and its ilk to come to an informed decision on "are Nazis bad" just open a history book.
There's a valuable discussion to be had about whether it makes sense for the internet to not be a public run utility (and thus subject to full 1st amendment protections). But so long as we're leaning on the free market to sort things out, you're on the wrong side of history if Nazis are the cause you want to defend.
The problem seems to be that on many platforms, advocating something like enforcing existing immigration law gets you downvoted and shouted down as though you were advocating gassing the Jews. It seems to be even less tolerated than more extremist comments, because actual-Nazi comments get publicized as "look how terrible The Other Side is" whereas a more reasoned right-wing position might actually convince people.
For example, the top level comment in this thread has been flagged to death even though its gist is that people should look for news from multiple perspectives.
And when you have that kind of populist sentiment attacking anything that questions the party line, reasoned counterargument gets mushed into the same outlets that carry extremist conspiracy theories because they're the only ones not being cowed. Which naturally leads to the kind of polarization we've been seeing lately where both sides move away from the middle.
Oh man, yeah... we have literal Nazis rallying with the tacit approval of the president (BTW, using the same anti-Semitic rhetoric you mention), but Antifa are the Nazis now.
WOW, the cognitive dissonance is so strong, you'll blow a gasket when you finally decide to be honest with yourself and admit you are part of the problem.
Not OP, but you'd have to have blinders on to not see the political left increasingly branding everyone they disagree with as evil / Nazis / white supremacists. That's what happened above, and you're rationalizing it here.
It's going to be such a long slog until the election.
Already, there is an increase in the number of articles meant to subtly smear people. Call them racists, neo Nazis, extremists, etc. On the other side, photos of Antifa, anarchists and other extremists will be shown.
Please do your best to look for the truth. The vast, vast majority of people are good. (To be sure, there are some bad ones. But they do not dramatically increase in number as an election draws near!)
It is completely evil to sow the seeds of fear, doubt and hatred in this manner. Please look to the good in people. Turn away from the hatred.
Edit: I am in no way excusing neo Nazis, alt-right, alt-left, Antifa, etc.
I am saying that these nutballs are few and far in between. Almost everybody you meet out on the street today is going to be a decent person.
It's probably an opinion because it's not provably true. There is no mainstream Nazi party today so I don't understand how your example is meaningful or relevant.
Anyways, if you're in the U.S., I assume you're referring to the Democrat party as the party of demonization? They are the party whose members are most likely to be involved in demonization of other groups. Here's some examples:
It is a problem, but not the way you are exaggerating it to be. You act as if there is a nazi army ready to march on the nation, but that's not happening. We do have pockets of bigots and racists and god knows what else, but they don't have huge bases of support unless we act like they do. Nazis want to feel important, they want people to get riled up and fight them. That's what the actual nazis did.
ordinary Nazi running around and slapping PoC
There are a lot of bigots and racists doing thaT, but unless we're being really loose with the term nazi, we don't actually have that many nazis running around.
Their worst acts were in the mid 1990s (OKC). Hell, in 1999 in Jasper, some racists lynched a man. 1999! Those people have always been around, they always will be around. There's always going to be some number of incidents. That does not mean they have real power nor should people act like they do.
I'm happy to admit I downvoted the above comment because it's jumping to conclusions and charged with hyperbole.
I think what's more concerning is the decisive language and open calls for conflict I've seen on social media. ...and I think we need to really pause for a moment and remember back, maybe 5-6 years ago to see how we got here...
When Obama was President, the ADL reported that there were, maybe 2000, Nazis and KKK members in the US. Tho THOUSAND. That's it. No one talked about the KKK or Nazis. How did we go from that to people accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being a Nazi?
At first, I was surprised that certain things became more mainstream on Reddit - like the open disdain for the concept of "compromise", the acceptance that their own news sources are biased, and the downward spiral of political posts to simply posting insults - there isn't even an effort to make an argument anymore.
Initially, I chalked it up to the extremist tendency of the two-party system - but I'm starting to think there is something more sinister going on. There are too many new accounts demanding violence. Too many international posters with no skin in the game voting for the worst responses. Too many threads where people refuse to discuss and talk only about punitive, and often violent, actions. This is conveniently exactly what the FBI reported Russian online teams were doing4 years ago. Maybe they're still at it?
I hope you'll join me in not throwing name calling around. Encouraging more intelligent discourse - at least on HN? ...and try to believe me when I say that I honestly believe(d) some idiot intern just posted an upside-down red triangle.
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