[HN Gopher] Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Tr...
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Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic
Author : reddotX
Score : 111 points
Date : 2021-01-09 20:49 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newsweek.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newsweek.com)
| st1x7 wrote:
| It's kind of sad to see how these threads quickly turn into a a
| messy sequence of poorly reasoned arguments or how some people
| are trying to justify really extreme positions.
| slg wrote:
| It is interesting that this comment is written in a
| specifically vague way so no one can tell if the "extreme
| position" you are talking about is hanging the sitting VP or
| censoring social media. Therefore lots of people are going to
| upvote this thinking you are on their side and it is the other
| side that uses "poorly reasoned arguments" to defend their
| "really extreme positions."
| oblio wrote:
| The horoscope of political opinions. Read whatever you wish
| from your daily horoscope! :-)
| st1x7 wrote:
| I was referring to the threats of hanging in this case. I
| phrased it more generally because there are many other
| examples from the similar threads that we've had over the
| past couple of days. It's astounding that I even need to
| clarify this.
| greatgirl wrote:
| This was my thought exactly. It's a technique that i see
| people like Sam Altman and other tech gurus use on twitter.
| Make no specific mention about who or what you're talking
| about, and your words can apply to everything and appeal to
| everyone.
|
| I'll say my own personal quiet part out loud: Every thread on
| this topic has the highest upvoted chain of comments about
| how "Trump was bad, but i worry about the implications of
| banning politicians". This sole statement has been stretched
| to its logical limits. There's very little more to discuss
| about this that is interesting or new.
| harmmonica wrote:
| This would be whack-a-mole otherwise, but when I saw this
| trending the vast majority of the tweets were sharing videos of
| people chanting that slogan in the Capitol amidst the storm. By
| suppressing the sharing of that information people are actually
| less likely to be aware that's what they were chanting (I know I
| would be less aware because that's where I learned about it).
|
| Now I guess there's the potential they weren't actually shouting
| that and it was dubbed, but it seemed credible based on many of
| the sources discussing it on twitter, some of whom were 1 degree
| separated from the source of the video.
|
| Aside: there are so many landmines in me writing this that I
| don't know how to qualify my comments well enough to not be
| accused of something. Guess no one has to say to me "may you live
| in interesting times."
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Is it enough for other news organizations or even more small
| time / personal sources to mirror the videos? Possibly
| something that can convey more context than 280 characters
| allows?
| megameter wrote:
| Even in a low level sense, this is an inherent calculation to
| the doing of moderation. If you let a hot button issue be
| spoken of freely, it dominates the timeline. If you cut it out,
| something else becomes the topic in its place, but that can
| actually help with discussing the issue by forcing it to be
| addressed only indirectly, linked into a larger narrative,
| instead of with reactive side-taking.
|
| Blocking the trend, in this instance, is different from
| blocking the speech.
| creato wrote:
| This is a perfect example of why social media is a total
| disaster and no one should be trusting it for anything at all.
| There are many, many things that seem to be taken as fact on
| social media that are impossible to find on any reputable media
| source. Maybe the crowd was chanting hang Mike Pence, maybe
| not. I'll wait until a credible source reports it. The AP had
| reporters _in the crowd_ (getting assaulted [1]), presumably
| many other organizations did as well, I expect them to report
| what they heard.
|
| There are many other examples (both from this incident and
| others) already prevalent, including on HN, which is really
| depressing.
|
| 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/01/09/he-was-
| docum...
| pantalaimon wrote:
| What else would they be chanting, _Hang my pants_?
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Or perhaps they were chanting "Boo-urns"
| courtf wrote:
| I was saying treas-ump...
| wvenable wrote:
| At least these you don't have to rely on a reputable source
| -- much of what happened in the capitol was captured on
| video. In some cases, it was streamed live.
|
| You still need to take care to see the entire context of the
| situation -- It's still easy to be fooled by a 2 minute clip
| but it's much harder with a 20 minute or hour long clip.
| bjtitus wrote:
| I'm not really sure how a longer clip or even a live stream
| is as reliable as a reputable source + those things. They
| can both be easily dubbed over and manipulated as well. I
| don't think it will be long before this is happening
| regularly.
|
| If a reporter and publication release the evidence and also
| stand by it's authenticity, that definitely lends more
| credence and at least allow you to filter where information
| is coming from by reliability.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Video of the crowd at the Capitol chanting "Hang Mike Pence",
| which was a trivial Google search away.
|
| https://twitter.com/ExportedFromMI/status/134776388564682752.
| ..
|
| Reuters photographer eyewitness confirming it was a common
| refrain and discussed openly.
|
| https://twitter.com/jimbourg/status/1347559078831284227
|
| Myriad videos from the day too of people shouting things like
| "WHERE'S PENCE?", sometimes at capitol police.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Not long ago, there was a #guillotine hashtag on Twitter
|
| https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/guillotine2020?lang=en
|
| Wasn't 'halted'.
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/guillotine
|
| https://mobile.twitter.com/notallbhas/status/124791247934001... :
| Bernie sanders' plan c = guillotine
| nevi-me wrote:
| Whataboutism is a slippery slope. We can't justify action being
| taken by looking at the times it wasn't taken.
|
| What about the idea that the tweet you've linked to was not
| after a sudden mob of violence was mobilised?
| xnx wrote:
| That's an interesting comparison. A generic death threat seems
| very different than one directed at a specific individual.
| trianglem wrote:
| These people are a lost cause. There was a vicious attack on an
| unassuming black woman in LA yesterday where more than 20 trump
| supporters held her down and punched and maced her. These people
| are terrorists and should be dealt with accordingly.
| flowerlad wrote:
| LA Times story on this:
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-08/black-wo...
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| That's a very disturbing read.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I see a of comments like this expressing frustration, but find
| them confusing. They are framed as an opinion or position, but
| don't contain any real substance.
|
| Who exactly are these people?
|
| What exactly do you mean by "to be a "lost cause"?
|
| What does it mean to be treated like a terrorist?
| 45t3424rgf wrote:
| So? Just because a few people did something unacceptable
| doesn't all of them are like this. A while back a child got
| killed named Cannon Hinnant by a black person for no reason
| does that mean we should label all blacks as a terrorist?
| mcphage wrote:
| And what happened to the killer?
| virtual_void wrote:
| When people use violence in the name of a cause then i think
| the cap fits.
|
| Also i think you're making a false equivalence here. There is
| a not insignificant fraction of them willing to be violent
| because because they either don't (or don't want to)
| understand how democracy works.
|
| I think it's fine to lump those people together as domestic
| terrorists.
| adnzzzzZ wrote:
| >I think it's fine to lump those people together as
| domestic terrorists.
|
| You can do that, but after many people in power and
| including in this site supported BLM riots earlier this
| year this rings hollow. It's clear most people don't care
| about violence being a limit given that violence was used
| tremendously throughout the entire year in all those
| protests and supporting them was the trendy position among
| the elites, that now suddenly decided violence must be
| opposed at all costs and those who support it must be
| terrorists. Give me a break.
|
| Call it for what it is, when one side uses violence it's
| good, when the other uses it it's bad, because this is a
| battle, and in a battle all that matters is punishing your
| enemies and rewarding your friends. I'm glad that this is
| becoming more and more clear as time passes and all
| pretense of principles is being dropped, and anyone with
| any sense can see that this is true.
| virtual_void wrote:
| This is still false equivalence.
|
| BLM Didn't use violence to achieve their goals. Quite the
| opposite they were consistently attacked by police
| dressed up like the army, heaving people off the streets.
|
| Where were the police in DC?
|
| This wasn't a protest it was a violent attempt to
| overthrow.
|
| Call it what it is indeed.
| adnzzzzZ wrote:
| >BLM Didn't use violence to achieve their goals.
|
| I don't know how you can reconcile cities being burned,
| statues toppled, police stations being overtaken, parts
| of a city being declared an autonomous zone with
| "violence wasn't used" but whatever, discussion is
| clearly pointless.
|
| I will re-state my claim: this is a battle, and in a
| battle all that matters is punishing your enemies and
| rewarding your friends. When you defend the BLM riots yet
| condemn this one you're engaging in that behavior. You
| can disagree with me all you want but that's the truth to
| anyone who has any sense.
| virtual_void wrote:
| Perhaps saying there was no violence is overstating it
| but it was a very different scale with very different
| intent abhorrent in either case.
|
| People are undoubtedly angry because they are seeking to
| be treated equally. To not be murdered by the police.
| There's still such an astonishing amount of injustice and
| yet they didn't try to overthrow the government.
|
| The crux of my argument is that these two groups are not
| comparable. One seeks equality and the other seeks to go
| against democracy and attempt a coup. This is what i mean
| by false equivalence.
| ericb wrote:
| Reasonable people don't defend violence in _either case_.
|
| You are you defending violence with whataboutism. And
| advocating for Machiavellianism.
|
| Gross.
| adnzzzzZ wrote:
| What's gross is people defending the burning down of
| small businesses during a pandemic.
|
| Either way, reasonable people who don't defend violence
| in either case are irrelevant, because things happen
| through violence regardless. What are you going to do
| about it when a horde of BLM rioters comes for your
| business and burns it down? Have a peaceful conversation
| with them about how much you don't think violence will
| solve the problem? No, you either have a gun or you
| don't.
| virtual_void wrote:
| Why are you now arguing about covid?
|
| The point of your argument is that violence is inevitable
| and therefore good?
| andrewzah wrote:
| People supported BLM -protests-, not riots. The media has
| worked very hard to conflate the two. Nobody wants our
| cities to be destroyed. That was also general rioting,
| not people specifically targeting the U.S. Capitol
| building and going after the politicians inside in order
| to interfere with the election process. It's not really
| comparable unless you omit all context.
| adnzzzzZ wrote:
| President Trump supported the Capitol -protests-, not the
| invasaion. The media has worked very hard to conflate the
| two. Nobody wants our institutional buildings to be
| invaded. That was also a general and very peaceful
| invasion, not people specifically targeting small
| businesses during a pandemic and burning them down for no
| reason other than because they can. It's not really
| comparable unless you omit all context.
| virtual_void wrote:
| Some people clearly do want it. It happened. If trump
| didn't want it he could have stopped it with the platform
| he has / had.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| Well, he did tell people to calm down and go home. May
| have been some of the tweets that were quickly taken
| down?
| [deleted]
| sumpterboy wrote:
| What's next, they won't even sell you the rope at the hardware
| store?
|
| Am I expected to grow my own lynching tree?
|
| Should I accelerate the incubation of my own Mike Pence clone, in
| the basement of my own research lab!?
| wwmjdo wrote:
| Now this is just going too far.
|
| When will the government step in and compel Twitter to respect
| the free speech of these patriotic Americans? Conservative voices
| are being silenced!
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Good. Calls for violence are unacceptable.
| [deleted]
| smadge wrote:
| I think what makes it murky is that it was trending because
| people were likely mostly critically quoting Wednesdays
| insurrectionists, not endorsing their words.
| kerng wrote:
| It was more about documenting what happened a few days ago and
| what intentions the rioters had. That context is lacking and
| should have been provided by Twitter right away when making it
| "trending".
| corytheboyd wrote:
| "Hang Mike Pence" is a call for violence.
| [deleted]
| dgellow wrote:
| That's what some of the protesters were screaming. It
| started trending when people pointed this fact, not as a
| support for it, but because people were freaking out and
| started to document/discuss it.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I get that it was said by protesters, and that it started
| trending because of that.
|
| At the end of the day the phrase "Hang Mike Pence" ended
| up on the trending section of Twitter. Millions of people
| look at this. It was removed by Twitter, and it was the
| right call.
|
| Justifying calls to violence due to "missing context" is
| a poor argument, and now is just not the time to toy with
| being lax on this.
| kerng wrote:
| Documenting and justifying are very different things.
| Seems like the problem is social media.
| xenocratus wrote:
| Maybe they could've called it "Don't Hang Mike Pence" to
| clearly differentiate between the ones who supported and
| the ones who don't? but then again, I'm not up to date
| with Twitter etiquette :)
| 8note wrote:
| Do you think Twitter's algorithm is smart enough to only
| signal boost the documentation? Or will it mix the two
| together?
| francispauli wrote:
| Cop Killer is a great tune though
| easterncalculus wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder if most or all of the problems with major
| social media sites come from trending pages and private groups.
| The concept of keeping up with people online isn't a bad one, but
| so many of the bad stories wouldn't be so terrible if they
| weren't amplified by trending pages or huge private groups.
| Trending pages most consistently, in my opinion.
| [deleted]
| tester756 wrote:
| I considered trying to get visa to USA and work there, but
| honestly last year makes me really worried about living there
|
| is it safe to live there?
| pembrook wrote:
| Of course it is, don't trade the headlines. But it's important
| to know your experience in the US will vary dramatically based
| on economic status.
|
| If you're high income/above-average educated (which you pretty
| much have to be to immigrate to the US due to our overly strict
| immigration system), there's no better place to be. You will be
| able to reach the absolute peak of your potential here. 10/10,
| would immigrate again.
|
| If you're middle of the road on income/education, you'd be
| better off in other developed countries that have robust
| socialized services (healthcare, pension, free education, etc)
| like the Nordics. Most developed countries have a better
| lifestyle for the average person.
|
| If you're below average on income/education, the US is the
| worst of the developed countries to live in. I'd stay far away.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| I live in Pittsburgh, and we recently had the Tree of Life
| Synagogue shooting.
|
| There were also people being threatened along the route of a
| Black Lives Matter protest, who just happened to be there and
| did not join in enthusiastically enough, in the eyes of the
| marching protesters. No one was injured, but from the videos
| it seemed very close to getting out of hand. (Marchers coming
| off the street to verbally accost people sitting outside at a
| restaurant, grabbing drinks off their tables. Marching into a
| McDonalds and verbally harassing the manager...about
| something.)
|
| And of course police going off on protesters, looking for
| excuses to escalate the use of force.
|
| And with police reluctant to engage in communities where they
| are...unpopular...(with reason), murder rates are at their
| highest rates in years in many cities.
|
| And now the unprecedented attack on the capitol.
|
| I feel like I will get responses saying I am understating or
| overstating the violence from "one side" or the other. But my
| point is no one can deny the amount of violence is rapidly
| increasing, and no one really knows if it will get a lot
| worse before it gets better.
|
| I wouldn't recommend anyone coming to the US right now,
| without a good reason.
| kortilla wrote:
| Those are certainly some scary anecdotes you have, but the
| stats don't support them. Things just seem worse because
| the media (and social media) likes to make a political
| spectacle out of everything to drive engagement. Shootings
| are no longer murders, they are events to argue over gun
| control. Terrorist attacks are no longer about the attacks,
| they are used to argue about encryption, the free flow of
| information, and censorship.
|
| These events just seem more frequent because rather than
| being a one day headline they get talked about ad nauseam
| for weeks.
| frongpik wrote:
| I doubt you can get a visa just because you want to work here.
| You need to be invited by a firm like google and even then,
| your chances are like 20%. Or you can be an exceptional
| scientist of some sort. Or you can be just rich and invest a
| million into usa. In either case, your social class will be too
| high to worry about personal safety.
| petschge wrote:
| Depends very much where in the US. And to some extend how you
| look, how you talk and what your gender is. The overwhelmingly
| large majority to places is safe. But every large enough city
| has unsavory places that need at least being aware of what
| (not) to do. But that is similar in a lot of countries.
| almost_usual wrote:
| >Is it safe to live there?
|
| As someone who has lived here my entire life I'm not sure how
| the next month is going to unfold.
|
| Historically though the United States has crime issues, a few
| of the most dangerous cities in the world (not in a war zone)
| are in the US (St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate
|
| https://apnews.com/article/homicide-st-louis-coronavirus-pan...
| SoSoRoCoCo wrote:
| You probably can't get a VISA. Trump really turned the screws
| to the # of available ones, only 85K H1B last year (200,000
| people applied). Might want to wait a year for Biden to fix
| that.
| [deleted]
| st1x7 wrote:
| > is it safe to live there?
|
| This varies a lot depending on where you live, your skin color
| and your socioeconomic status.
| kortilla wrote:
| Yes, it's super safe. The news is playing a game of reality TV
| trying to control narrative in a big political struggle.
|
| This has literally no impact on the day-to-day lives of people
| around the country. Even when the BLM protests were in full
| force, you had to go to specific downtown areas of large cities
| to see anything.
|
| The only thing that happened to real people this year is covid,
| and that does suck. The vaccine should help though.
|
| Do not throw away your future plans based on this drama.
| dmode wrote:
| Why would a Trump supporter want to "hang Mike Pence" when he has
| been loyal to him for 4 years and just did his constitutional
| duty on the 6th ? I am lost for words
| ansible wrote:
| Welcome to identity politics!
|
| There is "us", and there is "them". If you are not a part of
| "us" then you are an enemy. Some of the most dangerous enemies
| are people who previously appeared to be part of "us", but have
| now betrayed our cause.
| nevi-me wrote:
| The extreme supporters are some of the people believing that
| the election was rigged, despite the inability to provide
| information that can convince an unbiased court.
|
| If we extrapolate on this, can't we conclude/believe that some
| people who feel the system is betraying them, would see Mike
| Pence as conspiring with those stealing the elections?
|
| Do some of those people value "constitutional duty" right now?
| If they did, they wouldn't have stormed the Capitol.
|
| It's hard to understand people when there's a certain amount of
| conspiracy theories influencing their emotions. It's
| unfortunately one of the problems with politics. A bunch of
| people who make laws that mostly don't get to apply to them,
| get to say what they want, with little or no accountability.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Trump convinced them Pence had the power to unilaterally
| overthrow the election and make Trump President for a second
| term, so they are upset with Pence for not doing that.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > just did his constitutional duty on the 6th
|
| That's why. They've been told the election has been stolen and
| (the classic cult move) that anyone who disagrees with that is
| a traitor out to get them.
|
| They're _Trump_ supporters. Not broad Republican supporters. It
| 's a personal loyalty cult.
| CPLX wrote:
| Worth noting that sudden executions of the number two in
| command is a pretty common occurrence in authoritarian
| government situations.
| macintux wrote:
| One man's "just did his constitutional duty" is another man's
| "completed a stolen, fraudulent election".
|
| I'm in the first camp, but the fact that an entire news/social
| media ecosystem is promoting the latter interpretation is a
| problem I have no idea how to solve.
| [deleted]
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It's the same old extremist playbook that's been in operation
| in American politics since at least 2001. You're either with us
| or against us, no room for debate, our way or the highway,
| literal saint or literal demon. Then turn around and claim that
| your opponents don't want to hear you out or compromise,
| because to you compromise means getting everything you want.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| It's older than that.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Like probably most people in the discussion here, I think I'm
| smarter than the average person, and can discern the truth from
| multiple conflicting claims.
|
| But a little introspection shows me that no, this isn't really
| true. I'm not hunting down original sources for everything I
| think I know, I'm mostly relying on gatekeepers (experts) to tell
| me what is true.
|
| Unfortunately, in social media, everybody gets to be an expert!
| How can the average person tell?
|
| As much as it goes against my grain, I have to admit that society
| works better when the gatekeepers decide what the truth is, even
| though we know they don't always get it right.
|
| Our current technology allowing any kind of garbage to be
| amplified to the masses is making things worse, not better.
| koolba wrote:
| > Our current technology allowing any kind of garbage to be
| amplified to the masses is making things worse, not better.
|
| And now our current technology owners have decided to only let
| one _flavor_ of garbage be amplified to the masses.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| And what "flavor" of garbage is "hang Mike Pence" exactly?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > And now our current technology owners have decided to only
| let one flavor of garbage be amplified to the masses.
|
| Stopping one particular narrow class of violent incitement is
| still allowing a wide variety of flavors of garbage.
| dustingetz wrote:
| The thing that makes society work better is accountability,
| which lets us cooperate at ever larger scales without cheaters.
| The book "The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise
| and Fall of Nations" describes how the advent of double entry
| accounting meant that you could detect fraud, and suddenly you
| could do things like give your goods to a naval merchant who
| will sail away with them and bring you back the money and it
| works because you can detect any cheating and this is the
| foundation of capitalism (textbook version). You can think of
| the arrow of progress as pointing in the direction of
| increasing accountability . So, the problem with social media
| is that people lie, always have, and it's like we are just
| noticing this for the first time ever, and now we are
| responding to that. Social media is making us more accountable,
| not less! See #MeToo, etc
| netsharc wrote:
| > Unfortunately, in social media, everybody gets to be an
| expert! How can the average person tell?
|
| It's pretty obnoxious and exhausting to read about "Oh yeah, I
| know that's X, because..." on Twitter. Like the whole "It's
| Antifa ambushing the Capitol", because "the Antifa sign is to
| wear your hat backwards", "those are Antifa helmets", or just a
| screenshot of a photo of some guy with the text
| "phillyantifa.org" next to the picture is enough to convince
| some people that, "Yeah, it's Antifa".
|
| It's a cheap grasping for evidence to reaffirm your views/world
| belief though, to fix your cognitive dissonance. Because trying
| to find the whole truth would mean confronting yourself and
| maybe figuring out you've been dumb enough to be lied to. That
| your "team" are the ones who are ready to be violent towards
| members of the government. Or that maybe your views are based
| on your fear of the other...
|
| Also, written 5 years and a month ago
| https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/the-donald-and-...
| :
|
| > I would, however, add a casual observation: at this point
| Trump has been the front-runner for long enough that it's very
| hard to imagine his supporters suddenly losing faith, because
| it would be too embarrassing.
|
| > Bear in mind that embarrassment, and the desire to avoid it,
| are enormously important sources of motivation. [...] Nobody
| likes looking like a chump, and most people will go to great
| lengths to convince themselves that they weren't.
|
| > Now think about someone who has been supporting Trump since
| the summer. For the Trump bubble to burst, many people like
| that would have to slap their foreheads and say, "Wow, he's not
| a serious person! What was I thinking?"
|
| > And very few people ever do that sort of thing. Someone who
| has spent months supporting Trump despite establishment
| denunciations -- which means something like a third of
| Republicans -- will go to great lengths to avoid conceding that
| he has been foolish. At this point such people will insist that
| any negative reports about Trump are the product of hostile
| mainstream media; Trump's very durability so far is likely to
| make him highly resilient looking forward.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| You are right. No one person can know everything about
| everything. Heaven's know I defer to experts if I know I can
| trust their opinion. The issue is trust.
|
| And US has about only one institution left that people seem to
| trust. Military. It does not bode well for the fate of the
| republic.
| lazugod wrote:
| I wouldn't agree that Americans universally trust their
| military.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Gallup poll numbers are at
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-
| institutions.as....
|
| I don't know that "people" in the original argument equates
| to "universally", but the only institutions that a majority
| of people have either a "Great deal" or "Quite a lot" of
| trust in are the medical system (just barely, 51%), the
| military (72%), and small business (75%). So small business
| is trusted more than the military, and basically nothing
| else is.
|
| 6% of people have a great deal of trust in Congress and 9%
| in television news which I guess are around the percentage
| of dentists who recommend sugared gum to their patients who
| chew gum.
| feralimal wrote:
| > I'm not hunting down original sources for everything I think
| I know, I'm mostly relying on gatekeepers (experts) to tell me
| what is true.
|
| Very honest!
|
| > As much as it goes against my grain, I have to admit that
| society works better when the gatekeepers decide what the truth
| is, even though we know they don't always get it right.
|
| No! They don't always get it right?! They are literally there
| to ensure you get it wrong! They really are. They are part of
| the governance structure - they will not tell you the way out
| of this situation, or give you good information.
|
| All I would say, is that you need to ensure that you act on
| what you know. Not on what you believe. Verify everything you
| accept as true or discard or assume it but be prepared to be
| corrected if you get better information. And if it turns out
| that you don't know a whole lot - that is fine! At least you're
| not acting incorrectly and causing problems!
|
| At the end of the day if you are acting on stuff that you don't
| know, you can inadvertently cause more harm, even though you
| mean well. You can be manipulated (easily) to go along with the
| crowd.
|
| All the best.
| netsharc wrote:
| > They are literally there to ensure you get it wrong! They
| really are. They are part of the governance structure - they
| will not tell you the way out of this situation, or give you
| good information.
|
| > Verify everything you accept as true
|
| Hah... so, did you verify this stuff about MSM being a force
| to mislead?
|
| The problem with the Internet nowadays is, it's already like
| a Library of Babel [0], if you want to have your views
| confirmed on anything, you can find someone saying "Yes, it's
| like that.".
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel
| feralimal wrote:
| > Hah... so, did you verify this stuff about MSM being a
| force to mislead?
|
| Its obvious. If you look at what is presented, you are
| given lots of claims, but very few facts. Its just a load
| of evidence-free noise. What's to evaluate?!
|
| Seriously, look a little deeper at almost any article.
| There is no actual information there. The question you
| should ask - critically - is how do I know this to be true?
| And if you don't know it to be true, why do you believe it
| to be true anyway?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| What is the benefit the governance structure derives from
| general misinformation on most topics? Governance is harder
| when people don't know things.
| feralimal wrote:
| Think about it. If people have the wrong information, that
| means that they cannot respond meaningfully. If you are
| swimming in a world of lies, how will you give the correct
| answer?
| npunt wrote:
| On a good day like a third of twitter's trending topics are
| people saying "I can't believe this is a trending topic".
|
| Irrespective of that there's a certain authority imbued with
| words listed in a trending topics section, whether or not the
| user clicks on them. Since trending topics lack context, there's
| a literalism to them that can distort meaning.
|
| As much of this was about a reaction to the video rather than a
| literal interpretation, it would probably be best to reword it
| with more context or make it a news item, if it's to remain up at
| all.
| bra-ket wrote:
| That's very surprising, in a good way.
| Darmody wrote:
| If that was about reporting what happened at the Capitol I don't
| think it should've been removed. But if people was asking in
| Twitter for Pence to be hanged, then yes.
|
| We shouldn't treat the same way reporting violence than violence
| itself.
| gkoberger wrote:
| I don't think I agree. Me tweeting "it's bad to say 'hang mike
| pence'" is still letting the concept of Mike Pence being hanged
| propagate. I mean, we're talking about it right now on Hacker
| News, even!
|
| Toxic ideas are like a virus, and even well-meaning opposition
| can serve as a host, allowing them to spread rapidly rather
| than die out.
| nevi-me wrote:
| True. Not a great example, but "don't think of an elephant"
| is a good example of this effect, where someone who otherwise
| wasn't thinking of elephants, starts thinking of one.
|
| The context of the discussion becomes less relevant if only
| the phrase trends. The seed gets sown in the mind.
| Darmody wrote:
| Then what do you suggest? To we censor the news altogether?
| They report facts and usually they do it on a very
| editorialized way.
|
| Hiding information from the population is what authoritarian
| states do.
| ansible wrote:
| I'm glad they halted that. But it reduces the common area we can
| even discuss anything going on this week in politics.
|
| Taking a step back...
|
| We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each side
| believes they know the truth, and that the other side is
| delusional. And it is easy enough to engage with your media
| outlets of choice, and get your beliefs reinforced.
|
| How can we have a meaningful discussion as a nation, when there
| is no apparent common ground? No set of agreed-upon facts?
|
| Now I of course have my own very strong opinions and I'm sure I
| have a good comprehension of the truth. But that isn't going to
| convince anyone on the other side anymore. To people on one side,
| the other side's minds appear to be just poisoned.
|
| A common tactic to try to get through to the other side is to
| just yell louder. But that isn't working.
|
| What's left? What can be done?
| technothrasher wrote:
| Street Epistemology is the kind of thing I think can ultimately
| be successful. Instead of yelling at people or telling them
| their wrong and you're right, discuss with them how and why
| they come to their beliefs in a non-confrontational way. The
| hopeful result is that you both come away thinking about how
| better to examine what you believe.
| netcraft wrote:
| What is the two sides exactly? There is a group that has
| produced no evidence for their claims and is threatening and
| acting out violence - is that one of the sides?
|
| There is a point in which a particular group is no longer
| acting in good faith, and is taking advantage of the tolerance
| and ability to have discourse.
|
| https://kottke.org/17/08/the-paradox-of-tolerance
| jvreagan wrote:
| You just described both sides.
|
| Side a: 2016 US election was stolen. 2020 was fair and
| square. Side b: 2020 US election was stolen. 2016 election
| was fair and square.
|
| Seems that there are a small number of people who think a)
| both elections were stolen or b) both elections were fair and
| square. They are being drowned out by sides a and b.
|
| If you fit side a or b above, you might want to some logical
| thinking. Pretty simple to see the two sides are simply
| opposite sides of the same coin, both deeped in hypocrisy.
| loopz wrote:
| More like:
|
| 2016 US election had foreign propaganda interference (damn
| our algos weren't good enough!)
|
| 2021 Open violent attack on democratic process to certify
| president election.
| matwood wrote:
| Yeah, I finally had to stop having discussions with MAGA
| family members because the complete lack of good faith.
| Because they are family, I would listen and then spend time
| reading their sources and gathering facts and information to
| have a real discussion around, and as soon as their beliefs
| in a topic were challenged they would fall back to 'what
| about Hilary's emails' or Hunters laptop. It just became
| pointless to have a discussion.
|
| It's cult like. I can't imagine supporting any side or
| politician like these people do.
| blakesterz wrote:
| > We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each
| side believes they know the truth, and that the other side is
| delusional.
|
| You're partially right. We have at least two sides. One side is
| CLEARLY delusional. Fueled by conspiracy theories and lies. We
| also have other sides, but the two sides that get the most
| attention are the only sides that matter. We have one side that
| is most definitely delusional, other sides maybe have members
| who might be, but one side is DOMINATED by delusion.
| ansible wrote:
| And I do have a very strong opinion on all that.
|
| I just wanted to note that the "other side" that I'm not on,
| _also_ believes basically the same thing with regards to my
| side.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There's no reason communications channels need to reenforce
| the deluded side's delusions.
|
| In fact, doing so is probably harmful.
| Renaud wrote:
| Having an opinion you strongly believe in is not enough to
| make it true or right.
|
| The republicans have espoused a dangerous ideology that not
| just allows but welcomes factual untruths and a worrying
| disconnect from rational thought.
|
| There is a need for political parties of various
| philosophical bents to push and pull in different
| directions based on reasoned and informed decisions.
|
| Once you give up that core grounding you basically invite
| fanatism and I don't see what possible positive outcome we
| can expect from this.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| By definition if you are delusional aren't you unaware of it?
| ipsocannibal wrote:
| Only if you truely believe in the delusion. I don't think
| most of the fascist rioters truely believe there was any
| election fraud. I think they needed a public
| rationalization in order to radicalize tacit sympathizers.
| Being delusional is more social acceptable and less
| alarming than being an out and out violent racist
| insurrectionist.
| loopz wrote:
| Many of the hard-core sympathizers haven't heard anything
| else than all the allegations of fraud and stealing. This
| works when the psychopath in chief commit these crimes
| himself, and then projects it to the next unsuspecting
| victim. Thus _the feelings are real_ , but the real fraud
| is the criminal cult leaders. Since people believe
| feelings, or feel to validate thoughts, this works all
| too well!
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| That's likely true for some. But many people do belive
| there was fraud. I think there were some very suspect
| things about the election. But I read Article II, and the
| 12th amendment. The congress is directed to count the
| Electoral votes submitted by the states. It's basically
| ceremonial, _unless_ there is no majority in the
| Electoral vote. There is a process defined for that
| situation. There is not a word about challenging the
| votes as submitted. Mike Pence was absolutely right.
|
| There may or may not have been fraud in any of the
| states. But once they certify their Electors, that's it
| as far as I can see. I honestly don't know if there is a
| remedy even for clear fraud if the state goes ahead and
| certifies the results. In theory a state doesn't even
| need to hold a public vote. The legislature could just
| appoint the Electors. The founding fathers clearly wrote
| the constition to give the power of electing the
| president to the states. Allowing any level of the
| federal government to override that seems to be a
| conflict of interest.
| nightski wrote:
| I'm sorry but just because a small vocal and extreme part of
| the conservative party has chosen to buy into conspiracy
| theories does not mean the entire side has. I know many
| conservatives who have not gone down this path and hate what
| DJT has done to the party.
|
| Calling a huge portion of the country delusional with no
| basis or fact is precisely what is driving this division.
| Both sides have a lot more in common than you might imagine.
| Far more than what they disagree on.
| loopz wrote:
| It would help if compromises would be made in order to
| further progression of society. Politically, you have to
| root out the circus part of the current agenda, meant as
| diversion and confusion tactics.
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| > One side is CLEARLY delusional. Fueled by conspiracy
| theories and lies.
|
| Which set of conspiracy theories? The crazy ones that Trump
| was a Russian asset and everything surrounding that
| nutbaggery for four years?
|
| How about the current nutbaggery from the other extreme that
| this election was stollen through voting machine
| manipulation, ballot stuffing, discarded Trump ballots by
| postal workers, etc.
|
| It's hard for me to get upset at either side when it all
| looks so insane.
| loopz wrote:
| It's plain Trump admires Putin, and even fell in love with
| Kim Il-Sung. You can't box in that person as a normal human
| being, but have to see past the appearances what he truly
| aspires too. More and more people realize this now, but
| many of us have revealed this for many years already.
| Especially past victims will tell you horror-stories. What
| happened now was to be expected, and worse.
| skosuri wrote:
| For the last twenty years I thought things would eventually
| just come back to center. I'm not sure anymore. It's possible
| it's as follows: One side will win. History will be written by
| those winners. Pick your side and fight for it?
| geofft wrote:
| I think this is true, and I think this is also the
| historically precedented answer. The partisanship in Europe
| in the early 20th century was not resolved by debate or
| belief, it was resolved by war and more generally political
| realignment. The vast divide between capitalism and communism
| was resolved by cold "war," by two superpowers aligning one
| with each and declaring the opposing ideology a security
| threat and then trying to starve out the other.
|
| I think we can avoid another major war, but I don't think we
| can avoid one _ideology_ winning and one losing.
| nightski wrote:
| This is the fight we are being led into but there is another
| way. Compromise and working together. Truth be told it would
| be the best for both sides, and both sides are equally as
| guilty in not achieving it.
| drewcon wrote:
| There are most certainly more than two sides.
| beefield wrote:
| To me it looks like the issue is lack of "perceived respect"
| (more complex than that, but I use a simple word to describe
| whole thing) from the "other side". Now, one side would need to
| somehow get the other side convinced that yes, we respect you
| as human beings even if we disagree on some things. And that
| respect does _not_ just mean nice words, but also actual
| policies which make people (not their opinions) thrive. Bad
| news is that it is not an easy task - for either side.
|
| Due to the election results, it is now Democrats' turn to see
| how they can start to heal the nation. It is imperative that
| they see that the reason for Trump's success is not racism or
| misogyny of Trump's supporters. The real reason is that there
| are lots of people who think that their life is not good. And
| _that_ needs to be fixed. Bad news again is that it is not
| easy. Even worse is that if you fail, escalation continues and
| at some point you are looking at breaking the country or even
| civil war.
| jturpin wrote:
| I have absolutely no idea what can be done. I think the best
| thing that could most realistically happen is that things "cool
| off" in the months after Biden is inaugurated and the world
| continues to spin.
| amluto wrote:
| Try to steer people to the media outlets that are still mostly
| balanced? NPR comes to mind. Or encourage people to read a
| leftish and a rightish source? And encourage people to think
| for themselves?
|
| It would also be nice, albeit maybe very hard, to encourage
| even the less balanced media to try to speak to everyone and to
| write critically and honestly. For example, I personally lean
| left, but I find the New York Times to be increasingly vapid
| and unthinking.
|
| In general, if you're reading news (or Twitter!) just to find
| people who agree with you, you're doing it wrong. This is true
| regardless of political party.
| netsharc wrote:
| I've got someone, who when I sent her links to The Guardian
| or other MSM sites, said "They're paid off by Rockerfellers
| and Rotschilds to report made up stories". Snopes? She sent
| me a link to a blog that mentioned some Snopes scandal, as if
| saying Snoopes can't be trusted 100% (and yeah sadly there
| was a scandal involving the founders of Snopes).
|
| Of course she has her cheap-o fake-news Wordpress sites as
| her "sources" about her "knowledge", and she's convinced
| they're telling the truth. I end up seeing the equivalance,
| why do I believe the network of MSM sites are telling the
| truth when she can believe the same thing of the network of
| fake-news sites? One thing is, MSM sites fact-check each
| other, but a lot of things she thinks are fake news aren't
| being "fact-checked" by MSM...
|
| A funny thing though, she's a "Bill Gates wants to kill
| Africans through vaccinations", and she said "Search for this
| theory, but don't use Google, they're paid off by big pharma,
| use Duck Duck Go.". Then I had to tell her, "You do know Duck
| Duck Go uses results from Bing... which is owned by
| Microsoft?" (I think she knows the BG/Microsoft connection).
| im3w1l wrote:
| It's kind of interesting. "Billionaire wants to kill black
| people" sounds like a leftwing conspiracy. I wonder why
| rightwingers are the ones believing that one. Just a
| general tendency to believe in conspiracy theories?
| adrr wrote:
| Have you talked to these people? My mother in law calls all
| media "fake news". She's gets all her information from
| YouTube. She'll sit for hours watching the shows each day.
| There is no convincing her. Literally believes the other
| should be shot. Not amount of evidence will change her mind.
| She's catholic even the pope couldn't change her beliefs.
| jimbokun wrote:
| NPR does a good job of presenting the basic facts in their
| news segments, but their commentary, editorial, and human
| interest programming is 100% progressive.
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| Can you give me an example of a story you believe is
| overtly "progressive"?
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| How about the story that gave serious airtime to the book
| "In Defense of Looting" [0], which as the title implies,
| wholeheartedly condoned the looting and rioting that
| occurred during the summer protests.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/90
| 6642178...
| ansible wrote:
| While you may believe that NPR is mostly balanced, I assure
| you that one side does not. They view it with derision, and
| believe it is the epitome of bias. And they will view just
| about any media source not aligning with their view
| similarly.
| [deleted]
| matwood wrote:
| > NPR comes to mind.
|
| Haha, you realize that the right considers NPR Marxist
| propaganda?
| feralimal wrote:
| > No set of agreed-upon facts?
|
| This is the core problem. Who do you trust? Fox news or CNN.
|
| The answer for me is I trust no one. They are all liars. I
| verify for myself. All governance (government, legal, media,
| military, education, etc) is there to foster a divisive
| situation as that makes us easier to rule. When people are
| divided they will not see the plans that are being executed and
| how they are pawns in a larger game.
|
| You can call it delusional or conspiracy, but there are plans -
| you can very easily see these on the WEF's website, or read
| about them in Klaus Schwabb's book. If you don't want to see
| what is in store for you, what can I say? Switch the news back
| on, and have a good life.
|
| The truth is that there are a controlling group of people that
| are entirely unaccountable - governments and voting provide
| them with a buffer from people - they enact their plans
| regardless of all that. And further to that, most of us are in
| an impossible situation that we can do very little about. BLM
| or MAGA protests - its all the same.
|
| If you want to talk about solutions, the only answers are
| disengagement from the system. And if you go deep into that,
| the only answer is disengagement from the legal system. If
| there is one thing that causes the issues we have, its that we
| believe we are the legal name that we have a birth certificate
| of. And on it, it says 'this certificate cannot be used as
| proof of ID'.
|
| The only law 'they' are happy for us to break, is the one where
| we use the legal name. You are not the legal name. You may not
| know who you are, but you are not that..
|
| It is illegal to use the legal name. When we do so, we are
| acting with dishonour. And that is where our problems begin.
| And also where they can end.
| zamfi wrote:
| > How can we have a meaningful discussion as a nation, when
| there is no apparent common ground? No set of agreed-upon
| facts?
|
| It's worse than this. Even just presenting facts that are
| inconvenient or go against the desires of beliefs is enough to
| make you an enemy / part of the other side, no questions asked.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This dance never ends. Soon enough people's behavior will
| evolve and the groups will start calling themselves the same
| ways PACs do ( you know, American Roads, Appleplie And Flag for
| Orphans Foundation ). We already had an indication with Bogaloo
| group ( although for them it the name was something of an
| inside joke ). This is why censorship is effectively self-
| defeating.
|
| If 50% of US population, apparently, thinks that hashtag is
| valid, you can rest assured it will either surface in some
| cloaked form ( say, bunnies for adoption ), or worse, it will
| disappear from the radar where LEOs will not be able to easily
| track it ( and boy can they easily track it now ).
|
| I may be coming across as a free speech fundamentalist, but
| that is the problem with actual rights. You tend to defend
| assholes since they are the ones who tend to push the envelope.
|
| I don't want to dance this dance. Its trajectory tends to end
| somewhere around Xi banning Winnie and number 8 ( ie. shit
| getting ridiculous ). It is not fun in the meantime.
| [deleted]
| geofft wrote:
| I think the idea that the "sides" are roughly equally balanced
| is a false narrative pushed by the smaller side. Obviously
| "hang Mike Pence" isn't an appealing idea to anywhere near 100%
| of Republican voters, and I would wager it's appealing to just
| about 0% of non-Republican voters.
|
| What you're seeing is that the amount of yelling is roughly
| equally balanced, but you can't extrapolate from that to what
| all people actually believe. Obviously you won't find common
| ground for every single person, but there is common ground for
| 80-90% of them.
|
| A few more bits of information:
|
| - There's Mike Pence himself, the actual vice president of the
| United States, and his unwillingness to go along with the
| worldviews of those who have by now concluded he needs to be
| hanged.
|
| - Mitt Romney, the actual Republican presidential candidate in
| 2012 (who won 47% of the popular vote), has been pretty
| strongly opposed to the idea that Trump secretly won / would
| have won, to the coup, etc. Previously he marched in Black
| Lives Matter protests and voted to convict the President in the
| impeachment trial last year. (Romney also created Romneycare,
| the model for Obamacare, even though if you listen to how
| loudly people yell, it seems like half the country opposes it.)
|
| - Georgia elected two Democratic Senators. More generally, the
| Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013 and several states are
| actively engaged in gerrymandering and voter suppression
| efforts. The fact that you see Republicans roughly tied with
| Democrats doesn't indicate that Republican policies are equally
| popular.
|
| And, again, the "side" that advocates for "hang Mike Pence" is
| hardly the totality of the Republican Party.
|
| So what can be done?
|
| I think the highest-impact thing is to help out efforts to re-
| enfranchise Americans and end gerrymandering. The work
| coordinated by Stacey Abrams in Georgia is a good place to
| start, for instance. _Regardless of what party or policies you
| support_ , if you believe in democracy, getting elections to be
| more representative can only be a good thing. And in
| particular, if you're right-leaning but worry that the
| Republican Party is going too far, making it so that the party
| has to compete by convincing centrists instead of being able to
| rely on extremists will be good for the party.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| It's odd to me how someone could think that there is more
| hatred for Mike Pence coming from within his own party vs.
| outside of it. I don't know what social media circles you've
| participated in for the past 5 years, but it seems clearly
| the opposite case to me. There is an overwhelmingly large
| group of people online who equivocate Mike Pence with Nazism,
| and they regularly call for punching and killing of anyone
| who has that label. Last August, a Trump supporter was killed
| at a Portland BLM protest, where afterwards into the
| microphone the organizer yelled "I am not sad that a f*cking
| fascist died tonight. He was a f*cking Nazi. Our community
| held its own and took out the trash." Many young people
| praised this. I do not believe the remarks would have been
| different if it were Pence in the same situation.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > No set of agreed-upon facts?
|
| That's just not true.
|
| There are good statistics on the number of deaths and positive
| tests for Covid.
|
| There is a reliable and agreed upon process for counting votes
| in the states, and plenty of avenues to dispute those counts,
| and a court system that has heard every single complaint from
| the losing Presidential candidate and made clear rulings based
| on the evidence.
|
| What is abundantly plain from this week, is there is a very
| large number of people who clearly just wanted to bash some
| heads and break a lot of stuff and threaten more violence. They
| felt untouchable and that no rules applied to them.
|
| These people have zero interest in finding objective truths
| about the world. They just enjoy the feeling of power over
| other people and they use words in whatever way thinks will
| increase that power, regardless of any connection to the truth.
| ansible wrote:
| Let me be very clear, I do wish there was an objective set of
| facts that are agreed to by both sides. But that doesn't seem
| to be true anymore.
|
| > _There are good statistics on the number of deaths and
| positive tests for Covid._
|
| There is a significant segment of the population that
| believes the virus is a hoax, or not nearly as bad as the
| media says. Done of these people, even while dying from the
| virus, are still in denial, and yell at the Mexican staff
| about it.
|
| Go watch some interviews with doctors and nurses. It will
| make you very sad and disappointed in humanity.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| > made clear rulings based on the evidence.
|
| At least some, maybe most of those challenges were dismissed
| on procedural grounds, lack of standing, etc. They never got
| to the point of examining the "evidence." Maybe the retort to
| that is the challengers should have foreseen that. But the
| people filing these challenges were not unhinged randos from
| Twitter. They were elected officials, lawyers, educated
| people. They aren't going to go into court with something
| they _know_ is frivolous.
|
| Given that a sizable minority (and likely unprecedented
| number) of the voting public thinks there was fraud in the
| 2020 election, maybe it would have been better to have
| rebutted the evidence rather than the process.
|
| https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-
| reports/20...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > We've got these two sides.
|
| No, we don't have two sides.
|
| We've got, to reduce the complexity quite a bit but identify
| some factions with very distinct (though overlapping in various
| combinations) current interests: progressive Democrats and
| corporate neoliberal Democrats and moderate Republicans and
| conservative Republicans unequivocally appalled at the MAGA
| insurrection and those overtly supportive of the MAGA
| insurrection and mostly-conservative Republicans overtly
| opposed to the MAGA insurrection but eager to push it off the
| radar.
| quest88 wrote:
| There are more than two sides.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I think the problem appears much worse on twitter than it
| really is. It rewards narcissists and trolls. The far right and
| far left love fighting online, but in reality most people are
| somewhere in the center of the two, watching quietly. There is
| still some good, if not perfect, discussion on HN and other
| places. I havent seen people calling for public executions here
| at the very least. The sun will burn out before the twitter
| mobs learn to be decent to each other, it's best to just
| disregard them.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't know what to say to people who want someone else
| killed...
| ansible wrote:
| Almost everyone (including really terrible people) don't want
| _people_ killed. That is why it is often necessary to de-
| humanize the enemy. We give them labels, make them not worthy
| of the protections of civil society, and then it is justified
| if they die. Because they are not _people_ anymore.
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| I think your comment is being misunderstood. I interpreted
| it to mean that most people don't naturally have the
| capacity to kill others who they identify as equals, and
| that's why many extremist groups take steps to _other_
| their targets.
|
| I get the sense that people are reading it to mean that the
| rioters at the capital _hadn 't_ been radicalized like
| this. Or that dehumanizing people in that way is somehow
| okay. Perhaps you can clarify.
|
| I tend to believe that, thankfully, most people don't have
| the capacity for extreme violence at a moment's notice. It
| takes intense conditioning. The US military started to
| emphasize this [1](paywalled) after it was discovered that
| even during combat, _while people were shooting at them_ ,
| most soldiers didn't try to kill their enemy or even fire
| their weapon [2].
|
| So it seems like the highest priority is to re-humanize the
| "normies" and "communist antifa spies" or whatever nonsense
| phrase these extremists are using. I have *absolutely* no
| idea how to do that, but it must be done.
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/killing-does-
| not-com...
|
| [2] https://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-
| soldier...
| playtriot wrote:
| That's not quite it either, the truth is actually worse.
|
| We know the other side are people, the fact that we insult
| them acknowledges that. Think of hitler youth forcing a
| rabbi to scrub the pavement on their hands and knees. The
| cruelty is intentional, not based on seeing them as less
| than human.
| hehehaha wrote:
| That's just not true. We have nearly an entire human
| history to prove otherwise. The only reason why we stopped
| killing each other is due to nuclear bombs.
| xnx wrote:
| You should reread he parent comment. I think you agree.
| It describe the steps as:
|
| 1) Dehumanize the enemy
|
| 2) Kill/eliminate the inhuman enemy (no longer considered
| to be people)
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| You say nothing. You just be happy they are stupid enough to
| say it in public and see if they end up on LEO radar. I am
| sure threatening VP is treated with same severity as
| threatening P.
| meesterdude wrote:
| Can confirm - i've retweeted some of the recent "hang mike pence"
| related tweets.
|
| The great thing, that this title doesn't clarify, is that a lot
| of the trending tweets (at least of recent, and what i RT) are
| not promoting the hanging of pence, but speaking out against it
| and the people who say it.
|
| I've never liked mike pence, we have opposing perspectives - but
| man, i have never even thought about hanging him. But these
| rioters, who in theory are part of his party, were there and
| ready to hang him because he didn't do what they wanted, just did
| his job. Something I have to give him credit for.
| isoskeles wrote:
| I've (anecdotally) observed this is the case with some trending
| topics. You'll go check out something like #BabyKillingIsGood
| (not real, I made this hash tag up obviously), thinking, wow
| that's crazy, the hashtag invokes an idea I find quite
| objectionable as would any reasonable person. And 99.9% of the
| tweets on that hash tag are, "Um, actually, killing babies is
| not good. #BabyKillingIsGood #DumbIdea #No #Disagree #Etc."
| TT3351 wrote:
| Great for engagement
| isoskeles wrote:
| Yeah, got me to click. After seeing enough of that, I
| stopped assuming the topic indicated support (or lack of
| support) for the idea it conveyed. They became less
| interesting to me at that point.
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