[HN Gopher] Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked...
___________________________________________________________________
Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon
documents
Author : hi5eyes
Score : 31 points
Date : 2023-04-12 20:01 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| >"Losers. That's who the U.S. government really has to fear."
|
| The New York Times has published, by my count, 15 articles on
| this leak in the past 7 days.
| colpabar wrote:
| Could you explain what you're implying because I don't get it
| Kenji wrote:
| [dead]
| v0idzer0 wrote:
| NYT gets so much mileage out of "researchers say" and "experts
| say" yet they never cite anyone
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Is Discord PR active in this thread? TFA centers on that
| platform, with 4chan being mentioned only a handful of times, yet
| this thread so far is completely focused on 4chan.
| dmreedy wrote:
| I think more likely there are just a lot of 4chan users on this
| site. And some subset of those take perceived attacks like
| these quite personally.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I was joking- I think it's just HN being really good at
| jumping down the wrong rabbit holes and bike-shedding ad
| nauseam, while completely missing the point of an OP.
| diamondfist25 wrote:
| [flagged]
| beebmam wrote:
| I think the accusation that 4chan is a far-right message board is
| accurate, and I believe that accusation can be supported by
| showing that 4chan's explicitly stated rules can be used to
| plausibly deny this accusation, while demonstrating that they're
| are not enforced (or selectively enforced).
|
| 4chan's Rule 3: "You will not post any of the following outside
| of /b/: Troll posts, Racism, Anthropomorphic ("furry")
| pornography, Grotesque ("guro") images..."
|
| These rules are constantly being violated across many of the
| boards, and moderators rarely take action on some of the boards
| when posts are reported unless they explicitly violate US law.
| I've seen so many threads get to 400+ replies and fall off the
| boards, threads that blatantly violate these rules. The period of
| time after the 2020 election was brutal, an enormous amount of
| violent and racist content was not removed.
|
| Rules are often even selectively enforced, sculpting narratives
| that moderator cliques decide on (see /pol/ for example).
|
| At some point, it's worthwhile to ask "who benefits?" from these
| rules not being enforced. The kind of content that doesn't get
| moderated is strictly far-right stuff.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Anthropomorphic furry porn is right wing now? I think there are
| some people for whom "offensive to me," "offensive to others,
| and "right wing" are equivalent terms. All your post does is
| prove that you fall into that category. Live Leak death videos
| and racist jokes are no more "right wing" than pedophilia is
| "left wing" (which is to say that it isn't).
|
| Now some people break down racism in some weird way where
| bigotry towards Africans or Hispanics is "right wing" and
| bigotry toward Caucasians and Asians is "left wing," but those
| people are laughable in their tribalistic thinking and weird
| politicization of everything.
| [deleted]
| flangola7 wrote:
| Have you even been on 4chan before? This isn't some nuanced
| "what actually is systemic bigotry?" question. "Ni**s and
| tra**s should all be burned alive and there should be
| bounties that pay for it" is not a subtle message. Yet it is
| a sentiment that is visible (and often verbatim) in every
| thread, and which receives supportive replies.
| carom wrote:
| There are people of all political persuasions on 4chan. You're
| free to go on there and deride any white nationalists you see.
| No one will ban you.
| enlyth wrote:
| Yeah you can argue that /pol/ sways far right and you'd be
| correct, and I don't personally condone most of the opinions
| that are represented there, but take a look at the general
| threads, you have a pro-ukraine one and an anti-ukraine one,
| both with equal representation. I can't think of any other
| site that has this. Any other website following the classical
| formula of pseudonyms and upvotes/downvotes, like Reddit,
| hackernews, and so on, are destined to be an echo chamber.
| You can feel it here too, even though HN is heavily
| moderated.
|
| And say what you want about 4chan, but the most popular open
| source machine learning frontends come from /g/, that is,
| Automatic1111's stable diffusion, ComfyUI from Comfyanomyous,
| and oobabooga text-generation-ui for running LLMs locally.
| It's a place which is hostile to the lowest common
| denominator of the internet, which functions as a great
| filter for better or worse.
|
| If you want a comfortable safe space that shields you from
| being offended, the popular social networks are great for
| you, but if you have thick skin and can handle unfiltered
| conversation, there is nothing more visceral and organic than
| 4chan, despite all its warts.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| > You're free to go on there and deride any white
| nationalists you see
|
| Yes but you can do this anywhere. There are a limited number
| of places where you can openly be a white nationalist without
| being banned, 4chan is one of them.
| carom wrote:
| You can also be a communist. You can also be an open source
| maximalist. You can also be a gay dog furry. You can also
| be trans. You can also be extremely autistic.
|
| It is good to have a place where people can exist as
| themselves and be exposed to different ideas. I would wager
| that most people who go there are far more accepting than
| the general population.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| What is it that you feel like you gain from being exposed
| to white nationalism?
|
| Being unfazed by horrors isn't a virtue, having scarred
| your soul like this isn't something to be proud of. You
| _should_ be uncomfortable talking to a nazi! You should
| be more than uncomfortable!
| carom wrote:
| Someone might say the same thing about trans people.
| Should I be extremely uncomfortable talking to a trans
| person? Of course not. Many people think I should though.
|
| As for white nationalists, when engaging in discussion
| with someone you disagree with you have the opportunity
| to change their mind.
|
| We're all human. We won't always agree. I'm happy to meet
| everybody as human beings.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You don't have the opportunity to change their mind
| that's an illusion that works in their favor:
|
| "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware
| of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their
| remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are
| amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is
| obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in
| words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even
| like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous
| reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their
| interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since
| they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to
| intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely,
| they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by
| some phrase that the time for argument is past."
|
| When you do stuff like this all you are doing is giving
| them a platform, letting them do PR for their hideous
| causes. They can calmly discuss the very existence of a
| group of people and then exit when it suits them. A
| member of that group is, rightfully, unlikely to have
| that sort of calm intellectual distance from a
| conversation about their right to exist.
| carom wrote:
| >But they are amusing themselves, for it is their
| adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly
|
| You don't have to watch your words on 4chan though. You
| can literally just make fun of them.
|
| You can larp as whoever you want to get a rise out of
| whoever you want. That is mostly what the site is. While
| you're larping as a nazi you're being exposed to every
| other political point of view, every gender, every race,
| and every sexuality.
|
| How many real nazis do you think are comfortable looking
| at femboy threads all day? Is that really their choice
| forum? Hate speech and anthropomorphic dogs?
| voz_ wrote:
| @dang is this kind of content allowed here now?
| Zetice wrote:
| Being racist and being trans are not equivalent...
| v0idzer0 wrote:
| Who said they were?
| voz_ wrote:
| [flagged]
| dpkirchner wrote:
| > Someone might say the same thing about trans people.
|
| Sure, they might, but it'd be ridiculous.
|
| Being a white nationalist is a choice someone makes (and
| continues to make every day) whereas being trans is not.
|
| Further, white nationalism is associated with bigoted
| actions (including speech) whereas trans is just
| someone's personal identity that doesn't really affect
| anyone else. The two aren't remotely comparable.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It's ok to be a communist, it's ok to use open source
| software, it's ok to be gay, a furry, trans, or autistic.
|
| It's not ok to be a white nationalist. /b/ and other
| 4chan boards do not ban white nationalists.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >It's ok to be a communist
|
| Only if you ignore the mountain of skulls
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| No, it is NOT ok to be a communist. Communists and white
| nationalists are morally equivalent, though communism to
| date has a much higher body count than white nationalism
| and their methods of execution and torture have on
| balance been more savage and more brutal.
| qtzfz wrote:
| [flagged]
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| That's a weird way to frame a truly free speech
| environment. Yes, speech is more limited to left-leaning
| speech on most accepted parts of the internet. That doesn't
| make a board that allows both to be right-leaning. It means
| that most of the internet is left-leaning.
|
| Ofc, im simplifying to left vs right here, but that's only
| in response to calling it a right leaning board.
| beebmam wrote:
| For what it's worth, you can openly be a white nationalist
| (or black nationalist, or any other kind of racial
| nationalist) on most social media, even here on Hacker
| News.
|
| However, you will be moderated if you say anything
| extremely violent/racist on most social media sites. That's
| a good thing, in my opinion. I can understand if someone
| doesn't think it's a good thing that that content is
| moderated.
|
| I'd take the argument that 4chan isn't a site for the far-
| right more seriously if 4chan didn't have these explicit
| rules which they don't enforce (or selectively enforce).
| But it's pretty clear what kind of rules are allowed to be
| broken on that site and what kind of rules aren't allowed
| to be broken. Take one glance at /pol/ for an example.
| danjoredd wrote:
| The rules not being enforced really is 4chan's worst problems,
| and where everything else terrible on that site stems. On /g/,
| the tech board, you will see nothing but flame wars and troll
| posts for/against various operating systems and programming
| languages. Its basically nonstop trolling DESPITE being one of
| the more serious boards. Worse, a lot of the "jannies"(unpaid
| tattletales) are in on the trolling and actively make posts to
| start flame wars.
|
| For the admins, its a problem. Besides 8kun, they are pretty
| much the only major image board with anything really going for
| it, especially now that 420chan has bit the dust. However, if
| they enforce the rules, its very likely that people will either
| stop using it entirely or move on to 8kun instead. For the
| janitor problem, 4chan relies almost entirely on them to report
| posts that break the rules to the admins, but since its on a
| volunteer basis, janitors have no reason to take the role
| seriously which has led the site to be the gutter it is now.
|
| Basically, the whole 4chan system is screwed. I used to go to
| 420chan as an alternative because it was way more "chill" and
| there was way less racism and trolling due to it having actual
| moderation. Now that its gone though my only choice for
| imageboards are 4chan and its much worse brother, 8kun so I
| have decided to stop using imageboards entirely until something
| decent gets started.
| jjulius wrote:
| >... which has led the site to be the gutter it is now.
|
| ... now? It's felt like a cesspool for decades.
| 876978095789789 wrote:
| You're the kind of person who sees something like this:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-jew-fears-the-indoor-anim...
|
| and thinks it's completely serious, aren't you? Protip: much of
| what's posted on 4chan is ironic, deliberately inflammatory,
| and not meant to be taken seriously. Often the posters don't
| even believe what they're posting.
|
| Also, if it bothers you so much, you should know that much of
| the growth in 4chan's userbase (as well as that of KiwiFarms)
| in the last decade is due to a continual influx of refugees
| from other platforms employing increasingly heavy-handed
| moderation, like HN. I've been flagged here in the past merely
| for correcting dangerous nutritional information, whereas on
| 4chan at worst someone would tell me "kys sugarshill." Not
| everyone likes constantly having to walk on eggshells in the
| name of "civility."
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You ever hear that joke "if you're wearing a nazi costume
| it's not a costume?"
|
| Ironic far right shitposts are just far right shitposts.
| 876978095789789 wrote:
| I don't care. 4chan is one of the few large forums
| remaining on the internet where there's no downvoting, no
| flagging, and no dang-esque tone policers. I would be much
| more sad to see it go away than this place.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Yeah I guess that's what it really comes down to. I am
| willing to make you sad to make it harder for nazis to
| organize and recruit.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| A true advocate of free speech would defend someone's
| right to be a nazi even if they vehemently disagree with
| them.
| [deleted]
| Amezarak wrote:
| Do you have a specific definition of "nazi" in mind we
| can apply in a reasonable way?
|
| The usual problem I see is anti-"nazi" rhetoric quickly
| descends into dehumanization rhetoric about how such
| people don't deserve to live, should be ejected from all
| civil society, and must be relentlessly persecuted by
| every legal and social mechanism possible; in fact, all
| the suspension of every civil right is acceptable if it
| means stopping nazis. At the same time, it seems that
| almost everybody who lived in 1940 would be considered a
| Nazi by today's rather loose standards, and everybody
| tries to paint their opponents as nazis (even
| conservatives have the rather inept 'actually, Nazis were
| SOCIALISTS" retort) and apply this sort of rhetoric to
| what even 10 years ago was a completely mainstream
| liberal.
|
| Certainly 4chan is full of reprobates of every flavor.
| But if you live in a society where the existence of Nazi
| rhetoric is actually dangerous, well, you've already lost
| your free society. People don't read deranged Internet
| rants and become mass murderers unless they were born in
| raised in an already broken, atomized society. The
| ideology is the _excuse_ for the violence, not the
| _cause_. And unfortunately, this sort of rhetoric (we
| have to do whatever it takes to stop nazis) is also
| indicative of an worsening social environment.
|
| And typically, in worsening social environments, where a
| variety of ideologies become excuses for broken and/or
| desperate people to become violent, the government will
| become more and more totalitarian in response. And we'll
| cheer it along.
| jackothy wrote:
| If someone is stupid enough to fall for the lackluster
| logic of Neo-Nazis then I see that as a problem with our
| public education, not with the moderation policy of a
| website. Sure, enforcing "correct" speech at all times
| could potentially lead to more harmony in society, but I
| would much, much rather invest in empowering people to
| think critically for themselves. Many are already able to
| resist the persuasiveness of propaganda, ads, conspiracy
| theories, and extremist groups that are all around us
| today. Teach this skill of resistance instead of trying
| to baby-proof society.
| lazyeye wrote:
| And then all you have to do is define "everyone who
| disagrees with me is a nazi" and you've got not only
| full-blown censorship but also the moral high-ground!
|
| I know, I know for the sake of appearances we don't
| define everyone who disagrees with us as a nazi, that
| would be too obvious (although we still do alot).
|
| We describe the broad spectrum of perfectly main-stream,
| otherwise unremarkable views (but that disagree with us)
| as "nazi supporters", dog-whistlers etc.
|
| Too easy.
| leoqa wrote:
| It must be hard for you if your idea of free expression
| requires absolutely no limits. I personally think it's a
| bad faith argument and you're not actually interested in
| reducing radicalization.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Glad to see some others around here call out dang for
| being a tone policer, and a bad one at that.
|
| He constantly butts in where he doesn't belong, to claim
| that good discussion is "flame wars". HN truly is overly
| moderated and would benefit from less heavy handed
| moderation.
| strken wrote:
| Is this one of those times when you claim something is a
| joke because you believe it, but you also know how
| ridiculous your belief is? None of the actors in Inglorious
| Basterds were Nazis, nor in all probability are the actors
| in a production of The Sound of Music.
|
| Internet antisemitism is of course not Rodgers and
| Hammerstein, but wide sweeping falsehoods don't prove
| anything about anyone.
| hooverd wrote:
| have you visited /pol/ lately?
| flangola7 wrote:
| We learned why you don't give anti-Semites the benefit of the
| doubt many decades ago. "It's just a joke" up until it isn't,
| and by then it's far too late.
|
| The NZ mosque shooter's manifesto was almost literally one
| long 4chan meme thread. There were pages and pages of images
| and charts and memes that were (and still are) posted to
| 4chan every day. He _openly_ stated he wasn 't always racist
| and that /pol/ significantly changed his mind on the matter.
|
| We take it serious because innocent people being murdered is
| serious.
| 876978095789789 wrote:
| > images and charts and memes that were (and still are)
| posted to 4chan every day
|
| Look, if people posting charts and memes you find
| distasteful bothers you this much, you frankly don't belong
| on the internet. And you can post the opposite perspective
| on 4chan, without censorship: you can be pro-Communist,
| anti-Ukraine, pro-CCP, whatever.
|
| And if I wanted to, I could probably play the same game as
| you and mine the Nashville shooter's manifesto for examples
| of influences to target for censorship, except strangely,
| for some reason, they won't release it.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _much of what 's posted on 4chan is ironic, deliberately
| inflammatory_
|
| This hasn't been plausible, much less true, for 10 years. I
| don't know how anyone can look at, for example, Payton
| Gendron's manifesto and say it's ironic. Were the bullets he
| fired ironic as well?
|
| There is an entire generation of users, who are probably the
| bulk of users now, who were never in on the "joke" (if there
| ever was one).
| v0idzer0 wrote:
| Citing one crazy person using a platform doesn't make your
| argument coherent. How many shooters have live streamed on
| facebook?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Often the posters don't even believe what they're posting.
|
| When I used to visit 4chan for entertainment in 2009, I
| believed this too, but the veil came off a long time ago.
|
| If you have a board where it's acceptable to pretend to be
| racist, antisemitic, etc, then eventually your board will
| fill with actual racists, antisemites, etc.
|
| /r/The_Donald started as a subreddit where people thought the
| idea of Trump becoming POTUS was hilarious, stupid, could
| never happen, and people cheered him on for the lulz. Over
| time, it became a home base for his most rabid supporters.
|
| Back on the original point, do you know what you call someone
| who pretends to be racist?
|
| A racist.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| "jokes on them, I was only pretending to be a racist"
| tr1ggered wrote:
| [flagged]
| mannyv wrote:
| The NYT characterizes 4chan as a far-right message board, which
| is ridiculous.
|
| I mean, if giving the finger to pretty much everything is
| considered far-right, then what's considered far-left?
| Fundamentalism?
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| /b/, /vg/, /v/, /pol/ and sometimes /g/ all have strong alt
| right representation. (actually /g/ is still much more
| libertarian but you get some bleed in here and there).
|
| Even /sci/ has changed. You have race IQ intelligence threads
| all the time compared to 2011. Instead of the daily Putnam
| problem thread, you get that garbage.
|
| NYT is pretty on the money here.
|
| If this were 2010, I'd disagree with them, but not nowadays.
|
| disclaimer of my own bias: I stopped using 4chan in 2012
| because of how much of an alt right mess it became after /r9k/.
| Didn't have the words to describe it back then. I remember
| people making endless Dragon Age memes in the pinned thread in
| /v/ in response to the mass shooting by a particular Anders in
| 2011. They were celebrating it, and it was the most active live
| thread on the site in that moment.
| rsav wrote:
| [flagged]
| netsharc wrote:
| My guess is (since I don't claim to be a 4chan expert), in the
| beginning, 4chan users were just being edgy by being trolls and
| being for the choices that would lead to chaos (by being not
| politically correct, by supporting Donald Trump), but this
| attracted many genuine right-wingers, and if they do bother to
| hang out there, that would mean 4chan has become a far-right
| message board.
| jterrys wrote:
| It's 2023. The site has been around for 19 years. If they
| haven't gotten it right by this point, they never will. And its
| "probably" that way by design.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| > then what's considered far-left
|
| 4chan. The most notorious boards feel anarchist and were _very_
| anti-globalist long before it was fashionable.
|
| But as you implied, 4chan as a whole is not homogenous.
| qtzfz wrote:
| Anarchism and anti-globalism were far-left values like 20
| years ago. Right now the left and far-left give strong
| "conform" vibes.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| I dunno about that. Radical anti capitalist sentiment, for
| instance, feels far left and anarchist:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_anarchism
| uoaei wrote:
| There is a substantial cohort of 'libs' who started calling
| themselves 'leftists' post-George Floyd, but when probed
| about their opinions on e.g. means testing, prison
| abolition, or asked to define even something as basic as
| Marxism, miss the mark so widely on the fundaments of those
| ideas that it appears they've labeled themselves without
| actually contending with certain core concepts that
| literally define the distinctions between left folks and
| others.
|
| Of course, the boogeymen borne of tribalistic (politico-
| cultural) battlegrounds mean that those on the broad right
| look leftward and see people calling themselves 'leftists'
| dragging the classical left tenets toward strange,
| centrist-ized, often authoritarian lines and assume without
| further evidence that this applies to the left generally.
|
| I promise you there's still plenty of folks who competently
| understand the labels they choose to inhabit.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Both "anarchism" and "anti-globalism" (the former largely
| as a result of fairly recent cooption, the latter
| inherently in being a label of opposition not specifically
| tied to the ideological _reason_ for opposition) have both
| far-left and far-right versions, and that remains the case.
| Neither is universal on the left or the right, either,
| because while anarchism in the narrower historical sense is
| connected to socialism, there are obviously socialisms that
| are not anarchist (even without going to the extreme of
| Lenin /Stalin/Mao vanguardist approaches).
|
| I disagree that, within the left and far-left, the
| anarchist or anti-globalist segments have recently
| retreated. OTOH, in the United States, the old (peaking
| around 1990) overlapping center-right neoliberal globalist
| faction forming the moderate wings of both major parties
| has faded in the Republican Party, leading the remaining
| segment of it - which is the dominant faction of the
| Democratic Party - to be called "left" (and sometimes "far
| left") by Republican partisans.
| bearjaws wrote:
| I mean, giving the finger to everything is a pretty common
| trope amongst the far right.
|
| Everyone has their uncle or cousin that says "I am not racist I
| just hate everyone equally"...
|
| It's also a GOP playbook to destroy or disrupt social services
| and education to then say "look how bad everything is"...
| pcwalton wrote:
| The board specifically set aside for politics on 4chan is
| probably the most popular neo-Nazi discussion forum on the
| internet. "Far-right" is a completely fair description of the
| political leanings of that site.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| But they have never been "far right" in the way that the
| traditional racial supremacy kind of neo nazis are.
|
| If anything, they are good evidence for horseshoe theory, or
| perhaps invalidity of the left-right scale:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _But they have never been "far right" in the way that the
| traditional racial supremacy kind of neo nazis are._
|
| There is no way you are talking about /pol/. I refuse to
| believe you have spent any amount of time on /pol/ and
| haven't seen the countless race IQ charts.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| /pol/ most certainly is that way. I've been on 4chan for
| more than 15 years and I research far right extremism
| professionally. /pol/ isn't the most right wing or extreme
| place on the internet, but claiming it's not like
| 'traditional racial supremacy [..] neo-nazis' is nonsense,
| that's 20-25% of /pol/ threads.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Touche, I am not a /pol/ regular. Glimpses of /b/ is
| about as far as I got, and the Nazism seemed more like
| trolling and baiting on the surface.
| SkinTaco wrote:
| This is like saying reddit is far right because of the_donald
| pcwalton wrote:
| The_Donald was (1) banned and (2) not the official politics
| forum. It's more like characterizing Reddit as a whole as
| left-leaning because /r/politics is, which is, in my book,
| a fair claim.
| diamondfist25 wrote:
| We all know the FBI got their tentacles in Reddit's
| policies.
|
| O wait.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I mean the goofiness comes from "what are the politics of a
| website" being inherently kind of a strange question with
| no clear answer. The motivations and values of the people
| who run these sites are mostly not legible to us. We can
| look at what the sites are used for.
|
| If someone is using their own money to host a forum for neo
| nazis it's very coherent to describe this behavior as, at
| the very least, supporting neo nazis. If they are also
| hosting a motorcycle forum with their money, does that
| cancel out the neo nazi support? Is it reasonable to say
| either site _IS_ a nazi forum?
|
| What if most but not all members of the motorcycle forum
| are also nazi forum members? What if only a few of them
| are? What if they share login systems and comment
| histories?
|
| There aren't clear boundaries between these things. The
| nazi forum is definitely a nazi forum. Whether the
| motorcycle forum is a nazi forum depends on how much
| userbase and culture and branding they share, and how high
| your tolerance for nazis is; an individual assessment
| without an objective answer.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| [flagged]
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Nazis use the internet. You use the internet. Therefore,
| you're a nazi.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| Going back to the dinner analogy, you've stretched going to
| dinner _with_ someone to happening to be in the same
| restaurant as that someone. It 's not the same kind of
| association at all.
| izzydata wrote:
| The entire website is closer to the entire restaurant in
| this analogy. Posting in the same threads might be
| similar to sitting at the same table.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| That is a false equivalence though.
|
| ex: "Nazis eat food, you eat food, therefore you're a
| Nazi."
|
| Doing something that all people do and are expected to do,
| on either side of the conflict, does not actually make a
| difference. Being a complete and utter jackass makes the
| difference.
| ekam wrote:
| Guilt by association makes no sense... would this also apply
| to eg, communists?
| Entinel wrote:
| Communist don't want to see the eradication of a single
| race of people so no I don't think it would.
| prottog wrote:
| What a surprise it is that so many millions have perished
| under the banner of communism. I suppose as long as
| everyone dies equally, it's still consistent with the
| system...
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| That's the justification that works for capitalist
| imperialism, why not communism as well?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| There was a whole series of ethnic cleanings in the USSR
| [1], the CCP is currently enacting at least 2 efforts to
| erradicate non Han minority groups, the Khmer Rouge set
| about the mass murder of Muslim Cham and Vietnamese in
| Cambodia, the Ethiopian Derg were accused of similar
| atrocities.
|
| [1] https://www.abc-clio.com/products/c6927c/
| Entinel wrote:
| I know about the ethnic cleanings. Communism as an
| ideology does not endorse eugenics through mass murdering
| people. Nazism as an ideology does.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| You know, the guilt by association kind of makes sense.
| Nazis have an ideology of violence/hate at their core - by
| being associated with Nazis, you tend to accept this.
| Therefore, it's ok to perceive you as one too.
|
| I can't say about communists, as there are so few around
| these days.
| ben_w wrote:
| > I can't say about communists, as there are so few
| around these days.
|
| I dated one. Her description was basically the "People's
| Front of Judea" scene in Life of Brian -- they're all in
| their own tiny rabbit holes, completely convinced all the
| other tiny groups are pawns, puppets, or stooges of
| capitalism.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It's guilt by selective association. If you regularly visit
| /b you know there are a lot of white nationalists there, by
| continuing to use /b you're choosing to associate with that
| kind of content.
| jackothy wrote:
| But the mere association itself does not mean you agree
| with that kind of content. As an example, would you
| vilify a scientist studying extremism because he
| regularly reads Neo-Nazi forums for his research?
|
| There are many reasons to read something other than "I am
| reading this because I love and agree with every aspect
| of it". In fact, it is probably common knowledge that
| only ever reading stuff you wholeheartedly agree with is
| quite a bad idea. Echo chambers, social media "bubbles"
| and all that. Also, it can be good to build a tougher
| skin, can't it?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Come on, what is this argument? /b/ users aren't doing
| academic research and you know that. Of course there are
| exceptions to every rule, but I'm talking about the
| average /b/ user here... the site is rife with racism.
|
| Are you seriously claiming that people should visit /b/
| to avoid echo chambers? Have you been to /b/? I'd argue
| that it's probably more productive to change your
| perspective by hitting yourself in the head with a
| hammer. You're not being freed from your echo chamber by
| listening to people who support genocide.
| jackothy wrote:
| I don't think I have ever been to /b/, and it could very
| well be a valid claim that most /b/ frequenters are
| assholes. I'm glad to see you acknowledge that there are
| exceptions to every rule.
|
| My comment is meant more as a defense of 4chan as a
| whole. I have seen valuable information originate from
| their technology board, for example. I just don't want to
| see prejudice against any and all 4chan users. Blanket
| application of "guilt by association", which seems to be
| advocated in neighboring threads, seems horrible to me.
|
| I just hope people will be willing to engage with any
| other person up to the point that they actively prove to
| you in person that they are a jackass. Trying to look for
| signs that the other person is secretly a jackass is not
| a great approach.
| macintux wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
| tomcam wrote:
| Cannot disagree enough. I love having dinner with people who
| are different from me if civil discourse is available.
| However, I am a US citizen, where free speech is fairly
| highly valued.
|
| > "If you and 9 of your friends have a dinner with a Nazi,
| there are 11 Nazis around that table."
|
| It is risible that one would make that accusation, by the
| way.
| ben_w wrote:
| > if civil discourse is available
|
| If we're talking about _actual_ Nazis and not "everyone I
| disagree with is literally worse than Hitler" insult
| inflation, then it necessarily follows that _civil
| discourse is not available_.
|
| Why? Because they mass-murdered people like me.
|
| So, tough luck. If you use your freedom to pick them, I'll
| use mine to refuse you.
| jackothy wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that even an actual Nazi would realize
| that they do not have the option to just straight up
| murder you right then and there at the restaurant table.
| A person also does not need to be uncontrollably angry at
| <minority group> to qualify as a Nazi. As one example,
| cynical and dispassionate severe dehumanization of
| <minority group> would also qualify you as a Nazi in my
| book. A Nazi who is cynical and dispassionate, rather
| than uncontrollably angry, might be able to sit at a
| restaurant table and maintain civil discourse with a
| member of <minority group>, either because the Nazi sees
| it as some kind of mental exercise, a display of his
| superior temper, logic and virtue, or whatever.
|
| The point is, it is not physically impossible for a
| member of <minority group> to participate in civil
| discourse with actual Nazis. It just depends on the
| specific Nazi in question.
| ben_w wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure that even an actualy Nazi would realize
| that they do not have the option to just straight up
| murder you right then and there at the restaurant table.
|
| The fact that you think that's a counter argument,
| indicates you have _severely_ failed to consider my
| perspective.
|
| I won't willing hang out with you if you knowingly hang
| out with them. If you try to force me to hang out with
| you, I believe you would be breaking the law.
|
| Furthermore, if they were in my country, I'd have them
| arrested _because membership of that group is outlawed
| here_.
|
| There is no possibility of civil discourse, not only
| between me and someone who wants me dead (which wasn't
| actually the scenario I was describing even though it was
| clearly what you described in the quote), but there is
| also no possibility of civil discourse between me and
| those who tolerate those who wish me dead.
|
| If we meet IRL, and you try to defend actual literal
| Nazis, the most civil I'll be able to be is _getting up
| and leaving_ , not any kind of discussion. It's hard
| enough to not be enraged _right now_ , and here I have
| the benefit of an edit button and the emotional distance
| that comes with text.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| There are a few useful concepts to wrap your head around
| when it comes to thinking about Nazis:
|
| * The paradox of tolerance
|
| * The white moderate by MLK
|
| * A useful idiot (applies to ideologies in general)
| gopher_space wrote:
| >> "If you and 9 of your friends have a dinner with a Nazi,
| there are 11 Nazis around that table." > > It is risible
| that one would make that accusation, by the way.
|
| This is a description of how everyone else in the community
| would view your dinner party. You'd be "the guy who has
| Nazi dinner parties" to all your neighbors.
|
| I'd recommend wading through Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto
| Eco sometime this summer. Nice little morality play tucked
| into that book; hanging out with evil people because you
| find them interesting is a bad idea.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/Oia1n
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20230412204156/https://www.nytime...
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