9 ms·

The essence of any totalitarian strategy is to seize some resources, invent a necessarily preposterous myth, then in exchange for demonstrating belief in the my

by batz 11y ago

The essence of any totalitarian strategy is to seize some resources, invent a necessarily preposterous myth, then in exchange for demonstrating belief in the myth, re-distribute the resources arbitrarily among a minority of people who are easily replaceable and know it. The secret is to then reward people from the majority for denouncing and replacing members of the minority for not being zealous enough, so that they can elevate themselves through commitment to the myth. This has the self-policing effect of keeping everyone in line. So long as you can keep those resources coming to your ruling coalition of highly replaceable idiots, you are golden. Read Smith and DeMesquita's "Dictator's Handbook" for details of how this works. It doesn't matter whether that myth is of a 3000 year reign, the supreme right of a proletariat, the divinity of leader, that my golf handicap includes 11 holes in one, the revolution, or even that my particular tribe or ethnic group is morally superior to your tribe or ethnic group. It's all the same shit. What people don't talk about is how these assholes seize power. It's through charismatic promises of future rewards to people who think they have nothing. They appeal to the greed and impulsiveness of the poor, it's a straight short con. The nuanced part is how you get current status quo supporters to switch sides and provide their support to the challenger. They do this with a second message that triggers the middling man's sense of loss aversion. This is just posing a credible prisoners dilemma in which if moderates and supporters defect now, they get to keep their social position, but if they hold out, they will lose everything. Arguably, this model of political polarization shows how ISIS works, how feminism annexed academia, why Trump is popular, why Occupy failed but why BLM could grow exponentially. Nazi's were repugnant, but history would show that being repugnant is likely more indicative of political success than failure.

tdeck 11y ago
What would the resource be in the case of BLM?
- wildmusings 11y ago
  The myth is easier to identify: that there's campaign of murder by police officers targeting blacks. It's part of the broader myth that minorities in the US are being kept down by the powers that be. When you see it as just part of the broader identity politics movement, it's easier to identify the resources: moral vindication and reassigned blame for their troubles, handouts from other people's pockets, and discrimination against the perceived oppressor group ("affirmative action").
  - arrrg 11y ago
    You can apply this to literally every political belief someone fights for. As such the explanatory power of your theory seems to be quite poor. If something is a political belief you do not share it is easy to call it a myth. If something is a political policy you think is wrongheaded or unfair you can always claim that someone benefits unfairly from that policy. As such your theory really doesn’t tell you anything, or at least anything interesting. It’s just worthless. A nice story, nothing more. The actual interesting thing happens when you engage with the content of political beliefs and policies.
    - wildmusings 11y ago
      It's not my theory, but it is an interesting framework to view politics through. Myth doesn't necessarily mean false. Even though that's the way the original poster used it, I think the framework is actually stronger with the more general definition of myth. Answering whether the handing out of resources is fair or not is also not necessary for this framework to be insightful. And of course we should engage the content of political beliefs. But we should also seek to understand politics as a phenomenon in itself. Our understanding of the beliefs is otherwise hollow.
      - arrrg 11y ago
        It’s so general as to be useless … basically what you are demonstrating here is one huge exercise in moving the goalposts, turning the theory into unrecognizable mush. So “invent a necessarily preposterous myth” is out. It’s now just about some belief, doesn’t matter how it came to be or what it is. Can be true, can be false, can be anything. If that’s the starting point then all the rest falls apart, really. It’s senseless. You can talk about the role of signaling or whatever, but the connective tissue is missing and the entire interesting and potentially insightful part of the theory is missing.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
        11y ago
cstross 11y ago
how feminism annexed academia ... why Occupy failed but why BLM could grow exponentially No axes to grind here, hmm? (Hint: there's a huge difference between civil rights movements -- those demanding equal respect -- and the fulminations of the privileged who think life's a zero-sum game and anyone else making up ground means that they're losing out. Alas, you don't seem to get it.)
- wildmusings 11y ago
  Typically it's the critiques of liberalism and capitalism that treat life as zero-sum. The capitalist defense of inequality is that the world isn't zero-sum. Because people can do extraordinarily well for themselves by creating value for others, they do, and we are all better off. The 60s civil rights movement was a classically liberal movement. They were demanding equal treatment under the law. "Civil rights" movements today are usually asking for special treatment. (edit: Just to clarify, I'm referring specifically to the US for this last point)
  - eli 11y ago
    > "Civil rights" movements today are usually asking for special treatment. I wholeheartedly disagree with this opinion.
    - RodericDay 11y ago
      The civil rights movement of the day is always compared to some idealized civil rights movement of the past to disqualify it in the eyes of the anti-progressive. They focus on the wrong issues, they lack focus, they're too loud and annoying, they're not grateful enough for advances thus far, etc. Seeing how he's idealized into an impossible standard for activists today, it's cool looking at the correspondence MLK Jr. got back in the day (http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/theme/4809 http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/theme/4809). Here are some samples: > Mr. Young criticizes Dr. King and the black community for their support of heavyweight champion Cassius Clay's refusal to be drafted into the military. He also expresses worry about the quality of black leadership and urges a move from a selfish focus on Negroes only to concern for all people. > Calling Dr. King "The Trouble Maker of the United States," Mrs. Shaw criticizes Dr. King's methods in the Civil Rights Movement. She argues that a "campaign of love is in order" rather than demonstrations. > Harl Douglass writes in disgust at the position Dr. King has taken on Vietnam War. As a once full supporter of the civil rights movement, he believes that Dr. King "is somewhat unstable and he has made millions of enemies for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference....." Douglass warns Dr. King and SCLC officials that if they continue to go down the same track they will lose support of white moderates.
Riod 11y ago
Way to shoehorn BLM and feminism (both movements seeking equal rights) into the same frame as ISIS and Trump.
- fleitz 11y ago
  Their objectives may differ but their recruitment methods are the same, disaffected people who believe they have nothing, and won't ever amount to anything because the world is against their group. If you want to see how racist america is and how you can't succeed look at how poorly the Japanese have done after interment, if it wasn't for affirmative action ivies would be all Asian.
  - BWStearns 11y ago
    Skipping all of the maddening and difficult things to address in your statement, I assure you that not a single Japanese person (or any person really) has ever succeeded economically or otherwise after interment.
- golergka 11y ago
  This description doesn't differ whether the myth is true or not, and whether it's a good or evil myth. The methods are still the same.
seiji 11y ago
seize some resources, invent a necessarily preposterous myth, then in exchange for demonstrating belief in the myth, re-distribute the resources arbitrarily among a minority of people who are easily replaceable and know it. Startups? how these assholes seize power. It's through charismatic promises of future rewards Startups.
- batz 11y ago
  To a point. Startups aren't about wielding totalitarian power. The crappy ones are more about the short con of trading lottery tickets (options) for labor, and using the myth of magical genius to sell stakes to bookies and rubes. There are great businesses out there that respond to real market needs, but a lot of tech companies only seem to exist in the window of lag between collapsing marginal cost and eventual market saturation.
- wildmusings 11y ago
  Yes, but the difference is that a business's success requires continual voluntary mutually-beneficial exchanges (aka sales). And before they make a profit, they're only risking money that's theirs to risk. None of these things are true about politics, which is fundamentally about control of coercive power.
  - DenisM 11y ago
    You both have good points. Seiji point though is very unusual and affects us all directly, as such it deserves setious consideration.
  - Umn44 11y ago
    "ut the difference is that a business's success requires continual voluntary mutually-beneficial exchanges (aka sales)." Sorry but this is the biggest bullshit lie ever, the vast majority of people do not have a choice but to buy from where they can afford to. There choices are forced by the institutional structures of society. aka political. The very nature of money is political.
  - _nedR 11y ago
Stratoscope 11y ago
I heard a vivid example of one of those myths on the radio about 12 years ago. I was listening to shortwave radio in my car on the way to work and happened to tune in the news from the Voice of Korea, North Korea's English language service beamed to North America. I remember the newsman's exact words to this day: "Scientists are studying the brain of Respected Comrade Kim Jong-il, because the Respected Comrade is capable of feats of mental power beyond the ability of ordinary human beings."
danjayh 11y ago
This is why the founders of the US intentionally tried to design the country to severely restrict the power of the federal government / allow the states to handle many issues that aren't explicitly national matters. I'm not talking about things like education or marriage, which you might [i]think[/i] should be national issues, but rather things like interstate roads and national defense, which are interstate issues by their very nature. The federal power creep that we've been experiencing for the last several decades has done a lot to create a system that is ripe for abuse.
- Stratoscope 11y ago
  Quite a few decades, in fact. From the article: > [The German emigre] believes that America is the country of Creative Evolution once it shakes off its middle-class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, its tentacle-like and spreading government, and sets itself innerly free.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  Maybe. I think they had to punt on it because of things like slavery in the south and feudal style Dutch patroons in NY. The federal power creep is mostly about the difference between living in a place like say Pennsylvaia and South Carolina. The states refused to deal with key, important problems of the day.
- nikdaheratik 11y ago
  I think you're reaching quite a bit with this comment. The people who drafted the constitution actually pushed for a Federal government that was larger far more powerful than the previous Articles of Confederation did. And they continued set up precedents while they were in office for a larger and more unified government than many of the States likely expected. They also recognized that a modern Democracy was a bit of an experiment compared to the rest of the world and were unable/unwilling to make it too large too soon. And most of U.S. history seems to agree with this approach and it shows that a large open government is less likely to be abused than a small government which can be captured and rigged by a few groups or even individuals. It's the separation of powers between branches of the government, more than the size and powers of the Feds vs. the States that helps to limit the chance for dictatorship.
rdiddly 11y ago
I appreciated the dispassionate detachment of the comment. Like others, I'm a little suspicious of your "feminism annexed academia" bit (though not in the same kneejerky way). But what I really wonder is, could you expand on "why Occupy failed?" I've never really viewed it through that lens. Here, I'll give it a go. Certainly the unifying mythos was there - the 1%/the 99% - and by the way this isn't preposterous. But since you say "necessarily preposterous," would you say it was in fact, not preposterous enough? Too easily subjected to rational verification/quantification? Also there were no resources of any import seized, for redistributing. Promises of future rewards seem like they were in place however. The "prisoner's dilemma" portion, was effectively impossible without becoming an armed mob. They wanted to convert fence-sitters through sympathy, but I guess we're saying, fear is what works? Therefore instead of sympathy for the guys & gals getting pepper-sprayed, Joe Middleclass fears being pepper-sprayed himself, and the STATE is the one triggering the loss aversion. Interesting.
- spritzifutz 11y ago
  Can you explain to me why the institute of applied physics is now looking for two research assistants in gender studies? It's 19 hours and 55 minute of work every week with a 3 year contract to do gender studies in a physics department. Do you know that the Nazis had a field for facial recognition of Jewish features on faces? https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uni-muenster.de%2FRektorat%2FStellen%2Fausschreibungen%2Fst_20162901_sk14.html&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
  - matthewmacleod 11y ago
    My understanding is that there is a persistent gender imbalance in physics generally. Is seems obvious that the IOP would want to fund research into why this is happening and ways in which it can be solved. Is the Nazi comparison really necessary?
  - arrrg 11y ago
    They won’t be doing physics. They will be doing (in the broadest sense) empirical social research with a focus on gender and physics, i.e. why are people with certain genders deciding to go into physics or not. Are you really surprised that universities are looking for researchers researching all kinds of things? Someone I know just got a (post-doc) job researching social comparison theory and she can pretty much do whatever she wants in that field. That’s not even socially relevant, it’s merely interesting (nothing wrong with that). Given how socially relevant this topic is (i.e. why do women decide against going into physics or even leave physics? How can we attract more women?) I’m really quite confused why you turn your nose at some poorly paid social research job looking into this for two days a week … Social research is not luxurious. It’s badly paid, the methods at our disposal suck, the topic and subject (human brains and how they interact with each other) is fucking complex as hell, we don’t even know how to deal with it … it ain’t easy. Just so you know.
rustynails 11y ago
That's an excellent comment. Very insightful. I saw a rebuttal of the feminisation of education, but here's a good link that talks about the modern disparity. It's quite prejudiced (eg. Ignores a huge shift away from boys performance - which any honest person knows is true), http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?p... This article even gets offended when girls aren't totally dominating by an overwhelming majority at ALL institutions. That's feminism.
- zipwitch 11y ago
  It's strange how the article you linked doesn't actually mention feminism at all. It's almost as though you don't know what you're writing about.
pekgpkgae 11y ago
It is unreasonable and unethical to roll up equal-rights movements with movements that specifically attempted to destroy minorities. I understand that this is HN, and that HN is full of white men who think their lives are so hard; but honestly... it is just gross that dang and pg encourage your sort of "polite" but incredibly bigoted conversation here.
dang 11y ago
This is the sort of generic ideological tangent that adds little value and reliably turns a discussion into a flamewar. The tell-tale signs are (a) that there's nothing specific, no engagement with the concrete material of the post, no sign of curiosity—just blaring a pre-existing position, and (b) the casual dropping of a match ("how ISIS works, how feminism annexed academia") on the ground that was just soaked with petrol. It doesn't matter what one blares for or against; please don't do it in the first place. HN threads are for conversation, not ideological soapboxes.

by batz 11y ago

tdeck 11y ago

What would the resource be in the case of BLM?

wildmusings 11y ago
The myth is easier to identify: that there's campaign of murder by police officers targeting blacks. It's part of the broader myth that minorities in the US are being kept down by the powers that be. When you see it as just part of the broader identity politics movement, it's easier to identify the resources: moral vindication and reassigned blame for their troubles, handouts from other people's pockets, and discrimination against the perceived oppressor group ("affirmative action").
- arrrg 11y ago
  You can apply this to literally every political belief someone fights for. As such the explanatory power of your theory seems to be quite poor. If something is a political belief you do not share it is easy to call it a myth. If something is a political policy you think is wrongheaded or unfair you can always claim that someone benefits unfairly from that policy. As such your theory really doesn’t tell you anything, or at least anything interesting. It’s just worthless. A nice story, nothing more. The actual interesting thing happens when you engage with the content of political beliefs and policies.
  - wildmusings 11y ago
    It's not my theory, but it is an interesting framework to view politics through. Myth doesn't necessarily mean false. Even though that's the way the original poster used it, I think the framework is actually stronger with the more general definition of myth. Answering whether the handing out of resources is fair or not is also not necessary for this framework to be insightful. And of course we should engage the content of political beliefs. But we should also seek to understand politics as a phenomenon in itself. Our understanding of the beliefs is otherwise hollow.
    - arrrg 11y ago
      It’s so general as to be useless … basically what you are demonstrating here is one huge exercise in moving the goalposts, turning the theory into unrecognizable mush. So “invent a necessarily preposterous myth” is out. It’s now just about some belief, doesn’t matter how it came to be or what it is. Can be true, can be false, can be anything. If that’s the starting point then all the rest falls apart, really. It’s senseless. You can talk about the role of signaling or whatever, but the connective tissue is missing and the entire interesting and potentially insightful part of the theory is missing.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - 11y ago

cstross 11y ago

how feminism annexed academia ... why Occupy failed but why BLM could grow exponentially No axes to grind here, hmm? (Hint: there's a huge difference between civil rights movements -- those demanding equal respect -- and the fulminations of the privileged who think life's a zero-sum game and anyone else making up ground means that they're losing out. Alas, you don't seem to get it.)

wildmusings 11y ago
Typically it's the critiques of liberalism and capitalism that treat life as zero-sum. The capitalist defense of inequality is that the world isn't zero-sum. Because people can do extraordinarily well for themselves by creating value for others, they do, and we are all better off. The 60s civil rights movement was a classically liberal movement. They were demanding equal treatment under the law. "Civil rights" movements today are usually asking for special treatment. (edit: Just to clarify, I'm referring specifically to the US for this last point)
- eli 11y ago
  > "Civil rights" movements today are usually asking for special treatment. I wholeheartedly disagree with this opinion.
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    The civil rights movement of the day is always compared to some idealized civil rights movement of the past to disqualify it in the eyes of the anti-progressive. They focus on the wrong issues, they lack focus, they're too loud and annoying, they're not grateful enough for advances thus far, etc. Seeing how he's idealized into an impossible standard for activists today, it's cool looking at the correspondence MLK Jr. got back in the day (http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/theme/4809 http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/theme/4809). Here are some samples: > Mr. Young criticizes Dr. King and the black community for their support of heavyweight champion Cassius Clay's refusal to be drafted into the military. He also expresses worry about the quality of black leadership and urges a move from a selfish focus on Negroes only to concern for all people. > Calling Dr. King "The Trouble Maker of the United States," Mrs. Shaw criticizes Dr. King's methods in the Civil Rights Movement. She argues that a "campaign of love is in order" rather than demonstrations. > Harl Douglass writes in disgust at the position Dr. King has taken on Vietnam War. As a once full supporter of the civil rights movement, he believes that Dr. King "is somewhat unstable and he has made millions of enemies for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference....." Douglass warns Dr. King and SCLC officials that if they continue to go down the same track they will lose support of white moderates.

Riod 11y ago

Way to shoehorn BLM and feminism (both movements seeking equal rights) into the same frame as ISIS and Trump.

fleitz 11y ago
Their objectives may differ but their recruitment methods are the same, disaffected people who believe they have nothing, and won't ever amount to anything because the world is against their group. If you want to see how racist america is and how you can't succeed look at how poorly the Japanese have done after interment, if it wasn't for affirmative action ivies would be all Asian.
- BWStearns 11y ago
  Skipping all of the maddening and difficult things to address in your statement, I assure you that not a single Japanese person (or any person really) has ever succeeded economically or otherwise after interment.
golergka 11y ago
This description doesn't differ whether the myth is true or not, and whether it's a good or evil myth. The methods are still the same.

seiji 11y ago

seize some resources, invent a necessarily preposterous myth, then in exchange for demonstrating belief in the myth, re-distribute the resources arbitrarily among a minority of people who are easily replaceable and know it. Startups? how these assholes seize power. It's through charismatic promises of future rewards Startups.

batz 11y ago
To a point. Startups aren't about wielding totalitarian power. The crappy ones are more about the short con of trading lottery tickets (options) for labor, and using the myth of magical genius to sell stakes to bookies and rubes. There are great businesses out there that respond to real market needs, but a lot of tech companies only seem to exist in the window of lag between collapsing marginal cost and eventual market saturation.
wildmusings 11y ago
Yes, but the difference is that a business's success requires continual voluntary mutually-beneficial exchanges (aka sales). And before they make a profit, they're only risking money that's theirs to risk. None of these things are true about politics, which is fundamentally about control of coercive power.
- DenisM 11y ago
  You both have good points. Seiji point though is very unusual and affects us all directly, as such it deserves setious consideration.
- Umn44 11y ago
  "ut the difference is that a business's success requires continual voluntary mutually-beneficial exchanges (aka sales)." Sorry but this is the biggest bullshit lie ever, the vast majority of people do not have a choice but to buy from where they can afford to. There choices are forced by the institutional structures of society. aka political. The very nature of money is political.
- _nedR 11y ago

Stratoscope 11y ago

I heard a vivid example of one of those myths on the radio about 12 years ago. I was listening to shortwave radio in my car on the way to work and happened to tune in the news from the Voice of Korea, North Korea's English language service beamed to North America. I remember the newsman's exact words to this day: "Scientists are studying the brain of Respected Comrade Kim Jong-il, because the Respected Comrade is capable of feats of mental power beyond the ability of ordinary human beings."

danjayh 11y ago

This is why the founders of the US intentionally tried to design the country to severely restrict the power of the federal government / allow the states to handle many issues that aren't explicitly national matters. I'm not talking about things like education or marriage, which you might [i]think[/i] should be national issues, but rather things like interstate roads and national defense, which are interstate issues by their very nature. The federal power creep that we've been experiencing for the last several decades has done a lot to create a system that is ripe for abuse.

Stratoscope 11y ago
Quite a few decades, in fact. From the article: > [The German emigre] believes that America is the country of Creative Evolution once it shakes off its middle-class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, its tentacle-like and spreading government, and sets itself innerly free.
Spooky23 11y ago
Maybe. I think they had to punt on it because of things like slavery in the south and feudal style Dutch patroons in NY. The federal power creep is mostly about the difference between living in a place like say Pennsylvaia and South Carolina. The states refused to deal with key, important problems of the day.
nikdaheratik 11y ago
I think you're reaching quite a bit with this comment. The people who drafted the constitution actually pushed for a Federal government that was larger far more powerful than the previous Articles of Confederation did. And they continued set up precedents while they were in office for a larger and more unified government than many of the States likely expected. They also recognized that a modern Democracy was a bit of an experiment compared to the rest of the world and were unable/unwilling to make it too large too soon. And most of U.S. history seems to agree with this approach and it shows that a large open government is less likely to be abused than a small government which can be captured and rigged by a few groups or even individuals. It's the separation of powers between branches of the government, more than the size and powers of the Feds vs. the States that helps to limit the chance for dictatorship.

rdiddly 11y ago

I appreciated the dispassionate detachment of the comment. Like others, I'm a little suspicious of your "feminism annexed academia" bit (though not in the same kneejerky way). But what I really wonder is, could you expand on "why Occupy failed?" I've never really viewed it through that lens. Here, I'll give it a go. Certainly the unifying mythos was there - the 1%/the 99% - and by the way this isn't preposterous. But since you say "necessarily preposterous," would you say it was in fact, not preposterous enough? Too easily subjected to rational verification/quantification? Also there were no resources of any import seized, for redistributing. Promises of future rewards seem like they were in place however. The "prisoner's dilemma" portion, was effectively impossible without becoming an armed mob. They wanted to convert fence-sitters through sympathy, but I guess we're saying, fear is what works? Therefore instead of sympathy for the guys & gals getting pepper-sprayed, Joe Middleclass fears being pepper-sprayed himself, and the STATE is the one triggering the loss aversion. Interesting.

spritzifutz 11y ago
Can you explain to me why the institute of applied physics is now looking for two research assistants in gender studies? It's 19 hours and 55 minute of work every week with a 3 year contract to do gender studies in a physics department. Do you know that the Nazis had a field for facial recognition of Jewish features on faces? https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uni-muenster.de%2FRektorat%2FStellen%2Fausschreibungen%2Fst_20162901_sk14.html&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  My understanding is that there is a persistent gender imbalance in physics generally. Is seems obvious that the IOP would want to fund research into why this is happening and ways in which it can be solved. Is the Nazi comparison really necessary?
- arrrg 11y ago
  They won’t be doing physics. They will be doing (in the broadest sense) empirical social research with a focus on gender and physics, i.e. why are people with certain genders deciding to go into physics or not. Are you really surprised that universities are looking for researchers researching all kinds of things? Someone I know just got a (post-doc) job researching social comparison theory and she can pretty much do whatever she wants in that field. That’s not even socially relevant, it’s merely interesting (nothing wrong with that). Given how socially relevant this topic is (i.e. why do women decide against going into physics or even leave physics? How can we attract more women?) I’m really quite confused why you turn your nose at some poorly paid social research job looking into this for two days a week … Social research is not luxurious. It’s badly paid, the methods at our disposal suck, the topic and subject (human brains and how they interact with each other) is fucking complex as hell, we don’t even know how to deal with it … it ain’t easy. Just so you know.

rustynails 11y ago

That's an excellent comment. Very insightful. I saw a rebuttal of the feminisation of education, but here's a good link that talks about the modern disparity. It's quite prejudiced (eg. Ignores a huge shift away from boys performance - which any honest person knows is true), http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?p... This article even gets offended when girls aren't totally dominating by an overwhelming majority at ALL institutions. That's feminism.

zipwitch 11y ago
It's strange how the article you linked doesn't actually mention feminism at all. It's almost as though you don't know what you're writing about.

pekgpkgae 11y ago

It is unreasonable and unethical to roll up equal-rights movements with movements that specifically attempted to destroy minorities. I understand that this is HN, and that HN is full of white men who think their lives are so hard; but honestly... it is just gross that dang and pg encourage your sort of "polite" but incredibly bigoted conversation here.

dang 11y ago

This is the sort of generic ideological tangent that adds little value and reliably turns a discussion into a flamewar. The tell-tale signs are (a) that there's nothing specific, no engagement with the concrete material of the post, no sign of curiosity—just blaring a pre-existing position, and (b) the casual dropping of a match ("how ISIS works, how feminism annexed academia") on the ground that was just soaked with petrol. It doesn't matter what one blares for or against; please don't do it in the first place. HN threads are for conversation, not ideological soapboxes.