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> I think you're overstating the effect of fringe communities on the internet. Some believe that fringe information was a major factor in the U.S. Presidential
by hackuser 10y ago
> I think you're overstating the effect of fringe communities on the internet.
Some believe that fringe information was a major factor in the U.S. Presidential election. A leader of a fringe community is the chief political advisor to the most powerful person in the world-elect.
- adnzzzzZ 10y agoBreitbart is far from a fringe community. Just because you didn't see it growing dramatically over the past few years it doesn't mean they have a small audience.
- imw 10y agoJust because they're numerous doesn't mean they're not a lunatic fringe.
- inimino 10y agoLunatic, perhaps, but "fringe" actually does imply numeric inferiority.
- lostboys67 10y agono in politics it means on the extreme end of a spectrum eg the KKK or the equivalent on the left who where calling for the workers of the world to help our Baathist sisters and bothers crush the uprising.
- inimino 10y agoIt's both. It's a visual metaphor for the edge of something, such as the fringe of a curtain or scarf. Something should be both extreme ideologically, and a relatively small minority to be "fringe".
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoOh God, tankies. Can we just not talk about fucking tankies? They're disgusting.
- lostboys67 10y agoI know :-) for those not who don't know what a "tankie" is its those small number Communist party members who supported the party line on Hungary.
- krige 10y agoJust because you disagree with them doesn't mean they're any more lunatic than, say, Podesta.
- adamsea 10y agoYes lets legitimize white nationalism /snark
- krige 10y agoIf snark is all you have...
- gumaflux 10y agoTrue. Some believe in an open global community and some freedoms that come with that, in many different nuances. So a global communication network that supports that is great. With an open society comes freedom of speech and other related freedoms. Most certainly freedom of opinions, even when the actual opinions and fervent activities from some groups contrasts fully with foundation of the open society. Mostly, interestingly enough, the premise of these contrasting groups and opinions are actually based on the idea that some third party external group is imposing on their freedoms and well-beings. Romans laid continents under their taxing rule by fear mongering, nothing new and you hardly need a free and open digital global communication network for that. My personal belief here is that these developments will self adjust. Unfortunately through great friction and pain. Any open society that eventually submerges into the rule of a "Trump/Bannon" group, will eventually self destruct slowly. If the core premise of a society is fear mongering of a third party external group (Jews, Muslims, Republicans, West-, East-, Capitalist-, Communist.. ) the core problem is that you're trying to fix your head ache by shooting yourself in the foot. And then the next foot from that.. Power is profoundly addictive and corrupting. If you've been a failure up to now, and suddenly you're in power for blaming some low influence group, that blame will only grow stronger and stronger with the failures of making a positive impact for the desperate people that put you in power.
- leereeves 10y ago
- irrational 10y agoIt depends on how you define fringe. If you define it as something small on the edge of something much larger then being numerous would seem to preclude their being fringe. But if you define it as something extreme in relation to something else than it probably does qualify as fringe. Though it would help if you clarify how it is extreme in relation to something else (Seriously, this would be helpful. I have no time to follow politics and don't know anything beyond the big picture stuff like Trump being the president-elect).
- hackuser 10y agoLet me urge you to follow politics more closely; all our lives and welfare depend on an informed citizenry. Here are a couple of very efficient ways: * Subscribe to The Economist and read it weekly. It's designed for busy people but has real, sophisticated information and exceptional breath of coverage. It's a bit right of center, but not ideological (except their obsession with the free market solving every problem), and very credible. http://www.economist.com/ http://www.economist.com/ * Read this news summary daily. It's a bit left-of-center, but again non-ideological and the coverage is exceptional. https://www.justsecurity.org/category/news/ https://www.justsecurity.org/category/news/ * Check the headlines at the NY Times. They are criticized by all sides for being biased against them, an excellent sign of good journalism. Their editorials are left-of-center, but ignore them and read the news: http://nytimes.com http://nytimes.com In about 20 min a day, you'll be better informed than almost everyone you know. Final tip: Skip all editorials, columns, talk radio - 99% is either uninformed, intended to twist things and manipulate you, or both.
- 7952 10y agoSurely the entirety of poltics is about fringe people pushing policies. We have just got used to the main parties and normalised them.
- leereeves 10y agoSomehow calling the chief political adviser to the most powerful person in the world-elect "fringe" doesn't seem accurate. Perhaps corporate media has defined the Overton window for so long that we've come to believe that they speak for the mainstream, even when millions of people send a clear message that that is not true.
- hackuser 10y agoHitler and Lenin were fringe. I don't see a contradiction between fringe and power. > Perhaps corporate media ... There is so much confusion packed into that statement, it's hard to respond. All I'll say is that the election was in no way a mandate for racism. And why would anyone want to argue that it was?
- leereeves 10y agoLenin, whose politics set the course of a world power for nearly a century, was fringe? What's your definition of fringe? "Things you disagree with"? Bannon was Trump's adviser during his campaign and even before that, Trump's statements were consistent with Bannon's and Breitbart's. Whether those statements were racist is a debate that's been held a thousand times and is not worth rehashing.
- hackuser 10y agoMy definition is the accepted meaning of the word. > Whether those statements were racist is a debate that's been held a thousand times I disagree; it is not a matter of debate. In fact, I've never heard anyone but the most dedicated apologists say otherwise. The racists generally have said that they don't care, which I believe.
- leereeves 10y agoIf you mean the dictionary definition: > Those members of a group or political party holding extreme views Then that's simply a subjective term, as is "extreme". By that definition "fringe" expresses nothing more than your opinion. Thus, when you say Trump and Lenin were fringe, all you've done is clarify where you stand politically.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- anf 10y agoOy, give it a break. Not everything is about this election, and you can't just blame the internet for it. Yes, the internet allows people to be mis-informed if they don't care for being informed. Still, not being connected at all is basically equivalent to not being able to connect meaningfully with modern civilization. I literally don't know anyone who isn't connected to the internet. It's simply a prerequisite for modernity.
- nannal 10y agoLook I don't think you understand, the internet did this, so let's just shut it down and go home. (Does anyone have a map?)
- SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago> Oy, give it a break. Not everything is about this election Very true, but not relevant: as a rebutal to the statement that "you're overstating the effect of fringe communities", they do have a point.
- hueving 10y ago>Some believe that fringe information was a major factor in the U.S. Presidential election. Yes, but Trump won despite the fringe information against him. See why these political posts are vapid garbage that do nothing to add to the conversation?
- wtf_is_up 10y agoI find this """fake news""" narrative that has popped up over the last few days very amusing. As if outlets like HuffPo, Vox, Salon, MotherJones, etc. weren't pumping out 100 slanted articles a day against his campaign. For every Breitbart, there is a Slate.com.
- cmurf 10y agoI'd hardly call white nationalism fringe, it's self evidently been here a long time although in the daily discourse it's been ignored, or wished it wasn't as overt as it is. Well, this election showed otherwise. But that is not the only factor. There are probably a dozen stewing issues and Trump managed to ride the coat tails of quite a few of them, not least of which is some people who didn't want Trump president couldn't be bothered to show up and vote. There's a roughly 8 million voter gap between 2012 and 2016.
- mirimir 10y agoAs recently as the 50s, there were publicly active KKK groups throughout the US. Or at least, that's what I've gathered, from talking with locals who were adults then. Edit: And there were (are?) "code words" for getting referrals. Some have even become everyday slang. But I've forgotten the specifics.
- hackuser 10y agoThere are publicly active fringe groups of all sorts. You can join the Communist Party too.
- mirimir 10y agoI got the sense that this was far more than fringe.
- mirimir 10y agoAnd to expand/clarify, my point is that racism and xenophobia have been widespread among European-Americans since colonization. And they remain so, and not just in the "red states". Elsewhere, they're just hidden, especially by men from women. KKK may be a fringe, but there's a broad resonance. Consider, for example, that Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested for breaking into his own house! Anyway, the Trump team has now somehow made European-Americans more racist and xenophobic. They just did an outstanding job with the Wallace strategy. Wallace was appealing to blue-collar union members in the North. But now unions are largely gone, and that demographic is either unemployed, or earning minimum wage. And arguably, that has exacerbated racism and xenophobia. Pushback against globalization and the concentration of wealth.