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If you claim to still want to live in a democracy, this is a completely ridiculous suggestion. If you truely believe in democracy you have to regain power usin

If you claim to still want to live in a democracy, this is a completely ridiculous suggestion. If you truely believe in democracy you have to regain power using the structures of democracy, not by employing the tactics of those you are fighting against. The only way to effectively get change is to change the attitude and beliefs of those who support what you are fighting against. In this case, those Trump supporters. I'm sorry, but short of Trump doing something silly (likely I know) and him being impeached, you are stuck with him until the next election. You have until then to convince his supports that he is not the answer they were looking for. You also have to have a credible alternative who they can get behind. People who populate Hacker News are almost by definition educated and analytical. They are people who are able to identify falsehood and participate in a logical discussion. They tend to believe that information is valuable and of a sense that "information should be free". Please don't discard your values and call for censorship just because things are happening that you don't like. Be yourselves, stand up and have calm and sensible discussions, present your facts, support your facts with evidence. Understand that overcoming the negative attitudes that have invaded our society will take time, but in the end, the truth always wins, even if those who have changed their view, may not ever admit that they have changed.

rdtsc 10y ago
I should have mentioned that was mostly a thought experiment. Would I want them to do that, no. But I was wondering how many would want to do it? Maybe there are some rogue employees who wouldn't mind crashing an burning the system to "protest". However, now that I think about it, this type of censorship has already happened. A while back on Reddit, the CEO himself modified a comment from a user from a Trump supporter. As in directly went into the database backend and switched the text blob there. https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/5ektpc/rthe_donald_accuses_the_admins_of_editing_t_ds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/5ektpc/rthe... I didn't follow what happened afterwards, don't think he was punished or fired or anything. Maybe someone else knows. Anyway just as I was saying it was theoretical what-if. I remembered that case. It is scary in way also because posts on the social sites could be used in a court cases as evidence. Makes one think... > You have until then to convince his supports that he is not the answer they were looking for. You also have to have a credible alternative who they can get behind. Good point. I think without self-analysis and reflection more than name-calling and blaming, we'll just have Trump for 8 years. And then another Trump and so on. If name calling and public smearing had worked, he wouldn't have even got off ground in the Republican primaries. Throwing more labels at Trump supporters over Twitter and Facebook will surely not be a winning strategy, because otherwise he would have been back in his tower by now, licking his wounds in defeat. Another way of looking at him is as a symptom. Something was already happening in this country planted probably a decade ago, that lead the the conditions of him winning.

rdtsc 10y ago

I should have mentioned that was mostly a thought experiment. Would I want them to do that, no. But I was wondering how many would want to do it? Maybe there are some rogue employees who wouldn't mind crashing an burning the system to "protest". However, now that I think about it, this type of censorship has already happened. A while back on Reddit, the CEO himself modified a comment from a user from a Trump supporter. As in directly went into the database backend and switched the text blob there. https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/5ektpc/rthe_donald_accuses_the_admins_of_editing_t_ds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/5ektpc/rthe... I didn't follow what happened afterwards, don't think he was punished or fired or anything. Maybe someone else knows. Anyway just as I was saying it was theoretical what-if. I remembered that case. It is scary in way also because posts on the social sites could be used in a court cases as evidence. Makes one think... > You have until then to convince his supports that he is not the answer they were looking for. You also have to have a credible alternative who they can get behind. Good point. I think without self-analysis and reflection more than name-calling and blaming, we'll just have Trump for 8 years. And then another Trump and so on. If name calling and public smearing had worked, he wouldn't have even got off ground in the Republican primaries. Throwing more labels at Trump supporters over Twitter and Facebook will surely not be a winning strategy, because otherwise he would have been back in his tower by now, licking his wounds in defeat. Another way of looking at him is as a symptom. Something was already happening in this country planted probably a decade ago, that lead the the conditions of him winning.