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I'm not a fan of him in the least, but I'm still more inclined to believe that George Soros doesn't like enabling populism because he's a Jew who survived a Naz

I'm not a fan of him in the least, but I'm still more inclined to believe that George Soros doesn't like enabling populism because he's a Jew who survived a Nazi occupation and has seen up close what populism leads to. Also, you're contradiction yourself, because if Soros is all about starting populist movements, and Facebook and Google enable that, they would be his closest allies. > The main narrative that Soros promotes is "nationalism is racism" and the corralary "strong states are fascist". Did you catch the part about him being a Jew who survived Nazi-occupied Hungary?

rjzzleep 9y ago
> Also, you're contradiction yourself, because if Soros is all about starting populist movements, and Facebook and Google enable that, they would be his closest allies. There's a fallacy here involving your assumption that all populist movement follow the same agenda. If they don't, they're clearly not allies, but rivals.
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  The claim was that Facebook/Google enable populism, not that they have populist agendas of their own.
pdpi 9y ago
> Also, you're contradiction yourself, because if Soros is all about starting populist movements, and Facebook and Google enable that, they would be his closest allies. Not that I'm agreeing with the OP, but their point is subtler: Soros has his own tools for enabling whatever populist movements he wants to start. Shutting down Facebook's/Google's ability to empower populist movements denies others that same power, so it's of benefit to him (by letting him alone have that power).
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  You are right, but that still does not apply to this situation. While decentralisation of populism would take power away from centralised influencers, Soros is not arguing against this decentralisation. Quite the opposite. The internet has new forms of influencing power that the previous media did not have. What he warns against is the centralisation of those powers in the hands of a few players, and the possibility of these players working together with totalitarian governments to create a dystopian surveillance state (personally, what I am even more freaked out about is the idea of a decentralised totalitarian surveillance state - there was a recent Wired article on how China is experimenting with this). The claim that Soros has a "strong states are fascist"-rhetoric does not make much sense either. This is what he actually says in the article: > “The internet monopolies have neither the will nor the inclination to protect society against the consequences of their actions. That turns them into a menace and it falls to the regulatory authorities to protect society against them,” There are no business incentives for Facebook and Google to clean up their act, so he explicitly calls for more regulation. How is that not asking for a strong government? Of course, that's not what GP meant with "strong states". His "strong states are fascist" claim is that weird kind of self-denial that you typically see with people defending fascist governmental actions, but not wanting to be called fascist. It typically plays out like this: person A argues that "government X is fascist, because A, B and C", where A, B and C are typically human rights violations carried out by X. Then person B, who is pro-X, reasons "But A, B and C are ways for our state to be strong! X is not fascist, you are just against strong states!" No, person A isn't against strong states. Person B just has ridiculous definitions of what a strong state is. The governments of the Nordic countries enforce a ton of regulation on companies within it. I would consider that a strong government. Few would call it fascist. Person B would probably call it weak.
  - Feniks 9y ago
    Decentralisation of populism? In my experience every populist movement can be traced to a single charismatic leader with a dictatorial streak who promises the moon and the sky to the hapless masses. I am and forever will be thoroughly unimpressed with any populist movement. It will always end badly.
    - vanderZwan 9y ago
      I agree with your description of populism, but it does not argue against decentralisation. I guess you think of the single leader as the "centralised" focal point of a populist movement. I agree, but it's not what the word centralised refer sto. Instead, it refers to the media being centralised or not. Any leader needs a platform to broadcast their message from. Centralised media have (some) selective power over the narrative, and therefore the role of gatekeepers or enablers (like when controversial figures get disproportionate attention because it causes more clicks - see also [0][1]). The decentralisation aspect of the internet undermines that, which in itself is value-neutral. This is not something that never happened before; the printing press allowed Luther to bypass the gatekeeping powers of the Catholic Church[2]. As I mentioned elsewhere, this lead to massive social upheaval ending in the Thirty Year's War, so it's not all positive (worth noting is that Luther's biggest issue was with the so-called "indulgences", which allowed people to buy off their sins[3][4]. How is that for unfair wealth inequality?) The point is that the printing press meant that a lot more voices could be heard by a lot more people. The Internet takes that to the next level. A lot more of those "single charismatic leaders" suddenly have a potential audience (this might explain why I feel disdain for most YouTubers: a lot of them want an audience for the sake of having an audience, without having a story to tell). The Internet decentralises populism because it decentralises all communication. Clay Shirky (from whom I stole the printing press example) has written a lot on this[5]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence [5] https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_the_internet_will_one_day_transform_government/transcript https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_the_internet_will_...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
narrator 9y ago
>Did you catch the part about him being a Jew who survived Nazi-occupied Hungary? Soros worked for the Nazis during the occupation and even remembered the time fondly, so he's not above violating the rights of others if it serves his own interests.
- zoul 9y ago
  One would hope you would automatically support such a claim with some proof?
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  Either do your homework, or if you did, stop pulling things out of context as if you don't know any better: > Soros posed as the Christian godson of an official of the collaborationist Hungarian government's Ministry of Agriculture, who himself had a Jewish wife in hiding. > Tivadar not only saved his immediate family but also many other Hungarian Jews, and George would later write that 1944 had been "the happiest [year] of his life," for it had given him the opportunity to witness his father's heroism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros Hiding with a pretend-collaborator who saved many Jews is not "working with the Nazis" On top of that, it is crass and naive at best to compare the current xenophobia of nationalists, to having to survive a fascist dictatorship whose officials can kill you any time they feel like it simply because you have a certain ethnicity. In practice it comes across more like a bully trying to paint himself as the victim.
  - yters 9y ago
    I too had fallen prey to the anti-Soro propaganda, thinking he raided rich Jewish houses as a child. Appears from the article this is incorrect.
    - vanderZwan 9y ago
      But you're open to being corrected at least. All else being equal, those who have the least difficulty with admitting they are wrong, are wrong the least often.

rjzzleep 9y ago

> Also, you're contradiction yourself, because if Soros is all about starting populist movements, and Facebook and Google enable that, they would be his closest allies. There's a fallacy here involving your assumption that all populist movement follow the same agenda. If they don't, they're clearly not allies, but rivals.

vanderZwan 9y ago
The claim was that Facebook/Google enable populism, not that they have populist agendas of their own.

pdpi 9y ago

> Also, you're contradiction yourself, because if Soros is all about starting populist movements, and Facebook and Google enable that, they would be his closest allies. Not that I'm agreeing with the OP, but their point is subtler: Soros has his own tools for enabling whatever populist movements he wants to start. Shutting down Facebook's/Google's ability to empower populist movements denies others that same power, so it's of benefit to him (by letting him alone have that power).

vanderZwan 9y ago
You are right, but that still does not apply to this situation. While decentralisation of populism would take power away from centralised influencers, Soros is not arguing against this decentralisation. Quite the opposite. The internet has new forms of influencing power that the previous media did not have. What he warns against is the centralisation of those powers in the hands of a few players, and the possibility of these players working together with totalitarian governments to create a dystopian surveillance state (personally, what I am even more freaked out about is the idea of a decentralised totalitarian surveillance state - there was a recent Wired article on how China is experimenting with this). The claim that Soros has a "strong states are fascist"-rhetoric does not make much sense either. This is what he actually says in the article: > “The internet monopolies have neither the will nor the inclination to protect society against the consequences of their actions. That turns them into a menace and it falls to the regulatory authorities to protect society against them,” There are no business incentives for Facebook and Google to clean up their act, so he explicitly calls for more regulation. How is that not asking for a strong government? Of course, that's not what GP meant with "strong states". His "strong states are fascist" claim is that weird kind of self-denial that you typically see with people defending fascist governmental actions, but not wanting to be called fascist. It typically plays out like this: person A argues that "government X is fascist, because A, B and C", where A, B and C are typically human rights violations carried out by X. Then person B, who is pro-X, reasons "But A, B and C are ways for our state to be strong! X is not fascist, you are just against strong states!" No, person A isn't against strong states. Person B just has ridiculous definitions of what a strong state is. The governments of the Nordic countries enforce a ton of regulation on companies within it. I would consider that a strong government. Few would call it fascist. Person B would probably call it weak.
- Feniks 9y ago
  Decentralisation of populism? In my experience every populist movement can be traced to a single charismatic leader with a dictatorial streak who promises the moon and the sky to the hapless masses. I am and forever will be thoroughly unimpressed with any populist movement. It will always end badly.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    I agree with your description of populism, but it does not argue against decentralisation. I guess you think of the single leader as the "centralised" focal point of a populist movement. I agree, but it's not what the word centralised refer sto. Instead, it refers to the media being centralised or not. Any leader needs a platform to broadcast their message from. Centralised media have (some) selective power over the narrative, and therefore the role of gatekeepers or enablers (like when controversial figures get disproportionate attention because it causes more clicks - see also [0][1]). The decentralisation aspect of the internet undermines that, which in itself is value-neutral. This is not something that never happened before; the printing press allowed Luther to bypass the gatekeeping powers of the Catholic Church[2]. As I mentioned elsewhere, this lead to massive social upheaval ending in the Thirty Year's War, so it's not all positive (worth noting is that Luther's biggest issue was with the so-called "indulgences", which allowed people to buy off their sins[3][4]. How is that for unfair wealth inequality?) The point is that the printing press meant that a lot more voices could be heard by a lot more people. The Internet takes that to the next level. A lot more of those "single charismatic leaders" suddenly have a potential audience (this might explain why I feel disdain for most YouTubers: a lot of them want an audience for the sake of having an audience, without having a story to tell). The Internet decentralises populism because it decentralises all communication. Clay Shirky (from whom I stole the printing press example) has written a lot on this[5]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence [5] https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_the_internet_will_one_day_transform_government/transcript https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_the_internet_will_...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

narrator 9y ago

>Did you catch the part about him being a Jew who survived Nazi-occupied Hungary? Soros worked for the Nazis during the occupation and even remembered the time fondly, so he's not above violating the rights of others if it serves his own interests.

zoul 9y ago
One would hope you would automatically support such a claim with some proof?
vanderZwan 9y ago
Either do your homework, or if you did, stop pulling things out of context as if you don't know any better: > Soros posed as the Christian godson of an official of the collaborationist Hungarian government's Ministry of Agriculture, who himself had a Jewish wife in hiding. > Tivadar not only saved his immediate family but also many other Hungarian Jews, and George would later write that 1944 had been "the happiest [year] of his life," for it had given him the opportunity to witness his father's heroism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros Hiding with a pretend-collaborator who saved many Jews is not "working with the Nazis" On top of that, it is crass and naive at best to compare the current xenophobia of nationalists, to having to survive a fascist dictatorship whose officials can kill you any time they feel like it simply because you have a certain ethnicity. In practice it comes across more like a bully trying to paint himself as the victim.
- yters 9y ago
  I too had fallen prey to the anti-Soro propaganda, thinking he raided rich Jewish houses as a child. Appears from the article this is incorrect.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    But you're open to being corrected at least. All else being equal, those who have the least difficulty with admitting they are wrong, are wrong the least often.