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There have been various "alt-right" versions of companies, like twitter, and they don't seem to take off. Patreon took a long time to grow before enough people

There have been various "alt-right" versions of companies, like twitter, and they don't seem to take off. Patreon took a long time to grow before enough people heard of it, and understood what it was. Alt-right versions don't have the reach, since by definition, they're niche-focused. They usually also run into problems with payment processors.

joeyrideout 8y ago
Hopefully this healthier mix of Liberal, Centrist, and Conservative individuals do better then :)
- Kye 8y ago
  We seem to have incompatible definitions of those terms. But I guess that's why this is a good thing. People bring different lived experiences and perspectives to their creative work. Some of those differences are too far to bridge while trying to make a living. They should be able to go off and build their own home that suits their needs when others won't change their home to serve one specific community's conflicting preferences.
  - raarts 8y ago
    If you look at the intellectualdark.website, GP description was pretty much on the spot IMHO. The people there, like Jordan Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, Lindsay Shepherd and Claire Lehmann are definitely not alt-right, not only by their own accord, but also by my personal reading and viewing of their work. Have been following that site, and so far spotted no white supremacists, racists, bigots etc. EDIT: First sentence was contradictory.
    - Kye 8y ago
      >> "Actually [...] I believe." My disagreement is not out of ignorance of who these people are and what they think. I promise we're not going to agree here. Nothing can come of pursuing a subthread trying to agree on definitions for political alignments.
      - raarts 8y ago
        Fixed. Thanks.
mc32 8y ago
I think it would be healthy for these companies to be more like CloudFlare and get out of the business of determining how "good" a customer is when deciding to provide services. Aside from credit score and legitimacy of proceeds banks can't deny services based on how "good" a company or person is in real life. Once you begin qualifying your users based on their social score, I think we're going down a perilous road when it comes to basic services like these. To add to this, I think YouTube is okay with having a ToS and denying service to people who violate their ToS (now uniformity of application of the ToS is a different subject). Using the service is not a platform and can't in and of itself create harm. Cash is not harmful. Using cash to buy a gun and using the gun in violence is harmful. Just because cash is a transaction enabler does not mean we deny access to cash to criminals.
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  Patreon is not a basic service. Patreon is a private company, with no monopoly to speak of.
  - mc32 8y ago
    Sure, we can go down that path. And Amazon could deny its marketplace to felons, but it's not the right thing to do as it's not their place to make that judgement.
    - thecatspaw 8y ago
      There is a reason why I included the monopoly part. Amazon pretty much has the monopoly on next-day deliveries on goods in the US. People also dont usually buy goods off of felons because they are felond. They pay for it because they want the good. These creators got paid for their opinions and views. Amazon is also well in their right to deny goods they deem harmful from beeing sold on their website
      - mc32 8y ago
        Implicit in your answer is that Amazon would be wrong to deny its services to known felons. I agree with that. It's also not a monopoly nor "pretty much a monopoly". There is WalMart/Jet, Target, and many other outfits out there, online as well as physical alternatives. Yet, I think it would be wrong to deny their services to people based on how "good" they thought they were.
zozbot123 8y ago
To the extent that "alt-right" has any meaning at all, it seems quite wrong and perhaps disingenuous to suggest that a crowdfunding site focusing on the "Intellectual Dark Web" (IDW) would be "alt-right" in any sense. Edit: Of course when I say something might "seem" disingenuous, I'm not blaming parent in any way for it! But this is a sort of claim that is sometimes made in an arguably insincere manner, as part of some partisan controversy or another, and it's important to be able to point this out.
cm2187 8y ago
The term "alt-right" is used so frequently by the left that it has lost any meaning. But if it is meant to refer to far-right extremist movements, I don't think that should apply to either Peterson, Harris or Rubin.
- MikePemulis 8y ago
  I think the broader point is that the 'free speech' sites that these guys make end up being overrun by the alt-right and the out-and-out fash. But, on the question of Peterson being alt-right, his arguments for a willful re-adoption of mythical 'archetypes' as a basis for modern society is... well, excatly what happens with all far right ideologies, where a conception of social order is influenced by lobsters. (Cherry-picking bits of animal behaviour to explain human society is a mug's game, but if we were going to go down this route, why not create some vision of frozen gay ice cream orgies and child rearing, based on penguins?) But the real smelly herring in Peterson's schtick is his conflation of Marxism, post-moderism, and general identity politics. It's an invented bogeyman, detached from any real analysis of the cornerstones of modern poltiics. Again, it's absolutely a key strain of any rightish movement. A lot of this could be explained as him being more of a grifter than anything, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - raarts 8y ago
    This makes me wonder. Would it be useful if HN added the age of an account which each comment?
    - MikePemulis 8y ago
      Kewl comment bro
      - sctb 8y ago
        Could you please read the guidelines and start following them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - 8y ago
m-p-3 8y ago
Which brings another questions: are payment processors responsible for their inability to take off (maybe because of bias?), or is it the actual market that sees no interest in them?
opencl 8y ago
From the headline I was expecting a porn thing rather than a right wing thing. But both groups have similar problems with reach and payment processing.
Reedx 8y ago
This is not that. The Intellectual Dark Web is starkly opposed to the alt-right (and any that consider group identity as paramount). The defining feature of the IDW is about open, honest discussion and debate of ideas. That is incompatible with identity politics. Although whatever they do is often miscast as alt-right in part because the IDW defends free speech even when they don't agree with the content. Indeed Sam Harris deleted his Patreon account to protest the censoring of those he does not agree with. It's a principled stance and an important one. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

joeyrideout 8y ago

Hopefully this healthier mix of Liberal, Centrist, and Conservative individuals do better then :)

Kye 8y ago
We seem to have incompatible definitions of those terms. But I guess that's why this is a good thing. People bring different lived experiences and perspectives to their creative work. Some of those differences are too far to bridge while trying to make a living. They should be able to go off and build their own home that suits their needs when others won't change their home to serve one specific community's conflicting preferences.
- raarts 8y ago
  If you look at the intellectualdark.website, GP description was pretty much on the spot IMHO. The people there, like Jordan Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, Lindsay Shepherd and Claire Lehmann are definitely not alt-right, not only by their own accord, but also by my personal reading and viewing of their work. Have been following that site, and so far spotted no white supremacists, racists, bigots etc. EDIT: First sentence was contradictory.
  - Kye 8y ago
    >> "Actually [...] I believe." My disagreement is not out of ignorance of who these people are and what they think. I promise we're not going to agree here. Nothing can come of pursuing a subthread trying to agree on definitions for political alignments.
    - raarts 8y ago
      Fixed. Thanks.

mc32 8y ago

I think it would be healthy for these companies to be more like CloudFlare and get out of the business of determining how "good" a customer is when deciding to provide services. Aside from credit score and legitimacy of proceeds banks can't deny services based on how "good" a company or person is in real life. Once you begin qualifying your users based on their social score, I think we're going down a perilous road when it comes to basic services like these. To add to this, I think YouTube is okay with having a ToS and denying service to people who violate their ToS (now uniformity of application of the ToS is a different subject). Using the service is not a platform and can't in and of itself create harm. Cash is not harmful. Using cash to buy a gun and using the gun in violence is harmful. Just because cash is a transaction enabler does not mean we deny access to cash to criminals.

thecatspaw 8y ago
Patreon is not a basic service. Patreon is a private company, with no monopoly to speak of.
- mc32 8y ago
  Sure, we can go down that path. And Amazon could deny its marketplace to felons, but it's not the right thing to do as it's not their place to make that judgement.
  - thecatspaw 8y ago
    There is a reason why I included the monopoly part. Amazon pretty much has the monopoly on next-day deliveries on goods in the US. People also dont usually buy goods off of felons because they are felond. They pay for it because they want the good. These creators got paid for their opinions and views. Amazon is also well in their right to deny goods they deem harmful from beeing sold on their website
    - mc32 8y ago
      Implicit in your answer is that Amazon would be wrong to deny its services to known felons. I agree with that. It's also not a monopoly nor "pretty much a monopoly". There is WalMart/Jet, Target, and many other outfits out there, online as well as physical alternatives. Yet, I think it would be wrong to deny their services to people based on how "good" they thought they were.

zozbot123 8y ago

To the extent that "alt-right" has any meaning at all, it seems quite wrong and perhaps disingenuous to suggest that a crowdfunding site focusing on the "Intellectual Dark Web" (IDW) would be "alt-right" in any sense. Edit: Of course when I say something might "seem" disingenuous, I'm not blaming parent in any way for it! But this is a sort of claim that is sometimes made in an arguably insincere manner, as part of some partisan controversy or another, and it's important to be able to point this out.

cm2187 8y ago

The term "alt-right" is used so frequently by the left that it has lost any meaning. But if it is meant to refer to far-right extremist movements, I don't think that should apply to either Peterson, Harris or Rubin.

MikePemulis 8y ago
I think the broader point is that the 'free speech' sites that these guys make end up being overrun by the alt-right and the out-and-out fash. But, on the question of Peterson being alt-right, his arguments for a willful re-adoption of mythical 'archetypes' as a basis for modern society is... well, excatly what happens with all far right ideologies, where a conception of social order is influenced by lobsters. (Cherry-picking bits of animal behaviour to explain human society is a mug's game, but if we were going to go down this route, why not create some vision of frozen gay ice cream orgies and child rearing, based on penguins?) But the real smelly herring in Peterson's schtick is his conflation of Marxism, post-moderism, and general identity politics. It's an invented bogeyman, detached from any real analysis of the cornerstones of modern poltiics. Again, it's absolutely a key strain of any rightish movement. A lot of this could be explained as him being more of a grifter than anything, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- raarts 8y ago
  This makes me wonder. Would it be useful if HN added the age of an account which each comment?
  - MikePemulis 8y ago
    Kewl comment bro
    - sctb 8y ago
      Could you please read the guidelines and start following them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - 8y ago

m-p-3 8y ago

Which brings another questions: are payment processors responsible for their inability to take off (maybe because of bias?), or is it the actual market that sees no interest in them?

opencl 8y ago

From the headline I was expecting a porn thing rather than a right wing thing. But both groups have similar problems with reach and payment processing.

Reedx 8y ago

This is not that. The Intellectual Dark Web is starkly opposed to the alt-right (and any that consider group identity as paramount). The defining feature of the IDW is about open, honest discussion and debate of ideas. That is incompatible with identity politics. Although whatever they do is often miscast as alt-right in part because the IDW defends free speech even when they don't agree with the content. Indeed Sam Harris deleted his Patreon account to protest the censoring of those he does not agree with. It's a principled stance and an important one. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"