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Witch hunts are nothing new; people have been doing this for as long as there have been people. I'd even go so far as to say the mass media have been doing this

Witch hunts are nothing new; people have been doing this for as long as there have been people. I'd even go so far as to say the mass media have been doing this for at least 150 years now. What's new is its weaponization as a tool for political control in the West.

_bxg1 8y ago
What's new is the explosion of scale the internet has enabled.
- gotocake 8y ago
  Not really, I think the literal Inquisition still has us beat.
  - scottlocklin 8y ago
    You should read an older history of this series of events; past views of the inquisition were vastly different than the present view. For a long time, it was seen as a humane thing due to their use of an actual legal process rather than people and local strong men burning heretics (who were probably mostly "heretics") at random. In other words, the inquisition was a Church reform designed to mitigate "private sector" witch hunters who were causing political upheaval. The use of standards of evidence by people like Bernard Gui (who wrote a manual on the subject) was a big innovation, as silly as it might seem today. My historical point of comparison is the events leading up to the various religious wars. The protestant reformation unleashed historical and cultural forces in the same way the present slow motion destruction of the last 100 years of political consensus.
    - gotocake 8y ago
      No, it’s not silly, just a testament to how screwed up the time period in question was. Just to add to what you’re saying, did you know that the inquisition was only allowed a single torture session? Of course they got around that by “pausing” the session and resuming endlessly. Still the ideas in the Inquisition, putting aside its aims and practices, were interestint for the time. So “big innovation” isn’t silly, although I admit it’s an interesting perspective not usually taken.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    Still not close to the same scale. The internet has democratized witch-hunting.

_bxg1 8y ago

What's new is the explosion of scale the internet has enabled.

gotocake 8y ago
Not really, I think the literal Inquisition still has us beat.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  You should read an older history of this series of events; past views of the inquisition were vastly different than the present view. For a long time, it was seen as a humane thing due to their use of an actual legal process rather than people and local strong men burning heretics (who were probably mostly "heretics") at random. In other words, the inquisition was a Church reform designed to mitigate "private sector" witch hunters who were causing political upheaval. The use of standards of evidence by people like Bernard Gui (who wrote a manual on the subject) was a big innovation, as silly as it might seem today. My historical point of comparison is the events leading up to the various religious wars. The protestant reformation unleashed historical and cultural forces in the same way the present slow motion destruction of the last 100 years of political consensus.
  - gotocake 8y ago
    No, it’s not silly, just a testament to how screwed up the time period in question was. Just to add to what you’re saying, did you know that the inquisition was only allowed a single torture session? Of course they got around that by “pausing” the session and resuming endlessly. Still the ideas in the Inquisition, putting aside its aims and practices, were interestint for the time. So “big innovation” isn’t silly, although I admit it’s an interesting perspective not usually taken.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Still not close to the same scale. The internet has democratized witch-hunting.