4 ms·

Which if you read that "specific piece of text data" is the outcome the murderer wanted. They responded exactly how he desired.

zapzupnz 8y ago
The "this is what they wanted" argument is always something that rings alarm bells in my head; it sounds like the "it's a slippery slope" wolf in sheep's clothing.
- collyw 8y ago
  You hear it a lot, but in this case he pretty much outlined it in his manifesto.
  - lumberjack 8y ago
    Why are you taking his word at face value? What he really wants is to spread his propaganda. He is just trying to use reverse psychology to make you do just that.
simias 8y ago
Who cares about what that guy wanted or didn't want. The question is whether we should let people distribute his manifesto for the sake of freedom of expression or if we consider it to be dangerous and worthy of a ban. The opinion of the guy who committed this heinous crime is frankly irrelevant IMO. If I was to commit some atrocities tomorrow and write a pamphlet outlining my motive and calling for others to do the same thing while adding a note saying "look, they'll try to censor this!" will you, out of principle, argue that my manifesto shouldn't be censured because that's what I would've wanted? If so, why?
- FeepingCreature 8y ago
  Eh, if a murderous white supremacist has a strategy we should at least ask if the strategy can work before we exactly play into it.
  - simias 8y ago
    You're giving a lot of credit to a meme-spouting serial killer. It's not like as if it was step 34 of his master plan, he merely got a gun and started shooting at innocent people. I'll take my chances and keep ignoring him and not giving him a platform. In my opinion his main objective was to get attention and put his nauseous ideology in the spotlight. I don't know if banning it is the right solution but frankly I won't waste my time playing devil's advocate for a mass murderer. "First they came for the terrorists and I did nothing because I wasn't a terrorist... And nothing of value was lost".
    - reitanqild 8y ago
      > I'll take my chances and keep ignoring him and not giving him a platform. Hopefully society will not do that. The content might be repulsive but we are better off knowing how they think than allowing only them to know the contents. Crazy manifestos are probably just like weapons in this regard, ordinary people won't care to get one if they are illegal, bad guys will. As a kid I got a good explanation of how badly certain ideologies failed even if they looked reasonable. I also got an intro to safe handling of guns, especially the part about never ever pointing a gun at anyone, loaded or not, except in wartime. I was quite young then but it sticks, like a whole lot of other stuff from my childhood. I'll try to give that to the next generation together, together with an explanation of how insanely stupid such manifestos are - and a crash course in unarmed fighting (disable or confuse opponent, get away). Young people should know what exists or it will take them by surprise. > "First they came for the terrorists and I did nothing because I wasn't a terrorist... And nothing of value was lost". Definitions of "terrorist" differs and while I and you can agree on this and many others I really really don't want to have more power than necessary in the hands of any government. Read history and you'll see that most cruelties in the last few hundred years were commited by states against their own citizens, not by random blokes with weapons.
- jimktrains2 8y ago
  > The question is whether we should let people distribute his manifesto for the sake of freedom of expression or if we consider it to be dangerous and worthy of a ban. Speaking as a us citizen, that is crazy talk. Why should the government be let to decide what is "too dangerous" for me to read? It seems incredible that first world democracies still engage in that kind of censorship.
  - oarsinsync 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance is worth reading
    - jimktrains2 8y ago
      Just because something is not illegal does not mean that society need to be tolerant of it. E.g. I she'd no tears for the neonazis who lost their jobs after being outed in Charlottesville [1] (though I don't support through name and shame that brought it about). However, I don't think it's correct for the government to censor their writings. Another instance, I think fox and Breitbart are scourges for their disinformation campaign (not that they're "conservative" or have an "agenda", the wsj is also conservative and has an agenda), but making them illegal is a line too far. It provides too much power to a government who already has too much. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/08/14/charlottesville-white-nationalist-demonstrator-fired-from-libertarian-hot-dog-shop/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/08/14/charl...
  - simias 8y ago
    What you describe is the USA way, but it's not how it's done in many (most?) places around the world. There are plenty of things you could say in the USA that would be illegal hate speech in most of Europe. Conversely showing a female nipple is taboo in the Land of the Free, while it's mostly not a big deal in western Europe. This is actually the source of many problems with the governance of the web since most high-profile websites tend to conform to American codes (which means that you can't post "the origin of the world" by Gustave Courbet on Facebook, but you can post racist comments all day long). Obviously the risk is not that reasonably educated HN readers could stumble upon this manifesto and start a massacre, the risk is that the material could be used as propaganda to brainwash more easily-influenced people. People become radicalized on the web, actually the shooter himself kept spouting "memes" straight from /pol/ and other alt-right websites. Similarly many Islamist terrorists who carried attacks in recent years also radicalized online, feeding on propaganda websites and fake news. Does banning 4chan or the manifesto achieve anything? I'm not sure. But dismissing any attempt to curb this very real problem as "crazy talk" is not really constructive criticism.

zapzupnz 8y ago

The "this is what they wanted" argument is always something that rings alarm bells in my head; it sounds like the "it's a slippery slope" wolf in sheep's clothing.

collyw 8y ago
You hear it a lot, but in this case he pretty much outlined it in his manifesto.
- lumberjack 8y ago
  Why are you taking his word at face value? What he really wants is to spread his propaganda. He is just trying to use reverse psychology to make you do just that.

simias 8y ago

Who cares about what that guy wanted or didn't want. The question is whether we should let people distribute his manifesto for the sake of freedom of expression or if we consider it to be dangerous and worthy of a ban. The opinion of the guy who committed this heinous crime is frankly irrelevant IMO. If I was to commit some atrocities tomorrow and write a pamphlet outlining my motive and calling for others to do the same thing while adding a note saying "look, they'll try to censor this!" will you, out of principle, argue that my manifesto shouldn't be censured because that's what I would've wanted? If so, why?

FeepingCreature 8y ago
Eh, if a murderous white supremacist has a strategy we should at least ask if the strategy can work before we exactly play into it.
- simias 8y ago
  You're giving a lot of credit to a meme-spouting serial killer. It's not like as if it was step 34 of his master plan, he merely got a gun and started shooting at innocent people. I'll take my chances and keep ignoring him and not giving him a platform. In my opinion his main objective was to get attention and put his nauseous ideology in the spotlight. I don't know if banning it is the right solution but frankly I won't waste my time playing devil's advocate for a mass murderer. "First they came for the terrorists and I did nothing because I wasn't a terrorist... And nothing of value was lost".
  - reitanqild 8y ago
    > I'll take my chances and keep ignoring him and not giving him a platform. Hopefully society will not do that. The content might be repulsive but we are better off knowing how they think than allowing only them to know the contents. Crazy manifestos are probably just like weapons in this regard, ordinary people won't care to get one if they are illegal, bad guys will. As a kid I got a good explanation of how badly certain ideologies failed even if they looked reasonable. I also got an intro to safe handling of guns, especially the part about never ever pointing a gun at anyone, loaded or not, except in wartime. I was quite young then but it sticks, like a whole lot of other stuff from my childhood. I'll try to give that to the next generation together, together with an explanation of how insanely stupid such manifestos are - and a crash course in unarmed fighting (disable or confuse opponent, get away). Young people should know what exists or it will take them by surprise. > "First they came for the terrorists and I did nothing because I wasn't a terrorist... And nothing of value was lost". Definitions of "terrorist" differs and while I and you can agree on this and many others I really really don't want to have more power than necessary in the hands of any government. Read history and you'll see that most cruelties in the last few hundred years were commited by states against their own citizens, not by random blokes with weapons.
jimktrains2 8y ago
> The question is whether we should let people distribute his manifesto for the sake of freedom of expression or if we consider it to be dangerous and worthy of a ban. Speaking as a us citizen, that is crazy talk. Why should the government be let to decide what is "too dangerous" for me to read? It seems incredible that first world democracies still engage in that kind of censorship.
- oarsinsync 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance is worth reading
  - jimktrains2 8y ago
    Just because something is not illegal does not mean that society need to be tolerant of it. E.g. I she'd no tears for the neonazis who lost their jobs after being outed in Charlottesville [1] (though I don't support through name and shame that brought it about). However, I don't think it's correct for the government to censor their writings. Another instance, I think fox and Breitbart are scourges for their disinformation campaign (not that they're "conservative" or have an "agenda", the wsj is also conservative and has an agenda), but making them illegal is a line too far. It provides too much power to a government who already has too much. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/08/14/charlottesville-white-nationalist-demonstrator-fired-from-libertarian-hot-dog-shop/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/08/14/charl...
- simias 8y ago
  What you describe is the USA way, but it's not how it's done in many (most?) places around the world. There are plenty of things you could say in the USA that would be illegal hate speech in most of Europe. Conversely showing a female nipple is taboo in the Land of the Free, while it's mostly not a big deal in western Europe. This is actually the source of many problems with the governance of the web since most high-profile websites tend to conform to American codes (which means that you can't post "the origin of the world" by Gustave Courbet on Facebook, but you can post racist comments all day long). Obviously the risk is not that reasonably educated HN readers could stumble upon this manifesto and start a massacre, the risk is that the material could be used as propaganda to brainwash more easily-influenced people. People become radicalized on the web, actually the shooter himself kept spouting "memes" straight from /pol/ and other alt-right websites. Similarly many Islamist terrorists who carried attacks in recent years also radicalized online, feeding on propaganda websites and fake news. Does banning 4chan or the manifesto achieve anything? I'm not sure. But dismissing any attempt to curb this very real problem as "crazy talk" is not really constructive criticism.