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It's an interesting story. I find the conclusion not unsurprising. The author seems to assume the existence of `alt-right` as a monolithic group with a specific

It's an interesting story. I find the conclusion not unsurprising. The author seems to assume the existence of `alt-right` as a monolithic group with a specific agenda. As far as I can tell that's not true. These groups may come out together to protest because they've been lumped together by the media. If they weren't all branded `alt-right`, would they connect? If you want to disarm them, divide them! Don't label them as a single group. A lot of these groups have internally inconsistent ideologies. These can be overlooked for a while as one is drawn to the community. But eventually the novelty wears off and cracks start to show and one realizes that a lot of the personalities are one note and don't actually have anything interesting to say. This is true about the Left and the Right. And then one moves on.

01100011 7y ago
I dunno...if you lump them together they start to believe it and end up tearing each other apart in internecine battles surrounding their subtle differences in beliefs.
- GreaterFool 7y ago
  I think that's exactly what is currently happening to the left! EDIT: But I think the left believe they must be united at all cost. Because anyone not in their group is wrong. I don't get that vibe from any other part of the spectrum: moderate left (if it still exists)/center/right/alt-right/far-right.
vzcx 7y ago
People don't go to radical groups for the ideology: They come for the emotional outlet and camaraderie. Some radicals will flip flop enormously during their "career." They are activists. The guy with anarchist and nazi symbols is not an unusual sight. He's a perpetual misfit without the creativity to fashion his own ideology, someone looking for an edgy support group, who wants to be both with people and distinct from society at large. People actually interested in ideas might end up thinking radical (as in, things other people find strange or upsetting) things, but they'll take a different path and won't engage in activism. They are philosophers, and if they write and are original enough, maybe the best of them will be remembered and appreciated sometime after their deaths.
- max76 7y ago
  This is too strong of a generalization. There are several people from the woman's suffrage movement, the 1960s civil rights movement, and countless others that both had radical (for the time) internally consistent ideology and participated in activism. Yes, there are people in radical groups just to be misfits. Yes, there are people that think and write radical ideas without participating in activism. There are also people that join radical groups because they believe in the ideology, and there are original thinkers in radical groups that participate in the activism side.
- darkmighty 7y ago
  Is activism completely useless though? I do think most of it, in particular group-focused preaching is probably very close to religion and soccer teams in engagement, with little critical thinking. However, there is probably a role for voicing opinions and even stating publicly (as in "the emperor has no clothes"). Not everyone is fully informed and those networks of opinions can have a significant/important impact I imagine. Then again this occurs inside close circles. As mentioned elsewhere, I think by far the greatest threat to democracy is groups enclosing themselves, forming rigid identities like has happened to right-wing (and some left-wing) groups in the West: this makes them far easier to manipulate (by tying propositions one wouldn't accept together with the collective identity). This effect has been amplified massively by technology. You can stay insulated by exactly what you want to hear by visiting certain sources exclusively, or worse -- most people are being isolated automatically. The solution to this seems quite obvious: if technology is fostering isolation, it could instead foster contact with distinct ideologies, by default. Give more weight (through visibility) to long, well thought out arguments instead of short quips and 'likes'; have some kind of diversity bonus (where people a certain 'ideological distance' away are not given lower weight). The problem is enforcing this kind of structure on social networks. If most people get a large chunk of their information from social networks, we're being controlled by an obscure algorithm that's probably not in our best interest (instead simply driven by simple profit measures). Given how large and impactful Facebook (and Youtube, Twitter) is, I don't think it should be out of question to regulate those algorithms somehow (given repeated failure to self-regulate). We should have a right for seeing the algorithm implementation, have an option to upload a curation algorithm (given some specified API), and if we want select from a few sensible options, like simple chronological ordering, to the aforementioned civil-discourse-promoting ones (which should probably be the default).
standardUser 7y ago
Having multiple sub-groups, some less connected than others, is an important quality in any movement. It creates more opportunities to attract more and different types of people. It's a feature.

01100011 7y ago

I dunno...if you lump them together they start to believe it and end up tearing each other apart in internecine battles surrounding their subtle differences in beliefs.

GreaterFool 7y ago
I think that's exactly what is currently happening to the left! EDIT: But I think the left believe they must be united at all cost. Because anyone not in their group is wrong. I don't get that vibe from any other part of the spectrum: moderate left (if it still exists)/center/right/alt-right/far-right.

vzcx 7y ago

People don't go to radical groups for the ideology: They come for the emotional outlet and camaraderie. Some radicals will flip flop enormously during their "career." They are activists. The guy with anarchist and nazi symbols is not an unusual sight. He's a perpetual misfit without the creativity to fashion his own ideology, someone looking for an edgy support group, who wants to be both with people and distinct from society at large. People actually interested in ideas might end up thinking radical (as in, things other people find strange or upsetting) things, but they'll take a different path and won't engage in activism. They are philosophers, and if they write and are original enough, maybe the best of them will be remembered and appreciated sometime after their deaths.

max76 7y ago
This is too strong of a generalization. There are several people from the woman's suffrage movement, the 1960s civil rights movement, and countless others that both had radical (for the time) internally consistent ideology and participated in activism. Yes, there are people in radical groups just to be misfits. Yes, there are people that think and write radical ideas without participating in activism. There are also people that join radical groups because they believe in the ideology, and there are original thinkers in radical groups that participate in the activism side.
darkmighty 7y ago
Is activism completely useless though? I do think most of it, in particular group-focused preaching is probably very close to religion and soccer teams in engagement, with little critical thinking. However, there is probably a role for voicing opinions and even stating publicly (as in "the emperor has no clothes"). Not everyone is fully informed and those networks of opinions can have a significant/important impact I imagine. Then again this occurs inside close circles. As mentioned elsewhere, I think by far the greatest threat to democracy is groups enclosing themselves, forming rigid identities like has happened to right-wing (and some left-wing) groups in the West: this makes them far easier to manipulate (by tying propositions one wouldn't accept together with the collective identity). This effect has been amplified massively by technology. You can stay insulated by exactly what you want to hear by visiting certain sources exclusively, or worse -- most people are being isolated automatically. The solution to this seems quite obvious: if technology is fostering isolation, it could instead foster contact with distinct ideologies, by default. Give more weight (through visibility) to long, well thought out arguments instead of short quips and 'likes'; have some kind of diversity bonus (where people a certain 'ideological distance' away are not given lower weight). The problem is enforcing this kind of structure on social networks. If most people get a large chunk of their information from social networks, we're being controlled by an obscure algorithm that's probably not in our best interest (instead simply driven by simple profit measures). Given how large and impactful Facebook (and Youtube, Twitter) is, I don't think it should be out of question to regulate those algorithms somehow (given repeated failure to self-regulate). We should have a right for seeing the algorithm implementation, have an option to upload a curation algorithm (given some specified API), and if we want select from a few sensible options, like simple chronological ordering, to the aforementioned civil-discourse-promoting ones (which should probably be the default).

standardUser 7y ago

Having multiple sub-groups, some less connected than others, is an important quality in any movement. It creates more opportunities to attract more and different types of people. It's a feature.