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You're thinking too charitably. HN has its share of actual white supremacists.

z9e 6y ago
Oh please. The fear mongering that white supremacists are everywhere has got to stop. Disagreement via downvoting does not equate to white supremacy. I wish people would comment more instead of downvoting myself, but I don't agree with your hyperbole.
- joubert 6y ago
  Hello :-) My interpretation is not that it is that it is everywhere, but rather that it has a depressingly large influence and impact.
koheripbal 6y ago
oh, come on. Frankly, I think demonizing each other is the real damage being done online and in the media lately. I'm happy to admit I downvoted the above comment because it's jumping to conclusions and charged with hyperbole. I think what's more concerning is the decisive language and open calls for conflict I've seen on social media. ...and I think we need to really pause for a moment and remember back, maybe 5-6 years ago to see how we got here... When Obama was President, the ADL reported that there were, maybe 2000, Nazis and KKK members in the US. Tho THOUSAND. That's it. No one talked about the KKK or Nazis. How did we go from that to people accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being a Nazi? At first, I was surprised that certain things became more mainstream on Reddit - like the open disdain for the concept of "compromise", the acceptance that their own news sources are biased, and the downward spiral of political posts to simply posting insults - there isn't even an effort to make an argument anymore. Initially, I chalked it up to the extremist tendency of the two-party system - but I'm starting to think there is something more sinister going on. There are too many new accounts demanding violence. Too many international posters with no skin in the game voting for the worst responses. Too many threads where people refuse to discuss and talk only about punitive, and often violent, actions. This is conveniently exactly what the FBI reported Russian online teams were doing4 years ago. Maybe they're still at it? I hope you'll join me in not throwing name calling around. Encouraging more intelligent discourse - at least on HN? ...and try to believe me when I say that I honestly believe(d) some idiot intern just posted an upside-down red triangle.
- drcongo 6y ago
  What conclusions does it jump to?
- ikeyany 6y ago
  > No one talked about the KKK or Nazis. You're very much mistaken. You weren't talking about the KKK or Nazis: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-i...
covydar 6y ago
I've lurked on HN for over 10 years including making an unsuccessful YC application. It's remarkable how the general quality of arguments is increasingly aligned along parroting political groupthink on all extremes. However, as a non-white male the most alarming observation is the blatantly xenophobic, anti-immigrant rationalising of white supremacy. Perhaps the most brazen exampel of this was vitriolic anti-immigrant comments following the mass shooting in New Zealand from a particular software developer I happen to know personally in real life on here. He obviously does not know this but I've kept a screenshot of those comments to remind myself about the true nature of people.

z9e 6y ago

Oh please. The fear mongering that white supremacists are everywhere has got to stop. Disagreement via downvoting does not equate to white supremacy. I wish people would comment more instead of downvoting myself, but I don't agree with your hyperbole.

joubert 6y ago
Hello :-) My interpretation is not that it is that it is everywhere, but rather that it has a depressingly large influence and impact.

koheripbal 6y ago

oh, come on. Frankly, I think demonizing each other is the real damage being done online and in the media lately. I'm happy to admit I downvoted the above comment because it's jumping to conclusions and charged with hyperbole. I think what's more concerning is the decisive language and open calls for conflict I've seen on social media. ...and I think we need to really pause for a moment and remember back, maybe 5-6 years ago to see how we got here... When Obama was President, the ADL reported that there were, maybe 2000, Nazis and KKK members in the US. Tho THOUSAND. That's it. No one talked about the KKK or Nazis. How did we go from that to people accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being a Nazi? At first, I was surprised that certain things became more mainstream on Reddit - like the open disdain for the concept of "compromise", the acceptance that their own news sources are biased, and the downward spiral of political posts to simply posting insults - there isn't even an effort to make an argument anymore. Initially, I chalked it up to the extremist tendency of the two-party system - but I'm starting to think there is something more sinister going on. There are too many new accounts demanding violence. Too many international posters with no skin in the game voting for the worst responses. Too many threads where people refuse to discuss and talk only about punitive, and often violent, actions. This is conveniently exactly what the FBI reported Russian online teams were doing4 years ago. Maybe they're still at it? I hope you'll join me in not throwing name calling around. Encouraging more intelligent discourse - at least on HN? ...and try to believe me when I say that I honestly believe(d) some idiot intern just posted an upside-down red triangle.

drcongo 6y ago
What conclusions does it jump to?
ikeyany 6y ago
> No one talked about the KKK or Nazis. You're very much mistaken. You weren't talking about the KKK or Nazis: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-i...

covydar 6y ago

I've lurked on HN for over 10 years including making an unsuccessful YC application. It's remarkable how the general quality of arguments is increasingly aligned along parroting political groupthink on all extremes. However, as a non-white male the most alarming observation is the blatantly xenophobic, anti-immigrant rationalising of white supremacy. Perhaps the most brazen exampel of this was vitriolic anti-immigrant comments following the mass shooting in New Zealand from a particular software developer I happen to know personally in real life on here. He obviously does not know this but I've kept a screenshot of those comments to remind myself about the true nature of people.