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I imagine this view will not be looked on with approval, but the ethos espoused by the BLM cadre is explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-police. To many who are

by Veen 6y ago

I imagine this view will not be looked on with approval, but the ethos espoused by the BLM cadre is explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-police. To many who are right of center, that looks like an extreme left-wing view that is not only tolerated by tech and social media companies, but actively promoted. It’s not all crystals and homeopathy.

pjc50 6y ago
Well, it is those things, but it's not explicitly pro violence, it's anti racist, and it's not based on lies or misrepresentation. In each case the inciting incidents actually happened and in many we have footage. I think many on the right under estimate how much slack the right really do get from Twitter and YouTube. Refusing to ban bannon after he called for the execution of the FBI director (does that count as anti police?)
- Veen 6y ago
  > it's not based on lies or misrepresentation. In each case the inciting incidents actually happened and in many we have footage. To play devil's advocate a little: BLM's ideology (the core activists, not the average supporter) is based on a specific view of anti-racism — critical race theory. CRT is not the only way to think about race, and many would argue it's a bad way to think about it: it's illiberal, divisive, wedded to ideologically left-wing ideas about power and social relations, and not particularly amenable to evidence-based thinking. In fact, it could be argued that the CRT is a huge misrepresentation. Furthermore, while each of the "inciting incidents" did happen, so did hundreds more involving every racial combination of police and victim you can think of. It is a misrepresentation to focus on a subset of incidents because it moves focus from the actual cause of the problem. It is not racist police. It is poorly trained, unaccountable, and psychologically unsuited police officers. You could drum every racist police officer out, make every one of them take the knee and attend endless mandatory bias classes until only dyed-in-the-wool CRT advocates are left, and these incidents would keep happening until training and recruitment undergo a radical change. Moderate right-wing people don't oppose or fear "anti-racism" or the support it receives in the corporate world because they are racist, but because they think i) It doesn't work and can't work, ii) it's a bad diagnosis, iii) it leads to socially damaging second order effects.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    > could be argued that the CRT is a huge misrepresentation All I've heard of CRT has been misrepresentation by its opponents. I'm not sure what actual proponents say about it. The problem goes further than the police into the prosecutors, too. Hence the refusal to prosecute in cases of murder by police of black people. > make every one of them take the knee This is not what is being asked for and itself is a common misrepresentation.
    - Veen 6y ago
      > The problem goes further than the police into the prosecutors Yes. > Hence the refusal to prosecute in cases of murder by police of black people. No. They refuse to prosecute cases of murder by police regardless of race. The race of the person killed is largely irrelevant, which is the point I was making in the previous comment. Black officers aren't prosecuted, white officers aren't prosecuted. They aren't prosecuted when they kill white people or people of color. The problem is that police (and the prosecutors) aren't accountable, and they know it. You make it about race rather than accountability and the problem will not be fixed.
joshuamorton 6y ago
Certainly one can imagine that. But do you really think, upon more than a cursory examination, that you'll see Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg actively arguing for an end to capitalism as we know it? I mean they're anti-union. I'm also not clear about the equivocation you're making. Being anti-capitalist or "anti-American-police", even if we take those at face value, while certainly extreme in the modern American political sphere, aren't on a global scale, nor is it advocating for political violence (which we've seen not only advocation for, by both the Trump and his supporters), but actual real-world attempts at smaller-scale violent coups[0]. This runs into the philosophical questions of what "extremism" is, and whether or not it's socially constructed, and I think an important takeaway is that there are tons of reasonable, "objective" measures, by which abstract anti-capitalist sentiment is fine, and calls for defunding the police are fine, while false claims of election fraud are not. A platform choosing an independent, objective measure by which to judge extremism and then having one group go off the deep end doesn't make the platform biased against that group, it makes that group more extreme by the objective measures. Even if a person doesn't understand Critical Race Theory, or is afraid of the "socialism" boogeyman or whatever, people advocating for socialism, modern anarchism, or critical approaches in politics[1] aren't usually doing so violently, and those that do are usually deplatformed as well. Like in your followup to another user you get into the weeds on CRT, and your conclusion was "You make it about race rather than accountability and the problem will not be fixed." Which okay, that's a fair view. Ultimately I disagree. I think a rising tide lifts all boats, and among white-middle class people police apologia is so strong that you're never going to get popular support. So gathering support among minorities is the best you can do (and I'll add, reasonable levels of support amongst Republicans and white people as well, Black Lives Matter is, if I'm reading the polling correctly, more popular than Joe Biden). But even ignoring all of that, so what? Does that mean that a site should remove that content? Does it at all compare to right wing content that is removed? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl... [1]: which are really just a lighter version of the modern anarchism take and, I should add, should be super popular on HN because they resemble libertarianism a surprising amount

by Veen 6y ago

pjc50 6y ago

Well, it is those things, but it's not explicitly pro violence, it's anti racist, and it's not based on lies or misrepresentation. In each case the inciting incidents actually happened and in many we have footage. I think many on the right under estimate how much slack the right really do get from Twitter and YouTube. Refusing to ban bannon after he called for the execution of the FBI director (does that count as anti police?)

Veen 6y ago
> it's not based on lies or misrepresentation. In each case the inciting incidents actually happened and in many we have footage. To play devil's advocate a little: BLM's ideology (the core activists, not the average supporter) is based on a specific view of anti-racism — critical race theory. CRT is not the only way to think about race, and many would argue it's a bad way to think about it: it's illiberal, divisive, wedded to ideologically left-wing ideas about power and social relations, and not particularly amenable to evidence-based thinking. In fact, it could be argued that the CRT is a huge misrepresentation. Furthermore, while each of the "inciting incidents" did happen, so did hundreds more involving every racial combination of police and victim you can think of. It is a misrepresentation to focus on a subset of incidents because it moves focus from the actual cause of the problem. It is not racist police. It is poorly trained, unaccountable, and psychologically unsuited police officers. You could drum every racist police officer out, make every one of them take the knee and attend endless mandatory bias classes until only dyed-in-the-wool CRT advocates are left, and these incidents would keep happening until training and recruitment undergo a radical change. Moderate right-wing people don't oppose or fear "anti-racism" or the support it receives in the corporate world because they are racist, but because they think i) It doesn't work and can't work, ii) it's a bad diagnosis, iii) it leads to socially damaging second order effects.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > could be argued that the CRT is a huge misrepresentation All I've heard of CRT has been misrepresentation by its opponents. I'm not sure what actual proponents say about it. The problem goes further than the police into the prosecutors, too. Hence the refusal to prosecute in cases of murder by police of black people. > make every one of them take the knee This is not what is being asked for and itself is a common misrepresentation.
  - Veen 6y ago
    > The problem goes further than the police into the prosecutors Yes. > Hence the refusal to prosecute in cases of murder by police of black people. No. They refuse to prosecute cases of murder by police regardless of race. The race of the person killed is largely irrelevant, which is the point I was making in the previous comment. Black officers aren't prosecuted, white officers aren't prosecuted. They aren't prosecuted when they kill white people or people of color. The problem is that police (and the prosecutors) aren't accountable, and they know it. You make it about race rather than accountability and the problem will not be fixed.

joshuamorton 6y ago

Certainly one can imagine that. But do you really think, upon more than a cursory examination, that you'll see Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg actively arguing for an end to capitalism as we know it? I mean they're anti-union. I'm also not clear about the equivocation you're making. Being anti-capitalist or "anti-American-police", even if we take those at face value, while certainly extreme in the modern American political sphere, aren't on a global scale, nor is it advocating for political violence (which we've seen not only advocation for, by both the Trump and his supporters), but actual real-world attempts at smaller-scale violent coups[0]. This runs into the philosophical questions of what "extremism" is, and whether or not it's socially constructed, and I think an important takeaway is that there are tons of reasonable, "objective" measures, by which abstract anti-capitalist sentiment is fine, and calls for defunding the police are fine, while false claims of election fraud are not. A platform choosing an independent, objective measure by which to judge extremism and then having one group go off the deep end doesn't make the platform biased against that group, it makes that group more extreme by the objective measures. Even if a person doesn't understand Critical Race Theory, or is afraid of the "socialism" boogeyman or whatever, people advocating for socialism, modern anarchism, or critical approaches in politics[1] aren't usually doing so violently, and those that do are usually deplatformed as well. Like in your followup to another user you get into the weeds on CRT, and your conclusion was "You make it about race rather than accountability and the problem will not be fixed." Which okay, that's a fair view. Ultimately I disagree. I think a rising tide lifts all boats, and among white-middle class people police apologia is so strong that you're never going to get popular support. So gathering support among minorities is the best you can do (and I'll add, reasonable levels of support amongst Republicans and white people as well, Black Lives Matter is, if I'm reading the polling correctly, more popular than Joe Biden). But even ignoring all of that, so what? Does that mean that a site should remove that content? Does it at all compare to right wing content that is removed? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl... [1]: which are really just a lighter version of the modern anarchism take and, I should add, should be super popular on HN because they resemble libertarianism a surprising amount