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> Likening modern 'woke' mob outrage on Twitter to Maoist China is the correct analogy. I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my

by jopsen 5y ago

> Likening modern 'woke' mob outrage on Twitter to Maoist China is the correct analogy. I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my breathing cancelled. It's should be possible to disagree and criticize without analogies to various atrocities involving mass murder. Drawing such parallels is a form of cancelling, as it effectively prevents any defense or discourse on the subject. Whatever "cancelling" that's going around is not all that new.

rektide 5y ago
weird days. a lot of complainy people conflating government authoritarianism with the activity of private entities/personal citizens. this is mirrored in the right's complaints about private services "censoring" them, as if we are citizen's under their power & protection. similarly a bunch of people lambasting you online being conflated with government/state use of power against you... wild days.
- Grieving 5y ago
  They are absolutely not complaining about private citizens lambasting them online. It's entrenched monopolies in cooperation with the state itself that work to ruin right-wing (and left-wing in the case of TERFs, Deep Greens, etc.) dissidents' lives and deny their ability to speak. For instance, banks are closing their accounts for opposing the status quo. Banking is so strictly regulated, incestuous, and intertwined with the state that innovation is notoriously difficult; and innovation from an explicitly adversarial entity with no institutional support is nearly impossible. What's more, if one lives in a red state surrounded by people similar to them on the political spectrum, they'll still have their employers harassed to keep them from holding down a job. It's not their peers "cancelling" them; it's a minority of people with wildly different worldviews from wildly different parts of the country. It's not all that different from swatting.
  - rektide 5y ago
    The scale of these problems seems way way way out of line with how concerned people are about it, to me. I simply do not think this is a widescale problem. I think people want to be outraged. > It's entrenched monopolies Agreed, huge huge problem here. Anti-trust is way way way way over-due. I also think without Competitive (inter)Compatibility (comcom) rules, it is unlikely to be effective at allowing new things to get going. > in cooperation with the state Uhhhh I see zero evidence of this at all. Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Not a single thing.
caeril 5y ago
> I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my breathing cancelled. Perhaps you don't fully grasp how communists operate, then. Maoist struggle sessions in which you were still permitted to breathe preceded your execution by a period of time, sometimes years. Before Pol Pot sent intellectuals and their families to the killing fields, they were merely fired from their jobs. Communists may be evil, but they are not stupid. They know that you purge your enemies by boiling the frog slowly enough that the useful idiots defend your actions every questionable step of the way.
prepend 5y ago
> I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my breathing cancelled. Yes, I think all agree with your preference and share it. But they are both bad, undesirable things. If I had to choose between assault and murder, I’d rather be assaulted. But I work to reduce assaults AND murders in society. Drawing parallels between similarly negative things is appropriate to reduce negative things.

by jopsen 5y ago

rektide 5y ago

weird days. a lot of complainy people conflating government authoritarianism with the activity of private entities/personal citizens. this is mirrored in the right's complaints about private services "censoring" them, as if we are citizen's under their power & protection. similarly a bunch of people lambasting you online being conflated with government/state use of power against you... wild days.

Grieving 5y ago
They are absolutely not complaining about private citizens lambasting them online. It's entrenched monopolies in cooperation with the state itself that work to ruin right-wing (and left-wing in the case of TERFs, Deep Greens, etc.) dissidents' lives and deny their ability to speak. For instance, banks are closing their accounts for opposing the status quo. Banking is so strictly regulated, incestuous, and intertwined with the state that innovation is notoriously difficult; and innovation from an explicitly adversarial entity with no institutional support is nearly impossible. What's more, if one lives in a red state surrounded by people similar to them on the political spectrum, they'll still have their employers harassed to keep them from holding down a job. It's not their peers "cancelling" them; it's a minority of people with wildly different worldviews from wildly different parts of the country. It's not all that different from swatting.
- rektide 5y ago
  The scale of these problems seems way way way out of line with how concerned people are about it, to me. I simply do not think this is a widescale problem. I think people want to be outraged. > It's entrenched monopolies Agreed, huge huge problem here. Anti-trust is way way way way over-due. I also think without Competitive (inter)Compatibility (comcom) rules, it is unlikely to be effective at allowing new things to get going. > in cooperation with the state Uhhhh I see zero evidence of this at all. Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Not a single thing.

caeril 5y ago

> I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my breathing cancelled. Perhaps you don't fully grasp how communists operate, then. Maoist struggle sessions in which you were still permitted to breathe preceded your execution by a period of time, sometimes years. Before Pol Pot sent intellectuals and their families to the killing fields, they were merely fired from their jobs. Communists may be evil, but they are not stupid. They know that you purge your enemies by boiling the frog slowly enough that the useful idiots defend your actions every questionable step of the way.

prepend 5y ago

> I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my breathing cancelled. Yes, I think all agree with your preference and share it. But they are both bad, undesirable things. If I had to choose between assault and murder, I’d rather be assaulted. But I work to reduce assaults AND murders in society. Drawing parallels between similarly negative things is appropriate to reduce negative things.