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Other moral panics of thundering herds of dumb: - Salem witch trials - Know Nothing-Party - KKK - McCarthyism - Rock and roll - Banned books - Sex educat
by 1letterunixname 4y ago
Other moral panics of thundering herds of dumb:
- Salem witch trials
- Know Nothing-Party
- KKK
- McCarthyism
- Rock and roll
- Banned books
- Sex education
- Heavy metal
- Gay movement & HIV/AIDS
- Video games
- People who consume Fox News
- People who consume US local news
- Anti-immigrant hysteria
Roughly 1500 innocent individuals have been executed in the US. 100k's of innocent individuals languished slowly and likely died in US prisons.
- rocket_surgeron 4y agoThis list is going to get longer, and the consequences are going to be much worse, in the near future as more and more people leave the church. Moderates leaving means no moderation and the jesusfreaks will feed back on each other as they become more and more extreme. Even as their numbers dwindle the influence they have on society will grow because they act as a single bloc and are propelled by religious furor.
- local_crmdgeon 4y ago[flagged]
- d6e 4y agoAnd the current one is all the fear about transgender people. America seems to always need to be afraid of some group of people
- kevviiinn 4y agoIt's just reactionary politics
- themitigating 4y agoIt's not "just" politics. Laws effect people.
- kevviiinn 4y agoYou're right, perhaps I phrased that poorly. What I meant was that it's par for the course for the reactionary US political party. Definitely a bad thing
- themitigating 4y ago" the reactionary US political party" Republicans. I don't like the new subtle false equivalence. They are traitors.
- kevviiinn 4y agoFrom my perspective the Republicans are the reactionary party and the Democrats are the conservative party. It's just how far the Overton window has shifted. However I do agree that their actions do a lot to harm citizens and the country, more so than D or at least more blatantly and overtly. It's wild how they claim to be the about freedom then do everything they can to restrict it, especially with speech
- themitigating 4y agoWhat makes democrats the conservative party? Remember that's a comparison between the two, not an objective assement.
- kevviiinn 4y agoThey're, at large, interested in conserving the structures of capitalism. They make an effort to seem progressive but continuously fail to make any meaningful changes to the systems in the US that have harmed people and have kept people in poverty for generations. They're generally in the pockets of capitalists and don't care about worker rights. There may be a couple exceptions but the democratic party in general is conservative
- muyuu 4y agoas a foreigner with some interest in US history it does seem like Republicans are going back to their early philosophy of Republicanism, which is basically the moral and political framework of the USA circa the time of abolition, where as Democrats have adopted a postmodern European worldview these two worldviews differ very significantly and are in a very deep conflict, and by definition the euro-postmodern view is a lot more comfortable in bureaucracy and the currently much bigger (Federal-) State, is much better at it, and effectively controls it at all levels this renders Republicans into a reactionary party, especially as the growing trend within it abandons neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism Democrats look a lot like the old Whig party which existed both sides of the Atlantic but was out of step with the prevailing culture; they also look a lot more like a modern British mainstream party than any major US party has looked before, which IMO it's not a good thing, but European politicians love it
- the_doctah 4y agoI think it's more about the children having radical surgery backed by zero scientific research. Couldn't care less what adults want do to themselves.
- klyrs 4y agoPeople believing that masses of children are literally getting surgery, circumcision notwithstanding, is a result of a persistent campaign to cause panic. And it's the same hucksters selling fear to the same religious reactionaries. New day, new apocalyptic scapegoat.
- the_doctah 4y agoIt's happening regardless of the disingenous "it's not happening" claims. Here's some reading for you. There are many more examples. Cute swipe at religion though. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11377391/Age-just-number-Video-shows-doctor-trans-clinic-Philadelphia-defends-surgery-kids.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11377391/Age-just...
- klyrs 4y ago1. Nobody claims it's not happening at all, that's you moving the goalpost. 2. You're kinda proving my point; the Daily Mail is one of the sensationalist tabloids that were flogging the Satanic Panic bullshit back in the day.
- the_doctah 4y ago>2. You're kinda proving my point; the Daily Mail is one of the sensationalist tabloids that were flogging the Satanic Panic bullshit back in the day. Show me the lies in the article instead of attacking the publisher. Bad faith argument.
- at_a_remove 4y ago[flagged]
- friend_and_foe 4y ago[flagged]
- pigsty 4y agoTransgender people have existed throughout history and on every corner of the earth. They’re documented in basically any society with written records. But for some reason, in 2023, people (mainly Americans) think it’s something new and they demand to be angry about it.
- friend_and_foe 4y agoYes, they have. And they have the right to exist and try to live their lives, just like other mentally ill people. But theres a reason societies don't celebrate deviance, and it's because you create social contagion and severely damage people and your society.
- beebeepka 4y agoJust last week, when I was at a techno music gathering, a couple of my friends saw a guy in drag (it was more like over the top ball dress really) and were like "whoaa, did you see that". I had to remind them that we used to have scores of trannies attending these events in the past and and no one cared. But now, after the latest round of propaganda, we, as a society, fear them again.
- Freak_NL 4y agoGood point, but you may want to avoid the word 'tranny' when you mean transvestite (or preferably, cross-dresser or drag queen) or transsexual or transgender person. 'Tranny' has been embraced as a hateful slur and is generally considered offensive and derogatory. (Cf.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tranny https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tranny)
- beebeepka 4y agoMaybe this is why I am being downvoted. What should I use instead? I don't exactly follow the waves of nuspeak
- timmytokyo 4y agoAnd as you can see, even Hacker News is not immune to this latest moral panic. Sadly, once a moral panic starts, it's nearly impossible to stop. It has to destroy an egregious number of innocent lives before society finally comes to its senses, at which point the panic slowly fizzles out.
- aiiie 4y agoI'm a bit surprised at how often it seems to come up in random comment threads. The atmosphere here feels increasingly unwelcoming lately. Or maybe people feel like they're just having abstract, hypothetical intellectual discussions. But when I read these threads, it just feels like signal after signal that I no longer fit in or have a place here.
- lurkerforawhile 4y agoI too have noticed some quite transphobic attitudes on HN over the past year or so. It's been a bit shocking at times. I have considered emailing the admins to state my concerns, or creating an account here to add another voice to threads when things start heading in that direction - but ultimately it seems futile as transphobia seems to have ramped up everywhere recently. It's scary. Of all the wonderful trans people I know in the real world, very few are getting the medical assistance they need. Those people are fortunate enough to pay for private care, and even then the level of care they are getting is barely acceptable. My other trans friends are approaching their 30s and still on waiting lists. Many things presented as fact in this thread do not line up with my experiences of trans issues and the wider LGBTQ community. In my opinion many users on HN are truly insightful about tech and programming, but utterly heartless when it comes to social issues.
- vidarh 4y agoIt's worth noting that most of the people expressing those attitudes here are quite new accounts and/or end up severely downvoted, and often flagged to oblivion. In this discussion in particular I haven't noticed any "regulars" stepping off the deep end. It tends to be less futile to try to keep these things at bay here than most other places, as HN regulars have a low tolerance for heated/controversial political debates at the best of times, even before adding in concern over the specific views expressed, so the threshold for someone to end up flagged over it is pretty low. If you have concerns that are not resolved by people getting flagged (may take a while for them to reach critical mass of flags) or banned, do e-mail the admins. I'm sure they'll at least listen.
- transcoderx 4y ago[flagged]
- watwut 4y agoThis is a lie. The moral panic is about pronouns, puberty blockers, about mental health counselling. The moral panic is trying to make books about transgender and gay banned. It is about closing libraries when they refuse to comply.
- transcoderx 4y ago[flagged]
- zrail 4y agoPuberty blockers are not safe. That's true. Their relative risk is judged against suicide, an all too common outcome among untreated trans kids (and adults).
- transcoderx 4y agoThere are also suicides among treated "trans kids". Don' just use the selective statistics the trans lobby throws around. Or look into the details when they cite actual studies.
- mpweiher 4y agoTo judge that, we would have to have some idea whether they actually reduce the risk of suicide. "...a negative association found many years after treatment is compatible with three scenarios: puberty blockers reduced suicidal ideation; puberty blockers had no effect on suicidal ideation; puberty blockers increased suicidal ideation, albeit not enough to counteract the initial negative effect of psychological problems on eligibility. Turban et al. (2020, p. 7) acknowledged that “the study’s cross-sectional design…does not allow for determination of causation.”" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-020-01743-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-020-01743-6
- Yoric 4y agoI recently read the Fate Horror Toolkit. It's a tabletop role-playing book dedicated to writing/improvising horror stories. They try to trace typical horror plots/clichés to the underlying social fears, typically of US society. Very interesting read for people who are into storytelling. And yes, there are a few paragraphs about transgender fear in horror.
- petre 4y agoThe hysteria about sex education is going on in my country as we speak. The public debate is also influenced by Russian propaganda and the church who is pushing for religion as a final exam subject. They'd rather teach kids mumbojumbo instead of basic hygene and how to not get pregnant in your teens.
- petreshitlib 4y ago[dead]
- friend_and_foe 4y agoHow to not get pregnant, how to use birth control, how to not get diseases, these are all good things to reach children. They go a bit beyond that in the US these days. I laughed at the slippery slope 15 years ago. It's real let me tell you. If you can get your country to take it where it should be and not a step further more power to you.
- Timon3 4y agoCare to give examples of what this slippery slope has led to? What are they teaching you disagree with?
- friend_and_foe 4y agoAn example: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?Year=2023&BillNumber=5599 https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?Year=2023&BillNumber=5599
- drewcoo 4y agoWhen was the "moral panic" over the KKK, exactly? Usually the term means an irrational fear. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/ku-klux-klanobn https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideo... Other parts of the list are also obnoxious and/or offensive but I didn't want to dissect it all.
- lynx23 4y agoAdd Covid-19 and the resulting mandatory vaccination witch hunt to that list.
- transcoderx 4y ago[flagged]
- peterfirefly 4y agoIf you look more into it, you'll realize that he was right a lot of the time.