7 ms·

You can also be a communist. You can also be an open source maximalist. You can also be a gay dog furry. You can also be trans. You can also be extremely autist

by carom 4y ago

You can also be a communist. You can also be an open source maximalist. You can also be a gay dog furry. You can also be trans. You can also be extremely autistic. It is good to have a place where people can exist as themselves and be exposed to different ideas. I would wager that most people who go there are far more accepting than the general population.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
What is it that you feel like you gain from being exposed to white nationalism? Being unfazed by horrors isn't a virtue, having scarred your soul like this isn't something to be proud of. You should be uncomfortable talking to a nazi! You should be more than uncomfortable!
- carom 4y ago
  Someone might say the same thing about trans people. Should I be extremely uncomfortable talking to a trans person? Of course not. Many people think I should though. As for white nationalists, when engaging in discussion with someone you disagree with you have the opportunity to change their mind. We're all human. We won't always agree. I'm happy to meet everybody as human beings.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    You don't have the opportunity to change their mind that's an illusion that works in their favor: “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” When you do stuff like this all you are doing is giving them a platform, letting them do PR for their hideous causes. They can calmly discuss the very existence of a group of people and then exit when it suits them. A member of that group is, rightfully, unlikely to have that sort of calm intellectual distance from a conversation about their right to exist.
    - carom 4y ago
      >But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly You don't have to watch your words on 4chan though. You can literally just make fun of them. You can larp as whoever you want to get a rise out of whoever you want. That is mostly what the site is. While you're larping as a nazi you're being exposed to every other political point of view, every gender, every race, and every sexuality. How many real nazis do you think are comfortable looking at femboy threads all day? Is that really their choice forum? Hate speech and anthropomorphic dogs?
      - FormerBandmate 4y ago
        Yeah, a bunch of them are. They’re lunatics
      - SpaceManNabs 4y ago
        > How many real nazis do you think are comfortable looking at femboy threads all day? Is that really their choice forum? Hate speech and anthropomorphic dogs? a lot of them. Nazis in dog costumes are an actual population on the board and get into frequent conflicts with non nazi pornographic content consumers. You just need to check out the 18+ boards and you see it almost immediately.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      For context, if I'm not mistaken you're quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semite_and_Jew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semite_and_Jew
    - notsosec 4y ago
      [flagged]
    - account42 4y ago
      Discarding people rather than their views and arguments is what creates extremists. When you see people as members of a group rather than individuals then you push them towards the extremists of that group. Edgelords that argue for sport exist of course but they too are people - and might not even believe in whatever ideologies they are meming.
  - Zetice 4y ago
    Being racist and being trans are not equivalent...
    - v0idzer0 4y ago
      Who said they were?
      - Zetice 4y ago
        The person I replied to did.
        carom 4y ago
        Negatory captain, I did not.
        throwawayf37jg 4y ago
        You were arguing against an argument by popularity or something like that, but giraffe lady didn't say that you should be uncomfortable talking to nazis because they're near universally reviled? But because they are reprehensible, not due to how they're considered. I think isolating white nationalists just makes them congregate on echo chambers more. There should be a balance; you should not talk to racists/people with evil views if you can't maintain boundaries with them. So I don't disagree that you should be uncomfortable
        Zetice 4y ago
        Maybe you didn't mean to but your comment did indeed equate the two.
        lisasays 4y ago
        You didn't say it outright. But your words definitely contained a strong degree of innuendo that two groups were, in terms of potential for being intrinsically repulsive to others -- basically equivalent.
  - voz_ 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - dpkirchner 4y ago
    > Someone might say the same thing about trans people. Sure, they might, but it'd be ridiculous. Being a white nationalist is a choice someone makes (and continues to make every day) whereas being trans is not. Further, white nationalism is associated with bigoted actions (including speech) whereas trans is just someone's personal identity that doesn't really affect anyone else. The two aren't remotely comparable.
    - alwayslikethis 4y ago
      I don't agree with white nationalism but I don't believe it is a choice someone makes. For the most part, you can't choose to believe something or not. Sure, you can choose to not engage in the actions and speech characteristic of white nationalists, but so can trans people stay closeted.
      - skissane 4y ago
        > For the most part, you can't choose to believe something or not. To what extent beliefs are voluntary or involuntary is a major topic of philosophical dispute: https://iep.utm.edu/doxastic-voluntarism/ https://iep.utm.edu/doxastic-voluntarism/
  - voz_ 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - maxbond 4y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35443890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35443890 > Someone: @dang > dang: That doesn't work. The only things that work are to email hn@ycombinator.com or rely on randomness. The former works most of the time and the latter works some of the time.
    - chuddington 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - maxbond 4y ago
        If you're literally developing a hatred for some group of people, you're probably spending too much time in toxic online spaces. Perhaps you should consider reducing your exposure to that kind of content. It's a hazard for the soul. (I'd have said the same thing if you said you were developing a hatred for right-leaning people or anyone else.)
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - brokenmachine 4y ago
        [flagged]
  - lisasays 4y ago
    I'm happy to meet everybody as human beings. No fucking way I am. Reading the above, it seems you lack awareness of how messed up and dangerous certain people out there are.
  - zht 4y ago
    This feels all fine and good until those humans advocate for your extermination to other humans who are more prone to violence than them
- throwawayf37jg 4y ago
  And you should be uncomfortable talking to someone who is indifferent about supporting industrialized animal torture that is also destroying the climate, just because animals are "lesser" or "created by God for us to eat". But that's like, whatever, not the reprehensible evil in fashion. Unrelated to this topic, but I don't see a logical way around this. I guess I shouldn't talk to anyone. Almost unironically. Or should disengage from people who push into my boundaries, who would turn me into a worse person. So any white supremacist who keeps trying to "convince" me would be substantially worse than a meat eater who respects my views and doesn't push.
- at_a_remove 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - account42 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - tptacek 4y ago
    No. You can substitute "Black" for "white", because Black is a specific ethnicity, the one the United States created when it kidnapped millions of people from African and forcibly stripped them of their heritage and culture, and subsequently shared the defining experiences of Black culture, including Jim Crow and forcible segregation, which, along with being crimes against humanity, also helped fuse a distinct cultural identity. Saying "It's OK to be Black" is like saying "It's OK to be Polish" or "It's OK to be Irish", which are things you can absolutely say. Part of the legacy of slavery is that for a large number of Black people, it's difficult to declare an affiliation with their origins in Africa: we took their ethnicity from them in a way nobody took my ancestors Irishness. It's not a privilege Black people get; it's perfectly linguistically coherent.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
It's ok to be a communist, it's ok to use open source software, it's ok to be gay, a furry, trans, or autistic. It's not ok to be a white nationalist. /b/ and other 4chan boards do not ban white nationalists.
- qtzfz 4y ago
  [flagged]
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  >It's ok to be a communist Only if you ignore the mountain of skulls
- throw__away7391 4y ago
  No, it is NOT ok to be a communist. Communists and white nationalists are morally equivalent, though communism to date has a much higher body count than white nationalism and their methods of execution and torture have on balance been more savage and more brutal.
  - anthk 4y ago
    We stopped white Nationalisms. If not, Communism's death toll would be a joke in comparison.
    - Amezarak 4y ago
      This post really illustrates the expansion of terms into meaninglessness. One presumes they're referring to the Allies (who themselves would now be considered extremely racist) stopping the Nazis, who allied with the Japanese and were targeting/killing mostly Jewish and Slavic peoples. The Nazis were specifically pro-German/Aryan and whatever they thought that meant ethnically. They did not see things in today's racial terms. It's absurd to describe them as "white nationalists" because they didn't think that being "white" was good. There were a lot of "bad" "white" people in their worldview. It also seems unlikely that the Nazis would have succeeded in killing many more millions of people than they did without Allied intervention, but at least this requires some unprovable speculation about alternative histories. Either way, can we stop fighting battles almost a century old? Today's bad guys are not yesterday's and yesterday's good guys are not today's good guys.

by carom 4y ago

giraffe_lady 4y ago

What is it that you feel like you gain from being exposed to white nationalism? Being unfazed by horrors isn't a virtue, having scarred your soul like this isn't something to be proud of. You should be uncomfortable talking to a nazi! You should be more than uncomfortable!

carom 4y ago
Someone might say the same thing about trans people. Should I be extremely uncomfortable talking to a trans person? Of course not. Many people think I should though. As for white nationalists, when engaging in discussion with someone you disagree with you have the opportunity to change their mind. We're all human. We won't always agree. I'm happy to meet everybody as human beings.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  You don't have the opportunity to change their mind that's an illusion that works in their favor: “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” When you do stuff like this all you are doing is giving them a platform, letting them do PR for their hideous causes. They can calmly discuss the very existence of a group of people and then exit when it suits them. A member of that group is, rightfully, unlikely to have that sort of calm intellectual distance from a conversation about their right to exist.
  - carom 4y ago
    >But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly You don't have to watch your words on 4chan though. You can literally just make fun of them. You can larp as whoever you want to get a rise out of whoever you want. That is mostly what the site is. While you're larping as a nazi you're being exposed to every other political point of view, every gender, every race, and every sexuality. How many real nazis do you think are comfortable looking at femboy threads all day? Is that really their choice forum? Hate speech and anthropomorphic dogs?
    - FormerBandmate 4y ago
      Yeah, a bunch of them are. They’re lunatics
    - SpaceManNabs 4y ago
      > How many real nazis do you think are comfortable looking at femboy threads all day? Is that really their choice forum? Hate speech and anthropomorphic dogs? a lot of them. Nazis in dog costumes are an actual population on the board and get into frequent conflicts with non nazi pornographic content consumers. You just need to check out the 18+ boards and you see it almost immediately.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    For context, if I'm not mistaken you're quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semite_and_Jew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semite_and_Jew
  - notsosec 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - account42 4y ago
    Discarding people rather than their views and arguments is what creates extremists. When you see people as members of a group rather than individuals then you push them towards the extremists of that group. Edgelords that argue for sport exist of course but they too are people - and might not even believe in whatever ideologies they are meming.
- Zetice 4y ago
  Being racist and being trans are not equivalent...
  - v0idzer0 4y ago
    Who said they were?
    - Zetice 4y ago
      The person I replied to did.
      - carom 4y ago
        Negatory captain, I did not.
        throwawayf37jg 4y ago
        You were arguing against an argument by popularity or something like that, but giraffe lady didn't say that you should be uncomfortable talking to nazis because they're near universally reviled? But because they are reprehensible, not due to how they're considered. I think isolating white nationalists just makes them congregate on echo chambers more. There should be a balance; you should not talk to racists/people with evil views if you can't maintain boundaries with them. So I don't disagree that you should be uncomfortable
        Zetice 4y ago
        Maybe you didn't mean to but your comment did indeed equate the two.
        lisasays 4y ago
        You didn't say it outright. But your words definitely contained a strong degree of innuendo that two groups were, in terms of potential for being intrinsically repulsive to others -- basically equivalent.
- voz_ 4y ago
  [flagged]
- dpkirchner 4y ago
  > Someone might say the same thing about trans people. Sure, they might, but it'd be ridiculous. Being a white nationalist is a choice someone makes (and continues to make every day) whereas being trans is not. Further, white nationalism is associated with bigoted actions (including speech) whereas trans is just someone's personal identity that doesn't really affect anyone else. The two aren't remotely comparable.
  - alwayslikethis 4y ago
    I don't agree with white nationalism but I don't believe it is a choice someone makes. For the most part, you can't choose to believe something or not. Sure, you can choose to not engage in the actions and speech characteristic of white nationalists, but so can trans people stay closeted.
    - skissane 4y ago
      > For the most part, you can't choose to believe something or not. To what extent beliefs are voluntary or involuntary is a major topic of philosophical dispute: https://iep.utm.edu/doxastic-voluntarism/ https://iep.utm.edu/doxastic-voluntarism/
- voz_ 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - maxbond 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35443890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35443890 > Someone: @dang > dang: That doesn't work. The only things that work are to email hn@ycombinator.com or rely on randomness. The former works most of the time and the latter works some of the time.
  - chuddington 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - maxbond 4y ago
      If you're literally developing a hatred for some group of people, you're probably spending too much time in toxic online spaces. Perhaps you should consider reducing your exposure to that kind of content. It's a hazard for the soul. (I'd have said the same thing if you said you were developing a hatred for right-leaning people or anyone else.)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - brokenmachine 4y ago
      [flagged]
- lisasays 4y ago
  I'm happy to meet everybody as human beings. No fucking way I am. Reading the above, it seems you lack awareness of how messed up and dangerous certain people out there are.
- zht 4y ago
  This feels all fine and good until those humans advocate for your extermination to other humans who are more prone to violence than them
throwawayf37jg 4y ago
And you should be uncomfortable talking to someone who is indifferent about supporting industrialized animal torture that is also destroying the climate, just because animals are "lesser" or "created by God for us to eat". But that's like, whatever, not the reprehensible evil in fashion. Unrelated to this topic, but I don't see a logical way around this. I guess I shouldn't talk to anyone. Almost unironically. Or should disengage from people who push into my boundaries, who would turn me into a worse person. So any white supremacist who keeps trying to "convince" me would be substantially worse than a meat eater who respects my views and doesn't push.
at_a_remove 4y ago
[flagged]
- account42 4y ago
  [flagged]
- tptacek 4y ago
  No. You can substitute "Black" for "white", because Black is a specific ethnicity, the one the United States created when it kidnapped millions of people from African and forcibly stripped them of their heritage and culture, and subsequently shared the defining experiences of Black culture, including Jim Crow and forcible segregation, which, along with being crimes against humanity, also helped fuse a distinct cultural identity. Saying "It's OK to be Black" is like saying "It's OK to be Polish" or "It's OK to be Irish", which are things you can absolutely say. Part of the legacy of slavery is that for a large number of Black people, it's difficult to declare an affiliation with their origins in Africa: we took their ethnicity from them in a way nobody took my ancestors Irishness. It's not a privilege Black people get; it's perfectly linguistically coherent.

micromacrofoot 4y ago

It's ok to be a communist, it's ok to use open source software, it's ok to be gay, a furry, trans, or autistic. It's not ok to be a white nationalist. /b/ and other 4chan boards do not ban white nationalists.

qtzfz 4y ago
[flagged]
HideousKojima 4y ago
>It's ok to be a communist Only if you ignore the mountain of skulls
throw__away7391 4y ago
No, it is NOT ok to be a communist. Communists and white nationalists are morally equivalent, though communism to date has a much higher body count than white nationalism and their methods of execution and torture have on balance been more savage and more brutal.
- anthk 4y ago
  We stopped white Nationalisms. If not, Communism's death toll would be a joke in comparison.
  - Amezarak 4y ago
    This post really illustrates the expansion of terms into meaninglessness. One presumes they're referring to the Allies (who themselves would now be considered extremely racist) stopping the Nazis, who allied with the Japanese and were targeting/killing mostly Jewish and Slavic peoples. The Nazis were specifically pro-German/Aryan and whatever they thought that meant ethnically. They did not see things in today's racial terms. It's absurd to describe them as "white nationalists" because they didn't think that being "white" was good. There were a lot of "bad" "white" people in their worldview. It also seems unlikely that the Nazis would have succeeded in killing many more millions of people than they did without Allied intervention, but at least this requires some unprovable speculation about alternative histories. Either way, can we stop fighting battles almost a century old? Today's bad guys are not yesterday's and yesterday's good guys are not today's good guys.