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After 911, public discussion shifted from totalitarianism to terrorism. I was raised long before this shift. Going by the comments here, many readers of HN wer

After 911, public discussion shifted from totalitarianism to terrorism. I was raised long before this shift. Going by the comments here, many readers of HN were not. Today's equivalent, in the public's view, of this school janitor would be a janitor who joined ISIS in his youth, and stuck around for the beheadings. In a couple decades, society will lose its preoccupation with terrorism, too. Then we'll all get to read "so he was in ISIS, big deal" comments together.

tptacek 2y ago
We didn't "lose preoccupation" with Nazis; they just all died. Later The quotes here probably make this sound harsher than I meant it to! I'm just saying: it's harder today to make Nazi immigrants salient, because those people are all around 100 years old now.
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  That is a large part of it, but the shift was underway 20 years ago. Villains from WWII naturally get less airtime during a time when the public wants to mentally process WTC or Bataclan.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    20 years ago was Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Maybe this is just an American perspective? We certainly didn't spend a lot of mental energy on Bataclan.
    - thomassmith65 2y ago
      My comment was possibly too terse to make sense. Are we both referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks?
  - TheCoelacanth 2y ago
    Even then they were 80. It's hard to get people riled up about someone in a nursing home.
    - thomassmith65 2y ago
      That is a large part of it. Another part is that terrorism sucked a lot of air from the room. Until 2001, people - certainly in my country - just did not think much about terrorism. After 9/11, it was all anyone thought about. That mindset made WWII issues seem more remote and somewhat stale.
- AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
  IDK, turn on showdead and you'll see plenty below
deleted 2y ago
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tptacek 2y ago

We didn't "lose preoccupation" with Nazis; they just all died. Later The quotes here probably make this sound harsher than I meant it to! I'm just saying: it's harder today to make Nazi immigrants salient, because those people are all around 100 years old now.

thomassmith65 2y ago
That is a large part of it, but the shift was underway 20 years ago. Villains from WWII naturally get less airtime during a time when the public wants to mentally process WTC or Bataclan.
- tptacek 2y ago
  20 years ago was Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Maybe this is just an American perspective? We certainly didn't spend a lot of mental energy on Bataclan.
  - thomassmith65 2y ago
    My comment was possibly too terse to make sense. Are we both referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks?
- TheCoelacanth 2y ago
  Even then they were 80. It's hard to get people riled up about someone in a nursing home.
  - thomassmith65 2y ago
    That is a large part of it. Another part is that terrorism sucked a lot of air from the room. Until 2001, people - certainly in my country - just did not think much about terrorism. After 9/11, it was all anyone thought about. That mindset made WWII issues seem more remote and somewhat stale.
AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
IDK, turn on showdead and you'll see plenty below

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]