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As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughou

As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law. What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling. It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web. We've truly entered a dystopian age that seems completely unfamiliar from the exciting world of tech I wanted to be a part of decades ago.

rightbyte 1y ago
Ye it is surreal. Dunno what to add really. I might think pf something later...
oulipo 1y ago
[flagged]
- 7952 1y ago
  Its almost like genocide is a secret taboo that people won't admit to. Because at some level the logic of it actually fits (if you accept a premise of ethno-nationalism). It's a form of logical insanity; but that is what war and fear produce.
- thenaturalist 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - avh02 1y ago
    So i guess just go ahead and kill them all, amirite?
    - thenaturalist 1y ago
      Yeah cause clearly that's what was happening for the past 20 years prior to Hamas inflicting the largest casualty attack of Jews since the Holocaust, amirite? And in waging urban combat, you designate combat zones, drop leaflets and roof knock bombs because you wanna maximize casualties, amirite?
      - avh02 1y ago
        wow, a lot to unpack here. First, i'll start by saying hamas was obviously not justified in what they did. then begin on your points: 1) re: urban combat and designations + leaflets: basically all of gaza has been designated a combat zone almost constantly - much like the hokey pokey, bits are put in and out on a whim. Much of the population have been displaced multiple times. compare this to the speedy campaign waged against hezbollah or iran, where there was precision intelligence to bomb things out with minimal (not zero) civilian casualties. israel is capable of being precise. 2) roof knock bombs: omg - there are no roofs left to knock on (look at photos of gaza, seriously.), and even if there were, i think this "generosity" went out the window a few wars ago. tents don't have roofs to knock on. - don't pretend israel has been kind by "knocking" on the roof of people waiting in line to get water. 3) largest casualty of jews since the holocaust: I agree this is terrible, but is an arbitrary measurement. nobody seems to bat an eye that israel has 50x'd that terrible number, nor that they're inflicting very similar suffering to what the jews suffered in the holocaust (hunger and relocation at the very least being undeniable within gaza, intention to relocate the populace being disgustingly touted by certain groups).
        avh02 1y ago
        Came across a map that shows the no-go / designated combat zones from the bbc: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/800/cpsprodpb/vivo/live/images/2025/7/29/8f31a2d7-a9d1-45d3-b328-d16cc9af672c.png.webp https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/800/cpsprodpb/vivo/liv...
- FranklinMaillot 1y ago
  Exactly! That's so baffling and infuriating. They're living in an alternate reality at this point. I was just looking at Raphael Enthoven's X account earlier and it makes me crazy.
- ars 1y ago
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  - throwawaybob420 1y ago
    [flagged]
pstuart 1y ago
The problem is simple: conflicts like this are made into binary good vs evil arguments where the other side is bad and your side is good. The reality is that both sides have legitimate concerns, and likewise, are doing very bad things. Intelligent and caring people get sucked up into this and can only echo their hate for the other side. The exciting world of tech is designed to amplify the opposition but not to find consensus.
- mandmandam 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - pstuart 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - antonvs 1y ago
      Yeah? And you think that justifies genocide?
      - pstuart 1y ago
        [flagged]
        antonvs 1y ago
        [flagged]
      - bamboozled 1y ago
        There is still an enemy and government on the other side of this conflict, which have a duty to their people to surrender. I don't believe surrender is in their vocabulary though so here we are...one side fighting and invisible enemy on the other.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
throw8394494i 1y ago
[flagged]
dang 1y ago
> The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic" FWIW the downvotes and flags in threads like this, including this thread, do seem largely organic to me, and well within the range of what one expects from a divisive and emotional topic. People often use words like "clearly" in making such descriptions (I don't mean to pick on you personally! countless users do this, from all sides of all issues), but actually there's nothing so clear. Mostly what happens is that people have perceptions based on their strong feelings and then call those perceptions "clear" because their feelings are strong. We do occasionally turn off flags in order to allow a discussion to happen because allowing no discussion to happen seems wrong. I've posted lots of explanations of how we approach this in the past (e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20turn%20off%20flags&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
- iw7tdb2kqo9 1y ago
  you detached/flagged my comment from thread, shadow banned my account and disabled signup in my IP because I said something against them. That was "clearly" enough.
  - dang 1y ago
    I'd need a specific link to say anything specific, but the general answer that we moderate HN based on the site guidelines, and those don't vary based on who you've "said something against". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- rendall 1y ago
  It's unfortunate and notable that whenever Israel hits the front page of HN and avoids getting flagged, the perspective is reliably anti-Israel. It's worth recalling that confirmation bias, which we’re all prone to, kicks in hard on this topic. We are all subject to the tendency to notice and remember things that back up what we already believe, while tuning out anything that contradicts it. With Israel, that often means people stick to sources and angles that reinforce their stance, whether pro- or anti-Israel, and dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their narrative. It’d be a welcome change to see top comments or stories that challenge anti-Israel assumptions, not just confirm them.
gambiting 1y ago
>>As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law. I used to live right outside of Auschwitz. Been inside many times, and it's an absolutely harrowing experience - the scale of human suffering inflicted upon the people brought there exceeds almost any kind of scale. But similar to what you said, majority of that place is dedicated to "never again" messaging - so it must feel weird to go in, see the pictures of starving children inside the camp(those that weren't sent to the gas chambers straight away anyway), only to go outside and see images of equally starved Palestinian children and watch Natenyahu say "there's no starvation in Gaza". I feel personal discomfort knowing that the famous "those who don't remember history" quote is on a sign right there in Auschwitz, seen by millions of people every year, yet Israel is comitting genocide against the people of Gaza. >> The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web. Any topic related to this gets flagged within few hours. No doubt this one will be too.
- jahewson 1y ago
  What was it like for you living Germany in that period?
  - gambiting 1y ago
    >>What was it like for you living Germany in that period? Auschwitz isn't in Germany, it's in Poland. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question?
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      I think there are a large number of people from the United States who would be looking for Auschwitz on a map in Germany rather than in Poland. For some reason it ticks me off when Germans persist in using the German names for Polish cities while at the same time I'm not upset at the Dutch for saying Berlijn or Parijs instead of Berlin or Paris. It's inconsistent.
dkarl 1y ago
For progressive, educated people, Holocaust education was a double-edged sword. It made us keenly aware that the belief in the need for the existence of a Jewish state came from centuries of European Christian anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust. Therefore, when Israel justified its actions as defense against an existential threat, I think Europeans and American descendants of Europeans felt very nervous about rejecting that justification, since historically we're a big part of why they perceive an existential threat to their people. I think we're well past that now, though.
- throwway120385 1y ago
  For a while people would label arguments against Israel as being against the Jewish people or the Jewish faith. That is, decrying how Gaza and the West Bank were formed were seen as anti-semitic arguments. It was essentially an argument that Israel is Judaism. Whereas mature people can usually argue against a behavior without arguing against a person or a group of people.
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    In so weaponizing "antisemitism" through unethical and immoral political attacks, it increases actual antisemitism and makes the term lose its importance. Meanwhile, 20k Hasidic Jews met in an arena in NYC to denounce what Israel was doing and that they don't speak for them. The sheer arrogance of a secular political regime claiming to speak for an entire people whom aren't citizens of their country and never agreed to this association.
    - woodruffw 1y ago
      A thought-provoking argument that I read recently was that Israel's relationship with the diaspora has undergone a fundamental shift in the last 20 years, largely tracking with demographics: it's no longer the case that Jewish life is primarily diasporic in nature, and Israel's growing impatience (and sometimes open disdain) for the diaspora tracks with that demographic reality. I think this is an underrepresented factor in why Israel feels unilaterally emboldened in this conflict: there's no longer a statistically more liberal, secular, identifiably Jewish majority outside of the country that serves as a check on its actions.
ghufran_syed 1y ago
[flagged]
- sedkodes 1y ago
  This line of argument misrepresents both the nature of genocide and the current reality. First, genocide isn’t defined by whether all members of an ethnic group are being killed everywhere they live—it’s about intent and actions toward any part of the group “as such.” The fact that Palestinians exist elsewhere doesn’t negate what’s happening in Gaza. The UN and multiple human rights organizations have documented mass civilian casualties, deliberate targeting of infrastructure, starvation as a weapon, and systematic displacement. That pattern aligns far more with collective punishment than a surgical military operation against Hamas. Second, invoking WW2 to justify killing civilians today is morally bankrupt. The world learned from WW2—that’s why the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law exist: to prevent states from repeating those same atrocities. “We did it in WW2” is not a defense—it’s an indictment. Third, claiming Hamas could “end it all by surrendering” is naive at best, dishonest at worst. Hamas doesn’t control every decision civilians make—babies didn’t vote for October 7. Collective punishment violates international law, period. And 60% of Gazans allegedly supporting October 7? Even if that number were accurate (which is debatable given wartime polling), collective punishment is still illegal and immoral. Civilian rights don’t evaporate because of public opinion. Lastly, the idea that a population “actively trying to kill you” justifies cutting off food, water, and medicine reveals a complete erosion of moral clarity. If that logic held, any state could commit war crimes and simply blame the victims for “supporting the wrong group.” You can condemn Hamas and demand restraint from Israel. These are not mutually exclusive positions—they’re what civilized societies are supposed to uphold
  - ghufran_syed 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - RajT88 1y ago
      Using your example: >. so to out it in simpler terms, if a guy tries to kill me, i can defend myself, but NOT TOO MUCH - if the person wont stop fighting and I or someone else, say the police, has to use deadly force to stop him, then you claim this is “morally bankrupt”. You can defend yourself, even killing your attacker. It would be morally bankrupt to then kill your attacker's entire family, or the neighborhood where he lived. That is what is happening here.
Guid_NewGuid 1y ago
Yes, never again is right now and I am afraid to even say that under my real name because it would put my job at risk. Watching a redux of the Warsaw Ghetto being livestreamed, watching children starving to death because of state military decisions, watching 500 pounder bombs being dropped on seaside cafes and ambulance medics being murdered. Never again is right now and I'm doing this, bitching pseudonymously. It is truly dystopian as you say. Further, state influence campaigns using social media are well known, it is absolutely happening on this forum and all forums as you say. What to do? I have no idea but I know that those who suffer the consequences of speaking out against this, such as the tens of people arrested in the UK, are truly brave. Never again is right now. One day everyone will have been against this.
- throwawaybob420 1y ago
  That’s the part that sickens me, if anyone says anything about the genocide, your livelihood is at risk. It’s disgusting, and it works to prevent people from saying anything publicly.
  - jahewson 1y ago
    [flagged]
- LorenPechtel 1y ago
  And there's some reason to believe there isn't a state influence campaign in favor of Hamas?
  - ajsnigrutin 1y ago
    That would be easy to disprove, just let international journalists enter the area and film whatever is happening there. Israel won't let them.
  - pydry 1y ago
    Nobody wants to fund it. Fervent supporters of Israel believe all sorts of nonsense about support for Hamas in the west. It functions as a kind of whataboutism.
anonymars 1y ago
Probably not going to find this one encouraging: > A Columbia genocide scholar says she may leave over university’s new definition of antisemitism > ... Hirsch, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, is now thinking of leaving the classroom altogether. https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-antisemitism-definition-68d44684f376b12162a28b88104e5d24 https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-antisemitism-... -- Tangentially related, I never understood how the anti-BDS laws square with the first amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in...)
- zahlman 1y ago
  > Tangentially related, I never understood how the anti-BDS laws square with the first amendment At my university, a portion of my dues went to funding BDS efforts (what expenses do they even have?) and I had no clear means to object to this. This was in Canada, but it seems to me perfectly fair to oppose that. That said: > Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel. Substitute, for example, any domestic racial minority for "Israel"; does your opinion change?
  - anonymars 1y ago
    > At my university, a portion of my dues went to funding BDS efforts Surely you can protest that at the university and it is not a government-enforced policy? > Substitute, for example, any domestic racial minority for "Israel" Is "Israel" a race or a country? Should a Canadian not be allowed to boycott the US?
    - zahlman 1y ago
      > Is "Israel" a race or a country? Should a Canadian not be allowed to boycott the US? The legislation described does not prevent boycotts, except by government contractors who have a duty to government policy and thus do not necessarily enjoy those protections (https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47986 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47986): > Speech restrictions imposed by private entities, and government limits on its own speech, usually do not implicate the First Amendment. As for public investment funds: you'll need to explain to me how saying that X may not invest in Y because Y is refusing to buy things from Z, causes Y to stop being able to refuse to buy things from Z (i.e., compels Y to buy things from Z). If you want to not buy things from Israel, then... just don't. You don't need my money, or a private investment firm's, in order to achieve that.
dimator 1y ago
> It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web. Unfortunately the techno optimism that we grew up with has given way to the stark reality that it is now easier than ever to manage the truth and squash dissent. Which, btw, is the exact opposite of what we thought the Internet would be: the democratization of truth and voices. Instead we've allowed a handful of media oligarchs to own and distort the spin landscape.
- jahewson 1y ago
  I would argue that we have democratized voices, the problem is that many of those voices want to lie, for the same reason that oligarchs want to lie.
wredcoll 1y ago
> Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling. Wait. What? Are you trying to imply this was some kind of a real thing that happened? Sarcasm on the internet doesn't always travel well, I can't tell if you're just using this fiction as a metaphor or trying to convince people it actually happened.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  This is hard to read as a genuine question so I'm not sure you'll get a genuine answer (if any response).
  - wredcoll 1y ago
    One of the more annoying things I've noticed as I've gotten older is just how well certain false memes spread through a society. If they're ultimately harmless, then it doesn't matter that much, but I don't think that repeating the meme/myth that there was or is a "cancel culture", much less one that could peak, is harmless. The short, short phone typing reason is that people who use the term cancel culture are almost always using it to attack criticism, and the majority of those times, it's things that deserve criticism. I'm not sure I can change the world or even the culture of a small internet message board, but I can at least push back on it when I see it.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      > but I don't think that repeating the meme/myth that there was or is a "cancel culture", much less one that could peak, is harmless. It is not a meme or a myth. It has happened, has been happening for a long time, and is still happening. I have personally observed it to happen on many occasions, including ones that caused harm to people I care about. It is disrespectful to dismiss that.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > Are you trying to imply this was some kind of a real thing that happened? I won't speak for GP, but it was very clearly a real thing (no "some kind of" qualifier necessary) that actually did happen. I observed it to happen. I observed it to negatively affect people I personally met and cared about. I observed the creation of entire subreddits dedicated to the application of the technique, such as r/byebyejob which today has 650 thousand subscribers. Wikipedia recognizes that it has happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture). (And this is despite that I would generally consider Wikipedia's coverage of political and cultural topics to be biased against me.) I have been observing it for over a decade, longer than it had a name (if Wikipedia is to be believed, anyway — although of course one should naturally expect "cancelling" to have existed for longer than the "culture" around it). For just one example completely off the top of my head, consider the case of Dr. Matt Taylor, who was browbeaten into apologizing for wearing a shirt (which was a gift from a female friend) deemed "sexist" (for depicting women in outfits that wouldn't be out of place in a general-audience comic book) and further harassed after apologizing. I followed this story closely as it happened. Aside from that, if you disagree with someone else about facts, please speak plainly. Phrasing like yours implies a level of disdain and disrespect that is well outside my understanding of how discourse is expected to work on HN.
zahlman 1y ago
> What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. In the world I can observe (especially social media), the opposite is true; characterizing the situation as a genocide is normal and accepted, disputing that will get you shunned, and depending on who your friends are you may find yourself subjected to purity testing of that opinion. Consider, for example, who does and doesn't get banned on Twitch for the things they say about this issue, and what their positions are. Or have a look around Fosstodon, or among FOSS developers on other Mastodon instances; "Free Palestine" is at least as common in bios and screen names as BLM support, while opposed slogans don't even exist as far as I can tell or would be unconscionable to use if they do. Or consider for example this thread, which is full of people who agree with you, at least among the live comments.
anonfordays 1y ago
>is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling. Peak cancel culture was much more chilling than this. People were fired for cracking their knuckles[0], businesses were targeted for selling tacos while White, not constantly virtue signaling at work would cast you as a racist since "silence is complicetness," etc. A moral panic not seen for decades. Leftists made their bed, and now they get to lie in it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Those who pointed out the peak woke cancel culture lunacy were told they were racists supporting the status quo. Now you're being told you're antisemitic. It was truly dystopian. [0] https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was/ https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-cal...

rightbyte 1y ago

Ye it is surreal. Dunno what to add really. I might think pf something later...

oulipo 1y ago

[flagged]

7952 1y ago
Its almost like genocide is a secret taboo that people won't admit to. Because at some level the logic of it actually fits (if you accept a premise of ethno-nationalism). It's a form of logical insanity; but that is what war and fear produce.
thenaturalist 1y ago
[flagged]
- avh02 1y ago
  So i guess just go ahead and kill them all, amirite?
  - thenaturalist 1y ago
    Yeah cause clearly that's what was happening for the past 20 years prior to Hamas inflicting the largest casualty attack of Jews since the Holocaust, amirite? And in waging urban combat, you designate combat zones, drop leaflets and roof knock bombs because you wanna maximize casualties, amirite?
    - avh02 1y ago
      wow, a lot to unpack here. First, i'll start by saying hamas was obviously not justified in what they did. then begin on your points: 1) re: urban combat and designations + leaflets: basically all of gaza has been designated a combat zone almost constantly - much like the hokey pokey, bits are put in and out on a whim. Much of the population have been displaced multiple times. compare this to the speedy campaign waged against hezbollah or iran, where there was precision intelligence to bomb things out with minimal (not zero) civilian casualties. israel is capable of being precise. 2) roof knock bombs: omg - there are no roofs left to knock on (look at photos of gaza, seriously.), and even if there were, i think this "generosity" went out the window a few wars ago. tents don't have roofs to knock on. - don't pretend israel has been kind by "knocking" on the roof of people waiting in line to get water. 3) largest casualty of jews since the holocaust: I agree this is terrible, but is an arbitrary measurement. nobody seems to bat an eye that israel has 50x'd that terrible number, nor that they're inflicting very similar suffering to what the jews suffered in the holocaust (hunger and relocation at the very least being undeniable within gaza, intention to relocate the populace being disgustingly touted by certain groups).
      - avh02 1y ago
        Came across a map that shows the no-go / designated combat zones from the bbc: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/800/cpsprodpb/vivo/live/images/2025/7/29/8f31a2d7-a9d1-45d3-b328-d16cc9af672c.png.webp https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/800/cpsprodpb/vivo/liv...
FranklinMaillot 1y ago
Exactly! That's so baffling and infuriating. They're living in an alternate reality at this point. I was just looking at Raphael Enthoven's X account earlier and it makes me crazy.
ars 1y ago
[flagged]
- throwawaybob420 1y ago
  [flagged]

pstuart 1y ago

The problem is simple: conflicts like this are made into binary good vs evil arguments where the other side is bad and your side is good. The reality is that both sides have legitimate concerns, and likewise, are doing very bad things. Intelligent and caring people get sucked up into this and can only echo their hate for the other side. The exciting world of tech is designed to amplify the opposition but not to find consensus.

mandmandam 1y ago
[flagged]
- pstuart 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - antonvs 1y ago
    Yeah? And you think that justifies genocide?
    - pstuart 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - antonvs 1y ago
        [flagged]
    - bamboozled 1y ago
      There is still an enemy and government on the other side of this conflict, which have a duty to their people to surrender. I don't believe surrender is in their vocabulary though so here we are...one side fighting and invisible enemy on the other.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]

throw8394494i 1y ago

[flagged]

dang 1y ago

> The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic" FWIW the downvotes and flags in threads like this, including this thread, do seem largely organic to me, and well within the range of what one expects from a divisive and emotional topic. People often use words like "clearly" in making such descriptions (I don't mean to pick on you personally! countless users do this, from all sides of all issues), but actually there's nothing so clear. Mostly what happens is that people have perceptions based on their strong feelings and then call those perceptions "clear" because their feelings are strong. We do occasionally turn off flags in order to allow a discussion to happen because allowing no discussion to happen seems wrong. I've posted lots of explanations of how we approach this in the past (e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20turn%20off%20flags&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)

iw7tdb2kqo9 1y ago
you detached/flagged my comment from thread, shadow banned my account and disabled signup in my IP because I said something against them. That was "clearly" enough.
- dang 1y ago
  I'd need a specific link to say anything specific, but the general answer that we moderate HN based on the site guidelines, and those don't vary based on who you've "said something against". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
rendall 1y ago
It's unfortunate and notable that whenever Israel hits the front page of HN and avoids getting flagged, the perspective is reliably anti-Israel. It's worth recalling that confirmation bias, which we’re all prone to, kicks in hard on this topic. We are all subject to the tendency to notice and remember things that back up what we already believe, while tuning out anything that contradicts it. With Israel, that often means people stick to sources and angles that reinforce their stance, whether pro- or anti-Israel, and dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their narrative. It’d be a welcome change to see top comments or stories that challenge anti-Israel assumptions, not just confirm them.

gambiting 1y ago

>>As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law. I used to live right outside of Auschwitz. Been inside many times, and it's an absolutely harrowing experience - the scale of human suffering inflicted upon the people brought there exceeds almost any kind of scale. But similar to what you said, majority of that place is dedicated to "never again" messaging - so it must feel weird to go in, see the pictures of starving children inside the camp(those that weren't sent to the gas chambers straight away anyway), only to go outside and see images of equally starved Palestinian children and watch Natenyahu say "there's no starvation in Gaza". I feel personal discomfort knowing that the famous "those who don't remember history" quote is on a sign right there in Auschwitz, seen by millions of people every year, yet Israel is comitting genocide against the people of Gaza. >> The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web. Any topic related to this gets flagged within few hours. No doubt this one will be too.

jahewson 1y ago
What was it like for you living Germany in that period?
- gambiting 1y ago
  >>What was it like for you living Germany in that period? Auschwitz isn't in Germany, it's in Poland. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question?
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    I think there are a large number of people from the United States who would be looking for Auschwitz on a map in Germany rather than in Poland. For some reason it ticks me off when Germans persist in using the German names for Polish cities while at the same time I'm not upset at the Dutch for saying Berlijn or Parijs instead of Berlin or Paris. It's inconsistent.

dkarl 1y ago

For progressive, educated people, Holocaust education was a double-edged sword. It made us keenly aware that the belief in the need for the existence of a Jewish state came from centuries of European Christian anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust. Therefore, when Israel justified its actions as defense against an existential threat, I think Europeans and American descendants of Europeans felt very nervous about rejecting that justification, since historically we're a big part of why they perceive an existential threat to their people. I think we're well past that now, though.

throwway120385 1y ago
For a while people would label arguments against Israel as being against the Jewish people or the Jewish faith. That is, decrying how Gaza and the West Bank were formed were seen as anti-semitic arguments. It was essentially an argument that Israel is Judaism. Whereas mature people can usually argue against a behavior without arguing against a person or a group of people.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  In so weaponizing "antisemitism" through unethical and immoral political attacks, it increases actual antisemitism and makes the term lose its importance. Meanwhile, 20k Hasidic Jews met in an arena in NYC to denounce what Israel was doing and that they don't speak for them. The sheer arrogance of a secular political regime claiming to speak for an entire people whom aren't citizens of their country and never agreed to this association.
  - woodruffw 1y ago
    A thought-provoking argument that I read recently was that Israel's relationship with the diaspora has undergone a fundamental shift in the last 20 years, largely tracking with demographics: it's no longer the case that Jewish life is primarily diasporic in nature, and Israel's growing impatience (and sometimes open disdain) for the diaspora tracks with that demographic reality. I think this is an underrepresented factor in why Israel feels unilaterally emboldened in this conflict: there's no longer a statistically more liberal, secular, identifiably Jewish majority outside of the country that serves as a check on its actions.

ghufran_syed 1y ago

[flagged]

sedkodes 1y ago
This line of argument misrepresents both the nature of genocide and the current reality. First, genocide isn’t defined by whether all members of an ethnic group are being killed everywhere they live—it’s about intent and actions toward any part of the group “as such.” The fact that Palestinians exist elsewhere doesn’t negate what’s happening in Gaza. The UN and multiple human rights organizations have documented mass civilian casualties, deliberate targeting of infrastructure, starvation as a weapon, and systematic displacement. That pattern aligns far more with collective punishment than a surgical military operation against Hamas. Second, invoking WW2 to justify killing civilians today is morally bankrupt. The world learned from WW2—that’s why the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law exist: to prevent states from repeating those same atrocities. “We did it in WW2” is not a defense—it’s an indictment. Third, claiming Hamas could “end it all by surrendering” is naive at best, dishonest at worst. Hamas doesn’t control every decision civilians make—babies didn’t vote for October 7. Collective punishment violates international law, period. And 60% of Gazans allegedly supporting October 7? Even if that number were accurate (which is debatable given wartime polling), collective punishment is still illegal and immoral. Civilian rights don’t evaporate because of public opinion. Lastly, the idea that a population “actively trying to kill you” justifies cutting off food, water, and medicine reveals a complete erosion of moral clarity. If that logic held, any state could commit war crimes and simply blame the victims for “supporting the wrong group.” You can condemn Hamas and demand restraint from Israel. These are not mutually exclusive positions—they’re what civilized societies are supposed to uphold
- ghufran_syed 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - RajT88 1y ago
    Using your example: >. so to out it in simpler terms, if a guy tries to kill me, i can defend myself, but NOT TOO MUCH - if the person wont stop fighting and I or someone else, say the police, has to use deadly force to stop him, then you claim this is “morally bankrupt”. You can defend yourself, even killing your attacker. It would be morally bankrupt to then kill your attacker's entire family, or the neighborhood where he lived. That is what is happening here.

Guid_NewGuid 1y ago

Yes, never again is right now and I am afraid to even say that under my real name because it would put my job at risk. Watching a redux of the Warsaw Ghetto being livestreamed, watching children starving to death because of state military decisions, watching 500 pounder bombs being dropped on seaside cafes and ambulance medics being murdered. Never again is right now and I'm doing this, bitching pseudonymously. It is truly dystopian as you say. Further, state influence campaigns using social media are well known, it is absolutely happening on this forum and all forums as you say. What to do? I have no idea but I know that those who suffer the consequences of speaking out against this, such as the tens of people arrested in the UK, are truly brave. Never again is right now. One day everyone will have been against this.

throwawaybob420 1y ago
That’s the part that sickens me, if anyone says anything about the genocide, your livelihood is at risk. It’s disgusting, and it works to prevent people from saying anything publicly.
- jahewson 1y ago
  [flagged]
LorenPechtel 1y ago
And there's some reason to believe there isn't a state influence campaign in favor of Hamas?
- ajsnigrutin 1y ago
  That would be easy to disprove, just let international journalists enter the area and film whatever is happening there. Israel won't let them.
- pydry 1y ago
  Nobody wants to fund it. Fervent supporters of Israel believe all sorts of nonsense about support for Hamas in the west. It functions as a kind of whataboutism.

anonymars 1y ago

Probably not going to find this one encouraging: > A Columbia genocide scholar says she may leave over university’s new definition of antisemitism > ... Hirsch, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, is now thinking of leaving the classroom altogether. https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-antisemitism-definition-68d44684f376b12162a28b88104e5d24 https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-antisemitism-... -- Tangentially related, I never understood how the anti-BDS laws square with the first amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in...)

zahlman 1y ago
> Tangentially related, I never understood how the anti-BDS laws square with the first amendment At my university, a portion of my dues went to funding BDS efforts (what expenses do they even have?) and I had no clear means to object to this. This was in Canada, but it seems to me perfectly fair to oppose that. That said: > Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel. Substitute, for example, any domestic racial minority for "Israel"; does your opinion change?
- anonymars 1y ago
  > At my university, a portion of my dues went to funding BDS efforts Surely you can protest that at the university and it is not a government-enforced policy? > Substitute, for example, any domestic racial minority for "Israel" Is "Israel" a race or a country? Should a Canadian not be allowed to boycott the US?
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > Is "Israel" a race or a country? Should a Canadian not be allowed to boycott the US? The legislation described does not prevent boycotts, except by government contractors who have a duty to government policy and thus do not necessarily enjoy those protections (https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47986 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47986): > Speech restrictions imposed by private entities, and government limits on its own speech, usually do not implicate the First Amendment. As for public investment funds: you'll need to explain to me how saying that X may not invest in Y because Y is refusing to buy things from Z, causes Y to stop being able to refuse to buy things from Z (i.e., compels Y to buy things from Z). If you want to not buy things from Israel, then... just don't. You don't need my money, or a private investment firm's, in order to achieve that.

dimator 1y ago

> It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web. Unfortunately the techno optimism that we grew up with has given way to the stark reality that it is now easier than ever to manage the truth and squash dissent. Which, btw, is the exact opposite of what we thought the Internet would be: the democratization of truth and voices. Instead we've allowed a handful of media oligarchs to own and distort the spin landscape.

jahewson 1y ago
I would argue that we have democratized voices, the problem is that many of those voices want to lie, for the same reason that oligarchs want to lie.

wredcoll 1y ago

> Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling. Wait. What? Are you trying to imply this was some kind of a real thing that happened? Sarcasm on the internet doesn't always travel well, I can't tell if you're just using this fiction as a metaphor or trying to convince people it actually happened.

zamadatix 1y ago
This is hard to read as a genuine question so I'm not sure you'll get a genuine answer (if any response).
- wredcoll 1y ago
  One of the more annoying things I've noticed as I've gotten older is just how well certain false memes spread through a society. If they're ultimately harmless, then it doesn't matter that much, but I don't think that repeating the meme/myth that there was or is a "cancel culture", much less one that could peak, is harmless. The short, short phone typing reason is that people who use the term cancel culture are almost always using it to attack criticism, and the majority of those times, it's things that deserve criticism. I'm not sure I can change the world or even the culture of a small internet message board, but I can at least push back on it when I see it.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > but I don't think that repeating the meme/myth that there was or is a "cancel culture", much less one that could peak, is harmless. It is not a meme or a myth. It has happened, has been happening for a long time, and is still happening. I have personally observed it to happen on many occasions, including ones that caused harm to people I care about. It is disrespectful to dismiss that.
zahlman 1y ago
> Are you trying to imply this was some kind of a real thing that happened? I won't speak for GP, but it was very clearly a real thing (no "some kind of" qualifier necessary) that actually did happen. I observed it to happen. I observed it to negatively affect people I personally met and cared about. I observed the creation of entire subreddits dedicated to the application of the technique, such as r/byebyejob which today has 650 thousand subscribers. Wikipedia recognizes that it has happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture). (And this is despite that I would generally consider Wikipedia's coverage of political and cultural topics to be biased against me.) I have been observing it for over a decade, longer than it had a name (if Wikipedia is to be believed, anyway — although of course one should naturally expect "cancelling" to have existed for longer than the "culture" around it). For just one example completely off the top of my head, consider the case of Dr. Matt Taylor, who was browbeaten into apologizing for wearing a shirt (which was a gift from a female friend) deemed "sexist" (for depicting women in outfits that wouldn't be out of place in a general-audience comic book) and further harassed after apologizing. I followed this story closely as it happened. Aside from that, if you disagree with someone else about facts, please speak plainly. Phrasing like yours implies a level of disdain and disrespect that is well outside my understanding of how discourse is expected to work on HN.

zahlman 1y ago

> What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. In the world I can observe (especially social media), the opposite is true; characterizing the situation as a genocide is normal and accepted, disputing that will get you shunned, and depending on who your friends are you may find yourself subjected to purity testing of that opinion. Consider, for example, who does and doesn't get banned on Twitch for the things they say about this issue, and what their positions are. Or have a look around Fosstodon, or among FOSS developers on other Mastodon instances; "Free Palestine" is at least as common in bios and screen names as BLM support, while opposed slogans don't even exist as far as I can tell or would be unconscionable to use if they do. Or consider for example this thread, which is full of people who agree with you, at least among the live comments.

anonfordays 1y ago

>is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling. Peak cancel culture was much more chilling than this. People were fired for cracking their knuckles[0], businesses were targeted for selling tacos while White, not constantly virtue signaling at work would cast you as a racist since "silence is complicetness," etc. A moral panic not seen for decades. Leftists made their bed, and now they get to lie in it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Those who pointed out the peak woke cancel culture lunacy were told they were racists supporting the status quo. Now you're being told you're antisemitic. It was truly dystopian. [0] https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was/ https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-cal...