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HN has a general rule against posts about politics that occasionally gets ignored for particularly noteworthy events. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics,

HN has a general rule against posts about politics that occasionally gets ignored for particularly noteworthy events. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

belter 1y ago
If you are quoting the guidelines quote this one also: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. I would say, to see the USA moving into Nazism, in realtime, in my lifetime, is a pretty amazing intellectual endeavor to dissect.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  Can you explain why you think it's moving specifically to Nazism? There's certainly an argument to be made for authoritarianism or some other version of non-democratic rule, however throwing around Nazism weakens that argument instead of strengthening it given how overused that term/accusation is at this point.
  - jleyank 1y ago
    They've tried building concentration camps. They're muzzling the press, they're thinking of banning the opposition, they oppose "them", and are going to great lengths to harm them. They're muzzling scientists and doctors, leading to population exodus. I'm sure there's other things I'm missing. But this is a reasonable approximation to where things stood in, say, 1937. Granted, they've not gone after neighbouring countries (yet?) but they've had their vom Raths, Horst Wessel's, ... And we'll see if the Reichstag burns over the next year. If they screw up the mid-term elections or talk about an enabling act or let trump run a 3rd term, will that be good enough for ya? And they talk about racial purity and limit women's roles and future. I'm sure there's a lebensraum in there somewhere. If you think using the term "Nazi" Godwin's the discussion, ok, just use Fascist. You have more countries to compare to with that term: Italy, Spain, Portugal, ...
    - g-b-r 1y ago
      I wouldn't be completely surprised if there were a night of the long knives against democrats (if several high profile assassinations were to happen, for example), but to reach Nazism you'd need gas chambers
      - rolph 1y ago
        large chambers were desirable for efficiency optimization. now we have plastic hoods and a tank of Nitrogen.
      - jleyank 1y ago
        Some rando on Fox News mentioned euthanizing homeless. So it’s percolating under the surface. Don’t think they fired or censored him.
        Terr_ 1y ago
        I think "rando" actually downplays how bad it is, since it sounds like a guest. The guy (Brian Kilmeade) works for Fox and has been hosting their opinion-shows for ~27 years. In this clip [0] of "Fox and Friends", the first host (Lawrence Jones) says that homeless people be forced to accept "the programs" from the government, or else be locked up in prison... and then Brian Kilmeade ramps it up with "just kill 'em", using "involuntary lethal injection." [0] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9mq3oKI2KhY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9mq3oKI2KhY
      - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
        Lethal injection for undesirables is being 'soft launched' openly on television with zero repercussion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8
      - soraminazuki 1y ago
        If we're being absolutely pedantic, I don't know if Nazism is the adequate term here. But putting that aside, the argument is that we're progressing towards it, not that we're in the final stages of that transformation. Also, why gas chambers specifically? The means don't matter as much as the objectives.
  - rolph 1y ago
    this is what makes me think some pseudo-neo manifest is happening The Fourth Reich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Reich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Reich https://bradwillis.substack.com/p/the-fourth-reich https://bradwillis.substack.com/p/the-fourth-reich
  - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
    Their media organ Fox News, on air, called for straight up execution of undesirables. And then did the weakest milk toast walk back. Fox felt comfortable enough with the situation that their host said this on air. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8
  - quickthrowman 1y ago
    -Right wing media personalities advocating for euthanizing the homeless and receiving little pushback. Germany also executed ‘undesirables’ during the holocaust along with 6 million Jews. -The government attempting to control speech by removing broadcast licenses from networks that don’t comply. Joseph Goebbels blacklisted actors that were not fully onboard with the Nazi regime [0] Those are just the examples I can think of from the past week. All of the anti-science, anti-medicine, and anti-intellectualism over the past 6 months as well. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/archives/goebbels-ends-careers-of-five-aryan-actors-who-made-witticisms.html https://www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/archives/goebbels-ends-ca...
    - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
      Germany justified killing the Jew because they were labeled 'undesirables' along with trans/gay, other minorities, migrant workers (the Roma).
      - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
        And now a new label for 'trans'. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-readies-new-war-on-trans-people https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-readies-new-war-on-tra...
jleyank 1y ago
How will US politics affect HN startup's potential market? How will it affect their ability to form, hire and retain staff? Will it affect the H1b's that underpin all sorts of programming efforts. Will it lead to VC money sloshing into Europe/UK? ... There's all sorts of HN-relevant things that are impacted damn near daily by US politics. Not counting all of the impact on health, medicine, science, ... One can keep flagging away, but if you're going to watch the cash flow elsewhere and the jobs remain open, I would think some concern is merited. And if, somehow, people working in this area realize what their work has helped produced...

belter 1y ago

If you are quoting the guidelines quote this one also: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. I would say, to see the USA moving into Nazism, in realtime, in my lifetime, is a pretty amazing intellectual endeavor to dissect.

AlexandrB 1y ago
Can you explain why you think it's moving specifically to Nazism? There's certainly an argument to be made for authoritarianism or some other version of non-democratic rule, however throwing around Nazism weakens that argument instead of strengthening it given how overused that term/accusation is at this point.
- jleyank 1y ago
  They've tried building concentration camps. They're muzzling the press, they're thinking of banning the opposition, they oppose "them", and are going to great lengths to harm them. They're muzzling scientists and doctors, leading to population exodus. I'm sure there's other things I'm missing. But this is a reasonable approximation to where things stood in, say, 1937. Granted, they've not gone after neighbouring countries (yet?) but they've had their vom Raths, Horst Wessel's, ... And we'll see if the Reichstag burns over the next year. If they screw up the mid-term elections or talk about an enabling act or let trump run a 3rd term, will that be good enough for ya? And they talk about racial purity and limit women's roles and future. I'm sure there's a lebensraum in there somewhere. If you think using the term "Nazi" Godwin's the discussion, ok, just use Fascist. You have more countries to compare to with that term: Italy, Spain, Portugal, ...
  - g-b-r 1y ago
    I wouldn't be completely surprised if there were a night of the long knives against democrats (if several high profile assassinations were to happen, for example), but to reach Nazism you'd need gas chambers
    - rolph 1y ago
      large chambers were desirable for efficiency optimization. now we have plastic hoods and a tank of Nitrogen.
    - jleyank 1y ago
      Some rando on Fox News mentioned euthanizing homeless. So it’s percolating under the surface. Don’t think they fired or censored him.
      - Terr_ 1y ago
        I think "rando" actually downplays how bad it is, since it sounds like a guest. The guy (Brian Kilmeade) works for Fox and has been hosting their opinion-shows for ~27 years. In this clip [0] of "Fox and Friends", the first host (Lawrence Jones) says that homeless people be forced to accept "the programs" from the government, or else be locked up in prison... and then Brian Kilmeade ramps it up with "just kill 'em", using "involuntary lethal injection." [0] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9mq3oKI2KhY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9mq3oKI2KhY
    - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
      Lethal injection for undesirables is being 'soft launched' openly on television with zero repercussion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8
    - soraminazuki 1y ago
      If we're being absolutely pedantic, I don't know if Nazism is the adequate term here. But putting that aside, the argument is that we're progressing towards it, not that we're in the final stages of that transformation. Also, why gas chambers specifically? The means don't matter as much as the objectives.
- rolph 1y ago
  this is what makes me think some pseudo-neo manifest is happening The Fourth Reich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Reich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Reich https://bradwillis.substack.com/p/the-fourth-reich https://bradwillis.substack.com/p/the-fourth-reich
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  Their media organ Fox News, on air, called for straight up execution of undesirables. And then did the weakest milk toast walk back. Fox felt comfortable enough with the situation that their host said this on air. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8
- quickthrowman 1y ago
  -Right wing media personalities advocating for euthanizing the homeless and receiving little pushback. Germany also executed ‘undesirables’ during the holocaust along with 6 million Jews. -The government attempting to control speech by removing broadcast licenses from networks that don’t comply. Joseph Goebbels blacklisted actors that were not fully onboard with the Nazi regime [0] Those are just the examples I can think of from the past week. All of the anti-science, anti-medicine, and anti-intellectualism over the past 6 months as well. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/archives/goebbels-ends-careers-of-five-aryan-actors-who-made-witticisms.html https://www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/archives/goebbels-ends-ca...
  - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
    Germany justified killing the Jew because they were labeled 'undesirables' along with trans/gay, other minorities, migrant workers (the Roma).
    - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
      And now a new label for 'trans'. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-readies-new-war-on-trans-people https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-readies-new-war-on-tra...

jleyank 1y ago

How will US politics affect HN startup's potential market? How will it affect their ability to form, hire and retain staff? Will it affect the H1b's that underpin all sorts of programming efforts. Will it lead to VC money sloshing into Europe/UK? ... There's all sorts of HN-relevant things that are impacted damn near daily by US politics. Not counting all of the impact on health, medicine, science, ... One can keep flagging away, but if you're going to watch the cash flow elsewhere and the jobs remain open, I would think some concern is merited. And if, somehow, people working in this area realize what their work has helped produced...