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Just because we “allow nazis” doesn’t mean society will turn into an authoritarian dictatorship. People are not stupid.

by Gud 1y ago

mlnj 1y ago
Hmmm. The rise of nazis to power from time to time is evidence to the contrary. Most people, might not be 'stupid'; but complacency in the population is enough to drop the guard down.
- Gud 1y ago
  I am not arguing for complacency. I am arguing that authoritarian ideologies are won over with arguments, not by outlawing them.
  - mlnj 1y ago
    You are arguing as if the two sides are acting in good faith. Authoritarianism almost always isn't. Greed and corruption is is inherently tipping the scales unfairly against the fair system to be imbalanced against the good actor. You can see it again and again in the success of voter suppression acts and the deceitful tactics played by authoritarians. Arguments only work when both actors respect good arguments.
  - xeyownt 1y ago
    It's not about outlawing them, it's about not giving them a platform allowing them to rise, like the current major media platforms are doing right now. Social media should be held responsible of the content they publish.
  - MSFT_Edging 1y ago
    “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.” - Jean-Paul Sartre
- MarsIronPI 1y ago
  > complacency in the population is enough to drop the guard down. In the case of the nazis, the population might even support them.
surgical_fire 1y ago
> People are not stupid. There are plenty of stupid people around. We interact with them every day.
- Gud 1y ago
  Yes. And society with good education has fewer stupid people. You don’t stop “bad” ideologies by outlawing them, you stop them by arguing for a free society and education.
  - jfengel 1y ago
    Is that true? American education isn't great, but it's not radically worse than many other rich nations. The difference doesn't seem sufficient to justify the extreme separation of ideologies. (That is, I'm not arguing in favor of one or the other, but the level of hatred between the two implies that at least one is wildly off base.)
Narann 1y ago
In this case, it was precisely the act of "allow nazis" that led Google to its current situation. People aren't stupid, but the fact that Google is in this situation proves that we should have been less naive.
- Gud 1y ago
  I don’t understand your point. It sounds like you think someone is making Google take unwanted actions.
master-lincoln 1y ago
They don't need to be stupid. They could be complacent, afraid or morally corrupt.
- galangalalgol 1y ago
  "i know why you did it. You were afraid. And who wouldn't be?"
Swoerd123 1y ago
Bold move, arguing against yourself like that.
marginalia_nu 1y ago
I think a better critique is that these cold-war political basis vectors don't adequately describe today's political landscape (and neither do the revolution-era idea of the left wing vs the right wing; arguably they didn't back in 1950 either). Best example of how the communist/fascist/liberal democracy triad completely falls is looking at China, which has facets of all three and none at the same time. This makes it difficult nigh on impossible to have a real political discussion, as they fail to amount to more than connotative terms to be applied to outgroups, and do not map to political reality in any meaningful sense. Anyone can turn into the fuzzy outline of a nazi if you squint really hard. Nuances needed to make any sort of sense of 21st century politics, especially its newer entries, are the tensions between cosmopolitarianism vs communitarianism and technocracy vs populism. The problem with using such an outdated political map is that many of our contemporary problems are missing from it, and go unresolved until enough frustration builds that there is an ill-conceived popular upheaval that forces the issue. Rather than addressing the technocratic European Union's lack of accountability to its citizens, we get Brexit instead, which could likely have been avoided if the political map wasn't so out of touch.
- jfengel 1y ago
  American politics at this point is practically defined by being afraid of the other group. The groups themselves have little cohesion, and contain bitter rivals, but they trust each other more than their hated enemies. Which becomes self-reinforcing: attempting to save yourself is perceived by the other as oppression. I don't mean to simply blame all sides here. Facts on the ground do exist.I think I can justify how some players are worse than others, and that there might be a way out of the vicious cycle when some individuals say "no, that assertion no longer seems reasonable." But given that it's gotten monotonically worse for decades, I don't see that happening any time soon.
  - immibis 1y ago
    One side is banning everything related to the other side and concentrating them in camps. The other side... is doing basically nothing, even when it's in power. I guess they gave a couple of bribes to Ukrainian-American businessmen but that was about it. I'm pretty sure they're not the same.
immibis 1y ago
That's literally how the Nazis happened though? We know what happens if Nazis are tolerated: they grow in numbers, seize the government, and commit the holocaust. We know this because it already happened once.

Just because we “allow nazis” doesn’t mean society will turn into an authoritarian dictatorship. People are not stupid.

by Gud 1y ago

Just because we “allow nazis” doesn’t mean society will turn into an authoritarian dictatorship. People are not stupid.

mlnj 1y ago

Hmmm. The rise of nazis to power from time to time is evidence to the contrary. Most people, might not be 'stupid'; but complacency in the population is enough to drop the guard down.

Gud 1y ago
I am not arguing for complacency. I am arguing that authoritarian ideologies are won over with arguments, not by outlawing them.
- mlnj 1y ago
  You are arguing as if the two sides are acting in good faith. Authoritarianism almost always isn't. Greed and corruption is is inherently tipping the scales unfairly against the fair system to be imbalanced against the good actor. You can see it again and again in the success of voter suppression acts and the deceitful tactics played by authoritarians. Arguments only work when both actors respect good arguments.
- xeyownt 1y ago
  It's not about outlawing them, it's about not giving them a platform allowing them to rise, like the current major media platforms are doing right now. Social media should be held responsible of the content they publish.
- MSFT_Edging 1y ago
  “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.” - Jean-Paul Sartre
MarsIronPI 1y ago
> complacency in the population is enough to drop the guard down. In the case of the nazis, the population might even support them.

surgical_fire 1y ago

> People are not stupid. There are plenty of stupid people around. We interact with them every day.

Gud 1y ago
Yes. And society with good education has fewer stupid people. You don’t stop “bad” ideologies by outlawing them, you stop them by arguing for a free society and education.
- jfengel 1y ago
  Is that true? American education isn't great, but it's not radically worse than many other rich nations. The difference doesn't seem sufficient to justify the extreme separation of ideologies. (That is, I'm not arguing in favor of one or the other, but the level of hatred between the two implies that at least one is wildly off base.)

Narann 1y ago

In this case, it was precisely the act of "allow nazis" that led Google to its current situation. People aren't stupid, but the fact that Google is in this situation proves that we should have been less naive.

Gud 1y ago
I don’t understand your point. It sounds like you think someone is making Google take unwanted actions.

master-lincoln 1y ago

They don't need to be stupid. They could be complacent, afraid or morally corrupt.

galangalalgol 1y ago
"i know why you did it. You were afraid. And who wouldn't be?"

Swoerd123 1y ago

Bold move, arguing against yourself like that.

marginalia_nu 1y ago

I think a better critique is that these cold-war political basis vectors don't adequately describe today's political landscape (and neither do the revolution-era idea of the left wing vs the right wing; arguably they didn't back in 1950 either). Best example of how the communist/fascist/liberal democracy triad completely falls is looking at China, which has facets of all three and none at the same time. This makes it difficult nigh on impossible to have a real political discussion, as they fail to amount to more than connotative terms to be applied to outgroups, and do not map to political reality in any meaningful sense. Anyone can turn into the fuzzy outline of a nazi if you squint really hard. Nuances needed to make any sort of sense of 21st century politics, especially its newer entries, are the tensions between cosmopolitarianism vs communitarianism and technocracy vs populism. The problem with using such an outdated political map is that many of our contemporary problems are missing from it, and go unresolved until enough frustration builds that there is an ill-conceived popular upheaval that forces the issue. Rather than addressing the technocratic European Union's lack of accountability to its citizens, we get Brexit instead, which could likely have been avoided if the political map wasn't so out of touch.

jfengel 1y ago
American politics at this point is practically defined by being afraid of the other group. The groups themselves have little cohesion, and contain bitter rivals, but they trust each other more than their hated enemies. Which becomes self-reinforcing: attempting to save yourself is perceived by the other as oppression. I don't mean to simply blame all sides here. Facts on the ground do exist.I think I can justify how some players are worse than others, and that there might be a way out of the vicious cycle when some individuals say "no, that assertion no longer seems reasonable." But given that it's gotten monotonically worse for decades, I don't see that happening any time soon.
- immibis 1y ago
  One side is banning everything related to the other side and concentrating them in camps. The other side... is doing basically nothing, even when it's in power. I guess they gave a couple of bribes to Ukrainian-American businessmen but that was about it. I'm pretty sure they're not the same.

immibis 1y ago

That's literally how the Nazis happened though? We know what happens if Nazis are tolerated: they grow in numbers, seize the government, and commit the holocaust. We know this because it already happened once.