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Nihilistic Violent Extremism
- klez 8mo agoI always appreciate being one of the day's 10,000 lucky fews, but why is this here? Did I miss something horrible that happened earlier today?
- bossyTeacher 8mo agoHN is pretty nihilistic imo. Tons of people on here fit the stereotypical lonely nerdy techie to the T.
- Antibabelic 8mo agoThat's not my experience. A lot of people on HN seem to be concerned (performatively or not) with things like ethics, altruism and "making the world a better place", whatever that means.
- i_am_a_peasant 8mo agoI think most people on HN are just regular joes and there’s a strange expectation that most people in tech are on the spectrum or something. not that there’s anything wrong with that
- krapp 8mo agoYou have to be something other than a "regular joe" to even know that HN exists, much less want to hang out here. This forum was designed to be repellent to any but a very specific kind of technically minded "good hacker" personality, as defined by pg. The kind of person who cares about "information density," eschews design and UX as frivolous and prefers only "technical" topics is likely not neurotypical. And yes many people in tech are on the spectrum. I suspect that much of what's dysfunctional with SV and tech culture is the result of raising a generation of socially awkward neurodivergent kids on 4chan and making them millionaires before their frontal lobes have even fully developed. That necessarily bleeds into HN and becomes normalized within the culture as performative cynicism, misanthropy and toxicity.
- bossyTeacher 8mo ago> I suspect that much of what's dysfunctional with SV and tech culture is the result of raising a generation of socially awkward neurodivergent kids on 4chan and making them millionaires before their frontal lobes have even fully developed Quote of the Month
- arcxi 8mo agoIt's exactly concerns like these that could drive people into loneliness and nihilism, when constant disappointment with a lack of care from society turns into hatred and despair.
- Cthulhu_ 8mo agoAlso doomerism, but I'd argue that a prominent figure that might fit this nihilism bill is / are Elon Musk and similar technocrats / futurists who strongly believe in Roko's Basilisk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk), that is, to paraphrase, "the world is doomed, AI will rise, become our God, and exterminate humankind, but we have to ensure it actually emerges so maybe they will be merciful to us". Which I believe (but I'm no philosopher) is both nihilistic, fatalistic and religious thinking. To the point where I wouldn't be surprised if these people have or would kill people if they aren't in line with their agendas. They have the connections, power and money.
- bell-cot 8mo agoEspecially in modern online culture, with its oft-unhealthy obsession with ideology, performative behaviors, and political identities, one should recognize that there's a wide gray spectrum here - from someone who is "purely" an NVE, to people superficially adopting the appearances of various groups and ideologies, to people who may "obviously" be exemplary members or adherents to a group or ideology...but their underlying motives are all-too-clearly to articulate/fuel/inspire/justify/support their NVE condition. Related concept: Salad Bar Extremism
- api 8mo agoI've often observed that if you take an angry fanatical ideologue and scratch, you often find a nihilist. The ideology is just a medium for the anger. The anger is the fundamental thing. There's a lot of people who seem to be really angry right now. Part of it is legit, I think. There are legit things to be angry about, though they differ depending on where you live in the world. Part of it is an addiction. Anger releases some powerful brain chemicals, and it can be addictive.
- i_am_a_peasant 8mo agoWell put tbh
- bell-cot 8mo agoSadly yes. And for "scratch", it's usually sufficient to compare the angry fanatic's views/actions with some of the more prosocial parts of their supposed ideology.
- api 8mo agoI discount prosocial parts of ideologies that are impractical to the point of being pure escapist fantasy. For the far right, it's either the techno-fascist "we become Gods" stuff or the trad "back to a perfect green agrarian utopia that looks like a Hitler painting where my happy tradwife greets me every day." I suppose the not quite as far right idea of rewinding history and reviving 1950s America (and pretending that was a utopia) also counts. For the far left it's the ludicrous green anarcho-primitivist stuff where we LARP the Na'vi on Avatar or the idea of achieving peaceful and lasting equity through legislation and redistribution. I have a hard time accepting that anyone actually believes any of that shit. I get kind of angry when I see it because it's so insanely absurd. It feels like window dressing for an ideology that, stripped of these fantastical goals, is just grievance politics and nihilistic accelerationism. It's a way for them to hide it even from themselves. They're just angry and they hate their lives and they want other people to suffer for it. Or do Scientologists actually believe in Galactic Emperor Xenu and Thetans?
- wasmainiac 8mo ago"They were nihilists, man. They kept saying they believe in nothing." - The Big Lebowski
- jackyinger 8mo agoOk, great movie. But man, I hate that this is what everyone thinks about when they think of nihilism. It is very challenging to truly believe in nothing. I think it is much more realistic to see nihilism as a label applied to others’ belief systems that we find entirely void of valid belief. Organizations described as Nihilistic Violent Extremists do have beliefs that motivate them, they are just vacuous beliefs in the eyes of the vast majority of human beings. However if you can show me someone who can convincingly claim to be that they really are a nihilist I would be curious to see it.
- iamnothere 8mo agoI suspect that this categorization is a result of confusion on the part of law enforcement and their inability to cope with the post-ideological landscape of the internet. Someone who believes all manner of contradictory things is not a “nihilist,” they just have an unsettled or dynamic belief structure. This may be because they haven’t fully worked out their beliefs, or it may be because they are willing to readily adopt new beliefs if they seem advantageous. In essence this seems more Discordian than nihilist. There’s also a third option, the person doesn’t see a problem with superficially adopting other beliefs as a form of camouflage, but they do have a core set of beliefs. In general I think the chaos of the internet and the exposure to multiple points of view encourages fragmentation and dynamic systems of belief. I don’t necessarily see it as a bad thing, either.
- RobotToaster 8mo agoReminds me of what is called in China "revenge against society"
- casefields 8mo agoAn old African proverb: The Child Who is Not Embraced by the Village Will Burn it Down to Feel its Warmth.
- deafpolygon 8mo agoA bit of a code-word for "anything that doesn’t fit into our own world-view". I see this phrase tossed around right-wing circles quite a bit, and it should be regarded carefully.
- bediger4000 8mo agoI had the impression "NVE" was used to avoid describing folks like the Butler PA shooter, Charlie Kirk's assassin, and this last would be lone gunman as conservatives.
- saghm 8mo agoAnd yet if you say that on television the administration will try to pull you off the air: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/18/nx-s1-5544559/abc-jimmy-kimmel-comments-charlie-kirk https://www.npr.org/2025/09/18/nx-s1-5544559/abc-jimmy-kimme... The parent comment is warning about the potential for a false representation of a crisis being used to grab more power; the underlying facts being inconsistent with the supposed crisis is not particularly surprising
- alphawhisky 8mo agoThat's exactly it. These people were not disillusioned with the whole world, just their political party.
- akramachamarei 8mo ago> to avoid describing […] Kirk's assassin [as conservative] That was a bit of a canard, though, right? Did anyone seriously think he was a conservative? I thought this was just another mental gymnastics act in the Whataboutism Circus. With some photo fabrication to support it, according to Wikipedia.
- bediger4000 8mo agoI mean, yes, you can do the "No true conservative" the same way you can do "No true Scotsman". Doesn't invalidate the point of using "NVE" to avoid describing a number of assassins or would be assassins as conservatives.
- josefritzishere 8mo agoIt's hard to beleive this is even real. I understand agnosticism, and atheism but the absence of a beleif system doesn't feel particularly motivating.
- RiverCrochet 8mo agoI do things because I like them, want them, or they give me pleasure. Motivates me just fine. Boredom is unpleasant, so I avoid it by continuing to do and learn new things. Reflection is only warranted if it seems like I'm damaging myself or those adjacent to me who contribute to my good life, which is easy to do accidentally in modern society.
- throwaway_ocr 8mo agoAtheism would fit the definition of absence of a belief system.
- kstrauser 8mo agoThat begs the question by assuming that a belief system must be religious. Much of philosophy is about building a belief system that doesn’t depend on a religion at all. For starters, “treat others well because everyone deserves our empathy” is completely compatible with atheism.
- casey2 8mo agoNVE seems more "like I was sold the NRx accelerationist fraud and/or a host of other disinfo but don't want admit I was duped." Of course the actual people doing harassment, exploitation and violence are just dark triad personality types for everyone else the standard advise applies: BE ANGRY [at sin—at immorality, at injustice, at ungodly behavior], YET DO NOT SIN; do not let your anger [cause you shame, nor allow it to] last until the sun goes down.
- kstrauser 8mo agoI took a continuing ed course on this recently, and it was horrid. You can do some pretty despicable stuff if you convince others that morality is fake and you can do whatever sounds fun. It’s like a cult of sociopathy. Their general MO was to push a kid on the fringes to do something illegal, then blackmail them into upping the risk and illegality. They collected videos of all those “for lulz”. Various crimes included producing CSAM, torturing animals, and assaulting or killing random people. It’s rare that I sit my kids down and have them watch training videos with me. With this, I did, to show them what’s out there and help them identify it if they ever came across it.
- iamnothere 8mo agoOh if you’re talking about O9A and the like, those groups are absolutely real and also terrifying. They are like a worse version of Kiwi Farms. KF are actually saints compared to them, as KF seems to have a vague goal of bullying bad people (in their view) off the internet rather than pushing them to terrorism. My problem with the NVE label is the scope creep, some would like to apply that label to anyone who has a strong opinion and doesn’t fit in a neat box. (I also don’t think “nihilist” is the right label for these groups. They have beliefs, they just believe in evil.)
- kstrauser 8mo agoI could see that. It would be awfully easy to paint any group you disagree with that way. “These people don’t believe in my obviously correct and true moral framework? Nihilists. They marched in a protest? Violent extremists.” But the OG NVE groups? Freaking yikes.
- akramachamarei 8mo ago> KF seems to have a vague goal of bullying bad people (in their view) off the internet Has KF changed since I last checked? They had an explicit policy of "don't touch the poo"; that is, users mock and ridicule on the forum, but don't try to disturb the lolcows, unless they're committing crimes. That's what I saw; I lurked occasionally in the past. There's been a lot of misinformation about KiwiFarms since it became a minor news story, round about that time of the big DDoS attacks.