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Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

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Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#81

Post by archagon »

There is certainly a large pro-fascist contingent, though they probably don't see themselves as such. The fact that support for Musk[1] or Thiel's political ideologies is not verboten (or at least a massive faux pas) should be massively telling. The unpleasant truth: fascism is fun if you're winning and happen to lack empathy or a moral compass.

EDIT: Not sure how one can read some of the comments in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44605618 and not conclude that sizable portions of the userbase are disturbingly racist and fashy. But I suppose it's a nice opportunity to use the "Comments Owl for Hacker News" plugin to tag particularly deplorable users for easier flagging in the future.

[1]: As a reminder, this man supports far-right parties like the AfD and called people on government benefits "parasites." Plus a million other things. And his "wood chipper" megalomania has already lead to dozens of documented deaths in impoverished countries.

Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#82

Post by tastyface »

GloomyBoots wrote: post #56
__d wrote: post #47

Fascism implies (paraphrasing Wikipedia): * a dictatorial leader * an authoritarian government * nationalism and/or racism * militarism * promotion of a "natural order" I don't think any of those accurately characterize a dominant ideology on HN. If anything, in my observation, HN is somewhat libertarian-leaning, rather than fascist.

Even that is an incredibly vague and ahistorical definition. It’s strange how much ink is spilled over redefining ‘fascism’ in as vague a way as possible (thinking of Eco here, who remains perennially popular among those who tilt at hooked windmills). Mussolini did a great job as delineating exactly what fascism was, and the NSDAP fit it, but in general it really doesn’t fit states outside of that particular time and…

Well, people who actually study this shit widely disagree with you, random HN commenter.

Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#83

Post by msgodel »

cholantesh wrote: post #80
msgodel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascist in the anti-communist sense sure, but most Americans would be fascist then.

No, it's fascist in the sense of nativism and public-private collaboration that was normative in fascist states. Most Americans are ambivalent to communism.

You can't not be nativist to some degree. Otherwise all you have is an economic zone, not a country.

That's a completely ridiculous definition of fascism and again, if you pick that most Americans would be fascist and consider it a good thing.

Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#84

Post by queenkjuul »

kcplate wrote: post #68
queenkjuul wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you expect those individuals to do about a nationwide systemic failure? Genuinely. Like what would they have to do to convince you they care?

They could just do something . One small thing…even locally. I don’t buy into this “the problem is too big” so all I am going to do is point it out .

Are you sure they're doing nothing? My political allies in Chicago are doing their best, and have made a lot of positive change. Maybe you're not paying attention

Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#86

Post by kcplate »

queenkjuul wrote: post #84
kcplate wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could just do something . One small thing…even locally. I don’t buy into this “the problem is too big” so all I am going to do is point it out .

Are you sure they're doing nothing? My political allies in Chicago are doing their best, and have made a lot of positive change. Maybe you're not paying attention

Good. Obviously my comment is not referring to them. You have my attention…so What are you doing about it?

Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#87

Post by mcphage »

kcplate wrote: post #66
queenkjuul wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need words people understand now to describe what's happening now. Curious what you consider fascist about people who hold zero corporate or political power

> We need words people understand now to describe what's happening now. Ok, so use words appropriate to what is happening. When you work to redefine “scary” words in an attempt to try and piggyback on their negative history you minimize that history. > Curious what you consider fascist about people who hold zero corporate or political power The point was that I don’t consider what we see today as fascist and you shou…

At what point will you consider it fascist, if anonymous masked police kidnapping people off the streets doesn’t, and building concentration camps doesn’t, and silencing of critical media doesn’t? Are you waiting for a specific number of mass casualties, or is this just sparkling despotism?

Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#88

Post by kcplate »

mcphage wrote: post #87
kcplate wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need words people understand now to describe what's happening now. Ok, so use words appropriate to what is happening. When you work to redefine “scary” words in an attempt to try and piggyback on their negative history you minimize that history. > Curious what you consider fascist about people who hold zero corporate or political power The point was that I don’t consider what we see today as fascist and you shou…

At what point will you consider it fascist, if anonymous masked police kidnapping people off the streets doesn’t, and building concentration camps doesn’t, and silencing of critical media doesn’t? Are you waiting for a specific number of mass casualties, or is this just sparkling despotism?

Those are “tactics”. You are confusing relatively common control and power tactics that are used by some governments with an ideology that encompasses many different characteristics. The Soviet Union used many of the same tactics, but you wouldn’t call them fascist. Many of the important (political and economic) fascist ideologies don’t apply to the current administration…in fact politically and economically the current US administration is directly opposite of what was found in historic fascism.

I get that you want to redefine what “fascism” is, because historically it’s associated with some really evil things, but I am not willing to dilute that definition.

Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#89

Post by mcphage »

kcplate wrote: post #88
mcphage wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point will you consider it fascist, if anonymous masked police kidnapping people off the streets doesn’t, and building concentration camps doesn’t, and silencing of critical media doesn’t? Are you waiting for a specific number of mass casualties, or is this just sparkling despotism?

Those are “tactics”. You are confusing relatively common control and power tactics that are used by some governments with an ideology that encompasses many different characteristics. The Soviet Union used many of the same tactics, but you wouldn’t call them fascist. Many of the important (political and economic) fascist ideologies don’t apply to the current administration…in fact politically and economically the curr…

Well then, keep on fighting the good fight, and hopefully you won’t end up in the gulag.

Re: Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?

#90

Post by kcplate »

mcphage wrote: post #89
kcplate wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are “tactics”. You are confusing relatively common control and power tactics that are used by some governments with an ideology that encompasses many different characteristics. The Soviet Union used many of the same tactics, but you wouldn’t call them fascist. Many of the important (political and economic) fascist ideologies don’t apply to the current administration…in fact politically and economically the curr…

Well then, keep on fighting the good fight, and hopefully you won’t end up in the gulag.

I’ll just continue to “not break any laws” since that has kept me out of the gulag so far.
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