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Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

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Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the left seriously damaged their ability to fight racist ideas when they abandoned the idea of equality. Now, the left calls colorblindness and "all lives matter" racist. (Remember when Martin O'Malley was destroyed for saying that?) They create advantageous standards based on race, and even exclusive positions for non-white applicants. (For example, at the BBC.) And I too doubt they would object to "dedi…

HN is a bad place to discuss this sort of stuff because you're always risking karma, but here goes. As a liberal, I will say that liberals drastically overplayed their hand the last 8 years. Many of us have been saying for a while that the language, tenor, and actions of recent liberal movements was ultimately counter productive. I understand and share the demand to be treated decently and equally, but admittedly thi…

> Micro-aggression, safe spaces, trigger words

I think you're missing some perspective on this; a small % of activists on the left (mostly on college campuses) do not represent the trends of liberals in the USA. I can't think of a mainstream Democrat who considers these serious causes (including liberal ones like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren).

The reality is the left has been making huge inroads on social causes in the last eight years - in fact, this may be the primary enduring legacy of the Obama years. The public perception of gay marriage, police violence against blacks, and marijuana use have all drastically shifted and led to very real changes that won't be undone. I wouldn't call this overplaying their hands.

Also, I wouldn't extrapolate much from this election. Obama is a fair bit more liberal than Hillary and is extremely popular compared to her.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#152
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a bad place to discuss this sort of stuff because you're always risking karma, but here goes. As a liberal, I will say that liberals drastically overplayed their hand the last 8 years. Many of us have been saying for a while that the language, tenor, and actions of recent liberal movements was ultimately counter productive. I understand and share the demand to be treated decently and equally, but admittedly thi…

> With "demographics" on our side You're over-estimating the appeal of the liberal movement on younger people. If some college kids can't openly talk about their inclination to right wing politics that doesn't make them 'liberals'.

I was referring to the shift in racial demographics and how unless the GOP cleaned up its act they would cease to be a national party. That was kool-aid we all drank from and it turned out to be poison.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#153
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In truth this happens to all races. It does happen to black people somewhat more often, per capita, but 50% of people killed by police are white.

Mind, since ~70% of the US population is white, that does imply whites are less likely to be killed by the police. Predicting the likely response to this, of course, we get into the (surprisingly hard to accurately work out) question of what proportion of crimes are committed by people of various races, and to what extent that figure is manipulated by conscious / subconscious bias on the part of law enforcement. (It'…

I think what's important about this is if the big problem is (1) race disproportionality or (2) general police brutality and unaccountability.

If the main problem is (2), but society mobilizes to solve (1), thigs won't get better.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a corporation enforcing its world view. Would you say the same if Twitter were owned by the right-wing and was banning left wing users?

There are several major "right wing" corporations that do just that. As a consumer you can make your choices accordingly (Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A come to mind) You might be inclined to grant someone permission to stand on your lawn, but chances are if they stood on your lawn and then held up a sign that said "Send Jews to the gas chambers!" you'd likely ask them to leave. And if they refused, you'd eventually for…

Are you saying Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A have banned leftist from shopping there?

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, but not everyone enjoys spending their time engaging with Nazi rhetoric. There are plenty of places outside of Twitter where you can actually choose whether or not to have a discussion. You could say the exact same thing about literally any view and it would be equally true.

that would be of the same form, but not equally true. there are actual differences between the substance of things beyond logical form.

No, in this case I disagree. You could say the same thing, word for word, about any real-world ideology and it would be equally true. If you think I'm wrong about that, I would like a concrete example.

(Maybe you think I'm trying to say that all ideologies are equally valid, but I'm not. I'm just pointing out that that particular comment is so reasonable-sounding and hard to argue with precisely because it doesn't actually say anything of substance.)

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#156
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a bad place to discuss this sort of stuff because you're always risking karma, but here goes. As a liberal, I will say that liberals drastically overplayed their hand the last 8 years. Many of us have been saying for a while that the language, tenor, and actions of recent liberal movements was ultimately counter productive. I understand and share the demand to be treated decently and equally, but admittedly thi…

> Micro-aggression, safe spaces, trigger words I think you're missing some perspective on this; a small % of activists on the left (mostly on college campuses) do not represent the trends of liberals in the USA. I can't think of a mainstream Democrat who considers these serious causes (including liberal ones like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren). The reality is the left has been making huge inroads on social cause…

>a small % of activists on the left

A vocal minority + rapid societal change + social media echo chambers = reactionary backlash = Donald Trump presidency

>I wouldn't extrapolate much from this election

I would. 60+ million people voting for a man as odious and unprepared as Donald Trump says a whole lot to me. That and pretty much total Republican domination on the state level. The GOP is one state house away from being able to call a new constitutional convention[1].

1: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a50672/st...

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a bad place to discuss this sort of stuff because you're always risking karma, but here goes. As a liberal, I will say that liberals drastically overplayed their hand the last 8 years. Many of us have been saying for a while that the language, tenor, and actions of recent liberal movements was ultimately counter productive. I understand and share the demand to be treated decently and equally, but admittedly thi…

I'm not sure if you intended this meaning, but it sounds like you see (your) liberal view as the ultimately right one which will inevitably triumph in the end, its just bad tactics right now. I didn't notice this until after I got back to the US after some time in an authoritarian country, and I noticed that liberals had this similar authoritarianness of being unwilling to consider the merits of the other side, a fee…

> I noticed that liberals had this similar authoritarianness of being unwilling to consider the merits of the other side

I am not American, but I must say on the level of politicians, Obama repeatedly tried to be bipartisan and was repeatedly rebuffed by the GOP who seemed intent on grinding the government to a halt. Frankly, and it made the Dems look like a pathetic 'hanger-on', IMO.

"Considering the merits of the other side" is a losing strategy in game theory when the other side always defects.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see "alt-right" as being so similar to "far-right" based on my limited exposure. I've watched some debates with Milo as well as Gavin Mcinnes. They are definitely not what most Americans would call "far-right" -- in that they aren't anti-gay, aren't anti-drugs, aren't socially conservative, and aren't particularly hawkish. They seem to dislike Republicans like Paul Ryan almost as much as Nancy Pelosi. Milo re…

They're all crap labels. They contain no knowledge. What confused people call "liberals" aren't so about firearms and markets. "Liberal" is from the latin word for "freedom". SJWs are not liberal. They don't want free speech. CA is not a liberal state by looking at its taxes and firearms laws. These are authoritarian ideas. Rectification of names... Labels and Knowledge are totally independent things.

Freedom can include the freedom from harasment, which is a curtailing of speech. That's a liberal idea. The other alternative is 'let people say anything they want and they can just learn to deal with it', which doesn't work with e.g. death threats, harassment, etc. That's why one freedom might be more important than another.

People who claim it's a negative are usually upset that they can't attack, belittle, or harass other people for their own amusement, I've found.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#160
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind, since ~70% of the US population is white, that does imply whites are less likely to be killed by the police. Predicting the likely response to this, of course, we get into the (surprisingly hard to accurately work out) question of what proportion of crimes are committed by people of various races, and to what extent that figure is manipulated by conscious / subconscious bias on the part of law enforcement. (It'…

I think what's important about this is if the big problem is (1) race disproportionality or (2) general police brutality and unaccountability. If the main problem is (2), but society mobilizes to solve (1), thigs won't get better.

I feel that these problems are linked.

If we solved (1), everyone would be equally likely to suffer from police brutality. This would make us more likely to then go ahead and fix (2), because suddenly it would no longer be something which mostly happens to long-downtrodden minority groups.

Mind, if we fix (2) first, it's somewhat plausible that we might continue in a situation where minority groups are disproportionately targeted by the police, and we just go "eh, it's not that bad, we're not shooting them all the time any more".

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