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What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

washingtonian.com

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Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#31

Post by dTal »

boapnuaput wrote: post #19

Fascism is seductive. It has little idological substance aside from that needed to apologize for promoting the ethnostate, and instead operates on style and spectacle. We let our teenagers become broadcasters, influencers, reviewers, and players, but failed to teach them how to avoid being parasocially suckered, influenced, gaslit, and used as pawns. Perhaps we need to craft an educational system which is more substa…

Not that I necessarily disagree, but I quaver at the thought of a government that understands memetics well enough to craft such a course. Defense can so easily turn to offense...

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#33

Post by i_am_proteus »

boapnuaput wrote: post #19

Fascism is seductive. It has little idological substance aside from that needed to apologize for promoting the ethnostate, and instead operates on style and spectacle. We let our teenagers become broadcasters, influencers, reviewers, and players, but failed to teach them how to avoid being parasocially suckered, influenced, gaslit, and used as pawns. Perhaps we need to craft an educational system which is more substa…

Fewer members of this generation are learning ethics through religion. I'm not religious and I don't believe that religion is necessary for ethics, but I do recognize that religion was a traditional vehicle for introducing young people to an ethical system.

Grade-school civics is one solution, but I think there are some other family- and community-based ways (religious or otherwise) we can raise the next generation with a strong ethical code.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#34

Post by hourislate »

GreaterFool wrote: post #8

Why are Americans so obsessed with Nazis? I mean, I'm from Europe and I don't recall growing up worrying about everyone being a secret (or overt) Nazi, which, unless promptly punched in the face, would somehow take over. WWII and Nazis destroyed Europe. Are Europeans worried about Nazis? Not as far as I can tell. Yet all I see from American news is Nazis this Nazis that. Can someone explain?

[flagged]

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#35

Post by 0-_-0 »

My favourite quote from the article:

'For the next ten minutes or so, the reporters filmed the Nazi. When they finally turned away from each other, each side seemed happy, shaking hands, nodding enthusiastically, and smiling their thanks. It was the most nakedly symbiotic transaction I’d ever witnessed. The reporters and the Nazi needed each other. There was no meaning—no job—for one without the other.'

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#36

Post by hinkley »

> Sam prides himself on questioning conventional wisdom and subjecting claims to intellectual scrutiny. For kids today, that means Googling stuff. One might think these searches would turn up a variety of perspectives, including at least a few compelling counterarguments. One would be wrong. The Google searches flooded his developing brain with endless bias-confirming “proof” to back up whichever specious alt-right standard was being hoisted that week. Each set of results acted like fertilizer sprinkled on weeds: A forest of distortion flourished.

I would like to nominate “Sam” as poster child for why the feedback systems in Google Search and Facebook are so damaging. It’s one thing to continuously confirm the beliefs of old people, it’s quite another to funnel impressionable children into one extreme or another based on a few semi-random data points.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#37

Post by davidw »

CalChris wrote: post #29
davidw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Italy for many years, and one of the more dismaying aspects of the culture is how much some people still identify with actual fascists and communists. They're both terrible ideas that should be widely repudiated by both left and right.

The Brigate Rossa was, like the Baader Meinhof Gang, just evil. But as I recall, the Communists (PCI) by the 90s were just another left wing party, democratic socialist. I think they even changed their name.

I recall rallies where they or someone related was still waving their hammer and sickle flag around.

Italy certainly has its share of modern center-left people, but it still has outright communists as well.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#38

Post by nkkollaw »

GreaterFool wrote: post #26
GreaterFool wrote: post #8

Why are Americans so obsessed with Nazis? I mean, I'm from Europe and I don't recall growing up worrying about everyone being a secret (or overt) Nazi, which, unless promptly punched in the face, would somehow take over. WWII and Nazis destroyed Europe. Are Europeans worried about Nazis? Not as far as I can tell. Yet all I see from American news is Nazis this Nazis that. Can someone explain?

What does flagged mean on HN? Not sure why my comment got down-voted so fast. It's a genuine question. If people can't agree on what Nazi means we should ban the word altogether since it has loaded political context and doesn't foster proper discussion. It appears to me that: 1) Some use Nazi to mean Nazi Party with proper historical context 2) Some use Nazi as tool to bludgeon anyone they don't like 3) Some use Nazi…

It's probably put in a way that can cause flame wars.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#39

Post by mirimir »

> Sam pledged fealty to the idea of men’s rights because, as he said, his former administrator had privileged girls’ words and experiences over boys’, and that’s how all of his troubles had started in the first place.

I wonder how common this dynamic is now.

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