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

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

#41

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?

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

#42

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?

> Are Europeans worried about Nazis?

Where are you in Europe? In my experience, lots of Europeans are worried about fascism. Not necessarily Nazis, but fascism and extremism.

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

#44

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?

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

#45

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?

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

#46

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?

In most of Europe WW2 was just a terrible ordeal. In Germany it's a source of great shame.

But the US? WW2 was the making of modern America. The US was catapulted into a world leader position, and got to feel like a badass hero doing it. And WW2 was the US's first major overseas conflict. Nazis are the archetypical "enemy without".

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

#47

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?

It's probably a consequence of the media. Proclaiming yourself a nazi is still an easy way to provoke outrage and get media attention in America, so attention-seekers abuse it.

Also Americans value free speech over most things. Proclaiming yourself a Nazi in Europe would probably have more severe consequences socially. In Germany it could land you in prison.

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

#48
post #13

> He would be offline for a month and would need other mods to cover for him. To ask for help, he had to out himself as a kid. I wonder to what extent the alt-right actually is a young teen movement, with adults mixed in (being the ones who show in person). Is there any at least semi-reliable data on this?

Fascinating question. I certainly wouldn't be surprised at all if they account for a substantial portion of online participants, but I don't know of any data on the matter.

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

#49
post #36

> 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 s…

I saw a similar thing with a religious apologist, they had a very specific claim ready to throw out out to me on a specific supposed "prophecy", and later googling that I got page after page of religious propaganda. They'd targeted that particular thing, rather than trying to take over more general listings for "prophecy in the bible", so that only articles that agreed with them showed up.

It took some creative googling to eventually get to an actual academic historical paper on the subject, which then of course immediately blew what they claimed out of the water.

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

#50
post #36

> 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 s…

Google-related, but I'd submit that YouTube is one of the prime culprits. Kids like stuff like video games. Video game recommendations devolve into chud territory in two hops - fascist in three or four.
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