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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

#221

Post by alexandercrohde »

esoterica wrote: post #176
alexandercrohde wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't know if I think a middle-aged man who goes to a rally to hold up a sign saying "NO TRUMP. NO KKK. NO FASCIST USA," is progress over the alt-right. To me it's the exact same thing -- an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind.

The exact same thing? That’s one hell of a false equivalence. The alt right aren’t bad people because they are “overzealous”, they are bad people because of their bigotry on the basis of race, religion and national origin.

Not really.... these aren't real nazis committing atrocities....

Going to 4chan and saying a bunch of trolly triggering stuff at your friends to get out your anger isn't really a bad thing. It's immature, but it's not really immoral, nor is it illegal, nor does it make you a "bad person." It's venting, tribalism, and immaturity. (case-in-point, the moderator was a 13-year-old jewish boy)

This is what the article describes when it shows the man with the nazi flag posing for the reporters-- a symbiotic relationship that is entirely for show.

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

#222

Post by [deleted] »

esoterica wrote: post #176
alexandercrohde wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't know if I think a middle-aged man who goes to a rally to hold up a sign saying "NO TRUMP. NO KKK. NO FASCIST USA," is progress over the alt-right. To me it's the exact same thing -- an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind.

The exact same thing? That’s one hell of a false equivalence. The alt right aren’t bad people because they are “overzealous”, they are bad people because of their bigotry on the basis of race, religion and national origin.

[deleted]

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

#223

Post by Viliam1234 »

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?

> Are Europeans worried about Nazis? Not as far as I can tell.

It probably strongly depends on the bubble one lives in, both in America and Europe.

I remember reading the Millennium trilogy, written by a Swedish author, where (spoilers, I guess) every unsympathetic guy, without exception, turns out to be literally a secret Nazi. The books sold 80 million copies worldwide, multiple movies were made of them.

Or, if you read Russian propaganda, they never stopped fighting Nazis; it's like WW2 actually never ended. Recently they have liberated Crimea from the Nazi attack.

All this seems crazy to some people, and serious to others.

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

#224

Post by michaelbuckbee »

hinkley wrote: 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…

The article doesn't use the term I've heard of to describe this, which is "data gap".

Take something like a query for "Is the Earth Flat?". There's not a continual stream of videos, posts, and comments about how round the earth is (it's just taken as a given). So Google naturally floats content that says "The Earth is Flat" to the top.

This plays out in all sorts of odd and horrific ways. There was a local political contest where one candidate accused the other of some literal nonsense (it was something like they were a demon or smelled like sulfur). This rumor was making the rounds on Facebook, etc and if you Google'd their name and "sulfer" you'd find some whacked out post about how some lady stood behind them at a coffee shop and thought they smelled and that they were satan's lovechild.

What is that candidate to do? Put up their own competing post saying "I don't smell like sulfur?"

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

#225

Post by yellowapple »

pizzazzaro wrote: post #174
vzcx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! This is an anti-public school administration article masquerading as an anti-alt-right article.

Remember how those d@%$ Clintons were the ones who instituted this "zero tolerance" bullshit, turning our schools into actual freaking prisons? Or was I the only one who watched that happen around me as a child? Schools should be freaking schools once universal healthcare happens. And once prison actually turns into something about reform.

> Schools should be freaking schools once universal healthcare happens. And once prison actually turns into something about reform.

Why wait? A populace that receives an actual education instead of a Kafkaesque exercise in bureaucratic absurdity will almost certainly be healthier and less prone to crime.

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

#226

Post by anigbrowl »

liquidise wrote: post #136
moosey wrote: post #123

> When we did confront Sam—say, if we caught a glimpse of a vile meme on his phone—he assured us that it was meant to be funny and that we didn’t get it. It was either “post-ironic” or referenced multiple other events that created a maze-like series of in-jokes impossible for us to follow. I have made it clear to people I know that parroting vile positions online "because of humor" isn't really a clarification that y…

But laissez faire IS a cultural and ethical stance. “Live and let live” was a powerful cultural standard I remember from my childhood. Deciding that these parents have “given up on responsibility” is a loaded accusation to make because their child has adopted political ideals you disagree with. Given the thoughtfulness of the piece i’d characterize it as unfair.

It seems like there might be a little bit of inconsistency between 'live and let live' and 'political ideals' that involve killing lots of people.

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

#227

Post by yellowapple »

educationdata wrote: post #177
eropple wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? I haven't seen any fascist video on YouTube. Yes, there are lots of right-wing videos. Fascist? I don't believe there are that many on YouTube, unless you define fascist as anything anti-left.

> I haven't seen any fascist video on YouTube

The Recommendation Algorithm Gods have been kind to you, then. Not all of us are so fortunate.

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

#228

Post by vokep »

brohoolio wrote: post #184
crsv wrote: post #167

It’s a very well written piece, but it just feels too well written, to the point of feeling to precise, too calculated, too... contrived. Aside from the opinions expressed, the ideological concerns, the relevance to the current political landscape - these are all relevant and interesting explorations, but the whole narrative is just too picture perfect and too close to a screenplay. It just feels like good fiction.

It seems like good fiction until it’s your life and then it seems terrible. I can assure you, as someone who has multiple family members get sucked up into this ideology, this is how it happens.

As someone who also has watched people get sucked into dogma of both sides...yes this is how it happens

but, the story does give a feeling of being too perfect. I doubt they would just make things up, but it feels likely that a lot of liberty was taken with making it all fit really nicely.

Again all that said, the points within it, are true and valid, the story at plot level is very realistic and is happening all the time.

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

#230

Post by js2 »

rayiner wrote: post #193
educationdata wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't private schools also have zero tolerance policies?

Students who engage in serious misconduct, or repeated disruptive conduct will be “counseled out.” But private schools are generally small, closed communities, which creates a high level of trust and allows routine misunderstandings and disputes to be resolved reasonably. Also, there are strong disincentives to “going nuclear” for both the school and the parents. The schools obviously stand to lose revenue, but the p…

As shared by a friend of mine recently:

Well, my kid screwed up! She took a multitool to school. It has a knife blade. I'm sure every student will go home and tell their parents that someone had a knife at school. Which is true, and only part of the story.

I am glad she is at a private school, where she was only suspended for the day, vs at a public school with an onduty police officer, where she would have been formally charged and entered into the 'system' (a discussion for another time, but this is one problem I have with SRO and the criminalizing of students for minor offenses and how that leads the schools into a pipeline to prisons).

Suspended for the day; sure I guess that’s “reasonable.”

Personally, my wife and I are glad to have homeschooled our kids.

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