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YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

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Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen practically this same post on /Pol/ and I really appreciate NOT having it on HN.

Your post is a symptom of the problem. If you can't read a paragraph like that without experiencing an emotional reaction and a need to hide it from yourself and others, it is you who is immature and should stay out of discussion forums, not the other poster. No rude words were used; the hide comment button is right there if you'd like to close it and the tree stemming from it and move on. Posts like your own really…

I like this forum to not be filled with propaganda and conspiracy theories, especially those that completely absolve the actual culprits of their crimes. Another poster defended the original post and claimed that Marxists are the reason for the decline of America.

That's essentially propaganda and an unfounded conspiracy theory with no backing. And it conveniently creates an "other" to hate even as you completely forget that America's decline started the day it decided to spend trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by trillions more on bailouts in 2008.

Dick Cheney and Wall Street would find that very convenient!

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do a CTRL-H test: "We want our community to be largely white" seems like a reasonable founding principle. How do you feel about the statement now?

"White" is a catch-all term for light-skinned ethnic groups with "defaultness" in American society. There is no such thing as "white history," "white heritage," or "white culture," except in opposition to "non-default" ethnic groups. If you change the founding principle to "we want our community to be largely Russian," that would be totally fine by me. Additionally, opposition to the "largely black" founding principl…

You're literally grouping all dark skin individuals into a group saying they share the same heritage and culture when they don't.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#743
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, while a low point even for a high-functioning schizophrenic with a talk show, that is still small potatoes compared to the journalists who repeated the 'WMD's line. And no one is calling for them to be deplatformed.

Figuring out a widely held opinion is wrong is actually not that easy. As such I have a lot more acceptance for those being wrong while promoting the status quo than those intentionally pushing the overton window. The latter is what should require commitment/conviction, to weed out the bad. And seems to be what is getting axed right now. Investing into shitty companies will make you loose your investment. Why should…

Funny, I take the opposite conclusion - figuring out a widely held opinion is wrong is not easy, therefore I think we should be slower to condemn people who get contrarian bets wrong.

To extend your metaphor, if I invest in a bad company, sure, my finances will suffer. But if it were that easy to tell which companies were bad there'd be no reason to invest at all. People who bet against the crowd and are right are generally considered heroes. I agree there should be a cost to trying to be a hero, but I don't think we currently have enough of them and I'm leery of making it harder to be one.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#744
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Figuring out a widely held opinion is wrong is actually not that easy. As such I have a lot more acceptance for those being wrong while promoting the status quo than those intentionally pushing the overton window. The latter is what should require commitment/conviction, to weed out the bad. And seems to be what is getting axed right now. Investing into shitty companies will make you loose your investment. Why should…

Funny, I take the opposite conclusion - figuring out a widely held opinion is wrong is not easy, therefore I think we should be slower to condemn people who get contrarian bets wrong. To extend your metaphor, if I invest in a bad company, sure, my finances will suffer. But if it were that easy to tell which companies were bad there'd be no reason to invest at all. People who bet against the crowd and are right are ge…

The logic you've provided says nothing about whether we should condemn Alex Jones, so I'm not clear what point you're trying to make. Unless you think we should be slow to condemn people who arrange for the harassment of parents whose children were murdered by a gunman in their elementary school. But that seems like an implausibly villainous thing for anyone on HN to believe.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do generic "Europeans" have in common with each other? As a Russian, I feel like my culture overlaps relatively little with French, German, or English. Moreover, which parts of "Europe" are actually included in this taxonomy? Are Romani considered white? What about Southern Italians? Black people in France? It all boils down to "people of European heritage with white skin (whose ancestors wrote books and stuff t…

I agree it's a bit wishy-washy. But that's what it means. Everyone (in the U.S.) when they say whites, they pretty much always mean anyone with white skin who have European heritage. Yup, so even if some poor Croatian guy just got off the boat, as long as he looked white enough for Americans, some of them would say he benefited from American slavery of blacks and must renounce his white privilege.

Spend his whole life being taught about white privilege and is never allowed to say that he understands so he has to get re-educated all the time. If he says he has already heard it before and understands then he is obviously a racist Nazi Trump supporter and must violently be re-educated about his white privilege.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#746
post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are probably examples of that, I find it unlikely that the general use of the "far right" would capture 40% of people very unlikely.

There are so many examples it’s kind of ridiculous. Jordan Peterson, for example, who isn’t even remotely right. What I mean to say, is that it’s become common for left-leaning media to describe perfectly moderate right positions as “far-right” and “alt-right,” to the point where those terms mean almost nothing to someone who isn’t politically savvy to distinguish.

Calling someone "far right" or "alt right" are effectively dog whistles at this point, used to notify a member of the Democrat party that their standing in the community and probably their income is at serious risk if they do anything to speak positively about the person.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#747
post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do generic "Europeans" have in common with each other? As a Russian, I feel like my culture overlaps relatively little with French, German, or English. Moreover, which parts of "Europe" are actually included in this taxonomy? Are Romani considered white? What about Southern Italians? Black people in France? It all boils down to "people of European heritage with white skin (whose ancestors wrote books and stuff t…

Not sure about whites and blacks in the US, but as far as genetics are concerned, (black) Africans have far more genetic diversity than (white) Europeans.

Africans enslaved in America effectively had their original cultures denied and destroyed. That's why it's appropriate to capitalize Black but not white when referring to American subcultures. (Whiteness isn't genetic. E.g. in South Africa under apartheid Chinese people were legally black but Japanese people were legally white.)

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has a right to post on Reddit or Youtube. If we want to be concerned about individual rights, we should at least be somewhat accurate about the definition of the word.

Honestly, we need to rethink this. For example, I 'own' my sidewalk, but anyone can protest there. A lot of public space is privately owned, but can still be used for protest. The internet is the new public square. It can be privately owned, but still forced to recognize the rights of the public.

I'm not sure what the laws are for physical protests. Do mall car parks and similar places on "private" but non-enclosed land have to accommodate public protest? Is that sort of thing what you're talking about?

I'm leaning towards the idea that platforms with no barrier to entry should be treated as public to some degree, while those with a sign-up process more involved than email and password are still treated as private.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I take the opposite conclusion - figuring out a widely held opinion is wrong is not easy, therefore I think we should be slower to condemn people who get contrarian bets wrong. To extend your metaphor, if I invest in a bad company, sure, my finances will suffer. But if it were that easy to tell which companies were bad there'd be no reason to invest at all. People who bet against the crowd and are right are ge…

The logic you've provided says nothing about whether we should condemn Alex Jones, so I'm not clear what point you're trying to make. Unless you think we should be slow to condemn people who arrange for the harassment of parents whose children were murdered by a gunman in their elementary school. But that seems like an implausibly villainous thing for anyone on HN to believe.

My point is, he seems to be held to a higher standard than 'mainstream' journalists, despite the fact that these mainstream journalists send signals that they should be taken seriously and he does not. That sticks in my craw.

Re: YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech

#750

I don't think people would have a problem with this if the political public squares (YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, etc) - and that IS what they are - applied these policy changes to everyone equally. What's happened is we've already gone over the edge. Racism has been redefined to only be effectively possible by white people in the West. The intention of this change is racist in itself. Putting aside freedom of speech, w…

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