Live data from Hacker News

Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

newsweek.com

131–140 of 234 posts

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition if you are delusional aren't you unaware of it?

Only if you truely believe in the delusion. I don't think most of the fascist rioters truely believe there was any election fraud. I think they needed a public rationalization in order to radicalize tacit sympathizers. Being delusional is more social acceptable and less alarming than being an out and out violent racist insurrectionist.

That's likely true for some. But many people do belive there was fraud. I think there were some very suspect things about the election. But I read Article II, and the 12th amendment. The congress is directed to count the Electoral votes submitted by the states. It's basically ceremonial, unless there is no majority in the Electoral vote. There is a process defined for that situation. There is not a word about challenging the votes as submitted. Mike Pence was absolutely right.

There may or may not have been fraud in any of the states. But once they certify their Electors, that's it as far as I can see. I honestly don't know if there is a remedy even for clear fraud if the state goes ahead and certifies the results. In theory a state doesn't even need to hold a public vote. The legislature could just appoint the Electors. The founding fathers clearly wrote the constition to give the power of electing the president to the states. Allowing any level of the federal government to override that seems to be a conflict of interest.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#133
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each side believes they know the truth, and that the other side is delusional. You're partially right. We have at least two sides. One side is CLEARLY delusional. Fueled by conspiracy theories and lies. We also have other sides, but the two sides that get the most attention are the only sides that matter. We have one side that is most definitely delusional, other…

And I do have a very strong opinion on all that. I just wanted to note that the "other side" that I'm not on, also believes basically the same thing with regards to my side.

There's no reason communications channels need to reenforce the deluded side's delusions.

In fact, doing so is probably harmful.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is, don’t trade the headlines. But it’s important to know your experience in the US will vary dramatically based on economic status. If you’re high income/above-average educated (which you pretty much have to be to immigrate to the US due to the overly strict/broken immigration system), there’s no better place to be. You will be able to reach the absolute peak of your potential here. 10/10, would immigra…

I disagree. I live in Pittsburgh, and we recently had the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. There were also people being threatened along the route of a Black Lives Matter protest, who just happened to be there and did not join in enthusiastically enough, in the eyes of the marching protesters. No one was injured, but from the videos it seemed very close to getting out of hand. (Marchers coming off the street to verba…

Those are certainly some scary anecdotes you have, but the stats don’t support them. Things just seem worse because the media (and social media) likes to make a political spectacle out of everything to drive engagement. Shootings are no longer murders, they are events to argue over gun control. Terrorist attacks are no longer about the attacks, they are used to argue about encryption, the free flow of information, and censorship.

These events just seem more frequent because rather than being a one day headline they get talked about ad nauseam for weeks.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#135
post #43

I'm glad they halted that. But it reduces the common area we can even discuss anything going on this week in politics. Taking a step back... We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each side believes they know the truth, and that the other side is delusional. And it is easy enough to engage with your media outlets of choice, and get your beliefs reinforced. How can we have a meaningful discussion as a na…

What is the two sides exactly? There is a group that has produced no evidence for their claims and is threatening and acting out violence - is that one of the sides? There is a point in which a particular group is no longer acting in good faith, and is taking advantage of the tolerance and ability to have discourse. https://kottke.org/17/08/the-paradox-of-tolerance

You just described both sides.

Side a: 2016 US election was stolen. 2020 was fair and square. Side b: 2020 US election was stolen. 2016 election was fair and square.

Seems that there are a small number of people who think a) both elections were stolen or b) both elections were fair and square. They are being drowned out by sides a and b.

If you fit side a or b above, you might want to some logical thinking. Pretty simple to see the two sides are simply opposite sides of the same coin, both deeped in hypocrisy.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#136
post #43

I'm glad they halted that. But it reduces the common area we can even discuss anything going on this week in politics. Taking a step back... We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each side believes they know the truth, and that the other side is delusional. And it is easy enough to engage with your media outlets of choice, and get your beliefs reinforced. How can we have a meaningful discussion as a na…

I have absolutely no idea what can be done. I think the best thing that could most realistically happen is that things "cool off" in the months after Biden is inaugurated and the world continues to spin.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#137
post #81
post #43

I'm glad they halted that. But it reduces the common area we can even discuss anything going on this week in politics. Taking a step back... We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each side believes they know the truth, and that the other side is delusional. And it is easy enough to engage with your media outlets of choice, and get your beliefs reinforced. How can we have a meaningful discussion as a na…

I think the idea that the "sides" are roughly equally balanced is a false narrative pushed by the smaller side. Obviously "hang Mike Pence" isn't an appealing idea to anywhere near 100% of Republican voters, and I would wager it's appealing to just about 0% of non-Republican voters. What you're seeing is that the amount of yelling is roughly equally balanced, but you can't extrapolate from that to what all people act…

It's odd to me how someone could think that there is more hatred for Mike Pence coming from within his own party vs. outside of it. I don't know what social media circles you've participated in for the past 5 years, but it seems clearly the opposite case to me. There is an overwhelmingly large group of people online who equivocate Mike Pence with Nazism, and they regularly call for punching and killing of anyone who has that label. Last August, a Trump supporter was killed at a Portland BLM protest, where afterwards into the microphone the organizer yelled "I am not sad that a f*cking fascist died tonight. He was a f*cking Nazi. Our community held its own and took out the trash." Many young people praised this. I do not believe the remarks would have been different if it were Pence in the same situation.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#138

Like probably most people in the discussion here, I think I’m smarter than the average person, and can discern the truth from multiple conflicting claims. But a little introspection shows me that no, this isn’t really true. I’m not hunting down original sources for everything I think I know, I’m mostly relying on gatekeepers (experts) to tell me what is true. Unfortunately, in social media, everybody gets to be an ex…

> Unfortunately, in social media, everybody gets to be an expert! How can the average person tell?

It's pretty obnoxious and exhausting to read about "Oh yeah, I know that's X, because..." on Twitter. Like the whole "It's Antifa ambushing the Capitol", because "the Antifa sign is to wear your hat backwards", "those are Antifa helmets", or just a screenshot of a photo of some guy with the text "phillyantifa.org" next to the picture is enough to convince some people that, "Yeah, it's Antifa".

It's a cheap grasping for evidence to reaffirm your views/world belief though, to fix your cognitive dissonance. Because trying to find the whole truth would mean confronting yourself and maybe figuring out you've been dumb enough to be lied to. That your "team" are the ones who are ready to be violent towards members of the government. Or that maybe your views are based on your fear of the other...

Also, written 5 years and a month ago https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/the-donald-and-... :

> I would, however, add a casual observation: at this point Trump has been the front-runner for long enough that it’s very hard to imagine his supporters suddenly losing faith, because it would be too embarrassing.

> Bear in mind that embarrassment, and the desire to avoid it, are enormously important sources of motivation. [...] Nobody likes looking like a chump, and most people will go to great lengths to convince themselves that they weren’t.

> Now think about someone who has been supporting Trump since the summer. For the Trump bubble to burst, many people like that would have to slap their foreheads and say, “Wow, he’s not a serious person! What was I thinking?”

> And very few people ever do that sort of thing. Someone who has spent months supporting Trump despite establishment denunciations — which means something like a third of Republicans — will go to great lengths to avoid conceding that he has been foolish. At this point such people will insist that any negative reports about Trump are the product of hostile mainstream media; Trump’s very durability so far is likely to make him highly resilient looking forward.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition if you are delusional aren't you unaware of it?

Only if you truely believe in the delusion. I don't think most of the fascist rioters truely believe there was any election fraud. I think they needed a public rationalization in order to radicalize tacit sympathizers. Being delusional is more social acceptable and less alarming than being an out and out violent racist insurrectionist.

Many of the hard-core sympathizers haven't heard anything else than all the allegations of fraud and stealing. This works when the psychopath in chief commit these crimes himself, and then projects it to the next unsuspecting victim. Thus the feelings are real, but the real fraud is the criminal cult leaders. Since people believe feelings, or feel to validate thoughts, this works all too well!

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#140

I considered trying to get visa to USA and work there, but honestly last year makes me really worried about living there is it safe to live there?

I doubt you can get a visa just because you want to work here. You need to be invited by a firm like google and even then, your chances are like 20%. Or you can be an exceptional scientist of some sort. Or you can be just rich and invest a million into usa. In either case, your social class will be too high to worry about personal safety.
Post reply on HN