Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked • Hacker News Board

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#601

Post by toolz » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #580

toolz wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful to what end? So that people can easily label an idea such that tribal followers can quickly decide if they are on board? I can't think of great applications, only negative outcomes from such a simplified labeling of people and ideas.

Labels facilitate reasoning. Whether that reasoning turns out to be any good is a different question, but good luck speaking about broadly-held political beliefs without using some kind of term to represent it.

How do labels facilitate reasoning in this context? If a politician, for example, says that universal basic income would empower poorer people to become larger contributors to the economy thus having a strong ROI while raising quality of life (all of this is hypothetical I don't care to debate UBI here) - I'm lost on how knowing whether this is a left vs right policy is beneficial to anyone trying to decide if this is useful policy.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#602

Post by leereeves » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

Draken93 wrote: post #585

leereeves wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly not defending the Nazis here. I'm cherry picking because someone claimed there were no cherries (socialists) in that bowl of grapes (nationalists) and cherries. So I'm pointing out the socialists. The role of the left in the rise of the worst governments of the twentieth century should be remembered, so that nothing like Hitler ever happens again. Many horrible governments start with promises of equalit…

I am not sure If you got my point. I never said that your are defending the Nazis. But you were and still are refering to Hitler as a part of the political left. Something he definetly wasn't.

I'm not referring to Hitler personally as part of the left, I'm talking about the support he received from so many socialists on the left.

Hitler himself was, I think, a megalomaniac who wanted nothing but his own power, and a delusional madman intent on killing almost everyone. He doesn't belong on the left-right spectrum, because he was motivated by nothing other than his own madness.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#603

Post by ttt0 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

hanche wrote: post #497

lm28469 wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> genuinely left wing What does that even mean ? Any one with half a brain will find good ideas from the far left to the far right. This "left vs right" is the dumbest thing we ever came up with. Vote and fight for ideas, not sport teams... keep the fanatism for football

On the contrary, I find the left/right spectrum a useful, if rather rough, guide to the landscape og political opinions. But of course, the devil is in the details, and you ignore them at your peril. I consider myself sort of left leaning, but I still think there are a whole lot of misguided ideas on the left, some of them flat out dangerous.

It's completely useless when you move away from the center. The left/right spectrum bastardizes politics to only one dimension and every extreme is trying to redefine what it means, ie. "pick whichever side sounds better to you and then redefine it as the thing you care most about". And you end up with basically good/bad spectrum. Like libertarians, socialists and nationalists have completely different definitions just to exclude from it everyone else.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#604

Post by hanche » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

toolz wrote: post #504

hanche wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I find the left/right spectrum a useful, if rather rough, guide to the landscape og political opinions. But of course, the devil is in the details, and you ignore them at your peril. I consider myself sort of left leaning, but I still think there are a whole lot of misguided ideas on the left, some of them flat out dangerous.

Useful to what end? So that people can easily label an idea such that tribal followers can quickly decide if they are on board? I can't think of great applications, only negative outcomes from such a simplified labeling of people and ideas.

As Karunamon said in a sibling comment, labels facilitate reasoning. Yes, labels have their inherent risks, especially such vague labels as left and right (as applied to politics).

But we live in an age of political parties. It seems we can't do representative democracy without them, for better or worse: And given that, we need a language to talk about parties' politics in broad terms. And then we inevitably come up with various axes such as left/right, authoritarian/liberal, and so forth to describe them. So long as we remember that these are rough categories, I think it is useful and harmless. But of course, once fronts harden and the tribal impulse sets in, that important caveat may be the first to go out the window.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#605

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #381

I spent a number of years living in America in the past, and made friends with people across the political spectrum there. And what has always stood out to me is how much hatred and animosity the American right and left have for each other. Talk with someone over beers long enough and they really open up about it, probably because I'm an outsider. As far as political orientation goes, by worldwide standards America a…

[deleted]

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#606

Post by AzzieElbab » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

Proziam wrote: post #551

iSnow wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK man, the last POTUS didn't seem so anti-authoritarian to me, but that might again be an outside position.

I personally have very mixed feelings about Trump as a whole. On the one hand, I didn't vote for him. I see him as divisive and as an obstacle for progress on real issues that I personally care about. However, he has done a few things that I have sincere appreciation for. Primarily, we made significant gains towards peace in the middle east by negotiating treaties in the region. Another point in the win column (leadi…

I liked how Eric Weinstein described Trump as "existential threat". The idea was that while Trump is asking the right questions and does his best to follow up with the right policies, in the process of doing so he makes these issues "ugly" and tamed with "Trumpisism" assuring that no one ever will come back to these issues. Example: most American want stronger border, most Americans wont be caught dead screaming "... Go Home!" to anyone, but a Trump supporter is more likely to do so than most. Therefore the issue of "stronger border" is a taboo unless Trump gets re-elected

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#607

Post by ParadiseEclipse » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

anoonmoose wrote: post #563

kowlo wrote: post #397

I'm seeing many "dead comments" as a result of senseless downvoting in this thread... people are maintaining their bubble

Well for starters I downvote anyone talking about the number of up or down votes any post has

so, senseless downvoting then?

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#608

Post by lynndotpy » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

pid_0 wrote: post #578

ghostpepper wrote: post #566

Why is the second sentence of this article about how the CEO of Gab used a Transphobic slur? It kind of seems like the author threw that in there to make sure the reader agrees with their political views, but the article doesn't say what the slur was, and I don't think the author would defend the idea that being transphobic makes it okay to hack a person's website, but it kind of feels like that's the point implicitl…

He said “trannies” I wouldn’t say it’s a transphobic slur. He said it to clearly piss off people though. The ceo sounds like a very secure, happy person with no mental problems. Also, transgender issues aren’t political. Modern monetary theory can be political. Immigration policies are political. Human rights are not political. I’m not a liberal or anything, just a rational person.

"Tranny" is certainly a transphobic slur.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#609

Post by hanche » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

toolz wrote: post #601

Karunamon wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labels facilitate reasoning. Whether that reasoning turns out to be any good is a different question, but good luck speaking about broadly-held political beliefs without using some kind of term to represent it.

How do labels facilitate reasoning in this context? If a politician, for example, says that universal basic income would empower poorer people to become larger contributors to the economy thus having a strong ROI while raising quality of life (all of this is hypothetical I don't care to debate UBI here) - I'm lost on how knowing whether this is a left vs right policy is beneficial to anyone trying to decide if this i…

You put your finger at an important point there. When applied to a single policy, labels can indeed get in the way of reasoned discussion of the policy. I think the labels are more useful as applied to the entirety of someone's political outlook.

But if we were to apply labels to UBI, I imagine that the left would mostly be in favour, and the right would mostly be against it. Ideally, everyone should consider the notion on its merits. It's just that what way you're leaning, will inevitably influence your thinking to some extent.

Edited to add: To be more concrete, consider two possible effects of UBI: (1) Raising the quality of life of poor people, and (2) Discouraging people from seeking work. I imagine that a right-wing thinker will weigh (2) more heavily than (1), while a left-wing thinker will do the opposite. Each may even say that the other outcome is not even going to happen, or only negligibly so.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#610

Post by leereeves » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

scrose wrote: post #568

leereeves wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, look into it. Mixed with their tyrannical racial nationalism, you will also find many socialist ideas; here are some examples from the 25 point plan, their early party platform: > We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. > We demand... that all unearned income, and all income that does not arise…

I can’t downvote. I’m also being downvoted and definitely don’t think people’s goals are to ‘rewrite history’ here. But also the list you mentioned is just that. A list. Behind every bullet point there’s a grimmer meaning, if a meaning at all outside of gaining more support from the socialist groups who had more political sway at the time. No sane person would place Nazi ‘state education’ in the same class as a moder…

I would argue that there was a grimmer meaning behind similar promises from every socialist leader, except those where there was no meaning at all other than cynical pursuit of power (like Stalin).

Despite that, the Nazis did gain support from many socialists, and ultimately, like so many other governments that rose to power with socialist promises, failed to live up to those promises.

But I don't think Hitler himself was a socialist, and I agree that Hitler was using the socialists just as he used everyone else who supported him. I just think people should acknowledge the role that socialists played in helping him rise to power.