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They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

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Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#201

Post by amarcheschi »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #140
blooalien wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a way to utterly waste the likely last few generations of "civilized" humanity on Earth... :(

[flagged]

>The American scientific establishment and education system are likely to be transformed to create massive jumps in productivity (in the age of AI)

And this presidency will ensure that this jump in productivity only benefits the wealthy. Proposed tax cuts by Trump would make middle class people pay more and wealthy people pay less

>There are very few ways to compete with China without very strong leadership — and now, it seems, we have that chance.

Oh yes, the guy that wanted to have a say in what the fed does. The guy who proposed and eventually rolled back tariffs on its neighboring countries, sending a lot of companies (both in usa, Canada, and Mexico) in panic. I could go on for hours

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#202

Post by aa-jv »

labster wrote: post #141
ookblah wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't even want to give people that benefit at this point. used to think that it was education, circumstances, outside forces, culture, etc. like "if only" we had XYZ then we can prevent this. at this point i just want to call it "stupidity". not even a left vs right thing. there exists a subset of the population that cannot and will not be educated or have the ability to reason on a certain level to make things wo…

Nah, cynicism is the only rational reaction now. Lots of people died from covid and our poor government response, but Trump got a majority because eggs are too expensive.

[flagged]

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#203

Post by WitCanStain »

Dalewyn wrote: post #170
aisenik wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worse, on the other side, outraged people abused the term nazi to call out anybody that had a bad behavior. But there is a huge difference between being an asshole and being ready to commit genocide. > Eventually it means the word nazi lost all of its meaning. And all of its usefulness to defend ourselves. Do I understand that while the United States is undergoing a radical neonazi revolution lead by the tech indus…

No, what you should takeaway is that misoverusing the term Nazi as an insult patently no longer works precisely because noone cares about being called a Nazi anymore due to its misoveruse. In a different timeline, Trump being called a Nazi or any of the vicinity terms should have been an immediate termination of his campaign chances. What actually happened is Trump ignored it (as he should) and the American people sh…

The reason why terms like nazi, racist, sexist etc did not affect Trump's chances is because his voting base _does not care_ that he is those things. The right wing in America, magnitudes more than the left, does not care about the personal qualities of their chosen candidate, only about whether he advances their agenda. Why do so many nominal Christians vote for Trump despite him being a cheater, hoarder, and a person who otherwise embodies so many of the qualities the Bible cautions against? It is, again, because they will cook up any number of excuses and denials to justify their support as long as he hurts those they consider the enemy. The only way to make the application of those terms hurt Trump would have been to make the population care about them in the first place (beyond the thinnest veneer of superficial handwringing) which would have required a much stronger education system than America has.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#204

Post by aa-jv »

ashirusnw wrote: post #174
throw310822 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's missing the point. What hotels, casinos and apartments were promised to the Biden administration to flood Israel with money and weapons to flatten the Gaza strip into rubble and kill and maim hundreds of thousands? It's not important what leverage Israel has used to make yet another US president do exactly what they want, contrary to any idea of justice, international law, basic humanity and common sense.…

[flagged]

>There is clearly no specific leverage that one of the world's smallest ethnic groups has over the world's most powerful nation

This is not so clear as you think. Israel is a nuclear-armed state that is not a participant in the non-proliferation treaties.

Everything that the world fears of Iran, is already the case with Israel.

Forward-deployed nukes are a hell of a blackmail.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#205

Post by aa-jv »

suraci wrote: post #149
suraci wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and the side of israel? which happen to be the solidest evidence to prove someone is a nazi no matter who you voted for, no matter if you voted or don't vote, you can not change this, you have no power to change it

...why this got downvoted :( which part of this is wrong?

The part where participating in collective cowardice overwhelms the individual will to seek truth.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#206

Post by dgb23 »

lucianbr wrote: post #62
computerthings wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's a gross simplification, and leaves out all the violence and constant deception. This is a good primer on just how far off the pop culture understanding of the Nazis is: https://archive.org/details/TheOriginsOfTotalitarianism/ "Without subversion or trickery" is flat out wrong. And it's also wrong for the US today.

I really have no clue about history, and what you say sounds very reasonable. I guess it is true. But I think any person who wants to live in a democracy needs a bare minimum ability to detect trickery. Because there has not yet been invented a system where none of the politicians lie, and you can make good decisions based on taking them all at their word. Now, maybe the level of subversion and trickery in pre-WW2 Ge…

You don’t even need a sophisticated defense against trickery and propaganda.

The thing that works almost automatically, with exceptions, is decentralized power:

- direct voting on issues by all citizens

- compartmentalization of government into specialized units

- bottom up federalism

- appointment of representatives on a per project basis, not for general power

With decentralized power, people make pragmatic decisions, because they are focused on solving problems and not on maintaining power.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#207

Post by pjc50 »

WitCanStain wrote: post #203
Dalewyn wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what you should takeaway is that misoverusing the term Nazi as an insult patently no longer works precisely because noone cares about being called a Nazi anymore due to its misoveruse. In a different timeline, Trump being called a Nazi or any of the vicinity terms should have been an immediate termination of his campaign chances. What actually happened is Trump ignored it (as he should) and the American people sh…

The reason why terms like nazi, racist, sexist etc did not affect Trump's chances is because his voting base _does not care_ that he is those things. The right wing in America, magnitudes more than the left, does not care about the personal qualities of their chosen candidate, only about whether he advances their agenda. Why do so many nominal Christians vote for Trump despite him being a cheater, hoarder, and a pers…

Indeed. The allegation of "racist" has lost its power because people feel free to be openly in favor of racism again.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#208

Post by error_logic »

pessimizer wrote: post #43

[flagged]

Some people form a belief and then look for evidence to support it, others look at the evidence and check for inconsistencies before getting attached to a belief. "Nobody" wants Trump to be Hitler, they're observing parallels which you have rejected because of your desired beliefs.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#209

Post by 9dev »

aa-jv wrote: post #202
labster wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, cynicism is the only rational reaction now. Lots of people died from covid and our poor government response, but Trump got a majority because eggs are too expensive.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#210

Post by roenxi »

Dalewyn wrote: post #170
aisenik wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worse, on the other side, outraged people abused the term nazi to call out anybody that had a bad behavior. But there is a huge difference between being an asshole and being ready to commit genocide. > Eventually it means the word nazi lost all of its meaning. And all of its usefulness to defend ourselves. Do I understand that while the United States is undergoing a radical neonazi revolution lead by the tech indus…

No, what you should takeaway is that misoverusing the term Nazi as an insult patently no longer works precisely because noone cares about being called a Nazi anymore due to its misoveruse. In a different timeline, Trump being called a Nazi or any of the vicinity terms should have been an immediate termination of his campaign chances. What actually happened is Trump ignored it (as he should) and the American people sh…

> Another moral is that insulting Americans probably doesn't actually work in general. "Deplorables", "Garbage", and others were turned around into rallying cries during the 2016 and 2024 campaigns...

It depends on the insult; sometimes that doesn't work. One of the purest expressions of joy I've seen in politics was Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) back in 2019 analysing [0] a group of anti-Trumpers trying to rally around being called "human scum". He had a lot of interesting things to say back then about the art and science of persuasion.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_3HGjAVv0M 1:30 to 7:30

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