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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)

#251

Post by twixfel »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #220
twixfel wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the US is uniquely fucked, really. At least the previous global hegemon fought two world wars to lose its place. The US is basically committing geopolitical suicide at the top of its powers because of gender neutral toilets and the price of eggs. A rather pathetic country and people, sadly.

Triggered. If we are pathetic, then look forward to our enlightened successors. I don't know what will happen in American politics, nor what effect it will have on the world or the permanence of those effects, but there are demagogues everywhere, America is not exceptional.

America is exceptional in that it is the global hegemon self destructing before our eyes and for largely nonsensical domestic reasons. That is exceptional.

And I don’t know about triggered, but rather just sad, because I was one of those people who really believed in the US at one time!

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

#252

Post by mandmandam »

9dev wrote: post #70
LarsDu88 wrote: post #50

HackerNews is suddenly getting political content at the very top, right after PG slams the "woke" agenda. Is the HN crowd finally waking up to what a danger to the US the "most successful startup entrepreneur of all time" is?

…and the YC CEO defending the hostile takeover of government agencies by (smart, I give you that, but still) teenagers.

I hadn't seen that, and am not finding it.. Have you got a link?

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

#253

Post by mandmandam »

molteanu wrote: post #96

Don't let hacker news become habituated with politics.

Genocide is above and beyond 'politics'. So is a bunch of tech bros being given physical access to the US Treasury under the direction of a tech oligarch, in defiance of dozens of laws. Entire federal agencies are being shut down on a whim, again, in defiance of dozens of laws and safeguards.

These things directly impact the tech community in a massive way - just look at Google dropping their pledge not to use AI for military purposes, this week of all weeks.

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

#254

Post by randallsquared »

LandoCalrissian wrote: post #46

President is unilaterally shutting down federal agencies. If this goes on there really isn't a constitution anymore, not in practice anyway.

He’d have a long way to go to get down to the number of federal agencies that existed in 1900, let alone the number in 1800, yet the US had its constitution, then, too.

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

#255

Post by ookblah »

mmustapic wrote: post #239
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…

I think you are terribly mistaken and, if I may, you are the one who seems to refuse to be educated (I don't say this as an insult). It is very easy to say "they are brutes" instead of looking at what exactly is going on and why democrats lost the elections. As a non-US, I see very little difference between democrats and republicans, except maybe Trump. Democrats are the typical neoliberals: free markets, global capi…

yeah i concede i don't know everything, but honestly if you're not from or living in the US i would also re-examine your view of things. you have a different objective view but miss a lot of the context. it's easy to intellectualize the whole situation and come up with these solutions. this kind of reasoning is what i've gone through already trying to make excuses for people and it sounds nice on paper but it doesn't hold.

i'll tell you from personal experience there exists huge swaths of people in my community that voted for trump not because of any of his policies or a feeling that dems didn't bring change, but because they worship him like a religious figure. or they demonize anything that isn't conservative and treat it like team sports. it really doesn't seem to be much more complicated than that for some people no matter what angle you try to come in with (lack of education, not tending to their needs, etc.)

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

#256

Post by OkayPhysicist »

mmustapic wrote: post #239
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…

I think you are terribly mistaken and, if I may, you are the one who seems to refuse to be educated (I don't say this as an insult). It is very easy to say "they are brutes" instead of looking at what exactly is going on and why democrats lost the elections. As a non-US, I see very little difference between democrats and republicans, except maybe Trump. Democrats are the typical neoliberals: free markets, global capi…

On one hand, you're partially right: It's a pretty sad state of affairs that our only choices in the previous election were "maybe let's not elect a fascist" and a fascist. I can totally agree with you that I would have loved an option that was "let's make life better".

On the other hand, what does it say about our society that given those two options, we picked the Fascist? It's not like the messaging from the Republicans was unclear: they ran on a platform of attacking the rights of women, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants. And more than 30% of the citizens of our country said "sounds good. Count me in". Another 30-odd% decided it didn't really matter to them one way or the other. Only 30-something-percent of Americans said "wow, that's kinda fucked up. Let's not do that".

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

#257

Post by noisy_boy »

ookblah wrote: post #134
noduerme wrote: post #73

"The Germans" is an absolutely jaw dropping read, a series of interviews with average German citizens and low-level nazi party members, conducted a decade or so after the war, by an American Jewish journalist. It shows, in first hand accounts, the banality of evil and how easily it can prevail if people do nothing. It is an account of modern tyranny and everyday collaboration. The parallels in the feeling of what's h…

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…

> social media and tech just made this 10x more effective.

Social media took away the hesitation of crowing about stupid things. If many people are saying it, maybe I am not stupid after all. The legitimisation and amplification of dumbness is a big contributor to the current state. Among other things of course.

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

#259

Post by brigandish »

michaelhoney wrote: post #29
brigandish wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be a tipping point, but as we can see by the comments here and elsewhere, and the intent behind writing and reading things like the shared article, being able to see it before it happens is the hard bit, maybe the impossible bit. Certainly, I've heard the same apocalyptic messages about every big vote in the past 25 years, whether elections or referendums. Usually, not much changes, things happen in increme…

I don't know what you would consider radical if you think what is happening now is incremental.

Having small parts of the overall government checked and cut is not radical, and current world events and US history show much more radical moments.

Again, perspective.

It'll be radical if a security agency is cut (given their power), or if a constitutional amendment occurs that has minority public support, the US invades a nearby country, a national health service is instituted… there are so many examples I could be here all night listing them all, but fiddling with less than 10% of an enormous budget that has ballooned is not radical. I can remember Bill Clinton's government, that wasn't radical and that's the direction of this government.

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

#260

Post by psychoslave »

ookblah wrote: post #134
noduerme wrote: post #73

"The Germans" is an absolutely jaw dropping read, a series of interviews with average German citizens and low-level nazi party members, conducted a decade or so after the war, by an American Jewish journalist. It shows, in first hand accounts, the banality of evil and how easily it can prevail if people do nothing. It is an account of modern tyranny and everyday collaboration. The parallels in the feeling of what's h…

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…

>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 work.

That’s not what the pointed text is about though. It specifically mention the concern is about those that should be considered of higher education in the context, as opposed for example to a baker¹.

¹ This is the example given in text, not some condescendence of bakers from my part here.

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