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Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

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Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#121

Post by humanrebar »

agumonkey wrote: post #120
humanrebar wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People's emotions toward acts is highly dependant on the reference system they live in. Yes, but let's be careful not to conflate felt nobility with actual good. Sacrificing humans to false gods is pretty awful, no matter the sentiment behind the acts.

Try to put yourself in their shoes, to the victim it was probably a high desire, his family was probably proud, they may believe he went into heaven and were relieved. If the whole system is strong in its belief and consistent you cannot "understand" their acts as good or bad.

I believe there are objectively bad things to do and killing people for a false sacrifice is certainly bad.

It's true that people need empathy, though, partly so they can be wary despite their own good intentions and clean consciences.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#122

Post by laretluval »

Jtsummers wrote: post #70
sverige wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genocide is a characteristic of every totalitarian regime, notably including every communist regime, which are almost always excluded from these discussions.

Genocide or politicide. But most people don't make the distinction. The regimes don't set out to conduct the genocide, that's not their initial purpose. It's a tool that they use. For fascists and Nazis the genocide and politicide is a consequence of their strong in-group/out-group philosophy. The Nazis didn't take over Germany to kill the Jews, they ostracized, murdered, and eventually committed genocide against the…

> They didn't convince the Russian people that Ukrainians were an enemy that needed to be wiped out.

Maybe that wasn't how it went in the Holodomor, but it's definitely how it went in Dekulakization.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#123

Post by throwawaymanbot »

skrap wrote: post #22

I get what the author is getting at. Not sure I agree. Many years ago, I read "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland", which analyzes interviews with the actual men performing the slaughter of innocents at the end of the war. The conclusion that book drew was different than this article, and makes more sense to me — that it's not "mean people 'go nazi'", but ordinary people who '…

I think maybe you misread the article. The Article's premise is that there is something in certain people that makes them more susceptible to being "relieved of the responsibility of their actions". Whereas there are certain other types that will NEVER be prone to being "relieved of the responsibility of their actions" ie.. being a Nazi. What article did you read?

btw.. Just "following orders" was not honest, it was used by lawyers in Nuremberg trials to try to get Nazis who had "the courage to murder", to get out of "the responsibility of their actions", and rightfully, had no legal base.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#124

Post by throwawaymanbot »

im3w1l wrote: post #61
Jtsummers wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ Genocide is a characteristic of one major fascist regime. It is not a characteristic of all of them.

Fascism and nazism are not synonyms so I don't understand why you bring that up.

I think im3wl! knows what he is saying, and that is to say he is being deliberately protective of something he admires.

The rest of us know and have no issue saying, The Nazis were a political movement, of the fascist variety.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#125

Post by dang »

cmurf wrote: post #87
dang wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It is a quote from the article, hence why it is italics. How is this unsubstantive? It's the last lines of the article, it practically answers the title question. It's satire and a polemic.

I agree that mitigates it somewhat, but the comment was still unsubstantive, no? It added no information.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#126

Post by agumonkey »

humanrebar wrote: post #121
agumonkey wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to put yourself in their shoes, to the victim it was probably a high desire, his family was probably proud, they may believe he went into heaven and were relieved. If the whole system is strong in its belief and consistent you cannot "understand" their acts as good or bad.

I believe there are objectively bad things to do and killing people for a false sacrifice is certainly bad. It's true that people need empathy, though, partly so they can be wary despite their own good intentions and clean consciences.

You never felt the pleasure of giving your life for someone ? for a group ?

I did, very few times, but I did. I bet 10$ that their culture only amplified that feeling.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#127

Post by artificial »

watwut wrote: post #88
qohen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See e.g. Emil Maurice, he was a Jew One of his great-grandfathers was Jewish; he was not.

Yeah, these are less puzzling when you realize that nazi defined Jewishness by blood and thus many assimilated people who considered themselves Germans and believed same things as other Germans got catch in net too.

Which was oddly less strict than in the American South where one drop of Black blood was enough to make you not White. As far as determining blood mixing in the Reich the Mischling Test was used and if you had 3 grandparents who were Jewish that made you Jewish.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischling_Test

I totally was reading this thread last night and didn’t refresh before posting, I didn’t see the post below.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#128

Post by cmurf »

dang wrote: post #125
cmurf wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a quote from the article, hence why it is italics. How is this unsubstantive? It's the last lines of the article, it practically answers the title question. It's satire and a polemic.

I agree that mitigates it somewhat, but the comment was still unsubstantive, no? It added no information.

Not even slightly. The definition of substantive: having a firm basis in reality and therefore important

Quotes, citations, showing one's work are all inherently substantive.

To take something seriously as Nazism in the context of a game like a puzzle to be solved, it's brilliant and absurd, and literary cleverness, and worth repeating as is. And this wedge fits within the timing of the article, itself wedged between rampant Nazism in the U.S. but before the U.S. had entered WWII. I doubt this activity could be called a game during or after the war, no matter the satirical hints.

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/542499/marshall-curr...

Adding no information? That's the vast majority of comments on HN including my own, which don't get either an up or down. But fine, you can say it did not enrich the conversation.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#129

Post by chillacy »

Jtsummers wrote: post #48
darkerside wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you anchor these modest goals upon? Chances are they were based on your perception of how people around you are doing. If you lived in the Paleolithic, perhaps winning would have been having a decent cave, and enough game to feed your family. In another world, perhaps you'd require only one or two modest robot butlers, not a fleet like many others have. Dumb analogies, I know. The point is that, most people'…

The winners and losers in your description seems more a ranking, rather than causal. In most games, a winner causes there to be a loser. What about GP's stated goals and achievements would cause someone else to lose at the game of life? I have friends who would consider me a "loser" by rankings (no house, no wife, no kids; I rent, have a fiancee, and, well, no kids). But their achievements have not caused me to be in…

This is what I was hinting of when I mentioned subcultures: https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Subculture-Society

The summary is that everyone needs to be a winner, and we can be as long as we all play a different game.

Re: Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

#130

Post by darkerside »

Jtsummers wrote: post #48
darkerside wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you anchor these modest goals upon? Chances are they were based on your perception of how people around you are doing. If you lived in the Paleolithic, perhaps winning would have been having a decent cave, and enough game to feed your family. In another world, perhaps you'd require only one or two modest robot butlers, not a fleet like many others have. Dumb analogies, I know. The point is that, most people'…

The winners and losers in your description seems more a ranking, rather than causal. In most games, a winner causes there to be a loser. What about GP's stated goals and achievements would cause someone else to lose at the game of life? I have friends who would consider me a "loser" by rankings (no house, no wife, no kids; I rent, have a fiancee, and, well, no kids). But their achievements have not caused me to be in…

You can be winning at your own self defined game. And you probably should be.

Not all games are zero sum. I'm not saying that you need to win in order for others to lose. The cause and effect are almost the inverse of that. What I'm saying is, your definition of success and winning is defined by either achieving what others have, or avoiding situations you know are possible because other people are in them.

You know you're winning because your not in a third world country, homeless, starving, immediately dying, etc. You wouldn't know those were states to avoid unless others were in them.

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