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Yes, It's Fascism

theatlantic.com

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Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#301

Post by zahlman »

xnx wrote: post #298
zahlman wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Way more than half the country was disenfranchised in the last election. Over 152 million votes were cast, representing more than 64% turnout among those eligible to vote ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia... ). The USA has about 342 million people, and over 18% of them are age 14 or younger ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... ) and at least some of them are…

Because of the electoral college, gerrymandering, and other reasons (e.g. District of Columbia) many votes don't count at all or count far less.

If that is what you're referring to, then it's nothing particular to Trump. Not all of it is even particular to the US; for example, Canadian electoral "ridings" function like single-EV states.

But also, Trump won the popular vote this time.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#302

Post by dang »

ryandrake wrote: post #273
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't ask for anonymized stats but rather public stats. If you flag a post, you are inadvertedly trying to push a hn post away. That's fine if the current moderation finds it okay and I respect HN moderation but once again another post gets flagged & dead. If someone flags a post, they should have a reasoning why. So have it public, so that its easier to call people out if they are being unfair and it woul…

Flagged articles should just list the usernames that flagged it--in a queryable way so anyone could do an analysis and see who is operating in bad faith.

Sorry, but I can't imagine doing that - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581665.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#303

Post by dang »

jLaForest wrote: post #268
dang wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call "taking finger off scale" would turn HN into a politics / current affairs site. I know that some of you want that, and a few even wonder how we can possibly be so evil as not to do it, but it is simply not the kind of site that HN is. That is the case regardless of what terminology you use - fingers on scales, curation, moderation, - which are different ways of describing the same thing. I'm not sure wh…

Currently there is not a single remotely political post on the front page, as the moderators intended. But yes I should believe you and not my lying eyes Not only could you not allow the article posted, but even my comment on your actions was flagged. Stop censuring criticism because it makes you uncomfortable

> Currently there is not a single remotely political post on the front page, as the moderators intended. But yes I should believe you and not my lying eyes

This was on the frontpage for 18 hours yesterday: ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46756117 - Jan 2026 (861 comments). 18 hours is about as much coverage as any frontpage story gets. It was there when I posted my GP comment and for a good 7 or 8 hours after that.

What you call "believing your eyes" depends on what you notice, which depends on how you feel (and particularly on what you dislike [1]). If you felt differently, you would notice different things and make different generalizations. (I don't mean you personally, of course—we're all this way.)

Your comment seems to assume that there must be one or more political stories on HN's front page at all times. There's no such rule. I get that you want more—everyone wants more of their preferred topics on HN's front page, including me. You're simply at odds with the kind of site this is and what we optimize it for [2], as well as with the bulk of the community, which wants something different than what you want. Treating that as moral failings of evil admins, accusing us of lying and so on, is not an interpretation I think most people here would agree with.

> even my comment on your actions was flagged. Stop censuring criticism because it makes you uncomfortable

Most of your comments aren't flagged. If you're talking about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46758424, I imagine users flagged that one for being both false and aggressive.

Anyone who reads HN regularly knows that there's tons of criticism here of the site, the admins, the community - in fact, every aspect of HN is constantly being criticized and complained about. It's a bit odd to call that "killing all discussion that is critical."

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#304

Post by ryandrake »

dang wrote: post #302
ryandrake wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flagged articles should just list the usernames that flagged it--in a queryable way so anyone could do an analysis and see who is operating in bad faith.

Sorry, but I can't imagine doing that - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581665 .

You could publish hashes of the flaggers' usernames rather than the usernames themselves. The point is not to go on witch hunts--it's to stop the endless discussions and questioning around whether what we are all seeing (certain topics always seeming to disappear quickly) is the result of flagging activity that is evenly distributed across the site or coming from a relative handful of brigaders.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#305

Post by fc417fc802 »

tim333 wrote: post #257
Hikikomori wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is it. Trump doesn't really matter anymore, he will likely be dead by the next election. Why it doesn't matter is because its all project 2025 people now, they're using Trump to further their goals and those hove some overlap with Trumps wants. Their main goal is that there will be no transfer of power away from them again. Like the 2020 election they will try many different things, but will likely succeed as th…

I wouldn't rule out elections. They may try to cancel/rig them but in a place like the US that won't be easy.

Yeah I assume no one will be stupid enough to try that because I don't think it would end well for anyone and I think everyone knows that. For anyone trying to gauge the general level of crazy here recall that there was a guy who landed a helicopter on the whitehouse lawn a few years ago.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#306

Post by xnx »

zahlman wrote: post #301
xnx wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the electoral college, gerrymandering, and other reasons (e.g. District of Columbia) many votes don't count at all or count far less.

If that is what you're referring to, then it's nothing particular to Trump. Not all of it is even particular to the US ; for example, Canadian electoral "ridings" function like single-EV states. But also, Trump won the popular vote this time.

No dispute there. It's just a terrible system that has no reason to exist. No telling what turnout would be if more of the country new their vote might matter.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#307

Post by jLaForest »

dang wrote: post #303
jLaForest wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently there is not a single remotely political post on the front page, as the moderators intended. But yes I should believe you and not my lying eyes Not only could you not allow the article posted, but even my comment on your actions was flagged. Stop censuring criticism because it makes you uncomfortable

> Currently there is not a single remotely political post on the front page, as the moderators intended. But yes I should believe you and not my lying eyes This was on the frontpage for 18 hours yesterday: ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46756117 - Jan 2026 (861 comments). 18 hours is about as much coverage as any frontpage story gets. It was there when I pos…

The third to comment on that post is:

Glad to see this post didn't get flagged like the one that was posted yesterday on a similar topic about ICE data mining and user tracking.

Obviously I'm not the only one noticing the one sided censorship. If you want to ban political discussion, just be honest about it.

You called my parent comment false, yet this post is still flagged... Add gaslighting to the list. I better hush up before my whole account gets banned...

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#308

Post by dang »

jLaForest wrote: post #307
dang wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently there is not a single remotely political post on the front page, as the moderators intended. But yes I should believe you and not my lying eyes This was on the frontpage for 18 hours yesterday: ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46756117 - Jan 2026 (861 comments). 18 hours is about as much coverage as any frontpage story gets. It was there when I pos…

The third to comment on that post is: Glad to see this post didn't get flagged like the one that was posted yesterday on a similar topic about ICE data mining and user tracking. Obviously I'm not the only one noticing the one sided censorship. If you want to ban political discussion, just be honest about it. You called my parent comment false, yet this post is still flagged... Add gaslighting to the list. I better hu…

Political discussion isn't banned on HN. If you want to understand the approach we take, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... has pointers to many explanations, including recent ones.

I'm not saying we always make the right calls on individual stories—we don't—but we try our best to apply those principles, as well as to explain them clearly.

---

Edit: you edited your comment after I replied - if you do that, can you please note where you're editing it? Otherwise it's unfair to readers, who can't track in what order the conversation developed.

I'm not sure I understand the last bit, but your comment which I called false is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46758424, and that was because everything it says is false. I didn't flag that post, didn't kill discussion, don't "protect the interests of this administration", and don't kill all discussion that is critical.

We don't ban accounts for criticizing us. We ban them for breaking the site guidelines.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#309

Post by seec »

quercus wrote: post #136
gizmov21 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are the “weak men” in your interpretation of today’s scenario? I have my own ideas but I wonder about others.

[flagged]

Yeah, I don't understand how people can be so surprised by all of it. If it wasn't Trump and it wasn't happening in this manner, something like that was bound to happen at some point.

I think it's actually going to be even more violent in Europe once the fake money becomes harder to make and many find out they are not holding any valuable card.

At some point, real work has to be done, and if you keep bringing on more people to devalue this work and even make them pay for the people brought over, they are going to wise up and get mad.

Re: Yes, It's Fascism

#310

Post by johnnyanmac »

Kaibeezy wrote: post #25

If you are debating whether to read this article, read it. It’s comprehensive and precise, and although political in substance, not political in form — test-fitting an imprecise definition. The fact it also reaches a firm conclusion (spoiler alert right there in the title) is depoliticized by allowing for malleable application. A benchmark article I will now go share elsewhere. What’s left to talk about? How to react…

People are dying on broad daylight and who knows what Anne Frank atrocities we're going to discover in the years, even decades, to come in this year alone. Yes it's political. No, this isn't really red vs. blue anymore.

If nothing else it's very clear we need to bring politics back to the dinner table. And not he afraid to talk about it in 'nonpartisan' spaces. You can ignore politics, but it never ignores you.

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