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The Silicon Oligarchy

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Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#61

Post by z9e »

alwayseasy wrote: post #47
champagneben wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. I thought the consensus was that the looters were mostly young out-of-states whites? And to insinuate that the President had read some 1940s Florida mayor's (sorry, I can't remember who the saying is originally attributed to) speeches and knew the connotations of that phrase is ridiculous.

"When the looting starts, the shooting starts" is a phrase by Walter E. Headley, the police chief of Miami, Florida, who said it in response to an outbreak of violent crime during the 1967 Christmas holiday season. Donald Trump was already an adult in 1967 and even if he didn't know this was a dog-whistle for white supremacists.... Facebook doesn't have to amplify destructive ideologies just because the ones who rela…

How is this a dog whistle for white supremacists?

When people loot, other people will shoot them to prevent their livelihood from being destroyed. It’s a good phrase to sum up that there is going to be a violent reaction to looting.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#62

Post by lostmyoldone »

pjc50 wrote: post #43
bsanr2 wrote: post #28

>One of my new grand theories is that America lags 5-7 years behind emerging markets when it comes to the impact of American companies on society. And now, whatever heaven and hell tech companies have wrought upon the emerging markets is now on our doorstep. This dovetails quite nicely with my conviction that whatever fortune or misfortune that's allowed to visit American blacks will eventually hit the rest of the co…

> quite nicely with my conviction that whatever fortune or misfortune that's allowed to visit American blacks will eventually hit the rest of the country One of my wilder observations is that, while the conspiracy theorists are wrong, they're "exactly wrong": the unevidenced thing looks a bit like something that actually happened but with completely different details. The thing they're worried about is the US doing t…

It kind of makes sense, actually.

We're extremely good pattern matchers, much more than we are aware of, but it stand to reason that as our more complex survival mechanisms seems to have close ties to how we perceive ourselves and maybe our "group", we become really terrible at correctly matching what we intuit, if "we" can be considered the perpetrator.

Hypothesizing that we are part of the victims is also a much more effective strategy for the group if we're in a fear/survival mode, as an erroneous attribution often only presents a post-facto moral dilemma for a few individuals, a dilemma we can shield our ego from by saying we didn't know.

That we didn't know is also often objectively true as long as we disregard the uncanny notion that research on social interaction has let us understand exists, that our brain doesn't always let (most of) us know everything that it is going on if it will harm the social interaction.

Most of the above is not much of a problem when that group is a group of people in the middle of a forest, but becomes very much a problem if it is almost the entire population of a country, and when we as in the current day and time is obsessed with polishing our ego.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#63

Post by z9e »

nix0n wrote: post #53
golergka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be a bit out of context of American politics, so an honest question here: how a threat to looters, who actively commit a crime, without any reference to skin color, can be racist? Seeing how violent these riots can get, that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner, for example.

The references to skin color are usually implicit (especially after his presidential term started), but they are always there. I can understand how a non-American might miss Trump's racist phrases, but he's pandering to a white supremacist base who are sure to see them. I don't have a specific link to reference, but the tactic he's using is often referred to as a "dog whistle".

Do we have an estimate as to how many white supremacists there are in the US? I’m genuinely curious, because the popular march in VA had what, a few hundred? I realize that may not be the entire population. There’s probably more anti-vaxxers than white supremacists at this point.

I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#64

Post by trabant00 »

> As the Black Lives Matter demonstrations gained momentum and the police response became increasingly violent, I found myself reliving what Turkey has gone through, but in English.

In some cases in these US protests/revolts the authorities stepped completely back allowing looters and vandals complete reign over some areas. That's the complete opposite of what happened in Turkey.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#65

Post by JoeAltmaier »

trabant00 wrote: post #64

> As the Black Lives Matter demonstrations gained momentum and the police response became increasingly violent, I found myself reliving what Turkey has gone through, but in English. In some cases in these US protests/revolts the authorities stepped completely back allowing looters and vandals complete reign over some areas. That's the complete opposite of what happened in Turkey.

And in many, many places, there's no looting etc. Its a protest, and the public responds positively. But not news-worthy I guess.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#66

Post by 082349872349872 »

golergka wrote: post #38
ramraj07 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president didn't post a video making cupcakes. He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged but not the president. Zuckerberg is not the kid in the social network movie who's "not an asshole, you're just trying really hard to be one." No one has ever said a single good thing about him, or his partner Sandberg, in…

I may be a bit out of context of American politics, so an honest question here: how a threat to looters, who actively commit a crime, without any reference to skin color, can be racist? Seeing how violent these riots can get, that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner, for example.

If it's the same threat I'm thinking of, the phrase apparently has a history for americans, like "Лес рубят, щепки летят" might for russians (or maybe not? is the Stalin association a purely anglophone one?). "Racially charged" is a thing in the US. I read russia freed the serfs in 1861, does anyone beyond historians have an interest in cultural influences of serfdom now?

The US military doctrine differs with you on how armed authorities should approach crowd control: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347585 (an older manual, but the doctrine seems to be up to date: they have shown themselves unwilling to play cossacks for their czar, both in word and in deed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23412986

https://www.military.com/benefits/military-legal/can-militar... )

By the way, speaking of shooting, what did you think of "Брат 2"?

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#67

Post by pjc50 »

z9e wrote: post #63
nix0n wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The references to skin color are usually implicit (especially after his presidential term started), but they are always there. I can understand how a non-American might miss Trump's racist phrases, but he's pandering to a white supremacist base who are sure to see them. I don't have a specific link to reference, but the tactic he's using is often referred to as a "dog whistle".

Do we have an estimate as to how many white supremacists there are in the US? I’m genuinely curious, because the popular march in VA had what, a few hundred? I realize that may not be the entire population. There’s probably more anti-vaxxers than white supremacists at this point. I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country.

If there aren't very many white supremacists, where is all the racism coming from?

> I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country.

The police can shoot people dead, lie about the circumstances, and not even face trial or suspension? Have you missed all the protests and the wall to wall news coverage of the past few weeks?

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#68

Post by aebtebeten »

pjc50 wrote: post #67
z9e wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have an estimate as to how many white supremacists there are in the US? I’m genuinely curious, because the popular march in VA had what, a few hundred? I realize that may not be the entire population. There’s probably more anti-vaxxers than white supremacists at this point. I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country.

If there aren't very many white supremacists, where is all the racism coming from? > I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country. The police can shoot people dead, lie about the circumstances, and not even face trial or suspension? Have you missed all the protests and the wall to wall news coverage of the past few weeks?

I agree (being an amateur crowd counter) that there is a wide difference in the observed popular support for white supremacist and for anti-lynching demonstrations.

(How well people in the streets translates into political representation, we'll discover at the end of this year. For a while after 2016 there was a cottage industry of german TV reporters going to the US to interview Trump voters, and finding they often had strong views on minorities despite not having known any themselves. That may or may not be true in general, but it's the picture we got here.)

However, it does seem that even though the soviets haven't been with us for several decades, the subject of their favourite whataboutism fallacy didn't end when the cold war did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

"Police brutality" was common enough to be portrayed in 2004 childrens' pop culture (note the knee on the neck) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg3NFHv7ASo

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#69

Post by z9e »

pjc50 wrote: post #67
z9e wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have an estimate as to how many white supremacists there are in the US? I’m genuinely curious, because the popular march in VA had what, a few hundred? I realize that may not be the entire population. There’s probably more anti-vaxxers than white supremacists at this point. I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country.

If there aren't very many white supremacists, where is all the racism coming from? > I don’t understand how people think there’s a white supremacist base that has a ton of power in this country. The police can shoot people dead, lie about the circumstances, and not even face trial or suspension? Have you missed all the protests and the wall to wall news coverage of the past few weeks?

> If there aren't very many white supremacists, where is all the racism coming from?

Where is the ubiquitous racism being seen? I am in no way trying to be facetious, but we need to be accurate here. Only reason I ask is because I see racism being thrown around at people who aren't racist, and only because they disagree with a narrative. That word doesn't really mean anything anymore.

I haven't missed it, I just don't think police brutality is purely a race issue. I think it comes down to poor training and not enough vetting so psychopaths like Chauvin don't get the job. There's also not enough accountability for those in charge to fire these cops after multiple civilian complaints are filed against them.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#70

Post by hackissimo123 »

champagneben wrote: post #32
ramraj07 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president didn't post a video making cupcakes. He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged but not the president. Zuckerberg is not the kid in the social network movie who's "not an asshole, you're just trying really hard to be one." No one has ever said a single good thing about him, or his partner Sandberg, in…

>He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. I thought the consensus was that the looters were mostly young out-of-states whites? And to insinuate that the President had read some 1940s Florida mayor's (sorry, I can't remember who the saying is originally attributed to) speeches and knew the connotations of that phrase is ridiculous.

I'd add that if you think that "looters are going to get shot" is code for "black people are going to get shot", you're implying that only black people can be looters. Who's the racist?
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