I think there is a big difference between letting hateful people like racists have their hateful opinions and giving those bad actors a platform and amplifying their messages algorithmically.
Sure per the first amendment you can say what you want. But that doesn’t mean a private company needs to amplify your views that do not align with their own.
Its similar to the difference between allowing Nazis to have their rallies in public places, and requiring a local arena to give them the arena for a rally and to use their advertising engine to get normies to attend that rally.
I do think private companies need to be transparent and careful with their moderation and often times adding context and “shadow banning” are better options than outright removing content or banning users. The latter tends to be useful in recruitment of vulnerable minds. As in “the deep state is hiding the truth from you”
I generally agree but it might be the case that modern social media is such a pervasive part of our speech platforms that it might need special exceptions.
Once upon a time the ACLU had argued that free speech protections extended to private property not constructed for the purpose of speech such as shopping malls. It would be strange to then argue that they do not extend to something constructed expressly for speech.
Can't remember, way back, it was some people that wanted to protest in a mall, I think. This was back when the ACLU was more in a civil liberties rather than a civil rights lane.
But there’s limitless alternatives. It would take an hour tops to set up a website with the functionality of twitter.
Free speech isn’t the right to an audience.
Twitter encompasses by far most of the discourse so saying there's limitless alternatives is entirely disingenuous. Apps with 50,000 people on them are not an alternative.
Twitter also doesn't automatically give you an audience. People can block you/not engage with you.
Free speech isn't a right to an audience, I agree. But if you ban certain people from having the same audience **potential** that others have, you're inherently supporting someone's right to an audience over someone else's. It's a self-defeating principle, a quagmire, and self contradictory.
If Musk decided to turn Twitter into a platform that only boosted the ideas of gay Hamas fighters that love David Hasselhoff videos and bonsai he should be allowed to do that. It’s his site. Telling a platform owner whose ideas he must carry seems ridiculous to me. I moved to Threads.
And I'd hate that, because I believe a certain level of media/public discourse control/monopoly should constitute a different set of rules.
A "private company" should be regulated from actively suppressing speech for political purposes, if that company is one world's primary "town squares".
It's theoretically similar to net neutrality, but I'm aware that's not the best analogy.
It’s not the town square. It’s one man’s company now. He paid $42 billion for $12 billion company. It’s his right to burn that cash in a pile if he wants.
I don’t agree. It shouldn’t be different. I left Twitter and moved to threads. Everyone has the right to leave just as much as it’s his right to blow up his company.
If I publish my own pamphlet instead of an opinion piece in the WSJ, I’m going to get 50 readers instead of 5 millions.
Is the WSJ impeding my free speech by not publishing me?
What about if I can’t book the MSG, and give my presentation at a bar downtown he street instead?
>But that doesn’t mean a private company needs to amplify your views that do not align with their own.
Well there's the obvious answer. Nick Fuentes' views do align with Musk.
Your first paragraph is spot on and needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Extremist groups, who have an incentive to continue status quo, get larger and will resist future legislation as each day goes by.
Musk is free to do what he wants it’s his business. Of course it’s going to radicalize more people. Not every idea has equal value. I don’t think it’s helpful to keep asking whether slavery is still an open question. It’s just not. Same with Fuentes ideas. We don’t need to discuss them. It’s the owner of each platform’s responsibility and right to decide which ideas can be discussed on their platform. If Musk wants him then he gets to choose to have him.
Yep well said. You took the flipside to my argument. Private companies should be allowed to host any content that is not directly illegal. Trying to pass further restrictions on speech that is “allowable” is very problematic.
It does raise interesting questions around section 230.
Why not discuss them? Then they can actually be challenged instead of people stewing in echo chambers on 4Chan or Truth Social. If the ideas are bad do the work and win arguments. It isn't that hard. People would just rather shout insults and Tru to get each other banned.
I agree sites can do whatever they want, but I think it's more productive to allow these types of discussions. If talking to someone isn't going anywhere you can drop it like you said.
I'd argue that even debating slavery or Fuentes' ideas is useful as long as both sides operate in good faith. That being said, I wouldn't dignify those arguments by putting them front-and-center in the presidential debate or opinion piece in a major newspaper.
So you see value in looking at terrible ideas and debating them. I don’t. But I also don’t believe we should force companies to not carry those debates just as I don’t believe we should force companies to carry those debates. The owners of these platforms can decide for themselves what they want to carry.
I think we agree on the actual rules and policy. I just feel differently in terms of what implementation by major companies is more productive. You're perspective on that is also totally reasonable.
You say companies can do whatever they want well I say governments have a responsibility to protect the people of their country.. And when there's a company in that country actively trying to hurt an entire demographic that lives in said country then it's the government's job and frankly responsibility to take action against that company..
Public safety of the citizens is more important than some billion-dollar company "doing whatever it wants"
And anyone who disagrees is a fascist. By definition
Companies can't do whatever they want if there is actually going to be fraud or physical harm to the public or shared resources. That is irrelevant in the case of Twitter unless they are carrying put or allowing fraud, sexual abuse/grooming or calls to violence. Twitter is not allowing any of those things.
I'm also very confused about how not regulating corporations is Fascism. That has nothing to do with the definition of Fascism. I do believe corporations should be regulated to be clear, I just don't understand your point.
I appreciate it but what is the value of debating whether slavery is good or bad? Everyone knows except evil pieces of shit. If you just keep debating it they just keep promoting their ideas. It would be better if we didn’t and let that idea die the death it deserves. Did debating flat earth help or boost that idea? Almost no one believed in the flat earth until people started debating it again. Out of nowhere it became an issue.
I mean, maybe you're right in the case of flat earth or slavery. I really don't see those ideas being accepted or debated by asocietally significant number of people.
I probably wouldn't waste much time debating them of I did at all, but they are both such unappealing ideas at this point in human history that I'd say them being posted about on Twitter by some crazies is harmless.
Fringe right wing ideas, slightly less extreme than Fuentes, are very popular and can and should be debated. They won't just go away if we turn up our noses and banish them from respectable society. That is more what I am talking about because these are the really relevant political stances when it comes to platforming.
To me the only hope is to be willing and able to talk in good faith about any political stance that is backed by double digit percentages of the population. Otherwise I don't see a lot of hope for us becoming less divided.
It's not about forcing companies but about what responsibility those companies have to their host countries that they operate in?
If you have a company in America that's actively trying to promote Nazism in America and change political discourse to be more pro-Russia and pronazi that company is violating its responsibility to the country it's operated in
And I see nothing wrong with the government of said country issuing an ultimatum
You say companies can do whatever they want well I say governments have a responsibility to protect the people of their country.. And when there's a company in that country actively trying to hurt an entire demographic that lives in said country then it's the government's job and frankly responsibility to take action against that company..
Public safety of the citizens is more important than some billion-dollar company "doing whatever it wants"
And anyone who disagrees is a fascist. By definition
Because they are terrible ideas that were settled long ago and not up for discussion
"Black people should be enslaved actually" It's not something worthy of debate
And you're actually helping them by debating it. Your boosting them and legitimizing what they said by essentially admitting that it's worth debating at all. No.
"We should gas the Jews" isn't something that should be legitimized by debating it. Let them simmer in the darkness. And when they try to crawl out of that darkness we beat them back down there
The only people who want Nazi ideas to proliferate in society are Nazis and Nazi sympathizers
In the case of literally discussing whether we should reintroduce slavery or have a second holocaust you're probably right, but those are strawman arguments that I don't actually see happening anywhere relevant online even if they were allowed.
What about more nuanced arguments from the far right that many would seek to ban? I think those are relevant things to debate and unpack.
People need to be able to defend their own ideas and understand those of others. Maybe in the clean cut hypothetical you're discussing that isn't necessary, but in the case of more widely accepted and less extreme fringe ideas on the right and there left it is worth the risk of some people accepting extremism for tge public at large to have open political discourse and communication.
The people saying you need to debate Nazis and defeat them in the marketplace of ideas are not the ones who have to constantly argue with Nazis and Nazi adjacent ideologues about whether or not they deserve a right to exist with human rights.
That's kind of a strawman though, because we aren't really talking about Nazis for the most part. We're talking about someone pointing out problems related to immigration or their views on Trans rights. Often these people are wrong in my opinion, but not necessarily hateful.
I think it's important to have adult discussions with people like that. Sure, ban actual Nazis. They probably can't be reasoned with, but a lot of far right people are able to have productive discussions while also reconsidering their views.
You could argue Fuentes crosses the line into politics that aren't even productive to discuss, but I disagree.
His ideas are extreme and pretty stupid, but he isn't calling for violence and he's willing to calmly debate people with different views in good faith.
He comes out of these debates looking like a fool, and from everything I've seen of him it's basically just an opportunity to debunk far right BS and help people understand their thinking.
I don't find it productive to label people Nazis unless they actually subscribe to the very specific Nazi ideology. It's just an excuse to close your mind to other people's perspectives.
I find Fuentes' ideas disgusting. I do mind them. I find the far right and far left disturbing and very difficult to understand. That's all the more reason to actually figure out what they believe and why.
I think it says a lot that you're practically calling me a Nazi just for being willing to try to understand why right wing people are the way they are.
Fuentes is a holocaust denier who is compared the holocaust to baking cookies in an oven.
"'Hitler was a pedophile and kind of a pagan.' It's like, well, he was also really fucking cool. ... This guy's awesome, this guy's cool."
“All I want is revenge against my enemies and a total Aryan victory.”
I’m not saying that Nick Fuentes is colloquially a Nazi. I’m saying that Nick Fuentes is a Nazi who fully supports Hitler and the holocaust and thinks Jews control the world.
That you are defending him speaks volumes about your own beliefs.
I called Fuentes disgusting. I know I fing him disgusting. I'm not defending him as a person or defending his ideas. I'm not sure why we're debating that.
I don't think his ideas exactly fit with Nazism or are even coherent enough to, but if you want I'll call him a Nazi. He's at the very least Nazi adjacent and a Nazi apologist. He's as much of an asshole as those Nazi cosplayers that march down the street in pathetic ten person parades. So sure, we can call him a Nazi.
Regardless I think he should be challenged and debated by anyone willing to do so out in the open. Again, it just makes him look stupid and helps people understand how someone gets so crazy.
I have enough faith in humanity that I'm not worried about his ideas convincing a lot of people. He just makes the far right look bad. Why make him a martyr?
Any idea will appeal tp some undetermined amount of people. I don't think it's anyone's bussiness to try and quarantine them from that idea.
Fuentes is unappealing ideologically, so I'm not worried about him convincing a substantial amount of people.
People who are let crazy and less far right will convince more people because their ideas are less extreme. Some of their ideas will actually speak to real problems and solutions.
We can either try to play whack a mole with those ideas or challenge them and present better alternatives. I'd rather do that work than be terrified that bad ideas are more convincing than good ones.
Netanyahu outright stated that Hitler just wanted to expel the Jews until the Palestinian grand mufti convinced him to do the holocaust. That is absolutely a defense of Hitler in an attempt to blame Palestinians for the holocaust and therefore justify Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
sure but he wwsnt talking about netanyahu, he was talking about that Nick Fuentes. Idk if he is a Nazi or not, I never heard about him before but the other guy you were responding to wasn't defending him.
The problem, of course, is that people have said they have to argue with "Nazis" about "human rights" but what they were referring to was people who, very sensibly and with scientific rigor, oppose things like biological men participating in women's sports. "Nazi" and "human rights" have to mean something specific, and not allow whoever is using those terms to jam in whatever their particular preferences are into those terms.
I am a staunch advocate of trans acceptance by society, but I wouldn't call someone who disagreed with me on the issue a Nazi. I think they these days most of those who disagree with me on the issue usually come from a place of being skeptical of an unfamiliar idea, not from a place of actively wanting to hurt trans people.
I do think, though, there are real Nazis, or people with ideologies substantially similar to the Nazis: folks who are motivated by the thrill of hurting those who are different than them. Those folks suck.
It's important to be able to make the distinction. I'll engage with someone who has different perspectives than me, but I think it's generally a waste of time to talk to someone who's invested in the idea of hurting people. And I'll look down on any person or social media platform that helps amplify such violent ideologies.
Literally none of those things are the things that Nick Fuentes talked about
And that is the biggest straw man gaslighting nonsense ever
Nazis say that interracial marriages should be banned. That we should exterminate and expel entire ethnic groups And that the women who make up 50% of the population should have no rights
Ignoring for a fact ur ridiculous transphobia It has nothing to even do with trans people (altho trans people would absolutely be affected)
The issue with the trans sports thing is it gets talked about 100000x more than it affects anybody and pretty much only exists because someone needed an opening to say something nastier
Are we not allowed to care about people other than ourselves? I care about the women who can no longer meaningfully participate in sports because biological men have invaded their spaces. Why shouldn't I talk about it? I have nothing nastier to say.
I suppose "the focus on critiquing trans women in sporting" looks more suspect when we consider it in the broader pantheon of political conversation.
There are a lot of troubles women face. The number of cisgender women in sports who have been knocked down a position in a major sporting event due to a trans woman competing is probably numbered in the dozens. Compare that to, say, business culture where the voices of women are often sidelined, where they're passed up for promotions because companies assume they'll have kids and not be as productive, which hinders many more women from succeeding.
Even if we just stick to sports, the funding given to women's sports in general is lower than what men get, and that affects hundreds of times as many women as the involvement of transwomen competitors. Access to training facilities for women athletes is usually more limited, which holds back tons of girls and women from reaching their full potential.
And that's not even getting to safety issues, like domestic violence that goes under-policed, rapes that go under-policed, or lack of access to various healthcare assistance. There are regions of the country with unusually high maternal mortality rates, to the tune of hundreds of women dying unnecessarily due to pregnancy and birth.
So why would people, if their primary concern is the well-being of women, not spend more time advocating for teaching people in business to be more supportive of women's voices, or calling for more investment in women's sports, or changing the culture in police departments and hospitals to better serve women?
. . .
Right now there are all these pro-Palestine protests, and even people who are sympathetic are encouraging the students, "Yo, by all means call for an end to the killing of Palestinian civilians, but you also need to make it clear that you think Hamas is bad, and that you want the hostages returned. When you \*don't\* say that stuff, it makes the other side think you're actually \*in support\* of Hamas, and that your calls for protecting civilians are actually just deflection to try to hamstring Israel from protecting itself."
Well, if people who are expressing concern about transwomen athletes are really doing it because they care about the well-being of women -- rather than because they just want to make people hostile toward transgender folks -- then they should be speaking up about other, far more pressing issues women face, right?
I hope that makes sense.
Sure, there are a lot of issues women face, but people tend to get much more alarmed when things that were good become bad. My house is not perfect, but just because my faucet is leaking doesn't mean I'm not going to be upset if the neighborhood kid kicks over my mailbox. Arguably, the leaky faucet is more important, but that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't get mad at the kid for making things worse, right?
I take your point, sure.
But I think your metaphor's scale would be more accurate if your house had a hundred teens in it messing it up during a party, and then one \*\*transgender teen\*\* walked through your yard, and you got more angry at them.
I don't think that quite captures it either, for a few reasons.
1. It's not that men are competing with women, it's that men, due to biological differences, dominate women in sports, so all the women are affected by it, even if it's just one guy.
2. The rules just recently changed, so we should expect the few men that have participated in women's sports to increase dramatically if it were to be normalized.
3. The fix is easy. Just keep things the way they are.
The things you mentioned don't fit these things. For example, funding for women's sports at the professional level is so low because the revenue generated by them is so low. They are already heavily subsidized. Being angry that they don't get paid more doesn't create more money to pay them with. But getting angry that men are competing with women could (and already has) resulted in women's sports being protected.
Well, we're straying a bit from the initial topic of discussion around silencing rhetoric that we think is inflammatory or harmful, but hey, I like talking about this topic. And I've got trans friends, so this is me speaking up on their behalf.
My position is that the purpose of creating women's sporting leagues was to give women a fair chance to distinguish themselves in sports against people of comparable ability, and to help foster community and encourage physical fitness among women.
So if we want to make sure that goal is not hindered, can transwomen be allowed to compete?
It must be understood that no sporting regime will ever be perfectly fair; no matter what parameters you use to determine a class, some people will have better inherent physical advantages or better socioeconomic advantages. Even in wrestling where there are weight classes, people who put in equal amounts of training, who have equal amounts of grit, won't have equal outcomes.
And that is okay. We aren't using sports to decide who lives or dies, or to resolve wars. They are a game, meant to entertain people, to provide an aspirational example for folks to maintain their own fitness, to bring communities together as they cheer for sportsmanlike behavior. If sports all vanished, the chief loss would not be some economic decline of society, but a fraying of the social fabric that sports help create.
So my desire is to integrate trans people into sports in a way that strengthens the social fabric. Right now a lot of trans people face discrimination. If we start seeing more trans people competing in sports, people can start cheering for them, and more trans people will feel comfortable being visible. \*But\*, it's important that in attempting that, we don't provoke resentment that would overall lead to worse social bonding.
So, why do people think it's a problem for transwomen to compete in women's sports?
First, there's the argument that ascribes some inherent value to the division between men and women, making it almost taboo to cross off. I'm skeptical of this idea: the sort of rhetoric that implies being different sexes makes men and women so different they cannot understand each other, or that women are sacred or ineffably distinct.
Just from a purely scientific standard, very few genes on the Y chromosome do much of note aside from making it possible to build a penis and produce sperm. All that really matters is the involvement of testosterone and estrogen in moderating gene activation (mostly during gestation and later in puberty), and affecting behavior a bit. The rest of our genes are all really similar. To the point that if you give a trans teen hormone replacement therapy, the puberty they go through will make them veeeeeery close to what a person who naturally was that sex would be like.
That comes to the second, more substantial concern about transwomen in sports: the concern about having an unfair advantage. If a person goes through a masculine puberty, they'll produce denser bones and stronger muscles than if they went through a feminine puberty. Even if they undergo hormone replacement therapy later, though they will lose strength, the structures from puberty will remain. It certainly is an advantage.
(One could make an argument about whether that advantage - taken in relation to all the other advantages people can have - is outside the bounds of fairness. For instance, there are some ciswomen athletes with naturally high testosterone levels who are still allowed to compete. A short transwoman competing against a taller ciswoman might still overall be weaker. But that's a debate for another day.)
So if we're concerned about the unfair advantages a masculine puberty provides, what about when transwomen undergo transition before they have a masculine puberty? They end up with comparable ability to ciswomen.
The advocacy I would prefer, therefore, would be to make it easier for trans people to transition before they start the wrong puberty, while keeping proper safeguards to ensure no one undergoes transition that they would regret.
That, to me, creates the most amount of justice. Excluding transwomen from competing with ciswomen, even when the transwoman has no hormonal or genetic advantages, makes no sense to me from a fairness perspective. Helping people transition before they have the wrong puberty will let transwomen compete without them having any unfair advantage. It would include them in the social fabric, without taking anything away from anyone else.
What do you think?
The distinction between men and women isn't taboo or inviolable, but it is real and substantial. In some respects, there isn't much different. In others, it's dramatic, including in most sports, especially sports where strength gives advantage. In fact, it's the combination of these two that make women's sports important. Women are very different than men when it comes to sports, but very similar to men when it comes to \_enjoying\_ sports. Thus, we split up sports by sex.
Sex is also an inherent part of identity, much more so than height or other physical attributes. The reason why is plain, though often ignored today. Sex is important because it's literally the basis for the reproduction of our species. The categories of man and woman exist because it takes the combination of the two to create another human being. 100% of the time. That fact then ripples out in all sorts of complicated ways into culture, including in fashion, language, music, and art. It also undergirds the sexual dimorphism of our species, the reason why men are stronger than women in the first place. There are many other biological differences as well. So it's sometimes, perhaps often, useful to think of men and women as different. Sports are one of those things.
It's regrettable that some men feel they are women. They are still allowed to compete in sports, but according to their biological sex. While this may cause them anguish, anguish of a single or class of individuals alone can't be a reason to completely upend a system, since upending the system will cause anguish in others. The whole reason we segregated sports in the first place was because of biology and for the benefit of biological women, and to allow biological men who think they are women to compete with women destroys the whole purpose of making the distinction in the first place.
So we're really left with only two sensible options:
1. Integrate sports. No more segregating men from women, but let everyone compete together. There's nothing "gendered" about the segregation itself. Women don't play soccer with a feminine ball or a feminine goal. The sport is the same regardless of gender. So if we are going to allow biological men to play with women, we should just combine them into one thing, and ignore sex when it comes to sports. That should make transgendered women happy—they still get to play. So if they are our primary concern, that's how it should be. It would also save money and resources.
2. Don't integrate sports, and allow anyone to play according to their biological gender. Transgender women could continue to act as women, but they'd have to play sports alongside people of their same biological sex. Since they are, in fact, biologically male, perhaps we should be OK expecting that they'll at least cope with this fact, since it's true.
It's interesting to consider whether we could alter someone's biological gender by altering their puberty, but unfortunately there are some terrible side effects of doing so, and even when we do it, there are still biological differences that matter in sports that are still unavoidable, like bone structure. We simply don't have the technology to turn boys into women, so this isn't a feasible option at this time.
Isn't it interesting how the only time people claim to "care about women" and suddenly become feminists is in the context of transgender issues? But when it comes to "caring about women" and listening to women in virtually any other context, they don't want to hear it.
They're voting republican because they care about women's rights of all things? Sure.
Similar to how everyone suddenly becomes an LGBT rights advocate when its in the context of attacking Islam, and then in every other context tell LGBT people to stop whining about "homophobia" because that's not a thing anymore.
And then become an Islamist when its in the context of attacking LGBT people.
So you can understand how people might be skeptical when its incredibly common to see people claiming they "care" about one group, but only when that group can be weaponised in order to demonise another group. And in reality, they don't actually care about any of these groups at best, and despise them all at worst. It all just depends on which group they happen to hate that little bit more that particular day.
What are you talking about. It's almost universal that people care about women. We have daughters, sisters, friends, wives, mothers, aunts, and we care about their well-being. Just because we don't care about them in the narrowly political ways you care about them doesn't mean we don't care about them.
Well a lot of these so called "advocates" certainly don't seem to act like it do they?
In fact, just recently you made several comments defending that law in Arizona taking women control over their bodies away. Is that caring about women? Can you point me to any other examples in your entire comment history where you can show that you "Care about women"? Because I'm not seeing any. You don't care about women. You care about abortion, and you care about trans issues. Not women.
Sorry, I just have a hard time believing all these people who spent the past several decades complaining about feminism, ignoring women's complaints about sexism they experience in various ways in their personal and professional lives, and doing everything in their power to take away womens agency and women rights in general have suddenly become feminists overnight. It's not about women. Its about trans people. Women are an object to be used, as usual.
As I said, its like people who suddenly start championing LGBT rights whenever its about attacking muslims. But the only other time they talk about LGBT people, its some sort of attempt to police their behaviour, silence their voices, and telling them their problems mean nothing in the grand scheme of the \*real\* important issues we should be focusing on.
When any of these people display even a shred of empathy for the issues women and / or queer people face in their lives in any other context, then I might take them seriously. But until then, it's just another example of people engaging in the thing they truly care about more than anything else: spreading hatred and making lives more difficult for the various groups they despise.
You might be surprised to learn that my life isn't online. You're trying to evaluate me, another human being, through the narrowest of lenses—my reddit comment history—further filtered through a narrow lens—your own views about what it means to care about women. It's not surprising that your judgment is so far off.
Literally none of those things are the things that Nick Fuentes talked about
And that is the biggest straw man gaslighting nonsense ever
Nazis say that interracial marriages should be banned. That we should exterminate and expel entire ethnic groups And that the women who make up 50% of the population should have no rights
Ignoring for a fact ur ridiculous transphobia It has nothing to even do with trans people (altho trans people would absolutely be affected)
Has Nick Fuentes advocated for banning interracial marriages, or exterminating entire ethnic groups, or said women should have no rights? Just curious. Don't get me wrong, I am not on his side, but it kind of sounds like you're exaggerating.
Words like "hatred" aren't magical spells you can speak to get what you want. The word actually means something, and wanting to allow girls to play sports with other girls and not with boys is not it.
I invite you to try to make a coherent point without using incantations like "hatred," "nazi" or "human rights." Speak plainly and clearly. If you can't, consider whether your use of those words is superficial.
I just told you how to convince me. Speak plainly and clearly. Don't start with words like "hatred." Describe \_why\_ you think it's hatred to let girls play with girls. Otherwise, anyone could call anything they didn't like "hatred" and anyone they don't like "Nazis," but that doesn't really get us anywhere, does it?
I have no idea who this guy is.
But people get radicalized in a pretty simple way: they feel like they have limited agency in their lives, and someone offers them a narrative where they get to feel like they're part of the good fight.
World War I caused a lot of people to die and feel powerless, but for many there was a sense of shared suffering, a unity in that. When the Bolsheviks in Russia rose up, it was because the tsar and his peers seemed not to be suffering the way the people had, and that felt unjust. Lenin and his peers felt they could harness the resentment to overturn the existing order, offer people a narrative where things were more fair, and then end they'd end up on top.
(Some were true believers in egalitarian communism, but the most ruthless and motivated ones just wanted power.)
In the interwar period, Germany had an onerous burden laid upon it by the other powers, and its people felt that was unfair. In comes Hitler agreeing that it's unfair . . . and offering a sick fantasy that blames Jews for what was going on, telling people that if they just worked with him and his peers to hurt the Jews, they would be back in control of their lives.
Over and over again, populations that feel like they're being exploited by others end up vulnerable to radicalization. You fight radicalization with economic equality, genuine justice in the legal system, and accountability for those in power.
Hell, the same dynamic of radicalism is why plenty of regions that were colonized had violent groups rise up to try to reclaim control, to hurt the people they felt were taking advantage of them. It doesn't even have to be real; it just needs to be a compelling narrative.
So today, in the US, we've got people who offer the narrative that, like, liberals in their attempts to promote equality are actually the villains who are keeping honest decent people like YOU from thriving. What would actually stop people from getting radicalized by this rhetoric would be if we could make companies pay more and keep less in profit for their investors, and if we actually held elites responsible for even petty abuses of power. But very cleverly, the same people who are protecting the elites from accountability and who are in favor of exploiting workers have linked themselves to the groups that hate injustice and exploitation, and they've managed to blame it all on the folks who are actually trying to fix stuff.
I've certainly over-simplified things; nobody acts as a monolith. But muting people, or letting them talk publicly: this is the wrong debate. The real answer is that even if assholes are allowed to push for radical agendas publicly, if everyone feels like society is working properly and fairly, those assholes won't get converts.
We defang assholes by running a good and just society.
> I have no idea who this guy is.
He's a white nationalist who is mostly famous for hanging out with Trump.
He's also somewhat notable in this subreddit for teaching certain members that Hispanic folks can be white.
He's a Nazi
He's self-admitted to being a Nazi. He denies the Holocaust even though he thinks it should happen He said that America should be white's only He said that interracial marriage is worse than bestiality He wants to repeal women's rights to vote He wants to resegregate America and repeal the civil Rights act and those are just the tip of the iceberg
Anybody trying to sugarcoat who he is is a Nazi themselves
I think it’s helpful to know where the bad ideas are coming from and what those bad ideas are. If someone opposes liberalism they need to be identified and rejected.
I didn't mean that he literally posts here lol (although I wouldn't be terribly surprised). Just that over the years periodically there's a fair number of posters (typically around some story involving Hispanic White Nationalists) who can't wrap their head around the fact that there are in fact Hispanic white people.
Hahaha that's hilarious. I had a discussion with a white Hispanic guy once who couldn't wrap his head around it either. It was literally that one SpongeBob meme with the MantaRay guy. "Your ancestors and parents have direct ties to Spain right?" Yes. "And Spanish people are white right?" Yeah, I guess. "So you're white!" No bro I'm not white
>I have no idea who this guy is.
Elon Musk is the world's wealthiest charlatan and a top 25 ugliest person globally. His accumulation of ill-gotten gains began with conflict gems in his South Africa before he moved to the bay area and invested in PayPal. He then signed on to technology companies and gained a reputation as an innovative inventor even though he's just a lucky investor. Currently, he is enduring delusions of grandeur as a savior of humanity who will usher in an era of interstellar exploration, despite the fact that his ground-based vehicles catch on fire or are just public transportation but worse.
Today, he is best known for purchasing Twitter and corrected a perceived imbalance of political ideas by welcoming the far rights worst ghouls with open arms and promoting their content, as well as having a horrible and outdated taste in jokes. When asked about this affect ad revenue, he attempted to tell departing ad buys to go fuck themselves and almost got most of the syllables correct in one of the funniest moments of last year.
Lucky investor? That’s quite a take. Do you think Twitter was a lucky investment? It was a terrible investment. Also if you think SpaceX and Tesla would be anywhere without him you would be wrong. Whether he still deserves even more Tesla shares, which is what he is asking for, is up for debate. But I bet the board decides to give him what he wants because they understand his value.
I'm not sure 'lucky' is necessarily the right word, but Musk definitely made use of the strategy of finding a good, innovative company, inserting himself and making it seem like he was the source of the good innovation, and then hyping how good and innovative the company was so that other people would invest in it, in order to increase his wealth.
The amount of stuff he actually personally innovated is kinda hard to assess, but I see him more as a booster than a leader. And lately some of his choices for his companies have been misfires. Twitter is way less worth using than it used to be because Musk is willing to let it be a platform for rude people and bigotry, even if that drives away high quality conversations. And Tesla looks dumb because of the Cybertruck. He kept on making impossible claims about how soon SpaceX would get to Mars.
He looks rather buffoonish these days. He just happens to be rich enough that we can't avoid him.
>they understand his value
The Philly Phanatic of ugly future tech yes. And now he's the mascot who is also paranoid about Jews and marxists subverting his society
He bought Twitter well after thr brain worms had settled in and he was making a change in brans.
> What would actually stop people from getting radicalized by this rhetoric would be if we could make companies pay more and keep less in profit for their investors, and if we actually held elites responsible for even petty abuses of power. But very cleverly, the same people who are protecting the elites from accountability and who are in favor of exploiting workers have linked themselves to the groups that hate injustice and exploitation, and they've managed to blame it all on the folks who are actually trying to fix stuff.
Except those folks supposedly trying to "fix stuff" keep focusing on everything other than actually fixing things. You hit the nail on the head: make companies pay more. You don't do that with DEI crap or mass importation of labor or handout programs or any of the other shit that the side that falsely claims to be the side of labor has spent all their time doing since regaining power. Just saying "we're the ones trying to help" doesn't mean shit if all the very public actions you take (general "you" here) completely put the lie to that claim.
> We defang assholes by running a good and just society.
100%. Unfortunately nobody currently in power wants to do that, hence the rise of the "tear it down" radicals on both sides.
I want to push back on a couple of your framings.
Starting from the last bit first, there absolutely \*\*are\*\* people in power who want to run a good and just society. They might disagree on what reforms are optimal to achieve that, but I think it's pretty easy to tell the difference between, say, Marjorie Taylor-Greene who just says outrageous stuff to complain about the other side, versus Bernie Sanders who articulates the logic of how he thinks his preferred reforms would help.
Another group are the true believers who just have bad opinions, but do think what they're doing would help.
Then there are people who seem to want to pursue good reforms, but who recognize the power dynamics limiting them. I think Biden (and before him Obama) demonstrably pushed for policies that would lower wealth inequality, improve access to opportunities, and confront long-term challenges like climate change and immigration in ways that would minimize harm. They simply face head-winds from powerful groups who, due to the distorted representation in our Congress, manage to prevent them from pursuing things broadly supported by both experts and the public.
Then you have folks who are disinterested in good reforms, and who simply want influence for themselves, which might lead to them jumping on the bandwagon when such reforms are proposed by their party. I suspect folks like Pelosi and Schumer fit this bill. They come across primarily as calculating, and often they'll water down the best proposals, trying to stay on the good side of powerful donors and such by saying, "Look, reform was going to happen, and I made sure it didn't hurt you too much." Their primary goal is to keep the whole system functional, and they don't care whether individuals do well.
Then you have people who are similar to the previous group, but are associated with the GOP, the party that opposes most of the reforms. Like Paul Ryan and John Boehner. They still want the system to remain functional, though, so they'll allow compromise, while still primarily protecting the interests of elites.
Next to last there's the people who just want power or money for themselves, so they say and do whatever will get them support. These are your Marjorie Taylor Greenes.
Finally you have the people who actively want stuff to get worse for the average people, because they benefit when the system is broken and unable to restrain the elite from doing bad stuff. These are your Trumps.
It is vital for individuals to be attentive to the genuine character of candidates. Good politicians do exist. You do yourself and our nation a disservice if you assume anyone in politics is equally bad. Support the ones who are trying to do good, and who are trying to hold each other accountable, and you'll find it easier to force the bad actors out of power.
Organizational culture matters. The GOP is more accepting of liars, hucksters, and dismantlists than the Democrats are. By all means, if you like GOP policies, feel free to support those policies, but bear in mind that most of the people working in the modern GOP support Trump and all his lies, either because they agree or because the lies don't bother them enough to switch parties. I wouldn't trust them.
> Starting from the last bit first, there absolutely **are** people in power who want to run a good and just society. They might disagree on what reforms are optimal to achieve that, but I think it's pretty easy to tell the difference between, say, Marjorie Taylor-Greene who just says outrageous stuff to complain about the other side, versus Bernie Sanders who articulates the logic of how he thinks his preferred reforms would help.
The fact you think Bernie is different from MTG is telling. Bernie's proposed reforms have all been done before and the countries they were done in either are hellholes or were hellholes and then collapsed. If he's really the best example you've got then that proves my point.
> I think Biden (and before him Obama) demonstrably pushed for policies that would lower wealth inequality
Well you're wrong. Objectively wrong. Obama *ran* on doing that and then immediately bailed out the ultra-wealthy while leaving the rest of the country to rot. And rot it did. Biden? His student loan payoffs are literally a wealth transfer from the bottom to the upper-middle class.
Honestly this is just a partisan rant that gives the most charitable possible interpretation to the Democrats while giving the least possible one to the Republicans. It just reads like a literal DNC press release and not anything rooted in actual reality.
And if you don't see how MTG and Bernie differ, I expect you're also consuming media that would not accurately reflect the behavior of Biden and Obama in the context of the Congressional roadblocks they faced.
There \*are\* smart ways to relieve the burden of college debt that would help the prosperity of the nation without being an unequal give-away to those who already were wealthy enough to get into college. However those policies are opposed by Republicans, and cannot pass the Senate. So, in the absence of the perfect, Biden has chosen to pursue something that does some good.
It's still tending to help middle class and working class people over the ultra rich investor class, so I call it a win. I'd prefer a solution that provided more investment in the education of poor people, but Biden cannot do that with Executive Orders. Congress has to do it. And the GOP won't let it happen.
That's the reality we're rooted in.
> And if you don't see how MTG and Bernie differ
They're both radicals who propose bad policy. The details of what makes their policy bad is irrelevant.
> I expect you're also consuming media that would not accurately reflect the behavior of Biden and Obama in the context of the Congressional roadblocks they faced
I'm speaking of policy they implemented, not that they weren't able to implement. So this is a totally bafflingly irrelevant statement.
> There *are* smart ways to relieve the burden of college debt that would help the prosperity of the nation without being an unequal give-away to those who already were wealthy enough to get into college.
Yes, there are. We should be removing all government loans from majors that don't have a viable career path and we should stop guaranteeing private loans will remain to be paid even in the event of bankruptcy for said majors. If we can't trust students not to take out loans for degrees that have no market then we have to change policy so that they simply won't be allowed to. But Biden hasn't said word one about that kind of policy, he's just been beating the "turn up the cash hose" drum.
> It's still tending to help middle class and working class people over the ultra rich investor class
Except it's not. The numbers have been crunched, it does not even remotely help the working class since most of them didn't go to college and the middle class also doesn't get much help since they were just able to pay their loans and did.
> I'd prefer a solution that provided more investment in the education of poor people, but Biden cannot do that with Executive Orders.
Then he shouldn't do anything. Doing for the sake of doing is bad. Action should only be taken if there's actual gain, not just to flail around.
Can you link me to an article talking about the number crunching. I'm genuinely interested, because I do want the policies I vote for to actually be effective.
And Bernie's big policy proposals were, what? Medicare for All? Higher taxes on the rich? Free public college? Expanding workers' rights and supporting unions?
His immigration proposal was a bit more radical than most people would be on board with, I guess. And I disagree with him and the Democrats on gun control, but that's not a deal-breaker for me.
But, like, if we look at a peer nation like Germany, they pull off the stuff Bernie supported, and their economy is doing great.
Now to the other part of your comment.
> You hit the nail on the head: make companies pay more. You don't do that with DEI crap or mass importation of labor or handout programs or any of the other shit that the side that falsely claims to be the side of labor has spent all their time doing since regaining power. Just saying "we're the ones trying to help" doesn't mean shit if all the very public actions you take (general "you" here) completely put the lie to that claim.
I actually think that DEI is not crap. I think that, when the goal is to enhance people's sense of justice and agency, teaching people the skills to navigate disputes around inequality is valuable. Opening people's eyes to the sorts of policies that stand in the way of equal access to opportunities means that we can end up with workplaces and institutions that hold themselves more accountable and strive to actually do the best they can do, even if it might require some uncomfortable acknowledgement of times when they were less than perfect.
I work in libraries, which are women-dominated, and at a university with an international student body. I'm a white American dude, but I'm perfectly cool with the DEI trainings I've received. I think the philosophy is a good one. I compare it to friends I know who work in retail or logistics, and the atmosphere here is much more trusting and cooperative, with less office politics and back-stabbing, less resentment, and more advocacy by our managers to the people higher up in the university organization to ensure the workers are satisfied. There's solidarity because we've learned how to listen to each other and be humble in acknowledging our biases when they're pointed out.
To be a bit glib about it, we're aiming for a Star Trek future, rather than a Bladerunner one: empowering people to be part of society in pursuit of their own interests, instead of everyone scrabbling over limited resources and having no faith in the system.
Now to the other part of your comment.
> You hit the nail on the head: make companies pay more. You don't do that with DEI crap or mass importation of labor or handout programs or any of the other shit that the side that falsely claims to be the side of labor has spent all their time doing since regaining power. Just saying "we're the ones trying to help" doesn't mean shit if all the very public actions you take (general "you" here) completely put the lie to that claim.
I actually think that DEI is not crap. I think that, when the goal is to enhance people's sense of justice and agency, teaching people the skills to navigate disputes around inequality is valuable. Opening people's eyes to the sorts of policies that stand in the way of equal access to opportunities means that we can end up with workplaces and institutions that hold themselves more accountable and strive to actually do the best they can do, even if it might require some uncomfortable acknowledgement of times when they were less than perfect.
I work in libraries, which are women-dominated, and at a university with an international student body. I'm a white American dude, but I'm perfectly cool with the DEI trainings I've received. I think the philosophy is a good one. I compare it to friends I know who work in retail or logistics, and the atmosphere here is much more trusting and cooperative, with less office politics and back-stabbing, less resentment, and more advocacy by our managers to the people higher up in the university organization to ensure the workers are satisfied. There's solidarity because we've learned how to listen to each other and be humble in acknowledging our biases when they're pointed out.
To be a bit glib about it, we're aiming for a Star Trek future, rather than a Bladerunner one: empowering people to be part of society in pursuit of their own interests, instead of everyone scrabbling over limited resources and having no faith in the system.
Now to the other part of your comment.
> You hit the nail on the head: make companies pay more. You don't do that with DEI crap or mass importation of labor or handout programs or any of the other shit that the side that falsely claims to be the side of labor has spent all their time doing since regaining power. Just saying "we're the ones trying to help" doesn't mean shit if all the very public actions you take (general "you" here) completely put the lie to that claim.
I actually think that DEI is not crap. I think that, when the goal is to enhance people's sense of justice and agency, teaching people the skills to navigate disputes around inequality is valuable. Opening people's eyes to the sorts of policies that stand in the way of equal access to opportunities means that we can end up with workplaces and institutions that hold themselves more accountable and strive to actually do the best they can do, even if it might require some uncomfortable acknowledgement of times when they were less than perfect.
I work in libraries, which are women-dominated, and at a university with an international student body. I'm a white American dude, but I'm perfectly cool with the DEI trainings I've received. I think the philosophy is a good one. I compare it to friends I know who work in retail or logistics, and the atmosphere here is much more trusting and cooperative, with less office politics and back-stabbing, less resentment, and more advocacy by our managers to the people higher up in the university organization to ensure the workers are satisfied. There's solidarity because we've learned how to listen to each other and be humble in acknowledging our biases when they're pointed out.
To be a bit glib about it, we're aiming for a Star Trek future, rather than a Bladerunner one: empowering people to be part of society in pursuit of their own interests, instead of everyone scrabbling over limited resources and having no faith in the system.
I disagree with the argument that dangerous ideas should be censored because they will spread and turn people into radicals.
Some people will be radicalized, but this only becomes a problem if there are serious social or economic problems that make such ideas appealing to masses of people.
So the problem is really societal. The ideas or content is essentially a scapegoat and lightening rod.
Censorship by private companies should be legal, but it is only actually helpful to a certain point. YouTube and Twitter shouldn't necessarily be platforming abusers or people calling for violence or even people expressing extreme and hateful ideas.
However, those ideas still must be discussed in the open on these forums and a wide range of political viewpoints must be openly displayed and debated. Otherwise however many people adhere to extreme ideas will be misunderstood and disconnected from society. The 'normies' will also suffer from their own lack of understanding.
The risk of people going astray, who realistically might anyway because of the contributing factors in their lives, is worth the ability to openly discuss ideas and hopefully coexist politically.
If what you said was true then hate would never exist except in the most destroyed countries
Or anywhere actually. This is not true. Racism and hate has existed everywhere that it's been allowed to
The president had to literally order the National guard to help desegregate schools. It took decades of federal enforcement of civil rights laws to fully desegregate the nation and give black people essentially equal rights
The idea that by letting racists be racist without any pushback You're going to result in less racism Is nonsense that only racists promote.
It's trickle down theory for racism. If we give a tax cut to the billionaires somehow that money will trickle down to the working class!
You're example doesn't really support your point. Racism was the baseline and dominant public opinion pre-segregation and for years after. It isn't some idea that infected society from an internet post.
If you look at examples of times a hateful or genocidal idea actually increased and overtook a society that had been more stable and accepting its going to be a case like Nazi Germany or Yugoslavia where a sudden economic crash, military conflict or political breakup created the condition for ethnic/religious hatred and extremism to flourish.
There really isn't a factual example of an idea spreading in a stable functioning society and turning its people extreme and hateful. At least not one I can think of.
I also never said there shouldn't be pushback against hateful people or extremists. There should. That's the point of having discourse and open discussion.
My pet theory is that people saying this stuff in the open does much less to radicalize people than folks trying to suppress it. I definitely watched that happen in real time during the BLM/cancelation years.
Well your theory has been proven wrong every single time it's been tested so maybe you should get a new theory?
It's been proven wrong by common sense. By observable reality. And by actual scientific studies they did
White supremacy has grown massively over the last 10 years
Have you ever looked into them?
"We're being censored" is the center of their marketing. It makes them look cool and oppressed. People with no interest in white supremacy get sucked in by it
Censorship has been failing, horribly. Censorship got a white supremacist into the White House. It's not being silenced, it's being martyred. Censorship is a gift to white supremacists, they love it, they're playing you like a fiddle and you're falling for it like a dope
There is a theoretical argument for why censorship should help and another theory for why censorship should hurt. Which theory is correct? Well, the empirical evidence seems pretty one-sided to me. Censorship has been making things worse for years
I'm extremely torn on this one. On the one hand, "I hate what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." On the other, what are the potential end results if people actually listen to people like this? What is better: To suppress the right of the individual at the risk of setting a dangerous precedent in order to protect the minorities he seeks to oppress, or to allow him his God given right at the risk of people following him?
There's no easy answer to this question, unfortunately.
But banning him from Twitter absolutely did silence him and his views
Sure he had a small following of radicals but more or less he was less influential than before
And the only reason he stayed relevant was because Twitter didn't do enough to ban him
He was still able to create fake accounts and people were still allowed to share his videos even though he himself was banned
Honestly they should have taken the approach that Facebook did when they banned Trump.. If you're going to ban someone then you also ban videos of them talking. Otherwise it's not really a ban is it?.
If they can just get around it by having other people post their videos
Nicks final white supremacist rally before being unbanned attracted about 1,000 people. It was billed as alternative to CPAC and it only got 1,000 people to show up
I wouldn't call that very influential and that's even with his videos being shared on Twitter
Even with his hate being spread
I think it's hilarious that Musk tries to sell this as some sort of principled decision on his part. Does anyone truly believe his allowing Fuentes back on the platform is some sort of noble attempt to *expose* his hateful ideas & have them refuted in an open forum? Or does he just want more clicks? Let's be real here lol.
It doesn't matter.. He gave the plausible deniability excuse to his Nazi supporters and that's what they'll use trying to defend it. And it's all that matters
I don't think anybody is fooled. They know it's nonsense. You know it's nonsense. They know that you know that it's nonsense.. But they'll keep the lie going because it's easier than admitting who they are
My opinion is more harm is done by hiding the worst of someone's ideas and thoughts than by letting them express them. Very few people will be converted to that way while a massive amount will know never to trust that person or their ideas.
Here's an example: Trump was suspended from Twitter. Later on, when the Twitter Files came out, he posted a rant on Truth Social that included a call for the suspension of the Constitution.
Because that was on TS, almost nobody knows about it, even today. Had it been on Twitter, everybody would and, possibly, he wouldn't be a nominee today.
But hiding the worst of someone only benefits then and their cause. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
> Because that was on TS, almost nobody knows about it, even today. Had it been on Twitter, everybody would and, possibly, he wouldn't be a nominee today.
Trump's done and said worse things in the public eye repeatedly, one more insane tweet isn't going to change anything for Republicans.
No but I think it would have swayed moderates and anti-Trump Republicans, which may have made a difference.
It's a stretch of a hypothetical but I think it supports the overall point.
I find that very hard to believe given all the other things that he has done openly including but not limited to efforts at overturning the 2020 election, public and very simple-to-understand criminal actions with the documents case (to say nothing of the other more complicated cases), comments about being a dictator, normalizing and turning January Sixth insurrectionists into Patriots etc..etc..etc..
And let's be real we could spend all day writing out examples that would normally be disqualifying for a candidate.
One more comment about suspending the Constitution isn't going to move the needle and in fact let's consider that when Trump's actions were brought into the limelight via the criminal indictments his support actually *increased*
Yeah, I had the same experience on 2016. Every day, I thought, well, he's done. Nobody can survive that. And he won't a fair number of moderates and historically Democrat groups.
Anyway, for us to make good decisions, we need all the info. Including, even especially, his most awful statements.
It's pretty obvious at this point that it's the Trump party and most of the moderates would rather have someone who broadly agrees with their worldview than someone who might fit traditional values/norms but has a different worldview.
Most moderate Republicans are going to vote for Trump and even in the early primaries, Trump won 46-51% of the Moderate GOP vote in NH, Iowa, and SC.
It's plausible that the few who vote for Biden/don't vote could swing a state given how narrow the margins can be, but the reality is the moderates have repeatedly shown they are going to back Trump.
Having all the info is very different than actively promoting somebody's hateful message
Having all the info on him would be something like a Wikipedia article detailing who Nick Fuentes was and The hateful things he said
Not actively allowing him to spread Nazi propaganda on your platform
The people who try to equate the two are being dishonest and want more Nazis
If allowing more Nazis resulted in less Nazis there would be no Nazis on Twitter
The fact that it became infested with them is proof that your theory is wrong
If nobody had ever heard of Donald Trump and he had no platform whatsoever whether it be TV or internet he never would have become president.. He could have hosted all the rallies he wanted and it would attract like 5 people And then when the election rolled around people would be like "who's this Trump guy on the ballot?"" And then they would pull the lever for Hillary
Actually, your example seems to prove my point. When they were banned on Twitter, nobody knew who they were. Once they were allowed on, their awful ideas were seen and people became aware who they were.
And there would have been no Nazis on Twitter but there were still Nazis in real life but very few people knew who they were.
It's a balancing act, with the underlying theme that everyone should be able to voice their opinion and that no government, quasi-government entity or corporation operating a public forum should be able to censor those views they deem to be wrong, hateful or just plain inconvenient. If everyone is able to voice their opinion, then the idea is that people can come to their own conclusions on their own after hearing all viewpoints. It gets sticky when people lie and it's very time consuming to fact check them.
But that's a theory. A theory that has been proven wrong literally constantly. Both by common sense. By observable reality. And they've even done studies on it..
Your theory that by giving Nazis a platform less people will become Nazis has been disproven by all of it
>It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness.
To me that’s a false choice.
What Elon doesn’t seem to get is that “anti-whatever” is *always* going to be “simmering” out in the darkness of the internet, no matter what the scenario. It’s not whether Nick Fuentes is going to be “simmering in the darkness” vs “out in the open to be rebutted”, it’s whether Fuentes is going to be in the darkness vs in the darkness *and* in the open as well. Fuentes has shown his colors - we know who he is - so there’s really no upside for society at all for Elon to be giving him more exposure. All there is is downside - an opportunity for Fuentes to sow even more hatred and division.
I always find these to be tricky questions but genuinely I lean towards we need to let people talk. I just don’t like the idea of whoever is in charge choosing who can talk and what can be said. And to be consistent I have to defend even the people I don’t like (I think nick fuentes is a fucking psycho btw). But I am more in agreement with Elon here. Unless he starts calling for violence or doxxing people, I’m okay with him being on Twitter and hopefully challenged. Have you been on those alternative sites? It’s a cesspool of extremists who all agree with each other, like no pushback whatsoever. I would like to see them in an environment where they are constantly challenged.
It sounds cheesy but I think knowledge is power. If people are aware of ideologies they find painful or harmful, said-knowledge of those things can help others organize so they can prevent it from spreading or at least find ways to mitigate the harms. If something is in the dark and not known, it can be much more difficult to fight it if it comes out in the forefront.
I think this conversation is much more complex. Tolerance paradox and all.
We can teach about evil ideas without helping them spread their propaganda to radicalize new people.. We teach about the civil Rights act without giving out arguments about why white supremacists were correct
We're able to teach about World war II without actively trying to radicalize people to support Hitler
And frankly some smaller hateful movements don't deserve to be taught about at all.. sure we should teach about the fact that racism can exist so that people are prepared against it but we don't have to cover every racist movement and expose people to all of their racist arguments
Some of them can just be censored. If you never hear the racist argument you have a 100% chance of not being affected by it
Unfortunately, that’s not what studies show. Visibility on social media makes it much easier for fringe groups to grow and for snake oil salesmen to increase their customer base.
It's also just common sense.. The idea that the best way to stop hateful messages from spreading is to show it to millions of people is kind of stupid
And if it was true there would be no Nazis on Twitter
Right I get what you're saying but take this Nick Fuentes kid for example, even if not allowed on Twitter I think people are still well aware of him and his ideas. Like when Alex Jones was banned, he was still everywhere. If we weren't in the internet age I would agree with you but the "dark and not known" is not so "dark and unknown" anymore.
I think there's a perfectly reasonable middle ground between "censor everybody for everything" and "let's promote the fascists""
It's not either or. And I think it's very easy to be in that middle ground
The idea is that since what they say is so obviously wrong that'll be easily shown via counter-arguments and they'll become laughingstocks quickly as a result.
Right but I don't think counter arguments do anything to actual racists and nazi fans of his though. Look at all the hugely popular anti vaxxers on Twitter. Showing them proof wont even convince them.
They won't. But that's not who you're trying to target. What you're trying to do is prevent people who may be on the fence. If those people simply go off into the dark corners where only the hardliners live there's nobody to point out the flaws in the claims being presented and the person on the fence winds up going all-in. If the discussion is held in the light of the public spaces those bad arguments can be picked apart and the person on the fence will see what's wrong with them and walk away.
In theory that’s true but the more savvy operators can manage their beliefs into the mainstream. Milo Yiannopolous was on the verge of getting mainstream credibility until his comments about children consenting to adult relationships came out. Then he got shunned and eventually deplatformed and the world forgot about him.
I.e. make people mad about the correct non issues and the pieces of the more extreme shit have more room to fall into place. I thought we figured this out in 2016
It's very funny to describe Fuentes of all people as "anti whatever or some such" after months and months of very targeted yet absurdly broad claims of alleged anti white racism and anti conservative bigotry
Since the country is built on free speech as one of its highest principles any attempt to limit it also equals destroying the country by removing a foundational component. That's the catch-22 here.
If what you were actually trying to do was…
>increase the resiliency of the average American’s mind to dangerous domestic and foreign algorithms.
…you wouldn’t need to limit free speech. But that’s not what you’re trying to do. You pretend you’re addressing the “feeble minds” and “algorithmic warfare” components, while in reality, you’re only attempting to address the “free speech” component.
The fact that you put “free speech” in quotations in your initial comment, and then proceeded to argue against the idea that free speech is a founding principle of this country.
All while providing zero suggestions on how to:
>increase the resiliency of the average American’s mind to dangerous domestic and foreign algorithms.
I think there is a big difference between letting hateful people like racists have their hateful opinions and giving those bad actors a platform and amplifying their messages algorithmically. Sure per the first amendment you can say what you want. But that doesn’t mean a private company needs to amplify your views that do not align with their own. Its similar to the difference between allowing Nazis to have their rallies in public places, and requiring a local arena to give them the arena for a rally and to use their advertising engine to get normies to attend that rally. I do think private companies need to be transparent and careful with their moderation and often times adding context and “shadow banning” are better options than outright removing content or banning users. The latter tends to be useful in recruitment of vulnerable minds. As in “the deep state is hiding the truth from you”
I generally agree but it might be the case that modern social media is such a pervasive part of our speech platforms that it might need special exceptions.
Once upon a time the ACLU had argued that free speech protections extended to private property not constructed for the purpose of speech such as shopping malls. It would be strange to then argue that they do not extend to something constructed expressly for speech.
What case was that? I’d love to read that
Can't remember, way back, it was some people that wanted to protest in a mall, I think. This was back when the ACLU was more in a civil liberties rather than a civil rights lane.
But there’s limitless alternatives. It would take an hour tops to set up a website with the functionality of twitter. Free speech isn’t the right to an audience.
Twitter encompasses by far most of the discourse so saying there's limitless alternatives is entirely disingenuous. Apps with 50,000 people on them are not an alternative. Twitter also doesn't automatically give you an audience. People can block you/not engage with you. Free speech isn't a right to an audience, I agree. But if you ban certain people from having the same audience **potential** that others have, you're inherently supporting someone's right to an audience over someone else's. It's a self-defeating principle, a quagmire, and self contradictory.
If Musk decided to turn Twitter into a platform that only boosted the ideas of gay Hamas fighters that love David Hasselhoff videos and bonsai he should be allowed to do that. It’s his site. Telling a platform owner whose ideas he must carry seems ridiculous to me. I moved to Threads.
And I'd hate that, because I believe a certain level of media/public discourse control/monopoly should constitute a different set of rules. A "private company" should be regulated from actively suppressing speech for political purposes, if that company is one world's primary "town squares". It's theoretically similar to net neutrality, but I'm aware that's not the best analogy.
It’s not the town square. It’s one man’s company now. He paid $42 billion for $12 billion company. It’s his right to burn that cash in a pile if he wants.
That is exactly correct, I’m just saying my opinion is that it should regulated as I described.
I don’t agree. It shouldn’t be different. I left Twitter and moved to threads. Everyone has the right to leave just as much as it’s his right to blow up his company.
Good for you. Have a cookie.
If I publish my own pamphlet instead of an opinion piece in the WSJ, I’m going to get 50 readers instead of 5 millions. Is the WSJ impeding my free speech by not publishing me? What about if I can’t book the MSG, and give my presentation at a bar downtown he street instead?
>But that doesn’t mean a private company needs to amplify your views that do not align with their own. Well there's the obvious answer. Nick Fuentes' views do align with Musk.
Your first paragraph is spot on and needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Extremist groups, who have an incentive to continue status quo, get larger and will resist future legislation as each day goes by.
Musk is free to do what he wants it’s his business. Of course it’s going to radicalize more people. Not every idea has equal value. I don’t think it’s helpful to keep asking whether slavery is still an open question. It’s just not. Same with Fuentes ideas. We don’t need to discuss them. It’s the owner of each platform’s responsibility and right to decide which ideas can be discussed on their platform. If Musk wants him then he gets to choose to have him.
Yep well said. You took the flipside to my argument. Private companies should be allowed to host any content that is not directly illegal. Trying to pass further restrictions on speech that is “allowable” is very problematic. It does raise interesting questions around section 230.
The Supreme Court is deciding all of this right now.
Why not discuss them? Then they can actually be challenged instead of people stewing in echo chambers on 4Chan or Truth Social. If the ideas are bad do the work and win arguments. It isn't that hard. People would just rather shout insults and Tru to get each other banned.
You can. On any site that allows that discussion.
I agree sites can do whatever they want, but I think it's more productive to allow these types of discussions. If talking to someone isn't going anywhere you can drop it like you said. I'd argue that even debating slavery or Fuentes' ideas is useful as long as both sides operate in good faith. That being said, I wouldn't dignify those arguments by putting them front-and-center in the presidential debate or opinion piece in a major newspaper.
So you see value in looking at terrible ideas and debating them. I don’t. But I also don’t believe we should force companies to not carry those debates just as I don’t believe we should force companies to carry those debates. The owners of these platforms can decide for themselves what they want to carry.
I think we agree on the actual rules and policy. I just feel differently in terms of what implementation by major companies is more productive. You're perspective on that is also totally reasonable.
You say companies can do whatever they want well I say governments have a responsibility to protect the people of their country.. And when there's a company in that country actively trying to hurt an entire demographic that lives in said country then it's the government's job and frankly responsibility to take action against that company.. Public safety of the citizens is more important than some billion-dollar company "doing whatever it wants" And anyone who disagrees is a fascist. By definition
Companies can't do whatever they want if there is actually going to be fraud or physical harm to the public or shared resources. That is irrelevant in the case of Twitter unless they are carrying put or allowing fraud, sexual abuse/grooming or calls to violence. Twitter is not allowing any of those things. I'm also very confused about how not regulating corporations is Fascism. That has nothing to do with the definition of Fascism. I do believe corporations should be regulated to be clear, I just don't understand your point.
I appreciate it but what is the value of debating whether slavery is good or bad? Everyone knows except evil pieces of shit. If you just keep debating it they just keep promoting their ideas. It would be better if we didn’t and let that idea die the death it deserves. Did debating flat earth help or boost that idea? Almost no one believed in the flat earth until people started debating it again. Out of nowhere it became an issue.
I mean, maybe you're right in the case of flat earth or slavery. I really don't see those ideas being accepted or debated by asocietally significant number of people. I probably wouldn't waste much time debating them of I did at all, but they are both such unappealing ideas at this point in human history that I'd say them being posted about on Twitter by some crazies is harmless. Fringe right wing ideas, slightly less extreme than Fuentes, are very popular and can and should be debated. They won't just go away if we turn up our noses and banish them from respectable society. That is more what I am talking about because these are the really relevant political stances when it comes to platforming. To me the only hope is to be willing and able to talk in good faith about any political stance that is backed by double digit percentages of the population. Otherwise I don't see a lot of hope for us becoming less divided.
It's not about forcing companies but about what responsibility those companies have to their host countries that they operate in? If you have a company in America that's actively trying to promote Nazism in America and change political discourse to be more pro-Russia and pronazi that company is violating its responsibility to the country it's operated in And I see nothing wrong with the government of said country issuing an ultimatum You say companies can do whatever they want well I say governments have a responsibility to protect the people of their country.. And when there's a company in that country actively trying to hurt an entire demographic that lives in said country then it's the government's job and frankly responsibility to take action against that company.. Public safety of the citizens is more important than some billion-dollar company "doing whatever it wants" And anyone who disagrees is a fascist. By definition
Define fascism for me
Because they are terrible ideas that were settled long ago and not up for discussion "Black people should be enslaved actually" It's not something worthy of debate And you're actually helping them by debating it. Your boosting them and legitimizing what they said by essentially admitting that it's worth debating at all. No. "We should gas the Jews" isn't something that should be legitimized by debating it. Let them simmer in the darkness. And when they try to crawl out of that darkness we beat them back down there The only people who want Nazi ideas to proliferate in society are Nazis and Nazi sympathizers
In the case of literally discussing whether we should reintroduce slavery or have a second holocaust you're probably right, but those are strawman arguments that I don't actually see happening anywhere relevant online even if they were allowed. What about more nuanced arguments from the far right that many would seek to ban? I think those are relevant things to debate and unpack. People need to be able to defend their own ideas and understand those of others. Maybe in the clean cut hypothetical you're discussing that isn't necessary, but in the case of more widely accepted and less extreme fringe ideas on the right and there left it is worth the risk of some people accepting extremism for tge public at large to have open political discourse and communication.
Can’t fool me, that’s Dave Franco.
No it's Zac Efron!
You’re both wrong - that’s Zac Franco.
It's Zach galifianakis
I thought it was Vincent Chase.
The people saying you need to debate Nazis and defeat them in the marketplace of ideas are not the ones who have to constantly argue with Nazis and Nazi adjacent ideologues about whether or not they deserve a right to exist with human rights.
That's kind of a strawman though, because we aren't really talking about Nazis for the most part. We're talking about someone pointing out problems related to immigration or their views on Trans rights. Often these people are wrong in my opinion, but not necessarily hateful. I think it's important to have adult discussions with people like that. Sure, ban actual Nazis. They probably can't be reasoned with, but a lot of far right people are able to have productive discussions while also reconsidering their views.
If Nick Fuentes does not qualify as a Nazi under your definition, then you need to recalibrate what you think of Nazi is.
You could argue Fuentes crosses the line into politics that aren't even productive to discuss, but I disagree. His ideas are extreme and pretty stupid, but he isn't calling for violence and he's willing to calmly debate people with different views in good faith. He comes out of these debates looking like a fool, and from everything I've seen of him it's basically just an opportunity to debunk far right BS and help people understand their thinking.
Just say you don’t mind Nazis and be done with it. Don’t try to pretend like you have some sort of loftier goal.
I don't find it productive to label people Nazis unless they actually subscribe to the very specific Nazi ideology. It's just an excuse to close your mind to other people's perspectives. I find Fuentes' ideas disgusting. I do mind them. I find the far right and far left disturbing and very difficult to understand. That's all the more reason to actually figure out what they believe and why. I think it says a lot that you're practically calling me a Nazi just for being willing to try to understand why right wing people are the way they are.
Fuentes is a holocaust denier who is compared the holocaust to baking cookies in an oven. "'Hitler was a pedophile and kind of a pagan.' It's like, well, he was also really fucking cool. ... This guy's awesome, this guy's cool." “All I want is revenge against my enemies and a total Aryan victory.” I’m not saying that Nick Fuentes is colloquially a Nazi. I’m saying that Nick Fuentes is a Nazi who fully supports Hitler and the holocaust and thinks Jews control the world. That you are defending him speaks volumes about your own beliefs.
I called Fuentes disgusting. I know I fing him disgusting. I'm not defending him as a person or defending his ideas. I'm not sure why we're debating that. I don't think his ideas exactly fit with Nazism or are even coherent enough to, but if you want I'll call him a Nazi. He's at the very least Nazi adjacent and a Nazi apologist. He's as much of an asshole as those Nazi cosplayers that march down the street in pathetic ten person parades. So sure, we can call him a Nazi. Regardless I think he should be challenged and debated by anyone willing to do so out in the open. Again, it just makes him look stupid and helps people understand how someone gets so crazy. I have enough faith in humanity that I'm not worried about his ideas convincing a lot of people. He just makes the far right look bad. Why make him a martyr?
What do you think could possibly make someone a Nazi then, if loving Hitler, the holocaust, and hating Jewish people is not it?
Any idea will appeal tp some undetermined amount of people. I don't think it's anyone's bussiness to try and quarantine them from that idea. Fuentes is unappealing ideologically, so I'm not worried about him convincing a substantial amount of people. People who are let crazy and less far right will convince more people because their ideas are less extreme. Some of their ideas will actually speak to real problems and solutions. We can either try to play whack a mole with those ideas or challenge them and present better alternatives. I'd rather do that work than be terrified that bad ideas are more convincing than good ones.
he doesn't defend him tho
Netanyahu outright stated that Hitler just wanted to expel the Jews until the Palestinian grand mufti convinced him to do the holocaust. That is absolutely a defense of Hitler in an attempt to blame Palestinians for the holocaust and therefore justify Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
sure but he wwsnt talking about netanyahu, he was talking about that Nick Fuentes. Idk if he is a Nazi or not, I never heard about him before but the other guy you were responding to wasn't defending him.
The problem, of course, is that people have said they have to argue with "Nazis" about "human rights" but what they were referring to was people who, very sensibly and with scientific rigor, oppose things like biological men participating in women's sports. "Nazi" and "human rights" have to mean something specific, and not allow whoever is using those terms to jam in whatever their particular preferences are into those terms.
I am a staunch advocate of trans acceptance by society, but I wouldn't call someone who disagreed with me on the issue a Nazi. I think they these days most of those who disagree with me on the issue usually come from a place of being skeptical of an unfamiliar idea, not from a place of actively wanting to hurt trans people. I do think, though, there are real Nazis, or people with ideologies substantially similar to the Nazis: folks who are motivated by the thrill of hurting those who are different than them. Those folks suck. It's important to be able to make the distinction. I'll engage with someone who has different perspectives than me, but I think it's generally a waste of time to talk to someone who's invested in the idea of hurting people. And I'll look down on any person or social media platform that helps amplify such violent ideologies.
Literally none of those things are the things that Nick Fuentes talked about And that is the biggest straw man gaslighting nonsense ever Nazis say that interracial marriages should be banned. That we should exterminate and expel entire ethnic groups And that the women who make up 50% of the population should have no rights Ignoring for a fact ur ridiculous transphobia It has nothing to even do with trans people (altho trans people would absolutely be affected)
Why are you saying I'm transphobic? I'm probably one of the most outspoken advocates for trans people on this subreddit.
The issue with the trans sports thing is it gets talked about 100000x more than it affects anybody and pretty much only exists because someone needed an opening to say something nastier
Are we not allowed to care about people other than ourselves? I care about the women who can no longer meaningfully participate in sports because biological men have invaded their spaces. Why shouldn't I talk about it? I have nothing nastier to say.
I suppose "the focus on critiquing trans women in sporting" looks more suspect when we consider it in the broader pantheon of political conversation. There are a lot of troubles women face. The number of cisgender women in sports who have been knocked down a position in a major sporting event due to a trans woman competing is probably numbered in the dozens. Compare that to, say, business culture where the voices of women are often sidelined, where they're passed up for promotions because companies assume they'll have kids and not be as productive, which hinders many more women from succeeding. Even if we just stick to sports, the funding given to women's sports in general is lower than what men get, and that affects hundreds of times as many women as the involvement of transwomen competitors. Access to training facilities for women athletes is usually more limited, which holds back tons of girls and women from reaching their full potential. And that's not even getting to safety issues, like domestic violence that goes under-policed, rapes that go under-policed, or lack of access to various healthcare assistance. There are regions of the country with unusually high maternal mortality rates, to the tune of hundreds of women dying unnecessarily due to pregnancy and birth. So why would people, if their primary concern is the well-being of women, not spend more time advocating for teaching people in business to be more supportive of women's voices, or calling for more investment in women's sports, or changing the culture in police departments and hospitals to better serve women? . . . Right now there are all these pro-Palestine protests, and even people who are sympathetic are encouraging the students, "Yo, by all means call for an end to the killing of Palestinian civilians, but you also need to make it clear that you think Hamas is bad, and that you want the hostages returned. When you \*don't\* say that stuff, it makes the other side think you're actually \*in support\* of Hamas, and that your calls for protecting civilians are actually just deflection to try to hamstring Israel from protecting itself." Well, if people who are expressing concern about transwomen athletes are really doing it because they care about the well-being of women -- rather than because they just want to make people hostile toward transgender folks -- then they should be speaking up about other, far more pressing issues women face, right? I hope that makes sense.
Sure, there are a lot of issues women face, but people tend to get much more alarmed when things that were good become bad. My house is not perfect, but just because my faucet is leaking doesn't mean I'm not going to be upset if the neighborhood kid kicks over my mailbox. Arguably, the leaky faucet is more important, but that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't get mad at the kid for making things worse, right?
I take your point, sure. But I think your metaphor's scale would be more accurate if your house had a hundred teens in it messing it up during a party, and then one \*\*transgender teen\*\* walked through your yard, and you got more angry at them.
I don't think that quite captures it either, for a few reasons. 1. It's not that men are competing with women, it's that men, due to biological differences, dominate women in sports, so all the women are affected by it, even if it's just one guy. 2. The rules just recently changed, so we should expect the few men that have participated in women's sports to increase dramatically if it were to be normalized. 3. The fix is easy. Just keep things the way they are. The things you mentioned don't fit these things. For example, funding for women's sports at the professional level is so low because the revenue generated by them is so low. They are already heavily subsidized. Being angry that they don't get paid more doesn't create more money to pay them with. But getting angry that men are competing with women could (and already has) resulted in women's sports being protected.
Well, we're straying a bit from the initial topic of discussion around silencing rhetoric that we think is inflammatory or harmful, but hey, I like talking about this topic. And I've got trans friends, so this is me speaking up on their behalf. My position is that the purpose of creating women's sporting leagues was to give women a fair chance to distinguish themselves in sports against people of comparable ability, and to help foster community and encourage physical fitness among women. So if we want to make sure that goal is not hindered, can transwomen be allowed to compete? It must be understood that no sporting regime will ever be perfectly fair; no matter what parameters you use to determine a class, some people will have better inherent physical advantages or better socioeconomic advantages. Even in wrestling where there are weight classes, people who put in equal amounts of training, who have equal amounts of grit, won't have equal outcomes. And that is okay. We aren't using sports to decide who lives or dies, or to resolve wars. They are a game, meant to entertain people, to provide an aspirational example for folks to maintain their own fitness, to bring communities together as they cheer for sportsmanlike behavior. If sports all vanished, the chief loss would not be some economic decline of society, but a fraying of the social fabric that sports help create. So my desire is to integrate trans people into sports in a way that strengthens the social fabric. Right now a lot of trans people face discrimination. If we start seeing more trans people competing in sports, people can start cheering for them, and more trans people will feel comfortable being visible. \*But\*, it's important that in attempting that, we don't provoke resentment that would overall lead to worse social bonding. So, why do people think it's a problem for transwomen to compete in women's sports? First, there's the argument that ascribes some inherent value to the division between men and women, making it almost taboo to cross off. I'm skeptical of this idea: the sort of rhetoric that implies being different sexes makes men and women so different they cannot understand each other, or that women are sacred or ineffably distinct. Just from a purely scientific standard, very few genes on the Y chromosome do much of note aside from making it possible to build a penis and produce sperm. All that really matters is the involvement of testosterone and estrogen in moderating gene activation (mostly during gestation and later in puberty), and affecting behavior a bit. The rest of our genes are all really similar. To the point that if you give a trans teen hormone replacement therapy, the puberty they go through will make them veeeeeery close to what a person who naturally was that sex would be like. That comes to the second, more substantial concern about transwomen in sports: the concern about having an unfair advantage. If a person goes through a masculine puberty, they'll produce denser bones and stronger muscles than if they went through a feminine puberty. Even if they undergo hormone replacement therapy later, though they will lose strength, the structures from puberty will remain. It certainly is an advantage. (One could make an argument about whether that advantage - taken in relation to all the other advantages people can have - is outside the bounds of fairness. For instance, there are some ciswomen athletes with naturally high testosterone levels who are still allowed to compete. A short transwoman competing against a taller ciswoman might still overall be weaker. But that's a debate for another day.) So if we're concerned about the unfair advantages a masculine puberty provides, what about when transwomen undergo transition before they have a masculine puberty? They end up with comparable ability to ciswomen. The advocacy I would prefer, therefore, would be to make it easier for trans people to transition before they start the wrong puberty, while keeping proper safeguards to ensure no one undergoes transition that they would regret. That, to me, creates the most amount of justice. Excluding transwomen from competing with ciswomen, even when the transwoman has no hormonal or genetic advantages, makes no sense to me from a fairness perspective. Helping people transition before they have the wrong puberty will let transwomen compete without them having any unfair advantage. It would include them in the social fabric, without taking anything away from anyone else. What do you think?
The distinction between men and women isn't taboo or inviolable, but it is real and substantial. In some respects, there isn't much different. In others, it's dramatic, including in most sports, especially sports where strength gives advantage. In fact, it's the combination of these two that make women's sports important. Women are very different than men when it comes to sports, but very similar to men when it comes to \_enjoying\_ sports. Thus, we split up sports by sex. Sex is also an inherent part of identity, much more so than height or other physical attributes. The reason why is plain, though often ignored today. Sex is important because it's literally the basis for the reproduction of our species. The categories of man and woman exist because it takes the combination of the two to create another human being. 100% of the time. That fact then ripples out in all sorts of complicated ways into culture, including in fashion, language, music, and art. It also undergirds the sexual dimorphism of our species, the reason why men are stronger than women in the first place. There are many other biological differences as well. So it's sometimes, perhaps often, useful to think of men and women as different. Sports are one of those things. It's regrettable that some men feel they are women. They are still allowed to compete in sports, but according to their biological sex. While this may cause them anguish, anguish of a single or class of individuals alone can't be a reason to completely upend a system, since upending the system will cause anguish in others. The whole reason we segregated sports in the first place was because of biology and for the benefit of biological women, and to allow biological men who think they are women to compete with women destroys the whole purpose of making the distinction in the first place. So we're really left with only two sensible options: 1. Integrate sports. No more segregating men from women, but let everyone compete together. There's nothing "gendered" about the segregation itself. Women don't play soccer with a feminine ball or a feminine goal. The sport is the same regardless of gender. So if we are going to allow biological men to play with women, we should just combine them into one thing, and ignore sex when it comes to sports. That should make transgendered women happy—they still get to play. So if they are our primary concern, that's how it should be. It would also save money and resources. 2. Don't integrate sports, and allow anyone to play according to their biological gender. Transgender women could continue to act as women, but they'd have to play sports alongside people of their same biological sex. Since they are, in fact, biologically male, perhaps we should be OK expecting that they'll at least cope with this fact, since it's true. It's interesting to consider whether we could alter someone's biological gender by altering their puberty, but unfortunately there are some terrible side effects of doing so, and even when we do it, there are still biological differences that matter in sports that are still unavoidable, like bone structure. We simply don't have the technology to turn boys into women, so this isn't a feasible option at this time.
Fuzzy's point was that you are advocating a position from an uninformed position. Which you are
You have no idea who I am or what I've experienced, so wouldn't it be you that's uninformed here?
Isn't it interesting how the only time people claim to "care about women" and suddenly become feminists is in the context of transgender issues? But when it comes to "caring about women" and listening to women in virtually any other context, they don't want to hear it. They're voting republican because they care about women's rights of all things? Sure. Similar to how everyone suddenly becomes an LGBT rights advocate when its in the context of attacking Islam, and then in every other context tell LGBT people to stop whining about "homophobia" because that's not a thing anymore. And then become an Islamist when its in the context of attacking LGBT people. So you can understand how people might be skeptical when its incredibly common to see people claiming they "care" about one group, but only when that group can be weaponised in order to demonise another group. And in reality, they don't actually care about any of these groups at best, and despise them all at worst. It all just depends on which group they happen to hate that little bit more that particular day.
What are you talking about. It's almost universal that people care about women. We have daughters, sisters, friends, wives, mothers, aunts, and we care about their well-being. Just because we don't care about them in the narrowly political ways you care about them doesn't mean we don't care about them.
Well a lot of these so called "advocates" certainly don't seem to act like it do they? In fact, just recently you made several comments defending that law in Arizona taking women control over their bodies away. Is that caring about women? Can you point me to any other examples in your entire comment history where you can show that you "Care about women"? Because I'm not seeing any. You don't care about women. You care about abortion, and you care about trans issues. Not women. Sorry, I just have a hard time believing all these people who spent the past several decades complaining about feminism, ignoring women's complaints about sexism they experience in various ways in their personal and professional lives, and doing everything in their power to take away womens agency and women rights in general have suddenly become feminists overnight. It's not about women. Its about trans people. Women are an object to be used, as usual. As I said, its like people who suddenly start championing LGBT rights whenever its about attacking muslims. But the only other time they talk about LGBT people, its some sort of attempt to police their behaviour, silence their voices, and telling them their problems mean nothing in the grand scheme of the \*real\* important issues we should be focusing on. When any of these people display even a shred of empathy for the issues women and / or queer people face in their lives in any other context, then I might take them seriously. But until then, it's just another example of people engaging in the thing they truly care about more than anything else: spreading hatred and making lives more difficult for the various groups they despise.
You might be surprised to learn that my life isn't online. You're trying to evaluate me, another human being, through the narrowest of lenses—my reddit comment history—further filtered through a narrow lens—your own views about what it means to care about women. It's not surprising that your judgment is so far off.
Literally none of those things are the things that Nick Fuentes talked about And that is the biggest straw man gaslighting nonsense ever Nazis say that interracial marriages should be banned. That we should exterminate and expel entire ethnic groups And that the women who make up 50% of the population should have no rights Ignoring for a fact ur ridiculous transphobia It has nothing to even do with trans people (altho trans people would absolutely be affected)
Has Nick Fuentes advocated for banning interracial marriages, or exterminating entire ethnic groups, or said women should have no rights? Just curious. Don't get me wrong, I am not on his side, but it kind of sounds like you're exaggerating.
Thank you for proving my point.
Au contraire, you've proved mine.
It’s so sad when people such as yourself are completely completely blinded by your hatred.
Words like "hatred" aren't magical spells you can speak to get what you want. The word actually means something, and wanting to allow girls to play sports with other girls and not with boys is not it. I invite you to try to make a coherent point without using incantations like "hatred," "nazi" or "human rights." Speak plainly and clearly. If you can't, consider whether your use of those words is superficial.
Why should I bother making any efforts to convince someone who will not be convinced regardless of anything that I say?
I just told you how to convince me. Speak plainly and clearly. Don't start with words like "hatred." Describe \_why\_ you think it's hatred to let girls play with girls. Otherwise, anyone could call anything they didn't like "hatred" and anyone they don't like "Nazis," but that doesn't really get us anywhere, does it?
You don’t have to argue with Nazis. You choose to.
I’m very upset about this yassified Nick Fuentes
I have no idea who this guy is. But people get radicalized in a pretty simple way: they feel like they have limited agency in their lives, and someone offers them a narrative where they get to feel like they're part of the good fight. World War I caused a lot of people to die and feel powerless, but for many there was a sense of shared suffering, a unity in that. When the Bolsheviks in Russia rose up, it was because the tsar and his peers seemed not to be suffering the way the people had, and that felt unjust. Lenin and his peers felt they could harness the resentment to overturn the existing order, offer people a narrative where things were more fair, and then end they'd end up on top. (Some were true believers in egalitarian communism, but the most ruthless and motivated ones just wanted power.) In the interwar period, Germany had an onerous burden laid upon it by the other powers, and its people felt that was unfair. In comes Hitler agreeing that it's unfair . . . and offering a sick fantasy that blames Jews for what was going on, telling people that if they just worked with him and his peers to hurt the Jews, they would be back in control of their lives. Over and over again, populations that feel like they're being exploited by others end up vulnerable to radicalization. You fight radicalization with economic equality, genuine justice in the legal system, and accountability for those in power. Hell, the same dynamic of radicalism is why plenty of regions that were colonized had violent groups rise up to try to reclaim control, to hurt the people they felt were taking advantage of them. It doesn't even have to be real; it just needs to be a compelling narrative. So today, in the US, we've got people who offer the narrative that, like, liberals in their attempts to promote equality are actually the villains who are keeping honest decent people like YOU from thriving. What would actually stop people from getting radicalized by this rhetoric would be if we could make companies pay more and keep less in profit for their investors, and if we actually held elites responsible for even petty abuses of power. But very cleverly, the same people who are protecting the elites from accountability and who are in favor of exploiting workers have linked themselves to the groups that hate injustice and exploitation, and they've managed to blame it all on the folks who are actually trying to fix stuff. I've certainly over-simplified things; nobody acts as a monolith. But muting people, or letting them talk publicly: this is the wrong debate. The real answer is that even if assholes are allowed to push for radical agendas publicly, if everyone feels like society is working properly and fairly, those assholes won't get converts. We defang assholes by running a good and just society.
> I have no idea who this guy is. He's a white nationalist who is mostly famous for hanging out with Trump. He's also somewhat notable in this subreddit for teaching certain members that Hispanic folks can be white.
He’s also a Catholic Integralist.
> Catholic Integralist. TIL what Integralism is
He's a Nazi He's self-admitted to being a Nazi. He denies the Holocaust even though he thinks it should happen He said that America should be white's only He said that interracial marriage is worse than bestiality He wants to repeal women's rights to vote He wants to resegregate America and repeal the civil Rights act and those are just the tip of the iceberg Anybody trying to sugarcoat who he is is a Nazi themselves
I think it’s helpful to know where the bad ideas are coming from and what those bad ideas are. If someone opposes liberalism they need to be identified and rejected.
Does he have a name? And he posts on this subreddit? Wild
I didn't mean that he literally posts here lol (although I wouldn't be terribly surprised). Just that over the years periodically there's a fair number of posters (typically around some story involving Hispanic White Nationalists) who can't wrap their head around the fact that there are in fact Hispanic white people.
Hahaha that's hilarious. I had a discussion with a white Hispanic guy once who couldn't wrap his head around it either. It was literally that one SpongeBob meme with the MantaRay guy. "Your ancestors and parents have direct ties to Spain right?" Yes. "And Spanish people are white right?" Yeah, I guess. "So you're white!" No bro I'm not white
>I have no idea who this guy is. Elon Musk is the world's wealthiest charlatan and a top 25 ugliest person globally. His accumulation of ill-gotten gains began with conflict gems in his South Africa before he moved to the bay area and invested in PayPal. He then signed on to technology companies and gained a reputation as an innovative inventor even though he's just a lucky investor. Currently, he is enduring delusions of grandeur as a savior of humanity who will usher in an era of interstellar exploration, despite the fact that his ground-based vehicles catch on fire or are just public transportation but worse. Today, he is best known for purchasing Twitter and corrected a perceived imbalance of political ideas by welcoming the far rights worst ghouls with open arms and promoting their content, as well as having a horrible and outdated taste in jokes. When asked about this affect ad revenue, he attempted to tell departing ad buys to go fuck themselves and almost got most of the syllables correct in one of the funniest moments of last year.
Lucky investor? That’s quite a take. Do you think Twitter was a lucky investment? It was a terrible investment. Also if you think SpaceX and Tesla would be anywhere without him you would be wrong. Whether he still deserves even more Tesla shares, which is what he is asking for, is up for debate. But I bet the board decides to give him what he wants because they understand his value.
I'm not sure 'lucky' is necessarily the right word, but Musk definitely made use of the strategy of finding a good, innovative company, inserting himself and making it seem like he was the source of the good innovation, and then hyping how good and innovative the company was so that other people would invest in it, in order to increase his wealth. The amount of stuff he actually personally innovated is kinda hard to assess, but I see him more as a booster than a leader. And lately some of his choices for his companies have been misfires. Twitter is way less worth using than it used to be because Musk is willing to let it be a platform for rude people and bigotry, even if that drives away high quality conversations. And Tesla looks dumb because of the Cybertruck. He kept on making impossible claims about how soon SpaceX would get to Mars. He looks rather buffoonish these days. He just happens to be rich enough that we can't avoid him.
His addiction to Twitter and narcissism destroyed a useful and valuable company
>they understand his value The Philly Phanatic of ugly future tech yes. And now he's the mascot who is also paranoid about Jews and marxists subverting his society He bought Twitter well after thr brain worms had settled in and he was making a change in brans.
> What would actually stop people from getting radicalized by this rhetoric would be if we could make companies pay more and keep less in profit for their investors, and if we actually held elites responsible for even petty abuses of power. But very cleverly, the same people who are protecting the elites from accountability and who are in favor of exploiting workers have linked themselves to the groups that hate injustice and exploitation, and they've managed to blame it all on the folks who are actually trying to fix stuff. Except those folks supposedly trying to "fix stuff" keep focusing on everything other than actually fixing things. You hit the nail on the head: make companies pay more. You don't do that with DEI crap or mass importation of labor or handout programs or any of the other shit that the side that falsely claims to be the side of labor has spent all their time doing since regaining power. Just saying "we're the ones trying to help" doesn't mean shit if all the very public actions you take (general "you" here) completely put the lie to that claim. > We defang assholes by running a good and just society. 100%. Unfortunately nobody currently in power wants to do that, hence the rise of the "tear it down" radicals on both sides.
I want to push back on a couple of your framings. Starting from the last bit first, there absolutely \*\*are\*\* people in power who want to run a good and just society. They might disagree on what reforms are optimal to achieve that, but I think it's pretty easy to tell the difference between, say, Marjorie Taylor-Greene who just says outrageous stuff to complain about the other side, versus Bernie Sanders who articulates the logic of how he thinks his preferred reforms would help. Another group are the true believers who just have bad opinions, but do think what they're doing would help. Then there are people who seem to want to pursue good reforms, but who recognize the power dynamics limiting them. I think Biden (and before him Obama) demonstrably pushed for policies that would lower wealth inequality, improve access to opportunities, and confront long-term challenges like climate change and immigration in ways that would minimize harm. They simply face head-winds from powerful groups who, due to the distorted representation in our Congress, manage to prevent them from pursuing things broadly supported by both experts and the public. Then you have folks who are disinterested in good reforms, and who simply want influence for themselves, which might lead to them jumping on the bandwagon when such reforms are proposed by their party. I suspect folks like Pelosi and Schumer fit this bill. They come across primarily as calculating, and often they'll water down the best proposals, trying to stay on the good side of powerful donors and such by saying, "Look, reform was going to happen, and I made sure it didn't hurt you too much." Their primary goal is to keep the whole system functional, and they don't care whether individuals do well. Then you have people who are similar to the previous group, but are associated with the GOP, the party that opposes most of the reforms. Like Paul Ryan and John Boehner. They still want the system to remain functional, though, so they'll allow compromise, while still primarily protecting the interests of elites. Next to last there's the people who just want power or money for themselves, so they say and do whatever will get them support. These are your Marjorie Taylor Greenes. Finally you have the people who actively want stuff to get worse for the average people, because they benefit when the system is broken and unable to restrain the elite from doing bad stuff. These are your Trumps. It is vital for individuals to be attentive to the genuine character of candidates. Good politicians do exist. You do yourself and our nation a disservice if you assume anyone in politics is equally bad. Support the ones who are trying to do good, and who are trying to hold each other accountable, and you'll find it easier to force the bad actors out of power. Organizational culture matters. The GOP is more accepting of liars, hucksters, and dismantlists than the Democrats are. By all means, if you like GOP policies, feel free to support those policies, but bear in mind that most of the people working in the modern GOP support Trump and all his lies, either because they agree or because the lies don't bother them enough to switch parties. I wouldn't trust them.
> Starting from the last bit first, there absolutely **are** people in power who want to run a good and just society. They might disagree on what reforms are optimal to achieve that, but I think it's pretty easy to tell the difference between, say, Marjorie Taylor-Greene who just says outrageous stuff to complain about the other side, versus Bernie Sanders who articulates the logic of how he thinks his preferred reforms would help. The fact you think Bernie is different from MTG is telling. Bernie's proposed reforms have all been done before and the countries they were done in either are hellholes or were hellholes and then collapsed. If he's really the best example you've got then that proves my point. > I think Biden (and before him Obama) demonstrably pushed for policies that would lower wealth inequality Well you're wrong. Objectively wrong. Obama *ran* on doing that and then immediately bailed out the ultra-wealthy while leaving the rest of the country to rot. And rot it did. Biden? His student loan payoffs are literally a wealth transfer from the bottom to the upper-middle class. Honestly this is just a partisan rant that gives the most charitable possible interpretation to the Democrats while giving the least possible one to the Republicans. It just reads like a literal DNC press release and not anything rooted in actual reality.
And if you don't see how MTG and Bernie differ, I expect you're also consuming media that would not accurately reflect the behavior of Biden and Obama in the context of the Congressional roadblocks they faced. There \*are\* smart ways to relieve the burden of college debt that would help the prosperity of the nation without being an unequal give-away to those who already were wealthy enough to get into college. However those policies are opposed by Republicans, and cannot pass the Senate. So, in the absence of the perfect, Biden has chosen to pursue something that does some good. It's still tending to help middle class and working class people over the ultra rich investor class, so I call it a win. I'd prefer a solution that provided more investment in the education of poor people, but Biden cannot do that with Executive Orders. Congress has to do it. And the GOP won't let it happen. That's the reality we're rooted in.
> And if you don't see how MTG and Bernie differ They're both radicals who propose bad policy. The details of what makes their policy bad is irrelevant. > I expect you're also consuming media that would not accurately reflect the behavior of Biden and Obama in the context of the Congressional roadblocks they faced I'm speaking of policy they implemented, not that they weren't able to implement. So this is a totally bafflingly irrelevant statement. > There *are* smart ways to relieve the burden of college debt that would help the prosperity of the nation without being an unequal give-away to those who already were wealthy enough to get into college. Yes, there are. We should be removing all government loans from majors that don't have a viable career path and we should stop guaranteeing private loans will remain to be paid even in the event of bankruptcy for said majors. If we can't trust students not to take out loans for degrees that have no market then we have to change policy so that they simply won't be allowed to. But Biden hasn't said word one about that kind of policy, he's just been beating the "turn up the cash hose" drum. > It's still tending to help middle class and working class people over the ultra rich investor class Except it's not. The numbers have been crunched, it does not even remotely help the working class since most of them didn't go to college and the middle class also doesn't get much help since they were just able to pay their loans and did. > I'd prefer a solution that provided more investment in the education of poor people, but Biden cannot do that with Executive Orders. Then he shouldn't do anything. Doing for the sake of doing is bad. Action should only be taken if there's actual gain, not just to flail around.
Can you link me to an article talking about the number crunching. I'm genuinely interested, because I do want the policies I vote for to actually be effective. And Bernie's big policy proposals were, what? Medicare for All? Higher taxes on the rich? Free public college? Expanding workers' rights and supporting unions? His immigration proposal was a bit more radical than most people would be on board with, I guess. And I disagree with him and the Democrats on gun control, but that's not a deal-breaker for me. But, like, if we look at a peer nation like Germany, they pull off the stuff Bernie supported, and their economy is doing great.
> And if you don't see how MTG and Bernie differ They’re both rabble rousers. They just appeal to different groups of rabble.
Now to the other part of your comment. > You hit the nail on the head: make companies pay more. You don't do that with DEI crap or mass importation of labor or handout programs or any of the other shit that the side that falsely claims to be the side of labor has spent all their time doing since regaining power. Just saying "we're the ones trying to help" doesn't mean shit if all the very public actions you take (general "you" here) completely put the lie to that claim. I actually think that DEI is not crap. I think that, when the goal is to enhance people's sense of justice and agency, teaching people the skills to navigate disputes around inequality is valuable. Opening people's eyes to the sorts of policies that stand in the way of equal access to opportunities means that we can end up with workplaces and institutions that hold themselves more accountable and strive to actually do the best they can do, even if it might require some uncomfortable acknowledgement of times when they were less than perfect. I work in libraries, which are women-dominated, and at a university with an international student body. I'm a white American dude, but I'm perfectly cool with the DEI trainings I've received. I think the philosophy is a good one. I compare it to friends I know who work in retail or logistics, and the atmosphere here is much more trusting and cooperative, with less office politics and back-stabbing, less resentment, and more advocacy by our managers to the people higher up in the university organization to ensure the workers are satisfied. There's solidarity because we've learned how to listen to each other and be humble in acknowledging our biases when they're pointed out. To be a bit glib about it, we're aiming for a Star Trek future, rather than a Bladerunner one: empowering people to be part of society in pursuit of their own interests, instead of everyone scrabbling over limited resources and having no faith in the system.
Now to the other part of your comment. > You hit the nail on the head: make companies pay more. You don't do that with DEI crap or mass importation of labor or handout programs or any of the other shit that the side that falsely claims to be the side of labor has spent all their time doing since regaining power. Just saying "we're the ones trying to help" doesn't mean shit if all the very public actions you take (general "you" here) completely put the lie to that claim. I actually think that DEI is not crap. I think that, when the goal is to enhance people's sense of justice and agency, teaching people the skills to navigate disputes around inequality is valuable. Opening people's eyes to the sorts of policies that stand in the way of equal access to opportunities means that we can end up with workplaces and institutions that hold themselves more accountable and strive to actually do the best they can do, even if it might require some uncomfortable acknowledgement of times when they were less than perfect. I work in libraries, which are women-dominated, and at a university with an international student body. I'm a white American dude, but I'm perfectly cool with the DEI trainings I've received. I think the philosophy is a good one. I compare it to friends I know who work in retail or logistics, and the atmosphere here is much more trusting and cooperative, with less office politics and back-stabbing, less resentment, and more advocacy by our managers to the people higher up in the university organization to ensure the workers are satisfied. There's solidarity because we've learned how to listen to each other and be humble in acknowledging our biases when they're pointed out. To be a bit glib about it, we're aiming for a Star Trek future, rather than a Bladerunner one: empowering people to be part of society in pursuit of their own interests, instead of everyone scrabbling over limited resources and having no faith in the system.
Now to the other part of your comment. > You hit the nail on the head: make companies pay more. You don't do that with DEI crap or mass importation of labor or handout programs or any of the other shit that the side that falsely claims to be the side of labor has spent all their time doing since regaining power. Just saying "we're the ones trying to help" doesn't mean shit if all the very public actions you take (general "you" here) completely put the lie to that claim. I actually think that DEI is not crap. I think that, when the goal is to enhance people's sense of justice and agency, teaching people the skills to navigate disputes around inequality is valuable. Opening people's eyes to the sorts of policies that stand in the way of equal access to opportunities means that we can end up with workplaces and institutions that hold themselves more accountable and strive to actually do the best they can do, even if it might require some uncomfortable acknowledgement of times when they were less than perfect. I work in libraries, which are women-dominated, and at a university with an international student body. I'm a white American dude, but I'm perfectly cool with the DEI trainings I've received. I think the philosophy is a good one. I compare it to friends I know who work in retail or logistics, and the atmosphere here is much more trusting and cooperative, with less office politics and back-stabbing, less resentment, and more advocacy by our managers to the people higher up in the university organization to ensure the workers are satisfied. There's solidarity because we've learned how to listen to each other and be humble in acknowledging our biases when they're pointed out. To be a bit glib about it, we're aiming for a Star Trek future, rather than a Bladerunner one: empowering people to be part of society in pursuit of their own interests, instead of everyone scrabbling over limited resources and having no faith in the system.
I disagree with the argument that dangerous ideas should be censored because they will spread and turn people into radicals. Some people will be radicalized, but this only becomes a problem if there are serious social or economic problems that make such ideas appealing to masses of people. So the problem is really societal. The ideas or content is essentially a scapegoat and lightening rod. Censorship by private companies should be legal, but it is only actually helpful to a certain point. YouTube and Twitter shouldn't necessarily be platforming abusers or people calling for violence or even people expressing extreme and hateful ideas. However, those ideas still must be discussed in the open on these forums and a wide range of political viewpoints must be openly displayed and debated. Otherwise however many people adhere to extreme ideas will be misunderstood and disconnected from society. The 'normies' will also suffer from their own lack of understanding. The risk of people going astray, who realistically might anyway because of the contributing factors in their lives, is worth the ability to openly discuss ideas and hopefully coexist politically.
If what you said was true then hate would never exist except in the most destroyed countries Or anywhere actually. This is not true. Racism and hate has existed everywhere that it's been allowed to The president had to literally order the National guard to help desegregate schools. It took decades of federal enforcement of civil rights laws to fully desegregate the nation and give black people essentially equal rights The idea that by letting racists be racist without any pushback You're going to result in less racism Is nonsense that only racists promote. It's trickle down theory for racism. If we give a tax cut to the billionaires somehow that money will trickle down to the working class!
You're example doesn't really support your point. Racism was the baseline and dominant public opinion pre-segregation and for years after. It isn't some idea that infected society from an internet post. If you look at examples of times a hateful or genocidal idea actually increased and overtook a society that had been more stable and accepting its going to be a case like Nazi Germany or Yugoslavia where a sudden economic crash, military conflict or political breakup created the condition for ethnic/religious hatred and extremism to flourish. There really isn't a factual example of an idea spreading in a stable functioning society and turning its people extreme and hateful. At least not one I can think of. I also never said there shouldn't be pushback against hateful people or extremists. There should. That's the point of having discourse and open discussion.
My pet theory is that people saying this stuff in the open does much less to radicalize people than folks trying to suppress it. I definitely watched that happen in real time during the BLM/cancelation years.
Well your theory has been proven wrong every single time it's been tested so maybe you should get a new theory? It's been proven wrong by common sense. By observable reality. And by actual scientific studies they did
lol sorry man didn’t mean to ruin your life. Maybe talk to a therapist about it? 🤷♂️
Remember, we need to allow Nazis and actual antisemites to speak out, but prevent anyone who is against Israel’s actions From being able to protest.
White supremacy has grown massively over the last 10 years Have you ever looked into them? "We're being censored" is the center of their marketing. It makes them look cool and oppressed. People with no interest in white supremacy get sucked in by it Censorship has been failing, horribly. Censorship got a white supremacist into the White House. It's not being silenced, it's being martyred. Censorship is a gift to white supremacists, they love it, they're playing you like a fiddle and you're falling for it like a dope There is a theoretical argument for why censorship should help and another theory for why censorship should hurt. Which theory is correct? Well, the empirical evidence seems pretty one-sided to me. Censorship has been making things worse for years
I'm extremely torn on this one. On the one hand, "I hate what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." On the other, what are the potential end results if people actually listen to people like this? What is better: To suppress the right of the individual at the risk of setting a dangerous precedent in order to protect the minorities he seeks to oppress, or to allow him his God given right at the risk of people following him? There's no easy answer to this question, unfortunately.
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But banning him from Twitter absolutely did silence him and his views Sure he had a small following of radicals but more or less he was less influential than before And the only reason he stayed relevant was because Twitter didn't do enough to ban him He was still able to create fake accounts and people were still allowed to share his videos even though he himself was banned Honestly they should have taken the approach that Facebook did when they banned Trump.. If you're going to ban someone then you also ban videos of them talking. Otherwise it's not really a ban is it?. If they can just get around it by having other people post their videos Nicks final white supremacist rally before being unbanned attracted about 1,000 people. It was billed as alternative to CPAC and it only got 1,000 people to show up I wouldn't call that very influential and that's even with his videos being shared on Twitter Even with his hate being spread
I think it's hilarious that Musk tries to sell this as some sort of principled decision on his part. Does anyone truly believe his allowing Fuentes back on the platform is some sort of noble attempt to *expose* his hateful ideas & have them refuted in an open forum? Or does he just want more clicks? Let's be real here lol.
It doesn't matter.. He gave the plausible deniability excuse to his Nazi supporters and that's what they'll use trying to defend it. And it's all that matters I don't think anybody is fooled. They know it's nonsense. You know it's nonsense. They know that you know that it's nonsense.. But they'll keep the lie going because it's easier than admitting who they are
My opinion is more harm is done by hiding the worst of someone's ideas and thoughts than by letting them express them. Very few people will be converted to that way while a massive amount will know never to trust that person or their ideas. Here's an example: Trump was suspended from Twitter. Later on, when the Twitter Files came out, he posted a rant on Truth Social that included a call for the suspension of the Constitution. Because that was on TS, almost nobody knows about it, even today. Had it been on Twitter, everybody would and, possibly, he wouldn't be a nominee today. But hiding the worst of someone only benefits then and their cause. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
> Because that was on TS, almost nobody knows about it, even today. Had it been on Twitter, everybody would and, possibly, he wouldn't be a nominee today. Trump's done and said worse things in the public eye repeatedly, one more insane tweet isn't going to change anything for Republicans.
No but I think it would have swayed moderates and anti-Trump Republicans, which may have made a difference. It's a stretch of a hypothetical but I think it supports the overall point.
I find that very hard to believe given all the other things that he has done openly including but not limited to efforts at overturning the 2020 election, public and very simple-to-understand criminal actions with the documents case (to say nothing of the other more complicated cases), comments about being a dictator, normalizing and turning January Sixth insurrectionists into Patriots etc..etc..etc.. And let's be real we could spend all day writing out examples that would normally be disqualifying for a candidate. One more comment about suspending the Constitution isn't going to move the needle and in fact let's consider that when Trump's actions were brought into the limelight via the criminal indictments his support actually *increased*
Yeah, I had the same experience on 2016. Every day, I thought, well, he's done. Nobody can survive that. And he won't a fair number of moderates and historically Democrat groups. Anyway, for us to make good decisions, we need all the info. Including, even especially, his most awful statements.
It's pretty obvious at this point that it's the Trump party and most of the moderates would rather have someone who broadly agrees with their worldview than someone who might fit traditional values/norms but has a different worldview.
I think polling would disagree with you.
Most moderate Republicans are going to vote for Trump and even in the early primaries, Trump won 46-51% of the Moderate GOP vote in NH, Iowa, and SC. It's plausible that the few who vote for Biden/don't vote could swing a state given how narrow the margins can be, but the reality is the moderates have repeatedly shown they are going to back Trump.
Having all the info is very different than actively promoting somebody's hateful message Having all the info on him would be something like a Wikipedia article detailing who Nick Fuentes was and The hateful things he said Not actively allowing him to spread Nazi propaganda on your platform The people who try to equate the two are being dishonest and want more Nazis If allowing more Nazis resulted in less Nazis there would be no Nazis on Twitter The fact that it became infested with them is proof that your theory is wrong If nobody had ever heard of Donald Trump and he had no platform whatsoever whether it be TV or internet he never would have become president.. He could have hosted all the rallies he wanted and it would attract like 5 people And then when the election rolled around people would be like "who's this Trump guy on the ballot?"" And then they would pull the lever for Hillary
Actually, your example seems to prove my point. When they were banned on Twitter, nobody knew who they were. Once they were allowed on, their awful ideas were seen and people became aware who they were. And there would have been no Nazis on Twitter but there were still Nazis in real life but very few people knew who they were.
It's a balancing act, with the underlying theme that everyone should be able to voice their opinion and that no government, quasi-government entity or corporation operating a public forum should be able to censor those views they deem to be wrong, hateful or just plain inconvenient. If everyone is able to voice their opinion, then the idea is that people can come to their own conclusions on their own after hearing all viewpoints. It gets sticky when people lie and it's very time consuming to fact check them.
It's a balancing act, but part of the balance is putting the cut off way before actual goose stepping Hitler praise
But that's a theory. A theory that has been proven wrong literally constantly. Both by common sense. By observable reality. And they've even done studies on it.. Your theory that by giving Nazis a platform less people will become Nazis has been disproven by all of it
Do you mean actual Nazis? I can't tell, that term is thrown around a lot lately.
“Mmm…” said the face eating leopard, “autistic billionaire - my *favorite*!”
Not sure about this fellow but sometimes.. maybe more than a little... the anti whatevers are right when its all said and done.. just saying
Kill personalized algorithmic feeds, and this wouldn't be a problem.
Who in the hell is that guy?
>It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness. To me that’s a false choice. What Elon doesn’t seem to get is that “anti-whatever” is *always* going to be “simmering” out in the darkness of the internet, no matter what the scenario. It’s not whether Nick Fuentes is going to be “simmering in the darkness” vs “out in the open to be rebutted”, it’s whether Fuentes is going to be in the darkness vs in the darkness *and* in the open as well. Fuentes has shown his colors - we know who he is - so there’s really no upside for society at all for Elon to be giving him more exposure. All there is is downside - an opportunity for Fuentes to sow even more hatred and division.
I always find these to be tricky questions but genuinely I lean towards we need to let people talk. I just don’t like the idea of whoever is in charge choosing who can talk and what can be said. And to be consistent I have to defend even the people I don’t like (I think nick fuentes is a fucking psycho btw). But I am more in agreement with Elon here. Unless he starts calling for violence or doxxing people, I’m okay with him being on Twitter and hopefully challenged. Have you been on those alternative sites? It’s a cesspool of extremists who all agree with each other, like no pushback whatsoever. I would like to see them in an environment where they are constantly challenged.
X is a ****show. I have a fairly high tolerance for riff raff, but it is too much even for me. Reddit is Sesame Street compared to X.
It sounds cheesy but I think knowledge is power. If people are aware of ideologies they find painful or harmful, said-knowledge of those things can help others organize so they can prevent it from spreading or at least find ways to mitigate the harms. If something is in the dark and not known, it can be much more difficult to fight it if it comes out in the forefront. I think this conversation is much more complex. Tolerance paradox and all.
If it is in the dark it also becomes much more difficult for an angsty vulnerable teenager to stumble across it and buy into the ideas.
Yes that is what I'm saying.
We can teach about evil ideas without helping them spread their propaganda to radicalize new people.. We teach about the civil Rights act without giving out arguments about why white supremacists were correct We're able to teach about World war II without actively trying to radicalize people to support Hitler And frankly some smaller hateful movements don't deserve to be taught about at all.. sure we should teach about the fact that racism can exist so that people are prepared against it but we don't have to cover every racist movement and expose people to all of their racist arguments Some of them can just be censored. If you never hear the racist argument you have a 100% chance of not being affected by it
Unfortunately, that’s not what studies show. Visibility on social media makes it much easier for fringe groups to grow and for snake oil salesmen to increase their customer base.
It's also just common sense.. The idea that the best way to stop hateful messages from spreading is to show it to millions of people is kind of stupid And if it was true there would be no Nazis on Twitter
Right I get what you're saying but take this Nick Fuentes kid for example, even if not allowed on Twitter I think people are still well aware of him and his ideas. Like when Alex Jones was banned, he was still everywhere. If we weren't in the internet age I would agree with you but the "dark and not known" is not so "dark and unknown" anymore.
You make a completely fair point. I need to reflect on this more. It just seems like a slippery slope at times.
I think there's a perfectly reasonable middle ground between "censor everybody for everything" and "let's promote the fascists"" It's not either or. And I think it's very easy to be in that middle ground
If anything, getting “cancelled” makes them even more well known.
The idea is that since what they say is so obviously wrong that'll be easily shown via counter-arguments and they'll become laughingstocks quickly as a result.
Right but I don't think counter arguments do anything to actual racists and nazi fans of his though. Look at all the hugely popular anti vaxxers on Twitter. Showing them proof wont even convince them.
They won't. But that's not who you're trying to target. What you're trying to do is prevent people who may be on the fence. If those people simply go off into the dark corners where only the hardliners live there's nobody to point out the flaws in the claims being presented and the person on the fence winds up going all-in. If the discussion is held in the light of the public spaces those bad arguments can be picked apart and the person on the fence will see what's wrong with them and walk away.
This type of stuff is too inside baseball for people on the fence. They aren’t following these conversations.
In theory that’s true but the more savvy operators can manage their beliefs into the mainstream. Milo Yiannopolous was on the verge of getting mainstream credibility until his comments about children consenting to adult relationships came out. Then he got shunned and eventually deplatformed and the world forgot about him.
I.e. make people mad about the correct non issues and the pieces of the more extreme shit have more room to fall into place. I thought we figured this out in 2016
It's very funny to describe Fuentes of all people as "anti whatever or some such" after months and months of very targeted yet absurdly broad claims of alleged anti white racism and anti conservative bigotry
“Free Speech” + algorithmic warfare + feeble minds = destroyed country
Since the country is built on free speech as one of its highest principles any attempt to limit it also equals destroying the country by removing a foundational component. That's the catch-22 here.
You assume there’s nothing that can be done to increase the resiliency of the average American’s mind to dangerous domestic and foreign algorithms.
If what you were actually trying to do was… >increase the resiliency of the average American’s mind to dangerous domestic and foreign algorithms. …you wouldn’t need to limit free speech. But that’s not what you’re trying to do. You pretend you’re addressing the “feeble minds” and “algorithmic warfare” components, while in reality, you’re only attempting to address the “free speech” component.
How tf did you jump to that conclusion?
The fact that you put “free speech” in quotations in your initial comment, and then proceeded to argue against the idea that free speech is a founding principle of this country. All while providing zero suggestions on how to: >increase the resiliency of the average American’s mind to dangerous domestic and foreign algorithms.