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Comment by drdoom | Hacker News Reader

> My view, which I've held for many decades now, is that glib and frivolous invocations of Hitler, or Nazis, or the Holocaust, are a kind of forgetting.

So true. I have myself observed / felt this several times. My experience is that the facts of any discussion are laid out pretty quickly at the beginning. There is something that prolongs the discussion and heats up the arguments on all sides and I believe it is our collective emotional baggage, or lack of it. Some twist their words to mean anything just to stay in the conversation, some dig in their heels in the hopes of never having to be proven wrong, some stick to the bare facts but ignore others' emotional investment, etc. And some just enjoy trolling as if it is a spectator sport where they flame both sides but without any meaningful contribution of their own towards a resolution.

Sadly, I have not found an approach that works better than to quit the discussion cold turkey.

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The number of people here that are describing trolling as fun, amusing, and effective is pretty high. I wonder why this is the case? Even if so many people enjoy being an ass or ruthlessly screwing over other people, it's strange that they'd openly admit it.

One possibility is that it's a byproduct of the school system. Most of us spent years at each other's throats in a Lord of the Flies type environment, so it's natural for this behavior to transfer to the internet.

They don't necessarily mean that it is fun to be an ass.

I think it's probably a fine line, but there are "trollish" comments that can be made that aren't even disingenuous, never mind nasty or negative.

The so called old school trolling wasn't about disruptive behavior, it was about getting people to consider thoughts that they aren't necessarily comfortable with. And not necessarily uncomfortable in a dark or disturbing way.

Trolling is a good way to induce the sort of cognitive dissonance that changes minds. Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' is an exemplar of this.

It's one of the foundations of our western civilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method

> Most of us spent years at each other's throats in a Lord of the Flies type environment, so it's natural for this behavior to transfer to the internet.

You are shifting the perspective here. Trolling in your sense, as a weak and vile but effective antisocial interaction would be significantly characterized by lacking better traits. Either it's institutional or school can't help with it. This is one of the things school tries to control for, so, if they can't control it, then because it's not from within their institution. Either way you can't just say that without any argument. I don't accept the irony that is mentioning the mandatory literature as an argument.

Since that topic is controversial and the tone mocking, I consider it flame bait. Did you enjoy writing this?

What does forgetting mean here? Is it like forgettable? Google failed me.

You asked,

What does forgetting mean here? Is it like forgettable? Google failed me.

This refers to the grandparent comment's quotation of Mike Godwin from his essay kindly submitted here to open the thread, which in full context was, "The internet has been shaping an increasingly international culture and collective memory — with the Holocaust, just as with other countless human atrocities, we have a moral obligation to 'never forget'. My view, which I've held for many decades now, is that glib and frivolous invocations of Hitler, or Nazis, or the Holocaust, are a kind of forgetting."

I read this as Mike Godwin saying that the crimes against humanity that were perpetrated by the Nazis must never be forgotten, so that we guard against the same crimes happening again. But if we just mention Nazis every time we disagree with someone on the Internet, without thinking deeply about whether or not what we are disagreeing with really has anything to do with what the Nazis actually did, then we are nonetheless forgetting the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. Does that sound like a fair reading of the essay to you?

The way I would sum up Godwin's argument here is that it may be that some current events resemble events of the Nazi era in important ways. As we discuss policy issues online, we have to take care to check our facts and the logic of our own arguments, and if we think something going on today is like the activities of the Nazi Party, then first of all we should review the history and make sure we are correct in our thinking on that point.

By the way, I actually did learn a LOT about the Nazi Party from a thoughtful comment here on Hacker News back in about August 2014, when a reader here mentioned the book series about the Third Reich by British historian Richard Evans, which is well worth a read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Third-Reich-Destroyed-Democr...

I really liked Mr Godwin’s likening of the use of glib and frivolous invocations as a kind of forgetting. Specifically with regards to Hitler, I’ve always found those youtube videos where someone has taken footage of Hitler, or a movie depicting him, and added their own, supposedly humorous subtitles, a bit distressing.

I understand that humour is subjective, and can also be used as a way to cope with or process serious events, but doing so is a difficult needle to thread. Perhaps the difference is if you are using humour as a vehicle instead of the end goal.

Ahh, thank you so much. I read it as "are kind of forgetting" instead of "are a kind of forgetting.", even looking back a few times.

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