Hacker News Reader

>Genuine question, what percentage of 4chan do you believe is racist? Do you feel that racist memes genuinely come from a place of racism?

Five years ago, I'd say a small fraction and "No", but I no longer believe either of those. The amount of vocal support for possible racist policies, celebration of politicians' racist dog-whistling, and worship of neo-Nazi figures since then was way higher than I ever expected. When it was just jokes and memes, it was easy to write off as ironic, and maybe much of it was, but real support can't be written off as ironic. Maybe the people changed over the years, or maybe it's just different people. (Maybe ironic memes drew in people that liked them unironically: "Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company.") Or maybe it's largely the same people, but the relationship between the internet and politics has changed since then, with people more willing to fully discuss their political ideas (including racist ones) now online.

But that's kind of a feature, rather than a bug. Speaking for the USA: We're a pretty racist country, that's not news to anyone. What was news, especially for the coasts, was just how racist much of the US still is.

By giving these people a voice, we now know that they exist, and what they really believe. You never would have gotten that out of them by just talking to them on the street.

Do certain parts of internet culture encourage that behavior? Absolutely, and it's terrible, and we need to find ways to fix it. But to fix that problem, we need to understand it first.

Before the racists were, to some degree, self-censoring due to their fear of how they were perceived by others. In many cases they would try to conform more so that they wouldn’t be outcast.

Now people are far more aware how many racists are in the US. And many of them have taken that as proof that there’s nothing wrong with their way of thinking and are censoring themselves less. They are discussing their beliefs and pushing their agendas stronger than they have in a long time.

Is that an actual improvement? Before all but some of the most hard-core we’re effectively incentivized to be more accepting. Now they’ve learned not only do they not have to do that, they can STRENGTHEN their position knowing there are others like them.

Given the level of backlash they’ve faced, I don’t think it’s an improvement.

I think it is an improvement, though.

American society had an excuse, before. Racists weren't tolerated, but also weren't confronted. They were allowed to gather power so long as they did so quietly, and decent people could pretend that there wasn't a problem. Now, at least, the internet has made the problem impossible to ignore. A disease which is never diagnosed can never be treated.

Time will certainly tell. If we had seen a much bigger backlash I would’ve agreed with you. Right now I’m not sure whether this is a giant step backward, a small step backward, or (in the long run) not a real change at all.

Unless something big changes in the next year or two I’m having a hard time seeing it as any sort of progress.

After all the GOP had decided to be much more inclusive and welcoming after getting trounced in 2012. Last year America taught them that was the wrong lesson.

I really hope this is a “last gasp“ kind of thing but my pessimism says it isn’t.

From my perspective, the backlash has already been more significant than expected.

But, the embrace of racism, anti-Semitism, historical revisionism, anti-scientific and neo-fascist ideologies seem to be both an expression of generational counterculture rejecting the status quo of "liberal" and "politically correct" thought, and a reactionary movement by the right-wing political establishment trying to maintain relevance in the face of changing ethnic, religious and gender dynamics in the US. I suspect real societal change will take much more than a year or two, or even a swing of the political pendulum from Red Team back to Blue Team. It might take generations, maybe long enough for children to reject the ideals of their alt-right and neoreactionary parents, the way the yuppies rejected the hippies, and the hippies rejected the beatniks.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Mother Night

>isn't the ultimate conclusion radical freedom?

No. The belief that allowing all ideas to stand on their own merit would be inherently good is the sentiment we are questioning. Is it? Is a radically free market in terms of goods and supplies the best idea? If not, why did we think it would apply to speech and ideas? As much as we love to live in the fantasy where good speech will counter bad speech, our history of research into markets and behavioral economics should show us that marketing, the ability to control outlets of speech, etc. make it unlikely that good speech always gets an equal (or even similar) opportunity to counter bad speech).

>the overall result of this openness seems to be growing disdain for beliefs which we now know are founded in hate, not logic or science.

All beliefs have some kind of fundamental assumption taken on faith, even the ones you will claim are founded on logic and science. Even the idea of science as definitive proof is based on the fundamental belief that the peer review method of scientific correction and checking cannot be coopted or subverted (and yet examples show that it can).

>Do you really feel that the world is in a worse place than it was in the 70's or even in 2010?

No but why does this matter? It doesn't mean every choice we made in the past was right. If we had chosen a centrally controlled, heavily censored Internet rather than the radically free and open model we live with now, still the world would be a better place than in the 70s.

1) Yes to ideas on the own merits, but not if those ideas ingratiate themselves vis an unwholesome, saccharine, aptitude that pits human nature against itself.

2) this is debatable, but instability is present in our political system from top to bottom which I believe is due to these transformative tech movements. We should not assume that the sun will rise tomorrow (as in some occasions it will not).

3) your discussion about 4chan lacks some precept or basis of intelligibility. Imagine a similar question as being “what percentage of a psychotic mood is racist”. It’s a non sequitor and doesn’t address the substance of the problem. Similarly, your posited question about ‘dark skin’ lacks traction for similar reasons and illustrates the baseless nature of the internet meme-culture.

> your discussion about 4chan lacks some precept or basis of intelligibility.

The poster clearly feels there are large groups of racists on the internet. I'm trying to ascertain where they think these groups are, and exactly what they feel these groups believe. The 4chan mention was a guess.

> Imagine a similar question as being “what percentage of a psychotic mood is racist”. It’s a non sequitor and doesn’t address the substance of the problem.

I stand by my question. I think the poster has misconceptions about internet culture, and wish to reach the root of them to either correct them, or my own misconceptions. You're assertion here dose not make sense to me.

> Similarly, your posited question about ‘dark skin’ lacks traction for similar reasons and illustrates the baseless nature of the internet meme-culture.

Once again, I'm trying to understand how the poster conceptualizes racism both within the context of the internet, and society as a whole.

Forgive me, but if someone is seeing pervasive racism in society I want to know where and why. I fail to see how this is me parroting a baseless meme-culture. I'm sorry if talking about skin color and crime offends you, but that is no excuse to disregard me as some sort of troll. I have a genuine desire to engage with the poster on their opinions about the nature of the internet/racism/social progress, and being dismissed in such a pedantic manner seems uncalled for.

Edit:

My larger point here is, in my experience racists are a dwindling minority. However, people have begun to conflate certain types of discussion, and forms of comedy (namely absurdist), with genuine racism. These misconceptions are leading them to feel that the internet is somehow heavily racist. True racism is a serious issue, and deserves a heavy handed response. We need to be careful that the racism we point out is true racism, not just an opinion we disagree with, or a joke we don't find funny.