I love the scrolling transition at the beginning of this article. It really feels like an excellent piece of internet art.
"IN 2018, nearly four years after Mr. Cain had begun watching right-wing YouTube videos, a new kind of video began appearing in his recommendations.
These videos were made by left-wing creators, but they mimicked the aesthetics of right-wing YouTube, down to the combative titles and the mocking use of words like “triggered” and “snowflake.”
famous right wing youtubers are people like Prisonplanet (white genocide propaganda, Brexit)
there's no comparison between the two outside of rise in popularity
I was comparing hard to hard. "Hard left" youtube seem to be great people, whereas "hard right" youtube is utter trash.
One has to stretch "both sides are bad" to great extremes to pretend that the problem is intractable.
Or you know, that's a version of "everyone I agree with is good, everyone I disagree with is Hitler".
site doesn't let me reply but I can't believe you're seriously saying Chomsky and Zizek are the left equivalents of Crowder and Prisonpaul, lol
Let's narrow it down to those two. Who's the left Crowder/Prisonpaul if not Hbomb? And if it's Hbomb, how can you deny he's better than those two?
That said, for people on the left I follow, I'd mention Slavoj Zizek, Chomsky, Michea, and others (including authors on Counterpunch, NLR, Mother Jones, etc).
I like my leftists old school, regarding class, colonization, imperialism, and such, and don't care about the US obsession with identity politics (in fact I dislike it). I don't think the US has had many real leftists since like the 60s, and surely none in the mainstream.
>site doesn't let me reply but I can't believe you're seriously saying Chomsky and Zizek are the left equivalents of Crowder and Prisonpaul, lol
You should be able to reply, I think it just takes a minute for the link to appear or so. Can always click on the parent comment's date though to go to a reply page iirc.
That said, I didn't say "Chomsky and Zizek are the left equivalents of Crowder and Prisonpaul". I said those are some on the left I personally follow. I'm not sure what "equivalent" means here. Equivalent in what?
If it's about having polarizing opinions or away-of-centre opinions on things, well, all those mentioned have those.
>Let's narrow it down to those two. Who's the left Crowder/Prisonpaul if not Hbomb? And if it's Hbomb, how can you deny he's better than those two?
I wasn't sure who Hbomb is, so I paid a visit. Seems like someone making dumb jokes from what (in the US) passes for a leftist view. I haven't seen much Crowder (only heard about him through the recent fuss) but this Hbomb is not in my eyes any better than Prisonpaul. If anything, he's more grating.
(Also, better in what? Better person? Better opinions? More agreeable? More hipster-likable views?)
Peterson and Chomsky I would say are in a completely different league, as they tend to deal in a high-dimensional representation of reality, versus the comically low-dimensional representation that is typically a common denominator of all cultural meme war arguments.
1.) the authoritarian left, which prioritizes racial and gendered identity, collectivism, equity, all facilitated by the state.
2.) the anti-authoritarian liberal, which prioritizes individual liberty, universality under the law, accountability and self-determination.
3.) the authoritarian right, which prioritizes tradition and national identity.
An extreme person in any of these camps would not result in "great people." I do not think that the left's collectivization of society along racial and gendered lines is "great." I do not think the left's conviction in its moral superiority and subsequent willingness to censor and deplatform is "great." I do not think that the left's disassociation of merit and value in pursuit of arbitrary equity is "great." These are very dangerous things. Radical leftism is responsible for tens of millions of deaths.
- AOC/Sanders
- Obama/Clinton
- Bush/Trump
? I'm not american but it's no contest I'm "authoritarian left", I guess. If "universal health care" is authoritarian, sign me up.
Any "national socialist" that tried to couple free healthcare with racist ideas about who gets it would be making a mockery of "universal", for example.
There's probably a good reason why health care/women's rights/pacifism/environmentalism all go hand in hand, something to do with compassion and one's idea of where hierarchies come from.
> Hey, writer here. This collage is just a sample from his viewing history. Some far-right, some not.
> Caleb Cain was a college dropout looking for direction. He turned to YouTube.
> Soon, he was pulled into a far-right universe, watching thousands of videos filled with conspiracy theories, misogyny and racism.
> I was brainwashed
If some, in the admission of the writer, are not far right / [insert some other libelous term here], is it fair to label them all as such?
Doesn't change the fact that NYT still calls them "white supremacist supporting." I think the problem here is that they support some policies which white supremacists, as a group, also like supporting. Just because two groups can agree on something doesn't mean those groups are allies. Also, "white supremacist" is a great slam against someone you don't like regardless as to if it is true.
Yes, but the YT recommendation algorithm doesn't know that, and even if it could know it wouldn't care. It's enough to watch a few IDW (Intellectual Dark Web) videos, the system will assume that you want racist, far-right, etc. content and that's what will pop up in your recommendations and "Up Next" video plays. That's an entirely programmatically-generated "pathway" into the alt-right rabbit hole; it has nothing to do with who the IDW themselves would want to associate with.
And he was totally blasted by his own fanbase for it. Everyone might say something, once in a while, too far. Doesn't make it right, but doesn't make him completely wrong on everything.
I'm probably going to bleed karma for this, but whatever - I think Trump's campaign had the same problem. I don't believe he's explicitly a white supremacist or that he wanted the support of neo-nazis, if for no other reason than that would be a stupid move politically, but for whatever reason neo-nazis seem to consider him their champion.
Likely in part it's a combination of his antagonistic (politically incorrect) demeanor and his populist rhetoric, but also (just to put it out there) the Republicans and Tea Party have been sort of low-key courting favor with racists for years, so there were already plenty in the base to begin with, they just needed to find their anti-establishment dark horse.
Even if they're less "white supremacist supporting" as "white supremacist supported," that's still a problem. They still feed on and profit from that element.
> they do not support white supremacy and think Nazis are racist morons
> NYT still calls them "white supremacist supporting."
These are not in conflict; your actions can still support fascists unintentionally. When people point out your beliefs are supporting white supremacists, it might be a good idea to correct the problem. Continuing to defend the problematic behavior is when what might have been unintentional support begins to look more like intentional participation.
Sounds like "better not let anybody be right-wingers or they may someday turn to fascism!"
(for a more nuanced answer, see [1])
https://twitter.com/morrison/status/1137401059419217921?s=11