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Comment by amadeuspagel | Hacker News Reader

It's always curious that the same people who see fascists everywhere want corporations and governments to have the power to censor, without considering that fascists might gain control of these institutions.

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From this person's perspective the right kinds of people already control those institutions. This entire article boils down to someone discovering they wish the entire internet was Twitter and YouTube because then people with the same ideology as him would control everything.

Well, the web (which is already decentralised) isn't like that.

Ironically, his blog is not hosted by these social media firms he praises so effusively. It's self-hosted on OVH and uses a privacy guard on WhoIs data. Apparently he wants to benefit from the web's decentralisation whilst preaching against it. This type of hypocrisy seems very common amongst those who rail against imaginary dog-whistle enemies like "Nazis" (of whom there are virtually none in today's world).

> "Nazis" (of whom there are virtually none in today's world).

Actually, they're quite a few, but you'd have to get more into prison culture to see them.

Aren't prison nazis "degenerate" white trash, to the extent that real nazis would despise them?

Fascist ideology was never even barely self-consistent.

truthfully i think that many people would rather live in a monarchical or even fascist state just as long as it their ideology always aligned with the extant power. democracy is messy and chaotic, it means more often than not you have to spend a painful amount of time re litigating the bad ideas of absolute morons. but it also is the only form of governance that you can troubleshoot without resorting to considerable violence.

I was with you except for the ending. I agree with you that the current nazis are not a real threath. But lets not forget that there's very smart people that are hungry for power and will do anything to take control of our lives for its own benefit. With them you can have a "neo-nazism" adapted for the reality of the country. Remember "war on drugs" and "war on terror"? Guess what, manipulation tatics using fear to control a large number of people for political gain.

Remember all the things Snowden and Assange bring back to light? first, with centralized control, it would never be possible to go against "the men". Second, that they describe how under Obama, you know that guy everybody likes and thinks do everything for the good of the mankind? the peace nobel prize? the first black president of US? how can he do wrong right?

And yet there was a lot of shady things going under his government, like spying its own people to resort absolute control under this "above good and evil" figure in a country who worship celebrities and big money (the winners).

My point being, its doesnt even need to be a nazi state, and can be a facade "rainbows and unicorns" kind of government, that do a good job into making people think everything is good, and their leader is some sort of Gandhi, that the real show, the nasty one, the one that even resemble the nazis, can happen behind the curtains.

I agree, but the word Nazi doesn't mean "anyone who desires power". It has very specific meanings and connotations. That's why these people constantly abuse it, it's a form of linguistic parasitism. They find a word with the strongest possible connotations that yields the strongest revulsion possible and then start labelling absolutely everyone who disagrees with them, even in minor ways. Eventually the word loses its power and they move on to the next.

Exactly. If you build institutions to centralized and control power, guess where the "bad guys" will concentrate their efforts to take control?

Nature itself is all about decentralization and development in a organic way and its the most resilient system we are aware of.

The only way to stop the nazists (or stalinists) of the future is by not letting all the eggs in one basket.

Which natural systems favor decentralization?

The cell for instance, is a natural decentralized concept in the very fabric of life. Darwinism which will spread characteristics all over. The fact that a bird spread trees when he drops his food, or the bees spreading polen. Theres a lot of examples of this, and its the reason nature is so resilient, because it never centralize all the good stuff in one place, like we, the ones who like to control everything keep doing it to "protect" ourselves from nature.

And yet, we should embrace it, and learn from it instead.

Not sure if the cell is a good metaphor. Your body will die without a brain to coordinate things right?

It's the perfect metaphor. Your brain is not a single cell. It's a couple billion. Every day in a healthy body a few million cells die, without any repercussions whatsoever.

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