That language should be a pretty clear indicator of where this person's politics lie, even without the 'fall of western civilization' rhetoric earlier. They always seem to use the same exact verbiage.
While I know it is routine to paint the right and specifically the alt-right as all being racist white supremacist's the reality is they are a small minority that has banded onto the right given their conservative views on certain items. The right needs to do a better job of making it known that they are not welcome but things like this really don't help them in doing just that. I know the guy with the buffalo headdress has a Valknut tattoo prominently tattooed on his chest so I think it's pretty safe to assume he is a white supremacist's. So to me it looks like a small band of white supremacist's organized to incite the mob into action. People should really be aware of who they are throwing their lot in with.
It takes me back to when I read the Unabomber manifesto online as a teenager when it was first printed. I largely rejected it, but there was this part of me that resonated with the emotional appeal to a simple world with simple ideals and a connection to nature. I knew enough to realize that this was a fantasy, but it's an appealing fantasy that also finds expression in the popularity of comic books, pseudo-medieval fantasy epics, and other forms of escapist fiction.
I think what it boils down to is that we are not neurologically wired for abundance, huge scale societies, or the types of labor that pay the best in the modern world. We're not built to sit in front of screens and solve puzzles all day, and without something to struggle against parts of our emotional nature seem to go haywire. I've speculated that the immense paranoia and prevalence of all kinds of neuroses might be an emotional analogue to the hygiene hypothesis for allergies. Without real traumas and existential struggles, our emotional system starts attaching the coping mechanisms that exists for these things to other more mundane aspects of existence like politics and relationships.
David Skirbina addresses this is his forward to Technological Slavery[0]. Ted isn't a PhD student doing research; the lack of originality to his arguments is a feature, not a bug.
[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/45035203-technologica...
Kaczynski has also continued to write while in prison and his work is thought-provoking notwithstanding the paradoxes involved (eg how technology has facilitated the spread of his anti-technological ideas). His views don't fit neatly into any political category.
I mean, I can understand the appeal, but it's sort of ironic that those fantasies are exchanged and amplified using the most unnatural and complex technology we have at our disposal.
I wonder if this is less a longing for "simpler times" than a longing for a society in which one has more power.
> Without real traumas and existential struggles, our emotional system starts attaching the coping mechanisms that exists for these things to other more mundane aspects of existence like politics and relationships.
This sounds a lot like the old nazi argument for "perpetual war": Without war, men will grow weak and complacent and society will become fragile, therefore war must never end.
I think this sort of reasoning can be easily be cured by talking with an actual veteran.
I always thought it was more about control and self determination rather than power for most, something many here running linux and avoiding cloud services can naturally sympathize with. It's a very old urge with even the aristocrats of ancient Rome had similar notions, farming and getting your hands dirty was held in high esteem for instance. We also see it in Tolkiens writing about hobbits who loved farming and never craved power. It's the sort of theme that seems to be a constant desire throughout history.
One of the recipients of the bitcoins is Luke Smith, I don't agree with his politics but from watching his youtube he seems to practice the self sufficiency he preaches to an extent, from growing his own food to running linux. He's a bit like Kaczynski but spends more time on his vim configuration than mail bombs.
> but it's sort of ironic that those fantasies are exchanged and amplified using the most unnatural and complex technology we have at our disposal.
I think in the long run technology will become sufficiently advanced to solve this paradox, anyone that desires to will be able to become fully self sufficient, we'll fire up our 3D printers to make a pencil instead of relying on the global supply chains we do now. It's either that or our psyche has to adapt to being colony animals, but after 2000 years we don't seem to be getting much closer to that.
While probably unintentional, this sounds very similar to the practice of making high sulfur "pig iron" very inefficiently in backyard furnaces during the Great Leap Forward.
It would be the height of irony if these far-right, hyper-libertarian types took their ideology to the extremities where it begins to resemble Mao or Pol Pot's ideas about autarky.
however as institutions dip their toes deeper into the open embrace of superficial intersectionality and antiracism, it should come as a surprise to no one that retrograde ideas about white identity begin to viscously resurface with greater frequency. my personal opinion is that it is a very bad time to repeat the economic mistakes of obama with an added veneer of identity justice. optimism makes me want to believe that good governance can heal our country, but more realistically, good governance is the one thing we truly do not make in america anymore.
"This time it will be different."
There are also various explanations of how and why the Holodomor just "happened", and it had nothing to do with communism/socialism/USSR/Stalin, or it was Nazi propaganda, etc. ( https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/izcxbk/i_saw_... - with reputable sources such as sputniknews :| )
Though my favorite is the "Capitalism kills a lot more people" """"infographics"""". ( https://twitter.com/HasBezosDecided/status/12608739086995087... )
Yes, we have many people doing horrible things all over the world, but people being vile because their ancestors had less sun than others is a special kind of pointless stupidity.
“Melanin endows blacks with greater mental, physical, and spiritual abilities — something which cannot be measured by Eurocentric standards.”
This is just one quote from her letter, which goes on at length about black superiority.
I think the problem we have right now is we have two sets of standards. People that have been reintroducing racist concepts into government, academia and the media shouldn’t be surprised when there is a similarly racist backlash.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1994/11/4/clarke-should-r...
> “It was meant to express an equally absurd point of view — fighting one ridiculous absurd racist theory with another ridiculous absurd theory,” Clarke explained, “and the goal was all about [exposing] the ugly racist underpinnings of the Bell Curve theory. It was deeply personal and profoundly important to Black students and other students of color who felt that their right to be on campus was challenged. And frankly, the fight that we were leading as students is a fight that I am still very much a part of today.”
https://forward.com/news/national/462089/bidens-deputy-ag-pi...
The full letter certainly seems consistent with that: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1994/10/28/blacks-seek-an...
Would you accept this statement from a white supremacist?
Again, we need consistent rules against racism. Otherwise you're opening the door to racists and extremists on both sides.
From your own link: Later, in an interview with The Crimson, Clarke suggested that "The information [contained in the letter] is not necessarily something we believe, but some information that we think those pursuing a true understanding of The Bell Curve theory should either address, ignore or refute."
So it's false to say she is only addressing the matter now; she responded to questions about it at the time.
While claiming to have been unable to detect any irony in the letter co-authored by Clarke, the Crimson editorial is pseudo-objective at best, and at worst comes off as an example of insincere concern trolling.
Does this sound ok to your ears? If this was a white supremacist, we would all correctly be shouting about how it's a dog whistle and not an acceptable response.
I wish more people would read 'How to Be an Antiracist.' I believe he's absolute right in that the only way forward is to call out racist beliefs from everyone, not selectively. Selectively excusing racist beliefs from "our side" will only open the door to more racism.
“We” is not the same as “I”. She was speaking on behalf of a group, and a group which may not have even discussed their actual beliefs on the truth of the “theories and observations” presented, as that was not the purpose for which they were (explicitly, in the letters own terms) presented.
OMG! You're right! And Terry Pratchett went to his grave prostylizing a flat earth model because he never officially made a statement that his satirical novels were just that - satirical.
The record is set straight in the first sentence of the letter, which explains the intended role of the things presented : In response to those who defend The Bell Curve (“Defending The Bell Curve,” Opinion, Oct. 24, 1994), please use the following theories and observations to assist you in your search for truth regarding the genetic differences between Blacks and whites.
Disgusted sure, I am with you on that.
But "can still exist?" With the number of stories just on HN about social media dark patterns and recommendation engine rabbit-holes?
It's difficult to understand that as anything other than puffery.
Racism is more crazy religion than ideology.
That's all this really is. The economy has moved forwards. People either moved to cities and upskilled (hence the hate for a mysterious metropolitan "elite") or they sat in rust belt towns complaining their disability cheque is late again and worrying someone poorer than them might get the money instead.
That's Trumps whole platform really. That's where the racism fits in. That is all the bs about draining swamps and elites. That's "make America great again". That's rolling back climate change rules (even the tiny ones the US actually has). Bolt on anti-abortion single issue voters and tax cuts for trillionaires to keep the senate on side.
This whole thing is what happens when you have 25 years of social and economic progress and people get left behind and refuse to make any effort to catch up...
Trumps base was/is made up of majority poor white rural Americans, with a coalition of racists and extremists bolted on. What's crucial in that is the majority are just poor white townspeople.
They lost their jobs because overseas laborers are willing to do the same work for less; because consumers don't care if the latest iPhone is made in Cali or in some Chinese interment camp. Same thing for coal and oil jobs. The world changed and these are the people who lost their livelihoods for it. I've been watching American politics my whole life, and Trump was the first politician I saw to truly acknowledge that there is a large portion of the population that are suffering economically for things out of their control and told them it wasn't their fault.
Leaving aside fault for the moment...
The jobs are gone. So we have a few options:
* people can do what I said, retrain, maybe move, do something else
* people can do nothing and get benefits to sit there doing nothing.
I don't think there is a third option, but let me know if I'm missing something?
The issue is, 80% of people refuse to the first one. They sit in rust belt towns and die deaths of despair.
So what do we do?
Trumps solution, which they have chosen, is nothing. We do nothing. No healthcare for them, no improved benefits, no retraining.
Since they chose that, I could live with it. But I don't want to be tied to them and live with the rest of the shitty things trump wants to do.
I'm more than happy to hear a solution here. I've tried not to blame anyone. I honestly believe that it wasn't their fault the coal mine (etc) closed. I just don't see an option beyond waiting for them to die before we can progress economically or socially.
And that's not really acceptable to me. I'm gay, and I don't think I should be forced to be a second class citizen just because other people are bitter about their life and voted for a Fuck Everyone candidate. I'm sure there are women who will want reproductive health rights that feel the same way. I'm sympathetic, I came from just suck a place. But there does come a point where I feel like saying "you're not dragging me down with you".
Full disclosure: I'm actually a brit. But we have the exact same thing happening here. Only its Boris Johnson and Brexit (which will last much longer than trumpism).
I hope you can understand where I'm coming from.
There's a reason for that [1]
https://twitter.com/always_margot/status/1346578062700400647
For reference, the famous quote that is VERY similar is "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children". Notice the missing "white" from rchauds quote.
Again, not sure if on purpose, or who butchered it, but it might not mean what you think it does.
Stupidier things have happened in the past. I bet more than half of HN wouldn't know that quote if you removed the "white" part, so not so unlikely that someone who doesn't know it, sends it to others as the sentiment (without the "white" part) is actually pretty good.
The donor here is not comparable to typical HN users. They've gone out of their way to make a large donation to known white supremacists.
Also, if you read the donor's suicide note (in the article), there is a reference to the Weimar Republic and there is a holocaust denier code phrase. (I won't encourage its spread by copying it here, but it's in one of the highlighted sections.)