Koo, India’s free-speech Twitter alternative
restofworld.org
restofworld.org
The diversity of opinions on mainstream platforms is starting to resemble being in an airport where you have the choice of mcdonald's, wendy's, burger king, or taco bell if you are looking for something exotic. Sure, it appeals to everyone, except it appeals to their vices and when they don't have better choices. As soon as people can afford better, they switch. From an economics perspective, the mainstream US platforms are an "inferior good." The last 10 years of social media has been a real time spectacle of intellectual mean reversion.
I'm cheering Koo on anyway. They're going after the regional desires of hundreds of millions of people who have a country in common. The bar to creating services like this is really low, and there are so many other huge countries to serve.
twitter openly supported these trolls:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEuB_2KzobY
and twitter also supported urban naxal terrorists who are funded by china.
In fact, Urban youth are specifically targeted to spread the communist teachings of Mao Zedong.
They fund themselves through the Drug Trade, and 40% of funding for the Naxals comes through cultivation and distribution of drugs.
Every sentence in this is inaccurate.
Naxals are the followers of Mao, no doubt. But urban communits in general don't think highly of Mao at all. They only think of protesting and disobedience . They may have some overlapping causes.
Calling all communists as naxals is lazy and sloppy thinking.
Naxalites are a mix of goons and insurgents who loosely care about communist beliefs. They used to be most prevalent in lawless and hinterland areas,nowadays their influence is a lot less.
Source :- Briefly dated a communist.
Don't care about communism. But believe that if it has to be opposed,understand it.
But the fact is the term urban naxals is a meaningless pjeroative used against those who hold opinions different from the current Indian government.
It is even used against those who don't believe in communism at all.
The Naxal movement may indeed have the characteristics that you mentioned, but you have a long way to go before establishing any links between them and dissidents who simply disagree with the current powers-that-be.
I really don't think most people are shopping for "other" ideas, and they're not concerned with free speech... just hearing their own ideas echoed back. Free speech for most folks only comes up when they don't hear an echo, or even just enough of an echo.
The level of tolerance for even just hearing other ideas seems ultra low these days.
That is the bargain of politics: "give us power and we will tell what to think". For such people, Twitter is entirely sufficient. The design of twitter as a textual broadcasting platform is ideal for a unidirectional transmit/receive of ideas.
I say this from a realpolitik perspective. This was clearly the obvious outcome.
I’m really not a Trump fan and find most of the “conservative” media hilariously amateurish, but if you don’t see the obvious bias Silicon Valley has, I’m afraid you’re not paying close enough attention.
From the perspective of a foreign government, why let them control information in your country? As I said, it makes no sense for them to do so.
"restricting the speech of the president of America, clearly they’ll have no issue manipulating other governments."
Even if they did cite his speech as a reason, looking at it as a single event is sort of missing the point. They engaged in similar behavior for years beforehand.
> The policy on “hacked” materials is a good example that was selectively applied only against one side.
On the side that pushes fake news, yes. That's a good bias to have.
As I said, if you think one side is somehow unbiased and just, you aren’t paying attention.
So to summarize, Trump delivers a speech, he explicitly calls for a peaceful protest (visible in transcripts), and a very very small number of people break the law. That doesn't sound like incitement - it sounds to me like a few individuals made bad decisions and hold personal responsibility for their own actions and should be held accountable. But no court has found Trump guilty of incitement, and I bet none ever will - the evidence is simply not there.
As for Twitter - their power and influence is larger than most governments, and they should not be making unilateral decisions judging incitement and instituting bans of public figures. They operate the new public town square - and they need to be regulated like a public entity. or just nationalized like a utility and required to uphold the first amendment. And other leaders like Macron (https://www.axios.com/macron-social-media-bans-trump-twitter...) and Merkel (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/germanys-merkel-hits-out-at-...) are absolutely correct to be alarmed at the reckless actions and immense power of American tech giants, who are ideologically very biased.
You're asking everyone who watched the capitol riots to ignore what they saw with their own eyes.
I think taking quotes out of context does not present things as they actually happened or provide a fair analysis. We have to be careful of cherry-picking.
Here's the full context: “fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” ... “We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we’ve been forced to believe over the past several weeks.”
Per legal scholars, like Jonathan Turley,[1], "those words could be equally consistent with calling for a protest, not violence, as many groups routinely do at state and federal capitals." which explains why the legal system has not been able to convict Trump.
People seem to have varying opinions on this topic, but at the end of the day if you look at the facts, it becomes much simpler to understand.
[1] https://jonathanturley.org/2021/02/11/reckless-rhetoric-is-a...
Also, consider that Democrats frequently use the same rhetoric when they are talking to their own audiences as well. The Trump defense team showed a 9 minute clip of Democrats using the word "fight" in the recent impeachment proceedings (https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-impeachment-defense-team-sh...).
If you're a foreign government you do not want some committee of Bay Area Twitter employees deciding that for your national affairs.
> how do you define hate speech
Ira Glasser explains it precisely: "When people say they want to ban hate speech, what they mean is they want to ban speech that they hate ... But if you allowed something called ‘hate speech’ to be banned, then the only important question would be ‘who decides? ... If the government is going to be the one to decide what hate speech to ban, it’s not going to be the same speech as the speech you hate, it’s going to be the speech they hate, ... It all ends up coming down to who decides and most often, it ain’t you' https://reclaimthenet.org/former-aclu-head-ira-glasser-expla...
> and what counts as inciting violence?
This is better explained by the legal scholar Jonathan Turley,
"The reason is that while the crime is not clear, the case law is. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that even calling for violence is protected under the First Amendment unless there is a threat of “imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
Trump never called for violence and instead told his followers to go to the Capitol peacefully to “cheer” on those challenging the electoral votes. Such protests at capitals are common and, while reckless, Trump’s speech could as easily be interpreted as a call for protest rather than violence."
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/02/19/want-to-prosecute-trum...
By stating again and again that the election was stolen what, exactly, was Trump wanting his followers to do about it? What, exactly, did he want for the people marching on the Capitol to do to stop the election from being stolen? Stand outside? Come on...
Interesting, but what I don't understand is ... if Trump clearly incited violence, why was he not convicted? Would you say that the American justice system is not fair?
*edit: responding to comment from zimmerman below,
I watched the full trial, but have not seen any clear arguments made in favor of proving incitement. The legal scholar Jonathan Turley explains it better:
"The reason is that while the crime is not clear, the case law is. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that even calling for violence is protected under the First Amendment unless there is a threat of “imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
Trump never called for violence and instead told his followers to go to the Capitol peacefully to “cheer” on those challenging the electoral votes. Such protests at capitals are common and, while reckless, Trump’s speech could as easily be interpreted as a call for protest rather than violence."
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/02/19/want-to-prosecute-trum...
*edit: Here's an informative video on House managers presenting fake evidence (as foolinaround explains below) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW3I3wXrBoo
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-yes-mccon...
Which, if you paid attention to the trial was extremely well reported, so either you genuinely didn't pay attention at all or you're trying to imply anyone in Congress seriously believed he wasn't culpable.
So to answer your question simply, he wasn't convicted because it wasn't politically expedient to the rest of his political party.
If the impeachment managers did this stuff (fake the evidence such as videos, tweets, etc) in a real court, they would face serious consequences.
The Chief Justice recognized it as a sham and did not participate, and one does not need to like Trump to know what this second round was.
The first one was atleast done by the book...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Everyone is biased, so it would be far more productive to just refute the central point, which in the case of mrzimmerman's comments on this thread (as you may realize) is rather straightforward[1] to do.
http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
[1] For example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26198380
We all have biases, and yes, it is obvious without me alluding to it.
I have stated the facts that counter zimmerman's note
If it is not clear enough to stand prosecution, then it is not 'hate speech' really. There needs to be clear-cut definitions and enforced uniformly.
Twitter has lost that trust, and now raises alarmms across the world.
With a ToS you can make it up as you like. Speaking against having pets could be hate speech against pet owners. I mean it could mean whatever the mods want it to mean. You can circumscribe it to only affect people you want affected for whatever reason.
To be fair, Congress could, on a whim, change the definitions of hate speech whenever they felt like it. If you're arguing about selective enforcement with TOS, the police already selectively enforce laws. Hate speech would just be another one they could use against people they don't like, while ignoring those they do. There's no good solution.
That said, things like speed limits for example. We all on principle agree to this type of enforcement. One via the licensing and second via legislation. We could make changes if we thought it important enough.
Look at prop 47. People erroneously thought we were prosecuting too many minor thefts. So the law was changed. Now many people are looking to reverse it given the unintended consequences. Point is, at least we can affect legislation directly. Not so with ToSes unless Congress takes up the issue -which so far they are loath to do.
In the US, the legislature cannot unilaterally create rules that outlaw certain speech (unless that speech falls outside of the guarantees of the US Constitution). Also, there's no current definition of 'hate speech' in federal law.
I don’t know the solution. Trump could post his 280 characters on whitehouse.gov to his heart’s content. But in comparison to Twitter with millions of followers it’s like talking to an empty room. You’d expect that those millions of followers would still be interested in his 280 characters if they’re not on Twitter, but there’s no frictionless broadcasting. Unlike RSS, every voice is plugged into a monolithic service that can rank and silence stories as it sees fit.
This never did make sense to me. Trump's speech was not curtailed. At any point in time he could issue a press conference and speak freely to the US, and it would be heavily attended by the press. Are we supposed to feel sorry for Trump that he decided to make twitter.com the _only_ way he communicated with the country?
There was literally nothing stopping him from speaking to the country after his account was banned; he _chose_ to stop talking.
>The country’s capital city has seen over four months of protest after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government enacted agricultural laws that would adversely affect farmers across India.
However, from speaking to people and watching interviews where people discuss *the actual bill itself*, the only answer I ever hear is something along the lines of, "this bill *could potentially* lead to things that are bad."
I'm asking from a place of good-faith here, but what separates claims that the farm bill is bad from blatant fear-mongering?
My personal thought is lack of education, lack of raising awareness.
Farming and selling produce directly at a physical market is straight forward.
Commodity trading, futures, buyer-seller agents are all complex for poor subsistence farmers with a few acres of land each.
The same thing that separates claims that the farm bill is good based on the blatant propaganda of those in power.
If by your answer you mean something else, why didn't you just say so instead of being so cryptic?
The Current government failed to introduce these laws in an amicable manner and their ego won't let the farmers have any other way.
[1] https://seenunseen.in/episodes/2021/2/7/episode-211-the-trag...
Current yields of Indian crops aren't stagnant, but there are fears that water levels are too low to keep them rising fast enough for the coming rise in demand.So too much land on water consuming paddy crops may be bad in long run. Bill tries to push towards diversification by introducing agri markets that may raise investment in nontraditional crops.
http://amp.scroll.in/article/821052/punjab-is-set-for-record...
Fear is also that this will hit farmers in state of Punjab and Northern UP the most. They rely on a system of guaranteed crop buying by government. Moving to market model may lead to changes that proponents say will raise their income but they believe it will lead to corporations eating away the profits.
Having said that, I think the new laws are good for India. These are the arguments I have heard in favor of the new laws:
One of the main arguments against the farm bills is that it will remove the minimum support price (MSP) guarantee which the government gives the farmers, and will put them at the mercy of corporations. India introduced the current MSP related system back in 1960 to inspire farmers to grow some crops when India had a huge shortage of food grains, and was importing grains directly from US (referred to as 'ship to mouth'). That is not the case now. India actually has a surplus of those grains.
Also, MSP covers only 23 crops produced in India. For example, onion prices dropped to insanely low prices last 2 years. There is no MSP for them.
Also, the MSP cover is available only in certain states, which puts other states at a disadvantage. To make things complicated, there is a law that guarantees certain grains at low price for the poor. For example, the law guarantees rice at 3 rupees to the poor. Govt has to buy the rice from the farmers because of the MSP system (say at Rs 20), and then in turn sell them to the poor at Rs.3 in a state which doesn't have MSP, thus putting the farmers in the non MSP states at a huge disadvantage.
Another reason is that farmers are producing huge amounts of MSP crops such as wheat because the price is guaranteed, while ignoring other crops that India has to heavily import (such as pulses and oil seeds). The govt has to purchase the MSP grains no matter what, and the godowns have way more in stock than India could distribute (almost double or more last year).
Also, some of these MSP crops like rice require lot of water for cultivation, and considering the shortage of water in most places in India, govt wants to reduce the farming of such crops.
I got most of these info from this video (I believe this channel is neither right wing or left wing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9hSADKW3Cc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_support_price_(India...
MSP means minimum support price. Its a guarantee from the government to the farmers that the government will buy the crop at a certain minimum price no matter the market situation is. For example, MSP for 1 kg rice may be rupees 20. If the farmers can get a higher price in the market, they can sell it at that price. But if the market price fell for some reason (over production for example), government will buy it from the farmers for rupees 20. This guarantees that the farmers will not be at a lose.
MSP made sense when India had issues with rice and wheat (the video I linked talks about its origins in India at 5:00). Since MSP is guaranteed for some crops (such as rice and wheat) and not for others (such as pulses which India has to import), farmers would naturally make more of the MSP grains.
Also, do note that the farm bills doesn't remove MSP as far as I understand. One scenario farmers argue is this: Farmers get MSP when they sell in government run markets. Now, with the new system, farmers will get more money since they would be selling directly to the companies without any middlemen. If I understood correctly, the new system removes middle men (whom I have heard makes huge profit while paying very less to the farmers). Once the farmers starts selling directly since direct sale gets them more money, no one would go to the government markets any more. So, after a couple of years, government will close those markets since they are not in use. Now, corporations will start offering lower prices to farmers, and farmers will have no place to go. This is one argument I have heard of what could go wrong. But seeing all these protests, I have been thinking why can't farmers dictate the price if they have this much bargaining power.
> why can't farmers dictate the price if they have this much bargaining power.
They have political bargaining power, but don't have much bargaining power in the market. This is because most crops are perishable goods. Even with crops like rice (which can be stored by the farmers for an extended period), farmers can't afford to hold on to the goods for long... they need cash to survive.
This is very a important point. Most farmers who are protesting are from the province of Punjab . However, their choice of crops and farming methods is leading to depletion of undergroup water and not sustainable in the long run.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/paddy-tu...
Also, historically speaking -- Punjab farmers never grew rice as paddy cultivation uses a lot of water. Thanks to government subsidies, Punjab is now a prolific producer of rice and this has had a major impact on water table.
This is according to an interview with an agricultural economist regarding the issues in Punjab. See timestamped note below at 10:31 where he talks about this. Its in Hindi. Given below are the main points that caught my attention, time stamped in case any one wants to check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZGUBIdT6PM
Edit: Full interview available here as text: https://theprint.in/india/governance/save-punjab-from-desert...
___
If the current system of mono culture (paddy/wheat) continues, the land of 5 rivers (Punjab) will face desertification in 20-30 years, says one of the most prominent agriculture economists in India Sardara Singh Johl.
[5:55] Our current food grain production is 3 times that of the optimum buffer stock norms. Disposing of these stocks is a problem, as due to MSP, our crop is more expensive than international crops. The central government has to dispose of the stocks internationally, sometimes even lower than the public distribution price of Rs. 2-3 per kg. But that too is rejected on the ground of high chemical content in crops. We have moved from a problem of deficit to a problem of surplus.
[7:11] Land holding per farmer has decreased to a very small unit per person. This made agriculture non profitable. Farmers resort to borrowing money at higher interest from money lenders which in turn pulls them down further.
[10:31] What led to paddy/wheat mono-culture?
MSP and free electricity made paddy/wheat the most profitable. Even though there is MSP on other crops such as maize, pulses, and oil-seed, government doesn't procure them as much compared to paddy/wheat. Govt procures only paddy/wheat plus a little cotton.
[12:20] The MSP system has led to a cropping pattern out of sync with the consumption pattern. Other food grain production has crashed, as has fruit and milk production.
[12:55] The biggest problem in Punjab is the fall in water level, and its pollution because of the use of fertilizers. Punjab has the highest use of fertilizer per unit of land in the country, and the water table is decreasing 25-30 cm every year. With the Bhakra Dam, a lot of water was diverted to Delhi & Haryana. Punjab's allocation fulfills just 20% of its agricultural needs, so ground water accounts for the rest. With increasing urbanization, rainwater is not absorbed into the ground as everything is concrete now. Water that is absorbed from farmlands is high in pesticides & fertilizers, polluting the ground water. Nowadays, drinking water in Punjab can only be found at 350-500 feet with a deep tube-well. In 2 or 3 decades, groundwater for drinking might not be available. Punjab will become a desert if this continues.
[22:20] Solution to Punjab's crisis.
Economic diversification of crops is necessary. I've given 2 reports, in 1986 and 2002, proposing to maintain the water balance of Punjab. In 2002, 16 of my fellow committee members proposed to bring at least 10-15 lakh (1-1.5 million) hectares of land out from under paddy cultivation. Compensate farmers for growing other crops. How do we compensate? At that time, India imported Rs. 14000 crore worth of oil-seeds and pulses. We proposed utilizing Rs 1600 crore for compensating farmers for growing pulses and oil-seeds on 10 lakh hectares of land. Unfortunately, the plan didn't fully materialize.
[27:20] Now, the govt can give Rs 10000 per hectare to farmers to encourage the diversification of crops. MSP & procurement should be provided to other crops such as maize, cotton, oil-seed and pulses. Move the cultivation of wheat and paddy out to 50 lakh hectares of land in the Gangetic plains of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.
[28:00] Future of subsidies
No farm sector in the world can survive without subsidy. USA, Japan and European countries provide billions of dollars to their farmers. They get subsidy even with farms as big as 1000-1500 acres. But Punjab's free electricity subsidy is wrong; its misused. Farmers will not do this if they are made to pay for it, and will lead to judicious use of water. Subsidize the small farmers in other ways (in a way recommended by WTO).
[Then they talk about contract farming part of the new farm bill. I skipped that.]
The jury is out on whether it provides any benefits at all to the average farmer who hardly has any land to start with.
also, the govt is seen as too cosy with business interests, and there is fears of a transfer of wealth to these corporates.
India had a power transfer from the British to the elite who used to work for the British as intermediaries.
India has mostly been and is still dominated by these elites in most sectors outside of the free markets.
They are worried about Modi taking away all these privileges that they have enjoyed for 70 years.
So all these elements are ganged up against the BJP and Modi.
https://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/atul-...
> Some farmers worry whether the reforms might lead to the end of wholesale markets and guaranteed prices.
> Farmers might go from the local monopsonies of the APMCs to the national oligopoly of Amazon-like behemoths.
This is a funny turn of phrase given that it sounds like a lot of people are leaving twitter for Koo because twitter isn't doing enough banning to suit them.
Recent banning of Trump, Parler and Australian news from Facebook invigorated their drive.
>What we are seeing is that India wants to be more self-reliant. India includes everybody. Our app doesn’t understand “left” or “right.” I don’t understand “left” or “right.” I’m an entrepreneur; I’m extremely apolitical. And I’m all for the development of the country. If Koo as a statement can make us self-reliant on our own social networks and technology, then we should be cheering for it. We shouldn’t unnecessarily politicize it.
That could happen with this site too. A site's culture is determined by a complicated combination of engineering decisions, moderation decisions, and the behavior of its users.
Even Macron is angry about Twitter - https://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-macron-calls-for-regula...
Secondly, alternatives are good. Isn't that a free market thing? why should twitter be the only place - social network? As a food for thought - How do you feel if we start calling GOP as Christian Nationalists ?
so, Koo will be patronized orimarily by the followers of the ruling party, and will be seen as such, even if it was not his intent.
But perhaps having being black-and-white democratically enacted rules (such as they are) is better than having opaque rules set by unelected San Francisco employees.
So what is defamation defined as then? Offense?
as long as this is not the only app one can use in India, etc, this is fine.
Creating siloed media platforms that lets such ideas fester and grow is probably the worst thing that can happen.
The thing is that even gently challenging these ideas (with some folks I know back home) leads to an aggressive defence strategy that is pretty much focused on some variation of nonsense arguments rooted in 'talking points' being pushed by nationalists that aren't rooted in any fact.
Some variations I've experienced: it's foreigners trying to stir the pot, farmer protests have nothing to do with farmers but it's to do with destroy India's unity by fringe groups, etc. On Greta/other celebrities shining light on farmer protests: they're being paid money by third parties to meddle in local politics, etc.
Other scary things I've seen are pretty much labelling anyone that disagrees with you as the other (this includes the opposition party Indian National Congress, etc.) and instead of listening to valid points being brought up, there's this Meme-fication of the person/party that's worse than trolling and borders on attacking every trivial detail from the person's life.
1. The refugee crisis that Germany brought in not only on itself but on the rest of the EU.
2. The same Germany has recently spearheaded a trade deal with the devil.
Germany used nationalism for the wrong reasons (short term gain and long term pain)
Social media can whip people into a frenzy and create a tyranny worse than what the government can do because there is virtually no accountability. The court of public opinion doesn't let you appeal your sentence.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationalism
> loyalty and devotion to a nation especially : a sense of national consciousness (see CONSCIOUSNESS sense 1c) exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups
Nationalism is an idea and movement that promotes the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people),[1] especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's sovereignty (self-governance) over its homeland. Nationalism holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity[2] and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power (popular sovereignty).[1][3] It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on shared social characteristics of culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics (or the government), religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history,[4][5] and to promote national unity or solidarity.[1] Nationalism seeks to preserve and foster a nation's traditional cultures and cultural revivals have been associated with nationalist movements.[6] It also encourages pride in national achievements and is closely linked to patriotism.[7][8][page needed] Nationalism is often combined with other ideologies such as conservatism (national conservatism) or socialism (left-wing nationalism).[2]
India without Indian Nationalism is Syria on Steroids.. You do not want to go there.
At the time, ruling over different culture and languages was a sign of power. Chandragupta's empire included Bengali and people from Deccan, and i think it extended beyond the hindus (Sorry if it the the english term, i'm not fluent enough to read history books in english). I would be VERY surprised if any of those considered themselves as Indian before anything else.
The states that brought Germany down in both world wars were just as nationalistic at the time. Even the commies brought it back when they needed it the most - and it worked.
Also, since the country in question here is India - without nationalism, they would still be a colony.
Interesting times.
The problem is that the BJP is advancing a conception of Indian National Identity that flattens distinctions and is predicated on a caricature of Indian minorities. Hindutva sees Muslims, Christians and others as second-class citizens -- it is a nationalism that comes at the expense of diversity, and sometimes at the expense of the safety of Indian minority communities, free expression & speech, and democratic norms.
Creating an identity from a subcontinent filled with dozens (if not thousands) of languages and ethnic groups is an immense challenge, but the project of Hindutva is an unbelievably blunt attempt to resolve this tension.
I should add that I am an Indian American, and a St. Thomas Christian from Kerala. My community is ancient, thoroughly Indian, and yet is an affront to Indian Nationalism as conceived by the Hindu Nationalist right.
I am surprised to even hear Thomasites who are one of the socio-econmic mores facing persecution in a state where BJP has no footprint.
Perhaps you are surprised because he didn't say that!
Being a "Christian" is about actually accepting the bible, the first words that people hear from god is to kill the non-believers and idolators.
I understand where you are coming from, but I am fairly certain 99% of the Hindutva groups would be fine as long as you do not hold such extreme views.
So what is your take on the aggressive evangelism (mostly American) going on in India.
And what do you think of the RSS definition of Hindu which includes all Christians & Muslims who consider India their cultural source.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/how-fasc...
My take away was fascists gain compliance by nationalism above anything including basic human rights.
You have to also keep in mind, when you're asking for nationalism to take the form of unification, to Hindus in India that sounds like asking victims to accommodate their oppressors, given hundreds of years of invasions and brutal occupation of India by Islamic powers and then Western colonial powers. The push from Western actors like America to push for a secular India is equivalent to saying "indigenous people in America need to make way for the occupiers that perpetrated their genocide".
Meaning you believe gay people need to be stoned to death and still be gay? Or is it the other way round.
Even in this case the comparison is unfair considering that Hindu children can be killed or kidnapped and married to an old muslim man just because they are non-muslim.
Arguably, the things that have kept those exclusionary narratives somewhat at bay in the last half century have been
(1) the memories of the previouos horrors committed in the name of nationalism (though they are fading)
(2) advances in common welfare after WWII due to the the combination of industrial/technological advances and the government policies.
For example, would we have had the civil rights movement in the US if the standard of living for many white Americans didn't dramatically increase in the decades just prior? Hard to say for sure, but I doubt it. This is why growing inequality is so dangerous - it makes people less amenable to "healthy" nationalism and far more susceptible to "unhealthy" kinds.
Unfortunately, in 2021, we've lost that collective nationalism, and I'm not sure we're better off for it.
A somewhat exclusionary tribe that extends across an entire diverse country? Not likely. The only thing more tribalism will do is strengthen the existing stark tribal groups we have (which are primarily racial, religious, and class).
> In the United States, we venerate the Constitution. We have a pantheon that includes founding fathers, Neil Armstrong, MLK, etc.
As important those famous figures are, you (correctly) describe it as a pantheon, AKA the idolization of these individuals more for their surface appearance than what they represent. The amount of lip service paid to MLK in particular is astounding, especially by politicians who actively undermine his movement for racial and economic justice.
I agree that having such a pantheon is part of a national identity, but at best it is set of symbols that matter only because of an underlying broadly shared sense of economic well being.
> We have shared objects of derision, such as French “surrender monkeys.”
I think this is the example you are presenting as "exclusionary", but I'm not sure what makes it redeeming as a basis of national identity, nor is it as widely shared an object derision as you suggest.
Worked fine for most of the US history.
I half agree with you, but I think it's the side of the aisle you're probably not talking about that's paying "lip service".
MLK's entire philosophy was peaceful civil disobedience as contrasted with Malcolm X's approach of radicalism ("So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise"). Today, I'm afraid that we've lost sight of MLK's philosophy and have decided to try Malcolm X's approach to solving our social problems. Time will tell if that was a wise choice.
It's also not clear if MLK ever believed in enforced equality of outcomes (as opposed to just equality of opportunities). In some circles today, not judging people "by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character" and not believing in strictly equal outcomes is insufficiently anti-racist.
"Equality of outcome" is a popular straw man for many who take the highly incredulous position that equality of opportunity exists today.
Simply ending the use of rhetorical racism would do little to remove structural racism that gives rise to the inequality of opportunity that persists.
I think this is itself a straw man, because it ascribes onto any criticism of “equality of outcome” approaches to problem-solving the underlying conception that “equality of opportunity” already exists in the most perfect form. The most good-faith argument against the current rhetoric around racial issues is the following: we have neither equality of outcomes nor equality of opportunities, but the solutions we’re uncompromisingly implementing are the wrong ones because they focus on attaining equality of outcomes rather than attaining equality of opportunities. That’s the steel-man, engage with that.
> Simply ending the use of rhetorical racism would do little to remove structural racism that gives rise to the inequality of opportunity that persists.
You’ll find that a lot of people agree that there exists structural racism (the extent is debatable). Where the disagreement lies is on what the solutions should be. Leaving aside whether this stuff is correct on the merits, when hyper-activists amplify a “my way or the highway” approach to solving these problems, they aren’t just drawing attention to the problems, they’re prescribing a particular solution.
Taking several steps back, we’ve found ourselves to be litigating yet again whether it was MLK or Malcolm X that had the right idea about how to combat the very real evils of racism. The point that I’m making is that the political side that’s allegedly the most devoted to rooting out racism has taken ironically the most racialized and segregationist approach to solving those problems — an approach that MLK steadfastly opposed. MLK is a part of the aforementioned American pantheon precisely because his rhetoric was the one that was not only effective, but also had the broadest support. We need more MLK’s today, but unfortunately we have too many Malcolm X’s.
This argument, whenever it shows up, is usually a thinly veiled attack on affirmative action, which is aimed increasing the equality of opportunity - university education being far more an opportunity than an outcome.
The thrust of current civil rights efforts: ending disproportionate police violence against POC, bolstering public education in poor neighborhoods, healthcare as a right, these are all about the equality of opportunity.
First of all, I’m not sure it’s “thinly veiled”; being opposed to affirmative action is a legitimate position with its own set of arguments. The confidence with which you declare your opinion about affirmative action as though it is some settled fact makes discussing these issues extremely difficult. Ultimately, you’re entitled to your opinions, but they’re still opinions.
“University education being an opportunity than an outcome” is extremely debatable. Is your first job out of college also an opportunity rather than an outcome? Where we draw the line is something society needs to litigate, and it’s by no means a settled issue. For example, one might argue that while attending university is an opportunity that everyone ought to have, attending Harvard University (or other selective institutions) isn’t. The reality is that adolescents are rewarded for their academic achievements by being accepted to prestigious institutions (and yes “legacy admissions” are anathema to this); that can be considered an outcome rather than some random opportunity. In fact, you lose all of the nuances, edge cases, and asterisks associated with the messiness of reality when you make blithe declarations like “university education is an opportunity not an outcome”. It’s like lossy compression; we lose information and the discourse is worse off for it.
> The thrust of current civil rights efforts: ending disproportionate police violence against POC, bolstering public education in poor neighborhoods, healthcare as a right, these are all about the equality of opportunity.
Sure, and in any grab-bag of policy positions, you’re bound to find positions that most of society would agree fall under the “equality of opportunity” bucket. There are disagreements as to how best to achieve all of those things, but by and large most people agree that “everyone having access to better education” is the goal or “everyone having access to better and cheap healthcare” as a goal. If you’ll notice, I never said “public education” or “x is a right” because those declarations start to become more prescriptive as to what the solution should be — and I encourage you to try to understand the steel-man arguments against those specific prescriptions.
While most people support increasing equality of opportunity opportunity, it should be noted that decisive majorities oppose treating people differently based on race to do it. For example, the majority of people of every race oppose using race as even a “minor” factor in college admissions: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ... (73% of all adults, including 62% of Black adults, oppose using race as even a “minor factor in college admissions”).
As to the thrust of current civil rights efforts—it’s not just the end goals that matter, but also the means. (That has always been true and will always be true.)
Race-neutral interventions can remedy disparate outcomes. For example, baby bonds could halve the Black-white racial wealth gap even even if offered in a race-blind way. Policing, public education in poor neighborhoods, and healthcare are all areas where racial disparities can be remedied through race neutral approaches.
Even as to race-based interventions, they can be targeted and judicious. A significant fraction of the “equality of outcomes” camp wants to impose discrimination based on race in a pervasive way. Choosing who gets vaccinated based on race, choosing who gets to return to in-class instruction based on race, etc. Apart from being unconstitutional, judging. H the experience of other countries these approaches are likely to lead to massive social unrest if adopted at scale.
India is not a monolith but a diverse country with a rich history and trying to force an entire country to 'fit in' to this narrative of 'nationalism' does more harm than good for society moving forward IMO.
As for your second question, I don't know enough to give a definitive answer on whether nationalism is always or almost always negative but in this case I feel it is.
Communists, Christians & Islam has cultural cleansing as their core instrument. As simple scan of the world will let you clearly classify nations as catholic, protestant, sunni or shia.
Projecting problems of western ideologies into false equivalences in Eastern thought does no one any good.
Laws against LGBTQ was imposed by the British and it was removed by the current BJP government after 70 years of independence because the BJP does not give in to fundamentalist Christian/Islamic voices.
To simply understand this point, forcing exclusive use of Hindi in Central government institutions gives an undue advantage to people from North India.
You mention in principle, but in practice the opposite happens. I am an East Indian who has spent all his life in South India I speak both Hindi and a South Indian language along with my native tongue. When North Indians come to South India, and stay for a long time a majority of them refuse to learn the local language whereas every South Indian who has spent time in the North picks up Hindi.
Hindi translates easily to tamil, compared to English. I do not approve of forcing a language, however I do not see it being forced in anyway.
Contrast that with forcing native people to fill bank forms in English, or the fetishization of urudu.
Forcing is unnecessary as people are understanding the utility of hindi.
As someone on hn I am sure you know how much more nationalist and mono cultural much of the world is.
I am from TN, the amount of power these "minority" religions hold is unbelievable.
As an example, Loyola college in Chennai is totally under the control of the church so much so that being a Christian gives one preferential admission or skip the queue.
What many people do not know is that the campus property belongs to a temple and the salaries are paid by the tax payers. The Church has disproportionate control of an institution to which its contributions is practically zero.
India has not completely decolonised.
What I also don't like is people influenced by one (Hindutva) ideology of Modi turning into fascists slowly, and anyone who criticises Modi for unrelated (eg economic) reasons is called anti-national. Being strong Hindutva ideology shouldn't give him a pass in other areas.
Never mention Savarkar's "Hindu Atheist" progressive ideology shadowed by current RSS activism and them using all kind of religious sentiments to get high PR. Congress is fucked up minority appeasement party, I am not a Congress supporter. But what I am saying is BJP is not doing much better.
This has been going on for centuries.
The BJP is just a reflection of the sentiment of the people.
For instance temple taken over by the state, what used to be run by unique communities is now run in a uniform way.
There is also an attempt to Abrahamise Hinduism by the left and the educated elite/judiciary. To defend itself in an unfair battle field, Hinduism is taking on the shape of a monoculture.
* People start to believe propaganda which they want to believe - spread of nationalistic feelings helps this. People value these feelings over science. Boomers were reading whatsapp forwards and thinking "Ayurvedic" honey and ginger will cure COVID19 during the pandemic. You might be labelled anti national for saying Ayurveda is pseudoscience and not reliable. The mainstream nationalist narrative is so anti-science, and further, this propaganda is being used to build a cult of personality around Modi.
* Because the ruling party can portray themselves as patriotic and nationalist, and get the media skewed towards perpetuating that viewpoint, people ignore the economic and policy failures of the government. Currently Petrol/Diesel prices are rising in India but most of the India is silent about it. If it was during last govt, there sure would be riots and what not.
I am neutral regarding Indian politics. The opposition party (Indian National Congress) is fucked up due to nepotism and minority appeasement tactics too. But nationalism is a valid concern.
https://qz.com/india/1534754/modis-namo-app-spreads-pro-bjp-...
iirc BJP (Modi's political party) was also a big client of Cambridge Analytica and various whatsapp based troll farms. I remember rumors from around the time of the last American election that some of Modi's tech advisors were helping the Trump campaign on how to use whatsapp groups, but I'm not sure if that's true.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/us-presidential...
It seems that connecting a billion more people to the internet in the past few years has accelerated the rise of ultra-nationalism via memes and fake news.
> I’m an independent person; I’m apolitical. We want to unify India.
I've started noticing more in the world how sometimes, people promote their stances as "apolitical", "independent", or somehow outside of politics. This has the powerful effect of implying that those stances are natural and un-opposable.
If you want to advocate some policy or cause you first establish your independence to imply non-biased consideration.
If you want to criticize some policy or group you first establish that you were previously an advocate of that policy or group, or currently still are part of that group, implying that the criticism is so undeniable that even someone predisposed to bias and self-interest can't reject it.
We all do this. For example, "I actually like Rust and use it daily, BUT...."
There are real consequences to such acquiescence. Not everyone agrees with American progressive worldviews and Twitter obviously enacts one-sided censorship based on those views. As an example of the kind of topic that would be treated differently in Western social media versus other platforms, consider that India has historically treated transgendered people as a third gender (by my understanding). This feels more logical to me than trying to forcefully redefine existing genders or creating an infinite proliferation of genders, but under Twitter or Facebook's rule, any such opinions or debate would be deleted and users sharing such views would be banned. So why should recent rapid changes in Western culture take precedence over long-lasting local culture in this instance? I'm not claiming that either is right or wrong, but simply that the increasing degree of censorship and control enacted by American tech companies reflects the views and desires of a narrow minority globally - and therefore they shouldn't be given the power that they have.
In the case of the farmers protests, I think there's an "other side of this issue" for the very problems you are alluding to. Factual errors, widespread misleading claims, meme-ification, and trolling are common tools of those who are on the side of the Punjab farmers and those on the other side. To call out only one side feels misleading to me.
Peak virtue signaling.
And the BJP today under Modi is considered a "Hindu nationalist" after 70 years of Independence.
This is in sharp contrast to Pakistan which started killing millions of Hindus & Sikhs, and has more or less completely wiped out their non-muslim population. This ethnic cleansing started even before they were created as a country.
So perhaps the "Hindus" should have a say in the only country meant for them.
Pardon me for saying this but Christian and Islamic values have been enforced on much of the world, which includes India much of whose laws and education are Christian/Leftist leaning.
As for those who are not aware, "Hindu" (of India) is the catch all phrase for anyone who did not fit into the other major faiths. And the "Hindus" themselves mostly consider anyone who are not openly inimical to their pluralistic practices as being in the fold.
Also genuinely confused about the answer to the last question: "So there will be government-regulated laws that would govern the speech on Koo?" "No, you’re randomly putting words in my mouth. I’m not enjoying this conversation. I’m an independent person; I’m apolitical..." Based on everything he said before, it sounds like the answer should have been a resounding Yes? He wants to offload the speech governing to laws?
Also, sovereignty is a noble pursuit but I can't help but feel that "self reliance" in this regard meaning the data for indian users remains on indian data centers misses the point and ultimately doesn't go far enough. A person needs to own his own data, and these platforms need to be not localized or controlled by singular states, but rather go above and beyond and be truly open and global.
"Every social media [platform] has to be responsible, to a certain extent, of what they bring into a country because it defines a lot of things in the country, like youth culture or how citizens of a country react to a situation.
"When a company is registered elsewhere and doesn’t take into consideration the nuances of the local culture, I think it can be dangerous. Indian entrepreneurs building for Indian cultural nuances is better than somebody who doesn’t understand the cultural nuances trying to build for India."
> Citing threats to public order, on February 1, Indian authorities appeared to have requested Twitter to suspend or remove dozens of accounts on its platform. Twitter briefly complied but, after public outcry, reinstated the accounts and then refused to remove hundreds more.
> After weeks of battling with Twitter, some of India’s most prominent Hindu nationalist politicians took to their social accounts and instructed their followers to leave Western social networks for Koo, a local, free-speech platform. “I am now on Koo,” tweeted India’s minister of commerce and industry, Piyush Goyal.
Twitter banned TrueIndology multiple times while s/he would have been given a blue-tick had he been a leftist.
https://swarajyamag.com/politics/highhandedness-of-the-left-...
Lange & Cate Kanell - Fireflies (Under The Moon Mix) 5m39s
This was pretty much like the Capitol hill violence - hooligans stormed the Red Fort on Republic Day and hoisted a separatist flag.
One "farmer" died when he rammed a barricade with his tractor and it turned turtle. Despite there being a clear video of this, several Twitter accounts began maliciously attributing this to police firing, and trending hashtags saying there was a "farmer's genocide."
The government rightly asked Twitter to take these down. Twitter's response was wholly inappropriate for the situation and the contrast to their actions during the Capitol hill incident was really stark.
India cannot prevail on Abuse/Exploitation for 2700+ years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_(Amendment)_Act,_2...
Remember British stitched 584+ Independent Kingdoms and 'created' India; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_princely_states_of_Bri...
And before giving Independence to India, British recommended separate countries to Muslim/Sikh/Christian/Parsi/Buddhist/Jain/SC/ST communities in 1932 Round Table Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_Table_Conference https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325502/Map-shows-w... https://www.quora.com/Which-caste-is-looting-India/answers/2...
They have obviously changed course, gradually and subtly, over the years. But these changes went largely unnoticed because only very fringe people were affected by this. When Trump was banned, people realized how vulnerable their dependence on Twitter was, and sought out new platforms.