Comment by DisjointedHunt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DisjointedHunt | Hacker News Reader

Its sad that censorship decisions are treated differently in the US media based on political affiliation.

Throughout the pandemic, I witnessed people questioning the science behind lockdowns and government overreach being banned, censored, de-patformed from social media sites and the common response in the media being "start your own platform"

"The shoe on the other foot" is such a bad place to find ourselves as a society, it speaks to us being incapable of reconciling our differences for a common good.

Since the 2016 election, the US has gone batshit insane it feels like. It was crazy before, but its incredibly hard to have any sort of a conversation about touchy issues these days without an overwhelming negative, non-critical response in the form of downvotes, aggressive bucketing into political buckets, pariah treatment etc.

I hope, at least on HN, we're able to hold discussions on political topics without such tribalism.

This isn't a case of partisanship from the critics. If one side claims to be on the side of anti-censorship, then engages in censorship once in power, that is a case of hypocrisy. It doesn't take tribalism to call that out.

I've had a mixed experience. I've had people call me a mass murderer and a fascist because I identify myself as a communist. (Not a Tankie, fuck tankies.)

But I've also had some great discussions here with people who listen, trade book recommendations, and at least try to learn before writing me off.

A lot more of the former these days, unfortunately.

To be fair, being considered a threat to national security and held as a pariah for having communist ideas is hardly a recent development in the US.

Yeah, turns out of one thinks, "maybe the relentless pursuit of growth above anything else is bad" is pretty scary to some folks?

If that's the defining characteristic of being a communist, then the defining characteristic of being a capitalist must be thinking "maybe the relentless pursuit of financial equality above anything else is bad".

If both of those things are true, then I would guess that at least 90% of people in the world are simultaneously capitalists and communists.

There’s no point in discussing US politics. It’s not possible to do that anywhere US people are allowed to post, because people in the US have nearly literally lost their minds. All because a mentally ill real estate huckster was elected president, found the cracks in America’s foundation that conservatives spent 40 years widening (with, to be sure, much help from the liberals/centrists), and stuck TNT in them.

Buckle up; the next decade is going to make the 1960’s look pastoral.

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