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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

> I don't think anyone is saying he should be in jail because he's saying misogynistic stuff.

For what it's worth, I do. The shit he and others of his ilk teach to young, vulnerable men is inspiring a lot of real-world violations of women, some even get drawn to outright terrorism and murder.

In Germany, we call such persons "geistige Brandstifter" for a reason. They may not light a fire on their own - in general they keep their hands very clean and shiny to be able to spread their message far and wide - but they sure as hell have no issues when others do the dirty work for them. And of course when someone follows the stochastic terrorism strategy, the preachers disavow them.

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> In Germany, we call such persons "geistige Brandstifter" for a reason.

The "there's a world for that in German" thing is probably a good (but obviously imperfect) inoculation against extremist propaganda.

I'm often frustrated that we don't have pithy little phrases specific to all kinds of bad behavior in English. It is easier to talk about things if they're given specific names.

It's nice to have specific terms for special generic concepts. However, use of the German language doesn't stop there, and creates an association between some terms and use in a specific political context, removing these expressions from politically correct usability even outside of the political context that claimed them. And those are a lot more subtle and difficult to identify than e.g., allow/deny-lists.

You're free to adopt them in English. Such as 'schadenfreude'. We got a Dutch word for that; leedvermaak.

Yes, which we've done, but if I go around talking to people in Seattle about "Geistige Brandstifter" I have exactly one friend who is going to know what I'm talking about because they're German.

Language doesn't really work unless there's broad social buy-in, otherwise you're just talking to yourself.

That is how fascism started, increasing the verbal threat, a string of political assassinations and subsequently not giving a f* because your hands are clean, but shouldn't ideas be challenged not suppressed?

If people cannot be trusted and should rather be cocooned from the true range of human thought, doesn't this go against every assumption we use to justify our freedoms?

> If people cannot be trusted and should rather be cocooned from the true range of human thought, doesn't this go against every assumption we use to justify our freedoms?

Well, we've seen in 1933-1945 where that sort of orthodox interpretations of "free speech" leads. And we've seen in the Covid era that some people are able to politicize wearing masks... or to put it differently: the intersection between the dumbest humans and the smartest bears and crows is so large that we cannot design actually bear/crow proof trash cans because enough people wouldn't be able to open them.

With politics it is just the same: there are more than enough dumb fucks on this planet that someone like Donald Trump was able to lead them to storm Congress, leading to multiple people getting killed, and more severely injured. Society needs some sort of defense mechanism against those ruthless enough to use moronically dumb people as a weapon and, like Trump did, discard them aside when they outlived their usefulness. People got sentenced to many years worth of prison time for following Trump's suggestion - and yet, to my knowledge, he didn't pay a single one's legal bills, assist their families or grant a pardon. Even the goddamn mafia takes better care for those actually risking prison time and their families!

I know this unpopular and naive but I wish political self segregation was an option.

I want to live somewhere with liberal values, universal suffrage, same sex marriage, the right to change your gender, tax-funded healthcare and capitalist neo-liberal means of production but I cannot deny someone else's dream of a white nationalist state or socialist dictatorship or black ethnostate or Shariah theocracy.

I'd hope if people actually lived in a society that had those values and endured all the limitations it brings they'd change their minds about the rules they want to structure society, given the only rule would be for everyone to be free to choose where they want to live.

Yes I do think people should be free to ruin their own lives as much as possible if it doesn't infringe on others.

Can you show sources for where he has caused "a lot of real-world violations of women, some even get drawn to outright terrorism and murder."?

I wrote "he and others of his ilk". Just read the Wikipedia article on Incels for a list of violent incidents [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#Mass_murders_and_violenc...

Tate is an incel? "a member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually"

I think Tate is going to be super surprised to learn that. Dude is many things, an incel is not one of them.

Perhaps you have been caught up in the hysteria and are attributing things to him that he is not responsible for? I'm not a Tate fan and think he is probably not a good person but there has very much been a witch hunt / circus atmosphere around those who are anti him. Dude advocates for traditional male roles in relationships and for people to think for themselves and try to be the best version of themselves. Alot of it is very much a money making scheme. He is no worse than a lot of other people and far better than others. He has his good and bad aspects like everyone else. If its found he is guilty of the crimes he was charged with then I hope he goes to prison. If not then he has a right to speak.

Oh he's not an Incel by any means, but he's regarded as the ultimate role model, the person to become, by a hell of a lot of them. And that is the true danger behind Tate: there are a lot of people able and willing to commit an awful lot of criminal or offensive things just to get to the point he is.

Would you not prefer that incels, including the list of those you provided that committed violent crimes instead change who they are, gain confidence in themselves, establish a relationship and live a normal life? The list you provided was a group of people that committed "an awful lot of criminal or offensive things" without him. Seems like them gaining some self confidence and accepting responsibility for their own place in the world would be a good thing. Something he advocates for

The only incel forum I've seen is incels.is and searching for Andrew Tate I see just as much if not more negative opinion of him as there is positive. Even the positive ones are "yeah he's a grifter, but he annoys people I don't like" which is hardly thinking of him as a role model.

He's not an incel, but he specifically targets incels and the incel movement. Men who don't have any problems finding women they want to date aren't a suitable target for this kind of rhetoric.

Does he encourage them to remain incels or to better themselves and become something else? Seens like incels are pretty bad and we should encourage them to not be incels anymore.

I do realize he doesn't do this out of the kindness of his heart and there is a monetary aspect.

As far as people that are not incels not being a target for his rhetoric, I somewhat disagree. He preaches a lot about discipline, and personal responsibility. Something I can relate to. I am not an incel, I am happily married with kids, financially successful, and decent looking. I say this not to brag, there are many people on this site multiples more successful than I am but just to illustrate that very few people are 100% bad and worthy of silencing. There can be good in most messaging. The OP I replied to advocated for silencing Tate, I personally don't think anyone should be silenced, we are all responsible for our own actions and reactions to stimuli.

The few truly evil people on this earth live on in history books, everyone else is shades of grey.

Come on that's ridiculous, I can't imagine any German would use the power of his oratory to get a large number of other people to do terrible things.

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