Comment by jfactorial | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfactorial | Hacker News Reader

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I think "techno fascism" is a term people are using to describe tech company CEOs operating as unelected oligarchs embedded within the new US government.

If you're looking for a better term, we could call it "technocratic anti-liberalism" to perhaps cover all the bases. People are attempting to describe the current situation in which the wealthiest humans in all of history are supporting an anti-liberal executive by making financial donations to anti-liberal leadership and making changes to their products to further the messages thereof, e.g. broadcasting Nazi ideology and making Nazi salutes.

"Wealthy" as in "holding more personal wealth than the bottom half of the US population"; "anti-liberal" as in "espousing and acting in opposition to classical liberal values of consent of the governed and equality under law by denying the validity of elections, attempting to overthrow the US liberal democratic government with force, pardoning foot soldiers found guilty of such an attack, utilizing king-like executive direction to undermine the highest law of the land, avoiding all punishment for his own guilt, and so forth.

That's how I interpret the term.

I'd say categorically that fascism is not a helpful term to describe movements outside the 1900-1945 period in Europe. (e.g. Japan's movement was anti-colonial if anything, Tokugawa Japan would have been happy to be left alone to gaze its navel, if that wasn't possible it wanted the asia-pacific region as a buffer zone)

Today it is "Keir Starmer is a fascist" (Sci-fi writer Charlie Stross), "the local people department is fascist" (BLM supporters), I half expect to hear "Jesus was a fascist" although certainly that accusation is leveled at his followers.

There's something seductive about the imagery in Pink Floyd's The Wall and V is for Vendetta that is evocative of the period. Perhaps today's political systems are on the brink of failure due to inaction the way that the remnants of European aristocracy were. But we're not going to face what we're up against using "thought stopping" terms.

One could make the case that the real problem with "people worried about the price of eggs" is a lack of meaning and that Trump's talk about going to Mars or annexing Greenland addresses that more directly, as do the fantasies of fascism which can elevate ordinary feelings of despair.

Elon Musk did a Nazi salute, live on stage, twice

They told General McArthur when he was getting a tickertape parade to never hold his hand higher than heart level otherwise people would accuse him of making a Nazi salute.

As for Musk, I think he's mentally ill, I think he may have what I've got.

If that's austism, I know several severely austistic people and am diagnosed autistic myself and absolutely none of us have done what can only possibly be described as a Seig Heil. I refuse to believe it was accident.

I agree with you about trying to avoid thought stopping terms, and the desire for more specific language in important topics. It's tempting to think that history repeats itself, but it doesn't. It really doesn't. Historians will find ways of comparing and contrasting one moment with another, but whatever is happening right now is not determined by any historical law playing out.

Our language is bending as it ever does to help people explain these political shifts—often people who see what's happening but don't have much education on the matters of history, political science, philosophy. Bear in mind that 21% of US adults are illiterate, and far fewer are even equipped to read, say, Thomas Paine.

We need ways of talking about the values that are winning (nationalist theocratic autocracy) and the ones that are not (the open society, secular liberal democracy), and the word "liberalism" in the US has beenn so tarnished, so I think "fascism" today has come to mean "anti-liberal." I'll take what I can get.

To me the more defeatist part here was the claim that OP shouldn't even try moving off Facebook, than using "techno fascism" as a shorthand for the situation we're all familiar with in a reply arguing going the path of least resistance (going along) is destructive in the long run.

Just leaving this there:

> Over 90% of political donations from employees at major tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google have gone to Democrats since 2004.

> In 2020, 90% of contributions from the internet industry went to Democrats, while only 9% went to Republicans.

> However, there are signs of a slight shift in recent years:

> In 2024, 15% of donations from employees at major tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta went to Republican causes, up from 5% in 2020 and 8% in 2018.

It sounds like your definition is "a few visible billionaires donated to someone I don't like"

> broadcasting Nazi ideology and making Nazi salutes.

Look, I get it. You have your politics and that's fine. But if you want to win hearts and minds, try another strategy. It's all just so exhausting and people check out.

Elon Musk is actively supporting AfD, the current far-right nationalist German party whose members have been caught sharing Nazi memes on Facebook with one another and, well, just read about them. He interviewed their leader on X in which the two of them agreed to rewrite history by saying Hitler wasn't far-right and was a communist. He wrote an op-ed in support of them. He stood behind a podium with the Seal of the President of the United States on it and did a Nazi salute two times in a row.

> broadcasting Nazi ideology and making Nazi salutes

This is a fact, not a rhetorical device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany

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