Comment by ryeats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryeats | Hacker News Reader

I think it has been happening for a while now cancel culture had a very negative effect on academia Jordon Peterson and Warren Smith being examples of that. I much appreciate Dr. Sam Richards who walks the fine line of trying to be centerist but he did comment recently how he does gets hate from both sides. Now I know this is going to be down voted because some will say I am both sidesing this when it's clearly one side right now. This is true I think that's however not a great argument to start a conversation. the founding fathers gave us a great foundation to work with it just takes open dialogue to convince enough of the other side that their is an actual good counter argument. The violence we have seen in the past couple months is only going to entrench positions because each side will want the result of that violence to have been meaningful furthering solidifing the separation. Currently I think American agree on the vast majority of things social media just does it's best to highlight our differences but the average person has mostly the same culture and the same day to day issues so I actually am hopeful.

The US has always been a very moralistic country. From banning alcohol and burning witches to its long struggle to accept differences (in skin color, gender or even the definition of freedom). “Cancel culture” is part of America since its foundation. It’s a moral tug of war.

It’s a different thing altogether to have the government itself weaponize “cancel culture”, however. As much as right wing people like to scream that “democrats are the same”, there’s little evidence of the same level of systemic abuse and disregard for institutions in the name of revenge (“if the left cancels, I can cancel too”). It’s a flight from moral infighting to authoritarian rule.

> there’s little evidence of the same level of systemic abuse and disregard for institutions in the name of revenge

If you think that, you've not been paying attention. Both sides doing it is disgusting and I think the right does it more than the left (at this point in time), but the left DOES do it.

Great argument, congratulations

> little evidence of the same level of systemic abuse

You not looking for it doesn't mean "little evidence."

It's well documented that the previous administration pressured social media to silence views it didn't like, as well as instances of debanking conservative organizations.

That's not to say this administration doesn't throw its weight around, too, but to think it's only one side make you complicit in the problem.

Some individuals from the previous administration asking a donor to do something is not exactly the same thing as the president FORCING someone to do it and demanding bribes or else they’ll impose fines on the business (which he then proceeds to do anyway, eg with Nvidia)

You’re quite literally a character from the book in this post, if you think they’re equivalent (your argument is verbatim what one of the nazis interviewed uses to justify having supported hitler)

They were making large overreaches and censorship, thinking anything else also makes you a person from this book.

This report was written when Biden was still in power, it details how they did pressure companies to censor material and not just friendly suggestions:

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/weaponizati...

Authoritarianism getting dialed up and voters having less power is bipartisan, this cannot get fixed by just changing one side. As long as democrats keeps ramping up republicans will feel like they have to ramp up as well, and vice versa, democrats ramp up since they feel republicans ramp up. You can't get out of this by just changing one side.

So you think “both sides are the same” and that democrats “ramping up republicans” legitimizes what the government is currently doing, all based on a report by the judiciary that’s controlled by the current administration?

Why would I think that? I just dislike how Americans refuse to criticize their own side when they do bad things and I feel that is the biggest problem you have.

Most people don't switch side over small differences, so as long as Democrats continue to follow Republicans into becoming worse and worse nothing will change.

And why do I complain about Democrats? Because you should try to convince the reasonable one, you can't change Trump, but you can maybe change Democrats. But as long as Democrats continue to play along you are doomed, if not this term it will be the next or the one after that, but at some point it will happen.

And no, no amount of "Trump is the devil, see all he has done" will make people stop voting for him. You have to improve the democrats, not throw more shit at Trump. The 2024 election was lost by the Democrats, it was not won by Trump. Trump didn't get more votes in 2024 than 2020, but he won anyway since democrats got so many fewer votes.

> It's well documented that

Show us, then. There's nothing as egregious as what the right is currently doing to be found in the archives, and you know it.

Go read the emails the administration was sending to Twitter demanding people be taken down left and right. Or if you want a wider view than just the US, look at what European governments demand from social media companies. It's all censorship of the right by the left, zero in reverse.

But it's true that the left does not need to overtly threaten from the top as much because they already purged all the institutions of anyone who would resist them, so they can just coordinate directly across institutional lines. They don't need to threaten when they have plenty of insiders willing to do the work for them for ideological reasons, without being threatened.

The Twitter files revealed the government communication to Twitter was a continuation/mirroring of communication from the previous Republican regime making requests of Twitter.

Purge? Which administration threw out all of our civil service rules and purged people as soon as they had power? Which is telling the DOJ PUBLICALLY 'there are the people you need to get convictions against because it's making us look bad? Hint, it wasn't the previous administration.

Your second paragraph is a direct indictment of the CURRENT Right wing administration, who have incorporated exactly what you condemn as part of their current plans, spoken out loud that is their plan, and have executed on this plan.

Forget the past, if what you say is bad and should be prevented, I'm here, now, agreeing with you so lets condemn this shit! We can rehash the past come next election, but let's take care of ongoing/current business today.

> Go read the emails the administration was sending to Twitter demanding people be taken down left and right.

They used twitter’s appeal process at the time. Twitter was never forced to take anyone down. The emails prove that, in fact. Twitter was a fairly neutral player (as much as social media platforms can be neutral) and tried to abide by US free speech rules plus their TOS (which is what extremists try to misunderstand: companies don’t have to abide by “free speech”, they’re private enterprises and have terms of use).

> look at what European governments demand from social media companies.

European governments follow European laws and require companies operating in Europe to comply. It’s not complicated.

Your worldview seems to be that anyone that’s not MAGA is “the left” and the whole world should follow American laws. That’s not how any of it works. You’re letting your brain be hijacked by fear and identity politics. It’s not healthy for you.

Maybe there’s better examples, but last time I checked some debunking examples they were well explained, unlike how political agitators complained about it. It was basically thinking they could break laws and get away with it complaining.

Jordan Peterson is very much proof that "cancel culture" as it exists in the right's collective imagination never existed. A completely clueless guy that holds backward views from centuries past, that can still find an audience and be hailed as a "great intellectual" among the equally clueless people he appeals to.

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