Comment by rockemsockem | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rockemsockem | Hacker News Reader

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> Referring to all "non-whites" as violent brutes who would indiscriminately kill all white people is white supremacist thinking. It's a necessary part of white people justifying control of, and violence against, people of color.

To be clear, I think that person Elon quote-tweeted seems pretty racist from looking at their post history. However I failed to see where that particular quote referred to all non-white people as "brutes". The idea being communicated is clearly "if non-Whites openly hate White men while White men hold a collective majority, then they will be 1000x times more hostile and cruel when they are a majority over Whites."

That is clearly an argument from statistics not universalality. I'm not interested in debating those particular statistics, but again your critical reading skills are not up to snuff.

> I assume you are an intelligent person. That makes playing dumb like this so frustrating.

I fail to see in my previous post how I am playing dumb. I think you might think that your own position is so overwhelming obvious that you cannot conceive of someone disagreeing on reasonable grounds, and yet that's exactly what I'm doing.

> PS I belatedly realize you did not even acknowledge Musk's Nazi salute. Perhaps you don't think that's anti-semitic, either.

Honestly, I think so many people were calling him a Nazi at the time that he just did it to fuel the trolls . Maybe you don't think that public figures fuck with people like that, but it sure seems like they do to me.

EDIT: as I've said elsewhere I think there should be a very high bar to actually think that someone is an actual Nazi. Hyperbole is all well and good, but people are dead serious when they say these things and that's actually insane to me

> Honestly, I think so many people were calling him a Nazi at the time that he just did it to fuel the trolls

If your reaction to being called a Nazi is to behave like a Nazi, then perhaps you actually have Nazi sympathies. Honestly, that "reasoning" can be used to justify literally ANY behavior. The "I was just kidding bro" defense is intellectually dishonest because it cannot be disproven. What if Elon said, "I am a white supremacist" but then winks afterwards? Would that be enough plausible deniability?

What if he supported a political party in Germany that wanted to ban immigrants based on their religion, and even deport naturalized citizens based on their religion? Oh wait, he already does! But again, you will pretend that this is not evidence of any kind of bias based on race or religion -- or, if it is, that he is simply "trolling the libs".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62q937y029o

>What if he supported a political party in Germany that wanted to ban immigrants based on their religion, and even deport naturalized citizens based on their religion? Oh wait, he already does! But again, you will pretend that this is not evidence of any kind of bias based on race or religion -- or, if it is, that he is simply "trolling the libs".

> https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62q937y029o

So you're aware that the article you linked once again doesn't support what you are saying, right? I'm reasonably aware of German politics, although I wont claim to be intimately familiar with various minutiae, but the impression I have is that in general AfD wants to deport people from "third-world countries", most of which happen to be Muslim, due more to geography than anything else, just like how Trump is focused on deporting people from south and central America. You realize that not wanting people who were raised in under-developed countries with under-developed rights and rules is not the same as being racist or discriminating on the basis of religion, right? You can debate whether not wanting such people in the country is right or wrong, but don't call it something that it isn't, if you believe that you're doomed to misunderstand.

I bet there are AfD members who want to deport all Muslims, that doesn't make it the party's platform, just like there are members of the Democratic party who support reparations for slavery and members of the Republican party who would also support deporting all Muslims, but those are not part of either party's platform.

> If your reaction to being called a Nazi is to behave like a Nazi, then perhaps you actually have Nazi sympathies. Honestly, that "reasoning" can be used to justify literally ANY behavior. The "I was just kidding bro" defense is intellectually dishonest because it cannot be disproven. What if Elon said, "I am a white supremacist" but then winks afterwards? Would that be enough plausible deniability?

You cannot take a single gesture and say that performing it is outright behaving like a Nazi with the implication that such a thing would only be done by a Nazi. I'll add that many other non-Nazis do similar hand gestures, turns out humans like the hand gesture going from heart-to-sky.

You know what I would call behaving like a Nazi? The systematic rounding up and/or extermination of specific groups on the basis of nothing but their ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, etc. And before you try to say ICE is doing that, kindly shut the fuck up, because coming into the country illegally is precluded by the words "...on the basis of nothing but...". I'm pointing that out to you ahead of time because your reading comprehension has been poor throughout this and I just know you'd pick up on that.

> You cannot take a single gesture and say that performing it is outright behaving like a Nazi with the implication that such a thing would only be done by a Nazi

I am continuously surprised by how hard you work to rationalize away everything Elon is doing as an isolated action, when I have gone out of my way to show you a pattern of acting in a way that betrays white supremacist sympathies. Your behavior is baffling.

> You know what I would call behaving like a Nazi? The systematic rounding up and/or extermination of specific groups on the basis of nothing but their ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.

Perhaps this is the explanation! Judging by your own words, the only thing that would convince you is Elon personally rounding up vulnerable minority groups and literally sending them to death camps. Indeed, that would be a very convincing argument. It would also come far too late.

I personally think it's enough to show that Elon has given a bullhorn to some of the loudest white supremacist voices out there and personally allied himself with a president who has repeatedly targeted those most vulnerable minorities: trans people, immigrants (including green card holders, asylum seekers and, increasingly, naturalized citizens), Muslims and others.

If you will not be convinced until you see with your own eyes that Elon is rounding up Jews to the gas chambers, then I am starting to wonder if you are arguing in good faith.

You actually should have a high bar to make grandiose claims like calling someone a Nazi.

> I personally think it's enough to show that Elon has given a bullhorn to some of the loudest white supremacist voices out there and personally allied himself with a president who has repeatedly targeted those most vulnerable minorities: trans people, immigrants (including green card holders, asylum seekers and, increasingly, naturalized citizens), Muslims and others.

Right, so you think anyone who's allied with Trump is a Nazi. To be incredibly clear, I have never voted for Trump, but people like you who are incapable of nuance are what is wrong with everything in the world.

You may doubt whether I'm arguing in good faith, but I long ago became certain that you are not arguing with good reasoning skills.

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