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Comment by pas | Hacker News Reader

Nazis used the census because it was there. Were it not, they would have just went house to house - which they then regularly did anyway.

The antidote of oppression is not the Index statisticum prohibitorum, but quite the opposite, education, and in particular educating about how different each and every one of us is, and yet it doesn't take much to get along well.

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Today's Nazis would probably use machine learning to identify "characteristically Jewish facial features".

(Or, of course, simply pass a law that entitles them to deport or hold indefinitely anyone who can't prove they're a real Ayrian with only the papers they have on them at the time)

Probably the latter, considering any sort of genetic or scientific testing that was reasonably accurate at identifying people with Jewish ancestry would also implicate much of German high command (including Hitler).

Remember; fascists don't believe in things because they are true, but because they are a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is authoritarian control, and an administrative mechanism is far more effective toward that goal than a scientific one.

This hypothetical 21st century National Socialist German Workers' Party would likely be a little more subtle than blatantly enforcing existing immigration law. They'd obviously be interested in establishing a common enemy, even if it requires massive exaggeration mixed with complete fabrication. That would do them no good if domestically targeted propaganda were illegal though... hopefully the combination of laws and executive orders preventing that don't get relaxed by the two administrations proceeding this cringy edgelord scenario.

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