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Comment by anarchodev | Hacker News Reader

So in your best-case scenario, all we have to do is wait for the current nazis (many of whom are mid-20's or 30's) to pass away? And I guess until then, just deal with the pain and loss they create? I hope you can understand why that doesn't appeal to me.

To say nothing of the reality of the situation, which is that they're not dying out -- they're actively recruiting and growing their ranks.

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People grow up and grow out of stuff, but people like having secret knowledge that is being "suppressed" by the mainstream and they'll cling to that forever. Nobody is coming to antivax or anti-climate change conclusions by sitting down, doing research, and reading textbooks. They see stupid facebook posts where somebody makes up a story about their kid being harassed/oppressed by doctors/teachers/everyone for being antivax, and they want to side with the underdog. Their stories are BS and fortunately most people know that.

Now what takes neonazis a step further is they say there's a conspiracy where "they" are trying to destroy them through any means possible and they need to be ready to fight. Nazis grew support 80 years ago because they invented stories of violence and oppression against them. If you really want to empower them today, give them documented threats of violence--they'll be grateful for you playing right into their hands.

Nazis were pretty solidly on the way out until the internet made them into a new boogieman. People who absolutely did not care about them or saw them as a joke started sympathizing. That's the first step to being persuaded. We managed to virtually eliminate anarchists by not giving them the time of day, and we can do it with nazis as well.

Don't feed the trolls. The "Nazis" s/he's referring to aren't actual (neo-)Nazis, that's just extreme left's slur for anyone right-of-center (e.g. being against unrestricted immigration, unrestricted abortion, etc.). Nothing to do with actual Nazi-style policies.

I'm aware of center-right platforms distinct from nazism, a good bit of our research involves tracking how these various groups cohabitate right-wing spaces (or don't). In this thread I'm referring to neo-nazis in the US -- and I haven't mentioned any of these adjacent issues you bring up.

Sometimes it's helpful to take a cursory look at resources like wikipedia for things like this. There are also numerous independent research groups which put together dossiers so you can be informed about any of this activity in your area.

> they're actively recruiting and growing their ranks

FWIW, Nazis are a non-factor in the lives of something approaching 100.00% of people in North America (and I would imagine Western Europe).

This story came out yesterday:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/17/german-far-rig...

Of course, this is what you thought all along. And it's absolutely not true in the US or Canada. But even in places where there isn't an active sect of actual neo-nazis, there is usually a smattering of violent white supremacist organizations who will work with them.

What I suspect you meant is that, for you, it's not really a problem.

What I’m saying is that, if you take 10,000 people from the population at random, there probably isn’t a single person whose experience of Nazis is anything other than consuming media about them.

Could be, where you're from. In the US you may need to speak to minorities, people of color, people in the LGBTQ+ communities, or Jewish Americans. Or anyone from a certain number of cities where there has been prominent neo-nazi activity, like Charlottesville or Portland.

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