Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

This website appears to be a (not very subtle) collection of dogwhistles masquerading as historiography.

From the "Introduction to Metasophism"[1]:

> The above proposals may seem sweeping, but we are only getting started. Particularly concerning is European demographics arising from low fertility and deepening social divisions. A society is beginning to divide along ethnic lines is one where any debate will be tribal; higher ideals such as discovering the meaning of life will be ignored. Ethnic issues must therefore be de-dramatised. The Fellowship programme described earlier would help unify society by engaging diverse groups in common tasks.

> But we must go further: to dispel ethnic tensions within Europe, asylum-related migration needs to be limited. Chapter Nine therefore discusses a way of doing this that would prevent further asylum immigration while ensuring that migrants would have prosperity and security. The central idea is to rent a small amount of land on the coast of Africa for one century, give it a basic constitution and access to EU markets, and ensure legal and physical security. Such an area would become an attractive place for investment, thus providing jobs for migrants.

[1]: https://www.themetasophist.com/chapter/introduction

I really hate this dog whistle crap that I keep hearing. It's like a more intellectual version of 'so what you're really saying is <something you did not explicitly say>'. I don't know how it ever became a legitimate thing to say but I keep seeing it used to brandish anybody, who's opinion is not completely in line with standard left ideology, as some sort of bigot in hiding.

I don't agree so much with the parts you quoted but it should be obvious to a reasonable person that somebody could have those opinions and not be a white supremecist.

It really is scary to me how quickly people will throw around these accusations

Believe it or not, you do not have to be a white supremecist to be sympathetic with

> I don't know how it ever became a legitimate thing to say but I keep seeing it used to brandish anybody, who's opinion is not completely in line with standard left ideology, as some sort of bigot in hiding.

To be absolutely clear: everything I've said (or asserted) as been liberal at most. Nothing about is is particularly left or left-leaning, regardless of my personal politics. This is an important distinction, especially in the context of reactionaries who like to bemoan the death of the West (which, of course, originated political liberalism).

> I don't agree so much with the parts you quoted but it should be obvious to a reasonable person that somebody could have those opinions and not be a white supremecist.

This is why they're dogwhistles. They exist in a space of plausible deniability, and only become obvious to those who (1) keep up with what reactionaries are doing, or (2) are themselves reactionaries.

Standing completely alone, they're merely concerning. With the other components attested in both the posts and this thread, they're clearly intended to signal fellowship with some reactionary group.

I would argue that the concerning thing is that when accused of dogwhistling, while plausibly deniable, is also completely irrefutable. How can I show you that the text is not secret code words?

I have only come across the great replacement theory twice and both times it was in this exact context. Somebody being accused of dogwhistling to it. Small sample size for sure, but also a strange phenomenon no?

I think what you are engaging in is quite dangerous and I believe it must come from a real ignorance of the other side's way of thinking.

You think, to have those opinions, they must have some underlying racist beliefs, and lo and behold, you find the evidence in the most innocuous of places.

This is McCarthyism 2.0.

> I would argue that the concerning thing is that when accused of dogwhistling, while plausibly deniable, is also completely irrefutable. How can I show you that the text is not secret code words?

Once again: it’s patterns of phrases and contexts. Dogwhistles only work because of plausible deniability and people like you.

> I have only come across the great replacement theory twice and both times it was in this exact context.

This is a testament to ignorance, not the evidence that you think it is. The existence of this conspiracy theory is well attested online, as are its standard dogwhistles.

> This is McCarthyism 2.0.

If “McCarthyism 2.0” means “having some private schlub call you out on your pseudonymous account for being racist (or playing into racist language),” then the real McCarthyism must have been a real cakewalk. Funnily enough, that’s not how I learned about it.

I apologize if my comments before were a bit on the scathing side. I really am just a bit shocked that this way of reasoning had become commonplace.

I would like to ask you, do you think that somebody could write the article and not have the beliefs you are asserting?

Imagine if I am pushing for some version of universal health care. Most of the rhetoric around such a topic will refer to things like equality, private industry exploiting the people and the poor getting the worst of it. All fairly standard and not necessarily untrue. What would you say to somebody that claims this to be dog whistling to communists. You say, 'no of course that's not he means. He means what he says'. Then they say he's using code words that give these fair normal statements a double meaning that are a signal to those in the know.

I don't see what you can do about this situation. This kind of tactic is really shady. You pass them an unprovable accusation that they can't even defend. But the accusation is usually of something so slanderous that, even if they are absolved of guilt, a certain amount of damage is already done.

> To remedy this defect, a new Metasophist University is needed to provide high quality online modules and reliable accreditation to all. We shall thus provide cheap education of the highest quality to all Europeans, while empowering people to explore all domains of knowledge at all ages. This is but a first step to boost creativity, a first volley in our war to ensure the creation of an effective elite.

Sounds like the neo-reactionaries of the so-called "intellectual dark web".

Yes, this was my interpretation as well. It's always fascinating to see these kinds of abuses of language and phrase by people (ostensibly) invested in some idealized philosophical and literary tradition.

How is it wrong? Too many people in a new environment where they're fish out of water that don't understand the customs will destroy the culture there. It's dilution. Foreign people should be intergrated into society or they'll be outcasts and not understand how it works. My friend got a credit card at 16 since his mom understood the financial system. My family used cash all the time only and I'm far behind because I was raised to hate credit.

In Italy everyone is furbo and lies to get ahead. People rely on honesty in the US, I remember reading a story where an Italian man complained about his room and he got another one, instantly. He was astonished, and said it would never work in Italy since everyone would lie about it.

My experience as a life long resident of the bay area is the children of immigrants very quickly adapt. In the bay area you have first world highly trained engineers whose parents were iron age dirt farmers in Southeast Asia.

It's very easy to adapt (as an immigrant). It's not rocket science. I wonder what the argument is going to be since it's way easier with the internet now to be primed already.

"In the bay area you have first world highly trained engineers whose parents were iron age dirt farmers in Southeast Asia." I didnt know that migration from SE-Asia was big to the Bay Area, I always thought most 'Asians' were from South Asia. Can you name a few SE-Asian countries where highly trained engineers whose parent were iron age dirt farmers actually come from.

Honestly not trying to be snarky.

If what you quoted is the dog whistle, what is the decoded message that the in crowd would be hearing?

> Honestly not trying to be snarky.

I'll take that at face value.

> If what you quoted is the dog whistle, what is the decoded message that the in crowd would be hearing?

Both tie closely into bog-standard reactionary and white nationalist rhetoric. The first is a dogwhistle for "the great replacement," or the conspiracy theory that Europeans (meaning, to them, whites) are being intentionally replaced by migrants as a method of control. The latter ties closely to a crowd that calls themselves "white nationalist" but not "white supremacist" -- they insist that they don't believe in the superiority of whites, and only want isolation for "fundamentally different cultures" (by which they mean races). It should be apparent that this is really just white supremacy with more steps, especially if (as this introduction proposes) the European continent functionally becomes the landlord and benevolent overseer of a migrant nation.

I'm sorry for the question, but I'm reading this sort of opinion more and more frequently here:

Do you think the whole world has a right to enter Europe? Isn't this an amazing form of entitlement?

> Do you think the whole world has a right to enter Europe? Isn't this an amazing form of entitlement?

As every European country agrees[1], refugees certainly do have the right to request asylum in Europe. There's nothing "entitled" about fleeing death, violence, and privation.

That's the base case, and the one this blog post seems to be opposed to. More elaborate cases require more discussion, but you'll have to forgive me if I'm not inclined to spend time on that with a throwaway account.

[1]: https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/1951-refugee-convention.html

> The central idea is to rent a small amount of land on the coast of Africa for one century, give it a basic constitution and access to EU markets, and ensure legal and physical security.

I mean, it worked well enough for the people of Hong Kong... but what's going to happen once the century-long lease is over?

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