Hacker News Reader

Comment by hilbertseries | Hacker News Reader

> Without an uncensorable currency, any political adversary -- especially an incumbent -- can just coerce payment processors into blocking payments to their opponents through threats of imprisonment or violence against a handful of executives.

How is this a good faith argument. You’ve jumped a situation where somewhere is being deplatformed and banned from various services for encouraging violence. To someone will use violence to kick someone off platforms. Coercing payment processors in that manor would be illegal. So, how exactly are we on the path to fascism? This is absolutely wild to me, that a textbook fascist being banned from things is being spun as... fascism.

View on HN

I'd define fascism as a method of government which enforces some specific morality/actions/market through force. By this definition it's entirely possible for two different brands of fascism to have two opposing goals, and for one to use fascist methods on another fascist.

If your definition of fascism is specifically centered around nationalism or racism then this doesn't really work, but I don't think the word fascism implies this, only that fascism is usually associated with regimes using fascist authoritarianism to enforce racist and nationalist ideologies.

That's not the definition of fascism [0]

Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation

[0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism

From the page you linked,

  There has been considerable disagreement among historians and political scientists about the nature of fascism. [...] For these and other reasons, there is no universally accepted definition of fascism.

I recognize the definition I gave is different from how most people define "fascism", hence the disclaimer. I will however reject the idea there is actually a single precise meaning to "fascist". It has become heavily overloaded and is primarily used as a derogatory expression, something that dates well back into the 20th century. [0]

  By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

Coming from a very leftist man who fought against Franco's very classically fascist government in Spain for the anarchists and communists, I don't think he said this to protest the far-right from being called mean nasty words.

[0] https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/e...

I agree, there are different flavors and interpretations, which my article did mention. It gave what I'd label to common or core features of most fascist states. I'm sure there's infinite possibility for variation and different implementation details, including the means of controlling the economy and exercising power over others through economic means.

Russian opposition is tamest of the tame, yet, it is routinely deplatformed and prosecuted, guess for what, calls for extremism and violence! And a large portion of population believes that to be true, because government controls most sources of information.

I think US might look exactly same in a few years. The mighty benevolent Party will care for thankful citizens, with the exception of a few outcasts who can't even create a simple website and are laughed at all over the media and social networks. And of course the Party will win all the subsequent elections for the next 70 years.

And it's no coincidence that Russian dissident Alexei Navalny spoke out against big tech conspiring together to censor Trump. He sees exactly what they're doing and knows where it leads.

All big tech has to do now is tighten the screws further, and they can use their new standard to wipe out any challenger from the right half of the political spectrum before they ever gain traction (whether in media, with payment processing, social media, news, tech platforms & hosting; it's all controlled by the same political group now).

This approach by big tech would have prevented Trump from ever having a shot at getting elected in the first place, they would have turned down the volume so nobody could hear what he had to say. Which tells you all you need to know about what's coming next.

The US is a unified structural dictatorship of the left now. Tech. Academia. Hollywood & media. Social media. News. Payment processing. Thought police. Speech censorship. Tyranny will obviously follow. I'm non-partisan, I've never voted for a Republican, but it's obvious the left has acquired a dangerous amount of system power over the country.

Here's a prediction for you: in the next few years big tech will use this same conspired approach to begin behavior 'encouragement' for the wider population. Fat shame someone? No more Gmail account for you. Say something hateful? No more PayPal account for you. Already you'd have 1/4+ of the left wing nodding their heads in agreement that this is exactly the kind of social engineering that should happen (a US form of what China does to its population). It's inevitably what big tech is going to do, because it's very hard to legislate behavior control to pursue the politically correct dream they have in mind (safe spaces for all, so long as it's their type of safe space, by their rules, and their ideas), but it can be achieved through aggressive coercive action using the platforms, and now with these moves they're officially on the political playing field. It'll arrive in the guise of wrapping society in bubble wrap meant to keep everyone safe, and it ends in societal death by suffocation, narrowing and revocation of practicable rights as ever increasing numbers of things become wrong-think (and come with punishment).

Fox news, one of the biggest news organisations in the US, is left?

I'll go with Noam's take on this. There is no liberal media in the US.

Yes, the "left" represented by the Democratic party /s.

Every single thing you've listed is controlled by capital, not by the left. Tech, Hollywood/Media, Social Media, News, and payment processing. Academia is a very partial exception (google "Koch brothers university funding").

Do you think that any of the organizations that constitute these groups are run by social activists? These are overwhelmingly multinational corporations. They care about nothing but profit and the preservation of the status quo. They will appropriate rhetoric about identity politics insofar as it is a good marketing strategy, but they never make a move which is not motivated by their bottom line, which is why none of the tech giants acted against Trump until he threatened the orderly continuation of the system in which they're all invested.

"Left" media is a tiny, powerless fraction of the media. MSNBC and CNN toe the line of the DNC, a right-wing clique that represents only the interests of finance capital, and which, because it has comprehensively rejected any project of improving people's lives in any material way, has been forced into a politics of performative culture war posturing. Any leftist challenge to the status quo can be quelled by capital's complete capture of the media apparatus and government.

When you say "the left", it's very clear you mean social progressives, and nothing else. You're conflating co-opted woke capitalism with leftism, the same way countless liberals do.

You are however, absolutely correct about the coming repression that will be directed against the populace. It will be mostly directed against the left, as has always been the case, but we will definitely begin to see greater brutality in general as the overall immiseration and precarity of the average person continue to ratchet upwards.

In tandem with this, we'll see ever-increasing social policing of culture-war nonsense, as the social unrest continues to play out in a make-believe symbolic realm completely detached from material reality. People will of course continue to believe that it's "the authoritarian left" or "the bigoted right" that is ultimately to blame, depending of which flavour of news media they consume, missing the symbiotic relationship between two parties that both represent nothing but the short-term financial interests of capital.

>>Do you think that any of the organizations that constitute these groups are run by social activists?

it is clear that they are, while they may not be owned by social activists the day to day operations are certainly controlled by social activists

Take the recent effort of google employees to form a union, one not to negotiate pay or working conditions but rather to demand a litany of things around social activism including the power to control the policys and projects of the company

Then there are publishers, tech companies, and universities that continually have their employees protest if their employer engages with anyone that they deem to have "wrong think" see the Reaction at spotify when they brought on Joe Rogan, or reactions to Ben Shapiro speaking at any Campus, or the reaction at Penguin to the publishing of certian books...

To deny these companies are run by social activists is to deny reality itself

>"Left" media is a tiny, powerless fraction of the media.

100% incorrect, the Left enjoys a majorty position in Fiction Media (movies, TV Shows etc), and you can see a clear political shift in narrative of TV Shows.

i like to binge watch shows, even long running shows. So over the course of a month or more I may a long running series back to back, several of them that ran in the early 00's till after Trumps election you can see a clear political messaging shift in them, from an attempt to being "neutral" in their politics to a clear hard left turn.

Further Print News media is clearly Left bias as well probably 70% / 30% left to right positioning

Your lone example of Cable TV news is a weak argument, and if you talk to many conservatives you will find there is a large contingent of people that believe that since Roger Ailes passed Fox News has also taken a left turn...

I think alot of your position is based on the fact that many of these places are "not as far left" as you, or other organizations, but this does not make them "right" either.

CNN is not as far left as MSNBC, but CNN is not right either.

Barrack Obama is not as far left as AOC but that does not make Obama a Republican

> while they may not be owned by social activists the day to day operations are certainly controlled by social activists

Complete fantasy. You're not citing any evidence whatsoever here so I really shouldn't be bothering, but just think this through. When you witness for example Kuerig pull their advertising from Fox News, that is not evidence of some leftist agenda in their management. It is some combination of (a) a response to customer complaints/bad press, (b) an absolute storm of free publicity resulting from the controversy and (c) customer goodwill from the majority of the population. It's exactly the kind of action of the free market conservatives are supposed to be so enamored of. If you honestly think that companies are running socially progressive ads etc. because they are run by social activists, you are (a) just as gullible as all the liberals who eat up that style of marketing and (b) not living anywhere in the vicinity of reality.

You've also cited the example of a union, an organization explicitly in conflict with management, to bolster your argument about the management of organizations being captured by social activists. Absurd.

> if you talk to many conservatives you will find there is a large contingent of people that believe that since Roger Ailes passed Fox News has also taken a left turn...

Someone who would complain about some "left turn" by Fox News is not someone with whom it's worth discussing politics.

> Further Print News media is clearly Left bias as well probably 70% / 30% left to right positioning

Nope. Almost all media is either liberal (read: neoliberal) or conservative. Left wing print media is negligible.

> I think alot of your position is based on the fact that many of these places are "not as far left" as you

My position is not based on the fact that these places are "not as far left" as me. I am not further along on some sliding scale. Yeah, I probably agree with liberals on most social issues. However, I have a qualitatively different outlook to liberals, one rooted in a fundamentally incompatible worldview.

At the end of the day, you've made it clear that the left-right divide is about culture-war issues for you. Some of the repressive apparatus of the state is going to start being directed against the fraction of reactionaries who can no longer be assimilated by the system, but it's not going to approach the level of brutality reserved for e.g. BLM in the foreseeable future. You can continue to enjoy media catering to people totally fixated on the lost cause of relegitimating retrograde social attitudes, because it doesn't pose a threat to people in power.

Your narrative is so false, it isn't even funny.

The most liked and tweeted content on Twitter and Facebook skews heavily towards the right.

Fox news is the most watched news show in this country.

Your spin on the whole situation is a gross distortion of what is happening.

> fox news is the most watched news show in this country.

As a single source yes. But if you consider the total share of voice of the other side across all media Fox News is a distinct minority.

No one said the left's agenda is the popular agenda. The fact a single news station can be the most popular by being a slight political outlier is just indication of how controlling the left needs to be to enforce their view of reality.

One could also construct an argument about some groups like ISIS recruiting and calling for violence in social media, claiming to fight for freedom and against evil, and create a false slippery slope that America might be equivalent to the caliphate in the next 70 years.

I could argue that with all the defects in the Russian political climate, I would prefer to live that kind of regime than something equivalent to an ISIS caliphate, but I consider both arguments fallacious and more akin to scare tactics.

Reminder that this was the year where right wing militia groups felt confident enough to plot to kidnap lawmakers in Michigan. Anything is possible, and this country is changing.

It pretty easy to see how a law or norm implemented for just reasons can be co-opted for nefarious ones. The US has been doing this for as long as I've been alive. Patriot Act?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com