Comment by Lascaille | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Lascaille | Hacker News Reader

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>I read his blog sometimes and all too often come away feeling disgusted. The comments sections are all echo chambers and his dialog on certain sociopolitical issues (recently, vaccine passports) is nothing short of fascist.

I used to read it frequently and enjoyed it, especially around the time he was setting up DNA lounge. Then after a while I started to notice this odd regression, as in, day by day it seemed to get younger and more naïve. When I eventually gave up it was like reading the livejournal of an edgy 15yo who'd just finished Das Kapital, or a stereotypical r/latestagecapitalism mod.

I can't imagine what's it like now but totally unsurprised to hear it's todays flavor of radically authoritarian leftism.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/12/digital-vaccine-passes-will...

>> "Your privacy maximalism is all very nice in the abstract, but continuing to cater to the whims of kooks like you is literally going to kill me and my friends."

Hahahah. Oh wow.

Something really weird is happening to a lot of people and I just don't get it. It isn't happening to me, so why is it happening to them?

> Something really weird is happening to a lot of people and I just don't get it. It isn't happening to me, so why is it happening to them?

Could it be that the social isolation from covid is aggravating underlying mental health issues?

Completely speculation follows, but if this guy was a club owner, then he may have gone from a very active social life where people basically worship him to having financial troubles and living in isolation. I've seen people living the party lifestyle going from doing drugs with friends on the weekend to doing drugs alone to cope with loneliness.

To expand a bit on what I said, I think if you have a circle of friends that you mostly communicate with online, and they're the ones that send you links and things, that group will be led by whomever has the strongest opinions. That person is likely to be the most extreme member of the group simply because extremists (relatively speaking) are more likely to hold and espouse views. A whole bunch of people don't really have strong views, they just bob along with the tide. So basically you end up being dragged by a lunatic in the direction of more lunatics. Then you end up screaming incoherently at someone who doesn't wear a mask and calling them a murderer and wondering why people think you're a weirdo.

It's to do with social media, and the internet in general.

Thanks for replying. My comment is getting downvoted (rightly so as it's off-topic politicking) but I wanted to have the conversation anyway since somebody else brought up jwz.

That is the exact link I was thinking of. Viewpoints like these really do seem to be proliferating at a concerning rate.

>Viewpoints like these really do seem to be proliferating at a concerning rate.

The progressive left championing the benefits of radical and toxic authoritarianism while screaming frantically that everyone to the right of them is a fascist and that fascism is coming up fast.

The irony.

Fear is powerful. The CDC just dropped most requirements so his digital bondage fantasy is over before it started.

In terms of socio-politics we are witnessing the evolution/proliferation of ideas. You can think of ideas sort of like viruses in the way they spread, especially ideology. I don't think it's people being isolated, I think honestly that post covid and the current inflation and the last few years honestly young people especially are looking for ~something~ else, so we're witnessing what ideas people latch on to. There was a really good article recently posted about ideology and how it can harm people it was a really sobering read. That being said I think it's easy to realize that our current system ~whatever we think that is~ has led to widespread income inequality only exacerbated by automation, offshoring, and the availability of higher paying jobs. As far as some marxist feeling a 'sense of persecution' the red scare was all to real, the US Gov's position has been historically repressive of those people including exterminating people in Vietnam and through proxy wars, and even deadly operations on US soil. I don't know anything about jwz or the history of this site though.

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