Comment by Cyberdog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cyberdog | Hacker News Reader

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It's nothing like the SJWs by any stretch of the imagination. The fact of the matter is that Reddit/ResetERA/Twitter/DailyKos is a cesspit full of people who revel in obsessing over people and then harassing them not only at their jobs but even through their private communications (phone numbers, personal email addresses, etc). How you react if dozens of people just started calling you at all hours because you're Christian and are visible in a social network? How would you react to having to explain to your employer that it's just "some kids" constantly badgering you and them when you're busy doing work? How would handle the act of them calling the police with false reports that result in a SWAT raid? This isn't hypothetical, it's happened many times due to Reddit and other forums.

Yes, I remember the "Moral Majority" era. I remember the religious right, the fundies, the evangelicals, and the grasp they had on speech. I remember how they tried to ban porn in the late '90s and the courts had to smack it down. And I saw how the left has taken over institutional power since then, still crying about victimhood status while holding government majorities, running education and the media, and so on.

It looks like the pendulum has started swinging back in recent years. I don't really want to go back to the late '90s in terms of culture and government (especially culture) but I won't be at all surprised if it happens and the right shows the same lack of magnanimity as they were shown this past quarter century. And a good way to make sure that happens is to continue to stifle their speech and give them every opportunity to cry victim and wish revenge. The left made hay from these opportunities and the right has been watching. A lot of their activists have read Rules for Radicals too.

A really key difference that I feel gets missed is the "who swung first" aspect.

A great deal of what gets called "cancel culture" is people reacting to someone behaving in a way that harms others, including but not limited to...

- Discrimination (gender, orientation, religion, race, whatever) - Harassment - Threats, ranging from the subtle to the overt - Actual violence

Quite often, the targets of this behavior have done nothing beyond exist and be honest about who they are and how they see themselves. Their harassers swung first.

To take your porn example (I too am old enough to remember the 90s), the moral majority was swinging first. They were offended by porn, but no one was forcing them to consume it. No one was threatening or harassing them.

Maybe the right wing (which is where the moral majority centered as well) should consider why they keep swinging first instead of why sometimes people swing back.

You are pretty much saying "but it's okay when we do it."

If doxing and criticizing people for their beliefs and practices is not okay for the right to do, then it's not okay for the left to do either.

So you're fine if I post your SSN on this site? And let's assume the mods also co-sign that decision in this hypothetical, so you're okay with your PII being out there for anyone (and I mean anyone) to see and use? You wouldn't even try to subpoena Y Combinator for my information on file such as my IP logs and email address (necessary for registration) to serve me notice? I seriously doubt that. I'm sure you would lawyer up rather quickly and probably contact the mods here to have my comment deleted and my account permanently banned. So don't pretend you're some kind of "information wants to be free" maximalist because when it comes down to it, we all want privacy and no one should be using the Internet as a cudgel to gain compliance from anyone when you can just leave well alone. But it seems you're fine with Kiwi Farms literally posting SSNs, bank balances, passwords to accounts, and much more. The contradictions in your mind must border on some kind of Escher print.

I'm not sure how you jumped to that conclusion from my post. If I have reason to believe that you committed a crime by acquiring and posting my SSN and I was victimized by it, I would try to get restitution, sure. I don't see how that's in conflict with what I've previously said, though; if a crime was committed by someone doxing someone else on KF, that person is free to subpoena KF and try to bring the doxer to justice. Go for it.

But before you do, you should make sure that a crime was actually committed, and mere criticism, or sharing information you posted yourself, or sharing information which can be found via the 21st-century equivalent of a phone book, is not criminal in the United States. And that's usually what a "dox" is; very rarely does it involve hacking into government databases or something like that.

> But it seems you're fine with Kiwi Farms literally posting SSNs, bank balances, passwords to accounts, and much more.

Small correction, this doesn't happen on Kiwi Farms. Kiwi Farms is focused on discussing much more mundane, public drama. Just interactions between people, mostly on public social media like Twitter, Youtube and others. Things like hacking, private financial information, DDoSing, swatting, are all heavily policed on Kiwi Farms. Additionally, directly interacting with the subject of a thread on Kiwi Farms is also bannable.

Their ethos is watching monkeys in the zoo, not going out and poking them themselves.

There's actual shady forums out there that do those illegal things, generally hosted in foreign countries or behind Tor.

Your correction is incorrect. People have shown forum posts by users posting passwords, bank balances, and SSNs. They called the SSNs 'Minecraft numbers' to try to skirt any moderation attempts, so don't try to sweep this stuff under the rug. Their users are doing this and their mods know it. They only delete such information an attempt to put a fig leaf on the matter. Too little, too late.

I am saying that if someone is harassing you when you haven't done anything to them, it should be pretty OK to tell others about the harassment and others should be able to say "I'm not going to interact / do business with that jerk."

"Beliefs and practices" is, again, leaving aside the "who swung first" aspect. Have all the beliefs and practices you want that don't involve harassing others. If your beliefs are homophobic/transphobic/racist/sexist/etc and you choose to then "practice" those beliefs by harassing people you don't like, you swung first and you shouldn't be surprised if society looks down on you for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

anyone caring about who swung first is trying to create an unresolvable problem or a forever war.

this is not a solution for untangling disagreement.

i've not seen any conflict solved by doing this

That's great that you think that, but there's this group of jerks that keeps swinging first.

At some point you have to start addressing the people who are actively trying to make others' lives worse through harassment, discrimination, and violence.

Show me how SJWs are going around with PII like your social security number, bank account number, passwords to social media accounts, and other sensitive data? Hint, no one that's a supposed SJW has ever done this on a large scale whereas Kiwi Farms users have and do.

>Yes, I remember the "Moral Majority" era. I remember the religious right, the fundies, the evangelicals, and the grasp they had on speech.

They still do, where you been? In cryo?

>I remember how they tried to ban porn in the late '90s and the courts had to smack it down.

Again, where have you been? Max Hardcore was sentenced for 4 years in prison (I think he got out sooner but still). And that was around the early 2000s. The fact you ignore that even the current government treats even OnlyFans like content creators as the same as sex traffickers (see EFF's FOSTA articles) is amusing to me.

> And I saw how the left has taken over institutional power since then, still crying about victimhood status while holding government majorities, running education and the media, and so on.

Exactly where has this happened? The left does not exist in the United States. The CIA knocked us out during the 60s (COINTELPRO). The fact you seem to not know this means you're probably under 35, so I'm not sure I should bother discussing this with you.

>It looks like the pendulum has started swinging back in recent years.

It never swung. We've still a solidly right wing neoliberal society. Just because you might see a gay couple kiss each other's cheeks and hold hands on prime time TV don't mean we're some kind of social democracy or a socialist state.

>The left made hay from these opportunities and the right has been watching.

Again, what Left? Don't say the Democrats who literally have millionaires among their ranks like most of the currently seated party members (Pelosi has a net worth in the tens of millions) and have many of the most well known capital owning members of society on their quick dial.

It baffles me how someone like you can exist when history of the United States is well documented for the last century but all you seem to say is talking points from Mises.org or some other right wing claptrap. And you even think DailyKos is far left which amuses me. Wake me up when DailyKos and company support the abolition of intellectual property like an anarchist does (hint: I'm a mutualist anarchist).

You seem to think there's no left wing in America when self-avowed leftists if not socialists are the ones who have been doing this whole #DropKiwifarms campaign in the first place. If there's no solid leftist base in America and western society as a whole, where is this opposition to supposedly alt-right fortress coming from?

As for my age, I'm 40, which means I went to college between 2000 and 2004 - and was awash in leftist propaganda there, to the extent that I did not feel comfortable in some classrooms doing anything other than regurgitating what the professors were telling us despite what I actually believed. I've heard the situation has not improved since then. To say that leftists do not have institutional power at least in academia is ridiculous, but of course it goes far beyond that.

>You seem to think there's no left wing in America when self-avowed leftists if not socialists are the ones who have been doing this whole #DropKiwifarms campaign in the first place.

Some are socialists, but in terms of actual politically power individuals? No. Seriously, no. There's no socialist or social democratic institution that has power in DC or even a state government within the United States.

>If there's no solid leftist base in America and western society as a whole, where is this opposition to supposedly alt-right fortress coming from?

Liberals, seriously go study some political history. Liberalism is not left and it's not anti-capitalist. I don't think you really understand political history and theory which is surprising since I barely crack open political theory works by anyone since I find the subject boring.

>As for my age, I'm 40, which means I went to college between 2000 and 2004 - and was awash in leftist propaganda there

Same here, I'm 42. I'll say there's not much in the way of any leftist positions or professors beyond a few colleges here and there. Most have aged out and been replaced by social liberals (again liberalism is not left nor socialist).

>to the extent that I did not feel comfortable in some classrooms doing anything other than regurgitating what the professors were telling us despite what I actually believed.

That's probably because your views are further right than you want to divulge here. I won't press or bully you but I'll say that maybe you should ask yourself why you see socialists everywhere when everyone else who is a leftist or comes from a leftist position (I come from Mutualism but I use to be into Syndicalism) doesn't?

>To say that leftists do not have institutional power at least in academia is ridiculous, but of course it goes far beyond that.

Having a couple college departments is not having the commanding heights (I love FA Hayek's use of phrases). These aren't people who shake hands with Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer, McCarthy, or McConnell. These aren't the people that get their proposals even into the hands of Biden's undersecretaries of any department. They don't get much play at billionaire retreats either. So, I'm absolutely confused as to what you define as power because it sure doesn't seem like it.

Eh. You win, I guess. I've already argued too much about politics on the internet than I should have. Everyone just gets angry and nobody's mind changes.

You have your perspective about reality, I guess, and I'll have mine.

>Eh. You win, I guess. I've already argued too much about politics on the internet than I should have. Everyone just gets angry and nobody's mind changes.

I'm not mad, I just don't buy your anecdotes as solid proof of some kind of Marxist vanguard dominating media, education, and the like. That kind of John Birch Society stuff isn't factual. And I speak as a former ditto head from the 1990s, even then I didn't buy the Bircher nonsense.

>You have your perspective about reality, I guess, and I'll have mine.

I'd have it no other way but I don't brook arguments that border on the conspiratorial, sorry.

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