Hacker News Reader

Comment by ArnoVW | Hacker News Reader

For those still doubting, this is not a hypothetical case.

In the Netherlands, in the early 30's we had a census. All the good jewish citizens of the good kingdom of the Netherlands filled in their religion. Because, why shouldn't they? Fast forward a couple of years, and those detailed census results are really handy for the occupying nazis.

During WW II, 95% of the jewish in the Netherlands were killed. Compare this with a country that does not have a central register of it's citizens (France), where "only" 25% of the jewish were killed.

Also, when you give up your DNA, you're not just giving it up for you. You're giving it up for your family.

View on HN

The exact same thing happened in Hungary (sort of, we can't blame it all on the nazis, Hungarians did it enthusiastically themselves). They used the census data of 1920 and 1930 (but not declaring your religion and ethnicity was illegal) in the numerus clausus acts and then in the mass killings and holocaust (600k of 850k). But after the 2nd ww, they used the same census data against the German minority as well, to evict them and move them en masse to Germany.

Okay, but the Jews were already being regularly persecuted for actual millennia at that point, and this was in... the 1930s, with a very different geopolitical situation. On the other hand, I doubt GP has any real reason to fear imminent ethnic persecution. We can and should take our best guess as to the likelihood of catastrophic events into account in our cost/benefit analysis, surely?

> I doubt GP has any real reason to fear imminent ethnic persecution

Why do you doubt that given the very obvious ethnic persecution going on in the US right now against immigrants, especially Hispanics?

Like, okay, "Ian Butler" in particular doesn't sound terribly Hispanic, but I think that's splitting hairs on the larger point

Because they're not being deported for their Hispanicity. It's for their nationality, which happens to be highly correlated with ethnicity. Why else would US citizen Hispanics have voted in record numbers for the current President?

The admin is overplaying their hand with some shoddy tactics, and the more citizens they drag into the net, the more quickly they'll lose the popular opinion here.

> Why else would US citizen Hispanics have voted in record numbers for the current President?

Perhaps because they mistakenly thought he wouldn't do exactly what he said he would do, or that there would be checks & balances to make sure it wasn't too heavy-handed so they personally were not in danger. Now he is doing what he said he would do in that regard (even when accidentally saying the quiet bits out loud) many are somewhat surprised and concerned.

Oddly while not beleiving he would go all-in on the purge many did believe he would do what he said with respect to what they saw as good things (lowering prices, and taxes (for them), ending the Ukraine conflict, keeping America out of other conflicts particularly in the middle-east, releasing any and all Epstein information, …), and are aghast at those things not being carried through as promised on the campaign trail.

> I doubt GP has any real reason to fear imminent ethnic persecution

I don't know them but they could be gay, or have a gay friend, or be atheist or religious, or maybe they once visited Costa Rica as a tourist and Costa Rica becomes the next pariah state or whatever. They might have driven a friend to an abortion clinic in the past

The very point is that you can't predict what could become a problem for a hypothetical future authoritarian state. If you look at the worst examples in history it could be something as innocuous seeming today as writing a non-political book or having distant relations with the same people as some other "undesirable" person.

I am pretty sure, the people of Netherlands didn't count the chance of a nazi regime invading them in a few years as very high. The question is, is the marginal value that you are gaining from such services worth the risk, even if theoretical, at all. - I don't think so.

A decade ago, the idea that fairly light and frivolous social media discussion could be used as a reason to deport you from the bastion of free speech known as the USA was laughable. Now, it's reality.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com