domain:astralcodexten.substack.com
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
2hr ago
You know, I appreciate that you immediately thought better of that post and deleted it, but I'm still giving you a one-day ban because it was up long enough to attract four reports and you really need to control yourself.
Skeletor
2hr ago
Bruh if you're going to invite a mod spanking at least do something funny to earn it.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
2hr ago
He was briefly one of the most prominent Indian people in American showbiz, which was important because the actual most prominent Indian guy was Raj from the Big Bang Theory.
You know I don't think people are being fair to you. I can only address this by speaking to my own experiences.
I remember being there in 2007 or so, forming swastikas in Club Penguin with the other anons. Obviously at the time this was pure shock value and didn't indicate any serious ideological commitment. Now we may argue about exactly how serious /pol/ is today, but it's hard to deny that it is a lot more serious about Nazism than we were as teenagers in 2007 harassing kids in Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin.
But what about me? Am I meaningfully more Nazi now than I was in 2007? Did those formative years on 4chan have any lasting influence on my politics? It's hard to say, of course from my own perspective our jokes in 2007 had nothing to do with it. My beliefs seem to me to be merely a logical progression based on what I've learned and experienced over the past 18 years. But either way I've somehow ended up reading SecureSignals posts thinking to myself "Hey this guy may have a point" and to some degree embracing beliefs that would be described by some as white nationalist.
Perhaps this is just another manifestation of the fully generalizable Toaster Fucker Problem. 30 years ago I may have done my fair share of "noticing" but dismissed it without a community of noted race scientists like the Motte to further radicalize me. It seems obvious to me that while "haha just joking" extremism doesn't literally mean the jokers hold those specific beliefs in earnest, it does meaningfully shift the Overton Window and creates a space where serious discussion of previously taboo beliefs can blend with the jokes. If you believe that White Nationalism and Antisemitism are very evil then it is reasonable IMO to be concerned about these jokes and want to stamp them out.
Basically I don't think most of the people engaging in these jokes are seriously Nazis but I do think it creates a space for those ideas to spread and does probably contribute to the popularity of taboo far right beliefs if not outright Nazism. To be clear I think the Left has their own version of this same problem, in fact, to a much more advanced and concerning degree.
anti_dan
2hr ago
Aziz Ansari was always a confusing pelt on the MeToo wall. Firstly, is he even good? I haven't been entertained by him in a long time, if ever. His Parks and Rec character was easily one of the blandest and most boring on a decent but not great show. What else is even his claim to fame? Next his creepy thing was just kinda odd IIRC, but I never really dove into it, him being quite irrelevant to me at the time.
Perhaps someone who was once an Ansari fan can enlighten us as to what we have lost without him for a few years?
Ademonera
2hr ago
This is really bad faith. You just can’t pretend like this is a massive problem on the right when in the last six months, there have been multiple left‑aligned incidents that are as bad or worse.
• Western University (May 2025) – A WhatsApp group of pro‑Palestinian students contained Hitler memes, calls for “taking action against the Yahoodis (Jews),” and videos praising Hamas. The university refused to investigate despite clear antisemitic intent.
• Colorado attack (June 2025) – Egyptian guy attacked pro‑Israel demonstrators in Boulder with a makeshift flamethrower while shouting “Free Palestine.” He told the fbi he wanted to “kill all Zionists”.
• D.C. shooting (May 2025) – Guy shot and killed two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum, yelled “Free Palestine,” and later told police he did it “for Palestine.” The indictment noted he had posted “Death to Israel” online.
Add to that several other campus incidents: the University of Washington’s “Super UW” statement that called the Oct 7 Hamas massacre a heroic victory and the UC Berkeley protest where demonstrators chanting “Long live the intifada” forced police to evacuate a Jewish event.
Trump has made elite progressive universities take account for their indifference to antisemitism btw, because it’s very popular on the left to be anti Israel / seem super compassionate by being pro Palestine. I agree with another poster that even if your examples are real, they sure aren't affecting the stance of the biggest people on the right. Honestly I feel that there are probably foreign influence ops trying to grow antisemitism in both parties - but at least be honest that there is a bigger problem on the left.
Frankly, it seems like the left will have a harder time sidelining their antisemitic supporters. Do you think Ilhan Omar is a friend to the Jewish people?
Bingbong
3hr ago
He's got a sufficient force of minorities in this that he probably won't have lingering cancellation effects here, but also not expecting it to sweep the box office and win an Oscar. Probably does okay?
Bingbong
3hr ago
Any thoughts on which side of the political aisle tends to be prone to ruthlessly enforcing purity politics over relatively small schisms?
Bingbong
3hr ago
Yeah the whole Israel/Palestine thing seems to have eroded the taboo around open Antisemitism to a large degree and this all just coming off that. Whether people have changed their privately-held views is another question, but generally taboo enforcement is down to Leftwingers so once they've decided to flip on an issue the whole discourse is gonna change.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
3hr ago
Of course but with logic like that, you also shouldn't abolish race slavery because next they'll give them the right to vote and then after that they'll be given Noble privileges without responsibilities and then...
faceh
3hr ago
You know I'm just going to cut through the epistemic fog once again.
If there's a festering level of antisemitism on amongst the GOP/Conservatives, its not having any noticeable impact on actual outcomes at the Federal or state level.
Can you name a single policy proposal, let alone an actual piece of legislation that was debated and voted on that could legitimately be characterized as 'antisemitic?' There are at least 38 states that explicitly passed laws that discourage anti-israel activities.
"Hints" and Dog Whistles and carefully cropped photos don't signal much to me when the actual legislation that is passed and enforced doesn't reflect that attitude in the slightest.
And uh, at risk of pure whataboutism, its been the left that is assassinating Jews and electing actually antisemitic politicians to congress.
Near as I can tell, there's <1% of honest-to-goodness Nazi sympathizers on the right. There's a larger contingent (still, <10%) who aren't antisemitic but also 'notice' that Jewish activists are behind a whole lot of the subversive activities on the left, and provide a lot of the intellectual cover for it's beliefs. The kind who see Soros funded plots behind every tree.
Then there's an actually significant contingent who are seeing the tension between "America First!" as a guiding principle and the eGOP's continual preference for assisting Israel and protecting Jews in ways they clearly do not prefer or protect other racial or religious groups, and find that suspicious.
I model this mostly as a tug-of-war between the waning Evangelical right that considers Israel their greatest ally, vs. the more secular newer right that doesn't consider the U.S.-Israel or Christian-Jewish relationship to be sacred and mutually beneficial. The latter may in fact admire Israel as a functional example of a Nationalistic, Jingoistic homogenous ethnostate with strict border controls, but wants some actual justification for spending U.S. tax dollars as economic or military aid to such a country.
And hey, it is actually obvious that Israel puts their thumb on that scale and does in fact us different forms of leverage to impact U.S. domestic and foreign policy outcomes, which is precisely why the aforementioned tension/tug-of-war isn't going to subside for a while.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3hr ago
The same hypothetical Jew would be better off with someone who they disagree 99.9% of policies with as long as that .1% they agree on was "don't kill the Jews"
Yeah, so Jews should probably disassociate from the "River to the Sea" people, who are the main group who want to kill Jews nowadays. They don't call themselves Nazis... but to be fair, their forefathers have been wanting to kill Jews since before Adolf was a gleam in Aloysius's eye.
Bingbong
3hr ago
And you've got most major digital marketing platforms actively hacking their own KPIs and the people just going along with it since 'Oh Facebook told me they're doing well, so by proxy I'm doing well'
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
3hr ago
What exactly are you asking? Are you confused? Are you not sure what the OP is asking? Do you not know any of the referenced details? Are you just trying to express disdain for the topic in the lowest effort way possible?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3hr ago
Sure so why that particular verse in that particular version of that particular song? Even if you were to blindly pick Micheal Jackson songs at random, that seems unlikely.
Song was picked by Gen-Xer who liked it? Who cares?
"Was spotted." This was an op... did you send them?
Yeah it was spotted hanging there, with photographic evidence.
So you did send them?
Host of the Fresh and Fit podcast with over a million and a half subscribers in four years.
Never heard of it, or him.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
3hr ago
This appears to me to be engaging in bad faith. Either that or it's a low effort attempt at a zinger. Either way, don't do this.
Dirty_DemSoc
Registered Demoncrat
3hr ago
Things like the two party system and the idea of "left wing" vs "right wing" leads people to forming tribalist ideas of sides, but there are no sides. There are loose coalitions, with wide disagreements inside them. Communist left wing groups splinter all the time from purity tests and purging, and I'm sure there was plenty of Jews in Germany that approved Hitler's non antisemitic policies yet they died just the same.
Unfortunately, the sides we choose are as real as we make them.
Emphasis on the “we” part. It doesn’t matter if you don’t view yourself as being on a particular side if the other person does.
One of the things I think on is that Hitler was quite popular when elected. He got 43.9% of the vote. Presumably there would have a bunch of Jewish people (just like now with Jewish people having a wide range of beliefs) who would have gone "Wow Hitler is so great in so many ways" and agreed with him on most topics and just wished he dropped the antisemitism part. But of course, Hitler didn't drop it and those Jews died too.
You could have a hypothetical Jew with 99.9% of policy agreement with Hitler on every other topic except antisemitism, and that .1% is the difference between life and death. The same hypothetical Jew would be better off with someone who they disagree 99.9% of policies with as long as that .1% they agree on was "don't kill the Jews"
The violent and hateful members of "Your own side" will come after you too, because they are violent and hateful and that .1% of disagreement on "should the Jews die?" or "should I attack people who disagree with me?" is all that matters.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4hr ago
Trying real hard to be maximally charitable, but it appears you misread that statement and might need to reread the comment.
NunoSempere
4hr ago
I barely remember who this guy is, does it really mean anything if his project tanks?
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