domain:sotonye.substack.com
Goodguy
1d ago
Materialist explanations are sufficient to explain how an entity can react to the environment and think, but it is not clear that they can explain subjective experience.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
I haven't heard that specific one. While it wouldn't surprise me if someone did say something like that, it's not exactly hard to come up with examples that would contradict, unless the revolution is supposed to happen all by itself.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
1d ago
Would it? Is that not just most cases of domestic terrorism?
anon_
1d ago
But you can use it to hire some Koreans that can check code into a global repository instead of Americans.
The value of the code written by that subsidiary goes into the conglomerate at large.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1d ago
And Israeli leadership does not coordinate direct attacks on civilians.
For a given value of leadership, sure. But Israeli leadership is such a vague term I don't think this is really worth litigating. SOMEONE gave the order to deploy those bombs shaped like toys in Lebanon, but whether they qualified as "Israeli Leadership" is a mystery to me.
There was enough direct evidence to tie this particular fellow to 5 deaths directly.
In a courtcase that outside observers said was clearly biased. I don't think Trump is guilty of raping Jean Carrol even though a heavily politicised courtroom implied the opposite, and I apply a similar level of scrutiny here.
If you are me, you think he is a terrorist because he and his minions are consistently too cowardly to wear uniforms.
I'm sure the people who shot up Hind Rajab's car were wearing a uniform, but that doesn't really make my sympathise with them at all.
If you think international law is a fiction, then he's just a loser who lost.
Are you aware of the context that this discussion is taking place in? Do you think that calling Marwhan a loser who lost is in any way a convincing refutation of the point being made? Yes, the person that wants peaceful co-existence rather than armed struggle is rotting in an Israeli prison in order to make sure there's no peaceful resolution. How is that in any way worth mocking? Was Gandhi a loser who lost when he was arrested for advocating peaceful resistance to the British?
Bitcoin went up 500x in the last ten years. Are you worried about getting taxed on 100% of its value instead of (the right and proper) 99.8%, or am I missing something about how it works?
sockpuppet2
1d ago
In fact I’m having trouble imagining someone that would agree with his first premise, that most Americans are fascists, without believing political violence was acceptable.
Political violence against the majority would be novel.
sockpuppet2
1d ago
He really didn't want to put out any concrete examples of what he considered 'fascist'
He linked to his review of Mussolini's book, though the review, itself, is paywalled.
sockpuppet2
1d ago
Cult of action.
I thought action was an example of white supremacy?
Sunshine
1d ago
The only explanations I can come to are that it was the Russians
I can think of another explanation: Explosives factories sometimes blow up and Fox News doesn't cover everything. Industrial accidents aren't exactly sensational reporting, and they probably take a lot more legwork than reporting on Trump's tweets or whatever. I'm not surprised that not every media outlet is covering it.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1d ago
I don't see the conspiracy angle here and I can see from the other posts that I'm not the only nooticer who feels that way. But you clearly aren't alone in your assumption either! Is this a case of different cultures inculcating different pattern matching behaviours? It does make me think - the closest this came to triggering my 'that's retarded' impulse is it made me think 'reeeeaaally?' Meanwhile I feel like I spend most of my time on X thinking 'well that's retarded'. And part of that is of course that I trust you and your judgement more than some X rando and thus extend you more charity, and similarly I don't want this to be false for political reasons (although I try not to let that influence me anyway), but there is more to it than that. I guess the 'that's retarded' impulse gets triggered when someone's pattern matching behaviour doesn't just not align with my own but aligns against the patterns I have internalised. This is probably obvious to most people but it just clicked for me.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Where has it been done successfully and without significant atrocities performed?
The partition of Czechoslovakia?
daguerrean
1d ago
Just as a sanity check let’s run the same test cases against wokeness. By my count these apply.
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Rejection of modernism. Obviously wokeness favors alternative “ways of knowing” and rejects objectivity, rationality and the scientific method as white supremacy.
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Cult of action. The motto “Punch a nazi” is certainly proudly anti-intellectual, elevating the propaganda of the deed/direct action above any intellectual debate.
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Disagreement is treason. This is too easy, wokeness considers silence as violence and obviously disagreement is violence.
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Obsession with a plot. White supremacy is behind everything. Bad test scores? White supremacy. Crime statistics? White supremacy. Every institution is full to the brim with hidden, covert racists.
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Enemies simultaneously too strong and too weak. Trump is simultaneously a fascist dictator but also a bumbling, senile buffoon.
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Newspeak. Control and redefinition of language is one of wokeness’ defining traits.
The selective populism and appeal to the middle class are basically free squares that can be applied to any ideology
EvanTh
1d ago
Nothing special indeed; FDR's New Deal checks about half the boxes too:
- The cult of action for action's sake
- Disagreement is treason
- Appeal to a frustrated middle class
- Obsession with a plot
- Enemies (the rich) are at once too strong and too weak
- Pacifism (after WWII started brewing) is trafficking with the enemy
- Selective populism
- Newspeak (in tons of agency and program names)
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Frankly, MAGA has a lot more in common with fascism than being right-wing nationalist.
Taking Eco's definition
Most left wingers have a lot more in common with fascism, if you take Eco's definition.
ulyssessword
1d ago
Frankly, MAGA has a lot more in common with fascism than being right-wing nationalist.
Taking Eco's definition, I would argue that MAGA checks about half the boxes.
That's nothing special, so does Social Justice:
- The rejection of modernism
- The cult of action for action's sake
- Disagreement is treason
- Obsession with a plot
- cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak."
- Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy
- Selective populism
- Newspeak
Either those summaries are too broad to be useful, or some traits of Fascism have become broadly entrenched in our society, regardless of what we call the groups that embody them.
Shrike
1d ago
Trump is term-limited, there will be no vote on whether or not he leaves office absent a Constitutional amendment (which is extremely far-fetched).
US elections are also held at the state level, so there's no real way for him to rig the elections via the federal bureaucracy (unless he's using the CIA to hack the voting machines, or something). I suppose he could attempt to stage a coup of some variety, but I agree with you assessment of the federal bureaucracy there.
4nji2
Provide disclaim disclaim watchers.
1d ago
Eco was opposed to fascism, taking his definition of fascism as definitive is like taking an atheist's definition of Christianity (instead of Nicean creed), or Rand's definition of socialism. Luckily an endodefinition1 exists:
Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
I suspect the reason that this defition is not used, is that describes better2 the relationship democrats have with the state, than republicans do. And also, the preference for anti-fascist sources, even if secondary.
1: That completely accurately, but if forced at gunpoint to chose, democrats are slightly closer: Operation Chokepoint, lockdowns, censorship during lockdowns.
2: It is queer that in the age of transsexualism, not only is self-identification not applied, a group is defined by outsiders. If one were to transpose discourse surrounding the definition of fascist, onto the debates surrounding gender, it would be like the canonical definition of a woman being something some misogynist thought up.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
I think blowing up Americans on US soil would be contrary to the interests of the Kremlin.
Trump has been solidly meh about Ukraine. Sometimes he chews out Zelenskyy for not dressing adequately, then he is angry at Putin for a bit for blowing up yet another hospital, or wanting them to agree to a peace so he finally gets his Nobel.
However, Trump does have a vindictive streak. Piss him off and he will still try to destroy you eight years later.
Putin blowing up Americans would piss off Trump badly because it would be interpreted as "he made me look bad". Him being on Trump's shitlist instead of having a relationship status of "it's complicated" would hurt his aims a lot more than the Tomahawk missiles.
Sunshine
1d ago
Would you apply this argument to the jews of Nazi germany? Was it their fault for attacking the big meanie and then having a sook and cry about how badly it went for them? Why did they pick a fight they couldn't win?
The Jews of Nazi Germany didn't attack the Germans. That's literally an antisemetic conspiracy theory invented by the Nazis to demonize the Jews, and I wasn't aware that anyone believed it except a few diehard neo-Nazis. Conventional history tells us that it was actually the Nazis who attacked the Jews.
If the Palestinians stop fighting they believe they will be wiped out, which is supported by a vast number of statements from members of the Israeli government. What alternative are you leaving besides a final solution?
If they believe that then they're simply wrong. If the Israelis wanted to wipe out the Palestinians they could have done it at any time. Ergo, they don't want to. Given that recent history suggests that every Palestinian attack on Israel is followed by an immediate upswing in Palestinian deaths, it is not clear to me how this course of action prevents the Israelis from wiping them out.
If wiping out is on the table, it seems clear to me that starting pointless wars over and over again for decades can only increase its likelihood. If it isn't on the table then the pointless wars are just that - a meaningless outpouring of useless hatred that accomplishes nothing and causes only misery.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
I think everyone who is not a radical pacifist will endorse the deliberate killing of other persons in some circumstances. Once you have conceded that, you are merely haggling over the price.
Fortunately, this is very moot in the contemporary US, because Trump can be easily voted out of office in about three years, which is a far better outcome than any violence could hope to accomplish. I also do not see him defeating the federal bureaucracy to the point where he can rig or suspend the elections, so even that hypothetical is not very relevant.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
1d ago
I haven't run into an any Anki decks specifically designed for this till date. I've made a few of my own, and I intend to go through them eventually.
Big leak of the Young Republicans groupchat, spanning multiple high level members across the nation's "premier Republican youth organization" (as it calls itself), including staffers for GOP representatives, at least one Trump admin employee, at least one elected official, and other high ranking conservatives. "Young" in this case is 18-40, adults working in a professional capacity.
The leaks showcase praise for Hitler, jokes about gas chambers, comments on Jewish dishonesty and other antisemitic messages. Also comments supporting slavery. Along with it is generic racism and bigotry such as widespread usage of slurs.
It also shows an interesting insight into what ordinary republican activists are thinking behind close doors.
The group chat members spoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO, the love of Nazis within their party’s right wing and the president’s alleged work to suppress documents related to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex crimes.
“Trumps too busy burning the Epstein files,” Alex Dwyer, the chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, wrote in one instance.
One interesting thing is their fear that tying a political opponent within the party to white supremacists and Nazis might hurt them in the general election, but make them more popular among the base.
“Can we get them to start releasing Nazi edits with her… Like pro Nazi and faciam [sic] propaganda,” he asked the group.
“Omg I love this plan,” Rachel Hope, the Arizona Young Republicans events chair, responded.
“The only problem is we will lose the Kansas delegation,” Mosiman said. Hope and the two Kansas Young Republicans in the chat reacted with a laughing face to the message. Hope did not respond to requests for comment. Mosiman declined to comment.
The response has been mixed.
Elected state senator Rob Ortt says
In a statement, Ortt called for members of the chat to resign.
“I was shocked and disgusted to learn about the racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic comments attributed to members of the New York State Young Republicans,” Ortt said. “This behavior is indefensible and has no place in our party or anywhere in public life.”
Adviser for Elise Stefanik says
Alex deGrasse, a senior adviser for Stefanik, said the congresswoman “was absolutely appalled to learn about the alleged comments made by leaders of the New York State Young Republicans and other state YRs in a large national group chat.”
And Roger Stone says
“I of course, have never seen this alleged chat room thread,” he said. “If it is authentic, I would, of course, denounce any such comments in the strongest possible terms, This would surprise me as it is inconsistent with Peter that I know, although I only know him in his capacity as the head of the New York Young Republicans, where I thought he did a good job.”
However, some Republicans in high places don't seem to view it as a major deal. Such as JD Vance, whose only comment is to call it "pearl clutching"
Now I have to disagree with our vice president here, I don't think it is pearl clutching to oppose support of Hitler. I also have to wonder how sincere it is to deflect away the topic and talk about "powerful people call for political violence." when it seems calls for violence happened in the chat given the many jokes about gassing and even bombing political opposition. Is it not possible to be against neonazism such as "I love Hitler" and talk about sending opposition to the gas chambers your opponents and Jay Jones's awful comments? Stefanik, Ortt and others seem to manage. Plenty of others also seem capable of this feat and have criticized both.
Richard Hanania, author of The Origins of Woke, suggests that these sorts of group chats are actually really common among the right wingers he interacted with. In fact his response to this seems to indicate agreement this chat is tame compared to many conversations he has seen.
Some beginner questions for discussion.
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is neonazism, support of slavery, and unabashed bigotry such as this actually common among young conservatives as Hanania and the group chat themselves seem to believe?
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In that same vein which response is better, someone like Ortt and Stefanik or Vance? And should the Republican party be concerned about the rise of neonazis and support of slavery if question 1 is yes?
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Often what we see now is people "hiding their power level" with extremism, and it's often not revealed till they get to the point no one seems denouce them much. This is happening with Jay Jones now, and has happened before in cases like Mark Robinson "black Nazi". Even now Vance can't bring himself to denouce this. Is this tribalist loyalty helping to empower extremism and violence?
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A common complaint among the right is "they called us Nazis". But often, we see some right wingers calling themselves Nazis. The aforementioned "black Nazi" Mark Robinson, candidate for LT Gov John Reid in Virginia, etc. As Hanania himself pointed out, the only major national politicians to refer to Trump as Hitler was JD Vance (and RFK per community note, but that might not have counted under his usage of "national politician"). Even the leaked group chat expressed this belief about the Kansas delegation. Now I've been a strong believer in individual responsibilities and have fought for it consistently, so I do the same here and believe that the only people who should be called Nazis are the individuals who praise Hitler/want gas chambers/call themselves nazi/etc. But question 4 is, why do so many of these self identifying Nazis seem to feel at home in the GOP, and why do they seem to believe they might have decent levels of support? How many others are "hiding their power level" too as suggested?
quiet_NaN
1d ago
Frankly, MAGA has a lot more in common with fascism than being right-wing nationalist.
Taking Eco's definition, I would argue that MAGA checks about half the boxes.
The points which apply IMHO from WP:
- "The cult of action for action's sake," which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
- "Fear of difference," which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
- "Appeal to a frustrated middle class," fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
- "Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people".
- "Contempt for the weak," which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
- Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
- "Disagreement is treason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
- "Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
I do not see the classic militarism (universal heroism, permanent warfare), Trump does not want his followers to die in Stalingrad for him, for the most part. The full rejection of the Enlightenment is probably limited to the retvrn crowd, and there is little embrace of (fake) tradition. Machismo is also rather absent, Trump has women in positions of power. Newspeak also does not seem a prominent feature, covfefe aside.
And of course, MAGA is also characterized by a denial of objective truth and widespread kleptocracy, and is ideologically too light-weight for classic fascism.
I think most of the time political domestic terrorists don't think that the majority is actually opposed to their ideology. Instead, the logic seems to be that society is stuck in some kind of controlled equilibrium, the majority is aligned but stuck in some kind of Schelling point or false consciousness, and all that's needed is some shock to the the system that will bring about a series of rapid changes to bring the ideology to fruition.
Otherwise, if you believe society is genuinely against you and everything you stand for, it seems like a very visible act of terrorism can only go badly for your cause.
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