@doctornovakaine
Also your definition of "fascist" better fits the more generic "dictatorial". ๐
@doctornovakaine
I don't like white nationalism or anti-Semitism either; I too find them abhorrent and disgusting ideologies to hold, which is why I don't hold them.
But my problem is that one of these days a state or statelike entity (which the social media Old Guard basically are right now) will be run by people I don't like (hell, that's how the Old Guard are in my opinion), and I don't want those people to have the power to censor ideas I have because "they're bad for the community". I draw the line at directly advocating violence against a specific person or group of people or the property thereof (so if Spencer says "we're going to burn down a synagogue tonight," then yeah, arrest the fucker). No earlier. And the Constitution as interpreted by American judicial precedent backs me up on this.
I for one am a lot more scared of the radical left showing up in massive numbers and burning shit down, as Antifa have already proven themselves capable of doing (J20, March 4th and April 15th in Berkeley, the Milo riots, the recent Portland craziness, the abject mindfuck that was the last G20 meeting in Hamburg), than I am of a racist right wing that showed up en masse exactly once (Unite the Right I) and then has been basically neutered since then. Unite the Right II was the most pathetic thing I have ever seen, and one of their "thought" leaders, Jason Kessler, gave a big speech instructing his racist followers to tone down the dialogue.
If anyone needs to be banned, it's the outright Leninists populating mastodon.social.
But nobody needs to be banned. Unless they're outright saying "harm X".
@rks
As the two previous said, #Mastodon doesn't really have a bias: it's a protocol, not a site. That said, most of the people on mastodon.social lean pretty far left. I'm a proud member of the Christian Right myself, though, and Qoto.org (at least in my experience) is pretty center and freewheeling.
You'll find friends.
@rks There are right leaning servers and left leaning. The left tends to block the right, the right blocks no one. QOTO has a pretty healthy mix of left and right.
@doctornovakaine
Forgot to say this before; too lazy to use the stupid delete and rewrite "feature":
Giving fascists a platform does not legitimize them (whatever the hell that means); it merely says that the person who is running the platform either considers their ideas non-threatening or considers the act of censorship more threatening than the speech itself.
I am a free-speech absolutist not because I like what Jones and Spencer and Kessler and such are saying; I wish they'd shut up as much as you do. I am a free-speech absolutist because when a government, or any hegemonic entity, gets the power to shut down political ideas it doesn't like, it invariably abuses it.
@doctornovakaine
... the fuck? I'm going to need to see a citation on those ghost likes.
Also do me a favor and define fascist, please.
@doctornovakaine
There's a difference between granting fascists (who while granted Spencer is, Jones really isn't; he's just kinda a general right-wing nutcase) a platform and agreeing with them. I think Dorsey made the wrong call in suspending him for "hate speech" rules instead of actual ToS violations, and I don't like hate speech rules in general (because those who give a shit are those who are the most easily offended). And I'm on an instance with few to no restrictions thereon, and it's rather freeing. (It also has a 65k-character limit, which is nice.)
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if MGB won, just because a lot of the Mastodon base right now (at least mastodon.social) is so policing (of themselves and others). I mean, you kicked off Wil fucking Wheaton, and he's as far left as I thought you could get before joining Mastodon (*Soviet national anthem intensifies*).
I think Spencer and Jones have the right to speak. I also think we have the right to prove them wrong on those same platforms. Shutting them up, unless they are literally directing violence against people, only gives those in power the tools to shut up whoever the fuck they want for whatever reason they want.
@doctornovakaine "Twitter committing fully to fascism"?
I was more concerned about the opposite problem; Jack Dorsey's straight-up said his office leans left.
My predictions: Twitter will be the first of the social media Old Guard to collapse. Facebook will be the second. What follows will be a war of sorts between decentralized platforms like Mastodon and Diaspora and centralized, though "free speech focused" platforms like BitChute, Minds and Gab. They will probably split along political lines (Mastodon and Diaspora lean mostly left; MGB, right), and they're pretty evenly matched, so I don't know who's going to win; it may tie pretty closely to the political situation of the next four to eight years.
@freemo
I just don't see what else there is to do besides admit that "our culture was pretty fucked up" that doesn't end in an injustice in its own right.
Again, not saying it isn't bad. I am saying that it's been two generations and change, and while that's nothing on the grand scheme of things, it is enough so that I (a white guy) am not complicit in any of that shit (which, shit it was) at all.
So the problem isn't the memory per se, and I'm not saying it's entirely blacks' fault (because that would be idiotic). But if anyone says that I personally owe "the black community" anything besides that which I owe any other human or group thereof, I'm calling bullshit.
Never had a proper #introduction (#introductions?); here's an improper one instead:
Quick Facts:
* I am Texan.
* I am Catholic; devoutly so.
* I do some drawing in my spare time, though I'm not very good at it. Don't expect posts unless I'm feeling really optimistic.
* I consider myself pretty right-wing (in the veins of Buckley, Sowell and Shapiro).
* I call him Jordan Petersenpai.
* I am very strange.
I don't really like doing this kind of thing, mainly because I don't really know who I am on this platform quite yet (one thing I'm pretty sure of is that the internet especially shredded traditional notions of identity; if someone could stitch them back together I would be much obliged). But rituals be rituals.
The More You Know.
US Politics
@williamlweaver There were some issues last election where Trump and Clinton agreed, and both sides were using the issue as a wedge issue. It was ludicrous.
I think this relates to something @freemo posted earlier - everyone seems themselves as doing what's right. But when the other side isn't just wrong/mistaken but EVIL, then there's no reason to engage in discussion of issues with them. If anyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi, and you don't engage in discussions with Nazis, you punch them physically or by bashing their personality.
@freemo I'm glad it's over; I haven't said that the history of slavery and racism hasn't had an effect on the community; I do think that that particular subculture is now cowering from a threat that anymore is virtually gone.
And the radical left (so not most people, but a disturbingly high number) is now trying to exact some sort of societal race-based reparation scheme, even though I for one am "white" but am not and never have been a racist or supported race-based programs.
Peterson's research paper "You Can Neither Remember Nor Forget What You Do Not Understand" says that one of the hallmarks of impending genocide is the inculcation of a victimhood culture on the part of the perpetrating group. I don't think we're at that stage, but the fact that we're taking a step in that direction at all is troubling.
@madhur
As fun as a weird cyberpunk retelling of the Russian Revolution would be to make, I do believe you made a typo. ๐
@leonthotsky@mastodon.social @citrustwee [GOODBYE]
@citrustwee destroy
@freemo a bit crowded; feels like it's trying to do too much. I'd keep the test tube, pi, one gear and maybe a wire.
actually I want to see if I can do that and make it snazzy
Or we could have a Contest!