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[wierd]

Which is why the price-singularity it produces inevitably ENFORCES the existence of a proletariat.

(those willing and able to game the barter system become the non-proles. Those that stay within the limits of the credit system are the proles.)

The players poised to become non-proles are large actors, like corporate structures, which have an actual NEED to secure, store, and trade large quantities of materials and goods. Rather than enforcing equality, it enforces a corporate and a citizen class.

[Naturegirl1999]

Which is why the price-singularity it produces inevitably ENFORCES the existence of a proletariat.

(those willing and able to game the barter system become the non-proles. Those that stay within the limits of the credit system are the proles.)

The players poised to become non-proles are large actors, like corporate structures, which have an actual NEED to secure, store, and trade large quantities of materials and goods. Rather than enforcing equality, it enforces a corporate and a citizen class.

These are good points. I hadn’t thought of this. Hopefully this discourse can help us think of a better system.

[Folly]

Proud Boys vs ANTIFA in Portland

Naturally, Trump was quick to pick a side:

Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an “ORGANIZATION OF TERROR.” Portland is being watched very closely.

[MrRoboto75]

Is it just me, or does antifa only exist/show up to crash far-right protests

[Lord Shonus]

They're a loosely defined group with the stated mission of shutting down anyone they deem fascist, which generally means anyone rightward of a slowly-leftward-drifting point on the political spectrum. What else do you expect them to do?

[Frumple]

Is it just me, or does antifa only exist/show up to crash far-right protests

it's in the name yes

But yeah, stopping fash demonstrations in particular is like the only actual thing these not-organizations exist for. Stopping such demonstrations prior to their existence or crashing them where they show up is basically their entire reason to be.

[sluissa]

That, and provide cover for looting, destruction of property and just being a general nuisance.

Not saying I agree with far right demonstrations, but I still believe the proper response is to ignore them, not put them on the defensive and make them double down on "the neccesity of whatthey're doing"

[Frumple]

The proper response to genocide idolaters and their busom buddies is deplatforming, prison, and similar such things, hopefully before the point it reaches our older response to that sort of shit getting out of control. Letting them demonstrate unopposed just sends the message there's actually a place in society for their filth, and there really shouldn't be.

Unfortunately it's damn evident at this point the fucking cops et al aren't going to do half the shit about it they do about things like antifa groups, even when what antifa et al are opposing is the primary source of domestic terrorism and extremist murders in this country. Until that changes, well...

[Max™]

If only we had people still alive who remember what happened the last time "just ignore the nazis and it'll solve itself" was tried, oh wait, they're dying off or dead already, but hey it's not like we'll repeat those very same mistakes or anything right?

Wonder who gets to play Poland this time around!

[Trekkin]

Not saying I agree with far right demonstrations, but I still believe the proper response is to ignore them, not put them on the defensive and make them double down on "the neccesity of whatthey're doing"

While I can see the parallels between the far right and scared children acting out because negative attention feels better than being ignored, the purpose of ignoring performant misbehavior in children has a tutelary component that would be quite pointless here. The far right is full of people who could not envision any future in which anything they could ever be would be of any concievable use to anyone without the systematic elimination of all other alternatives, thus the chanting about being "replace[d];" the fear of a level playing field is what motivates all their bigotry. A cursory review of their more prominent members indicates that this self-assessment is probably accurate. In short, to become a Nazi one must first be such a loser that one is not worth deprogramming.

Given that, it makes sense to look at Nazism as an epidemic, assume it is functionally incurable, and focus instead on quarantine and vaccination until transmission is as low as reasonably achievable. Deplatforming is part of that, but Antifa has its role to play as well, if only as a ready source of freelance agents provocateur. They just can't do so effectively in isolation, so their cost in random disorder is out of apparent balance with the benefits they provide.

It makes sense to do that, by the way, in part because if you start looking at it as a social problem, it raises questions of deterrence that have very discomfiting answers. It only takes one person to ask how much depends on the Nazis' opinion of their leaders, another to notice their obsession with masculinity, and from there it's a clear path to someone asking about the propaganda value of putting Andrew Anglin or Richard Spencer alone in a featureless, windowless cell 24/7 for the rest of their life and broadcasting a round-the-clock camera feed of their cell as a picture-in-picture on Fox, and hang on now, let's not pretend the Constitution hasn't already been shredded, and really if it saves lives is it really going too far or are we seriously going to defend Nazis over their victims here? Besides, let's hear them complain about censorship now, har har poetic justice. Or maybe it'll be something else, something equally festooned with "well we have to do something" and concern over the greater good and a slow slide into monstrousness.

And then, one step at a time, we've ratcheted the culture wars up well past any sane point, and it's just going to spiral out of all control.

So let's maybe stop it while we can still do so humanely, because otherwise someone else is going to stop it inhumanely.

[Il Palazzo]

If only we had people still alive who remember what happened the last time "just ignore the nazis and it'll solve itself" was tried, oh wait, they're dying off or dead already, but hey it's not like we'll repeat those very same mistakes or anything right?

Wonder who gets to play Poland this time around!

Nazis weren't ignored in Germany. They even had militant leftists actively disrupting Nazi gatherings, which had the result of giving rise to an anti-antifa militia in the form of the SA - the precursor to the SS.
Nazis didn't come to power because they were not being punched in the face enough - they came to power because they were embraced by opportunistic politicians. Having violent opposition to point to lets such politicians equate the two groups and their ideologies. Because there were good people on both sides.

In short, to become a Nazi one must first be such a loser that one is not worth deprogramming.

And yet, deprogramming initiatives exist, and they inevitably don't involve any violence but a lot of compassion. The choice of action need not be binary, between ignoring and punching.

[Trekkin]

In short, to become a Nazi one must first be such a loser that one is not worth deprogramming.

And yet, deprogramming initiatives exist, and they inevitably don't involve any violence but a lot of compassion. The choice of action need not be binary, between ignoring and punching.

Sure they exist; I'm not arguing that they don't work as advertised, either. I'm saying that making ex-neo-Nazis is less efficient than preventing people from ever becoming neo-Nazis in the first place, because embracing white supremacy and fascism and all the rest is usually the last in a long, long series of poor choices -- some of which, to be sure, are externally imposed, but all of which represent opportunities to act prophylactically with more ancillary benefits and greater efficiency than may be realized by deprogramming extant extremists. On an individual level, endorsement of neo-Nazism is a lagging rather than a leading indicator of a failed human.

That doesn't mean they should be punched or ignored; on some level each of them represents a failure of society at large, and just because they're useless doesn't mean they're worthless. They're people too, after all, and deserve to be treated humanely. It simply means that stopping neo-Nazism must extend beyond our treatment of neo-Nazis themselves, working to make the demographics most likely to become neo-Nazis less susceptible to their filth so we can stop the process long before it snowballs into full-blown fascism.

[sluissa]

How about a less violent, but still pretty stupid analogue.


Flat earthers.

Now they have very stupid opinions. However, other than Buzz Aldrin, very few people seem to care enough about them to go around punching them in the face. They do, however, get a lot of openly hostile rhetoric thrown in their face. Just that is enough for them to double down on their membership because, as some have secretly admitted, after a while they often realize they're wrong about the flat earth thing, but they've since been so completely ostracized by every other social group for being a flat earther, that they're afraid of leaving the one group they have left.

And this isn't just a few of them. This is many of them. They continue to spout the bullshit that's expected of them to fit in the last group that will have anything to do with them, not because they believe it but because everyone else has become so hostile to them they have no choice other than to be completely alone.

This is what I see happening with the far right.

[hector13]

Flat Earthers don’t want to see the violent removal from society of people who aren’t like them, though.

It is also challenging to be compassionate toward people who think that the level of melanin in your skin is an important factor to take into consideration in whether or not to consider another person as, well, a person.

These are the kind of people who think that mass shootings like El Paso are the way toward what they want to see in society.

[smjjames]

Probably the best way to deal with that is to deal with the radicalization and alienation (possible irony unintended) somehow? Theres intervention stuff for islamic radicalization, so, why not far-far-right stuff like white nationalism? They have the same root psychological base. In fact, the El Paso shooter I believe, was looking into Islamic extremist stuff, which seems like an odd combination with white nationalism, but they both pander to the same feelings.

Flat Earthers don't deserve hostile rhetoric (though I can see where the flat out headdeskery would frustrate some to no end), but as hector said, white nationalism/nazism/neo-nazism is something that absolutely has to be confronted. I'm not sure how you confront something like that while being compassionate and loving at the same time. Unless maybe you don't confront it, but does that even work?