Author Topic: Conspiracy Culture  (Read 5828 times)

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Offline wilber

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #75 on: February 11, 2021, 04:41:55 pm »
While the Trump = Hitler comments are rather dumb, I don’t think they rose to the same level as trivializing the torture and deaths of 6 million Jews.

Comparisons were made between Nazi camps and the camps containing the refugee kids. Those camps and separating the kids from their parents are bad but there is no comparison. Trump = Hitler is ridiculous. For starters, Hitler was a decorated war veteran :)
"Never trust a man without a single redeeming vice" WSC
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Offline Squidward von Squidderson

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #76 on: February 11, 2021, 06:54:54 pm »
Comparisons were made between Nazi camps and the camps containing the refugee kids. Those camps and separating the kids from their parents are bad but there is no comparison. Trump = Hitler is ridiculous. For starters, Hitler was a decorated war veteran :)

Yes, the camps comparison was bad hyperbole too...    but at least there was an actual victim in that case that they were trying to draw attention to!   This actress was trying to say that Republicans (her) are treated like Jews under the Nazis.   Oh poor her! 

Offline Black Dog

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #77 on: February 11, 2021, 07:54:07 pm »
Comparisons were made between Nazi camps and the camps containing the refugee kids. Those camps and separating the kids from their parents are bad but there is no comparison. Trump = Hitler is ridiculous. For starters, Hitler was a decorated war veteran :)

There's a lot more commonality between the border cmsps and Nazi concentration camps (not death camps) and Trump's authoritarian nationalism and fascism than there is between GOP freaks being shunned and jews being stripped of legal rights, dehumanized and eventually exterminated.
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Offline wilber

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #78 on: February 11, 2021, 08:42:14 pm »
There's a lot more commonality between the border cmsps and Nazi concentration camps (not death camps) and Trump's authoritarian nationalism and fascism than there is between GOP freaks being shunned and jews being stripped of legal rights, dehumanized and eventually exterminated.

Basically all Nazi concentration camps were death camps. They may not all have been executed, they were just killed off by disease, starvation or worked to death.
"Never trust a man without a single redeeming vice" WSC

Offline BC_cheque

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #79 on: February 12, 2021, 12:33:06 am »
Yes, the camps comparison was bad hyperbole too...    but at least there was an actual victim in that case that they were trying to draw attention to!   This actress was trying to say that Republicans (her) are treated like Jews under the Nazis.   Oh poor her!

Anti-vaxxers are saying the same thing these days.  One said to me "I bet you would love to round up all of us who don't want to get vaccinated and burn us".  Very stable guy.

These are the same people who call liberals snowflakes, triggered and perpetually offended.


Offline cybercoma

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #80 on: February 12, 2021, 07:21:11 am »
Or are the mods at MLW also getting a little tired of conspiratards?
Even if I can't stand alt-right conspiracy maniacs, could we stop appending "-tard" to things as an insult? It's just so childish and stigmatizing for people with disabilities.
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Offline cybercoma

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #81 on: February 12, 2021, 07:25:28 am »
Those are our biggest customers.
You can't say I didn't warn you ages ago about the direction of the forum with the moderation approach. I was involved with a "free" discussion forum years ago and they all inevitably become a bastion for intolerance. Tolerating intolerance gives people with regressive views a safe place to congregate, so they flood the gates and overrun these sites. You can't reason or rationalize with them because they are not having discussions in good faith. If they used reason and rationality or understood the philosophy of ethics, they wouldn't be bigoted in the first place. You thought I was being chicken little and exercising hyperbole but look at where that forum is today compared to 10 years ago. It is exactly what I said it would become.

Online Michael Hardner

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #82 on: February 12, 2021, 08:20:00 am »
1. You can't say I didn't warn you ages ago about the direction of the forum with the moderation approach.

2. I was involved with a "free" discussion forum years ago and they all inevitably become a bastion for intolerance. Tolerating intolerance gives people with regressive views a safe place to congregate, so they flood the gates and overrun these sites.

3. You can't reason or rationalize with them because they are not having discussions in good faith. If they used reason and rationality or understood the philosophy of ethics, they wouldn't be bigoted in the first place.

4. You thought I was being chicken little and exercising hyperbole but look at where that forum is today compared to 10 years ago. It is exactly what I said it would become.
1. I don't remember being warned, but I was always concerned that the level of dialogue would deteriorate if we didn't find a way to contain the conspiracy virus.  Of course, there's a line to be drawn with regards to expression vs. trolling and for my part I pushed for rules that would draw that line in a way to encourage good information.   That's as much as I will post now about my relationship with policy on MLW.

2. We are discovering a McLuhanesque lesson: we are contained within a channel, which doesn't simply convey "free speech" as the right was envisioned.  We are like captive fish who have realized that we are in a tank.  So we learn that the tank needs to be cleaned, the garden needs to be tended etc.  If "freedom of speech" drives out 1/2 the voices then it subverts the reason why we establish it: to allow for a meritocratic market of ideas.

3. They are not creatures of the age of reason.  They are interested in winning and imposing their culture on others.   I get it, because I start to feel that way with them too sometimes.

4. I doubt that I thought that.  I may have said "we'll see..." but that doesn't mean that I felt you were wrong or felt it wasn't a danger to happen.  I don't really remember this discussion, though, so if you have other ideas I'm open to hear it.   

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #83 on: February 12, 2021, 09:22:06 am »
You can't say I didn't warn you ages ago about the direction of the forum with the moderation approach. I was involved with a "free" discussion forum years ago and they all inevitably become a bastion for intolerance. Tolerating intolerance gives people with regressive views a safe place to congregate, so they flood the gates and overrun these sites. You can't reason or rationalize with them because they are not having discussions in good faith. If they used reason and rationality or understood the philosophy of ethics, they wouldn't be bigoted in the first place. You thought I was being chicken little and exercising hyperbole but look at where that forum is today compared to 10 years ago. It is exactly what I said it would become.

But that's where the fun is.

Offline Black Dog

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #84 on: February 12, 2021, 09:40:55 am »
Basically all Nazi concentration camps were death camps. They may not all have been executed, they were just killed off by disease, starvation or worked to death.

And the border camp operators rip children from their families, cage them, subjecting them to disease, starvation rations and rampant sexual and physical abuse based on their identity. I'm not sure how many boxes a thing has to tick before it's safe to draw concentration camp analogies.

Offline wilber

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #85 on: February 12, 2021, 11:19:02 am »
And the border camp operators rip children from their families, cage them, subjecting them to disease, starvation rations and rampant sexual and physical abuse based on their identity. I'm not sure how many boxes a thing has to tick before it's safe to draw concentration camp analogies.

I think your knowledge of concentration camps is somewhat lacking.

This is what British and Canadian troops found when the liberated Bergen Belsen. Bergan Belsen was not a "death camp."



"Never trust a man without a single redeeming vice" WSC
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Offline Black Dog

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #86 on: February 12, 2021, 11:25:53 am »
I think your knowledge of concentration camps is somewhat lacking.

This is what British and Canadian troops found when the liberated Bergen Belsen. Bergan Belsen was not a "death camp."

You think wrong.

But what's your point? That we can only make comparisons to concentration camps if people are literally being gassed or worked to death?

Why even bother learning history if you aren't going to learn anything from it?

Offline Squidward von Squidderson

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #87 on: February 12, 2021, 11:46:35 am »
You think wrong.

But what's your point? That we can only make comparisons to concentration camps if people are literally being gassed or worked to death?

Why even bother learning history if you aren't going to learn anything from it?

Clearly the comparison is hyperbole. 

But at least they were fighting for victims at the border and not their own perceived victimhood.
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Offline wilber

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #88 on: February 12, 2021, 12:05:46 pm »
You think wrong.

But what's your point? That we can only make comparisons to concentration camps if people are literally being gassed or worked to death?

Why even bother learning history if you aren't going to learn anything from it?

I think putting kids in those camps is pretty terrible but equating them with Nazi concentration camps is neither accurate or constructive.

A better analogy might  be the camps used by the British during the Boer War or even our worst residential schools.
"Never trust a man without a single redeeming vice" WSC

Offline wilber

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Re: Conspiracy Culture
« Reply #89 on: February 12, 2021, 12:15:04 pm »
Clearly the comparison is hyperbole. 



It's a clear example of Godwins Law.
We put Japanese Canadians in camps during WW2.

A Democrat government under Roosevelt put Japanese Americans in camps as well.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2021, 12:18:32 pm by wilber »
"Never trust a man without a single redeeming vice" WSC