Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc.

I tried playing out that all myths about Jews running the world in secret was true.

It backfired, horribly.

Long story short, some of the posters took it at face value and the rest tried to spin it around to justify their bigotry.

Just ignore them and leave them talk to themselves. The more they talk the more idiotic they sound and they don't need anyone's input to look stupid.

Inter arma enim silent leges

Hm. Your failure just means you've got to be more imaginitive. Come up with something that goes out side the paranoia box. If these particular antsemitic folks are ready to believe any conspiracy theory about Jewish people, then the sky's the limit for you.

*glances at 8chan white supremacists' attempts to create a "whites only" nation in Namibia*

Yeah, no thank you.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

'Bout dame time them whites packed their bags an' went back to Africa where theys fuckin' belong!

edited 17th Oct '16 9:11:06 PM by nervmeister

I wouldn't mind if all the alt-righters voluntarily shipped themselves onto a small island or desert by themselves.

Seriously, arguing with people on platforms like YouTube tends to be pointless most of the time - because often they're either morons or trolls - which, in these days, is the same thing anyways.

You'd have more success yelling at a tree to get up and leaf than to win an argument on You Tube.

edited 18th Oct '16 4:17:51 AM by DrunkenNordmann

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Though I agree that arguing with people on platforms like Youtube and social media rarely bears fruit, I have to admit that I'm growing frankly tired of of the "Just ignore them and leave them alone" mentality that seems to have permeated the more level-headed parts of the internet.

Rant incoming. I don't have solutions to propose at the moment. But I think it's something that I want to discuss.

Very often I've seen people go online to complain about some horrible racist treatment they have received and the overwhelming majority of responses amount to; "What can you do? It's the internet. Should have avoided going there in the first place."

Doesn't this sound...wrong to anyone else but me? Kind of victim-blamey?

When a Twitch streamer gets bombarded by racist slurs, people shrug and say "Twitch chat will be Twitch chat. What can you do?"

When a Youtube video is inundated by racist comments, people shrug and say "Just don't read the comments, nothing good will come of it. Youtube will be Youtube."

I could go on but I guess you get my point. There's this general air of apathy when it comes to examples of online racism.Like it's not "real", you know? But that's bullshit. The internet is more "real" than "real-life" for some people, especially younger people.

Personally, I would like to understand what is creating this sort of behaviour in the first place. The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is never going to go away, but I'm worried that if we don't start trying to mitigate stuff like this now, it's only going to get worst as the internet becomes a greater and greater part of our lives.

I'm not saying this to call anyone out, by the way. I've been guilty of this plenty of times. My brother came to me once feeling shitty about something someone had told him online and I found myself repeating the same thing: "Ignore them. Don't worry it's just internet assholes.". But I'm really beginning to worry if this is the appropriate response.

edited 18th Oct '16 7:01:33 AM by GutstheBerserker

Part of why people respond that way is because folks often want a solution without work, are engaging on a personal level or are appealing to the wrong person.

Push come to shove there are a lot of toxic people on the internet, You Tube rewards toxic You Tube comments with the current comments system, so the only way to fix it is to put pressure on Google to change the system or simply turn off comments. Twitch gives streamers the tools to moderate and curate their chat, it's entirely possible (if at times difficult) to have a productive Twitch chat, but you need to be willing to take the hit to the wallet by no longer getting money from the toxic asshat crowd. Twitter is similar to You Tube, in the end the people behind the service have made it clear that they want the toxic assholes to use the service, as such one is left with either handing social media control over to a surragout, leaving Twitter or setting your account to private.

Likewise you're talking about it from the perspective of a content creator, that's not the perspective anyone has taken, it's pointless to try and engage in productive discussion on short form social media (Twitter and You Tube comments), does that mean such toxicity should be tolerated by comment creators? No, but that no does not mean we as non-creators should be wasting our time with pointless discussions.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

A lot of bigger streamers are actually limiting their chat to subscribers only, either permanently or temporarily (when there's another flood of trolls happening). And smaller streamers often have a more close-knit community, so trolls and other assholes get purged pretty quickly.

Personally, I think the attitude of not bothering with online commenters is because of a certain distance: It's easier to "walk" away if the person is not right next to you.

And I'm speaking here from personal experience. A lot of advice you sometimes get in regards to bullying (ignore them, be the better person etc) works better on the internet than in meatspace. Because you can just not engage with people.

Asshole commenters want attention. It's not victim-blaming to say "Don't interact with them", it's about denying jerks what they want. They want your attention, they want to rile up. Don't give them that satisfaction.

There's a reason why I don't use things like Twitter - I can interact with my friends over more private platforms without the risk of stumbling over bullies from my past or getting swamped by trolls.

edited 18th Oct '16 7:29:27 AM by DrunkenNordmann

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

That alone? Not to me. But when it turns into a doxxing or harassment campaign that clogs up one's email or online account, that's when I say a line has been crossed. If someone wants to be an asshole to someone else on the internet, they should do so within certain boundaries so that the other person can at least conduct his/her other business without severe interference from the asshole in question.

edited 18th Oct '16 7:33:11 AM by nervmeister

I recomend you to read "Note about nacionalism" of Orwell, he describe Nationalism very well

just look:

"Nationalism, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality."

" A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade."

"Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also — since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself — unshakeably certain of being in the right."

Suddenly everything make sense, dosent it?

edited 18th Oct '16 7:35:53 AM by unknowing

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

What about partisanship? Isn't that too (currently) a form of volatile collectivism?

@ Silasw & @ Drunken Nordmann:

You make good points. I was talking about it from the perspective of content creators because my brother himself publishes content online. He's still pretty young, and I try as best as I can to help him navigate the intricacies of the internet safely. It's just that I had this nagging feeling that I was being complicit in a general air of apathy by telling him to just "walk away".

I agree that in general, non-content creators have a limited ability to affect that particular crowd. Though some communities self-police themselve, in general people will act independantly.

Kinda, what Orwell is taking is about the Moral myopia prevalent in tribalism, look:

" that I am only using the word ‘nationalism’ for lack of a better. Nationalism, in the extended sense in which I am using the word, includes such movements and tendencies as Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, Antisemitism, Trotskyism and Pacifism. It does not necessarily mean loyalty to a government or a country, still less to one's own country, and it is not even strictly necessary that the units in which it deals should actually exist. To name a few obvious examples, Jewry, Islam, Christendom, the Proletariat and the White Race are all of them objects of passionate nationalistic feeling: but their existence can be seriously questioned, and there is no definition of any one of them that would be universally accepted."

So, once you sink your individuality in one of this terms, things tend to go bad, also he said something very intersting

". Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties, People of strongly nationalistic outlook often perform this sleight of hand without being conscious of dishonesty."

or in short "I could shoot someone right now and they will still vote for me"

When bluefish talk about KKK member saying "I'm not racist, I just think brown people are ruining our society." is this, they dont have a particular hatred for minority but they have the almost sociopathic belief they should be erase of the equation so things can be "good" again

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Meanwhile, Twitter racists resulted in Salesforce ultimately refusing to purchase Twitter.

I would suggest disabling the ability to leave comments altogether. Outside having very stringent moderation, feedback from "the community" these days is pretty awful.

edited 18th Oct '16 8:25:32 AM by Krieger22

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

Well, at least they don't hate. It means they feel less need to reinforce narrow viewpoints against challenges to it. Therefore, there's hope for them. That, or they've somehow avoided direct challenges to their beliefs for so long (maybe because of where they live), that they haven't reacted aggressively yet.

Good. Twitter ought to stay as grassroots as possible instead of going too far into mainstream advert-mongering territory.

edited 18th Oct '16 12:11:06 PM by nervmeister

Or they're lying

Oh really when?

That too. Likely to themselves. Though eliciting an emotional reaction (which wouldn't be hard) could help disillusion them of that.

edited 18th Oct '16 12:19:25 PM by nervmeister

No, that is not what Bluefish is saying at all. I don't care what story they spin, they hate. They're a white supremacist hate group, it's pretty much their M.O.

They just also happen to have a flimsy system of pseudo-intellectual justifications in place to try to convince themselves that they're decent people, and avoid confronting their own race-based hatred. Even the most vitriolic of racists will usually deny being a racist when called one.

You'll see a Klan member insist that "I don't hate people of color, I just think they all oughta go back to where they came from and we'd all be better off," and people write them off with a "oh so at least they don't hate minorities, so how bad can they be." Then the next day said Klan member will be at a rally, giving a speech about how they think every single [insert list of racial slurs here] on the planet was dead.

That as well. Even the Klan knows the benefits of good publicity, and thankfully good publicity is a thing they haven't had in a long, long time. And actively copping to being hateful bigots isn't great PR.

edited 18th Oct '16 12:16:36 PM by RBluefish

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."

The memory's kinda fuzzy, but I remember this girl in high school telling me her dad was a KKK member, and that the KKK was actually a pro-black group.

The first part I can believe.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

...Pro-black?

I have to admit, that's a new one for me.

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."

"I don't hate ni...black people, I just reasonably disassociate with them because..."

• Cites crime statistics about black on white crime
• Cites about criminality rates on impoverished mainly black communities
• Cites really flimsy studies about Blacks/Arabs/Muslims/Latinos/whatever are more violent
• Cites out of context Talmud and old testament texts proving that Jews manipulating and lying bastards
• Cites a bunch of papers with terms like "global elite", "banking elite" and other code words for jews as the reason to distrust the Zionist Occup...I mean the Federal Government.and financial sector
• Cites a bunch of "incidents" that "prove" that Arabs and/or Muslims are incapable of living in a secular country.

Ending with: "...that isn't being racist, I am just being logical"

Inter arma enim silent leges

It can get.....complicated at times. While just about all of them share in ignorance, some may genuinely be far less passionate/aggressive about it than others. Though, like I said before, that could change if they're put outside their comfort zone.

edited 18th Oct '16 12:28:34 PM by nervmeister

It's a deliberate ignorance is the thing. It's inexcusable

Oh really when?

x4 Like I said, it's fuzzy, but I at least remember being pretty taken aback.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."