Someone might say the same thing about trans people. Should I be extremely uncomfortable talking to a trans person? Of course not. Many people think I should though.
As for white nationalists, when engaging in discussion with someone you disagree with you have the opportunity to change their mind.
We're all human. We won't always agree. I'm happy to meet everybody as human beings.
You don't have the opportunity to change their mind that's an illusion that works in their favor:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
When you do stuff like this all you are doing is giving them a platform, letting them do PR for their hideous causes. They can calmly discuss the very existence of a group of people and then exit when it suits them. A member of that group is, rightfully, unlikely to have that sort of calm intellectual distance from a conversation about their right to exist.
>But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly
You don't have to watch your words on 4chan though. You can literally just make fun of them.
You can larp as whoever you want to get a rise out of whoever you want. That is mostly what the site is. While you're larping as a nazi you're being exposed to every other political point of view, every gender, every race, and every sexuality.
How many real nazis do you think are comfortable looking at femboy threads all day? Is that really their choice forum? Hate speech and anthropomorphic dogs?
> How many real nazis do you think are comfortable looking at femboy threads all day? Is that really their choice forum? Hate speech and anthropomorphic dogs?
a lot of them. Nazis in dog costumes are an actual population on the board and get into frequent conflicts with non nazi pornographic content consumers. You just need to check out the 18+ boards and you see it almost immediately.
Discarding people rather than their views and arguments is what creates extremists. When you see people as members of a group rather than individuals then you push them towards the extremists of that group.
Edgelords that argue for sport exist of course but they too are people - and might not even believe in whatever ideologies they are meming.
You were arguing against an argument by popularity or something like that, but giraffe lady didn't say that you should be uncomfortable talking to nazis because they're near universally reviled? But because they are reprehensible, not due to how they're considered.
I think isolating white nationalists just makes them congregate on echo chambers more. There should be a balance; you should not talk to racists/people with evil views if you can't maintain boundaries with them. So I don't disagree that you should be uncomfortable
You didn't say it outright. But your words definitely contained a strong degree of innuendo that two groups were, in terms of potential for being intrinsically repulsive to others -- basically equivalent.
> Someone might say the same thing about trans people.
Sure, they might, but it'd be ridiculous.
Being a white nationalist is a choice someone makes (and continues to make every day) whereas being trans is not.
Further, white nationalism is associated with bigoted actions (including speech) whereas trans is just someone's personal identity that doesn't really affect anyone else. The two aren't remotely comparable.
I don't agree with white nationalism but I don't believe it is a choice someone makes. For the most part, you can't choose to believe something or not. Sure, you can choose to not engage in the actions and speech characteristic of white nationalists, but so can trans people stay closeted.
> dang: That doesn't work. The only things that work are to email hn@ycombinator.com or rely on randomness. The former works most of the time and the latter works some of the time.
If you're literally developing a hatred for some group of people, you're probably spending too much time in toxic online spaces. Perhaps you should consider reducing your exposure to that kind of content. It's a hazard for the soul.
(I'd have said the same thing if you said you were developing a hatred for right-leaning people or anyone else.)
As for white nationalists, when engaging in discussion with someone you disagree with you have the opportunity to change their mind.
We're all human. We won't always agree. I'm happy to meet everybody as human beings.