You know, I don’t necessarily disagree with Cloudlare’s take on “we shouldn’t be the internet police”, but do find it kind of funny that their ideology and approach conveniently aligns with being the absolute cheapest and laziest approach to the problem.
Oh, I'm not saying find a screenshot because it encourages them less, I'm saying find a screenshot because if you go there you risk being mentally scarred, to say nothing if someone sees it in your internet history or you're dumb enough to visit it on a corporate network or work laptop/phone. That would be a well-deserved firing, if not for being a racist then for being a moron.
>Why are we sparing white-nationalist propaganda?
Racist propaganda doesn't violate anyone's rights and is hence protected speech. Imminent threats and specific calls to violence are a different matter.
> Imminent threats and specific calls to violence are a different matter.
That is what I find disturbing. That general threads and calls to violence are ok. That threatening your neighbor is ok meanwhile you do not set a date and a time for the violence.
Finally, if I say that Coca-Cola causes cancer the Coca-Cola Company can sue me for lying. But, if I lie about your race is on because it only affects men, women and children economy, well-being and dignity but no corporation bottom line is hurt.
It seems that free of expression has some intriguing limitation when is convenient for some. Don't you think that racist propaganda may be protected because historical reasons and not any logic or benevolent intention?
There was a time that it was difficult for me to understand how it was possible that governments in the middle east were supporting domestic terrorism. It was difficult to imagine how normal people were supporting the killing of fellow citizens.
Now, that I see this same trend unravel in the USA it becomes easier to understand. I have seen for the past decades the shifting of what "conservative" means. Extremists were always there, that I knew. But, it has been scary to see how moving what normality is toward the extreme has happened. News, in USA case Fox News, have validated the extremist's views creating an equivalence between "both sides".
In Europe there are similar movements, but, it has not been televised so much. Except, maybe, for the rise of extremism in the United Kingdom.
As interesting it is from the political perspective, it is dishearting the amount of suffering that it is causing. The political discourse is not used to agree in a way forward for society but as a battleground. And, again, news outlets share its part of fault. Diminishing investment in education probably is even more to blame.
The response is not to be angry, but to be calm and help society to value well-intended discussions over sensationalist posts and news headers.
I hope that it is not too late, the last time that xenophobia was not stoped it cost over 80 million lives, this time it will be way worse.
The reason why extremism is having more trouble taking root in Europe is because there's less inequality there. Where inequality is highest, terrorism is highest.
This probably won't be an unpopular view, but I really think its culture and specifically things like news media.
Watching FOX and even CNN exacerbates me in a way that watching things like the BBC don't. The standards for journalism and discourse are incredibly different.
And its a feedback loop because I don't just blame the media, I blame the people that feed the media and increase the race for ratings and fear mongering.
I agree to a point, but surely the news media can't be where all the signal is coming from, there's too many forums on the internet (like the chans, and now social media sites) with too many users.
I don't see how it's related to inequality. I don't think any of these shooters were poor or went through poverty. For this incident the press showed pictures of a big single family home in suburban Dallas.
It's not necessarily about whether they are/were objectively poor. I believe, (part of) it is about the perception that others/outsiders are getting an unfair advantage at the cost of the tribe the shooter identifies with.
If you meant nativist extremism, I suspect multi-party democracies allow something of a safety valve. AfD and Brexit Party voters can still feel like they’re being heard while identifying as less extreme than NDP or BNP. In the American two-party system, one side is always painting the other as their most extreme example with no credible third parties for contrast, and indeed extremists do sometimes rise to prominence from within either party.
That's the first time I've ever seen the 2011 riots in London called "Right Wing".
I was in London at the time. They were sparked by the police killing of a drug dealer, rightly or wrongly, and were more chaotic and violent than any sort of political.
Whatever the reaction was in the US, that article just calls it wrong.
--edit-- I think it might be you that's read it wrong, the article is just about US right wing media interests using the London riots to further their political goals in the US.
You might want to take that link off your list, it doesn't support your argument.
Many ME terrorists are actually relatively wealthy (Bin Laden being the most famous example), and historically revolutions occur more from a rising middle class rather than from the lowest classes. Inequality can play a role - but many times other factors are far more important.
I doubt it’s that one dimensional. One could point out that making things equal results in (edit) even more terror (as most former communists countries prove). Of course that reasoning would ignore the Scandinavian “exception“.
It is actually that simple, because it is a fundamental part of social psychology. In primitive cultures, when one man amassed too much wealth, he'd give it away for two reasons: one: it brings him prestige as a benefactor, and two: it prevents disgruntled members from killing him.
We're socially wired to keep things "fair", and when very unfair things happen, we have an almost religious feeling of righteous indignation. If someone is cheating society, we want to punish them and set things right. This is why there's a tendency towards lynch mobs, or their modern twitter equivalents.
Equivalently, when someone feels excluded from the basic things he sees others enjoying freely (food, sex, shelter, leisure), he also feels this injustice, and will want to lash out, punish, and bring justice back to his society. If he's excluded for long enough, or to an extreme enough degree, he'll stop associating himself with that society, and possibly even consider replacing it with a better one. Of course, not everyone who feels the bad end of inequality is going to take up a gun and start shooting, but the less emotionally stable you are from your circumstances, the greater the risk. These "manifests" are a last-ditch effort to be listened to, respected, and included. I'm not talking about listening to whatever weird bullshit they're spouting; I'm talking about listening to their pain and humanity.
The sad part is that many justice systems are designed to exclude those convicted of a crime, thus excluding the most vulnerable, who need inclusion the most. It's one reason why you have such high recidivism rates in societies with more vengeful justice systems.
Inequality is a form of exclusion, and we're wired to fight it. Fighting terrorism is fighting the symptom rather than the cause. The harder you hit them, the harder they fight back, because they've got nothing left to lose that they care about, and they have "righteousness" on their side.
That is the most succinct well thought out reasoning on this phenomenon I have ever read. I wish there was a way to stop this rather than have "rich people should share", because that just seems really unlikely :<
All societies drift towards inequality. We can't avoid that because our rules and laws are imperfect, and people will take advantage to control a bigger slice of the pie. That's fine, so long as we have corrections from time to time to redistribute wealth and power (such as the wealth giveaways that primitive societies practiced, or debt jubilees in more complex societies).
Historically, when inequality goes on for too long, social unrest takes root and gradually grows worse, divisive factions and subgroups grow, "little battles" take place, and, if untreated for too long, revolution breaks out.
By Scandinavian “exception” do you mean (1) that Scandinavan countries are more equal than most Western countriea but less oppressive than communist countries, or (2) the high rate (in terms of people killed) of white/extreme-right terrorism in Scandinavian countries (i.e. Brevik)?
Former "communist" countries were not equal. There was corruption, and a pretty large split between normal people and the higher ups in the party. There was lack of basic supplies.
> Imminent threats and specific calls to violence are a different matter.
More equality does not mean communism or everybody gets exactly the same. You position is just a straw man argument.
> Scandinavian
Scandinavian countries are social democracies, like most of Europe, they are not community countries. And are no exception but good examples of implementing good policies.
To add to the possible causes/reasons that people have already replied with, I'd suggest that in countries with mandatory voting, there is a natural tension that keeps parties from straying too far from the centre (i.e. where most of the citizenry sit). In countries with optional voting regimes, those that feel disenfranchised or cynical or apathetic don't vote, while those with extremist views are probably less inclined to let such things get in the way of their vote, resulting in over-representation in the pool of actual voters (vs potential voters). This has led parties to chase the edges more so than pleasing the centre.
In Australia, we have mandatory voting, and while the media is still active and slowly moving the electoral needle, overall, attempts to introduce extremist positions have largely faltered (with a few exceptions). I don't expect this position will last forever though.
As someone that lives in Australia but comes from a similar country with optional voting (NZ), Australia's mandatory voting regime seems very much like choosing a government by chance - if voters don't know enough to vote without it being compulsory, they don't suddenly know any more by making them vote, and forcing a bunch of low information voters to go and vote anyway doesn't seem like it's going to get a good outcome. NZ's turnout is not all that much below AU without compulsory voting (admittedly, we did have John Key for what felt like forever, so it's not like we've got great form either).
While I'm moaning about the electoral system, the lack of a representative system (winner takes all in each electorate, leading to an enormous focus on battleground electorates while the safe seats are largely ignored) is also hugely problematic.
The founding principles of the USA prevent things like compulsory voting laws. It is illiberal, and contrary to the principles. I don't know what the founding principles of Australia are/ were, but I'm pretty sure it was a Commonwealth country until somewhat recently.
The unease from the industrial revolution, 2 world wars, and the Great Depression allowed much of the original American vision to be eroded for expediency. People who fail to understand history, are doomed to repeat it.
> Except, maybe, for the rise of extremism in the United Kingdom
I'd challenge that -- what do you have in mind? I suspect we have far fewer politicians describable as far-right in the UK, where in France for example, RN has some actual power and voting numbers.
For Europe, most of the civilian killings are indeed done by extremists. But we are not allowed to aknowledge or talk about that part, so the extremists of the "other side" start to grow.
you sound more distraught than hopeful, so let me add some perspective. what's amazing is that relative to opportunity, terrorism (and mass shootings as a subset) is extremely rare. many, many things will kill you (or a loved one) before terrorism will (accidental shooting, drowning, overdose, heart attack, car accident, etc.). while we all do have a violent side, we are a remarkably empathetic and social species who largely follow cultural and moral rules for the good of the whole.
on your last point, it wasn't terrorism or just zenophobia that caused genocide, but state actors (and their leadership) lusting for power, notoriety, and wealth. that's rare too, since it took a perfect storm of many bad circumstances and decisions (from what i understand).
that's not to say don't be vigilant or push for change (since rare doesn't mean impossible). just don't feel hopeless or a sense of despair that things are somehow so much worse now.
I'm in the UK, not sure I see much extremism here really. We have the brexit party I suppose, but that's not so much extremist as just weirdly conservative.
> the last time that xenophobia was not stoped it cost over 80 million lives
I assume you are referring to WWII - it is a strong assertion to claim that was a xenophobic war. The Nazis were xenophobic, but one suspects their driving motivations for actually doing something about it were economic. They were expanding because they famously thought they needed more space and resources, and the German economy prior to the war was famously horrible and probably the major contributing factor to the Nazi movement gaining any traction at all.
In fact, I'll assert based on a hunch that aggressive wars powered by xenophobia are vanishingly rare. "[color] people are bad" is a good propaganda slogan for the troops, but nobody is going to stump up the funds to actually deploy them if there isn't some sort of economic justification.
Yeah, the United Arab Republic turned out so well...
For the countries you list, the only time in history that they ever were all in the same country was a brief period during the Abbasid Caliphate, which quickly broke apart. There is a lot of bad blood between Persians and Levantine Arabs that is going to prevent any sort of stable long-term stability.
I think you're just proving my point. Justifications such as you proffer do nothing to convince me otherwise:
We in the West are very xenophobic when it comes to assessing those nations we've destroyed in the last 20 years. We're not really being fair about such propositions as 'long term stability', really, when we do everything we can to make sure the region stays unstable...
If you're trying to project the future of the Middle East based solely off of knowledge of the last 20 years, you are very well out of your depth. The Middle East is a region of immense history--we can count back over 5000 years of recorded history--and people can nurse grievances accumulated over that span of time, especially as they are emphasized and deemphasized in mythmaking.
Ever since the rise of nationalism in the Long 19th Century, and the collapse of the multiethnic empires that ended it, the ability to forge a common national identity has been the key to state survival. There is no hard and fast guideline to how to do so, and so it can be perplexing as to why Languedocs and Bretons can feel affinity in a French state whereas Serbs and Croats cannot feel affinity in a Yugoslav state--especially since, I will note, the first two groups do not speak the same language (at least, pre-French Revolution) but the latter two do!
Surely you must have an idea why the 5-eyes nations have applied their armed forces as a coalition, towards the destruction of the Middle East and parts of Asia?
I mean, you know that Iraq was demolished. Afghanistan too. Libya, Syria .. and now Yemen.
Why do you think the 5-eyes forces are there instead of defending their homelands? Its not xenophobia?
Lebensraum was long, long before the Nazis. It was the goal of Imperial Germany in WW1, and became policy again under the Nazis. Probably dates back to the 19th century. The economics were irrelevant to the policy.
Economics had nothing to do with pursuing the idea of racial purity and a superior race either. Untermensch goes back to the twenties and intertwines with the US eugenics that the Nazis cribbed from heavily.
Can you describe what you mean a bit more in concrete terms? For a second there I thought someone had posted the manifesto here, imagining it is a vague story as well.
What concrete examples do you have of misrepresentation of the situation in the media for example? I believe you when you say that something is wrong, but giving concrete examples will help drive your message home.
> Steal from the richest man in the world: FBI is on the case with military-grade weapons, tactics and surveillance.
Steal from the richest man in the world * that avoids paying taxes * : FBI is on the case with military-grade weapons, tactics and surveillance * paid by taxpayers *.
> In the end, reducing support to the bare minimum possible appears a reasonable option for many companies: it is the easiest to implement, it reduces legal/PR risks, and it has a very measurable and consistent effect (how many people stop buying/using your service after failing to get support).
I agree that this is the best short interest for corporations. And that is why it is so important laws to protect consumers.
Corporations act in completely selfish economic interest. Mandatory customer support and hefty fines and regular inspections are the only protection for consumers. Also, it creates a fair environment where having good customer support is not an extra cost because of all companies having to provide it.
Corporations have a social responsibility that needs to be enforced. Corporations are going to optimize their extractive capacity until we humans are just reduced to production machines that survive another day to feed corporations profits. Our society goal should be human wellbeing, not corporate profits.
> This isn't just a part of an anti-government or even anti-education strategy
Big corporations should be paying way more taxes. It would be a good way to avoid creating such undemocratic centers of power. Education is a human right: Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
Uneducated population doesn’t understand the repercussions of their choices and can be easily controlled through FUD. There have been regimes (e.g. Portugal’s military dictatorship) who made lack of education an official policy.
Your post sparked curiosity in me, and I googled it... but according to Wikipedia, the Portuguese dictatorship expanded literacy to cover most of the population, and also made a:
> strong investment in secondary and university education, which experienced in this period one of the fastest growth rates of Portuguese education history to date. [1]
So, it seems like Wikipedia contradicts your statement...
In truth, there was a lot of ignorance back then. Forty years of authoritarian rule under the regime established by António Salazar in 1933 had suppressed education, weakened institutions and lowered the school-leaving age, in a strategy intended to keep the population docile. The country was closed to the outside world; people missed out on the experimentation and mind-expanding culture of the 1960s. When the regime ended abruptly in a military coup in 1974, Portugal was suddenly opened to new markets and influences. Under the old regime, Coca-Cola was banned and owning a cigarette lighter required a licence. When marijuana and then heroin began flooding in, the country was utterly unprepared.
--
That said, you are correcting wikipedia says the exact opposite which is interesting.
While that is true in this specific instance, history is pretty rife with dictators slaughtering entire classes of educated people. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are the first example I have off the top of my head.
This implies educated people can't also be easily controlled. It may require different specific tactics, but I see little evidence that they can't also be controlled, generally speaking.
> could not afford a one-week annual holiday away from home
You get in Europe around one month of paid vacation time. What people can't afford is to travel. The title of the article misses that point, but, it's clear in the article itself.
I'm surprised that Italy, 44%, is in such a bad position. Worse than Poland (35%).
I can't express how much the association between "not travelling" and poverty angers me. (Greta, help me here.)
Some people choose to live in a stressless small town, work less, commute by bike, pick up their kids from daycare earlier and have a great time gardening at home. If your surrounding already feels like holidays, why the heck would you get your ass stuck in traffic or a narrow cylinder?
Oh right, talking about the horror of being stuck in an airplane for 15 minutes makes a better story when returning to work.
But the study did not ask how many traveled for holiday. It studied how many could afford to do so, regardless if they actually traveled or wanted to travel.
So 28% of Europeans either (a) have little disposable income although they work hard, or (b) do not buy into consumerism and minimize working time. (a) is a problem we should fix, (b) is a very healthy lifestyle, both for oneself and the planet.
We are giving no indication how large is (a) and (b), but the tone of the article wants us to believe there is problem.
Why not look at more important stuff like: do you have decent living conditions, enough space, fresh air to breathe, good teeth, respectful working condition? Oh right, fixing air quality in Paris is more challenging than sending people away for a week.
Since it's "people", not "employees", it may well be about travel and time off for some. For self-employeed sub-contractors (i.e. the "gig economy"), time off means time not paid.
I have been working in some fast-growing software companies. Every few years, we change office and get one in a better place, with new furniture, fancier each time, tv monitor is everywhere, each wall had pictures and was colourful.
I had to go to the hospital, nothing serious. It was so extremely sad to see 30-40 years old furniture, dark rooms that had never been re-painted, power outlets had been refurbished for the new European type. There was a sign that said, "Do not leave weelchears in this zone". Of course, there were wheelchairs as they did not have space anywhere else.
It felt so completely wrong. Are we, as a society, investing in the right things? Austerity in Spain means that there is no money for hospitals, education, etc. Anything that is not live-and-dead is a luxury. Meanwhile, those companies, all registered in tax havens like Malta or Ireland, had money to spend in fancy breakfast, new furniture every few years, unused monitors in every wall, ...
We know that to go to a hospital is a bad experience as you would like to be anywhere else. Why do we make it so much worse? Why we do not invest in life quality?
I know that there are countries where it is worse, I am happy that everyone in the country had free health care. But, it could be much better.
Healthcare has often outpaced GDP growth [1][2], putting a continuous strain on hospitals and other healthcare service providers. This in turn leads to less money being spent on non-essential parts, or at least the ones that are deemed to provide lower ROI for stakeholders (E.g. personnel, patients, family of patients, etc).
It is also worth noting that the trajectory that the company you work for in terms of office change is likely to be an outlier and (in)directly creates an skewed perspective of things, which when brought back to the average environment, creates a 'shock'.
> Are we, as a society, investing in the right things?
This kind of question can be tricky. It biases the answer. The answer is usually "No, but it's hard to agree about what the right things are."
But in a lot of cases, how is as important as how much.. and related. Are we doing this the right way? Are the right people making the right decisions?
A hospital or an industry is also a culture, and they often do things for cultural reasons.
The "fast-growing software companies" have a culture of nice offices. The economic rationale is that it's cheap, helps recruit, and possibly adds to moral or productivity or somesuch.
Hospitals have a utilitarian culture, austere at times. Older culture, more complicated reasons. A lot of the difference (since we're talking about appearances) is down to what they want to project and to whom.
> I know that there are countries where it is worse, I am happy that everyone in the country had free health care. But, it could be much better.
Doctor's offices in the US look nicer than those in Italy, where I lived for a number of years. But ultimately, patients pay for that, and overall the US health care system is reaaaallllly expensive.
See this NPR interview with a healthcare expert from the Kaiser Foundation:
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, why do people get hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills for staying in a hospital?
ROSENTHAL: Well, the first thing I tell people when they ask me this question is to go into your local hospital and look around. And the marble lobbies, the art, the concierges at the front desk - our hospitals look like not five-star hotels - seven-star hotels. I mean, I think the most stark thing when people go overseas is hospitals in Europe, which deliver really high-quality care. They look like junior high schools. You know, they're not fancy, but the care is good.
Living in California I can tell you that there is free parking with valets. You can charge your electric car and the lobby is definitely not looking bad at all. In one hospital, in Washington, there was a super high ceiling with a piano where a musician comes sometimes during the day to play. It's not everywhere like these two examples, but I've seen a couple where the level was way higher than in Canada or Europe.
I've seen some pretty flashy lobbies and interior spaces in Boston (Brigham and Women's) and Providence (Lifespan) where you get the hotel impression. I could not find easy-to-point-at pictures, but there are some littered around (best I can show is http://www.discoverbrigham.org/2017-discover-brigham-photos-... which looks like a convention hall but is actually shot at the hospital). As soon as you get past them though to the functional spaces it usually turns into the traditional easy to clean hallway systems, but some of the lobbies have that marble, high ceiling, hotel lobby kind of look. There are plenty that I have been to that haven't exuded that kind of feeling however (or were an alternate entrance).
Patients are usually an inconvenience to the good running of a healthcare system.
In other words, incentives aren't aligned. The people with the power to make decisions have little or no forces making things better for healthcare consumers, outside of boutique private healthcare.
The Disneyland-like software companies you describe are that way because they must signal success, coolness, etc in order to attract employees to hire, investors to write checks, customers to sign up, etc. In another word, it’s a cost of doing business.
Hospitals (I’m assuming you’re describing public European hospitals) aren’t subject to those pressures - instead, they have to fight for the tiniest bit of budget to replace/fix things that should have been replaced years ago, or to hire enough staff.
If you go to fancy private American hospitals, you will also find that they have the latest TVs/trendy furniture/etc, because they have to signal to wealthy people that they are worth giving their money to.
When you look at how inflated costs are for the latter, I’m not sure it’s a desirable thing.
The mention of Spain reminded me of the Sant Pau hospital, which Domènech i Montaner designed in contrast to typical hospitals with the idea that beautiful places could be more therapeutic. It's a restored UNESCO site now that hosts events rather than patients (it stopped functioning as a hospital a decade ago). It being built 100 years ago, I imagine it may fall short in suitedness for medicine today, but the conversion of beautiful place to museum/event venue aligns a bit with your sentiment.
> Austerity in Spain means that there is no money for hospitals
Sorry where are you getting this information from? I have family in Spain that is expecting to get excellent healthcare from their supplemental health insurance.
It seems likely that the emphasis on judging the aesthetic values of work spaces may itself be the issue, not that our hospitals and other public facing facilities are depressing.
> Imaginary friends are a common—and normal—manifestation for many kids
I never had any imaginary friends. Even when other kids had fantastic expectations in the world, like asking a teacher to build a swimming pool, I was very sceptical on how will get permission and a budget for that. For me, toy cars were toys. I liked to make then run down a slope, but never tough they were real.
> what is less understood is what prompts children to create these personas or why some kids invent them and others don’t
I struggle to understand other behaviours too. When all the children were screaming in the theatre to the good guy "the bad guy is at your back!", I could not understand why the other children were screaming at the actor. He is an actor in the play, of course, he knows where the bad guy is and what is going to happen next. I felt slightly second-hand embarrassment.
> One suggested that relationships with invisible beings fulfill a child’s need for friendship and are more common among firstborn or only children.
I saw all these "imaginary friends" in movies as an American thing. Like Big Foot, I saw imaginary friends as a storytelling device, not as something real. I was surprised when I read that is a real thing, not just part of movies. But, when I grew up, most families were at least two children. So, maybe there was not much space for imaginary friends.
> it can be hard to fathom a day when the imaginary characters who’ve been populating their lives for so long simply cease to exist.
And this is for me the final irony, I continue having fun when I go to work. I will go with some weird clothing or I will draw characters from books with interesting quotes in meeting rooms. For me, there is not that strong separation between being a child and being an adult. I was responsible as a child, taking care of myself and the people around me. And, I am playful and have fun as an adult, and - inside the limits of what makes sense - I try to engage my colleagues and I make new friends all the time that I have been lucky enough to keep after moving jobs and countries.
> When all the children were screaming in the theatre to the good guy "the bad guy is at your back!", I could not understand why the other children were screaming at the actor.
I used to do that too, but now I find it much more fun to let go and completely engage in the plot, including feeling what protagonist feels, verbal reactions, etc. This makes good drama much better, as the director is anyway trying their best to make you feel like the actor on screen -- so why not listen? :) Watching TV with friends becomes more enjoyable too!
I always thought this was the default way of watching TV shows, which is why I was surprised as an adult by many people seeming detached from what they're watching and unable to immerse themselves in the plot.
> Watching TV with friends becomes more enjoyable too!
My experience is the opposite. Unless those friends are also going all-in like me, watching anything that has even a smudge of a plot becomes irritating very quickly, as people around me keep breaking the immersion. For many of the TV shows and movies I watch, I try to at least get the first watch alone, so that I can enjoy the full experience.
You're right on with the latter, I guess this behavior is only with my close friends (when we all go over-the-top all in) or with my SO (where our reactions add to each other's fun?).
Given the immense hours most people consume TV, they would only be reducing my own enjoyment if they detach.
So, it is ok that people promote and help mass shooters as far as there is no direct connection the day of the attack?
> Going there is just asking for trouble and I would urge anyone curious to look for screenshots instead of actually visiting the website.
Is a screenshot of hate speech promoting hate less than a rendered HTML page?
I will imagine that an Islamic extremist site will be closed within minutes of gaining notoriety. Why are we sparing white-nationalist propaganda?