It comes down to culture and society. A democratically elected government should ideally be there to represent the interests of the masses as a way to counteract the inevitable power of the wealthy elite. But when those same wealthy elite spend decades and billions of dollars to brainwash the masses by owning all the media companies and influencing school curriculums and so on, I don't see how the masses stand a chance over the long term.
No they don't, at least not anymore (if they ever really did.) They believe government shouldn't regulate business and shouldn't provide social welfare or invest in scientific research that doesn't align with their political ideology, but they absolutely believe in having a trillion dollar military industrial complex.
When was that supposed to have happened?
TL;DR A global cabal of pedophiles runs the world
I sure have been thinking a lot about this recently as Gaza was the ultimate manifestation of where this can go. I actually think there's a movement to bring that type of violence to places like the US. Flock and fascism are steps in that direction imo.
The underlying problem is that power and wealth causes people to believe themselves above others to a degree proportional to how much more power and wealth they have relative to those considered below them.
Unfortunately, we've seen unprecedented concentration of wealth occur, so it should come as no surprise that those who are running things exhibit very little humanity towards others.
"Quite a bit of salary" like
> But my personal lines definitely extend to don’t give money to people who enable fascism and don’t create value for them, either.
When you architect your industry around "number goes up" as the number one priority that everybody agrees on, and then add multiple layers of abstraction separating capital from labor, you end up with the Ouroboros-style arrangement we have today. The head forgets that it is the tail, and vice-versa.
I think we used to (in, idk, the era of the Roosevelts) have a very different leadership class, with competing interests that were more complicated than "number go up", even in the corporate class.
Since the Kennedy assassination(s!) in the US, I don't think we've had a single leader (corporate or political) who has publicly and sincerely questioned that narrative. At this point we struggle to imagine a civilization with alternative priorities, but history is littered with examples.
The fact that the vast majority of people are not calling the same things fascist as OP is, tells me this seems to be a quite controversial opinion.
But at the same time, I don't hold that position passionately. Maybe it is fascism. It's not "blatant", but it's arguable.
Semantic arguments are never very interesting. It's more reasonable to simply argue that something is immoral - to argue the specifics of your disagreement - rather than to fight over whether a specific term applies, which would serve as emotional leverage for your argument due to its connections to historical atrocities. That's some kind of logical fallacy that I can't name.
Words are not always used in a rigid black-and-white manner according to their definition... understanding and being able to deal with this, without getting angry or trying to "correct" people, is what makes for good social etiquette IMO.
Maybe you could tell us what, specifically, the author refers to as fascist that you don't consider to be fascist?
Is it fascist to not want to become a minority based on how we see them often treated badly? I think it's normal to fear that.
Racial essentialism, xenophobia and white supremacy are all fascist. Praising and supporting right-wing extremists is fascist. Believing in ethnic cleansing and that non-whites need to be forcibly removed is fascist. Believing all non-Christian religion needs to be banned is fascist. Equating "gypsies" to dogs is fascist.
When you believe the things that fascists believe, it is accurate to call you a fascist.
Obviously, you will disagree with my interpretation and the interpretation of many others, and I'm not interested in having that argument, because I know it will be futile. The point is that your original hyperbolic assertion that the author had no rationale for considering DHH to be fascist other than pure arbitrary spite is incorrect. They have a rationale, you just disagree with it.
I did not assert there was no rationale, and that was never my intent.
> When you believe the things that fascists believe, it is accurate to call you a fascist.
I never claimed to believe any of the things that "fascists believe".
You simply cannot use any technology at all in general while abiding by this ideology though. Just the keystrokes you used to write this already were paid for by, and continue to be used to enable, countless people to do their "fascism" as you call it.
But the tech people have been programmed for obedience and followed their industry leaders through wokeness and now protofascism without thinking.
Tech people are weak and just act as repeaters, so I guess the leaders know what they are doing and the useful idiots will carry it out, even if they live under a bridge in 5 years.
I want nothing to do with fascists, and with programmer jobs as thin on the ground as they are, I would be forced to take whatever. That's not a coin flip I feel like making. No amount of money can compensate you for severe moral injury.
So, I hedge my bets and make contingency plans.
However, if you don't like the creator of Brave or Ladybird, and you don't believe Google or Mozilla can be trusted to make a browser that respects privacy, giving up is just ceding to those forces.
Like, make a browser. Make it with people who do share your values. That's exactly what Andreas King and the Brave people did. That's what DHH is doing.
If they're right about anything, the "anti-SJW/DEI/Woke/'politics'" groups are right in that you cannot demand creators share your values.
If you like Harry Potter, you have to deal with JK Rowling. There's no way around it. You have to reconcile that with your morals. You don't get to demand that she supports the groups you want her to support in order for you to enjoy her content guilt-free.
So your options are, don't use those browsers, or make your own. You have that ability.
And yes, you, singular you, cannot make all the software. But you can make something and you can find others with your values and eventually you can build a network and that network can build all the software. With values that you can support.
* I know I talk a lot about browsers, but that's just the example. This is applicable to everything.
I don't need to associate with people I don't like or find distasteful. I don't need to join hands with the Tankies. I don't need to read JK Rowling's works. I get to choose.
> If they're right about anything, the "anti-SJW/DEI/Woke/'politics'" groups are right in that you cannot demand creators share your values.
I don't associate that claim with these groups, if anything they seem to be saying the opposite.
Conservatives will come out to say that you can't force JK Rowling to be pro (or even neutral) on the trans issue.
Now, they'll also say that certain people shouldn't be allowed to create. Or at the very least create based on certain properties. Which is admittedly almost a "same result, different mechanism" issue.
But they will claim to allow the market decide (aka "go woke, go broke").
And the ultimate form of cancel culture, conservatives (including the neo-liberal variety) will straight up murder you if you're Muslim and live in the Middle East.
None of that is free market.
But this is getting rather forest for the trees.
End point is: If you don't like who is making your software, make your own. Giving up is just letting them win.
And I didn't say it would be easy, just possible.
I think that's some of the disconnect for some people. They think that simply because a thing is possible, it should be easy.
Strange because that’s exactly what the anti-SJW/DEI/Woke/'politics' groups in the government demand.
It's a very straightforward reconciliation given her women's rights advocacy. Massive respect to her for taking a stand against the progressive-styled misogyny that's arisen in recent years.
I wish China could host an HN clone so we could have free discussions.