#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon The second part of the ThoughtExperiement asked you all to assume Trump was a distraction and to indicate what you thought the underlying root complaint is for the MAGAs. I asked Europeans not to reply, because their underlying causes of right wing discontent are different from ours AND because they are more willing to critically look at systems than Americans are. I wanted to hear from the people who live here. 1/7
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon And just as with the first experiment results were not surprising. Less than 10 people offered a guess as to the underlying root complaint of the MAGA. Let me offer one. You’ll need to remember some history but I promise I’ll only ask you to go back as far as Richard Nixon. I won’t traumatize you with a connection to Reconstruction (!) 2/7
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon Just recently someone on Mastodon re-posted the interview with Nixon’s man Halderman where he proudly admitted that they created the war on drugs to negate any forward movement that was created by the civil rights legislation of 1964/65. This happened within the lifetimes of you old heads on this site and for the young people when your parents were already adults. 3/7
*edit: add numbering
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon Reagan continued those polices as did both Bushes. And frankly, Bill Clinton signed some of the most repressive legislation that has ever been wielded as a hammer against poor people and people of color. What Nixon and Halderman and the others have been worried about was a population of free black and brown people, who were educated, employed and able to participate in the so-called American Dream. 4/7
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon The root of the MAGA angst is the fight for the American White Identity. The fight is over whether "White America" will join a world order where they are not on top and where their voices are not always considered the most important one or will they enter a world where there are equals who don’t look like them, don’t speak their language, don’t eat their food or pray to the same gods. 5/7
*ed: spelling
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon A large swath of white America does not want a new world order. They are desperately fighting for Jim Crow 2.0 where people of color know their place, don't look them in they eye and step off the sidewalk when they walk by. They want a world where they can work black and brown children to death, and kill their parents with impunity if they complain. 6/7
*edit: spelling
#ThoughtExperiment#politics#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon They want a world where women don’t get to talk and die in childbirth like it used to be so they can get the next model. Do you see it? Are you prepared to frame that issue and talk about it? If someone were to ask me how I see the fight ending, I wouldn’t be able to answer. I think there’s a 50-50 chance we go fully and openly to Jim Crow 2.0. And when I look around sometimes I wonder..which side are you all on? 7/7
#politics#trump#fascism#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon#ThoughtExperiment Thanks for all your responses to the question about fascism. As I expected most people could not give concrete examples of what fascism would look like for them. I prompted over 20 times to push people to focus on their own community. Few could. A handful of people finally stated what would happen to others in their community but because of their white privilege they would not bear the brunt of of it . 1/6
#politics#trump#fascism#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon#ThoughtExperiment The people who did make it local were black/brown folks and either immigrants or people who are perhaps trans or at least LGBTQ+. They used the word “I” and the anxiety in their replies was palpable, because all the things most of you stated would happen ARE already happening and have been for quite some time, just not where the most of you live. The Europeans get it a little better. 2/6
#politics#trump#fascism#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#ThoughtExperiment@blackmastodon I started to provide links to stories where all the things you said would happen have already happened. But when I reached the third page of links I quit. Yeah...three PAGES of links to stories that show the crap started hitting the fan a long time ago. Most of them I bookmarked from Mastodon! But I don’t think many of you really know what oppression looks like or what it feels like. 3/6
#politics#trump#fascism#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon#ThoughtExperiment Oppression is still very theoretical for you. Really at the heart of it, I don’t think most can envision yourselves being oppressed. And lets be real...many people lived under fascism in Italy, Spain and Germany and did just fine. The folks who lived in towns surrounding the concentration camps claimed they didn’t know anything about what happened there, even though you could smell the ovens….4/6
#politics#trump#fascism#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon#ThoughtExperiment
Why does it matter that you couldn’t make it concrete? Because with the elections just around the corner, if you are running around 24/7 talking about fascism is coming, it won’t mean anything to most Americans who are like you. Listen to the people in your towns. What is worrying them? Talk about that...at the end you can give them the definition of fascism if you have to...but don’t start there. 5/6
#politics#trump#fascism#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon#ThoughtExperiment You aren't wrong to talk about the dangers of fascism. You aren't wrong to be worried. Vent here and talk among yourselves, but just remember, most people from marginalized communities when listening to you are thinking....you're late and have already missed the boat...plane...bus...uber.... whatever it is you use to get around. 6/6
#politics#trump#fascism#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter@blackmastodon#ThoughtExperiment
Let us assume Donald Trump is a distraction. I don’t want a dissertation on whether he is or not. Follow the instructions for the exercise. What is the root concern of the MAGA/right wing conservatives?
*edit - phrased question better, not the goal but their root concern. I think it doesn't apply to non US folks unless you are ex-pats.
#thoughtExperiment Politically, economically, and technically: Are “scaling problems” an indication that an entity has become too large? Maybe not, but fun to think about anyway.
If the #EverGiven has shown us one thing, then it’s that today’s interconnectedness without buffers can be a huge weakness. It’s also not unthinkable that something like this could be done deliberately with trade wars on the rise. Let’s have #TheITCollapse as a #ThoughtExperiment. No new chips for several years. Your country starts chip production from scratch. But first they do dumpster diving for hardware. What would be your #bedrockOS? Something that scales well from embedded to datacenter!?
It's the early noughties. My PR company is part of a global viral marking campaign, funded by the G8, WTO, IMF, WB, WEF etc. They're annoyed by the networked activist movement whose massive global protests keeps shutting down their photo op meetings, and distracting the news media from making them look good. We're tasked with coming up with a strategy for breaking up these networks and keeping them from reforming.
Then some intern at my company comes up with a genius idea, that I will, of course, take credit for.
What we do, they say, is seed two lots of mutually contradictory ideas into their networks.
One, we troll the well-meaning but gullible old-school-unionist and eco-nationalist types with all sorts of vaguely plausible-sounding anti-corporate conspiracy theories. All of them built around tropes that sound vaguely crypto-fascist if you squint at them the right way.
Two, we patiently prime the rest of them with a set of bloody-minded dogmas.
One, anyone who says anything even vaguely crypto-fascist - even if it only looks that way if you squint just right - is definitely a Nazi and planning to enslave women and kill gay people. Two, anyone that sounds even vaguely like a Nazi must be mercilessly purged, and never spoken to again. Three, anyone who talks to people who might be Nazis, even to talk them out of it, is a Nazi.
Once these two sets of ideas take hold, the activists will start spreading them through their own networks. Conflict with people holding the other set will only encourage them to spread the set they're holding with more urgency.
All the purging will undercut their ability to organise these mass protests, as will the general climate of fear and distrust created by all the spreading of our FUD, and the wedges it will drive between allies, and eventually even friends.
Once these two sets of mutually-reinforcing, movement-breaking thought viruses are in the community, our job is pretty much done. We can sit back and watch them tear their own movements to pieces, both sides absolutely convinced they're fighting the good fight against their corporate globalization enemies.
The only thing we have to do is monitor their networks for anyone who gets wise to what we're up to, and accuse them of being a Nazi (and a commie).
Note to anyone who references the #ParadoxOfTolerance. What Karl Popper said was;
"If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant..."
With the exception of a few naive teenage libertarians, nobody is advocating unlimited tolerance. We're just arguing against abandoning tolerance to the point of dehumanizing people who hold intolerant views.
So the vast majority of handwaves at the PoT are slaughtering strawmen. The obvious response being to quote Nietzsche...
For everyone who invokes the "Nazi bar" story in arguments for suppressing certain speech on the internet, here's a thought experiment for you.
Note: it's not necessary to agree with any of the arguments presented here to run the experiment. If you read the posts in context, I think it's pretty clear that despite my defence of Palestinian human rights - including the right to political autonomy - I disagree with most of the arguments presented here.
My brother shares my full genome.
He takes a trip and comes back home
Still young, though I am old and gray.
“Well, that makes sense,” I start to say,
“Due to the constant speed of light
Your clock moved slower in my sight.”
“How strange,” he says, “for I saw you,
And from my viewpoint, yours did too.”