One thing wasn't highlighted in the alleged suicide note was the line 'we must secure the existence of our people and a future for our children'.
That language should be a pretty clear indicator of where this person's politics lie, even without the 'fall of western civilization' rhetoric earlier. They always seem to use the same exact verbiage.
This is a well know white supremacist's phrase and originates from an organization that was known as The Order. It is called 14 words, if I where on the receiving end of a donation with that phrase I would be quick to distance myself from it and donate the proceeds to a worthwhile charity.
While I know it is routine to paint the right and specifically the alt-right as all being racist white supremacist's the reality is they are a small minority that has banded onto the right given their conservative views on certain items. The right needs to do a better job of making it known that they are not welcome but things like this really don't help them in doing just that. I know the guy with the buffalo headdress has a Valknut tattoo prominently tattooed on his chest so I think it's pretty safe to assume he is a white supremacist's. So to me it looks like a small band of white supremacist's organized to incite the mob into action. People should really be aware of who they are throwing their lot in with.
Also, the bit about 'the industrial revolution and its consequences that have been a disaster for the human race' slightly paraphrases the opening of Ted Kaczynski's manifesto Industrial Society and its Future, which is quite popular with accelerationists and eco-fascists due to his relative success as the 'Unabomber'.
Industrial Society and its Future is a great piece of analysis and writing marred by its psychopathic author. Although, I agree with the author that his terrorism helped get the essay read more widely, and that sickens me, because of course I wouldn't have read it if he hadn't murdered those people.
also popular with edgy twitterposters and anons, and a large swath of online news-aware people under 40. there are plenty of sunday morning accelerationists for whom all these sentiments could more accurately reflect malaise and disenfranchisement from party politics that increasingly represent no one. personally i wouldn't grant many of these statements much more weight than 'subscribe to pewdiepie'
however as institutions dip their toes deeper into the open embrace of superficial intersectionality and antiracism, it should come as a surprise to no one that retrograde ideas about white identity begin to viscously resurface with greater frequency. my personal opinion is that it is a very bad time to repeat the economic mistakes of obama with an added veneer of identity justice. optimism makes me want to believe that good governance can heal our country, but more realistically, good governance is the one thing we truly do not make in america anymore.
theres a terrifying amount of acc/horticulture/anprim edgy twitterposters that follow nick land @outsideness that have a large overlap (if not a circle) with neo nazi twitter
There's lot of edgy people on Twitter... lots of folks with hammers and sickles, ironic or otherwise, in their handles, despite the many documented atrocities committed by communist states.
Tankies are true believers, just like Trumpists, or the typical soccer moms who picket outside Planned Parenthood, but when their daughter needs it they obviously use it, then back to picketing the next day.
"This time it will be different."
There are also various explanations of how and why the Holodomor just "happened", and it had nothing to do with communism/socialism/USSR/Stalin, or it was Nazi propaganda, etc. ( https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/izcxbk/i_saw_... - with reputable sources such as sputniknews :| )
I recall thinking of the Unabomber manifesto when I first started seeing the alt-right emerge in a big way in the early 20-teens. The alt-right and adjacent movements sort of do belong under the umbrella of neo-primitivism. There are a lot of ideological parallels and deep similarities in the emotional appeals.
It takes me back to when I read the Unabomber manifesto online as a teenager when it was first printed. I largely rejected it, but there was this part of me that resonated with the emotional appeal to a simple world with simple ideals and a connection to nature. I knew enough to realize that this was a fantasy, but it's an appealing fantasy that also finds expression in the popularity of comic books, pseudo-medieval fantasy epics, and other forms of escapist fiction.
I think what it boils down to is that we are not neurologically wired for abundance, huge scale societies, or the types of labor that pay the best in the modern world. We're not built to sit in front of screens and solve puzzles all day, and without something to struggle against parts of our emotional nature seem to go haywire. I've speculated that the immense paranoia and prevalence of all kinds of neuroses might be an emotional analogue to the hygiene hypothesis for allergies. Without real traumas and existential struggles, our emotional system starts attaching the coping mechanisms that exists for these things to other more mundane aspects of existence like politics and relationships.
> with the emotional appeal to a simple world with simple ideals and a connection to nature.
I mean, I can understand the appeal, but it's sort of ironic that those fantasies are exchanged and amplified using the most unnatural and complex technology we have at our disposal.
I wonder if this is less a longing for "simpler times" than a longing for a society in which one has more power.
> Without real traumas and existential struggles, our emotional system starts attaching the coping mechanisms that exists for these things to other more mundane aspects of existence like politics and relationships.
This sounds a lot like the old nazi argument for "perpetual war": Without war, men will grow weak and complacent and society will become fragile, therefore war must never end.
I think this sort of reasoning can be easily be cured by talking with an actual veteran.
> I wonder if this is less a longing for "simpler times" than a longing for a society in which one has more power.
I always thought it was more about control and self determination rather than power for most, something many here running linux and avoiding cloud services can naturally sympathize with. It's a very old urge with even the aristocrats of ancient Rome had similar notions, farming and getting your hands dirty was held in high esteem for instance. We also see it in Tolkiens writing about hobbits who loved farming and never craved power. It's the sort of theme that seems to be a constant desire throughout history.
One of the recipients of the bitcoins is Luke Smith, I don't agree with his politics but from watching his youtube he seems to practice the self sufficiency he preaches to an extent, from growing his own food to running linux. He's a bit like Kaczynski but spends more time on his vim configuration than mail bombs.
> but it's sort of ironic that those fantasies are exchanged and amplified using the most unnatural and complex technology we have at our disposal.
I think in the long run technology will become sufficiently advanced to solve this paradox, anyone that desires to will be able to become fully self sufficient, we'll fire up our 3D printers to make a pencil instead of relying on the global supply chains we do now. It's either that or our psyche has to adapt to being colony animals, but after 2000 years we don't seem to be getting much closer to that.
> anyone that desires to will be able to become fully self sufficient, we'll fire up our 3D printers to make a pencil instead of relying on the global supply chains we do now.
While probably unintentional, this sounds very similar to the practice of making high sulfur "pig iron" very inefficiently in backyard furnaces during the Great Leap Forward.
It would be the height of irony if these far-right, hyper-libertarian types took their ideology to the extremities where it begins to resemble Mao or Pol Pot's ideas about autarky.
I read it too after reading Kevin Kelly's analysis in What Technology Wants. I recall it was very meandering, not particularly well supported, and from what I understand, not very novel either. In retrospect, if Ted Kaczynski thought that he could start a movement with that much wandering text, there wasn't much hope for anything super cogent.
David Skirbina addresses this is his forward to Technological Slavery[0]. Ted isn't a PhD student doing research; the lack of originality to his arguments is a feature, not a bug.
I think this is a very fair analysis. Kaczynski definitely put his finger on something fundamental about the impact of technology on society. Among his fans are left-wing anarcho-primitivists as well as right wing eco-fascists and while they have fundamentally different views of tribalism and identity there's a lot of overlap between them, and it's not unknown to see people in one group drift into the other.
Kaczynski has also continued to write while in prison and his work is thought-provoking notwithstanding the paradoxes involved (eg how technology has facilitated the spread of his anti-technological ideas). His views don't fit neatly into any political category.
It's disgusting how such primitive people can still exist in our modern world.
Yes, we have many people doing horrible things all over the world, but people being vile because their ancestors had less sun than others is a special kind of pointless stupidity.
If people can't (won't) compete by being smarter, working harder, taking long term views, innovating, up skilling etc, they fall back on "but I'm white".
That's all this really is. The economy has moved forwards. People either moved to cities and upskilled (hence the hate for a mysterious metropolitan "elite") or they sat in rust belt towns complaining their disability cheque is late again and worrying someone poorer than them might get the money instead.
That's Trumps whole platform really. That's where the racism fits in. That is all the bs about draining swamps and elites. That's "make America great again". That's rolling back climate change rules (even the tiny ones the US actually has). Bolt on anti-abortion single issue voters and tax cuts for trillionaires to keep the senate on side.
This whole thing is what happens when you have 25 years of social and economic progress and people get left behind and refuse to make any effort to catch up...
Is it not possible for people to remain in small communities and not be seen by you as "refusing to make any effort to catch up"? I'm not American, so if I can offer ab outise perspective it's this:
Trumps base was/is made up of majority poor white rural Americans, with a coalition of racists and extremists bolted on. What's crucial in that is the majority are just poor white townspeople.
They lost their jobs because overseas laborers are willing to do the same work for less; because consumers don't care if the latest iPhone is made in Cali or in some Chinese interment camp. Same thing for coal and oil jobs. The world changed and these are the people who lost their livelihoods for it. I've been watching American politics my whole life, and Trump was the first politician I saw to truly acknowledge that there is a large portion of the population that are suffering economically for things out of their control and told them it wasn't their fault.
Some People can stay local and retrain and do something, good luck to them!
Leaving aside fault for the moment...
The jobs are gone. So we have a few options:
* people can do what I said, retrain, maybe move, do something else
* people can do nothing and get benefits to sit there doing nothing.
I don't think there is a third option, but let me know if I'm missing something?
The issue is, 80% of people refuse to the first one. They sit in rust belt towns and die deaths of despair.
So what do we do?
Trumps solution, which they have chosen, is nothing. We do nothing. No healthcare for them, no improved benefits, no retraining.
Since they chose that, I could live with it. But I don't want to be tied to them and live with the rest of the shitty things trump wants to do.
I'm more than happy to hear a solution here. I've tried not to blame anyone. I honestly believe that it wasn't their fault the coal mine (etc) closed. I just don't see an option beyond waiting for them to die before we can progress economically or socially.
And that's not really acceptable to me. I'm gay, and I don't think I should be forced to be a second class citizen just because other people are bitter about their life and voted for a Fuck Everyone candidate. I'm sure there are women who will want reproductive health rights that feel the same way. I'm sympathetic, I came from just suck a place. But there does come a point where I feel like saying "you're not dragging me down with you".
Full disclosure: I'm actually a brit. But we have the exact same thing happening here. Only its Boris Johnson and Brexit (which will last much longer than trumpism).
I expect some people will do horrible things for personal gain, we all are egoists to a degree after all. What I have a hard time digesting is the irrationality of racism: why not pursue material instead of imaginary gain?
"I don't think the parent meant any disparagement to actual primitive tribes. Why did you assume that?"
Because all of these statements of ethnicity have to be contextualized.
You can't just say 'Well White this, Black that' - other than in a very American context.
I live in Quebec and they are essentially the only classical, coherent 'ethnic group' (i.e. language, governance) in North America aside from Aboriginals - and due to the fact they are surrounded by the 'Angloshphere' there is a very legit concern about the erosion of their culture.
New migrants basically don't want to learn French, and more and more English language 'everything' encroaches on the culture.
Now - some Pro-Quebec sentiment is really ridiculous, racist, over the top and frankly dumb (they want to ban 'Staples' from being called 'Staples' because it's English) but there is an underlying legitimacy.
Unspoken in all of this is that Quebec culture is defacto European and essentially (though not technically) White.
Also of interesting note that intellectually it's super-secular (they don't like their Catholic past) at the same time, culturally, kind of super Catholic.
Point being: there are calls for the 'saving of our culture' basically daily. It's part of the program here and it's not overtly racist or radical.
My MP (like Congressperson) is form 'Quebec Solidaire' and it's the very farthest Left group in North America it actually has roots in a former Communist part. (I didn't vote for them!) - but - they are equally Nationalist! They walk a tight intellectual line with justifying their Nationalism on a 'racially inclusive' basis, even though their ideology is at the same time very exclusive to outsiders, who happen to be Anglophones ... and people of colour.
In the face of Globalism 'We Are All Aboriginals' - which is to say every single culture save maybe Han Chinese is under the threat of being 'globalized' in a kind of Anglo-American hot-mess of commercialism.
So yes, it's not the same thing for some French guy to be saying such things as it is for someone from the disappearing Tribes of the Amazon, but this isn't the 20th century anymore, the fault lines are changing quickly and context is really important.
Maybe it will sound less snobbish (although more self-serving I fear) if I tell you I'm Mexican?
Mexico is a mixed race country, you will find people of all colors here, the concept of race is so weak common people are barely aware of it. There are racists who see whiter people as more beautiful, or darker (specially indigenous) people as lesser, but hate is extremely rare and frowned upon.
It's the hate part that I can't wrap my head around. Xenophobic tribes maybe hate visitors for their race, but they also could reject them for their effect in neighboring tribes, we don't know.
TL;DR: I can understand if people find Scottish people attractive, or Mexican people ugly, but I am indeed guilty of not understanding how people can actually grow hate from that.
I present to you the words of Kristen Clarke, Biden’s future head of the DoJ’s Civil Rights division:
“Melanin endows blacks with greater mental, physical, and spiritual abilities — something which cannot be measured by Eurocentric standards.”
This is just one quote from her letter, which goes on at length about black superiority.
I think the problem we have right now is we have two sets of standards. People that have been reintroducing racist concepts into government, academia and the media shouldn’t be surprised when there is a similarly racist backlash.
> The book, she said, “was generating wide acclaim for its racist views” and her intention in opening the letter “with an absurd claim that Black people are superior based on the melanin in their skin” was to “hold up a mirror to reflect how reprehensible the premise of black inferiority was set.”
> “It was meant to express an equally absurd point of view — fighting one ridiculous absurd racist theory with another ridiculous absurd theory,” Clarke explained, “and the goal was all about [exposing] the ugly racist underpinnings of the Bell Curve theory. It was deeply personal and profoundly important to Black students and other students of color who felt that their right to be on campus was challenged. And frankly, the fight that we were leading as students is a fight that I am still very much a part of today.”
> So she sets the record straight over 20 years later
The record is set straight in the first sentence of the letter, which explains the intended role of the things presented : In response to those who defend The Bell Curve (“Defending The Bell Curve,” Opinion, Oct. 24, 1994), please use the following theories and observations to assist you in your search for truth regarding the genetic differences between Blacks and whites.
So she sets the record straight over 20 years later, only after being appointed by Biden, that she was only pretending to be racist. Yeah... sure..
From your own link:
Later, in an interview with The Crimson, Clarke suggested that "The information [contained in the letter] is not necessarily something we believe, but some information that we think those pursuing a true understanding of The Bell Curve theory should either address, ignore or refute."
So it's false to say she is only addressing the matter now; she responded to questions about it at the time.
While claiming to have been unable to detect any irony in the letter co-authored by Clarke, the Crimson editorial is pseudo-objective at best, and at worst comes off as an example of insincere concern trolling.
At the time her response was that she doesn't necessarily believe in black superiority... it's just something people should address.
Does this sound ok to your ears? If this was a white supremacist, we would all correctly be shouting about how it's a dog whistle and not an acceptable response.
I wish more people would read 'How to Be an Antiracist.' I believe he's absolute right in that the only way forward is to call out racist beliefs from everyone, not selectively.
Selectively excusing racist beliefs from "our side" will only open the door to more racism.
Trying to peel individual phrases off from the context of the whole letter (which you oddly chose not to cite) isn't helping your argument. And if she were a white supremacist, that would be an extremely different situation from someone who's a member of an oppressed minority making snarky remarks about a book that she perceives as pseudoscientific race baiting. You've really misrepresented this whole episode, but thanks for your concern.
> At the time her response was that she doesn’t necessarily believe in black superiority…
“We” is not the same as “I”. She was speaking on behalf of a group, and a group which may not have even discussed their actual beliefs on the truth of the “theories and observations” presented, as that was not the purpose for which they were (explicitly, in the letters own terms) presented.
> So she sets the record straight over 20 years later, only after being appointed by Biden, that she was only pretending to be racist. Yeah... sure...
OMG! You're right! And Terry Pratchett went to his grave prostylizing a flat earth model because he never officially made a statement that his satirical novels were just that - satirical.
I think that you are being disingenuous in not pointing out the context as a rhetorical device to point out hypocrisy and absurdity of racist views, but I don't think you should be downmodded for bringing this to light given the comment chain above you.
I'm not sure if you were the one butchering the quote, the author butchered it or if the author wrote it wrong on purpose. Laid out like in your comment, there isn't anything wrong with the line. "our" could refer to humanity.
For reference, the famous quote that is VERY similar is "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children". Notice the missing "white" from rchauds quote.
Again, not sure if on purpose, or who butchered it, but it might not mean what you think it does.
You don't use wording like that on accident. Being one word off from a white supremacist quote in a message sent to white supremacists is incredibly unlikely to be accidental.
Stupidier things have happened in the past. I bet more than half of HN wouldn't know that quote if you removed the "white" part, so not so unlikely that someone who doesn't know it, sends it to others as the sentiment (without the "white" part) is actually pretty good.
Unknowingly reproducing (albeit imperfectly) a somewhat famous extremist catchphrase is of course a possibility, but the odds of doing it twice in a short document like this are too low to be plausible.
The donor here is not comparable to typical HN users. They've gone out of their way to make a large donation to known white supremacists.
Also, if you read the donor's suicide note (in the article), there is a reference to the Weimar Republic and there is a holocaust denier code phrase. (I won't encourage its spread by copying it here, but it's in one of the highlighted sections.)
I consider myself a classic liberal, not a leftist most people on the left assume I am a conservative, most on the right assume I am a leftist because of my belief in social liberties. I bring this up, because I am generally the hey, hey, hey lets give this guy, the benefit of doubt voice, but I have to agree with you on this one, there is not much to read between the line on, with what this guy is saying. We don't even really have to use polito-speak words like dog whistle to make it look like that is what he is saying. He is saying it very clear and his meaning is very clear this guy is/was a white supremacist's.
Tens of millions of dollars were raised for "bail funds" across the country to bail out people arrested at the riots over the summer. Once the groups paid the bail on behalf of someone, the money was returned to the person bailed out not the group that paid it. The district attorney in Portland, Oregon, and other DA's in larger cities, was not prosecuting the majority of people arrested, except for the most egregious of cases, so, I guess you could say people were getting paid to cause destruction.
Both this comment and its source are remarkably thin on details: the claim that people are not returning money to bail funds seems to be based on a single tweet from a single organization. I've given regularly to bail funds for years, and most report being able to recover and reuse bails for subsequent cases[1].
But even more saliently: nobody was "paid to cause destruction." People we being bailed out following mass arrests in the midst of a pandemic and unprecedented social unrest. Whether or not a particular fund has failed to recoup its bails is immaterial to the fact that nobody gave to bail funds as a mechanism for direct wealth transfer. That just wouldn't be very efficient.
I’d need to dig up the links, but my understanding was the opposite—rich people have harder to analyze finances compared to low cap with simpler finances. So they audit the easy ones even though low reward.
This seems easy to automatically audit? I mean there is a government record of who receives the money.
People protesting against authorities killing innocent people (ostensibly, at least partly the basis of racism), is altogether a different thing from people trying to stop the validation of an election, which is to say, overthrow the Republic.
One is civil disobedience in the face of a legitimate problem, however the other is a coup attempt.
And of course, there's nothing wrong with people paying for other people's bail, there is however, something wrong with financing a coup.
Hopefully, those involved in civil disobedience who really did break the law by 'looting Target' will face reasonable justice irrespective of their bail, and those attempting to stop the transfer of power between Presidents will face proportional charges.
Edit: I should be clear I don't mean to be supportive of any of what is going on in any direction: BLM/Trumpland/Apple/Facebook/BLM/COVID/Free Speech/Hate Speech etc. Even as most of the press hides under the veil of 'technically truthful' there's quite a bit of strong narrative building going on. Sufficed to say, the 'insurrection' on capital hill was of another league altogether what with the legitimacy of the Office of the President being maligned to support the interdiction of the transfer of power. That's a 'really big deal'. In 200 years we will remember COVID and Trump for dubious reasons, while the BLM protests and FB/Apple/Twitter wars won't like make the history lesson.
The donor was obviously struggling with both internal and external issues as the suicide note talks about health problems as well as George Floyd and the Coronavirus. At one point in my life I had zero hope as well, and I can say it was absolutely the worst feeling I have ever felt. If anyone is struggling with hope, feel free to reach out.
I hope this will get attention. Just so more people will realise that bitcoin is dangerous to use and accept because it is not private. Even if youre doing nothing wrong, would you want to unintentionally receive funds linked to this?
I'm not sure of the point here, this seems a bit nonsensical. Do you avoid using cash too because criminals use it?
Using or accepting Bitcoin is not dangerous because of this. And you have no more chance of unintentionally recieving funds linked to this than you have of unintentionally recieving cash used for criminal purposes.
(Not intending to start an argument for or against Bitcoin, and there are other pros and cons of it I'm sure, but this particular one is not really valid)
Cash is only private if you never put it in a bank.
But if the reason for taking the payment is legitimate you're going to have no more problems with Bitcoin than you will with cash in this regard.
If your reason for taking the payment is illegal then I agree, Bitcoin puts you at some greater risk. But if that's you're point then perhaps you should be clearer. Bitcoin can be dangerous to use for criminals because it's more traceable. If your use is legal, it's no more or less dangerous than cash.
>But if the reason for taking the payment is legitimate you're going to have no more problems with Bitcoin than you will with cash in this regard.
Nope. You may deposit cash into a bank and explain where it came from. Sure.
This has no relevance to how you can later try to spend your bitcoin and have your transaction frozen + end up in a police investigation where you need to try to explain why chainalysis software says you are linked to terrorism, to people who have no understanding of it. This can be especially bad if you are not in a developed country. It simply means bitcoin is not usable as a "peer to peer cash" as it was intended. With cash you will not have such problem because it has no history permanently linked to it.
You're sort of right, but I don't think I'd any less terrified to have a surprise 1,000,000 dollars arrive in a parcel in my mailbox, than to have the same surprise in my bitcoin account.
That said, I'm not in the position where I have much to fear from the police/government. If I did, that would be different.
I don't believe that having bitcoin that was in the past involved in criminal use will cause you any problems at all. I'd be interested to see any evidence you have to the contrary.
Something I think people confuse is the concept of 'a bitcoin'. There is no thing that is transferred around like a physical coin or note. A bitcoin 'transfer' is just a change in the balance of two accounts, not an actual transfer of anything physical or digital. There is no change of ownership of anything.
Eh, I usually don't like comparing bitcoin to cash, but you can be inconvenienced with cash as well.
I had a roommate who had >$100K tied up into an online poker platform, which was frozen for months because the platform was doing some illegal activity.
This is not a discussion of protocols, it's a discussion of being associated with known bad actors.
Suppose that I have a history of doing semi-illegal things and that my wallet is publicly associated with real personhood.
Example. gretch = id 1234; buys drugs which are legal in country x and highly illegal elsewhere
Now one day I come to your completely legal business and make a completely legal transaction
Example. I come to your bakery and get my wedding catered
Now you just received a lot of money from an account which is on several bad actor lists and you have to explain what happened. Okay, you can try to explain that the services rendered were completely legitimate; hopefully the investigators will believe you because that's what all money launderers try to do.
Alternatively, you as the caterer need to research the actor behind incoming transaction for your innocuous service.
Well.. exactly. Just like with bitcoin, there's a record of who gave money to who, but there's no need to "accept" or authorize the deposit. You have no way to refusing a donation from some fringe group into your account.
I suggest the problem is more about you knowing, or the public knowing, that the funds are linked to it. After all, some dollars you receive might have a sordid past, but there's not such an easy way for anyone to publicly demonstrate exactly what it was.
Dangerous to use if you're not careful. I guess that is one of the many downfalls of not having secure defaults. Taproot and Schnorr are slowly coming to bitcoin. But would this blog post even exist if they had used a coinjoin/payjoin or lightning?
It is essentially certain that strong privacy will never come to bitcoin. Taproot and schnorr will make no meaningful difference, unless you mean it will assist people in doing atomic swaps to a private currency like Monero. Average people will never make the effort to do expensive (or cheap) coinjoins that will make them look suspicious. Lightning network does not have strong privacy guarantees and it continues to struggle to gain adoption, safety and usability.
I may, perhaps, lack imagination, but I really can't fathom how privacy comes to a system where the fundamental artifact of creation is an ever-growing record of every transaction.
It seems like the kernel of Bitcoin is maximally open information, not secrecy. Obfuscation of transaction is possible, but any solution that could actually hide transaction information would be incompatible with the trust model that Bitcoin is based on.
In fact the US government put out a bounty to trace monero transactions just after Ciphertrace made such claim, and ciphertrace failed to win the bounty, so it appears to be ineffective
The Lightning network in conjunction with Tor will make tracing of transactions nearly impossible in the future.
However right now the technology to properly anonymize bitcoin already exists via coinjoin wallets. The most mature implementation so far is the Samourai Wallet using Whirlpool.
If you are doing it right there is no danger using Bitcoin at all. In fact it might even less dangerous than any other method of anonymous transactions including physical delivery of Gold.
All BTC privacy technologies will be opt-in, and all empirical evidence shows this doesnt work - both from a technical and sociological perspective. On the technical side, analysis is always much more difficult to stop than people think. In terms of people's behaviour, adoption is nearly impossible and services will ban or flag such transactions, if mining pools even mine the transaction.
Sure grandma can just practice output control (that I still struggle with after using BTC for 8+ years) and pay hundreds in fees for coinjoins with every transaction, problem solved /s
> The Lightning network in conjunction with Tor will make tracing of transactions nearly impossible in the future.
I only see papers finding flaws that prevent it from being private, and that people are struggling to get it to work even without thinking about privacy. Scaling is still a difficult and unsolved problem for now, lets not make absurd privacy claims alongside it. Relying on Tor is an issue in itself.
The problem is not that the technologies are opt-in. The problem is that there is no simple UI implementation at this point in time. In the end any anonymized Lightning Wallet transaction will be just as simple as scanning a QR code with a simple slider that lets you choose the level of anonymity. And the ability to "opt-in" will give the market the opportunity to properly price anonymity. This is a feature not a bug.
> Scaling is still a difficult and unsolved problem for now
Scaling is essentially a solved problem thanks to Lightning. Adoption is currently a problem but will become a non-problem as soon as transaction fees rise so much that it is worth the effort for everyone to get Lightning Network running. Right now this is not the case.
It speaks for itself that yours is a very fringe opinion: none of these claims are strongly supported with evidence at this point of time.
Saying the privacy properties are already solved and settled is ridiculous, none of the literature or other information supports that
Only a fool would say it is certain that everyone will have magic instant, scalable, cheap, perfectly private btc transactions and it's already solved and settled
One should always be aware of where one's money is coming from, otherwise one doesn't know who holds leverage over one's future cash flow. Bitcoin is not special in that regard, it's just another instrument for transmitting value.
Depends what you are selling. It is not illegal to sell bread to criminals. Or cars. Maybe if done knowingly? I dont see big risks in accepting bitcoin as a payment method for legal goods and services.
Same thing could be said about the Internet. You are leaving digital traces and fingerprints all the time. Are you going to stop using the Word Wide Web?
There are a lot of people who assume that cryptocurrency is an anonymous way to transmit value and while it's somewhat possible for the technically capable, it's good to educate people about the reality. Cash is often more anonymous than a publicly distributed ledger especially when the recipient and sender addresses are known. I of course do not support terrorism or funding terrorism, but I do support educating people so they don't take a risk they shouldn't have in the first place. Better to donate those funds to a local charity in your community that will provide constructive use for your immediate area.
This is inaccurate. One police officer and 4 of the rioters died on the day of the incident. Another Capitol police officer subsequently committed suicide at home for reasons that are at present unclear.
Cool analysis. I wonder if the breach is considered domestic terrorism, could this funds be seized as part of an effort to fund such terrorists, or because its a private donation the gov can't touch it.
Probably not, because at present there's no legal framework for domestic terrorism. Even if one were created next week, it wouldn't be retroactive because the US Constitution bans ex post facto prosecutions.
Terrorism is "Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience". Trying to coerce / kidnap / etc. Congress people sounds like terrorism. They don’t have to be successful.
That applies to a lot of situations if taken literally. You have to use a lot of care when labeling somebody with such a charged word. We wouldn’t want to see a bunch of rioters from <pick a protest by whatever side that turned violent> sent to Guantanamo.
I don't want that because I don't want anyone sent to Guantanamo. But this absurdist doublethink has to stop somewhere. The IRA were terrorists. The Weathermen were terrorists. And setting fire to a courthouse in order to change laws is, in fact, terrorism. If we can't apply laws to people we agree with, we do not live in a society of laws at all.
Setting fire to a courthouse is already against the law. What benefit is there in calling it Terrorism?
Are there things which are currently legal that will become illegal under this 'domestic terrorism framework' that is being discussed? What are these things which are currently legal that will be addressed by a 'domestic terrorism framework'.
Were the result Church Hearings justified or did they go too far in the restrictions they placed on law enforcement?
Most of the protesters were just protesters. Some of them may have had quasi-violent intent, such as 'let's break in an make a point', but a very small few seemed to have some very dark intent.
If you rile up enough people, then a small slice of them will be on the radical margins.
That’s a scary observation. Those people weren’t the most important cause of world war 1, but they were the spark in an extremely dry barn that everyone kept adding gasoline to, daring the other side to spark it
> Terrorism is a form of warfare in which a social movement that opposes the state directs violence toward civilians rather than the military or the police.
Even your own definition doesn't apply - the insurrectionists weren't a subnational group (they don't have a cohesive identity other than sharing a common cause) or clandestine agents.
They definitely have a cohesive identity and are even organized in defined specialized identities like militias and Proud Boys. These are domestic terrorists and they attempted to overturn the fair and free elections in this country based on outright lies with NO evidence to support them and also kidnap and murder civilians, law enforcement and anyone else who stood in their way.
I and others have been following their discussions online and its clear that while not every single individual at the domestic insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th seeks to murder and cause mayhem, many in the hundreds and thousands do. Many beyond that seek to downplay the danger and provide apologia for the criminal actions of terrorists they at least partially sympathize with.
Are you arguing that it is impossible for an individual acting alone to be a terrorist? I think even a small group of say 2-3 people under your definition could not be considered terrorists.
A common cause seems like a sufficiently cohesive identity; I don't see why voluntary political affiliations should be excluded. They were not very clandestine, I agree. Their antipathy to wearing masks has been rather a boon to law enforcement, although even the ones who were masked were fairly easily identified later.
The people invading the capitol last week definitely had a cohesive identity. You can call them MAGAs or Red Caps or even Trump supporters, but their cohesiveness was strong enough to drive popularity for a social media platform (Parler).
Members of Congress and staff are civilians. But definition of these terms is somewhat slippery and mutable since they are also shaped by laws, both existing and in the future.
Apparently the donor committed suicide after living with trigeminal neuralgia (and possibly other conditions). That's a horrifyingly painful condition, the sort of thing I wouldn't wish on... a fascist financier. It's a reminder that, as humans, we all stand against a generally cold and uncaring Universe.
If you use look for his username on Github you will get after a couple of link to his personal website and his note (automatically posted). The note is in French.
French far-right and alt-right have been commenting the aftermath of the Capitol events with absolutely no distance, just as if it was a domestic affair. That is of course a distortion enabled by social media. I find it so troubling in ways I cannot explain with words. Their audience obviously makes no difference between what occurs in their neighborhood and what happens on another continent, as evidenced by the letter left by this donator.
Right-wing politics are in an internationalist phase thanks to the rise of the internet, not unlike internationalist phases of the past brought about by wireless telegraphy or moveable type. After we get through this political spasm perhaps there will be another in a few decades as telepathic augmentation becomes common and people's inner monologues become even easier to share.
The other day, I tweeted out my tin-foil-hat theory that the recent BTC runup was partly due to alt-right interests, expecting the events on the 6th to go very differently.
How can you consider a crypto (or other commodity) to be "artificially" inflated? It's not backed by anything; it's worth precisely what people are willing to pay for it, with no strings attached.
Well, if people are paying for it with Tether and it turns out Tether is backed by loans or other cryptocurrencies then it would be by definition artificially inflated.
BTC maybe, Tesla not - people are desperate for an investment opportunity. Europe has had negative interests (!) on savings accounts for many months... that, combined with physical gambling venues closed, normal gambling restricted and trading apps such as Trade Republic (the German equivalent to Robinhood) led to many people trying their luck on the stock market.
Additionally, Tesla has the advantage that many European countries are phasing out ICE vehicles and Tesla is the solid tech lead, plus the hype machine that Elon Musk has created... it's not surprising to me that Tesla is a very much sought-after stock. And unlike Wirecard or P&R Containers, Tesla has actual cars on the road with government records certifying that number.
I spend time on gab and parler (I'm not a believer, I'm just curious). It really looks like it's people who genuinely feel Joe Biden will be the end of america. They think the stock market will crash and dollars will be useless as Biden ushers in some kind of communism. From the volume of comments on the posts, there's quite many of them.
This run will probably last as long as their finances allow. I don't think it'll end on January 20th. The delusions have held this long, it's probably going to continue.
It's terrible. Not only have these conspiracy theories led to isolation and a destruction of their social networks but soon it'll also lead to their financial ruin as bitcoin will inevitably crash once again (I'm holding tens of thousands in crypto. I know it's a day at the casino. My fear is about those that don't. The current flurry of nonsecuritized uninsured bank looking companies that have surfaced in this crypto bubble isn't helping one bit. Stable coins are fine, but give the depositors some security)
Tbf I think there was also a lot of people who genuinely and truly believed that Obama, as in - a black president - would be literally the end of America. I have no idea what those people think now, but I'm also not terribly keen to find out.
Oh sorry, I thought you postulated the birthers and qanon believers were the same people.
Totally plausible but I haven't seen direct evidence. (I also haven't, say, done any analysis of historical tweets from qanon believers for the evidence)
It's ultimately unimportant as they're both part of the same overarching bullshit movement, but something sounding logical doesn't constitute valid evidence.
Well, "business as usual" has led working class (and middle class) america to wage stagnation, increasingly worse jobs, de-industrialization, decline of small towns, meth/heroin rise, and such, plus wars mainly using poor rural people as fodder, and other such niceties.
Plus coastal elites (including non-elites who still identify as hollier-than the plebs in the fly-over country) sneering at them.
The glorious march of the stock market, or the glorious technological future, only meant being worse of (job prospects, housing costs, healthcare costs, education costs, etc.) for them. Even openly calling out a 40% who voted another candidate "deplorables".
So from this European's standapoint, it makes sense for these people to consider more of the status quo to mean "return to the dark ages".
None of this is Democrats or liberal's fault. Their party has been yelling about getting off fossil fuels for the last 20 years.
Obama encouraged organizations that were re-training coal miners and others in dead industries to join the digital workforce.
It's the alt-right who have been promising to go back to 'normal' and that coal is the future. The economics aren't there, fossil fuels is a dying industry. Even if we aren't elimiating fossil fuels tomorrow, we don't need 2,000 men underground digging, we have machines, automation and different mining methods now.
Any one who perpetuates this idea that we can get through this without radical change is fooling themselves.
Is Biden going to lead us into the future? Unlikely, but he is not going to perpetuate a lie. Coal is not coming back, drivers are on the way out, the economy is going to be turned upsides down in the next decade and we need to admit that fact.
>None of this is Democrats or liberal's fault. Their party has been yelling about getting off fossil fuels for the last 20 years.
What a wrote wasn't just about coal. Heck, I didn't ever had coal in mind when I wrote it. It's a general situation with working class jobs and middle class prospects, that's way beyond coal shutting down.
And the "encouraged organizations that were re-training coal miners and others in dead industries to join the digital workforce" part shows how out of touch those running the "business as usual" part were.
This is the advice/career path famously summarized as "learn to code", as if 40-50 year old coal miners (and millions of people in other working class jobs) are suddenly going to be able to complete those programs and join some "digital workforce" (in any capacity other than POS operators). And as if the market eagerly awaits for those people to join the digital workforce and will jump at the chance to hire them.
Biden’s plan is better than that - kickstart the green energy industry with plenty of blue collar jobs. What’s the alternative for these people? Keep racking “wins” in the culture war while their communities self destruct? Or vote for a socialist that will hand them money, but that seems very unpopular too.
Okay, that source also mentions coal, but oil is the part of that statement that really set people off. Since Obama took office to just before Covid, US oil production nearly tripled. The decline of coal is economically priced in, but shutting down domestic oil and gas production anytime soon would take a shotgun to the economy.
> but shutting down domestic oil and gas production anytime soon would take a shotgun to the economy.
You should watch the relevant answer from Biden[0], the Brietbart article is heavily biased and misleading.
His position is simple and data driven, it is no longer economically viable and the market will no longer create any new coal or oil fire plants in America.
To fact check Biden: "Under the 25-year contract ... Los Angeles ... would pay less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour ... the lowest price ever paid for solar power in the United States, and cheaper than the cost of electricity from a typical natural gas-fired power plant"[1]. This includes the cost of production and storage.
But what about other parts of the country with less sun? "solar and wind energy will dominate America’s new generation in 2020, making up 76% of new generation ..., while coal and natural gas will dominate 2020 retirements with 85% of plant closures."[2]. And this was 2020 while Trump was helping the fossil fuel industry.
> Here’s what he said: "During our administration in the recovery act, I was...able to bring down the cost of renewable energy to cheaper than or as cheap as coal, and gas, and oil. Nobody’s going to build another coal-fired power plant in America. No one’s going to build another oil-fired plant in America. They’re going to move to renewable energy."
If Biden promises to increase subsidies for renewables (which, as I understand, he plans to do), and that causes disinvestment away from say gas-fired plants, isn't it reasonable for folks in places like Pennsylvania and Texas where fracking is a huge part of the economy to oppose such measures?
If "the market" is going to make it so nobody builds new gas-fired plants (I agree the market won't build new coal or oil plants) why is Biden proposing $2 trillion in subsidies for renewables?
To be clear, I think Biden's renewables plan is basically the correct one, but its going to be bad for currently prosperous middle class parts of Pennsylvania, Texas, etc., that rely heavily on gas extraction.
Kind of a good take, but these points actually makes their attitude even stranger: they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?
You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism." They eagerly voted in those who planned to dismantle the ACA and loudly said they would do so in 2016 ("repeal and replace"), then when the Republicans attempted to leave them high and dry, everyone, including Trump, panicked and backed out. What's going on here?
This attempt to make them sound reasonable in their fear glosses over the obvious contradictions in how they vote and where they think their problems lie. What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?
>they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?
Compare:
>Fascism is strongly opposed to the individualism found in classical liberalism. Fascists accuse liberalism of de-spiritualizing human beings and transforming them into materialistic beings whose highest ideal is moneymaking.[261] In particular, fascism opposes liberalism for its materialism, rationalism, individualism and utilitarianism.[262] Fascists believe that the liberal emphasis on individual freedom produces national divisiveness.[261] Mussolini criticized classical liberalism for its individualistic nature, writing: "Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; ... It is opposed to classical Liberalism ... Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual."[263] However, Fascists and Nazis support a type of hierarchical individualism in the form of Social Darwinism because they believe it promotes "superior individuals" and weeds out "the weak".[264] They also accuse both Marxism and democracy, with their emphasis on equality, of destroying individuality in favor of the "dead weight" of the masses.[265]
...
Fascists saw contemporary politics as a life or death struggle of their nations against Marxism, and they believed that liberalism weakened their nations in this struggle and left them defenseless.[268] While the socialist left was seen by the fascists as their main enemy, liberals were seen as the enemy's accomplices, "incompetent guardians of the nation against the class warfare waged by the socialists."[268]
I think an issue we're seeing is American schools don't really teach anything about the Fascists outside of the context of WW2 itself and the Holocaust, and it means regular people don't recognize it in the Republican's rhetoric.
The issue with teaching it is it would hit too close to home as the captains of industry found a more subtle way way to bring Fascism to America in the form of corporate Fascism via lobbying, but at one time, they contemplated just trying to finance the violent overthrow of the government to instill a Fascist regime in the US. Prescott Bush was a big proponent of Fascist, so I think it is safe to assume some of those ideas where instilled in his son and possibly his grandson. While it is not a defense of the man, I do find it strange that people all of the sudden are screaming Trump is a Fascist, when the Bush family has a documented legacy of supporting Fascist policy.
> Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?
They didn't attack Biden as being those things. They attacked Biden for being old, not entirely there, and weak barrier against the radical elements of the Democratic Party. For example Karen Bass, who was on Biden's VP shortlist, had a bunch of communist ties: https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/karen-bass-vice-presiden...
> First reported were her ill-chosen words upon the death of Fidel Castro in 2016, she opined, that “the passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.” Ouch! But politically survivable.
> Far more damaging was news that that Bass first visited the island while, in college, at age 19, in 1973 with the Venceremos Brigade, a group popular with leftwing student radicals and social progressives that organized and ferried Americans to Cuba to cut sugar cane and build homes—in defiance of the U.S. Embargo and policy. She would take eight trips with the Brigade during the 1970s alone
As to "anti-American" many on the left embraced taking the name of founding fathers off of school buildings. My magnet high school in Virginia is named after Thomas Jefferson and there has been an effort to rename it. Even Abraham Lincoln has been indicted (if not yet convicted): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/20/fac....
Taking Thomas Jefferson's name off a school building is a declaration of war to conservatives. They believe that civilization is a product of history and tradition and practice, not abstract principles. The idea you can "keep the good things Jefferson believed" while ditching the historical figure himself is something that makes no sense to them. It'd be like taking Jesus out of the Bible.
> You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism."
Trump voters already have healthcare. They're disproportionately likely to be folks who bear greater burdens under the ACA--like small business owners. Or the majority of people who are happy with their private health insurance.
More generally, the Republican Party is a coalition of social conservatives (some of whom are quite economically liberal) and economic conservatives. Voting Democrat wouldn't make any sense for them, especially because, as you observe, the Democratic Party is staunchly neo-liberal as well. I recall listening to interviews with Trump voters around Scranton (where Joe Biden was born). Folks were talking about how they were multi-generational Democratic voters, but were disillusioned by Democrats' support for NAFTA, etc. If Democrats chose to prioritize social liberalism and economic neo-liberalism it makes totally sense for those folks to vote Republican.
I agree with most of what you said but disagree with the ACA being bad for small businesses.
> Trump voters already have healthcare. They're disproportionately likely to be folks who bear greater burdens under the ACA--like small business owners. Or the majority of people who are happy with their private health insurance.
I don't understand this at all. The ACA has been a godsend for myself who over the last 8 years been an owner(for 4 years) and employee(for 4 years) at a small business. It allowed me to work for a small business(as both an employee and an owner) because I could get insurance. I tried getting insurance before the ACA and was denied because my testosterone levels were 5% under the cut off for normal.
And second it's been super helpful because the biggest barrier to recruiting for a small business is healthcare. Specifically many developers are willing to take a 30k+ paycut to get premium healthcare(which isn't providing 30k of value but is unpurchaseable for small clients) and this problem was worse pre-ACA. If we had a Medicare option the job market would be more efficient, and small businesses would be better able to compete with enterprise.
>Kind of a good take, but these points actually makes their attitude even stranger: they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?
Since the elites that push them over and throw them to the dustbins of history as deplorables are mostly Democratic, and the elites that hypocrically placate to them as lip service are mostly Republican (hypocritically since both serve the same neoliberal agenda), those masses confuse their liberalism (left-leaning-ness) as a reason that they hurt them.
That the Democrat elites and coastal pundits also hate their (the fly-over peoples) guts and everything they stand for culturally (e.g. them being more conservative wrt tradition, family, etc.), and diss them from a left/socialist point of view is also another reason for those masses to consider that "socialism" is their enemy.
Because for them socialism is not some benevolent Swedish style state socialism that caters to their needs, or old-style workers-first aid, but superficial cultural "socialism" with "fuck these backwards people" at its mast flag combined with neoliberal policies.
If the Democrats actually catered to their needs (rural growth, working/middle class jobs, wage stagnation, skyrocketing college, health costs, etc) and also had a sincere dialogue about those people's values (instead of pushing the latest SJW cause as if it's something everybody should get on with pronto or they are Hitler -- when in reality it's things not even the foremost leftists in the US championed just 20 or 30 years ago, never mind the Democrats themselves. Heck, Obama himself was publicly against something as inoffensive as gay marriage back in the day iirc, never mind other modern causes) and didn't consider them all backwards rednecks that should be put into re-education camps, the same people would change their mind about "socialism" and such.
But instead the Democrats publicly deplore them, and use those social justice causes as a substitute for real progressive policies (economic, for peace, for curbing big tech, etc.).
>You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism."
From what I've read and discussed with some people there - haven't delved much into it to read the details - the ACA mostly benefited the very poor and welfare, while did two things for working class and middle class people: it increased their healthcare costs and also (I see mentioned) make them not able to keep the doctors they used to see.
If true, this is not a case of those masses "voting against their interests", but the other side confusing the very poor/welfare recipients etc (who assumedly did benefit from ACA) with the working/lower middle class (who was hurt by it), and wondering why the latter don't jump with joy about ACA.
>What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?
To my eyes both parties are neoliberal and thus bad.
That said, Trump (not the GOP) term was marked by less (no?) wars and hawkish behavior (good for the globe at large) and a promise to scale-back American "democracy export business" (e.g. war).
That alone, and thus hundreds of thousands not impacted by that, is better than anything we could see coming from legendarily hawkish Hillary, in my book. With regards to Biden, let's see.
Trump also spoke against outsourcing everything and about rampant globalism, which, last time I checked (I'm old) it was one of the concerns of our side (the leftists), people fought in Seattle protests, Genova protests, etc. Suddenly, people on the left seem to consider this to have gone out of style, just out of partisanship to the Democrats against Trump.
As for domestically, all the numbers I've seen put the number of e.g. blacks shot by cops as the same during the Obama years, and the numbers of migrants deported roughly the same as well. So on that front, I see more partisanship and cant, than actual difference.
> (rural growth, working/middle class jobs, wage stagnation, skyrocketing college, health costs, etc)
This sounds like a Biden campaign ad. I don’t find takes where the Professional Twitter Opinion LoudPeople are “the left” and “the right” are very interesting. Picking an extreme/outlier take and saying “look what the left/right thinks! aren’t they crazy!!” is exactly why the political discourse is so dumb. What are we supposed to do about it? I think Twitter is dumb
Personally I think both parties should be dissolved, and new parties should be created. With real grassroot expression and representation (up to the minute), not decades or centuries of fossilized party lines.
And this should begin by absolutely banning any kind of donation above, say, a small dollar amount per person (with very strict criminal penalties for bypassing this in any way). Want to get funding as a party? Find more persons to fund you -- as opposed to non-representative parties being pushed forward by large donors.
Then again, it's your parties, do as you wish with them. But no real political discussion is ever gonna come out of those...
I’m not gonna disagree that campaign-finance reform would be a good thing, but the problem is that there’s no mechanism for dissolving the parties and enforcing campaign finance reform. It’s in the interest of the people currently in power (both politicians and the people donating high dollar amounts) to maintain the current system because that’s the system that put them in power.
Your comment makes me imagine a person in a room somewhere with the ability to change everything all around, but they just haven’t seen that they need to do it. The truth is that there are lots of people dedicating their life’s work to improving the system, but the system is complex – it has billions of people with competing priorities – and even pretending someone has the correct answer about how the system should be rearranged, implementing that system would be a task akin to moving oceans.
If you believe the status-quo is taking you to the dark ages then it's not very crazy. And for the more rural portion of America that seems to be the case.
Fair but they don’t seem to actually want pragmatic/realpolitik solutions. Did Trump deliver something that revitalized these communities? Anything? Was he promising anything for 2020? Seems like he just made them feel “represented” in a completely shallow and meaningless way. Meanwhile in your random town in WV things keep sliding towards extinction
It really looks like it's people who genuinely feel Joe Biden will be the end of america.
To look at it another way, they really expect the end of American and Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris are just the right wing villains of the moment. You could pick anyone else from the field of Democratic politicians and they would equally be treated as the harbinger of the apocalypse.
The underlying anxiety of the alt-right (though not every single individual therein) is that 2020 was the first year when white people became a minority of the youngest (u18) demographic cohort. As most far-right adherents in the US build their politics around racial identity this is regarded by them as the onset of demographic winter, historical decline, fall of empire et.c etc.
I think you are off base on this, I think there is a small contingent of the far right that are white identity adherents. The rest get labeled in with them, because they have not been vocal in their distancing themselves from that contingent, thus groups like the Proud Boys get lumped in with the white supremacist's and white identity adherents. While the Proud Boy's are a radical alt-right group, white identify is not their binding fabric. The embracing of masculinity is, they have member from all races and explicitly call out that they are not a white nationalist organization. The alt-right is a coalition, of the fringe just like the far-left. Most tolerate each other under enemy-of-my-enemy mentality.
The Proud boys do have members from all races, but not very many of them; and the vision of masculinity they present is extremely narrow rather than inclusive. There's significant internal tension within the group between the 'optical' approach espoused by its nominal president Enrique Tarrio and a more explicitly racist/neo-nazi one proposed by his informal rival, Kyle Chapman.
I think the white identity thing is more widespread on the far right than you appreciate; even neo-nazis have examples of ethnic diversity that they like to bring out (eg photographs of black soldiers in wehrmacht uniform socializing with caucasians) but these are employed mainly as an aid to entryism in breaking down reflexive hostility to national socialism, rather than because neo-Nazis are actually trying to build an ethnically diverse movement.
I am sure there is, no doubt, overlap of people that associate with the Proud Boys and also associate with white supremacist's, but they (the Proud Boys) have been very clear that white nationalism / supremacy is not their charter and I do not think it is fair to paint them with that brush. That being said, I do agree with you on their view of masculinity and it is fair fodder to critique them on. That is their point, they stand for a certain set of values, they are very clear in what those values are and that is what they should be weighed in the balance for. For the record I am not defending them, rather I prefer to see peoples arguments weighed for what they are saying not for what other people paint on them. It's not fair and it is attempt to dilute their message. I think their message stands for itself and most people will reject it. Attempts to paint them as a racist organization when they are clearly not, only muddy the water and lend credence to their argument that they are being treated unfairly. It plays into their hands.
> It really looks like it's people who genuinely feel Joe Biden will be the end of america.
People really seemed to honestly feel that way about Obama... then Obama again. I expect people will feel that way about whatever Democrat eventually gets elected next too.
That's truly sad. These echochambers are really the worst place for these people to spend their time backstroking through a cesspool of whatabouts and conspiracy theories. I look forward to a peaceful transition of power and hopefully these folks find other things to worry about like why cats haven't yet pushed everything off the flat edge of our Earth.
My city council meetings feels like echo chambers for people to spend their time backstrokinh through a cesspool of whatsbouts and conspiracy theories too. And we elected the people on the podium. So there’s that..
I find it funny that none of the people they listed were inside the capitol building. The only one that came close was Nick Fuentes and he was on the lawn but didn't go inside. What a sensationalist article.
As if Mozilla‘s recent Orwellian statements weren’t icing on the cake enough. Or the cheering on of hackers who just dumped Parler’s DB on Reddit with the purpose to dox a good perthousand/percentage of American citizens. Now it’s the otherwise privacy-wise infallible blockchain that is to be freedom-shamed because someone dared to use it as marketed.
These days lay bare the bigotry of the tech- and internet culture.
Decades of championing independence from prosecution, from surveillance, and from corporatist government overreach, as self-styled digital-freedom-of-speech-vigilantes, are now moot - as within a single week all quasi monopolists in the tech world did exactly what was fearmongered all these years - and the same culture stays silent at best because it was downright complicit at worst.
You see for the first time all those often signaled, highflying virtues weren‘t demanded in some third world country but right at one‘s doorstep - and we failed miserably.
Classic dictatorships need massive amounts CCTVs, intrusive artificial intelligence and a party apparatus to run their social scoring to subdue the public.
Again, I follow the theory of honeypot when it comes to cryptocurrency. The participants believe that they can evade law enforcement scrutiny but they have no evidence, only what they are being told by "gurus" and "experts".
Likely the value here is counter-intelligence. You know that unsavoury characters like to hide their transactions. Now throw cryptos in the mix which becomes the weakest link.
There used to be more secure and traditional ways of laundering money like inflated real estate. Good example is Vancouver, BC which actually got a money laundering technique named after the city who has for the most part been unwilling to investigate because almost the entirety of their tax revenues come from the real estate market.
The Vancouver Model's rise [1], bitcoin, real estate market, gang activity all seem heavily correlated. But Mark Twain said something about people looking the other way if they were paid to.
Which part of the headline is not supported by statements of fact from the article? The article's own headline is about 5 times too long to appear on HN so I had to abbreviate it.
It does not provide any evidence that the recipients of the funds took part in the capitol hill riot, but instead acknowledges in lack thereof. The title claims the recipients where "involved", but the article never determines in what way.
I want to be clear, I don't defend those individuals or condone their views or actions, but just feel this article is mostly a PR stunt.
Who in the article that received donations was convinced of insurrection? The article is not even alleging that any of them committed insurrection, or even entered the Capitol.
> While there’s no evidence yet that Fuentes entered the Capitol — in fact, he explicitly denies entering the building — he was present at the initial rally and seen outside the Capitol as the rioting began.
Nothing would make me happier than seeing Fuentes convicted and imprisoned, but no amount of hyperbole and false claims will make that happen.
So it's not a campaign contribution since the insurrectionists weren't a political campaign. If they were involved in supporting a candidate by taking out ads, there are requirements about declaring the foreign support - but they didn't seem to do that.
There is a separate set of laws for conspiracy to commit sedition. If the donor was donating to forment unrest (knowingly) then there are charges that can be pursued, but would likely require extradition.
Is it still politics? I thought it moved into the realm of deranged mass criminal activity, bordering on domestic terrorism once republican politicians started finally abandoning them?
It's illegal to donate to election/political campaigns, technically this is not illegal as the insurrectionists are not a discrete political entity that could be proscribed or tagged as political. This assumes, of course, that there was no foreknowledge on the part of the donor about anything untoward.
Illegal or not who’s going to stop them when US law doesn’t apply abroad? In general the US interferes far more in foreign politics at least on a high level imo. I tend to find when there’s a US election foreign politicians refuse to comment and when it’s the other way around US politicians are full of opinions.
You're overlooking the existence of extradition treaties and the possibility of sanctions applied on persons in jurisdictions that don't have extradition treaties.
From reading the article, the donor sent $500k to 22 different parties. Some of these parties include Luke Smith, a popular Linux youtube personality, the guy who runs cock.li, ruqqus (a reddit alternative), various right wing websites including amren.com and unz.com (which didn't promote the protest). 45% of the donation went to Nick Fuentes, who was at the capitol, but denies entering the building.
And according to the article:
>While we don’t know if these donations directly funded last week’s violent gathering at the Capitol or any associated activity, the timing certainly warrants suspicion
45% of the donation went to Nick Fuentes, who was at the capitol, but denies entering the building.
Nick Fuentes is possibly going to face charges of incitement, though, because he was addressing the crowd through a megaphone and urging them on while specifically mentioning that the vote counting had already been halted. Amusingly enough he was being called out on this alt-right personality Richard Spencer yesterday.
That's not really true. Many organizations charter buses, print signs, provide assistance to people in getting to such protests and a host of other activities that require funding.
In fact, that's almost de rigueur for large, peaceful protests.
Lots of people give food, money and supplies to protestors. There are orgs that give water to almost all protests just to prevent heat stroke cases. This can include donations of sign making materials too.
People do absolutely fund peaceful protests, anything involving a large number of people has expenses. Just think of the cost of renting a stage and a sound system, or provision of water and snacks. As a rule of thumb any event with >100 people needs a budget of about $5/person.
Not an endorsement of this example of political funding.
This article uses loaded language to make a defamation claim against Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes is still on Twitter, and pinned to the top of his page is photo evidence that shows the person they are asserting was in the Capitol is not him. He was wearing a suit. The photo of him at the steps of the Capitol is not incriminating in any way. He was protesting along with 250K+ other conservatives in Washington DC. It's not a crime to hold a megaphone in front of the Capitol. It's literally his First Amendment right. This article is false, baiting, and loaded. Please remove it.
Pretty sure if he made it to the steps, he would have crossed through a police barricade. That means he was protesting on restricted grounds w/o lawful authority and plenty of others have been arrested for that same violation. Not sure why he wouldn't be liable for the same.
Do you even know where the barricades were and where this photo was? He said that photo was on the lawn. If this guy was guilty he would have already been arrested by the FBI. Guy is in a suit and a public personality. He's even still got his Twitter account, despite the Purge. The rest of the article goes on to imply that the addresses who received Bitcoin were also involved in the riot but provides absolutely no evidence to that claim. The donor's motivations do not mention some sort of secret plan to attack the Capitol.
That language should be a pretty clear indicator of where this person's politics lie, even without the 'fall of western civilization' rhetoric earlier. They always seem to use the same exact verbiage.