[notjoemama]

Cool. So online activists can become more engaged irl? Sounds great unless the activism is the kind you disagree with. Imagine this brining together a collection of white supremacists or antifa. Or pro-life versus pro-choice.

This is the problem with the tech world. They are so preoccupied with whether they can, they don’t stop to think if they should.

Yes, that's from Jurassic Park.

[SR2Z]

Look, even if it's white supremacists, it's still good for their mental health to meet up irl.

[ToucanLoucan]

Ummmmmmm gonna need some kinda citation there. Radicalized groups that meet increase one another’s radicalization as they bounce off of one another and egg each other on.

I want people to get together more, it’s absolutely good for them, but I think there’s certain groups that should absolutely be discouraged. Like sorry if the only thing that gets you going is fantasizing about obliterating ethnic groups but you might have to take one for the team and stay depressed. Or take up something better like model railroading.

[FredPret]

IRL interactions are more complex and nuanced in a way that tends to push people to the center.

There have been instances where people meeting IRL pushed one another further to one side (Marxists, Nazis) but in every other case IRL interactions help people have a more rounded view of the world.

In a social media world, you only get to see one facet of an opinion at a time, and it's always the simplest and most inflammatory view that makes the rounds.

[twixfel]

so how do you encourage everyone except white suprematists to get out more? What does that raising awareness campaign look like? Tbh getting out more is probably more necessary for such people than anyone else.

[ToucanLoucan]

> so how do you encourage everyone except white suprematists to get out more?

Shut down and disperse groups of white supremacists. Amend the right to free assembly to exclude hate groups, because we don't need to tolerate that if we don't want to.

And before you say "well who decides what's a ha-" there is a well articulated subjective process for determining that already, and most of the groups that meet the definition are indeed supremacist/nationalist groups of any sort. It is not perfect, because no human made system is, but I fail to understand why that then means we must tolerate all of these with zero effort put to police them. We know what's a hate group, just like we know what's a hate crime. The fact that idiots in the media and on the internet misuse or over-generalize the term doesn't change anything.

> Tbh getting out more is probably more necessary for such people than anyone else.

I would agree, just not for hateful reasons. Come up with something else.

[__turbobrew__]

> Amend the right to free assembly to exclude…

Im glad you are not in charge

[twixfel]

Problem is assembly could literally be just two guys in a quiet pub sitting at a table having a pint speaking quietly about white supremacy. So your idea of policing people meeting is kind of nonsense and I can't even fathom how you concluded it could possibly work.

[Der_Einzige]

Uhh, one of them bashes the skull of the other in when they meet up. Blunt force trauma is not good for mental health.

[ramon156]

Yeah and it's also not part of socializing. This is a nothing burger

[walthamstow]

While I agree that even racists need irl socialisation, I strongly disagree that violence is never a part of socialising. See soccer hooliganism for a prime example.

[peppermint_gum]

So we shouldn't make it easier for people to meet each other, because some of those people might be white supremacists?

I'm sorry, but I think you may be spending too much time online.

[marginalia_nu]

Yeah that's actually largely a good thing. A big problem is the political echo chamber these people live in online. In neutral activities that are not strongly politically coded, they'll meet people from outside that echo chamber, and will inevitably face contradictions to their world view.

[tiznow]

What's the problem exactly?