[robertlagrant]

> When Europe was starting a 1000 year technological master-race, more measured minds had to extinguish that fire

A lot of the measured minds were saying eugenics was a good idea. It took the horror of seeing experiments and concentration camps to make it so deeply unfashionable the idea couldn't even survive in academia.

[nonrandomstring]

I believe you're right. Edwin Black's "IBM and the Holocaust" and Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Remains of the Day" both played their part in revising my naive ideas about simple narratives of WW2.

But look at this post made here a couple of days ago [0]. It's absolutely back in fashion. I think technofascism really is a thing now - you can feel certain people getting quite giddy with thoughts of power.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42735539

[robertlagrant]

Power's always in fashion. Academics seem to love socialism, because it (in practice) centralises decision-making nationally to a group of smart people (and the academics might imagine themselves to be these insanely powerful people).

Eugenics was the same. It was a Progressive way of thinking, if I remember correctly.

[nonrandomstring]

> academics might imagine themselves to be these insanely powerful people

It long ago escaped academia. Everyone wants to imagine themselves "insanely powerful people" now. It's part of the sell.

But based on experience I'm with Chomsky, that the majority of academics are abject cowards (if we weren't we'd take back the universities)

> Eugenics was the same. It was a Progressive way of thinking.

Again I think you're right, painful as the truth is. I met many oh-so humane "Humanists" eager to stop the suffering of those poor untermensch.

[robertlagrant]

> Everyone wants to imagine themselves "insanely powerful people" now. It's part of the sell.

I'm not sure this is true. Socialism does have a surprising foothold, but I think that's largely due to the larger number of people flowing through academia.