Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by scarmig 183 days ago
The dynamic seems to be identifying some phrasing as a secret neo-Nazi dogwhistle and haranguing people who use it. However, that doesn't effect any change, so a new word has to be identified as secretly neo-Nazi. Repeat ad infinitum, until the terminally online exist in such a rarefied universe that 99% of all humans are secret neo-Nazis.

This is bad, because it both 1) waters down actual neo-Naziism (which is fringe and rare) and worse 2) alienates people to the point where they support non-neo-Nazi but bad policy.

(For me personally, my take on "Western Civilization" is along the lines of Gandhi: I think it'd be a wonderful idea.)