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The Alt-Right Playbook: How to Radicalize a Normie
- Thread starter Veelk
- Start date
Yup. He did a TON of workshopping on memes and balkanizing video game fandom that he was familiar with via gold farming too. The testing of simple semi-nonsense mantras (BUILD THE WALL, DEEP STATE) as well.
Like yah, "Bannon Harkonnen and Olde Ocelot" and so forth, but he's dangerous and I'm glad Europe basically blew him off.
Good lord I kept thinking about the topic he brings up at 39:07 throughout the entire "How Gabe escaped" section.
I absolutely feel that way about GAF/ResetERA. Its frustrates me that I feel this community once was a place you could bring someone on the edge (looking to escape) to converse. But in the past few years its instead become the last place you would want to bring that person because its become far more harsh, unwilling to discuss or usher someone into an idea, instead opting to just gang up and pile onto someone who isn't 100% in lock step with everyone else. That sort of thing could push away people looking to convert easily.
But the video also flat out points out that lefty places just may not be a decent place at all to bring people like that, because of those reasons. Really wish we could have gotten some examples of good places to bring those folks in the video. Its hard to know where they are if you aren't personally familiar with them.
Really great video.
I absolutely feel that way about GAF/ResetERA. Its frustrates me that I feel this community once was a place you could bring someone on the edge (looking to escape) to converse. But in the past few years its instead become the last place you would want to bring that person because its become far more harsh, unwilling to discuss or usher someone into an idea, instead opting to just gang up and pile onto someone who isn't 100% in lock step with everyone else. That sort of thing could push away people looking to convert easily.
But the video also flat out points out that lefty places just may not be a decent place at all to bring people like that, because of those reasons. Really wish we could have gotten some examples of good places to bring those folks in the video. Its hard to know where they are if you aren't personally familiar with them.
Really great video.
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Really? I honestly don't think Gaf or Resetera was ever one of those places. If anything, this is a safe space for leftist people and anyone who displays gaslighting or alt-right viewpoints tends to get put on the chopping block pretty quick, and it's been that way since....well, since atleast 2016.
And I'm fine with that. There should be a safe space for people who are looking to come back into the fold of humanity, maybe there should even be a thread on this site dedicated to just that, but the Gabe's of the world are not nearly so prosecuted as, say, LGBT folk, so their comfort kind of comes first here.
Yeah, I somewhat understand why it seems that way but Era as a whole definitely scorns the idea that it has any responsibility (for lack of a better word) to pull Gabes back. Stage 1 Gabe gets thrown in the same garbage can as full-on nazi Gabe.
All this translates to is "the site doesn't tolerate bigotry." There are tons of arguments it's just, you know, over substantial things and not about whether or not gay/trans/ethnic minority people have the right to exist.
There are many people of color and people who are LGBT+ on this board. A large portion of them do not feel like they should be held responsible for coddling people who are "recovering Nazis". And it would be irresponsible of us to ask marginalized people to hold their tongue in response to hate. It's not on the shoulders of communities like ours to be their therapist. People like Gabe need to interact with individuals who accept that responsibility, not entire communities. Really, what they need is professional counseling.
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Lets be 1000% clear here:
Era doesn't have any responsibility to pull Gabes back. None.
Nobody here is responsible for any another person's personal descent into nazi-ism.
If you want to say that there should be a place where Gabe's can commune with Era members so that they get the help they need, yeah, fine, maybe we should have a thread doing that, where the rules of moderation are loosened there and only there so as to let people get the help they need. I wouldn't oppose that.
BUT
Do not for one second frame this as our (as community) responsibility to do so. I want that particular argument nipped at the bud right now.
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There are several nonwhite, nonmale, nonstraight, noncis members on this board. It is not our duty to ruin our mental well being to coddle an almost Nazi from being a full on Nazi.
If Gabe runs to the Nazis because a bunch of people were mad at him, that says more about his self centered immaturity.
Also
Because to a black person who's being shot by the police what difference is there between stage 1 Gabe, where he'll most likely defend the cops doing this, and Nazi Gabe.
The section on colonizing communities, and using the gap between personal and political to shift things right-ward, reminded me a lot of late-stage GAF's push to quarantine political discussion away from the hobbyist talk. It failed, the schism happened, it was enacted fully and... well... look where GAF ended up.
It's funny because "political" in the context Evilore was using it actually meant "personal" as in "dont discuss allegations (against me) of sexual assault (a political issue?)"
That's really true, the attempt by people to try and de-politicise everything became very clear towards the end.
Speak for yourself. Im black too and I find a big ass difference between a person regurgitating stuff they may have heard from family and media; a person well within the range of saving, and a card carrying, swastika tattooed freaking Nazi. But you do you.... And I never said it was this sites responsibility. Not once. I said it used to fit better in that place though, and that I wish they had mentioned a few good communities for it.
It was once upon a time, but I was on gaf loong before 2016. In the transition from where it started to where it is today, theres been a big shift left. It definitely needed to happen. Its just that in that move, it passed the window of being a place where it could be helpful to the type of person described in the video at that timestamp. Is it possible to be helpful to that person while being a lefty forum though? Maybe not. Even the video seems to question it.
But Im definitely making an attempt to distance myself from the "Throw the whole person away" crowd that seems to be growing these days. So if someone wants to escape the bullshit on the right and make their way back to reason, I feel bad not knowing a single solitary place or community I could direct them to in order to get started. Im not content with a "Fuck you, shouldn't have been conservative in the first place" stance of refusing help when the rare moment happens that someone looks to me and is TRYING to be a better person.
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You didn't say it, but it was the implication, to the point where Doober replied to you in agreement saying "Yeah, era doesn't seem to acknowledge it's responsibility to helping Gabe's." If you didn't mean it, np, but that was the implication you gave.
Though I still don't agree that either Gaf or Era were ever really safe spaces for Gabes to become deradicalized. At best, Gaf tolerated it, but that wasn't deradicalization, it was just alt-right infiltration like the kind the video talks about 9 minutes in.
As a cis white male with a history of abuse, it's scary to think how I could have become Gabe. Im glad i didn't but i often wonder if there was one specific turning point.
Actually, i know there was. My college girlfriend was Jewish. And suddenly, everything I had been taught in rural Michigan about Jews was shown to be wrong and the whole house of cards came crumbling down. What would I have been like if that wasn't my most formative relationship? Scary thoughts
Actually, i know there was. My college girlfriend was Jewish. And suddenly, everything I had been taught in rural Michigan about Jews was shown to be wrong and the whole house of cards came crumbling down. What would I have been like if that wasn't my most formative relationship? Scary thoughts
Which is exactly why I added "for lack of a better word." Capability. Possibility. Whatever you want to call it.
I get the idea that making minorities feel safe and welcome and de-radicalizing guys on the path are contradictory goals.
The point is that there really aren't too many options for #2 in you list.
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The better word you're looking for is inclination. Era has no inclination to offer a safe space to soft-nazi's for reasons I already mentioned, which I think are perfectly good reasons.
And it's important to use that word instead of responsibility because responsibility implies a moral imperative, and there isn't one at play here.
The problem is how you prevent communities that try to achieve #2 from becoming #1. And of course finding the people who actually put the work in. It's not pleasant, it's not fun and it's dangerous. The burn out rate is astronomical.
Yup, which is quite terrible because despite the right being bigots and shit, they will generally welcome anyone who shows an inkling of interest and put on a nice face for them to put them in their fold. The left does not do this, it arguably does the opposite. And no, I'm not talking about converting card carrying klan members, I'm talking about the 10s of millions that didnt vote in 2016, the swing states, the rust belt. If someone merely says the wrong thing in ignorance they can be dogpiled, hated on, called a lost cause by the left. And if you were on the fence, with one side welcoming you and one side one step away from pulling the proverbial knives out, it's easy to see why the right is much better at converting than the left.
That's something I didn't consider. I remember reading about how even Facebook moderators charged with policing hate speech sometimes found themselves being roped in by it.
But there's gotta be a happy medium between coddling and throwing the entire cishet white male baby out with the nazi bathwater.
This is a perception problem. Era is something like 90% white cis straight men among active posters. There are threads every day that assume that the people posting in it are white cis straight men.
Even topics like womans issues, civil rights and micro agressions, gay media representation or what is the nature of trans people. Each of this topics always ends up being dominated by white cis straight men talking about the issues.
The problem is that you have no comparison with communities that are actually majority minority communities. They feel incredible different. Most white cis straight men never been a part of an internet community that isn't majority white cis straight men.
I completely agree. I don't think tolerance of intolerance should be accepted on Era, and I certainly don't think anyone should ever feel obliged to debate a Gabe, especially not people from minority groups; but I'm a white cis male, so I'm not emotionality taxed by oppression, and other whites are more likely to listen to me. I have the energy, the empathy, and the inclination to debate Gabes, and since I live in a fairly conservative part of Canada, I often try. Sometimes something gets through.
So I wish the prevailing culture of Era was less hostile towards this concept. I'm not talking about welcoming Gabes into safe spaces/the forum, I'm talking about not dogpiling other progressives who don't immediately dismiss the idea of treating Gabes with empathy and kindness.
To be 100% clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with punching a Gabe/Nazi; I'm saying sometimes there's value to hugging them too.
The problem is there are a lot of people willing to pollute communities like this with disingenuous arguments to derail legitimate leftists discussion. Others are already in the pipeline and spend time trying to spread their views. It's very hard sometimes to distinguish someone who is legitimately confused about the topic or having slightly controversial views from someone who holds shitty views that they're hiding and are just trying to defend objectification or bigotry.
Incredible video. Fucking hell.
The part at 14 minutes in where he describes in painful detail how the right has their own answers to all the problems while simultaneously poisoning the well of the left's answers is something I've always known but it was eye-opening to have laid out.
That along with the onion rabbit-hole describing how people get sucked in were excellent.
Cannot recommend this video enough to anyone who knows someone that parrots views they got from the internet.
The part at 14 minutes in where he describes in painful detail how the right has their own answers to all the problems while simultaneously poisoning the well of the left's answers is something I've always known but it was eye-opening to have laid out.
That along with the onion rabbit-hole describing how people get sucked in were excellent.
Cannot recommend this video enough to anyone who knows someone that parrots views they got from the internet.
Yeah, it's a real problem. You can see how fence sitters could be seduced by the right's welcoming front. It's a plain fact that you catch more bees with honey than vinegar.
No one's obligated to humor trolls or be nice to proto-Nazis, but, you know, there are consequences to rejecting any possibility of earnest dialogue with misinformed people.
I easily could have gone the other way if I'd stumbled upon the wrong influences 10 or 15 years ago. Many times, I've reflected on how much more effective it is to meet people where they are instead of browbeating them for not bootstrapping their way to enlightenment.
That's one reason why I appreciate the communication style of ContraPoints so much. She gets it. She knows how to change minds.
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Innuendo's best work so far and that's saying something. He echoes a lot of points criminologists and sociologists have made about self-radicalisation but does so in a very accessible way (and is not shy to prescribe solutions.)
Having worked counter terrorism, it's insane to me that white supremacists follow the same playbook as radical jihadists or separatists but don't get a fraction of the pushback, socially and legally.
Having worked counter terrorism, it's insane to me that white supremacists follow the same playbook as radical jihadists or separatists but don't get a fraction of the pushback, socially and legally.
Yeah, it certainly is scary thinking about how easy it can be to tip into that crowd. I grew up with a super conservative racist father ("we shouldn't have a black man in the WHITE house" being one of his favorite jokes) with a similarly inclined extended family, and was surrounded by toxic people in high school. I attribute turning out so different to nearly everyone around me to finding a small forum for secular beliefs and discussion right when I started college, which helped me think critically about things I had mostly never even considered up until that point. Then finding the old site and being exposed to so many more people and viewpoints than I had before. Some people aren't so fortunate and just as easily slip into the darker side of things instead.
I've seen people permed here for saying something incorrectly that wasn't meant to be insulting. You bring someone in that doesn't know better they're just going to get banned and pissed off long before they learn anything
Uh
Maybe someone who invited an anti-nonbinary truscum asshole on her video shouldn't be your go-to example
Not this shit again. You're gonna dismiss a channel full of exceptionally written, produced, and delivered content on the basis of the latest controversy? Well, enjoy.
Yes, this again. She's harming NB people with her actions. My life partner is enby. I will not be silent, FOH with that.
Her actions being putting the wrong foot forward in an ongoing dialogue? The left really does eat our own, wow. Guess she should shut up and disappear forever.
So disingenuous. You already know this is not the first time she's said bigoted things about nonbinary folx, and inviting a person who doesn't believe enby folx exist is the worst enbyphobic thing she's done to date.
You can keep telling yourself you know more about my community than actual members of it, but you don't.
