News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by winter_blue on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:27AM (#13506678)
One of the most disturbing things is that one of T's closest advisers actually thinks that there are too many Asian tech CEOs: http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/16/13653490/steve-bannon-tru...
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by Keyframe on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:35AM (#13506718)
This is ridiculous. What's the argumentation? Are non-asian people withheld from positions or unable to start startups because of Asian people? Or, are people from less privileged societies/economies more driven towards success/entrepreneurship? Is there space for lucid and argumented discussion when these kind of statements are being made at all?

edit: ok. I get it. Not all that thinly-veiled "not white people hurr durr" talk/racism. No point of discussion.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by otalp on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:41AM (#13506754)
He's talking about Steve Bannon, Trump's main advisor, who ran Brietbart, which hosts plenty of White Supremacists. That's basically the argument- Asians aren't Americans, we need more of 'us' at the top. That's why Bannon will complain about too many Asian CEOs but won't talk about a lack of Black CEOs. He's not concerned with diversity of any kind, he wants homogeneity.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by s_kilk on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:43AM (#13506764)
Steve Bannon is simply a White Supremacist, there isn't really any argumentation to speak of.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by cabalamat on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:54AM (#13506836)
> Steve Bannon is simply a White Supremacist

No, I don't think he is, in that he doesn't want whites to lord it over non-whites. What he wants, as I understand it, is for different races and cultures to live in different societies/countries.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by jonathankoren on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:40AM (#13507244)
White supremacist crowd has been evolving the the last 20 years, but at it's core is still "whites are the best." The biggest change I've seen since their adoption of scientific racism (now known as "human biodiversity") came with the publication of the Bell Curve back in 1994. They had to reconcile their views that whites were the best in all things with the stereotype of the smart asian kid and black professional athlete. So now the whites are in the best all around race. The most inventive, the most adaptive, blah blah blah. Seriously, it sounds like someone took the alien races from space opera, or D&D and made white the humans.

Then of course they bring up "white genocide" and are staunch antimiscegenationists.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by becarefulyo on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:02AM (#13506900)
So he believes in racial segregation but is not racist?
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by cabalamat on Saturday January 28, 2017 @12:23PM (#13507517)
I didn't say he isn't a racist.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by geofft on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:28AM (#13507159)
Then he's welcome to be the senior counselor to the president of an all-white country. America, though, is distinctly not an all-white country. Does he want to make it one? Am I, as an American-born child of Indian immigrants, expected to move somewhere else?
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by actsasbuffoon on Saturday January 28, 2017 @12:10PM (#13507430)
Sadly, I believe the answer is yes.

Richard B. Spencer is a leading figure in the American Alt-Right (he even created the name). Here's a section from the beginning of his Wikipedia article:

Richard Bertrand Spencer (born May 11, 1978) is a noted American white supremacist. He is president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank, and Washington Summit Publishers, an independent publishing firm. Spencer has stated that he rejects the description of white supremacist, and describes himself as an identitarian. He advocates for a white homeland for a "dispossessed white race" and calls for "peaceful ethnic cleansing" to halt the "deconstruction" of European culture.

I'm not sure what a "peaceful ethnic cleansing" would look like, and I don't think I want to find out.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by s_kilk on Saturday January 28, 2017 @12:49PM (#13507669)
> I'm not sure what a "peaceful ethnic cleansing" would look like

Peaceful for himself I suppose. He'd like to be nice and cozy, miles from the action, while it's being carried out.

The more that lad get's slapped about the place, the better I feel.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by cabalamat on Saturday January 28, 2017 @05:20PM (#13509813)
> I'm not sure what a "peaceful ethnic cleansing" would look like

It's clearly impossible.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mhneu on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:22AM (#13507098)
That kind of segregation within nations is a recipe for wars and conflict. It didn't work out well for the Nazis and the neo-Nazis wanting the same thing also seems like a bad idea.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by winter_blue on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:43AM (#13506761)
Well, Bannon (Trump's Chief Strategist) is part of what's called the "alt-right" movement. Quoting from a ProPublica article[1]: "The alt-right believes in racially separate nation-states."

They are okay with immigrant founders like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, since they are white. It seems like it's non-white immigrants they want to keep out.

They also don't seem concerned with the economic impact of excluding non-white immigrants, as Bannon said "A country is more than an economy."

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/right-wing-extremism-whit...

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mistermann on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:52AM (#13506819)
FWIW, there is no single definition for "alt-right". You're free to choose the definition that best advances your political leanings, but implying specificity to one description seems a bit disingenuous to me.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by joshwcomeau on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:56AM (#13506860)
I think it's pretty obvious that "alt-right" is an alias of "white supremacist". Neo-Nazis wanted a less loaded term so they came up with a new one, but it's the same people, same ideas.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mistermann on Monday January 30, 2017 @12:37AM (#13518948)
It's not that you're "wrong", but there are plenty of people who consider (or refer to themselves) as being alt-right, who are not white supremacists.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by geofft on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:24AM (#13507115)
There is no single definition for, say, "hacker" either, and there might be plenty of hackers who don't use computers, but if you're portraying yourself as a hacker you have to be at least okay with computers. Same with the alt-right: there might be plenty of people who call themselves alt-right who aren't white nationalists, but the're okay with white nationalism.

The /r/altright subreddit says on its sidebar: "Another core principle of the Alt-Right is Identitarianism. Identitarianism is the prioritization of social identity, regardless of political persuasion. Thus, the Alt-Right promotes White Identity and White Nationalism."

Breitbart's 2016 article, "An Establishment Conservative's guide to the Alt Right" says: "The alt-right do not hold a utopian view of the human condition: just as they are inclined to prioritise the interests of their tribe, they recognise that other groups – Mexicans, African-Americans or Muslims – are likely to do the same. ... The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race. The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved. A Mosque next to an English street full of houses bearing the flag of St. George, according to alt-righters, is neither an English street nor a Muslim street — separation is necessary for distinctiveness."

If you have a problem with the "alt-right" being identified with a belief in racially-separate nation-states, take it up with the alt-right themselves.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mistermann on Monday January 30, 2017 @12:56AM (#13519008)
Thanks for an actual substantive comment.

> The /r/altright subreddit says on its sidebar: "Another core principle of the Alt-Right is Identitarianism. Identitarianism is the prioritization of social identity, regardless of political persuasion. Thus, the Alt-Right promotes White Identity and White Nationalism."

This was actually surprising news to me. One issue I have with the term "white nationalism" is: can you be white and a nationalist (putting your countrymen's needs first, regardless of skin color), without being a "white nationalist" (aka racist)?

If you don't mind, I'd really appreciate your opinion on that question.

Regardless, if a subreddit with 16,000+ subscribers self-proclaims it is white nationalist (rather than just nationalist), then I have no problem conceding that it seems that it is kind of gelling into an at least partially racist organization, which would lose my support.

> The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race.

That is full-on mentally retarded, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support that assertion, and plenty suggesting the exact opposite. Jesus Christ. (EDIT: Just to be crystal clear, I realize that was not your statement, it was Breitbart's. I'm going to go look that up because I find it extremely hard to believe they would actually be stupid enough to say that.)

EDIT 2: Curious to see how long until my mystery downvoter shows up and downvotes my last set of comments. :)

EDIT 3: After a skim of the article, I feel quite confident that "The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race" was an unintentional mistake, and replacing "race" with "nationality" or "community" would better express the writer's actual thoughts.

This whole phenomenon is very interesting to me. I don't think many people would deny that your environment has a significant effect on your character development (nature vs nurture), would they? Yet, when you extend this idea to the national level, these very same people will now say it is literally impossible for your environment to influence a person's character. Or, people will gladly visit a foreign country and come back extolling the virtues of the culture, but if the topic of conversation change from tourism to immigration, the same people would passionately proclaim that it is a delusion to think that there is such a thing as "culture" of a nation.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by 1024core on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:57AM (#13506866)
Your response doesn't add anything to the discussion. What are these other definitions you speak of? Please tell us and cite them, so we can make up our own minds which is more credible. Throwing in adhominems like "advances your political leanings", etc. is irrelevant. It's not like there's some alternate definition of "alt-right" that implies they're leftists!
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mistermann on Monday January 30, 2017 @12:42AM (#13518963)
> Your response doesn't add anything to the discussion. What are these other definitions you speak of? Please tell us and cite them

Be honest: are you being open minded?

Here are a variety of definitions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by somebehemoth on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:01AM (#13506897)
What "alt-right" definition are you referring to that does not include racists?
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mistermann on Monday January 30, 2017 @12:43AM (#13518966)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right

Some people have (perhaps unwittingly) chosen to identify as alt-right to distance themselves from mainstream Republican conservatives.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by jonathankoren on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:09AM (#13506978)
We should not forget that the alt-right is part of the neo-reactionary / dark enlightenment / Mencius Moldbug crowd. These people explicitly want to destroy liberal democracy and initiate the rule of hereditary strong men ruling ethnostates. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I encourage those that think this to actually read their writings. This is an explicit goal. These ideas are 21st century fascism as defined by Umberto Eco.

Sadly, these people are on this very forum now.

Edit: Yeah, mod me down to oblivion because i hurt your feelz.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mistermann on Monday January 30, 2017 @01:21AM (#13519083)
It is the left who is now telling us what thoughts and ideas are acceptable. It's amazing how the tides have turned in just 30 or so years.
[dead]
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mistermann on Tuesday January 31, 2017 @03:37PM (#13534953)
If I was crying or commenting based on emotions, you'd have an excellent point. But as it is, you just look like an idiot who slanders anyone they disagree with rather than having a reasonable discussion.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by jonathankoren on Sunday February 05, 2017 @03:05AM (#13571429)
If you wanted a discussion, you wouldn't be throwing out a one line bomb. Since you didn't raise an objection to anything I said, I can only assume you agree with my characterization. As they say, "It ain't slander if it's true."
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by xapata on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:44AM (#13506767)
You'll need to discuss with Bannon what "our culture" means and who "we" are. When you say lucid and argumented, I'm guessing you've already excluded such nebulous thoughts from what arguments are acceptable. Or you could try to convince him that the idea of culture is too vague too be useful and we should only discuss policy with more concrete things.

Edit/Clarification: I disagree with Bannon. More specifically, he would probably consider me "them" instead of "us".

This seems to be one of my least popular comments. Care to explain why?

[dead]
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by dwaxe on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:08AM (#13506973)
“When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think . . . ” he didn’t finish his sentence. “A country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society.”

|> Implying that Asian CEOs can't be part of civic society.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by pfarnsworth on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:21AM (#13507085)
Implying nothing. He didn't finish his statement. Period. End of Story. I'm not going to attack him on a sentence that he never finished and instead on what I inferred from him, which is wrong. I'll wait for him to actually act, and trust me, I'm watching very carefully.

I hate Steve Bannon and Trump, but lazy and dishonest retweeting of your own personal biases are what causes this complete fake news epidemic. I said the same thing in the New York Times post. This is what is killing America, because we can't have an honest discussion.

The same thing happened with the "media should keep their mouths shut" quote. Another dishonest quote taken out of context, which only weakens any respect in stories that are anti-Trump. You don't beat Trump by spreading your own lies, you beat him by spreading the truth and opening the eyes of his supporters.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by tacomonstrous on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:35AM (#13507211)
That's a lot of outrage you've generated over an implication that's obvious to anyone who doesn't have their head buried in the sand.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by pfarnsworth on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:42AM (#13507254)
I'm fucking tired of fake news and the lazy people that spread it. I don't want Trump to win again.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by tacomonstrous on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:56AM (#13507343)
Maybe you should preserve that outrage for real fake news then.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by pfarnsworth on Saturday January 28, 2017 @12:36PM (#13507584)
I have. This is another piece of fake news. There's plenty from both sides.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by tacomonstrous on Saturday January 28, 2017 @01:08PM (#13507772)
What's fake is your equivalency of the two sides. Your accusing others of being obtuse is the richest fakeness of them all.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by pfarnsworth on Saturday January 28, 2017 @01:45PM (#13507971)
Continue living in your own echo chamber, I don't care. I prefer to engage people who are more interested in the truth, not propagating their agendas through half-truths, like you. Unfortunately, if you and the people like you win, Trump will be in power for the full term.
Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by mhneu on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:24AM (#13507125)
Bannon and the rest of the conservative media trade on implication, so we should get better at recognizing implication.

Do you see all the ad network ads that show Michelle Obama with a taken-out-of context angry face? The reason the right buys those ads is to create hate through implication. The headline and click-through content don't matter.

PR and marketing are subtle.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by pfarnsworth on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:32AM (#13507191)
So, you think the best way to attack the Republicans is to keep twisting their words and lying about what they said?

Trump is going to win another term because of obtuse people like yourself.

Re:Ask HN: YC please talk about Immigration Order by raverbashing on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:51AM (#13507307)
Ah Steve Bannon of infamous fake-news site "Broadbeard"