Please don't toss ideological flamebait ("global rise of fascism") into HN threads. It leads to embarrassingly bad, endlessly repetitive discussion.

For those who want that, there are many other places on the internet to go; not here please.

>the global rise of fascism

This is only happening for an extremely loose and almost meaningless definition of fascism.

Nah, it's pretty legitimately taking root: https://twitter.com/Psythor/status/1056811593177227264.

What is specifically fascist about this?

It's a slap in the face of any global cooperation and a yes-please to more nationalistic Volksmagie.

not really. it's just authoritarian. people need to stop using fascistic when they mean authoritarian.

Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of radical authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.

> strong regimentation of society and of the economy

This is exactly what China is in the process of implementing via their social/sesame credit system. Semantics aside, it's not good.

oh thanks, i never thought to look at the actual definition. except how useful is that definition really, and how is it different than say any other dictatorship? yes, ultranationalism, but is PRC ultranationalistic? sure, one china, but there's also loads of flags in america.

you can argue PRC is more totalitarianism than just authoritarianism. but IMO, fascism is too vague to be useful without hindsight. for example, how is fascism meaningfully different than social nationalism? so please, don't just condescendingly throw out a cherry picked definition

It's not cherry picked. It's literally the first result in Google, from Wikipedia.

To me that screams communism rather than fascism.

Communist China is fascist now? China is as fascist as the Soviet Union was.

Just because fascism and "communism" (as in, communism as implemented in China or the USSR) were at odds in the mid-20th century, doesn't mean they're incompatible.

I think that after a point communism and fascism are only different in name. Taken to extremes the outcome is the same; consolidation of power and wealth, suppression of opposition, and as near to absolute control as possible.

haha you have no idea how many people you are going to anger with your comment

To be fair, they can start with different ideologies, but they end up very much the same: crushing individuals for the benefit of the all-powerful State. Does not matter if it's right or left, at the end of the day you get the following:

- Abolition of private property

- Abolition of civil liberties

- Abolition of political liberties

- Abolition of Free Press

- Systematic repression, the reign of fear

- Glorification of the Nation

- Quasi-Nationalization of Means of Production (whether private enterprise still exist is irrelevant, as they have to prone allegiance to the State)

- Mass murdering of political opposition and minorities

Same thing happened in France during the French Revolution, and nobody called it Fascism or Communism at the time but the idea of oppressing individuals for an utopian State was already there.

There are semantic differences, sure. The outcomes are horrifyingly the same. Lots of people die.

Some 10 million in fascist Germany[0], some 60 million in Soviet Russia, more than 70 million in communist China, etc.[1] Though, I'm not sure how to treat "just let them starve". Is it murder if you have the means to feed them? Is it murder if you don't even try?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_...

I wasn't arguing against you. I just know the statement you posted pisses off both fascists and communists which I'm completely fine with.

Very Blade Runner.

At this point, Chinese fascist government is the greatest threat to humanity and animals alike. They have enacted (and admitted to! https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/video/china-admits-to-opening...) concentration camps for millions of muslims. They are preparing for war in the south China sea (https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-president-orders-mili...). They are killing the ozone https://qz.com/1323519/china-is-the-source-of-the-mysterious.... And of course, there's the whole sesame credit score, AI-enhanced surveillance, oppression in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, etc.

How is this specific thing "very bad for the majority of human kind"?

It's very bad for rhinos and tigers, for sure.

It's just a disgusting little ornament on the much larger birthday cake we've got baking in our oven.

To the backdrop of mass die-offs, the rules preventing the extinction of rhinos and tigers are cut by a few power-hungry fools seeking the political support of a few greedy fools who will sell those animals' horns and bones as false cures to a few superstitious fools who believe these worthless tusks and bones have magical powers. It's such dark planetary tragicomedy -- with a focus on "tragic", a kind of satanic genius that even Mikhail Boulgakov couldn't have dreamed up, and it's real.

Encouraging the poaching of keystone species like the tiger is bad for the ecosystem and by consequence any advantages humanity gains from the ecosystem are lost.

This specific thing isn't, just taken against the broader backdrop of similar events and trends.

The idea that we can exploit and destroy a species for our own supposed and unproven benefit is very short sighted and shows we are not a species capable of living holistically with our world.

Those interested in the evidence (or lack thereof) of TCM should read

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine

"qualified doctor" as in qualified to pratice medicine by the government, which is not what you think