The vast majority of Patreon's user base (the artists getting patronage) are not producing anything that would get booted off of Patreon for. In order to compete, bitPatreon and SubscribeStar will have to compete on attracting Patreon's artists off Patreon.

(FTR, I'm mildly certain that many artists on Patreon might even find the policing of the Patreon platform to be a positive, because it means their name isn't associated with the names of people they find reprehensible. I'm concerned that alternatives such as bitPatreon and SubscribeStar will quickly gain the reputation of being a platform for people whose beliefs are considered reprehensible elsewhere, which automatically makes it difficult to market those alternatives.)

But some of those artists are rightly concerned that Patreon has that kind of power. I don't want the phone company to restrict who I can call, even if I never would call the "criminals" they block me from calling. There are others who are supporters of the banned topic even though their particular bit of art doesn't actually have anything to do with the banned topic.

I don't know how many will leave, but I don't like the idea of a company choosing morality and so I won't support anyone on patreon. If an artists wants my support they won't get it on Patreon (fair notice, so far I have not supported any artists in other ways - who knwos if this will change)

I'm not sure the comparison to the phone company is very applicable. This would be the case if Patreon would be a pure payments proessor, like Mastercard or Visa (or maybe Stripe). But Patreon provides pages on their own website within their own brand identity for these creators, stores their digital media, promotes them through their search interface etc.

In my opinion, Patreon is more akin to a newspaper deciding which ads to show next to their articles or to a shopping mall deciding which shops to rent space to. And of course every newspaper will reject ads that would infuriate their readers (or journalists) and shopping malls will not rent to businesses that might damage their reputation (depending on how "upscale" it is this might be everything from soup kitchens over gambling outfits and payday lenders to brothels).

Now, you might disagree with them whether they have drawn the right line there and consequently take your business elsewhere (just as you might not want to visit a shopping mall with the wrong mix of shops), but I find it a bit of a stretch to frame this as a "free speech" issue.

How is it not comparable... When it comes down to money transfer, imagine if you are the one blacklisted by Visa and Mastercard... now you suddenly cannot make online payments, oops, you also can't even have a bank account at a major bank.

Things like this are in fact happening. From people who've used a bitcoin exchange connected to their Chase bank account to people that are a bit too right leaning for those at Patreon, regardless of where those opinions are expressed. While they allow similar language with a different bent on their actual platform.

When the gatekeepers of money start acting as censors, is that really not as bad or worse than the telephone company doing the same?

> Patreon provides pages on their own website within their own brand identity for these creators, stores their digital media, promotes them through their search interface etc

Which is exactly the kind of useless functionality that they don't need. Most of the creators I've seen either migrate away from Patreon or diversify themselves end up using payment processing services like Stripe or Paypal.

> Which is exactly the kind of useless functionality that they don't need.

So says you, yet the vast majority of people I subscribe to on Patreon use it as a delivery platform for advance content to subscribers. One of the major ways it promotes higher donation amounts is by letting those people have gated access to content. How else would this be easily accomplished except for this "useless" functionality? A single password that is handed out? A large list of passwords that the artist needs to manage?

It quickly becomes obvious that this useless functionality has a very real use case, and I think it's in fact one of the drivers of high donation rates in some cases.

Interestingly, I've found this doesn't work equally well for all media. Digital artists, webcomic people, etc. can often use patreon as a way to give fans access to unsellable WIPs. Similarly, writers will use patreon as a way to display trunk stories (although in this case patreon is a draw through its network effects more than it is the genuine best place to do this).

I'm not arguing for or against censorship in any particular manner. Merely that if SubscribeStar/bitPatreon want to compete with Patreon they will have to appeal to more than freedom of speech moral stance, since the majority of Patreon's artists are already either within Patreon's moral stance, benefit from the moral stance, or do not apply to this matter entirely.

"Our service is where we make sure only good guys are, our competition is only used by literal child eating nazis"

No cartel in mankinds history has enjoyed this type of competitive advantage, good job SV :)

Just like voat cloning reddit. When the main draw is that you wont be censored it ends up drawing only the worst groups who have been censored or legitimately fear it. Pretty soon the clone is just a cesspool that the vast majority of users want nothing to do with.

This is why I think the Mastodon-like federated networks are better for these kinds of things. The majority of Mastodon users are Japanese because lolicon isn't permitted in Twitter, but you can still safely ignore those users because of Mastodon's federated nature.

You also ignore groups of users on reddit, just don't go to the subreddit.

Same thing for creators on Patreon.

> The vast majority of Patreon's user base (the artists getting patronage) are not producing anything that would get booted off of Patreon for.

Impossible to tell since it's decided on a case by case basis, not a set of hard rules that are simply equally applied.

edit: gotta love how this is instantly downvoted, but not challenged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv7hvZee-PQ&t=8m07s

> bitPatreon and SubscribeStar will have to compete on attracting Patreon's artists off Patreon

They won't have to when Patreon actively tries to shove them away themselves.

See my other note about bitPatreon and SubscribeStar gaining the reputation as being platform explicitly for people with "reprehensible" viewpoints that Patreon is rejecting. If those platforms gain those reputations, it'll be very hard to compete with Patreon.

Another way to look at it is that Patreon is quickly becoming the platform of "fuck you, got mine" and "I didn't hear nobody getting silenced", joining the ranks of Twitter, Facebook, Google et al. 99 guilty people do not excuse one innocent person being just shrugged off unless you're prepared to get silenced in their place -- and serious artists with serious things to say about serious stuff don't do it. Mass appeal and money are one thing, in my heart of hearts I only care about the judgement of artists I respect. People want to knock themselves off my "artistic roll call" like that, they're absolutely welcome.

If you know how to run a company which raises 1 billion, why not set up your own? :)

Jokes aside, once you become such a big company it is not as easy as we might think, these are investors money, not your company, and you do what they say...

> these are investors money, not your company, and you do what they say...

100% agreed.

It didn't raise 1B, it processed 1B in payments since inception.

I can transfer €10 from my bank account to any European bank account at no cost in real time.

You can't really do that in the US so Patreon has to exist. Like the only alternative is mailing a check. And god only knows when a world wide banking system will be realized.

Then why don't at least people in the EU simply get a bank account for such donations? Outside of charities, I don't recall seeing that on websites or elsewhere, really. Why is that? Did it just not occur to anyone yet, or is it maybe a legally thorny issue? How do banks feel about it? I sometimes wonder about this, and I assume there's gotta be reasons, but I don't actually know.

There's clearly multiple valid reason not to:

- Donations can come from all over the world.

- It's easier to simply subscribe on Patreon while you are already logged in, than doing the 4-5 steps necessaries to do a bank transfer (there's a reason Amazon invested so much into 1 click ordering, the least friction you get, the more transactions you get).

- A subscription is also recurrent, which represent much more money (I'm sure most bank allow recurrent transfer, but it's a choice and not the default one).

- Patreon allow "private" publication to the one that donate, which allow them to offer incentive to donate (mostly it's early access or exclusive content).

How? I am stuck with 3 days for international transfers unless I use a 3rd party service with sketchy terms of use.

Devs and devops/sysadmin, HR, accounting, marketing & product, cleaning staff maybe, sales, support (international I would guess so more people), managers, headcount can grow fast.

Of course as developers we think that a lot of those other positions are unnecessary :)

So what content creators have been denied service?

There was a big controversy over Sargon being suspended, and this has prompted some other high-profile creators to leave the platform.

https://podnews.net/update/patreon-controversy

From the link:

> “I just can’t be bothered with people who chose to treat me like this. It’s really annoying. Like, I — . You’re acting like a bunch of ns, just so you know. You act like white ns. Exactly how you describe black people acting is the impression I get dealing with the Alt Right. I’m really, I’m just not in the mood to deal with this kind of disrespect.”

> “Look, you carry on, but don’t expect me to then have a debate with one of your fgots.…Like why would I bother?…Maybe you’re just acting like a nr, mate? Have you considered that? Do you think white people act like this? White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another, and you guys can’t even act like white people, it’s really amazing to me.”

IIRC the context of that tirade was that he was complaining about the literal white supremacists who harass him - and was directing their language back at them. (Supposedly it was also those white supremacists who reported him to Patreon) Major tactical error here, but I can't entirely disagree with the sentiment. Attacking someone with their own stated beliefs is something I'm a big fan of.

"sounds like"

So you have not gone to the trouble of listening to him before commenting?

Was he asked to apologize for it?

True, but do you want to do business with a company that an enforce morality like that?

I'll do business with whoever offers the best terms at the lowest risk to me. If my business is ranting online about the political wedge issue of the day and e-panhandling, I'd avoid Patreon.

Yes, absolutely.

OK, but our First Amendment allows Nazis to speak freely in this country. No one likes that, except the Nazis, but does that make us all collaborators?

It allows them to speak without legal repercussions from the government. The first amendment doesn't say "Patreon has to allow any hateful dipshit to use their service"

You're reading me completely backwards. If Patreon are collaborators for allowing Nazis to use their platform, then are we collaborators for allowing Nazis to have free speech in our country?

If the answer to the first is "yes", then why is the answer to the second "no"?

https://xkcd.com/1357/ doesn't mean patreon has to host it

I never suggested it did.

You did though, by invoking the first amendment, which really doesn't apply in this context.

When I was a kid, growing up, I recall when the "moral majority" (umbrella term describing the coalition of various protestant groups), and they decided right and wrong, and had the power to a large degree, to shove that down other people's throats. Everything was closed on Sundays, dry counties (no alcohol sales), various conservative dress/grooming/self-expression conventions.

They have mostly lost this influence and power, only to be replaced by something equally distasteful, your explanation not withstanding. You sound exactly like the supporters. Sure the details differ, but you've nailed down the "ends justify the means" spin, just like every other movement that wants to push their world view and morality. The kicker is the whole "it's not enforcing morality" or defending a world view schtik. It's deciding not to do business with various groups of people, under pressure from other groups of people. As a JFK democrat, and individual, I say fuck that. Good riddance.

I'm sorry, this is ridiculous.

Patreon runs a business. You'd force them to do business with people they have no desire to do business with. You're the authoritarian in that picture. There's no reason to think that there's any mysterious group forcing Patreon to act.

I'm neither of the right nor the left, this is a choice of the business, they chose not to do business with someone being actively hateful. Not someone taking a political stance, but someone spewing out prejudice, hatred and bile. I fully support them.

(I cannot reply to the below, being rate limited. The cake thing is discrimination on who someone is, not what they do. Different things. And this is hardly a freedom of speech issue, nobody is denying them the ability to express themselves, I am not obligated to bring you lemonade and let you shout hatred from my front yard in the name of FoS. )

I don't think anyone is calling for forcing Patreon to do anything. They are just looking for an alternative that doesn't behave like Patreon.

It's like Free Speech. You can't just allow free speech for things you want to hear or it's not free.

Patreon has chosen to not allow free speech, and it's their right as a private entity to do that. The market should decide whether or not to support this principle.

Another company could come along and say that they won't discriminate against people based on political ideology or anything like that, and a lot of people would support that, even if it means the company would be helping projects they find offensive.

Why do all the Freedom Speeches™ zealots ignore all the other rights, such as freedom of association?

Obviously someone hasn't thought this through.

If you can discriminate against someone based on their political views, or even ... "something they once said" -which seems to be the substance of all this patreon deplatforming and nazi-calling, you can do so based on their race, sexual habits, color of their shirt, gender, religious identity, ethnicity, cut of their jib, or what city they live in. So, like, welcome to the legal arguments used by "whites only" restaurants and hotels in the south under segregation.

FWIIW someone like Ron Paul who is a "freedom speeches zealot" agrees with you that the whole public accommodation thing violates the rights of businesses.

Uh huh. Because I'm a moron.

Freedom Speeches™ is just like weaponizing the 14th amendment (equal protection clause) to protect corporations. I have to tolerate racists, pedophiles, rapists, thieves because corporatists have feelings too.

When we have to tolerate intolerance, everything falls apart.

"So, like, welcome to the legal arguments used by "whites only" restaurants and hotels in the south under segregation."

Uh huh.

Punching up vs punching down. It's about the power imbalance. These specious false equivalence arguments always ignore the context.

When Freedom Markets™ zealots (like Ron Paul) weaponize the Bill of Rights, it's in the service of corporations, not people.

Lastly, you're equating intrinsic traits (gender, ethnicity) with learned behavior (hate, intolerance). Nice.

PS- WTF is "deplatforming"? The SJWs definitely don't have a monopoly on learned victimhood.

"Punching up/down" is not a legal principle; thank goodness, though it sure looks like Patreon is punching down at marginal figures. Nor are "intrinsic traits" any kind of legal principle. Nor are religions, ethnies, language choice, sexual habits, anything any more intrinsic than political beliefs, not that this matters as a legal principle.

Your views as to what is good or bad are not absolute, and, I hate to break it to you, there is no legal principle behind them other than that which used to back up blasphemy laws. We decided as a society in the 1960s that there's no such thing as blasphemy, and that providing a public accommodation means you have to serve everyone who isn't violating the law.

Yes I agree with you, people like you and Ron Paul attempt to weaponize civil rights at the service of corporations, not people. Look at you telling me that Patreon has every right to deny service to people you disagree with. I'm pretty sure if they denied service to, say, atheists, you'd change your mind!

Update: I'm going to change my answer.

Corporations are people and have the right to speech, above all else, when it serves the plutocrats, hate mongers.

But they're godless oppressors of free speech whenever they refuse to serve haters, thieves.

Which is it?

Pick a side.

--

No.

Patreon is protecting its brand. No different than Apple, Disney/ABC, Hobby Lobby, reddit, Hillsong. What you'd call "discrimination", because apparently there's a shortage of outlets for hate speech.

I also noted that brands are a proxy for trust. If Patreon bans haters, that's a signal to me that they are the kind of people I want to do business with.

Whereas I'm voting with my dollars. If I disagree with Patreon's choices, I simply don't do business with them. What the Freedom Markets™ call the market place of ideas.

But apparently I'm not allowed to make such choices for myself. Because Freedom Speeches™. My bad.

--

Look at you, telling me that there are no ethics, morality. Just what's legal vs illegal. Aka might makes right, dog eat dog.

I am on the side of the post 1960s consensus in the US. Corporations which serve the public must continue to serve the public, without arbitrary tyrannies on things like political beliefs or sexual practices, or face civil rights lawsuits. If you can make a christian baker bake you a gay cake, you can make Patreon work with ... pretty much anyone. That's what we've been doing post civil rights and post legalization of pornography. Seemed fine with most people!

If you want a might makes right world, which, whether you're capable of understanding it or not, is what you're advocating for, you should at least figure out which side has the guns and tanks. Pretty sure it ain't Patreon censors!

Hold on a sec, that's my argument.

I'm not being clear enough.

Those who insist corporations are people, but then get grumpy when corporations act like people, are hypocrites. Or worse.

All I'm saying is that so long as corporations are people, I will continue to vote with my dollars. (Call it a reverse boycott.)

We might be on the same side here. If so, my bad.

I'm on the "no censorship by corporations" side.

As I said, if some schmuck (an individual business owner) has to bake a cake with a message he profoundly disagrees with, because not doing so violates someone else's civil rights, Patreon (an actual corporation) can suck it up and allow people to make contributions to people who use harsh language on youtube. It's really quite simple.

> welcome to the legal arguments used by "whites only" restaurants

You don't control your gender, you don't control your sexual orientation, you don't control your race, you don't control where you are born, etc...

Theses aren't the same as being a Nazi, which you certainly control. You decide to push racist propaganda. You aren't born with that speech, you chose to do it. You chose to hurt people with that speech.

That guy that was removed from Patreon is free to use another platform for its hate speech and use Patreon for something without hate. You can't simply change your skin color to be able to go to a "whites only" restaurants.

Would you mind if instead Patreon was removing videos showing a murder? What about child pornography? I'm curious to know where's your line.

I have no idea what you're trying to say.

And that's fine! Great even.

"You do you" as people say these days :)

I'm not arguing that these folks shouldn't be able to say their piece, and shouldn't be able to get contributions from their followers, however hateful and misguided

Just that the likes of Patreon are under no obligation to help them out.

Of course not. I never said anything to the contrary.

> You'd force them to do business with people they have no desire to do business with.

We're allowed to do that as a society. Or do you not want same sex couples to be able to get a cake? (half /s)

> but someone spewing out prejudice, hatred and bile.

This is called freedom of speech. Hate speech is still protected speech (at least in the US).

Absolutely.

Most of my consumption is virtue signaling. I actively seek out curation matching my values.

Certified fair trade, organic, wild caught, living wages, journalism with actual fact checking & double sourcing, local & family run, etc.

Of course, I have to make exceptions. For example: Home Depot is always my last choice, after my other options have been exhausted.

PS- It's just branding as a proxy for trust.

PPS- I'm SO SORRY for exercising my right to freedom of association, aka voting with my dollars, which must always be subsumed by Freedom Markets™ and the obligation to respect all opinions equally. Because corporatists have feelings too.

If I was an artist I wouldn't want to risk my livelyhood on the assumption that nobody objected to what I did.

Piss Christs; naked statues; slaughtering a horse (in public) to protest the Vietnam war; putting ones shit in cans and sell those; etc are all things that artists have done that pisses people of.

Heck in the US you could be called an arse (or worse) if you salute the flag or if you don't.

They may still be able to legally ban them, political opinions (so long as they are not caused by a religious mandate) is not a protected class (though looking at how devided the US is, that maybe the end result), but given that a big target marked for your business is artists, why would you?

A big part of what makes art good is taking risks. Safe art (e.g. Thomas Kinkade) is kind of boring (which is not to say it isn't enjoyable on its own terms).

Yeah, he seems to be a pretty hateful, nasty person based on what has been reported, though I’ll admit I’ve never watched / listened to any of his stuff. I think the concern is that if Patreon becomes a sort of moral police, then it gives them huge power over the purse-strings of creators. Sam Harris and others don’t like that idea, for understandable reasons. Sam and Joe Rogan and others get labeled “alt-right” a lot by people who don’t like the discussions they’re willing to have.

The problem is that even after removing oneself from patreon, there is still a large company in charge of one’s payments ... a credit card company. Would Visa or MasterCard do the same under heavy social media or political pressure? Probably. So how would someone effectively mitigate this funding threat? Cryptocurrency maybe, if it was more stable and widely used.

They can tell the faithful to send a check to a PO box. Works for televangelists, no reason it wouldn't work for 'thought leaders'.

Like hanklazard mentioned, Sargon was banned, but this had ripples that effected a lot of non-controversial creators. People closed their accounts due to him being banned, and I remember Tim Pool (independent journalist) complaining that he lost around half of his patreons when this happened. He was pissed.

Naomi Wu, who's a really cool maker out of Shenzhen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wu

In case folks are wondering why, she doxxed a journalist.

Which was a shitty thing to do. On the other hand, it was right after they sent a crew to China to interview her, and asked questions about her relationships & sexuality after they had explicitly agreed not to. Which is also a shitty thing to do. But guess which of them lost most of their income, and which of them ended up as an editor at the New York Times?

I think the most recent flashpoint was the deplatforming of Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin). He accused white supremacists of acting like "white niggers" on a youtube livestream. In context, I think he meant this as an ironic insult. According to Patreon, this violated their rules on hate speech and they closed his account.

This caused a backlash; some believed the account closure was politically motivated (Sargon is an anti-feminist, pro gamergate commentator). Some have also found it alarming that Patreon has essentially decided to police their speech in general (e.g. comments made in a youtube video, in a tweet etc.), rather than just on their own site. A number of prominent content creators have closed down their accounts in response, stating they can't trust Patreon to not deplatform them in the future for some perceived infraction. Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson are probably the most prominent of these (13th and 16th highest patron counts respectively). Here's what Sam Harris said:

"As many of you know, the crowdfunding site Patreon has banned several prominent content creators from its platform. While the company insists that each was in violation of its terms of service, these recent expulsions seem more readily explained by political bias. Although I don’t share the politics of the banned members, I consider it no longer tenable to expose any part of my podcast funding to the whims of Patreon’s 'Trust and Safety' committee."

And here's a NYT article on the issue: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/technology/patreon-hate-s...

I think if it were actual Nazis - i.e. people that promote a new holocaust against anyone other than white people, etc etc then I don't think people would have a problem.

Unfortunately, the term has become so devalued that "Nazi" means "Anyone that supports Trump".

What do you think is the end goal of Trump's "Muslim Ban"?

Well for starters, he hasn't banned people on the basis of their religion, but from the state they come from.

I would imagine the purpose would be the same as when Obama implemented a similar ban - prevent terrorism.

As soon as people start rolling out "free speech" in a conversation about business policy the entire conversation is lost.

Free speech does not apply to private business. Enforcing free speech to a private business is closer to a form of government oppression than it is freedom.

The United States has done a great job of brainwashing its population to think that "freedom" is universally the best thing. It's not. In many scenarios freedom actually comes from oppressing someone else (and it's no surprise that oppression is basically the cornerstone of the United States).

There are just about zero websites out there that adhere to truly "free" speech because it's nearly impossible. Doubly so if you want to make a profit. Even 4chan has rules about what you can say there, believe it or not.

> Even 4chan has rules about what you can say there, believe it or not.

Hmm. AFAIK the only thing forbidden on 4chan is child porn because that's outlawed really really everywhere and will drive anyone away.

Furry porn will also get you banned there. There's things 4Chan has strict rules against.

Wild isn't it?

You can easily get banned for simply posting something in the wrong place.

I think considering it an actual belief in "free speech" is giving them too much credit. It's a shield the hateful hide behind, that's all. The people screaming loudest about free speech are more than happy to shut down the rights of others.

> The people screaming loudest about free speech are more than happy to shut down the rights of others.

Do you have an example of this?

Just try to make a comment that's even somewhat balanced in /r/politics, which is a cesspool of intolerant lefties who can't stand any disagreement or debate.

Note, this is not /r/liberalpolitics, or /r/progressivepolitics, but /r/politics, and yet it is an extremely one-sided exercise in herd behavior.

Check the heavy handed moderation on subreddits like the /r/conservative and /r/the_donald.

The former has many threads that are marked "conservatives only" which auto delete any comments from anyone not tagged as conservative by mods. t_d will just delete your comments and ban you if you dare to speak out against Trump.

And all this is not even counting the downvotes you get for speaking your mind in rightwing or alt right places.

You're 100% right and as an American I'm proud that you can't be jailed for saying something stupid. Free speech has several restrictions in the US, and anyone who says it is "totally unrestricted" is simply showing their ignorance of the actual restrictions in place.

Inciting violence with your speech is a crime, and all the free speech in the world will not protect you from the backlash from private citizens and organizations. It just means the government can't lock you in a cage for saying something idiotic like "the Holocaust never happened."

> Inciting violence with your speech is a crime

Only if you go ahead and openly shout "kill that Jew", for example. The hidden ways to incite hatred in the masses with speech are perfectly legal, most of these even in Europe.

> It just means the government can't lock you in a cage for saying something idiotic like "the Holocaust never happened."

Denying the Holocaust is not just idiotic, it is an outright denial of provable facts and an immense disrespect to all the victims of the gas ovens at Auschwitz and the other KZs.

In Germany, Holocaust denial is expressly forbidden by law for the latter reason.

> Denying the Holocaust is not just idiotic, it is an outright denial of provable facts and an immense disrespect to all the victims of the gas ovens at Auschwitz and the other KZs.

Even more than that, it contributes to creating an atmosphere where it could happen again. Simply existing as a Nazi or white supremacist is a call for violence, and silencing them is justified self defense.

Isn't the whole crux of this discussion whether or not "immense disrespect" should be enough to jail someone?

Denying provable facts shouldn't be a crime, it should label you as an idiot. Being disrespectful shouldn't be a crime, it should label you as an asshole. I don't want to live in a world where being an asshole and an idiot is enough to get you put in prison.

If this is true (which I might be willing to concede), then should the same standard not be applied equally to anyone who self-identifies as a communist in today's world? Simply existing as a communist might be a call to repeat the same mistakes of the 20th century (and 21st century, because they're ongoing), which are in no way less horrific than the mistakes of fascism.

Silencing has the opposite effect to what you wanted. It's the Streisand Effect. Your act of censorship only serves as arsenal for the people you are censoring, because they can point at it and say "look, if they didn't have anything to hide, they wouldn't restrict us from talking about it."

This is why I won't call for silencing communists, even though I vehemently disagree with their ideology. I have a bit more faith that humans can recognize bad ideas themselves and do not need to be told what to think.

I'm not going to give any credence to the moronic belief that both "extremes" are fascist. Communism is a far-left ideology based on public ownership of the means of production, there is nothing inherently violent about it.

Please explain the process by which the means of production passes from private ownership to public ownership WITHOUT coercion via threat of force/violence or actual usage of force.

Unicorn farts. Unicorn farts will make people willingly give up what they own in order to watch it be squandered and wasted.

Same way your taxes are taken you dork. Or do you square up with the FBI every April?

If the IRS was literally going to confiscate his whole salary and property he might have a different view. I expect you might as well.

1. Income taxes != capital asset confiscation, especially as taxes are not anywhere near 100%. The closest thing we have to that is civil asset forfeiture, perpetrated at the state and local levels. Note that civil asset forfeiture is increasingly being challenged by the courts as Unconstitutional.[1]

2. Do you know what happens when you DON'T pay your taxes? The government exercises its monopoly on violence and throws you in jail. If this tax analogy is the best your mind could conjure up to prove "communism is non-violent", your thought process is just as much of an unsurprising failure as every other Communist implementor to come before you.

[1]https://www.libertyheadlines.com/new-mexico-civil-asset-forf...

> Please explain the process by which the means of production passes from private ownership to public ownership WITHOUT coercion via threat of force/violence or actual usage of force.

Well, if it's coercive, it's no more coercive than capitalism, which likewise relies on state use and threat of force to defend it's model of property rights.

You are comparing people defending their own property to people stealing other people's property.

Fortunately, humanity came to agreement about which of these two were acceptable at the dawn of civilization. Stealing is not acceptable, and property rights are essential for freedom. Capitalism does not rely on any "state" to enforce violence. It requires that people go about their lives without interfering with other people's lives except through mutually beneficial trade. States have developed as a means for people to collectively secure their freedom to cooperate in this way so that they don't need to be constantly under the threat of invasion from cavemen who do not share any of those values.

Of course, I am willing to concede that states do not have impeccable records when it comes to utilizing its violence - but if anything, this only adds to the argument for small government. Big government has more resources to squander on wars and less ability for the constituents it purports to represent to have any effect on its policies. A communist government is the biggest form of government you can get. It is also unaccountable, because you can't vote them out.

Ultimately, while regressive thinkers exist, there exists a need for people to collectively pool their resources to defending their freedoms and their properties from those who would like to steal and enslave them.

> You are comparing people defending their own property to people stealing other people's property.

No, I'm comparing people forcibly, by way of the state, defining property one way and depriving people who disagree with that definition of what the dissenters see as their property rights to people forcibly, by way of the state, defining property a different way and depriving people who disagree with that other definition of what this other set of dissenters see as their property rights.

That you happen to prefer the capitalist model of property rights doesn't change the fact that it is imposed with state violence on those who disagree with it's parameters.

> Fortunately, humanity came to agreement about which of these two were acceptable at the dawn of civilization.

Humanity did not come to a universal consensus on a model of property rights at the dawn of civilization, and various models of property rights have gained and lost popularity in the intervening time with many (including as recent examples, but not limited to, the Leninist Communist model and the capitalist model) having been imposed through state force at various times and places.

> Simply existing as a communist might be a call to repeat the same mistakes of the 20th century, which are in no way less horrific than the mistakes of fascism.

Communism in itself does not imply violence towards minorities or putting people into Gulags. Nazism or fascism always does, the demonization of those not in the "Volkskörper" (or deemed too weak to be worthy) is the core ideology.

While I agree that autoritarian Communism has failed and those who still adore Stalin are morons, there are many more Communist views that do not resort to authoritarianism.

Communism implies violence against anybody who does not wish to have the fruits of their labour stolen from them by the state. If people had the choice as to whether or not they can keep the wealth they generated, or to give it up "for the greater good," then which option do you think most people would take if they were not under threat of violence?

This is why communism simply cannot work. If you give people choice, it turns out they generate wealth not only for themselves - but they generate wealth for the societies in which they live too. This is what Adam Smith calls the invisible hand. Free markets economies are prosperous because people's self-interest leads to innovation and improved standard of living for everyone.

http://freedomschool.us/how-an-economy-grows.pdf

Communism is rooted in jealousy. Even though people owe their standard of living to the merits of the capitalists which built their societies, they're bitter because they are not among the most wealthy. It is no surprise that there are now countless examples of it being tried in the real world and it leading to all around suffering. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" is always going to be controlled by bitter people, and they're going to use their newly found powers to extract wealth in attempt to cure their own bitterness.

> Simply existing as a Nazi or white supremacist is a call for violence, and silencing them is justified self defense.

It's very easy to make the same argument for Muslims. Yes, there are millions of peaceful Muslims in the U.S., but their religion dictates that they need to conquer and subjugate infidels. There's 1400 years of history to back that up. It is absolutely arguable that just existing as a Muslim is a call for violence.

Should we ban them as well?

What about "Antifa", who exist entirely to wreak violence on people they disagree with, and even do it with impunity. If we should ban Nazis and white supremacists, we need to ban Antifa as well.

I'm just trying to apply your principles consistently.

I am sympathetic to your incredulity but you are the one that needs to realize that yes these people exist and this one is here on HN discussing his mass murder plans with you.

That's not at all what my comment says or implies, and you know that.

No it isn't, because murder is always wrong. Killing in self-defense is not murder. Killing Nazis was a matter of self-defense. Murdering them would not be.

Well when you say something like "silencing someone by any means necessary based solely on their beliefs is justifiable" I think it's fair to make sure you know that you're literally advocating killing people based not on their actions, or even their words, but their thoughts.

I think this is an example where continental Europe differs from the UK. Although we have strong libel laws, the presumption I would hope is still closer to that put forward by JS Mill in On Liberty.