A number of examples come to mind, but the most prominent is the Red Scare.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare

Not probably your point, but I’ve always found comparisons between the present moral panic and the Red Scare to be interesting. Notably, the extreme measures and intense paranoia of the Red Scare took place against the backdrop of a credible existential threat—global thermonuclear war. We now have the benefit of hindsight, but it wasn’t clear to people at the time that the situation would stabilize, which is to say their extreme measures make some amount of sense (I can sympathize with abandoning lofty liberal ideals in such a moment). On the other hand, the current moral panic has no similar justification—it’s a naked power grab by a group of ideological authoritarians who can’t even be bothered to pretend to act in accordance with their own stated beliefs. Neither the RS nor the present panic are rightful, but one is at least sorta understandable.

That really all depends on your definition of what constitutes a credible threat. I'm sure any activist would say that continued police brutality against minorities, widespread and increasing hate crimes, etc. represent a credible threat to affected populations.

We can argue about how genuine / common these threats really are, but at the end of the day I think it's fair to say at the absolute minimum that activists genuinely believe they are threats.

Quick question, without checking the numbers, about how many black people do you think were killed by police last year and how many of them were unarmed? I'm interested in knowing what you think the numbers are in reference to them possibly being a credible threat.

While those things are bad, I think we can agree that there is a difference between global thermonuclear warfare and police brutality and hate crimes. At the very least, GTNW is a literal existential threat for every person, while brutality and hate have been pretty normal in human history and liberalism is the antidote (indeed, the rich American liberal tradition is what makes hate and brutality seem so shocking)—giving up liberalism in the name of combatting hate is inappropriate, and IMO very likely the thing which drives up hate crimes in the first place (left wing behavior pushes many people to the right and sets up illiberal precedents for them to follow).

The Red Scare began in the 1920s, long before nuclear weapons were invented, so the threat of nuclear war was not the primary determinant factor characterizing that situation

Of course - there was never a real danger of a global thermonuclear war. Police brutality, on the other hand, is real.

>there was never a real danger of a global thermonuclear war

This seems like an odd thing to say. Is it meant as sarcasm?

Everyone has heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I won't say anything about that.

But have you heard of the Sino-Soviet crisis of 1969? Allegedly (I'm neither a historian nor any other kind of authority on it) the USSR was going to launch nuclear missiles at China during a border dispute, and asked the Nixon administration to remain neutral.

Instead, Kissinger replied that the US would nuke hundreds of Russian cities in response.

This story appears to be reflective of the official Chinese Communist Party historical account.

https://www.scmp.com/article/714064/nixon-intervention-saved...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict

What I’ve really meant is: there was never a real danger of a global thermonuclear war, unless started by US. The example above demonstrates this nicely.

The example above is a counterexample, where the USSR threatened to initiate.

Not from the description above - it says USSR wanted to use nukes in a local conflict; it's the US that threatened to make it global.

It doesn't say anything about the entire globe, just Russia.

You may be mistakenly equating nuking of hundreds of cities with planetary destruction.

There were hundreds of atmospheric nuclear weapon tests during the cold war. If that had been the end of the world, we wouldn't be talking about it.

That’s hindsight.

You mean the first red scare or the one we had for the last four years because it “hurt Trump” to make all manner of connections to Russia?

Eric Raymond and Wendy McElroy are not thought leaders I'd turn to, and naming something doesn't make it true or turn it into an effective rhetorical device.

There's a wide spectrum of human behavior and responses to these issues, and this takes a tiny sliver of that and tries to pain the rest with the same broad stroke.

> Examples?

In just the last few decades? We have immigration, women's propriety and reproductive rights, civil rights, and the LGBT movement to name a few. The outrage comes mostly from one side, which has their own arsenal of rhetorical devices to paint opposition as morally bankrupt reprobates. Support same-sex marriage? Closeted gay or un-Christian heathen, destroyer of families. Won't pledge allegiance to the flag? Must be a commie. Women deserve equal pay? What a beta simp.

Both sides do and say stupid shit in their own stupid ways.

> Both sides do and say stupid shit in their own stupid ways.

The sad and hilarious thing is that both sides are often wrong in what they advocate, but often right in their criticism of the other side. It's probably easier to recognise bullshit in others (than in oneself and) than to get stuff right oneself.

Since the "Kafka trap" thing isn't something he advocates but something he criticizes his opponents for using, I'd start from the assumption that it's among the (increasingly rare) things ESR is right on.

People are great at giving advice to others, while failing to do the same for themselves.

> things ESR is right on

Except he's not. The entire existence of "kafkatrap" is to paint an enemy and argument that doesn't exist, taking some random train of thought to it's logical extreme. Considering his bigoted comments on women, Islam, and African American's, I have very little confidence that he's coming from a good place.