> More concretely, what should we make of the software developers, designers, salespeople, and managers who collaborate in building these kinds of systems?

That's too simple. Good systems have potential (good and bad). For example, "It went from looking for bad guys to monitoring underground pipes." -https://www.npr.org/2018/05/08/609493403/these-smart-sewers-...

Were you going to suggest we surveil people who collaborate in building these kinds of systems?

I don't even want to consider how the world would look if Stalin or the Nazis had had current technology. I think they would have succeeded.

There are a lot of people right now who want to stifle free speech. "Have a different opinion, that's abuse - or a beating". While not restricted to antifa, there seems lately a surge of "little Stalinists", who seem intent to crush or silence any dissenting opinion.

In short, history repeats itself, and "experience is recognising a mistake the second time you've made it."

I like that "antifa" just gets sliced in there, ignoring that the phrase and meaning is explicitly "anti-fascist", and it's only gained renewed visibility because there are actual fascists openly demonstrating and threatening people in the US.

You've always had a right to free speech, you sure as hell have never had a right not to be criticized for what you say.

I don't think someone is ignoring the meaning of antifa when pointing out they beat people up. Or by calling them little-stalinists, given that some of them are stalinists, and some even offer "critical support" to Bashar al-Assad or Kim Jong Un.

But it's pretty misplaced. Social media companies and the state have more power than ever to control the spread of ideas, and antifa has a street fight now and then.

> you sure as hell have never had a right not to be criticized for what you say.

I think that this is insufficiently emphasized.

Personally, I think what's even more importantly forgotten and has led to the rather ridiculous situation on college campuses[1] is that there is no right not to be offended. I would even go so far as to say that such a right would be the opposite of freedom of speech.

[1] e.g. trigger warnings

Trigger warnings are about not acting like a jackass to people. And the angry response to those who cavaliery show a disregard for the feelings of others are just as valid if you want to go down that path.

If I understand correctly, you're supporting my point.

Free speech is very much about allowing someone to act like a jackass (or worse!) to people with words and ideas.

It doesn't protect those speakers from the repercussions.

Trigger warnings aren't repercussions, however. They're prior restraint, and that's a no-no.

The irony of it all, that the Antifa is acting exactly like a fascist organization.

I am from Europe, and born/lived under communism, poor as hell, with food rations and all, people going to jail, etc and yes,

these dipshits (the Antifa) are nothing but a "my way of the highway" totalitarian movement, which resembles more to a loosely organized fascist gang, than anything else. Silencing and beating up opponents was a favorite tool of both fascists and nazis.

The naive part of me hopes that experience is recognizing a mistake the second time you're making it.

The reason history repeats itself is that all the people who made mistakes in the past are now dead and gone. Most people alive are doing this all for the first time.

The old people die, and the young can repeat the actions of the old.

Sometimes they make new good things, sometimes they repeat bad old things. I call it social mutation.

Yep, this is why we need to medically eliminate aging and achieve biological immortality. The conventional wisdom is that a society needs aging and death to eliminate old ideas and impediments to adopting new ideas and adapting to change, but this I believe is wrong. Young people fail to learn the lessons of the past because they never lived it, and so history goes in cycles; we keep making the same mistakes over and over. Eliminating this natural cycle should help society have a much longer memory, and medically fixing the problem where peoples' brains fail to be as good at learning and adapting with old age should fix the problems caused by older people being irrationally resistant to change and new ideas.

Seeing how badly a 'hegemony of the aged' cements in most places in the world in the form of wealth and political power, a lot of social problems and systems will have to be 'fixed' before that would be a net benefit.

Just go to you local city council planning meeting and see how gray haired and crazy the NIMBYs are, and they dictate local housing policy.

>Seeing how badly a 'hegemony of the aged' cements in most places in the world in the form of wealth and political power

I don't see the problem here with age. The problem you're describing seems to stem from other social issues, namely nepotism, classism, etc. People living longer isn't going to change that much I suspect; people have had these issues for thousands of years, and if anything, it's much better now than it was centuries ago. There's far more social mobility now than there was in Medieval times.

>Just go to you local city council planning meeting and see how gray haired and crazy the NIMBYs are

I think I already addressed that: age has an effect on the brain, so if we figure out biological immortality, we should also figure out along with that how to eliminate these aging-related problems/diseases.

The other problem you describe there is basically classism, and the ability of locals who gain power to shut others out of power. Again, this was much worse in the past when people didn't live nearly as long. The way to fix it isn't to have people die off early, it's to come up with laws and policies that counteract it.

The way to fix the NIMBYism problem is simple, and they've done something like this in Japan: you remove power from local government to set zoning policy. Obviously, local governments get people like this in power who don't look out for the overall good of society, and instead look to maximize their real estate value through manipulation of zoning, so you strip them of that power and move it to the state or national level. In the Bay Area, this means the state government needs to grow a pair and pass some strict laws about zoning, and severely curtail the ability of local governments to reject development.

There is the saying "History Doesn't Repeat, But It Often Rhymes".

Of all people, Hitler himself complained that he was being denied free speech.

There's a reason why free speech does not apply to fascist movements in most countries and it's illegal to use its symbols: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Also, equating authoritarian systems with an anti-authoritarian movement literally named "anti-fascist action" is a bit ridicolous.

Just because a party calls itself something nice doesn't mean they are. The NAZI, as far as I know, weren't really socialists. So too antifa. Antifa uses physical violence against peaceful assholes. Let neo-nazi parade themselves with their tiki torches. Make fun of them while and after they do it. Show them love if they want to repent. Don't punch them in the face with a padlock.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/05...

It is from Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (English: National-Socialist German Workers' Party) [1] which is another interpretation of socialism.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

Look at China and hope that someone like Mao never returns to power....

IBM's state of the art computer technology was crucial to the efficiency of the Holocaust.

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

Powerpoint would have tipped the scale?

Not PowerPoint but the ease of near total surveillance that's available now.