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754 points coloneltcb | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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hayst4ck ◴[] No.43799701[source]
Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. They want you to believe that truth is subjective. Truth and reason provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is true, there is no basis on which to judge those in power.

There is a long legacy of authoritarian regimes attacking curious places, universities, historians, museums, books or any institution that grounds itself in reality which provides you a way to reasonably criticize authoritarian actions. Many authortarian regimes will "purge" as many of the country's intellectuals as they are able.

Wikipedia is absolutely the enemy of this administration and authoritarians everywhere in the world would love to see it's demise or collapse into chaos.

Whether the Wikipedia page for Israel says Gaza is a genocide or not, or that it's an ongoing debate matters. It matters because it influences what people think and therefore what they consent to or what they deem worth fighting for or applying resources to and that goes for just about any issue out there. If you can't read about the suffering that racism has caused, then how bad is racism really? If there are no examples of successful labor movements, then why would you hopelessly start one?

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emacsen ◴[] No.43799953[source]
Aren't you making their point though?

The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors.

I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that the Trump administration has taken a position that is deeply chilling on the issue of speech. It's clear they want to be the sole arbiters of what "truth" is and they want to use their power to manipulate the reality.

All that said, I cannot as a Jew ignore the fact that Wikipedia is not in itself neutral, and that "more eyes" does not negate systemic bias. What I've seen as a Jew is what the true meaning of marginalized minority is, which is to say that if you are truly a minority and truly marginalized then in a vote of "truth", your reality will be dismissed if it conflicts with the vast majority, and that Jews are only 0.2% of the world population.

While I brought it up, I am not debating the issue of antisemitic bias in Wikipedia[1] as anything other than an illustration of your point of objective truth being true, but also that we can't simply rely on the wisdom of the crowd to materialize that truth.

To preemptively address the issue that's bound to come up when I post this- I'm not arguing that the evils of silencing the entire Wikipedia project are equal to or a fair response to Wikipedia's antisemitic bias. I do believe Wikipedia needs to address its bias problem and that's best done through internal reform.

Two wrongs don't make a right, nor are two wrongs always of equal weight.

[1] Firstly because my point is separate, and secondly because I've encountered the exact issues I've found in Wikipedia elsewhere, which is why I'm sure I'll be voted down.

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TRiG_Ireland ◴[] No.43800064[source]
This is the same ADL that said that Nazi salutes are fine, but that protesting against genocide isn't? Why do we care what the ADL says about anything? They're fascist sympathisers.
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1. emacsen ◴[] No.43800275[source]
Demanding moral perfection from an organization in order to believe that discrimination exists is a standard that I don't believe is fair to any group.
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2. TRiG_Ireland ◴[] No.43800355[source]
I don't demand "moral perfection", but I draw the line at overt fascism. The ADL are fascist sympathisers.
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3. emacsen ◴[] No.43800442[source]
Did you read the statement they put out later that day about Musk, or the day after?

I agree this was a terrible move on the ADL's part, and there have been others, but you're essentially labeling the oldest anti-hate group "fascist" because you disagree with one statement they made.

This dismisses any concerns they raise, or if someone else says the same as them, then they too must be pro-facist.

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4. cma ◴[] No.43802238{3}[source]
He also tweeted in approval of this tweet putting forward the "Jewish people planned it" antisemitic form of great replacement theory with "you have said the actual truth":

> Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.

> I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.

> You want truth said to your face, there it is.

Then a bit later Musk gives the heil Hitler salute twice in a row, once facing the crowd, then turned around and gave it facing Trump.

The stuff the ADL put out after the salutes was only after he added on jokes involving Nazi party members, right? Or was the one later that day before that?