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Ask HN: Extremists seem to be winning. The silent moderates losing. What to do?

8 points by wongwf82 ↗ HN
I was born in a country where the politicians are racists and religious fanatics. The ruling political party used to harbour closet racists decades ago but now they're getting more and more vocal and out in full force. They allow the extremists from the majority to bully the minority. Minority could be in terms of religion, race, etc. Their strategy is simple.. divide and conquer. If they can incite racial/religious hate, then the moderate majority will be busy suspecting and blaming the minorities while not objecting to extremism. The racist politicians charge opposing party politicians for seditious comments if they were to criticise certain sensitive topics.

The moderate majority are either too busy with their own life struggles to care about politics or they are are silenced because they're afraid of being charged/jailed. Because if they speak bad about something, they/their family members could be in trouble for "disturbing the peace which is the status quo" (which is of course untrue).

So how can I as a Web developer contribute? I worry where the country is headed and so I've thought about this idea of a Heat map on top of a World Map. Any news stories of injustice caused by extremism are recorded (based on the country which it happened) and increases the density of the heat (shown in colours) for that particular country. Snapshots are taken at intervals to show whether extremism is trending up or down for the countries. The linkage between the articles and the countries need to be crowdsourced but I suppose a news stories scraper can help too.

The purpose is to show the rest of the world the crimes committed by the people in power (usually politicians) involved. Those evil politicians who had robbed the country's wealth and caused suffering for others may get away without trial by court. But at least, the whole world knows about his/her wrongdoings and they shall not get away with their reputation intact.

8 comments

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LeoSolaris
The trouble will be the fuzzy definition of "extremism" which can be used by racists and religious fanatics to paint those seeking tolerance and equality if you crowd source. Doublespeak is exceptionally dangerous because it is so very hard to filter out from actual stories of repression and hatred.

Governments also make use of force to keep articles from being published before others can spot them or you can scrape them. Take China for example: They employ similar technology to censor and stifle speech that is deemed "disturbing".

I am not saying "do nothing" instead, I am making sure you're aware that you may get few results or counter-productive results depending on how you structure your site.

Be Careful!

wongwf82
I think similar to HN, the wisdom of the crowd will be able to downvote an article that doesn't apply but perhaps in the early days having a moderator to approve posts would help.

The plan is actually to fight from outside. The politicians want Internet to be filtered/censored but they haven't won that battle against the people yet. News sources like BBC and generally Western media covers the injustices quite well and safe to say people do not disagree with it. For example, wanting to stone or chop one's head can easily be deemed extreme by most people these days. It hasn't happened but there are trends showing that eventually it can happen so the goal is to prevent it from happening by identifying and highlighting it before it is too late.

Yes, I understand there are risks (of seditions) involved and so I want to structure the site to only show trends based on articles and not have user (or even my own) comments there.

dj-wonk
These are tough questions. I don't know that I have any great answers. Connect with savvy, non-violent organizers; find small ways to make a difference that have the potential to grow.

Re: "So how can I as a Web developer contribute?" You might want to check out movements.org -- I can't specifically endorse it based on experience, but it looks interesting.

wongwf82
Thanks for sharing Movements.org. I think I can be of help there. :)
api
The most obnoxious and loudest people always superficially dominate any open and unmoderated conversation -- like the public square. That doesn't necessarily mean they're winning in the long game, just that being obnoxious and loud and pushing oversimplified bombast gets lots of attention.
wongwf82
I agree api. However when politicians and ruling parties are stirring up the hatred and unrest, you see the condonation of voices of hate, unreason and all forms of extremism on Government-controlled media. People getting brainwashed to accept the status quo without objecting or becoming more pro-extremism. This is how countries in the Middle East or even Nazi Germany turn the countries into unliveable mess.
yen223
Do you mind sharing where you're from? Because everything you mentioned sounds awfully familiar to me.
wongwf82
Hi Yen, my goal is to be as anonymous on the Internet as possible so I don't become a target of bigotry, stupidity, etc. from people in my community/country. There are more than a few countries in this world which is letting extremism win, so perhaps you may guess wrong. :)

I understand that I need a sense of identity on the Internet too but when I'm expressing opinions, I've learned to be anonymous because people who may know me (esp. on Facebook) don't like thoughtful honesty. It is shocking how many people just like positive and pretty things only (while choosing to remain silent or block out painful truths) and rarely discuss real issues. And if they do, they only rant or get into unnecessary debates. No real actions were taken sadly.