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Hitler Quote Controversy In the BSD Community
New submitter Seven Spirals writes: Recently, the FreeBSD folks have removed Fortune with a fairly predictable far right 4chan condemnation. Then last weekend saw a lively debate on NetBSD's current-users mailing list about the inclusion of Hitler quotes in the Fortune database with dozens of posts falling on the left and right. The quotes themselves are fairly tame material probably intended as cautionary. However, the controversy and the reaction of BSD users has been real and very diverse. So far, the result has been to pull Fortune out of FreeBSD and to relocate the quotes into the "offensive" database in NetBSD's case.
...briefly what fortune is in this context (as in, the Unix program, not the magazine, town, or band):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_(Unix)
Some people enjoy getting trolled, but I refuse to care about something so nonsensical as fortune. Is it stable? Can it be used to run exploits or escalate privileges? If not, then I don't care. For people who care, fork it or overload with -nohitler parameter.
In FreeBSD's Fortune database (a database of quotes that are randomly shown in some areas of the UI for entertainment purposes, such as on login for example), there were quotes from Adolf Hitler (and some of the ones linked in TFS were incredibly sexist). They were finally removed even though there was a code commit to do it 12 years ago that was rolled back. The alt-right was angered by this. The quotes were moved into an extension of the Fortune database where offensive material is contained.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The hacker community has always been full of people with a certain kind of personality. That kind of personality can laugh at Hitler. But hackers are a dying breed. Software development is no longer driven by that "hacker" personality, and the software development community now has to be much more sensitive and respectful of a more diverse population. Which means no more Hitler jokes, or casual swearing, or crude innuendos, or Monty Python references, or etc etc. Oh well, it was fun (for the hackers) while it lasted.
Marxist predictions of a revolution in a wealthy capitalistic society failed to materialize; the "proletariat" was enjoying an increasing standard of living in Britain and Germany, where these revolutions were supposed to have occurred, which really upset and confused the devout Marxists.
So, Marxists began to split into factions, which tried to revise or reinterpret Marxist teachings to include nationalism (rather than classism) and to include direct violent upheaval rather than passive waiting. In Italy, there were the rise of the syndicated "unions", or "fascists", where the struggle became between not rich and poor people, but between rich and poor countries. This idea of nationalistic socialism spread to Germany, which added to it the idea that there is a struggle between the races, too.
Why did the Nazis so hate the ? Because the communists were rivals for the Nazis socialist powerbase; all of this stuff is leftism
In Europe, the people on the "right" were the monarchists, who wanted to conserve the old order.
In America, the people on the "right" are the people who want to conserve the ideals of the American Revolution, in the face of the unending onslaught from leftist "progressives"; the "right" are the true Americans, who want a small government whose sole role is to protect the rights of the people (notice, the government doesn't grant rights, but rather protects rights), whereas the leftists want to increase power ever more in the centralized state, and either spread their control to the rest of the world (kind of a communist outlook) or simply nationalize large swaths of society (kind of like the fascists of Italy and Germany).
Either way, the point is that Marxists, Communists, Leninists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, Nazis, Socialists, Progressives, Antifa, etc., are all Leftist political movements.
Can I interest you in a position as a helicopter pilot?
/g/ isn't """alt-right"", and to assume anyone who is annoyed with the trend of ignoring or removing history is """alt-right""" is foolish.
They are still available to install if someone feels like being edgy, and there was already a defined repository for other offensive material. This is a non issue in my opinion.
A marketing slogan with no actual meaning. How democratic is the DPRK?
Here is a list of quotes that were removed. I am not sure if this is all of them, or just a sample:
"Everlasting peace will come to the world when the last man has slain the last but one." -- Adolph Hitler
"I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right that matters, but victory." -- Adolph Hitler
"Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong." -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf"
"The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence." -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf"
"A highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman. Imagine if on top of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work." -- Adolf Hitler
"What luck for the rulers that men do not think." -- Adolph Hitler
The last quote (men do not think) is likely a fabrication. There is no record of Hitler ever actually saying or writing it.
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/bas...
I think it's not exactly sincere Hitler supporters that are the only ones that could think the change a bad idea. I would think pretending those things were never said because we are hurt they were ever said is harmful for the future. Lest we have public figures repeat many of those patterns without recognizing the problem because we bury our heads in the sand at the past when it offends us.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The problem is, there is too much of a population who are intellectually unable to understand sarcasm, or understand a cautionary statement when they see it.
For example "In WWII in Germany the Trains Run on Time" This should be a cautionary statement explaining that efficiency at the expense of freedom isn't a good bargain, and that often cruel/evil regimes will strong arm improvements, but at a large cost.
Much of the hate speech that is on Slashdot today, isn't sarcasm, or parody. It is actually hateful speech from hateful people. What a difference 10 years make.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
% fortune -m 'Joseph Stalin'
%% (fortunes)
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.
-- Joseph Stalin
%%
Even God cannot change the past.
-- Joseph Stalin
%%
Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.
-- Joseph Stalin
%%
In the future, there will be fewer but better Russians.
-- Joseph Stalin
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
When categorize Nazi party as being left or right, rather than compare it to the communists, you could just as well compare the Nazis to the Weimar republic. You can't get consistent answers if you do that.
Personally, I think that labeling parties right/left (or even worse policies as right/left) engenders sloppy thinking and is often, if not usually, a tool for deceptive speech. In the case of labeling 20th century fascist movements as being right/left, you might as well try to categorize apples, grapes, and watermelons into right/left fruits. They are their own kind of thing and such simple binary labeling only serve to obscure what they are, and to obscure the nature of whatever they are being compared to.
Nazi stands for national socialist workers' party.
The Nazis were originally socialist, and had a strong socialist faction up until 1934, when the leader of that faction, Ernst Rohm, was murdered on Hitler's order along with many other "leftists". This consolidated Adolf's authority, and made it easier for him to work with German industrialists. All economies are a mixture of socialist and private enterprise, but after 1934, saying Nazi Germany was "socialist" makes as much sense as saying that China is "communist".
They did like to appropriate Socialist language when attempting to market themselves as being a "workers party," "of the people," and so on, as a way to paint themselves themselves as the middle road between the old-gaurd Nationalists upon whom they placed blame for the country's failures and the Communists who they saw as their main rivals to replace the Nationalists. Despite the marketing/rhetoric, nothing they did from a policy or governance standpoint stands out as more Socialist than any other European state of that era. They lied,
all the time, whenever they thought it would benefit them. This was no different.
There are many different flavors of Socialism in the world today, mainstream European Social Democrats, Berners who want to import that model to the U.S., Syndicalists in labor movements, Anarcho-Socialists and Autonomists who end up having a lot in common with Libertarians, and so on. While there are a few State Socialist/Leninist/Maoist hold-outs like Cuba or Vietnam, many countries successfully apply Socialist principles to certain national industries and infrastructure segments where market forces have historically produced bad outcomes, but leave things more or less to individuals/the-market otherwise.
No one before or after has ever used "Socialism" with the same context or connotations as the NSDAP, except people wanting to disingenuously tar Social-Democrats with Nazi associations as an ad-hominem rather than engaging with their ideas.