Awkward internet ettiquite problems

[conuly]

Here I was, about to upvote a funny comment in response to something totally innocuous when I glanced at the username. Blondeangel88.

Huh. Was I about to... upvote a comment by a NeoNazi? Or was this somebody who simply has blond hair, likes to be thought of as a nice/sweet/innocent person, and was born in 1988? There was no racist or fascist undertone to this particular comment... but did I really want to dredge into their comment history to find out for sure?

I didn't upvote her. I mean, the comment wasn't that funny, so it was all a non-event... but I still feel weird and awkward about it. I really wish I didn't know that NeoNazis have a thing about numerical symbolism where 88 = "Hi, I'm a Nazi!". Then I could be blissfully ignorant and not overthink this sort of thing.

*******************

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Comments

[l33tminion]

I'd have a pretty high confidence that someone with that pseudonym is a neo-nazi. "Birth year in screen name" seems like an old-person thing to me, and I'm two years older than someone born in 1988.

[lilysea]

I really wish I didn't know that NeoNazis have a thing about numerical symbolism where 88 = "Hi, I'm a Nazi!".

Huh! That... was not a thing I'd ever heard of before.

I would have assumed it was birth year.

[conuly]

I've actually encountered at least one person who was baffled at the large number of downvotes they got to an innocuous comment. That person changed their username on that platform, and probably others. That's the only reason I hesitated to judge. A lot of people really don't know, and many of them really do pick usernames based off of the computer saying "That's taken, how about UsernameZIPCODE, UsernameBIRTHDATE, or UsernameARBITRARILYLARGENUMBER?"

[conuly]

Yeah, 8 = H and I don't want to spell out the rest. And I think they also have a thing about 14 for some equally silly reason. Or 18, or both. They're big into weird numerical symbolism, as I understand, which is even more bizarre than the KKK calling themselves ridiculous things like "Imperial Wizards".

[kengr]

Alarmed by fake news, states push media literacy in schools

They tried something like that back in the 1950s to help kids spot "communist propaganda".

It got dropped like a hot potato when they discovered the kids were calling them on *our* propaganda (and various advertising tricks).

I've talked online to a couple different people who had the course and watched the backlash.

Also, there's a *reason* a lot of politicians don't want that sort of thing taught. Because it'll mean they can't get away with most of the BS they use to trick voters. and they *know* that.

[naye]

Yeeah, I'd say that - sadly - there's probably a 9/10 chance that person's a Nazi. So - well spotted. Saw on Twitter that apparently the OK symbol emoji is particularly common these days in the alt-right community, so that's another really weird "is it or isn't it" shorthand to watch out for. (I never felt comfortable using that particular emoji because it is rather rude in quite a few cultures, so this is all from other people's observations.)

[dewline]

The number is definitely "14". As in words of a particular mantra I won't repeat.

[dewline]

Nazis steal symbols. Worse than magpies, really, they are.

[nodrog]

Not just advertising, either.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all




        WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December
        2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of
        “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including
        “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

        What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart
        had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist
        techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them
        false, from American prisoners.

        The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way
        Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as
        torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the
        base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency…

--------------


But y’ know, this kind of thing is always a gray area.  Consider:  The US Armed Forces (and presumably NATO generally) have very good, detailed studies on the effects of extreme cold temperatures on the human body.  They’ve used this information to develop equipment and procedures that have saved toes, fingers, lives!  The value:  Proven.  The source:  Nazi experiments on Jews and POWS.  Oops.

Horrible! But - good science.  They ran controlled, repeated experiments, took careful notes, compiled exhaustive data.  Useful data.  Life-saving data.  Should it be discarded, just because we don’t like how it was obtained?  The sin be on their heads.

Some would argue the same situation here.  Who cares who developed these techniques; what works is good, right?  The immediate problem is, does it work?  And has it, ever?  The TSA’s practice of treating American citizens as criminals hasn’t caught a single terrorist in fifteen years, and they routinely miss test ‘threats’ they’re supposed to catch.  If Red Commie Torture™ doesn’t work either, what does that say about the “good guys” now using it?

[zhelana]

The church I went to in college gave all their graduates a shirt that says "CCF Has Been" and then a number on the back in chronological order of when they joined. I happen to be 88. Unfortunately. I had to toss the shirt, because I certainly wasn't going to wear it. :(

Re: Numerology

[nodrog]

Yah, but now I wonder - which came first?  Were the “Fourteen Words” crafted to fit the number 14, or vice versa?

Not that it matters, particularly…  :/

[naye]

Too true. Magpies are lovely, in their own way!

[moem]

The funny/weird thing is that here in western Europe, most people would not associate the number 88 with Nazis unless the context made it very VERY V E R Y clear. We're just not used to people using it as a symbol.

[l33tminion]

Yeah, I'm not totally certain, I too could imagine someone appending "88" to the username "blonde angel" out of pure haplessness. But it doesn't seem like the likely explanation by far.

Re: Numerology

[conuly]

God, these and other questions will never be answered. And I'm kinda scared of what the answer would be, tbh!

[conuly]

One for sorrow, two for racism, three for bigotry and four for, um, gaycism.

[conuly]

I really hope they ARE a Nazi, anyway, because they're bound to get downvoted everywhere and they ought to know why.

[conuly]

:(

[conuly]

I don't think most people in the US would either unless they knew. Then you always have that question in your mind.

In this case, it's the combination of blonde + 88. Either one is potentially harmless, but both?

[conuly]

Was there a specific course? I wonder if anybody has ever posted it online anywhere.

[kengr]

A quick google search didn't turn up anything useful, and I don't recall the folks I talked to (some years ago) mentioning a course name.

There probably was a course or courses, but finding them may be tricky.

[conuly]

Sigh. Thanks anyway.

[mindstalk]

I can't find a reddit user by that name.

A Facebook one seems to be a community? full of Italian Catholic sappiness.

A Pinterest one seems to just be house/wedding/travel stuff, by a blone woman.

A Myspace one was some blonde girl, albeit an American patriotic one.

How many blonde women/girls were born in 1988 who might like to think of themselves as some sort of angel?

[conuly]

Okay, it may have been a neopets username, and instead of upvoting I may have been considering buying from her shop, and their ploy of giving us all a fifth pet spot may have been successful in getting me to go back, but I don't like to admit to any of this.

[mindstalk]

17th century food: the map is definitely missing stuff, most obviously the Pacific exchange. Maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, peanuts, and silver to China, spices and Chinese goods back. 1493 writes about the significant Exchange with China, among other things -- American crops helped save Chinese lives and ruin Chinese ecology, American silver was the Ming money supply. And of course there's the migration of human races.

"focusing on unusual varietals and exotic imports can be misleading... were illiterate farmers and pastoralists whose diet was hyper-minimalist by contemporary standards."

Ehhhh. Most people weren't enjoying exotic imports, but by the same token, they'd have been eating highly variable local food. Varietals *aren't* unusual if you're eating locally domesticated or long-cultivated species, like potatoes and maize in the Americas, or apples. And there are lots of species we don't bother eating now. Trade brought variety, but industrial agriculture brought homogeneity.