
World Ice Theory and the Supernatural Imaginary of the Third Reich (2017) - lermontov
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/song-ice-and-fire
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galaxyLogic
Totalitarianism has to rely on lies. If people knew the truth and especially
if everybody knew that everybody else also knows the truth they would surely
revolt. The Emperor's New Clothes.

The main lie about totalitarianism is that some people are inherently entitled
to rule over others.

The extra totally crazy lies are kind of a Canary in Coalmine, does anybody
dare to confront them? If not then the big lie about the power of the
totalitarian government is safe too.

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empath75
They present it as if it’s ridiculous (and it is) but is it any more
ridiculous than the mainstream creation myths that millions and millions of
completely sane and rational people believe or claim to believe now?

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ouid
just because they're in the majority doesn't mean they're sane, imo.

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rsynnott
I’m fairly sure the majority of people don’t believe in literalist young earth
creationism. It’s mostly a thing in certain Protestant sects, and regionally
(especially in Turkey) in Islam.

If you’re talking about the vaguer “evolution happens, but, er, maybe a deity
did something non-specific about it”, then that’s more common, granted.

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galaxyLogic
I never quite understood why many religious people have a problem with
Evolution. If God created everything, surely he could create Evolution as
well.

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djokkataja
I think it's about the sense of personal meaning and importance one gets: if
God personally crafted you down to the tips of your toes, that makes you feel
more important and like your life is more meaningful than if God created some
system (evolution) which just happened to eventually result in you at the
current point in time.

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galaxyLogic
Good point. At the same time it is pretty clear by observing how babies are
born and grow up, and if you believe God created human race, that you do
believe he "created some system" by which we grow from sperm and eggs, to be
the way we are :-)

I think the way cells "evolve" to become mammals is actually much more
wonderous than one species evolving into another.

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Nasrudith
Really totalitarians are all about believing their own flattering lies.
Witness the "foes are strong and weak at the same time" hallmark and notice
how incoherent and terrible their estimation of foes are. It is "good" at
justifying travesties but incoherent doublethink doesn't lend well to
strategy.

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vkou
Plenty of non-totalitarian groups display these kinds of cognitive
dissonances. This is not a unique, or even particularly noteworthy trait. It
has little to no descriptive power.

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henearkr
Well, the reality is oddly close to the fantasy, actually. According to
Wikipedia (Origin_of_water_on_Earth):

> The region of the protoplanetary disk closest to the Sun was very hot early
> in the history of the Solar System, and it is not feasible that oceans of
> water condensed with the Earth as it formed. Further from the young Sun
> where temperatures were cooler, water could condense and form icy
> planetesimals. The boundary of the region where ice could form in the early
> Solar System is known as the frost line (or snow line), and is located in
> the modern asteroid belt, between about 2.7 and 3.1 astronomical units (AU)
> from the Sun.[18][19] It is therefore necessary that objects forming beyond
> the frost line–such as comets, trans-Neptunian objects, and water-rich
> meteoroids (protoplanets)–delivered water to Earth.

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avgeek23
I remember reading about how hitler supported missions to Tibet in search of a
superweapon/power that will take the riech further

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naringas
there is a group of conspiracy theories around the idea the all those
"scientific occultism" and "psychological warfare" ventures continued in the
USA among programs such as MKULTRA and others (say the theories) not yet
declassified because they were more successful.

I suppose you could categorize these close to "Hitler retired in Argentina"
and similar "Nazism went on" conspiracies.

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galaxyLogic
To quote a famous movie: The biggest stunt Devil ever played on us was he made
us believe he doesn't exist.

"Nazism" is still going on. Nazism is basically the same thing as
totalitarianism in general. It never went away in many parts of the world.
There are even Neo-Nazis in the USA.

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aksss
The Nazi party implemented a totalitarian form of government. Totalitarianism
predated Nazis and is still a common form of government around the world.
Classic case of "A is an example of B, but not all B are A". E.g. calling
Stalin a Nazi would be inaccurate. He fought Nazis, but was still a
totalitarian of the highest order, arguably with a more heinous legacy (if
measured in body count, geographic impact, duration of influence). Assad is a
current totalitarian, along with many regimes in Africa. Describing these as
regimes as Nazis would be a very inarticulate description, even though I'd get
your point ("he bad").

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galaxyLogic
I think the differences between different totalitarian governments is of
little significance.

What is important is that they all want to eradicate democratic processes as
much as possible. So whether you call them "Fascists" (in Italy) or "Nazis" in
Germany or "Stalinist" (in Soviet Union) is fine, but really they all are more
or less the same, authoritarian, totalitarian, anti-democratic.

That is why Neo-Nazis call themselves Neo-Nazis. They want to be LIKE NAZIS.

