Better said: We have no evidence that they have been disappearing people in this manner. We also, clearly, have a large body of people who are on guard for any such possible evidence, so I would reasonably expect that if it were happening with any kind of regularity we would have seen it by now. There's a possibility that this is instance #1 and we see repeats. If we do see repeats, I will happily engage in speculation that this is a pattern and the government may in fact be disappearing people.
Until then, the known facts don't match a government disappearing program as well as they match other possible explanations.
> We have no evidence that they have been disappearing people in this manner
Isn't it evidence of "disappearings" that we know many people were transported to a prison in El Salvador but nobody knows who those people in fact are?
As far as I've seen from the press the government hasn't released any documentation about who they flew to El Salvador. Or have they?
If that is true then isn't it also true that this scientist in question might as well be in that Salvadorean prison, as far as we know?
In fairness, there was no public evidence of the Nazi death camps up until they decided to turn the prison camps into that at the Wannsee Conference either.
It was only in retrospect that we learned the true horror of the Holocaust.
Given that period of history, and how it brought the world to the brink, any patterning closely similar to that (which we are seeing today) these things should be considered happening until it can be proven otherwise.
Complacency and a lack of accountability in the moment is how these things happen, and turn good people to sloth.
Saying "Trust us", just isn't going to cut it given the existing state of no credibility that is a consequence of over a half century of bad acting and abuse of authority, and the trusted news initiative (which is not trustable).
I'm totally in favor of holding the current administration accountable for what they are doing and clamping down on all the authoritarian actions as much as possible. But I'm not in favor of compromising principles to do it.
There are plenty of things that they're doing that are documented that are evil. There's no need to waste energy and credibility speculating about things that aren't yet understood or documented, unless you personally have the means to investigate Wang's disappearance and shed light on what happened.
Benefit of the doubt is relative to both the item and setting though. What prior evidence do we have that would cause us _not_ to extend benefit of the doubt to the US government in the specific context of disappearing people?
I can think of plenty of examples of shady things various official bodies in the US have done within the past century, but regular occurrences of "extrajudicial kidnapping without a paper trail" isn't one of them.
If you go through proper channels and leave a paper trail then regardless of whether or not you agree with what's been done it can't reasonably said to be "disappearing" someone.
US did not used to do whole host thing it is doing now - like trying to destroy law companies that sued politicians. Or, removing security from former government family members while stroking hate. Or, illegally extraditing people because someone misrepresented a tattoo. Or, attacking judges the way current administration do.
Or, threatening to annex Canada and parts of Europe. Or, opening damm because there is fire in a place where water does not go.
Something not happening in the past is not a reason for it to not happen again.
There is never a time where it's appropriate to give up benefit of the doubt in general toward an entity. If your starting position is that they most likely did any and every bad thing you can think of, you quickly reach absurdity.
You are wrong about that. You have never dealt with malevolent entities where that cannot be given.
Decision-making, and its related presumptions change when the threat becomes existential.
Deceivers with resources who abuse the public trust and its presumptions towards individuals, take advantage of societies understanding, towards destructive ends, and continue doing so regardless. They corrupt the systems meant to protect and keep destructive outcome dynamics in check usually for personal or political benefit.
The entities are not entitled to the same benefit of the doubt when they have a history of malfeasance, and lack of credibility.
This is true of anti-trust, government corruption, and government in general when you consider the many other things like Tuskegee, or what happened to the Inuit women who were involuntarily sterilized following eugenics programs in the late 60s early 70s, along with other indigenous peoples under the guise of beneficial programs promoting public health.
You can see just how well fines do in curbing corruption like JPM's silver manipulation over a decade, or Egg price fixing over the past 10 years, or medical equipment providers who have defects that kill patients, and then claim they fix them falsely (in bad faith).
There is a point where you cannot presume innocence, especially with regards to non-person entities (like corporations), who will pay the fine and continue business as usual passing the cost on.
Eventually you hit a critical saturation point where the presumption and benefit of the doubt must necessarily flip.
When related systems break enough, there is a point where people realize the rule of law has failed, and consider alternatives like the brass verdict, and act on it.
These are not good things, but they happen when the dynamics to correct fail as a whole. When people start objectively finding foundational violations, it becomes and is a societal existential threat and should be treated as such.
Failure to react from that point forward then becomes opting out of continued survival, which is well beyond any considered point of absurdity.
Evil is blind to the natural destructive consequences it creates, and sometimes evil needs killing just as it did with the Nazi's.
When the rule of law can no longer fulfill the obligations under social contract, and act as a non-violent conflict resolution, the alternative is natural law and chaos, and it is something that no good person would wish on anyone.
You didn't address my argument though, my second sentence.
It's one thing to not trust some entity and say they do bad things a lot, or to assume they're being evil in certain areas where they have established motives and patterns.
It's quite another to be so general about it that if a single person flippantly accuses them of basically anything you start off believing it. That's going too far and leads to some ridiculous early conclusions.
The same goes for extending infinite amount of benefit of doubt toward people who has shown who they are again and again and again. And this was going on for years here and very much empowered bad far right actors and their enablers.
There is no issue of people projecting bad intention into conservatives or Trump. There is opposite issue - people excusing them forever with increasingly implausible explanations.
There'd be a fair bit of noise if the Holocaust was happening today. It'd be more like Guantanamo Bay or the US's international program of black-bag kidnappings. You don't expect to know exactly what is going on but there is a wiki page [0] and regular leaks [1] even if only a relatively small number of people involved. Something like the holocaust couldn't fly under the radar in the age of the internet; there'd be leaks like no-one's business. They could get away with more radio silence in the 1950s by not having social media.
There is this design process called the separation of objectionable concerns, where the task roles are designed to promote complacency through information control, the Stasi perfected it, and its used everywhere today in sensitive positions.
The most objectionable and risk related roles and tasks will be assigned to the fewest number of people with no one else being the wiser.
All other roles involved are narrowly tailored towards specific parts supporting the whole without any knowledge of doing so.
A murky transfer to a foreign prison makes for a very plausible disappearance. This is how these things are done historically, and social media is heavily controlled.
It could easily happen given what happened with regards to China and the Uyghur population.
> There'd be a fair bit of noise if the Holocaust was happening today.
I doubt it. The original Holocaust denier was FDR. He didn't want Nazi attrocities to distract from the war effort.
If your main enemy is willing to participate in the coverup, that's a problem.
We regularly forget about the horrific prison camps and racial policies of North Korean, because we're more worried about them having nuclear weapons.
Same with religious persecution in Iran. If we can make a deal that keeps Iran and North Korea out of the nuclear club, and confined to their borders, it's best not to let their purely domestic attrocities get in the way.
If Hitler hadn't invaded Poland, what would have happened to German/Austrian Jews?
The Uyghur thing has been fairly well discussed and I assume people know everything they care to. Wikipedia is pretty comprehensive on the current state of knowledge.
Gaza? You should spell things out. Regardless even more ink has been spilled on that and there doesn't seem to be any particular ambiguity on what is happening. It is major international news and South Africa are bringing court cases to the ICJ. Israel isn't doing anything subtle.
Wait... so you effectively said "there's no holocaust going on" and I pointed out one and you accidentally brought up another... and I'm wrong still? What? No.
All the saber rattling doesn't mean you were correct in implying there is no holocaust going on
> Wait... so you effectively said "there's no holocaust going on"
I said the opposite, there are literally multiple genocides going on. They make a fair bit of noise. There is lots of evidence of them if you care to look. They all have well sourced Wikipedia pages.
It isn't possible to wipe out a people and not have others quickly notice what is going on.
> I'm really not seeing much similarity between that period of history and this period.
Unemployment ~30%, inflation/stagflation, and German industry being co-opted by multinational corporations laying people off. > Then US Unemployment 1 in 4 out of work, co-opted by corporations, laying people off and price fixing basic goods and services.
Reichstag Fire Attack blamed on the Communists. > January 6th followed by Assassination Attempt at a Rally; blamed on the left/communist/marxist and calling out Harris as being Marxist in the debates.
Hitler extolling the virtues of Hitler Youth for hours publicly. > US State of the Union address covering the Honorary SS agent, DJ Daniel, doing the same.
Propaganda Ministry by Reich Press Chamber. > Trusted News Initiative. "The sharing of bias and false news has become all too common on social media...." [Sinclair/Deadspin, 200 channels verbatim]
People disappearing, detained, moved, or killed residents (SS) > Unidentified Agents detaining people with video coverage (Tufts Student), Prisoners being flown elsewhere (El Salvador), residents being killed by police, etc (George Floyd + too many others).
Channeling Popular Anxieties and stoking fear of a communist uprising to eradicate civil liberties, and democracy. > Same
These are just a few. Its quite concerning how it looks like a failed subversion/communist takeover leads to the dynamics allowing fascism. People can't seem to agree on a set objective measure of when have they crossed the line too far, when they cross the line continually.
> Where in the world did you get that unemployment rate?
SGS, Shadow Government Stats.
Their estimates include the "long-term discouraged worker" which was officially defined out of existence in 1994, which was coupled with the short-term discouraged worker (U6) from BLS to get a real unemployment rate.
Its followed reality far closer than the watered down stats and methodology the politician's have been using over the last two decades. Especially during 2008, and they don't break it down by industry. Tech right now and going back two years is being displaced massively with no metrics for optics.
I don't see an explanation of where these numbers come from. Also I would say that even within U6, someone that's forced to work part-time should not count 1:1 with someone that has no job at all.
I disagree. Work is real scarce, the food stamp benefits also don't cover a full month of food, more like 1-2 weeks with grocery store price inflation (assuming you have a kitchen to prepare your food, many don't).
The alternative to no work is starving, and there are people where they have been starving and unable to find any gainful employment for years. The most common excuse is being overqualified.
I've a friend who was laid off about a year ago, more experienced than I in SRE, and has had no job offers and he's applied to everything available in and outside Tech.
You got signs everywhere saying "We're hiring", and force you to do a 1-2 hour LeetCode Interview or some other BS, and then within 20 minutes after completing it he'll get an automated reply through the portal saying they've gone with another candidate; they won't take the sign down though, and when he went in person they say "You're just too overqualified", or better yet "Not a good culture fit [pre-interview smacking of ageism]. There are also tax subsidies for businesses to hire discouraged workers, still it seems like no ones doing it.
You've got most places that say they need help when in fact they aren't hiring at all. If anything there are far more people who are not counted than those on just the U6. I wouldn't agree 1:1 shouldn't count.
> In fairness, there was no public evidence of the Nazi death camps up until they decided to turn the prison camps into that at the Wannsee Conference either.
> It was only in retrospect that we learned the true horror of the Holocaust.
If you think the Holocaust was just what happened in the gas chambers, I'm afraid you haven't learned the true horror of the Holocaust either.
Approximately 2.7 million Jews[0] were killed in the death camps as part of the so-called Final Solution between 1941 and 1945.
This was preceded by the so-called Euthanasia[1] campaign, which killed approximately 300,000 people deemed "life undignified for life" (mostly people with disabilities) - although the exact numbers weren't known to the public at the time, the program became so widely known following a proclamation against it by the Holy See (after Catholic authorities in Germany generally supported it) that there were actual protests agianst it in Germany.
The total number of people killed by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 in what were later considered crimes against humanity - excluding those who died from conflict, disease, etc (i.e. from WW2 or its circumstances/effects) - is approximately 17 million[2] - more than six times the number of Jews killed in the death camps alone. Of those, 6 million were Jews: 2.7 million in the death camps, about half that many additionally included among the Soviet Citizens and POWs and another 2 million non-Soviet Jews killed outside the death camps.
Note that this number doesn't include civilian victims of the war - the Nazis specifically went out of their way to carry out mass executions in Poland and elsewhere. Many of these were carried out by the Reserve Police[3], often voluntarily with no threat or punishment for refusal other than mild disciplinary action (e.g. latrine duty) and social ostracization by their colleagues for "letting them down". Many more were carried out by the Wehrmacht on their way through the Soviet Union in case you're wondering how the myth of the "innocent German soldiers" is holding up to scrutiny.
> Complacency and a lack of accountability in the moment is how these things happen, and turn good people to sloth.
True, the full extent of the Nazi mass murders was hardly fully transparent at the time. But none of this happened out of the blue and there very much was a clear and obvious escalation visible to those who cared to see it - an escalation also easily predictable at several points throughout its course, by the way, except people (including foreign governments and foreign news organizations) very much did not want to acknowledge it for a number of reason from wanting to avoid being seen as alarmist or leftist to actively supporting parts of it and just hoping that the escalation will stop at the point where the outcomes are most personally beneficial to themselves.
The problem wasn't a lack of accountability. The problem was people rationalizing their own actions by wanting to be the good guy in their personal narrative. The Reserve Police didn't volunteer to execute civilians because of a lack of oversight, it did so because not doing so when asked seemed unconscionable when the alternative would have meant reevaluating all the horrors they had participated in up to that point.
We literally have testimonies of Reserve Police officers who participated in the killings saying they did nothing wrong and actually were the real victims for being put in such an uncomfortable position of having to carry out these killings - or in one case an officer stating that he had asked his colleagues to specifically let him kill the children as long as their mothers are killed first because then he could see it as an act of mercy to kill the orphaned children.
Hierarchical institutions are designed to create a culture of obedience. Obedience is how these things happen, not complacence or lack of accountability.
> if it were happening with any kind of regularity we would have seen it by now.
If the "unhinged conspiracy theories" turn out to be at least partially true, I'm sure we'll find out it's happening regularly, but only started within the last few weeks. This could easily be the first of the "we would have seen it" cases, not some unexplainable solitary incident.
> the known facts don't match a government disappearing program as well as they match other possible explanations.
Maybe? The known facts about the way he was removed from his university job and web presence with absolutely no explanation and being referred to the FBI when asked for reasons arguably matches better with a government disappearing program then any of the other possible explanations offered around.
Sorry to keep doing this to you, but it's a big thread and most arguments have already been made. Here's a link to the best guess I have, which accounts for the delay between university action and law enforcement action (which notably has no explanation in the government disappearing program version):
As with everything, this is pure speculation, merely put forward as a possible explanation that accounts for all known facts. I've yet to see any other explanation account for the sequence and timeline.
Better said: We have no evidence that they have been disappearing people in this manner. We also, clearly, have a large body of people who are on guard for any such possible evidence, so I would reasonably expect that if it were happening with any kind of regularity we would have seen it by now. There's a possibility that this is instance #1 and we see repeats. If we do see repeats, I will happily engage in speculation that this is a pattern and the government may in fact be disappearing people.
Until then, the known facts don't match a government disappearing program as well as they match other possible explanations.