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Utah tech executive resigns after anti-semitic email rant
- vanusa 5y agoOriginal discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29803073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29803073
- iab 5y ago> Yes. I sent it. I have nothing but love for the Jewish people. Some of my closest friends are Jews. Satire has nothing on this article
- jeroenhd 5y agoI genuinely believe that these people see "the Jews" and "Jewish people" as two entirely separate concepts in their head. One is the group of people they may know, hang out with, be friends with, and one is the concept of evil brought up by conspiracy nuts that get associated with murdering babies and widespread paedophilia. I've read an article, linked here during the Trump administration, about people of Mexican origin being deported from American towns. The townsfolk were upset that their friend or neighbour was being deported, but they still believed in Trump's promises. They didn't want this to happen, they only wanted "the bad ones" to get out, whatever abstract concept of "the bad ones" meant to them. The people they knew were always "one of the good ones". Obviously, no group of people is uniform, but the human brain loves to think in groups. The groups can overlap and they don't need to make sense; they exist purely to attach some kind of judgement or prejudice onto. Probably a great feature of the human brain if you're a primate trying to make it to adulthood, but, in modern times, humanity's worst flaw.
- tombert 5y agoI saw a video about this years ago by some racist idiot defining the “bad jews” as part of “international ‘Jewery’” and that he has no problem with Jewish individuals.
- zozbot234 5y ago> I genuinely believe that these people see "the Jews" and "Jewish people" as two entirely separate concepts in their head. One is the group of people they may know, hang out with, be friends with, and one is the concept of evil brought up by conspiracy nuts One can only imagine that many people in, say, 19th-c. and early 20th-c. Germany held similar notions and views. This if anything makes such conspiracy nuttery even more dangerous.
- level1 5y ago[dead]
- olliej 5y agoIt's fairly standard anti-semitic bullshit that huge numbers of people believed, and have believed for decades. Most conspiracy theories are at their heart based on anti-semitic lies produces by the various christian church for hundreds of years. Even during WW2 there were Americans commenting on hitler being right about the jews. As a reminder: WW2 was in no way about the holocaust. My wife was in a line at a UC behind two students who said "well jews do incest, and they used to eat babies" in actual seriousness. It is super important to understand a lot of people seriously believe a lot of insanely screwed up things about jews.
- timeon 5y ago> Americans commenting on hitler being right about the jews Like Henry Ford.
- disambiguation 5y agoThis is just a new combination of old toys. "Depopulation via vaccine" is standard Alex Jones rhetoric. "Jews rule the world" is as old as time itself. A + B gives you whatever this guy is on.
- ars 5y agoThey sent an email survey to Hasidic Jews? Is that supposed to be a joke? Or just incompetence? Most Hasidic Jews don't use email.
- im3w1l 5y agoThe conspiracy theory that the vaccines is delayed action kill-shot is quite common. And not typically accusing the jews specifically. The most popular version seems to be that Bill Gates of all people is behind it all.
- fundad 5y agoThe free-speech brigade that rails against Cancel Culture will be speaking out against this any second
- iamstupidsimple 5y agoIt's perfectly okay to be pro-free-speech while acknowledging people like this exist. Plus the guy resigned, not hounded into quitting by a Twitter mob.
- krapp 5y agoPlenty of resignations, firings, bans and other things have been denounced as "cancel culture" by the free speech brigade which didn't involve a Twitter mob hounding anyone. But the article says he resigned after "condemnation throughout Utah's tech community." Surely that's cancel culture? The chilling effect of the mob, the jackboot of censorship? The only reason no one is standing up and giving a full-throated defense of this man's right to speak his mind without consequence is that they're only willing to defend heinous speech in the abstract. Give them a concrete example and suddenly they discover the existence of nuance and sit in the corner whistling Dixie.
- fundad 5y agoI guess if it’s hounding by other rich men, it’s not a mob. It’s the people who have earned the right to do the cancellation.
- speechLaw 5y agoI support complete free speech and also law. If some speeches are very bad for society make a law and enforce it. Otherwise it gives random group powers to accuse and persecute without a just trial. All laws are human made and can be changed if society agrees. Even some kind of "canceling " can be part of law, if society wants to keep the absolute free speech. From outside, if such emails can create violence then as a society we need to figure out how to develop more non violence in our culture other wise we will be just treating the symptoms and not the cause. Edited part below: On more thoughts, if a person is making an accusations without substantial proof, a similar accusations can be made against that person without substantial proof. I think that is fine. However will like that to be in the law and done by proper procedure. Allowing groups to act as mob is dangerous.
- fredgrott 5y agoI hate to point this out but at least in the USA a high percentage of CVOID deaths are among unfortunately republican voters. I think we could better face things if we loved ourselves more as when we do that our desire to attack others goes down and our desire to make things goes up. Just something that I picked up in getting my ADHD under control.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoNo conspiracy, but I think we are seeing the results when the professional class gets to rule. And I think its turning out bad. Imagine if you were forced to follow the advice of you Doctor, Lawyer, and your Teacher every hour of the day. They all might mean well for you. But its turning out that its gets pretty bureaucratic and despotic very fast. But on the other hand, if a super villain wanted to rid the world of people, an anti vaccine might be one way to do it.
- pfisherman 5y agoI dunno. If I wanted to kill a bunch of people would it be easier to… 1. Wait for a pandemic, simultaneously develop multiple bogus vaccines at competing pharmaceutical companies, fake clinical trials at multiple in multiple countries, pass fake data through multiple regulatory agencies, and keep all of it secret. 2. Run some Facebook ads telling people not to protect themselves during a deadly pandemic?
- dukeofdoom 5y agoIn Ontario, the vaccinated are getting infected at a higher rate than unvaccinated. Which seems a very strange effect for a vaccine to have. On the conspiracy side, you can't really rule out a coordinated effort at this point. This video goes into how spreading confusion and fear, to create a state of public mass psychosis is a tactic employed by authoritarians in the past. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M
- rovolo 5y agoI'm using the data at https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data . It shows the inversion you've mentioned. - Cases: vaccinated = 100/100k, unvaccinated = 80/100k Vaccinations reduce the severity of the disease. If you get exposed, vaccination will prompt your body to deal with the infection more quickly when there's less of the virus. This can, but doesn't necessarily, clear the infection before it's detected. You can see the protective effect in Ontario by looking at different severities. - Population 12+: vaccinated = 88%, unvaccinated = 9% - Hospital non-ICU: vaccinated = 65%, unvaccinated = 25% - Hospital ICU: vaccinated = 40%, unvaccinated = 50% - Deaths aren't reported by vaccination status on this page
- justspamjustin 5y agoThis is not a mental health issue. It's a result of misinformation and conspiracy theories being spread most likely on social media and people believing them. So many people just blindly trusting information being spread without properly fact checking or checking their sources. This is what's going on. It starts with bias towards a specific group, then they start searching for any evidence that can support their bias. When a privileged white male has this bias towards Jews it's not a mental health issue, it's antisemitism which is a form of racism. Call it what it is.
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- renewiltord 5y agoI know people use “unhinged” a lot but if you read that email it is genuinely off the deep end. It’s like satire of what a racist dude would write.
- nsxwolf 5y agoThe proper spelling and grammar threw me. Usually crazy writing is sloppier and weirder.
- irrational 5y agoAre these the same Jews that control the space laser used to start the California wild fires? So crazy.
- gremlinsinc 5y agoThese Jews are pretty inventive...first space lasers, now vaccines that render women baren to depopulate the earth... Though, it's not a bad idea considering the food shortages, water shortages, supply chain issues, etc...we're nearing max capacity... It's a fairytale, how this guy got to be a CEO when I'm struggling as a burned out developer w/ way more common sense I'll never know.
- psyc 5y agoAll you need is a passion for apartment complex resident portals.
- seattle_spring 5y agoFrom what I've seen, it has a lot to do with having rich parents as a fallback cushion.
- gremlinsinc 5y agoyeah I followed that paulgraham thread or twitter war on this w/ I think the cloudflare founder of all things.... where he's basically saying ---95% is having a place to crash without fear of being homeless... and maybe luck...than actual having a good idea and work ethic.
- spike021 5y agoI'm Jewish, how come I don't have access to this laser? I've loved lasers since I was a kid. Life isn't fair!
- LegitShady 5y agoYou have to go to one of those laser time share meetings. Not sure it's worth it. It's like the whole afternoon and they say you're going to get tickets to Broadway but at the end it's just a screening of Santa inc.
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- MattGaiser 5y agoI came into this thinking that he made a joke about Jews and money. Nope. So much worse. And he doubled down too. Definitely read the article to the end. Anyone ever work with or meet this fellow? As he has fallen for such a large pile of nonsense that I wonder how he operates day to day?
- tombert 5y agoSame, I thought this was going to be a boring “casually racist grandmother at thanksgiving” situation. Instead it was closer to my grandmother on thanksgiving…Sigh…
- version_five 5y agoHaving just read it, this sounds like a mental health issue to me. It's well outside the bounds of opinion, even a ridiculous or hateful opinion. I worry that people are running to mock this guy because they want to portray these views as the kind of things their opponents actually think, while in reality there is clearly something wrong with him and he may need some compassion. This is not a fringe opinion, there is some problem that's causing him to behave like this.
- q1w2 5y agoDoes anyone have a link to the original email. I hate reading articles that just take snippets and add their outrage commentary.
- fundad 5y agoYeah it’s here http://Newsmax.com http://Newsmax.com
- q1w2 5y agoI do not see it anywhere on that site. Perhaps the search doesn't work. Can you link it directly?
- fundad 5y agoWrong link, here http://nextdoor.com http://nextdoor.com You need to log in and you can read embarrassing problematic screeds
- q1w2 5y agoWhat does nextdoor have to do with this? Are you just posting random urls?
- colechristensen 5y agoMight also be a drug problem, stimulants can make you say/do/think weird things.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoThis man is seriously unwell. This wasn't just normal politics - This was deep conspiracy theory nonsense. The fact that he thought others would appreciate the message is further proof that he is in the midst of a serious crisis. He has completely lost touch with reality. Unfortunately, being a wealthy ex-CEO and ex-pat living in another country, away from his former social circles, has likely removed all social support and peer group balance against his decline. When you're that wealthy, you can afford to surround yourself with people who won't challenge your ideas or suggest that maybe you're not well. The yes-men don't want to risk being ostracized by saying the wrong thing, so they go along with it. I hope someone can talk him into getting the help he needs. That doesn't excuse what he said, obviously, but I doubt this issue will resolve on its own.
- cardosof 5y agoThank you for this humane point of view instead of just making fun or getting enraged.
- krapp 5y ago>This wasn't just normal politics - This was deep conspiracy theory nonsense. A woman who believes Jewish space lasers create widlfires was elected to the House of Representatives on behalf of a movement that believes the Democratic Party is a secret cult of Satanic pedophiles. A movement following a President who, among other things[0], believed Barack Obama was a secret Kenyan Muslim Marxist extremist who founded Al Qaeda. This is what normal is now. This is the Overton Window starting to move right from talk radio scale crazy after 9/11 and not stopping even when it hit the batshit insanity of QAnon. Mere anti-semitism is quaint in comparison to what the mainstream believes nowadays, and so common as to be banal. This guy was just stupid enough to say the quiet part out loud. Oh, and of course it's tied in to vaccinations because... of course it is. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories_promoted_by_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories_pr...
- tomjen3 5y ago>that believes the Democratic Party is a secret cult of Satanic pedophiles With Jeffery Epsteins deep connections, I wouldn't think it strange if both parties are full of pedophiles.
- mancerayder 5y agoWell he did say God said it. We're generally not allowed to question what God says. To be honest, "God" has been saying all sorts of anti-semitic things for almost two thousand years. It's funny how the standards of sanity shift and sway over time. And we're talking Utah here. Logically it doesn't make much sense, since Israel is one of the most vaxxed places. You'd think God had better control over scope, if the vaccine is the conspiracy by the Jews. You wouldn't see God turn the vaccine on them.
- wruza 5y agoWell, logically one could have two different vaccines. Where conspiracy theories fail is not a basic logic usually. They fail at the reason. There is no reason to decimate the US population in case you want to rule the world, that simply creates nothing but less wealth and more Eurasian influence.
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- spoonjim 5y agoDoes being rich make people go crazy? And think that nothing can happen to them? I wouldn't even type this kind of thing into a private Google Doc, let alone send a mass email.
- hospadar 5y agoYes definitely. Objectively less stuff _can_ happen to you - for example, you could write an insane racist rant and then still be rich!
- simplestats 5y agoProbably the other way around. Obsessive behavior leads to high achievements when channeled into the right activity. Before it gets misdirected at Jews.
- chickenpotpie 5y agoAn arguably much worse CEO that's still in power https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/aerospace-co-electroimpact-agrees-to-pay-485000-after-ag-finds-shocking-discrimination-against-muslims/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/aer...
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- joelbondurant1 5y ago
- macilacilove 5y ago[flagged]
- grej 5y agoIt's actually a bit scary that someone this successful not only believes, but openly proselytizes this kind of delusional racist thinking.
- the_only_law 5y agoThat’s not even the scary part to me. There are all sorts of people with whacked out ideas. The scary part is when they have power over others.
- bell-cot 5y agoAh... Yet More Proof(tm) that "intelligence" is multi-dimentional. And that you can be very bright indeed in some dimensions (evidence - he was a tech executive), yet far dimmer than a box of rocks (has any box of rocks ever committed career suicide via anti-semitic rant?) in others. A Modest Proposal: Mr. Bateman needs a 72-hour involuntary admission to a good psychiatric hospital. His recent behavior might be caused by a fast-growing brain tumor, or congenital malformation of the cerebrum, or abuse of high-risk recreational drugs, or be the first clear symptom of a late-manifesting major psychiatric disorder. It's for his own good, really.
- hirundo 5y ago> A Modest Proposal: Mr. Bateman needs a 72-hour involuntary admission to a good psychiatric hospital. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_...
- bell-cot 5y ago"A Modest Proposal" is a flag for Juvenalian satire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal (Though such bizarre and self-destructive behavior is a red flag, and medical testing & psychiatric evaluation are quite reasonable. PragmaticPulp's comment kinda covers that.) Yes, I know the USSR's history. In current-day America...the guy's chances of being forced into a psych. hospital by the government for this seem about as high as his chances of being tried for publicly insulting George III's honor.
- raxxorrax 5y agoThat intelligence is associated with mentally problems is a very old idea. > Mr. Bateman needs a 72-hour involuntary admission to a good psychiatric hospital I think he got a sentence to remember already. Don't think many Jews would think too favorably about this idea.
- tyingq 5y ago>Ah... Yet More Proof(tm) that "intelligence" is multi-dimensional I thought of Mel Gibson when I read the story, who had some similar over-the-top crazy Jewish conspiracy tirades. But has done quite well, particularly as a movie director. And seems witty under the right circumstances, to me.
- Gustomaximus 5y agoI liked the Bill Burr take on this 'vaccine is to wipe us out' conspiracy. The better logic is this invisible hand would not want to wipe out the vaccine takers as they are the 'sheeple' who are controlled. These powers would want to remove the trouble makers, the people that dont do what they are told. So a more likely conspiracy is the secret plan would be to release a second virus to kill the non-vaxed once the sheeple are vaxed. Obviously this is a joke but it's a good spin to present to people that believe in the conspiracy of vaccination. https://youtu.be/znI046F4FKg https://youtu.be/znI046F4FKg
- macilacilove 5y ago>These powers would want to remove the trouble makers. That is indeed a good argument. I do not believe covid vaccines are intentionally killing people. The chance of that being the case is maybe 1 in a (m/b)illion who knows. (is it too much or not much risk to mandate it on everyone given the alternative(everyone gets infected etc)?) There exist groups however who would decrease population no matter what, because they think that is the only way to "save the planet", right? There are other possibilities where the vaccines are preferred by evil conspirators, but I won't go into it because figuring out how evil people would think is not making me happy at all.
- fundad 5y agoNot a joke, it happened it’s Delta. Bill Burr’s joke is explain immunology to people hostile to immunology