I'm aghast at our industry but have faith in open source, free software, and other community movements. Maybe it's time for me to shift my attention entirely in that direction.
It is, though. The premises of white nationalism, like any form of fascism, require an "out-group," and at the same time a mechanism for convincing the "in-group" that hating them is morally acceptable. The framing of empathy as a vice does that job. It is literally part of their stochastic terrorism strategy. That's why they're so "anti-woke", despite not ever (literally not once) defining what "woke" is. They don't care what it is, or what their constituents think it means. They only care that there is buy-in on the idea that caring for others and being sensitive to their needs is bad. Because that is the prerequisite of the rest of their plans.
Even if it is, it's not exactly a head scratcher how things end up like this.
The Jews have their Israeli ethno-state. In Liberia for instance, citizenship is limited to blacks. Armenia has special citizenship progression for Armenians for instance. China is incredibly difficult to be a citizen unless you are ethnic Chinese. Most (arab) gulf states are ethno-states, muslims have countries like Afghanistan where pretty much any Muslim could settle and live in Shariah law.
Musk basically left south Africa around the time segregation ended. There is massive demand for white nationalist state as Western nations open themselves to multi-culturalism and there is basically no 'refuge' left for white nationalists unless you are Serbian or something.
The fact that ethno-states probably aren't defensible doesn't negate the fact white supremacists exist en masse and have demand for something that no longer exists, looking at examples of everyone else getting it, and scheming how they can get it for themselves. The only question is where they will end up focusing their collective energy.
Except "white" is not a race, but a fluid and constantly shifting ethnic category (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people#Modern_racial_hie...). The very idea of white nationalism is folly. Irish and Italians (plus other southern Europeans) weren't even considered white until fairly recently, and Jewish whiteness always seems to be first on the chopping block once hardliners are in power. In other words, a white ethnostate is de facto a multicultural state, and once all the indisputably nonwhite people are eliminated, the remaining far-rightists will happily start killing each other.
Exactly. Liberia has had their nebulous 'black' requirement for centuries (well originally, had to be non-aboriginal as former slaves wanted to get a taste of a piece of the action for themselves). It's not a 'race' by above critique (although maybe by others), but in practice that's not stopped them from enforcing it.
"Please try to be empathetic and look the other way as your civilization is
being raped and murdered into oblivion. Die kindly."
You... you think this sentiment is *not* representative of white nationalism? Really? Can you maybe fill in the blanks here? Who is doing the "raping"? Why is "Western civilization" purportedly coming to an end?
And when DHH says something like: "In 2000, more than sixty percent of the city were native Brits. By 2024, that had dropped to about a third. A statistic as evident as day when you walk the streets of London now." Could you perhaps explain to me what he might mean by "native Brit"?
You know what, I actually don't believe for a second that you're being honest here. You know exactly what this is but you don't want other people to name it. But that's OK: we'll name it for you. Feel free to wear it around your neck.
The parent comment, and the series of messages they linked to, are such peak "terminally online" content that I suspect nothing one can write here can help.
The paranoia and distrust is so intense that every statement will be seen as a coded phrase, "dog whistle" or obscure reference to some sinister thing.
Which is particularly unfortunate, because I think Elon's tweet is genuinely wrong and bad. But it kinda feels like these people need to disconnect from the internet and go for a walk. Maybe have a real life conversation with a real life regular person on the other side of the political aisle.
What are you talking about? This rhetoric isn't a dogwhistle anymore, it's literal neonazi language going back to the David Duke/KKK days. Same for so-called "remigration" which has been coming up with stunning regularity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration. When I was growing up you would become a social pariah for spouting this kind of stuff.
I don't get it. Are you waiting for someone to literally say "I fucking hate brown people and love Hitler" before calling them out? For what it's worth, we're basically already there. See Trump's recent remarks about Somalis. EDIT: and somehow I forgot the time when Young Republicans were LITERALLY PRAISING HITLER, then doubled down when exposed: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-...
You're blind to what you don't care to see, I guess. As for people on the opposite side of the political aisle from me, they're busy dragging Latino children out of schools and abducting people who overstayed their visa to Salvadoran torture camps, or supporting the same, so fuck their inhuman politics very much indeed.
The social media post you orig linked to has none of that
While I agree with the general problem, you do yourself a disservice by using such a poor example with so many more potent ones out there. You also do a disservice to the movement to fight back by making easy examples for "look at how out of touch they are" (i.e. making mountains out of mole hills when you could point out the actual mountains)
Sure, there may be more pressing matters than the richest man in the world enthusiastically boosting Tweets that describe Western civilization as getting raped to death by the unnamed (you-know-who-I-mean) Others, but it is absolutely part of the same white nationalist zeitgeist, lexicon, and community. The rhetoric Musk uses is *identical* to what Miller and the White House, Reform, AfD, etc. are using to dehumanize immigrants and to direct racial hate and violence towards them. And it’s just one example out of hundreds.
I can’t do anything about Miller being a ghoul, but if I can help one or two people have second thoughts about using Twitter or Grok, it will be well worth it.
The dynamic seems to be identifying some phrasing as a secret neo-Nazi dogwhistle and haranguing people who use it. However, that doesn't effect any change, so a new word has to be identified as secretly neo-Nazi. Repeat ad infinitum, until the terminally online exist in such a rarefied universe that 99% of all humans are secret neo-Nazis.
This is bad, because it both 1) waters down actual neo-Naziism (which is fringe and rare) and worse 2) alienates people to the point where they support non-neo-Nazi but bad policy.
(For me personally, my take on "Western Civilization" is along the lines of Gandhi: I think it'd be a wonderful idea.)
I’ve been noticing this shift in Elon Musk’s Twitter posts ever since the Charlie Kirk incident. It’s not just him but many in that same circle of venture capitalists tracing back to the PayPal Mafia, like Joe Lonsdale or Peter Thiel or David Sacks or whoever. They went from reasonably arguing for certain moderate positions the Trump administration could support. Then they started to become completely sycophantic, which you can see in the change of content on the All In podcast.
But soon after the Charlie Kirk assassination, I saw them start to regularly repeat the talking points first popularized by racist supremacists. I also saw phrases like “Western values” or “Western civilization” or Christian/Biblical analogies appearing more. Then I saw them retweet posts made by supremacist Twitter profiles directly (instead of just borrowing talking points or phrases). And now you have people like Musk straight up calling for “Remigration”, which is the far right’s term for sending people who aren’t white Christian Europeans back to the place they originated from - including taking away the citizenship of current US citizens.
It is very disturbing to see this shift among many Silicon Valley billionaires, especially since there is a collection of powerful companies (Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, etc) that are being embedded into the government and into defense by the Trump administration.
> especially since there is a collection of powerful companies (Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, etc) that are being embedded into the government and into defense by the Trump administration.
Note this was all happening — and obvious — well before Kirk’s death; there’s been no shift, Musk and Thiel have been working on this, and not hiding it, since the start.
This is moderately terrifying.
To put this in a tech context, Elon Musk is directly citing the same white nationalist talking points as Miller: https://bsky.app/profile/walkerbragman.bsky.social/post/3m7x...
David Heinemeier Hansson has done the same. I'm sure there are others.
In other words, this fucked up sentiment is now endemic in our community and fervently propagated by the people with the most money.
Yes. I've been increasingly thinking that our industry might be a lost cause and it may no longer be tolerable or supportable to be a part of it.
Whole industry? Just those that don’t mind enabling some rich bigots.
I'm aghast at our industry but have faith in open source, free software, and other community movements. Maybe it's time for me to shift my attention entirely in that direction.
https://atproto.com if you haven't checked it out yet, we need more builders before real adoption can happen
The fact that you think that his statement is representative of “White Nationalism” is sad.
It is, though. The premises of white nationalism, like any form of fascism, require an "out-group," and at the same time a mechanism for convincing the "in-group" that hating them is morally acceptable. The framing of empathy as a vice does that job. It is literally part of their stochastic terrorism strategy. That's why they're so "anti-woke", despite not ever (literally not once) defining what "woke" is. They don't care what it is, or what their constituents think it means. They only care that there is buy-in on the idea that caring for others and being sensitive to their needs is bad. Because that is the prerequisite of the rest of their plans.
Even if it is, it's not exactly a head scratcher how things end up like this.
The Jews have their Israeli ethno-state. In Liberia for instance, citizenship is limited to blacks. Armenia has special citizenship progression for Armenians for instance. China is incredibly difficult to be a citizen unless you are ethnic Chinese. Most (arab) gulf states are ethno-states, muslims have countries like Afghanistan where pretty much any Muslim could settle and live in Shariah law.
Musk basically left south Africa around the time segregation ended. There is massive demand for white nationalist state as Western nations open themselves to multi-culturalism and there is basically no 'refuge' left for white nationalists unless you are Serbian or something.
The fact that ethno-states probably aren't defensible doesn't negate the fact white supremacists exist en masse and have demand for something that no longer exists, looking at examples of everyone else getting it, and scheming how they can get it for themselves. The only question is where they will end up focusing their collective energy.
Except "white" is not a race, but a fluid and constantly shifting ethnic category (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people#Modern_racial_hie...). The very idea of white nationalism is folly. Irish and Italians (plus other southern Europeans) weren't even considered white until fairly recently, and Jewish whiteness always seems to be first on the chopping block once hardliners are in power. In other words, a white ethnostate is de facto a multicultural state, and once all the indisputably nonwhite people are eliminated, the remaining far-rightists will happily start killing each other.
Mass delusions don’t have to make sense.
Exactly. Liberia has had their nebulous 'black' requirement for centuries (well originally, had to be non-aboriginal as former slaves wanted to get a taste of a piece of the action for themselves). It's not a 'race' by above critique (although maybe by others), but in practice that's not stopped them from enforcing it.
"Please try to be empathetic and look the other way as your civilization is being raped and murdered into oblivion. Die kindly."
You... you think this sentiment is *not* representative of white nationalism? Really? Can you maybe fill in the blanks here? Who is doing the "raping"? Why is "Western civilization" purportedly coming to an end?
And when DHH says something like: "In 2000, more than sixty percent of the city were native Brits. By 2024, that had dropped to about a third. A statistic as evident as day when you walk the streets of London now." Could you perhaps explain to me what he might mean by "native Brit"?
You know what, I actually don't believe for a second that you're being honest here. You know exactly what this is but you don't want other people to name it. But that's OK: we'll name it for you. Feel free to wear it around your neck.
The parent comment, and the series of messages they linked to, are such peak "terminally online" content that I suspect nothing one can write here can help.
The paranoia and distrust is so intense that every statement will be seen as a coded phrase, "dog whistle" or obscure reference to some sinister thing.
Which is particularly unfortunate, because I think Elon's tweet is genuinely wrong and bad. But it kinda feels like these people need to disconnect from the internet and go for a walk. Maybe have a real life conversation with a real life regular person on the other side of the political aisle.
What are you talking about? This rhetoric isn't a dogwhistle anymore, it's literal neonazi language going back to the David Duke/KKK days. Same for so-called "remigration" which has been coming up with stunning regularity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration. When I was growing up you would become a social pariah for spouting this kind of stuff.
I don't get it. Are you waiting for someone to literally say "I fucking hate brown people and love Hitler" before calling them out? For what it's worth, we're basically already there. See Trump's recent remarks about Somalis. EDIT: and somehow I forgot the time when Young Republicans were LITERALLY PRAISING HITLER, then doubled down when exposed: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-...
You're blind to what you don't care to see, I guess. As for people on the opposite side of the political aisle from me, they're busy dragging Latino children out of schools and abducting people who overstayed their visa to Salvadoran torture camps, or supporting the same, so fuck their inhuman politics very much indeed.
The social media post you orig linked to has none of that
While I agree with the general problem, you do yourself a disservice by using such a poor example with so many more potent ones out there. You also do a disservice to the movement to fight back by making easy examples for "look at how out of touch they are" (i.e. making mountains out of mole hills when you could point out the actual mountains)
Sure, there may be more pressing matters than the richest man in the world enthusiastically boosting Tweets that describe Western civilization as getting raped to death by the unnamed (you-know-who-I-mean) Others, but it is absolutely part of the same white nationalist zeitgeist, lexicon, and community. The rhetoric Musk uses is *identical* to what Miller and the White House, Reform, AfD, etc. are using to dehumanize immigrants and to direct racial hate and violence towards them. And it’s just one example out of hundreds.
I can’t do anything about Miller being a ghoul, but if I can help one or two people have second thoughts about using Twitter or Grok, it will be well worth it.
The dynamic seems to be identifying some phrasing as a secret neo-Nazi dogwhistle and haranguing people who use it. However, that doesn't effect any change, so a new word has to be identified as secretly neo-Nazi. Repeat ad infinitum, until the terminally online exist in such a rarefied universe that 99% of all humans are secret neo-Nazis.
This is bad, because it both 1) waters down actual neo-Naziism (which is fringe and rare) and worse 2) alienates people to the point where they support non-neo-Nazi but bad policy.
(For me personally, my take on "Western Civilization" is along the lines of Gandhi: I think it'd be a wonderful idea.)
I’ve been noticing this shift in Elon Musk’s Twitter posts ever since the Charlie Kirk incident. It’s not just him but many in that same circle of venture capitalists tracing back to the PayPal Mafia, like Joe Lonsdale or Peter Thiel or David Sacks or whoever. They went from reasonably arguing for certain moderate positions the Trump administration could support. Then they started to become completely sycophantic, which you can see in the change of content on the All In podcast.
But soon after the Charlie Kirk assassination, I saw them start to regularly repeat the talking points first popularized by racist supremacists. I also saw phrases like “Western values” or “Western civilization” or Christian/Biblical analogies appearing more. Then I saw them retweet posts made by supremacist Twitter profiles directly (instead of just borrowing talking points or phrases). And now you have people like Musk straight up calling for “Remigration”, which is the far right’s term for sending people who aren’t white Christian Europeans back to the place they originated from - including taking away the citizenship of current US citizens.
It is very disturbing to see this shift among many Silicon Valley billionaires, especially since there is a collection of powerful companies (Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, etc) that are being embedded into the government and into defense by the Trump administration.
> especially since there is a collection of powerful companies (Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, etc) that are being embedded into the government and into defense by the Trump administration.
Note this was all happening — and obvious — well before Kirk’s death; there’s been no shift, Musk and Thiel have been working on this, and not hiding it, since the start.