I'm unsure if politics should be discussed on HN. Why is this an issue?

"golly gee why can't this fine young Henry Ford chap send his own hard earned money to the nazi party without you leftists making a mess out of it?"

He's free to do so, and every single one of us is free to point fingers at him and this dog shit behaviour, as well as decide that money shouldn't be wasted on Mullvad anymore. What's a bit of human rights violations in exchange for some privacy anyways? Who cares, their targets are black after all.

Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences.

He's entitled to his political views and just as we're entitled to potentially use or not use his service because of them :)

Not sure why it's such an issue to discuss the political views of the beneficiaries of services we use. I understand it's mostly uninteresting as far as comment sections go, but it's always bizarre to see a defense of political association when often the impetus for sharing this type of information is for people/consumers to exercise their right to associate with business based on their political outlook.

What are some other ways they've been known to be "right-adjacent"?

The Örebro Party in question actually split from the Left Party and describes itself as leftwing. The founder describes himself as a Marxist.

> While Allard has described himself as a Communist, and a Marxist, at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left". At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".

There are literally dozens of us that either live outside the US or are from other countries

Yes but can you still not utilize tech for its technical merits, rather than suddenly turn it into a political question?

I not just agree ... I can't even fathom how one can not agree with your comment.

Agreed. I use mullvad because I believe they are the best off the shelf choice. If I stopped using things because of the owners opinions, then I'd live in a cave.

Don't we also get a dopamine release from empathy, or is it just no fun?

you value privacy, but you don't think privacy is a political topic? VPNs, encryption, and other privacy tools are regularly under attack or protected by legislation and policy that is actively debated and lobbied for.

I think that you do care about politics, you just don't care about this particular topic or policy. That's your prerogative of course, but don't pretend you are wholly above the fray. I suspect if a company's founder had donated millions to a party aiming to mandate backdoored encryption you would suddenly find yourself to be a very political person.

I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration. What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part. Also, I like the idea of immigrants bringing their culture with them (and in some cases, that may be the last representation of that culture) and welcoming people to learn about it.

Multi-culturalism should be about championing different cultures and not forcing everyone into a cultural homogeneity.

> I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture.

What kind of things might be involved in a mandate for people to "get into the culture?"

Sounds like the logical evolution of left/right-populism into 'absolutist-populism' ;)

To add to the context. The founder of the was the chairman for the youth organization of Vänsterpartiet (English name: The left party), the furthest left party in the Swedish parliament, and he recruited members primarily from the same organization when he was kicked out. The reason he got kicked out was that he was seen praising the Revolutionary Front, a far-left extremist political and militant network in Sweden.

It should be added that the area where they are active is in the local government of Örebro Municipality, a place with a total population of 160,143 people. Looking at the political leanings of parties for a small local government with the lens of national parties might not give a very clear picture. Their strategy is also directed toward local voters, not national voters, through a strategy called the 12% line.

That's typical for extremist parties, AKA Horseshoe theory. IRL Erdogan's party went so far to the right that they started actually adopting very socialist/communist policies. The party names is AKP which stands for "justice and development party" but many people are calling it "Allahs Communist Party" since in Turkish communist is written with K and they are islamists doing communist stuff.

Yes, not only trust but my willingness to contribute money towards his paycheck. I don't want my money to end up in far-right parties.

It's not only about trust, but also about not wanting to give money to an entity that will pass it on to a political party you don't want to support.

In some ways I would say it could even increase trust: if the guy is a privacy absolutist, ultra-libertarian, "my business is not the state's business" type, his VPN products are likely to be pretty good.

On the other hand, he might have other strong right-wing views that users don't agree with, and which might take precedence in one's set of priorities. If I like football and they like football, but they also want to kill me because of <other reason>, I don't think I'd want to give them my money.

Wanted to mention the Analogue since ModRetro was mentioned.

https://www.analogue.co/products

https://www.analogue.co/editions

I think these look a lot cooler, though they're less hackable.

He's not just the CEO, he's a co-owner... Meaning that the profits from the business acrue to him... and therefore enable this party.

So, it's a question of "am I ok paying for this service, knowing that a portion of that money will flow to this political party and how do I feel about the results of that funding?"

Including a statement from the other founder.

This one's gone too.

Thanks, we'll merge that thread hither.

And we can choose not to fund those things.

Will you be creating a VPN?

Fredrik, your co-founder has erased all good-will your company ever had. Sucks to be you.

The other founder made a comment on another HN submission.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800

Thank you for everything you do Fredrik. Very happy to be a customer of a company that supports freedom and privacy for everyone regardless of views.

Fredrik, can we expect you to start a new company with the same values without the bullshit?

Thank you for supporting the civil liberties and individual freedom of expression!

Remigration is more than a strict immigration policy. And calling legal immigrants parasites is going too far.

A right to say something is not the same as the right to say (and do) something without being called out on it.

He has the right to do what he’s doing. Other people have the right to react and say “That sucks, it’s against my values, I no longer trust you or want to do business with you.”

Okay - but that doesn't mean I'm not going to weigh up what you say when I'm choosing a business to support; especially if it's not in a professional context.

brave! but fortunately you are safe because no one is challenging his right to say it.

We need to add something to this nice rule about using services that are good from people we don't (fully) agree with.

I'm not personally inclined to be so strict about this, but there are people with objections against the Proton CEO who once agreed with Trump on twitter, or DHH (there is this one blogpost about his extreme views). Etc.

Wild. I spent about 3 months living in Örebro while on contract with a company based there.

Seems more complicated than that, in reading the wiki.

An important part of making "vote with your wallet" work is that people need an awareness of what their wallet is voting on. Telling people not to talk about problems with companies lets companies get away with way too much.

I don't see how, given their answers to simple questions as described in the "2026 run up to the elections" section, this party could ever be considered a leftist party.

Horseshoe Theory strikes again:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

Does it matter if they are left or right?

The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country because they have the audacity to be slightly foreign, or worse born to someone foreign.

that is the issue, not how much tax/spend big/little government.

It doesn't seem that complicated to be honest with you. That is how they self identify but none of their policies seem particularly left wing. At least not from that Wikipedia page. Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.

Look at Zuck and Musk. Their platforms are still used by millions. It's only "us" that care about the pedigree of our tech founders, most people couldn't care less.

It's confirmed. And the party in question is quite extreme, at least by Swedish standards.

Let's draw this to its ultimate conclusion.

Would you subscribe to an excellent VPN service, if it was run by [insert universally abhorred brutal dictator from history here]?

Somewhat of a verification, here's Mullvad's response to the post on Mastodon: https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822244689326681

Hi Fredrik

I’m a long time Mullvad customer, likely paid Mullvad upward of 400€ in the past number of years, as well as recommended it to friends and family members.

What you seem to be missing in your comment, is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.

I’ve reached out to support and requested a refund of my outstanding credit.

I’ll be moving on.

Fredrik, while acknowledging everything you said, the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant.

If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue. If the politics at stake were less important, it wouldn’t be an issue.

They’re not going to stop at immigration, look at other places in the world to see the future risk.

Sorry, I was a paying and satisfied customer, and now I’m out.

> Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.

Maybe you should tell that to your cofounder? His actions certainly don't reflect this. Promoting ethnic cleansing is the opposite of this.

That's great and all but can I have a refund for the portion of my mullvad subscription that went to supporting organizations who think that people like me don't deserve to live?

There are some things that I won't ever defend your right of saying them, to be honest.

How does it physically prevent Mullvad from logging your data?

It's not a "witch hunt" to be against ethnic cleansing and not want to financially support that.

This sounds very much far right and not left at all to me

> Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology[32] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off of transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off of social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[33] that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.

It's practically a copy and paste of the ideology behind "doge".

Which companies fund Deutsche Wohnen Enteignen? Let me know so I can boycott them

Both far-right and far-left are bad, and often in many ways actually quite close to each other.

If the far-right parties they're supporting are similar to MAGA in the U.S., what they're doing is taking customer money and funneling it into a political effort to do just what you're describing - just in a different way. "We don't like groups X, Y, and Z, so we're going to fund a political effort to take their rights away by using government."

As I understand it, the Örebro party pushes for deporting immigrants and has a "Sweden belongs to the Swedes" policy that includes deportation for even those born in Sweden if their parents were born in, e.g., Somalia. So basically, "we don't like certain people, so we want to use customer money to force them out of our country". That really doesn't paint Mullvad as the victim, here.

When it is about paying money for a commercial service I think it is valid point to vote with your wallet. Otherwise if it was a free service, it would not really matter as the whole VPN provider industry is dubious and comes down to the same tech stack and outcome.

Parties get goverment funding based on election result, with a minimum floor of 2.5% votes in national elections. This party is way too small for that, and is primarily focused on local election.

> for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left.

There are many types of marginalised groups, and many other reasons to want to use VPNs. Putting everything on a left-right political axis seems more than a tad reductive.

You’re not taking it far enough. What if Mullvad has someone you disagree with as a customer, and does nothing about it. Does this mean that Mullvad is supporting them? Does this mean that you have to stop supporting Mullvad? What about Mullvad’s landlord? The company that provides them their electricity? Their internet provider? Their internet provider’s internet provider? Should you boycott the entire internet because Mullvad has not been given the BGP death penalty?

The post linked has been removed, so I don't know what more we can speculate upon, 650+ comments in.

It's strange to see HN mods allow this much attention to a political, and contentious issue.

What does that mean?

"They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish"

For all the stuff about free dentists this sounds pretty right wing to me.

> Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship?

Not more consistently than other parties.

They could do it, some people would align with that stance, and some wouldn't. Exactly how it plays out being a customer: now we've discovered he supports a far-right party here in Sweden, I can choose to not support the CEO with my money and let others know about their political leaning to decide by themselves if they want to support him and his business aware that their money might got to far-right parties.

I don't see any issue with your flipped argument, it's the same thing, no?

Hello Fredrik! As a heavy user of Mullvad in the past, easily spending hundreds of euros over the years, I was reserving my judgement to see what the official statement on this would be. Thank you, now I have my answer.

> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.

It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

I’ve read a few books about dopamine/motivation/common neurotransmitters and this has never come up. In my amateurish view I think empathy is more connected to oxytocin (which afaik does release during social connections, which The book ”The molecule of more” covers a bit).

Depends on if Atlas Shrugged is your Bible or not.

> I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration

Yes, it is reasonable to demand people who come into a country adapt to rules - written and to a certain extent also the unwritten, of which Sweden has many - of that country. When in Rome, act as the Romans. This adaptation will never be 100% but that is not the point, what is most important is that newcomers learn to assimilate to such a level that the natives are open and willing to maybe integrate some parts of the newcomer's culture.

People who 'are the last representatives of [their] culture' can write a book about it while becoming part of their new culture since it is clear that their old one did not stand the test of time. They're much better off that way instead of living like cultural fossils for the likes of NPR and PBS to make documentaries about. By all means document what that extinct culture had to offer but life is for the living and culture is the commonly agreed upon set of rules how to live it.

Multiculturalism is a pipe dream, something dreamt up by people who listened to one too many version of John Lennon's Imagine. It has been shown not to work time and time again, it makes it harder for people coming in to a new country to assimilate and integrate because there is no clear target to aim for. Culture is not a fixed thing, it evolves through time by adopting new things and getting rid of old customs. Multiculturalism does not call for cultural evolution, it calls for revolution: here's a whole new culture, now deal with it. Revolution hardly every works and when it does it tends to go badly for those on the wrong side of it.

And what does that have to do with the guy leaning right? He runs a VPN. If you care about privacy, that should be sufficient to support it, his other opinions aside.

Why is the burden always on the host nation and never the immigrants?

GP literally addresses your points. I think we’re very welcoming in most of Europe, adopt others’ traditions, and are not too imposing. Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.

Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.

It’s a hot topic, but in Belgium some people are taught how to take the bus, do their taxes, and not harass women. One of my Dutch teachers led the integration course and said this stuff was really difficult to land.

If you come from a culture of groping women, not doing is gonna be a challenge. I get it. But we’ve also built mosques and have pagan festivals and allow public servants to wear their choice of religious attire. I think it’s a balance, but nobody is ever happy with wherever you set the balance.

When I learn the local language, I’m happier; it’s nice to talk to people. Not everyone agrees.

Tja.

They are very pro education. But that's basically the only thing, all the other answers are enthusiastic right wing answers

Exactly, the problem is not left/right it's the authoritarianism, which is again a huge threat to the world after being held mostly in check in Western democracies for many years.

People tend to forget about the "Last Man" part of Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man", but we are definitely in the phase of the Last Man seeking conflict and fighting against our hard-won freedoms.

>The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country

The US isn't the only country in the world. Sweden does not have birthright citizenship. Many (most?) of those to be remigrated are not Swedish citizens.

Horseshoe theory, rather than being as described,is actually caused by far right parties being more willing to label themselves as left. E.g. national socialists.

What about more social housing, reductions in working hours, and opposition to privatisation? Sounds left wing to me.

They have been called Marxist-Lenninist by more mainstream politicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#2021_bus_rap...

> Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.

Free dental care is considered "extemely left wing" now? That's just bizarre tbh.

If a country would decide to use tax money to provide health care services for free to everybody that's not much different than using tax money to maintain an infrastructure network that's free to use (like roads), or free police and firefighting services - and I think none of those examples are considered particularly 'left-wing'.

I commend your correct use of “couldn’t care less”. It’s so rare to see people get this one right these days.

There has to be some reason that so many projects are started by right wing people. Something in their personality that makes them both RW and willing to start lots of projects.

According to polls[0] the party gets ~20% votes in their region. IMHO 20% of voters can't be "extreme" [0] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/orebropartiet-nast-... (swedish)

(Mullvad reply content copied here)

>> Mullvad is a political company fighting for free speech, free information and privacy, with two equal co-founders, co-owners and co-CEOs who fundamentally disagree on many issues. Daniel's donation to a political party is private and not part of Mullvad's mission. We protect the right to express and access views we disagree with. We welcome anyone sharing these core values, whatever their other opinions. We are happy to refund others who don't, where we can.

To be fair... I'm not sure how you could take any other position as a privacy-first VPN. By technical nature, you have to believe pretty hard in 'people's business is their own business and not mine.'

I'd rather have a founder who believes whatever, but supports others rights to disagree vehemently, than one who agrees with what I believe but is less flexible on allowing others choice.

Thanks. Also fuck.

Not just “support”, it’s literally the main source of funds for the party. >70% of donations. If it was a small donation that would be sort of controversial but maybe defendable, but here we are talking about funding pretty much the whole party

Godspeed!

Wait till you find out where your taxes end up fellow redditor

I did the same, except I'm paying for Mullvad through the Tailscale partnership, so I reached out to them and expressed my desire for them to partner with other privacy focused VPN providers like Njalla, Airvpn and others. I don't feel great about my money funding ethno-fascists in my country.

Can you point to the charter where the Örebro party ever said that you don't deserve to live?

The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting.

FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation.

This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.

Agree. This is more of a "ST Voyager 'Nothing Human'"-case.

This is just a rephrasing of the lumpenproletariat, coupled with the professional-managerial class. You could also refer to the latter as a modern version of the lumpenbourgeoisie (although this term is applied rather broadly). It sounds more like pro-labor, pro-work, anti-lumpen Marxism. In no way “right-wing” unless you want to call North Korea “right-wing”, which is a very ultra-left thing to do (what orthodox Marxists call left deviationism).

This is actually very far left, just not the current wealthy-urban-lgbtq far left. USSR marxists and Maoists held the same views, where the individual's main function was to work and refusal to work or low productivity required either reformation (aka often, Gulag) or hunger.

"Those how do not work, do not eat" - Mao

Interestingly, psychoanalysis in the USSR was aimed at helping the patient to go back to work, for instance.

A thought experiment:

Let's think of the other extreme as well: exactly the same excellent VPN service, is run by an almost-the-best-person-in-the-world who has just one small quirk that makes them not 100% perfect for you (they pat kittens not as often as you'd like them to do). Obviously there is a border between your extreme and mine, which border defines "use" and "no use" cases for you. And now: wherever this border is - should it be the same for everyone?

We can easier look at conclusion people make about banks and stock options. Will people invest money into index fonds and pension fonds if those fonds invest money into companies that produce and sell weapons to abhorred brutal dictators? What about buying stocks from telecommunication producers who operate in abhorred brutal dictatorships and who helps those dictators to control their population?

Next iteration of this smear article: “Mullvad is basically HitlerVPN”

> is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.

Geez, I hope you do not pay give any money to Google, Microsoft and such. They have many employees and I am sure some of them donate to causes you would disagree with using (part of) the money you gave to those companies.

And, I have to wonder, do you vet your local bakery as well on how they use their money?

But does this swedish Party say any things like that?

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale in the Flamman article. There's also his blog [1], which explains some of his views. I know he doesn't share all of Örebropartiets views, but I should let him provide that nuance.

As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.

[1]: https://dberntsson.info

> Promoting ethnic cleansing

Do you have a source for this? I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere.

Sounds like a branch of the Technocracy movement which Musks grandfather helped found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_N._Haldeman

"The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy"

I've never really gotten the impression that Allard or the Örebro party support ethnic cleansing. What makes you say this? I'm not sure if any of their suggested policies would even be considered that controversial outside of Sweden.

They're known to run everything in RAM, nothing gets stored. You pull the plug and everything is gone.

Of course, you have to trust the company on that.

By your logic USSR was far right.

Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.

Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right. As written on Wikipedia, "left-conservative" is probably the best label.

The Swedish far-left loves to, for instance, brand the governing party in Denmark as far-right, but they are actually also left-conservative.

It is possible (shocker) to be liberal and progressive, whilst also being pro-assimilation, pro-deportation, anti-immigration.

Steven Schuurman (Elastic) has given millions to left parties in Germany and The Netherlands.

Sure but far left and far right is a crude default way to generalize, the left folks will be especially annoyed by this but its still useful when the specifics don't matter.

It's almost like there's a difference between selling services to someone and directly donating to a political party.

What are you trying to say with this? This is absurd.

The outrage has nothing to do with Mullvad itself supporting people with certain opinions or not.

The problem I and many others have, is that if the founder takes our money and gives it to causes that I (edit: or rather we) find reprehensible, we don't want to give them our money anymore. Simple as that.

I will not try to stop you from using Mullvad by any other means than my arguments. Hopefully you understand now where we are coming from and agree. If not, just do your thing.

The comment from the other Mullvad founder is here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800

What has been removed? The links I saw didn't have much information but as far as I can tell they're still up.

From an HN point of view the idea is to give the discussion a place, since the community obviously wants to have it.

Nothing, it's just an empty platitude that can be used for justifying any kind of abhorrent act against "others".

It's why it's so effective as a rallying cry, it means nothing substantial, can be molded into whatever the speaker wants it to mean, it's an empty vessel for the bearer's hatred.

I imagine that if a company really denied a customer due to disagreement on some views there would be similar flood of comments like "my views is my problem, I pay you money you must do business with me". Maybe I'm wrong though

It should be obvious that he's perfectly fine with your decision because he wrote exactly that in the post you just replied to.

And for anyone who treats Atlas Shrugged as a Bible, I hope you're aware that Alan Greenspan was almost surely more of a true believer than you are, and his legacy is pretty well summarized by having to admit that his practically religious belief in Randian ideology led to the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5lZPWNFizQ

Of course after his admission modern Objectivists began to predictably denounce Greenspan (Ayn Rand's favorite boy) with various "No True Scotsman" arguments.

the burden should always be on the ones who are stronger to accommodate those who are weaker.

the majority needs to welcome and support the minority.

and it's not that there is no burden on the immigrants. they still have to learn to understand the local language, culture, rule of law, etc...

we should learn from each other and take the good from each. the burden for that is on both sides.

compared to the rest of the world europe is absolutely not welcoming. heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there. the only places in germany where i ever felt welcome was linux user groups, and other fringe groups which as a whole had more of an outsider status.

Always? Never?

There are > 190 countries in the world and many of them require immigrants to meet at least the same criteria for employment and assistance as born citizens.

> Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.

Where I'm from (Northern Ireland) harassing women and attacking emergency services have been part of the culture for as long as I remember. Would you suggest that people arriving should actively take part in these behaviours?

I'm not saying that people shouldn't want to integrate, I'm saying that "demanding" it is problematic. Imagine grandparents being brought over from a different country and they don't speak the language - should they be forced to attend language school? What level of language ability would be considered the minimum and does that also include reading/writing?

By all means provide encouragement and resources so that people can adapt to their new situation, but don't demand it.

TIL Belgians don't grope women.

How populist party can root for education? Educated people wouldn't go in populist direction. Of course, it the education stays unbent to their views

This is a bot. It has been commenting all day every day. Why has it still not been removed?

I was being facetious. Unfortunately enlightened horseshoe centrists didn't want to hear.

Maybe we could meet in the middle and call them a nationalist socialist workers party.

They're all left-wing

> Free dental care is considered "extemely left wing" now? That's just bizarre tbh.

No more bizarre than the idea of free speech being ceded to the right.

Apparently even air conditioning is now a left vs right culture war issue...

The AfD is a far-right extremist party in Germany with currently 28% projected support[0].

[0] https://dawum.de/Bundestag/

I agree there might be a more or les arbitrary border, and it will probably be in different places for different people.

However the original statement:

> The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.

Basically says that no border should exist, and it makes no difference at all who provided the service as long as the service itself is excellent.

That is a fundamentally different argument that I very much disagree with.

Just like everything else in life, different people have different borders and that's fine.

I don't understand the point of this thought experiment. Are you trying to disqualify the idea of boundaries because they're imperfect (which is a very flawed argument) or are you going somewhere else I can't figure out at all?

Every time you use a kitten to support flawed logic, a kitten dies.

I don't really understand the point you're trying to make with that thought experiment.

We should improve society somewhat

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...

> As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.

Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.

An employee is different from a cofounder.

For example, I certainly boycott anything to do with Elon Musk, for the same kinds of reasons.

You seem to be falling into the "perfect is the enemy of the good" trap. It's not possibly to perfectly boycott every person and organization that deserves to be sanctioned, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it where it is possible.

That's a great backlink to his blog.

Hello MAGA.

The party he's donating money to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party) is an advocate of "remigration" that is a policy of forced deportation including of citizens on the basis of ethnicity. They're also it should be added self-declared Marxists, so in this case that's not a hyperbolic usage of the term, it's literally a kind of national socialist party.

Personally I'm not going to not continue to pay for Mullvad any longer. I've never been super squeamish when it comes to disagreements about policy but when you're unironically starting to sound like the NSDAP I'm out.

National Socialism in a nutshell.

Which ones? What are their policies?

really? how would/did you see others use it?

Right wing thought patterns tend toward believing in oneself; predicating the worth of the individual on their objective behavior or output; valuing individual achievements; and also believing that effort is likely to result in those achievements.

Left wing thought patterns are biased toward less agency, e.g. the individual is a product of the system; systemic discrimination holds people back; one's trauma or neurodivergency is a valid anchor that makes achievements very difficult; failing to achieve is okay and doesn't reduce one's intrinsic value.

I would argue that right-wing people are now the left-wing people from like 30-40 years ago.

> IMHO 20% of voters can't be "extreme"

Was the NSDAP "extreme"? They got 43.9%

Someone doesn't want people using the best VPN available, hmm...

> Geez, I hope you do not pay give any money to Google, Microsoft and such.

Yes? I have been divesting from big tech. Not only do I feel good about it but the side effects have been positive too.

Yes, I check whether my local bakery is run by people with hateful politics.

You don't think there's a difference between a founder and a random employee?

> Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.

Yes, but the behavior in that quote, cutting social services, is none of the above. Using language associated with far left movements while promoting far right policies leaves you as a far right party.

> Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right

Literally nothing in the quote I quoted is about immigration (though they hit that checkbox as well and it absolutely does swing you to the right).

Whoa whoa whoa. I don't think it's at all fair trying to throw Technocracy under the bus. The guilt by association doesn't look great! But Technocracy was interesting. It had some hopes & values, and it wanted people thinking and working materially, scientifically, having a perception of the world better than just money. It had some real neat idea. Wild & absurd? Yes that too. But I don't enjoy the casual drive by shoot down!

So nothing prevents them

Yes. They want to get rid of immigrants for example.

So if Kim Jong Un ran your local bakery, you'd still buy his cakes? Or what's your point? That we need to be 100% flawless or else there is no point in doing anything at all?

No, I'm fairly sure you could not find a quote like that about the USSR.

In the U.S., before Trump was elected, immigration control and deportating illegal immigrants were things that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ("left" politicians) campaigned on.

The Mastodon post itself. I get a 404 error. It was fine when this reached the frontpage yesterday or when was it. Looks like the author deleted it.

EDIT: nvm it's rate limited

Companies can absolutely refuse a customer and many do. Companies will often have public rules about not doing business with weapons manufacturers or tobacco producers.

They also can refuse business due to political stance. They can even give different prices to different customers.

There's an enormous imbalance between company and customer that you're ignoring, not to mention the difference between a private person and a company's very public personas who own said business.

If a company was sniffing around to learn my political views, that would be a bit intrusive, wouldn't it? I wouldn't expect the same level of anonymity if I were the CEO of a company like Mullvad. There's also a disparity between "I'm taking my business elsewhere, good luck without my $10 a month!" (or whatever Mullvad costs...) and "we've decided to not allow you to use this service".

How large a disparity is depends a lot on whether a company has a lock on a market. Generally, if a vendor in a crowded market decided to turn away customers who are XYZ voters (as an example) I'd be more apt to just comment on that as a business strategy than as a "how dare they, they must accept all customers!" Like, if you are one of 20 VPN providers and you think you can be successful by turning away customers.. well, OK. Good luck with that.

If it's a provider with a monopoly that's a bit different. I live in an area with only one choice of provider for electricity. So I don't think they should be allowed to refuse service to anybody who is paying their bill, even people I vehemently disagree with.

I appreciate the candid response. It shouldn't be so hard for people to just clearly state the premises that motivate their beliefs.

>the burden should always be on the ones who are stronger to accommodate those who are weaker.

Is this a universal principle? Does this come with any limits at all? A salient example that comes up often: classrooms tend to have a small handful of extremely disruptive students that ruin the experience for everyone else. The current thinking is to not suspend/expel these kids because they are disadvantaged or whatever. But in doing so the other kids suffer greatly, not to mention the teachers.

How do you manage different dimensions of strength/advantage? It is the weakest in society (women, children) that bear a disproportionate burden of allowing large amounts of immigration from third-world countries. Why are the rights of women and children secondary to the rights of immigrants?

> heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there.

This is standard for most of the world. Really, only some countries, all of them developed, are exceptions to this.

I remember a discussion I had with a English teacher from UK who immigrated to Sweden during the 1990s. They said that in UK, when a government employee would visit a house regarding dept or some other problem, they would bring a large police escort and then they and the neighbourhood would had a big brawl that generally ended with the police winning and then most of the participants would go to the pub. It was just how things worked. The guy were majorly surprised that in Sweden, the government employee could just knock on the door and talk to the person with no police and no brawl.

I would assume that if attacking emergency services is the norm in Northern Ireland, so is police escorts of emergency services. That is not the norm in Sweden, through it has become the norm for certain regions where emergency services no longer feel safe going on an emergency call. The downside is that if the police is delayed, so is the emergency service, and naturally the quality of emergency service is reduce in those locations which some people say is a form of discrimination.

Why do people pretend they don't understand context? What do you get out of posting this irrelevant pedantic response?

Northern Ireland is definitely atypical. An English friend of mine moved over there a few years ago as his wife is from there and her family all live in the same area. I can't imagine him being considered as "integrated" for at least a few decades.

(My experience with Irish/Northern Irish people is that they're very friendly and welcoming, but I've only been there a couple of times).

Or pretend not to, at school. YMMV.

That’s… a tough one. Bit of a loaded question. I would say “don’t engage in anti-social behaviour regardless of the cultural milieu”, I’m sure NI has much better traditions to partake in?

They are far too small to have any chance of influencing education. The simpler explanation would be that there is a strong nationalist current. Think "our people are the best, let's make them even better and throw out the others"

Yeah, I know. That’s why I say that no one is ever happy with where you set the limit. I think demanding A2 in language is reasonable, for example. Yes, demanding, even if it’s in a reasonably long timespan. We demand much more out of everyone born in the country, don’t we?

> Educated people wouldn't go in populist direction.

Depends on the "education".

Because populists can say they are "For" something and just not do it. Their supporters largely won't check the results.

Same reason why US republicans say they are the party of fiscal responsibility despite being directly responsible for most of the debt of the US

Why wouldn't educated people be swept up by populism? They're human like the rest of us. Maybe you should stop thinking that having an education makes you a moral person, it just means you have an education.

This is a bot. It has been commenting all day every day. Why has it still not been removed?

You could, just as long as you keep it at that. The term actually does describe a valid political ideology: socialism combined with nationalism instead of the more common socialism combined with globalism, i.e. internationalist socialism ('workers of the world, unite' etc.). The association with Nazism makes it close to impossible to use the term in a 'neutral' way but in itself it just describes a nationalist movement which espouses socialist ideas.

That is like saying that the judicial system wants (all) people to go to prison. It leaves out the rather crucial "which people".

By that logic, nothing prevents your ISP, your OS, or your hardware manufacturer from logging you either. Ultimate trust is an illusion in tech.

In fact, the politics of my local bakery are among the easiest to be aware of! These people are telling on themselves.

Lol, so Hitler was 'left wing' because he built the Reichsautobahn, got it...

You’re telling me you wouldn’t go to the Kim Jong Un bakery? I bet it would be delicious.

Anyway, yes, I do judge you if you publicly and loudly declaim small to medium sized businesses that work really hard for your privacy while handing out money to megacorps who are directly involved in tightening the global surveillance net.

> cutting social services

By providing free healthcare and dental care or at least reducing out of pocket costs?

I guess emotions/politics are more important than facts?

A very quick search yielded this short clip of Hillary Clinton:

https://youtube.com/shorts/Zsq32nNjNoE (no endorsement of overlays/etc intended, just the first result in the search)

Yet do you check the same for the company that manufactures your electronic devices, clothes, food, and provides your entertainment?

I think you'll find people tend to disagree on quite a great deal in aggregate.

Don't think so. When did left wing people want remigration?

Hmm... where have I heard this before?

I'd be among the first customers. North Korean dough products look quite delicious. They don't even use GMOs.

You would be wrong. The people you described were called "тунеядцы" in USSR. With a possible exception of bureaucrats who existed as a result of centralized government but were also called "a barrier for the working class" by Lenin etc.

I also highly doubt USSR would accommodate people who move in and don't bother to integrate into the culture and speak Russian. Ask people from entire countries where Moscow did Russification, and those people didn't even move in from outside they already lived there.

Mass deportation like that is a terrible and destructive idea but that's well short of being unspeakable.

they mean it's pretty common to see the less-correct "could care less"

I'm aware that left wing patterns position individuals as moulded by systems but I'm not aware of any that explicitly deny the power of the individual to try weird stuff, especially in a low-barrier-to-entry industry like software. I guess maybe the overall level of that is somewhat lower and maybe low enough that it doesn't really happen?

They got 43.9% in what Wikipedia marks as "semi-free yet questionable election". Also more correct question IMHO would be "was the NSDAP extreme in 1933?" and the answer is probably "no as much as by today's standards".

The trial of Joseph Brodsky is a fascinating insight into the workings of the USSR https://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/01/archives/the-trial-of-jos...

They had strong opinions of what was deemed "socially useful" work and were not above abolishing those pursuits they deemed to be useless.

All able-bodied people were expected to work (in approved roles) and you would be provided a job if you couldn't find one but if you refused to work they would deem you a "social parasite" and prosecute you if you didn't reform your behavior.

Somehow, people seem to forget that Marxism is an ideology of workers.

So have I and I'm using lots of OSS by people and groups that I'm politically, ethically, morally and whatever else-ly incompatible with and yet they build great stuff for free without restricting me and my use of it. If my revenue allows for it I'll gladly donate to all of them for their work (that is also running my side gig and homelab) without looking into their spending OT donation habits.

I'll happily keep on listening to radical left punk, RAC/rock against Communism as well as anti fascist and NS Black Metal as long as the music moves me.

I can't go around judging all day. Wherever I spend money, I'll probably disagree with 99% of what the people at the receiving end will do with it.

Also, the concentration of service cost to political affiliation is much higher here.

Weird, I didn't think I was throwing technocracy under the bus. What makes you say that?

Why can't we have a VPN run by normal people?

> That’s… a tough one.

But then we're getting a bit deeper into the issue. These are things that need to be considered if you want to mandate "integration" surely.

We now want people to integrate but we also recognise that there's a higher moral code which should supersede local customs. Is that correct? Then it seems like integration isn't the actual aim, but the shaping of people into a sort of ideal which is actually removed from local cultures.

We're also onto picking and choosing between the "better" and worse local traditions. But who is the arbitrator for which traditions are good and which are bad?

I think most liberals have the intuition that laws should apply equally to citizens and non-citizens, and I think that's where a lot of the discomfort comes from when we talk about immigration. A citizen who doesn't meet those demands imposed on non-citizens (e.g., language, cultural assimilation, etc.) will never be at risk of deportation, simply because they were lucky enough to be born in the country.

However, it does seem that this Swedish party is willing to "repatriate" even Swedish-born citizens, so at least they're consistent.

Correct and we know several of these parties do log you.

Just like Franco in Spain created the social healthcare system, but they still executed "reds" in the street.

This isn't an all or nothing approach. People can exercise the options they have without being a puritanical crazy about it. This isn't a strong argument. You can protest about how society is structured while still taking part it in.

I’d say entirely incorrect. It means exactly the opposite. I don’t buy the “it’s popular usage now so that makes it right” argument - it’s like saying 4 now equals 5 because more people use 4 to mean 5.

What you're actually asking is whether people knew they were extreme. But this makes your overall point circular: we can't say a party is extreme if the majority of people don't call it screens.

Because normal people don’t want to deal with the headaches. Your choices are weird people or intelligence cutouts. (Or abandoning any attempt at privacy in an attempt to be ideologically pure.) Sorry, but those are the options.

They were definitely extreme by the standards of the time. Their aim was explicitly to completely revolutionise European politics, culture, religion.... everything. One comment I heard recent (on The Rest is History podcast, I think Tom Holland said it) they were the most radical movement in European history.

Their ideology implied at the very least getting rid of whole populations. They wanted to reset to an imagined ancient culture and rewrote history to justify it. Mostly imagined, anyway - Sparta was the one real example they looked to.

>Somehow, people seem to forget that Marxism is an ideology of workers.

Not really, Marx and company were nobles, lawyers, etc. The ideology concerns provoking a civil war and taking over, workers rights is just the rhetoric to cause the revolution. The worker’s paradise never materializes because it’s not actually about that.

Because there are almost no normal people. Everybody's a jerk in private, to somebody, sometime. Everybody's got opinions that half the population doesn't like.

What if the purpose of integration is merely to bring people closer to the local average, ironing out the outlier kinks and helping them feel secure in society?

I did a bit of the integration course by choice, even though it’s not mandatory as a EU national. I found it fine, a bit boring because we grew up with most of these customs. The Flemish ‘traditions’ were all new to me, and I also realise I don’t follow them; but respect some if I’m invited to people’s houses.

I think we’ve made a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to integration. It’s neither super forced and awful nor useless.

Okay but wanting an ethnic cleansing isn't usually one of them and even among those who do want it, most don't donate money towards making it happen

They were extreme by the standards of the time, but the Overton window at the time did go further to the extremes, so they were considered less extreme than they would be today.

This is true but the ideology was packaged and sold as a movement for the working class. My observation had more to do with the modern interpretation of it as somehow being a license to not work, which appears comical when compared with how it was instituted.

Not all of the component parts of the ideology are necessarily false due to their introduction and popularization by Marx. Personally, I find his writings obtuse and his beliefs abhorrent. There is, however, merit in the idea that the state should benefit its people, a large percentage of which are the productive working class, but it shouldn't be ruled by the working class. The state is its people and their culture, it shouldn't oppose their interests or subjugate and exploit them for the advancement of ideals alien to them.

Whoever downvotd you is unaware that the USSR tried a seven day work week. It was not about workers.

From "An Evaluation of the Program for Reducing the Workweek in the USSR"

> There is considerable evidence that the reduction in hours of work is a basic goal and commitment of the Communist movement and the Soviet state.

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP64B00346R0001002...