apotheotic (she/her) @ apotheotic @beehaw.org

![](https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/3fed4f13-2d41-4cd4-a120-b778377ac818.we

---

Read more

Posts

4

Comments

1,001

Joined

2 yr. ago

That works, good hack

Thanks!

Ta!

Its not the nonprofit whose cookies I am worried about, it is their 135 133 partners. I'm also using no script and a hardened Firefox - perhaps you've just accepted the guardian's cookies?

Unfortunately can't read the article without accepting cookies, but the exerpt you shared is indeed poignant and mirrors my own thinking recently. Nothing about the current global climate is encouraging.

Its not "the bad thing" and its not an off chance, but sure let's roll with that for the sake of having some constructive discussion.

It isn't about executing punishment, but about the moral implications of my own actions. If, by supporting this theoretical Nazi science genius, I enable him to better perform Nazism, then I have been morally complicit in his Nazism. I think we can agree on that point? Its getting into the weeds a bit with the example, but it feels important to mention, that you could theoretically support this Nazi genius if sufficient measures are taken to ensure that it doesn't benefit his nazism, thus removing the negative moral outcome. But that starts to fall apart pretty badly in this particular example of the Nazi genius.

Will I use them? Perhaps! Its about the moral outcome, right? If I can sufficiently convince myself that the overall outcome is morally positive (at a very utilitarian level this could perhaps be "does his science save more people than his Nazism kills?"), then it may well be reasonable to support. Its hard to say specifically in this example because I don't know how lifesaving his research would be and how damaging his Nazism would be. However, the moral downside in the real case we are discussing is "more people are exposed to the creator's nonsense, he may spread his views further than he otherwise would have" and the moral upside is... I get to use a specific tiling window manager? Which has 0 moral weight so the balance is pretty indisputably an overall negative, though how negative is up in the air based on speculation on how much damage he can do.

I agree in a vacuum with "punish the Nazism and promote the science" but in reality it isn't that simple. Can one support jkr's harry potter stuff without supporting her transphobic rampage? Pretty decisively not. Let's say that harry potter is somehow a moral positive, and that you can in fact somehow cut off JKRs ability to spread hate about trans people, eliminating the negative, then maybe it becomes morally OK to support jkr?

I rambled a bit, but I hope I come across clearly enough.

Thats a tangibly different example though right? Isaac Newton isn't alive to benefit from your support so the moral downside is basically gone. If a modern genius was out here breaking new ground left and right in science but he was also a raging Nazi I certainly wouldn't be promoting him and I'd be very wary of using any of his breakthroughs

However, let's centre the conversation back on what it is: a flashy tiling window manager made by a bit of a knob

This is baffling. How can you be so bad at communism that you think trans rights are something the bourgeoisie are pushing

Who is the Western supremacist in this scenario and what relationship do they have to morality? Kinda makes or breaks your whole argument

No worries I'm glad we could discuss it in a way that was helpful!

I don't have a lot that I would add, but I would just assert that the "user might donate if they're unaware" is a big enough reason on its own. Even if you promote it alongside a caveat mentioning the moral shortcomings, the people who start using it because of your promotion might also promote it, but there's no guarantee they'll keep the caveat (in fact I'd consider it likely that people who will use the product despite the caveat are exceptionally likely to neglect to mention anything in their promotion).

And to your second point I'd say that its pretty indisputable that they are being given a platform, as evidenced by the platform they have. It is a platform that is, as you mention, not subscribed to by a lot of people with a moral backbone, but it is significant.

If I had to give a one-liner for why it is bad to promote the things a shitty person makes, I'd say "its a bit of a Nazi bar thing".

How much wrong does a person have to do for you to consider it morally wrong to promote the things they make?

Fuck hyprland

All my homies hate hyprland

Because promoting hyprland is morally wrong? Its pretty simple

And itch, and when devs distribute their own games

I think that its quite clear they don't have an issue with the steam deck - they're just voicing that it brought to light how they don't own their games and it turned them off from buying more licenses on Steam

I love an open world game that is done well - Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But so often it is just done because thats what they think is the hot thing, and it does not work

Another day, another existential threat :(

Most will listen to songs a great many times, and movies get rewatched too, books reread. I get where you're coming from though.

I would agree, yeah. Thankfully you have folks like GOG doing work to preserve older titles