this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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So the bad thing is the off chance that he would benefit?
Because that's a very different thing. Then this should not be about judging morals related to the thing they made, but executing punishment for a completely separate thing they did.
Then it's not a disagreement of morals, it's a disagreement on the approach you are taking to execute that punishment.
Ah, but will you still use them? will you promote his breakthroughs if they help people? what if his scientific work leads to the cure for cancer?
Punish the nazi political work, promote the scientific work.
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.
If you think anything that could benefit him is enabling that, then there's all sort of things that are complicit. Even the public social services and the State might be complicit, even people who pay taxes might be complicit.. international influence/opinion, the whole world, society would be complicit.
I'm a believer of honesty and direct punishment for direct precise problems. The more abstract the punishment, the most likely it is you'd end up with the innocent paying for the sins of the guilty.
I think people should be aware of the exact reasons why something is bad, as opposed to punishing a general abstraction without actually addressing the root of the problem. I've seen how this often results in people religiously believing something is good/bad based on sheep thinking, and this leads to situations that actually create more Nazis than what they destroy. An unjust punishment is just a badly patched up wound that will not really heal and instead extend to other parts. Have you considered this in your calculation of moral consequences?
I take into consideration as much as I can take into consideration. I can see the pathway directly from "I support the creator of hyprland" to "the creator of hyprland grows his platform" and I don't see any moral upside to supporting him, so this is a fairly easy calculation.
As you say, some issues are indeed more nuanced, and may have more complex balances when it comes to morality. I don't think "not promoting someone" is a punishment, it is a decision. I prefer rehabilitation over punishment, when it comes to individuals, where possible, but that's neither here nor there.
This truly has strayed so far into the abstract, however. We are talking about a guy who's nasty who makes a tiling window manager. The moral judgement can only be neutral or negative, theres basically no way that anyone could argue for a moral upside of hyprland, or at least I'd love to see someone try.
I don't support the TWM: explicitly neutral outcome, morally I do support the TWM: either negative or neutral, morally, depending on what you determine the likely outcome of your support would be
It's more abstract than that, because this started with "recommending hyperland", not with "I support the creator of hyprland".
I assure you most users don't know (or care) about the creator of the software they use.
I don't know about you, but me, myself, don't really know the creators of every piece of libre/open source software I use.
I've even contributed to software some changes I wanted, without even knowing or caring who the creators or contributors of the other components were.
So, with that in mind, it's not hard to imagine how this could raise a few eyebrows in people who do not agree with the approach.
I try to know where my software (and hardware and everything else) comes from for this exact reason, but I understand a lot of people don't
Can you tell me the political affiliation of the creator of grep? I use that tool a lot.
I think it's impossible to know for sure what the political thinking of the people involved in everything that happens to have contributed to something in your life is. Some people are not even easy to discern.. some people are interpreted out of context, some people are just caught in drama.
I'd rather take advantage of their work, be thankful for it but without any sort of para-social intent, just thankful for the mathematical algorthms.
Not sure, but if you're interested to know I'm sure the information is out there :)
Edit after your edit:
Its impossible to know everything perfectly, but you can know some things to some degree and take action based on what you do know. Some will choose to not bother, and that is their decision to make, but it is a decision.
Anyway I think we're talking around in circles at this point. Have a good one.