this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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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.