| > "Wrong-think" as a phrase is one of those thought-terminating clichés. Agreed. > People are voicing their disagreements with his professed viewpoints, Voicing their disagreements with his pseudonymous comments from a completely different non-urbit context. I suspect (but I don't know) that if he wanted the public's perspective on his non-conformant political thought to skew the public's views on his technical design work, he wouldn't have used a pseudonym in the first place. > yet you are using that cliche to dismiss them without addressing their viewpoints. Quite the opposite. I am using that cliche, in a question, to ask if that is what the parent is asking (inciting?) us to do: arbite non-conformist thought. The viewpoint that (here) I intentionally don't address can be summarized as: "I heard the designer wrote something that I disagree with elsewhere, under a pseudonym - more than once! I hereby dismiss anything he has to say on any matter." That's like saying: "Hitler lover strawberries, so we must all agree to avoid them." > This does not lead to a vigorous discussion in the marketplace of ideas. I agree, but... what marketplace of ideas? The aforementioned comments have nothing to do with the merits (or lack thereof) of urbit. A public shaming of a heretic is not a marketplace of ideas. Maybe the guy doesn't pay his taxes. Maybe he's behind on child support. Maybe he eats puppies for breakfast. I don't know. I also don't know that it really matters, as regards the merits (or lack thereof) of his engineering design. And, I'm sorry. It seems that I have contributed to the thread going even further afield than it already had. I shouldn't have said anything to begin with... |
For some, this means that they don't want to be professionally or socially associated with someone who thinks some ethnic groups make genetically good slaves. People can vigorously discuss whether his writings crossed lines of acceptable behavior.
However, you're also free to discuss the technical details as much as you want! If that's what's relevant to you, that's perfectly acceptable as well, and it doesn't require you to defend his other writings.