[forgetfreeman]

Rejection out of hand is bankrupt regardless of what motivation one cares to use as a hood ornament. If one can't be assed to even examine the claims in question, one certainly isn't qualified to field a critique thereof. At minimum, one should know one's enemy.

[happytoexplain]

Your accusations are dramatic. It's OK to not consider this particular person's writings on the topic as required reading, or even particularly valuable, without rejecting the topic as a whole. And more subjectively, you shouldn't try to bully people into giving credence to murderers.

[forgetfreeman]

I've done neither. I simply point out that no meaningful conclusions can be drawn about a body of work without first examining it. Not sure why y'all think that's controversial.

[bbor]

If I linked you to a 35,000 word essay on why you're wrong about this, would you read it? What if I told you it was generated by GPT-2? How much of it would you have to read before you could decide the rest wasn't worthwhile?

I think you're falling prey to the trap many engineers and scientists do, by assuming that they are ultimately capable of pure logical discussion and analysis, and that their biases are known and minimal - and that others can be seen in that light, too. In such a world, perhaps it would make sense to give Hitler a fair shake.

In our current world, I see us all as flawed little monkeys who can be pulled this way and that by provocative rhetoric and incomplete information. Dismissing someone's ideology completely because it was a central part of their campaign to kill millions is by far the logical and ethical choice. To do otherwise is intellectual hubris, IMO.

All this is, of course, in addition to the "there's a billion books out there, why does Hitler get to the top of the list? What about his life, ideas, or the summaries of his books makes you think that his ideas are any better than a million political blogs you have yet to read?"

[emodendroket]

My time and attention is limited and I'd rather not spend it on the scribblings of someone whose intellectual work is only read because of its association with his more famous work sending letter bombs.