| The examples are deliberately chosen as extremes, where they have an ethical standpoint. I suggest the examples work even better with the context you add - you do not have to agree with the ethics or like them! On the "funding terrorism" insinuation... Did PETA publish an ethical statement about:
- Protecting university infrastructure
- Obeying authorities
- Agreeing with negative media coverage about them I sincerely doubt it. Their misdeed in your view is donating $45k for a guy's legal defense, who was the spokesman of the ALF, not PETA.
By that logic, any government funded public defender is the taxpayer condoning murder, robbery, etc. We can both agree objectively that isn't true - guilt by association is the fallacy there; funding a legal defense is separate from the act requiring the legal defense. I would argue you have this talking point because of a concerted media effort to brand things as "Eco-Terrorism" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare - and that is a coordinated effort to change the focus. BUT, let's assume PETA are exactly as you say. Scenario 1: they publish no standpoint, pretending to be a local book club who have simply enjoyed the prose of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation. Scenario 2: as above, but they publish their ethical standpoint upfront and it is easy to access. After you have gone a few times, one day a chap stands up, say he's the Lorax; has been a member for years; is head of the Once-ler Action Committee demands everyone hijacks a plane to fly it into the nearest highrise, because he's for the trees; buildings use timber and the North American Squirrel is suffering. In which scenario are you more surprised? In which scenario were you given the most choice about how you can interact with the group; apply your own standards of behavior or what to expect? In which scenario are you better equipped to object ("we care about the wellbeing of squirrels, but your case is driven by a flimsy ideological argument that has little to do with the shared values!")
In which scenario are you more likely to seek external help from an authority; because it is trivial to identify the extremism is out of place? This is my point - having no stated ethics or CoC is objectively worse when radical/extremist viewpoints creep in due to malicious actors; vs at least publishing a basic standard. |
No it isn't. We all have to pay our taxes. PETA didn't have to pay Rod Coronado.
> I would argue you have this talking point because of a concerted media effort to brand things as "Eco-Terrorism"
They firebombed research facilities to effect ideological change.
This is the textbook definition of terrorism.
> In which scenario are you more surprised? In which scenario were you given the most choice about how you can interact with the group; apply your own standards of behavior or what to expect?
The problem is the very obvious Motte-and-bailey fallacy that you're falling for here, as so many people do.
You brought up NixOS earlier. I like NixOS. I fund some of the development. I attend some of the conferences and meetups.
Any reasonable person in the community would be against violence, I'm sure you'll agree. The last time I attended a NixOS conference, I saw many attendees with… Actually you know what, I've written about this before. You can read it if you wish, and you might then understand where I'm coming from.
https://jezenthomas.com/2024/11/I-feel-unsafe/