- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
Like y’all keep posting about it, praising it, giving it free advertisement, and what not.
But the dev is a fascist, the discord server is a fascist bar, and the project thus is fascist.
I’ve met people who were harassed, I browsed through now deleted messages of Vaxry using slurrs and more.
So I wonder is if the people who post constantly about it know and are complicit, or just don’t know and would act otherwise?
It gets tiring to see the project be given “fame” when I know the roots of the plants are founded in toxicity & abuse.
Because promoting hyprland is morally wrong? Its pretty simple
It is not tho
How much wrong does a person have to do for you to consider it morally wrong to promote the things they make?
It’s morally wrong to promote bad things, and morally good to promote good things.
Just because I admire the theories Isaac Newton came up with and I encourage others to learn about them does not mean I support everything Isaac Newton did, said or thought.
All of our society is built on the shoulders of giants who did a lot of “good” despite being, in most cases, “bad people”.
Thats a tangibly different example though right? Isaac Newton isn’t alive to benefit from your support so the moral downside is basically gone. If a modern genius was out here breaking new ground left and right in science but he was also a raging Nazi I certainly wouldn’t be promoting him and I’d be very wary of using any of his breakthroughs
However, let’s centre the conversation back on what it is: a flashy tiling window manager made by a bit of a knob
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.
Why is it wrong to promote the things a shitty person makes?
It’s FOSS, so using it doesn’t give them money. On the other hand, a user might voluntarily donate if they’re unaware.
One might claim they’re being given a platform in the community by people promoting their product, but on the other hand I hear more loudly that they’re toxic, fascist and banned from various places.
Anything else to add?
I don’t have a lot that I would add, but I would just assert that the “user might donate if they’re unaware” is a big enough reason on its own. Even if you promote it alongside a caveat mentioning the moral shortcomings, the people who start using it because of your promotion might also promote it, but there’s no guarantee they’ll keep the caveat (in fact I’d consider it likely that people who will use the product despite the caveat are exceptionally likely to neglect to mention anything in their promotion).
And to your second point I’d say that its pretty indisputable that they are being given a platform, as evidenced by the platform they have. It is a platform that is, as you mention, not subscribed to by a lot of people with a moral backbone, but it is significant.
If I had to give a one-liner for why it is bad to promote the things a shitty person makes, I’d say “its a bit of a Nazi bar thing”.
And in addition to that: It’s also kind of a big thing that they get an audience. The more people use the projects, the bigger the audience. They’ll get a Discord and people will join because of the project, people will start reading their blog because of the attention via the software… People will maintain and package their software, or use it, or contribute to it… Directly resulting in interactions with the group which develops a project. That’s a direct consequence of the project getting attention. And “promoting” is a way to draw attention.
The more people learn to drive, the bigger the chance they’ll get a private car, the more accidents, the more people will die. Thus: let’s recommend everyone to not learn to drive.
I feel this path is sort of a baby-sitting approach to recommendations. Not only do I have to know if the software if good before recommending it, I also have to research if there’s a chance that whoever I’m recommending it to might find a community somewhere for which they might lack enough critical thinking to judge on by themselves?
How about we recommend good software when it’s good while at the same time recommending good ideals / good thoughts when they are good?
How about we just tell the truth as is? I mean in your analogy… Would you recommend a faulty car with the same words you’d choose for a very nice one? Would you hide that the manufacturer does problematic things? I think the way you phrase it, has indeed some things in common for example with recommending a Tesla car these days. Generally, people don’t keep their mouth shut about who manufactures them. So yeah, I don’t think speaking the truth is babysitting at all… But of course you also don’t hide the fact that Hyperland exists and if it’s any good. I’d advocate for just stating the facts. As an added bonus, everyone can then go ahead and make that desicion themselves. I mean I personally wouldn’t buy a Swasticar. I have less objections using Hyprland. But I always try to give these kind of info out as well, if someone asks me about software. Because I think it’s kind of important if a project is healthy, has a nice community etc. I think the comparison with driving cars falls a bit short, since we don’t recommend people shouldn’t use any desktop. It’s fine to use one. And it’s also fine to drive a car. You should just be aware of the consequences. And in fact I think it’d be beneficial if we were to drive less cars, for several reasons.
Those are both great points, thanks for explaining.
No worries I’m glad we could discuss it in a way that was helpful!
My morals come from my religion and not from some arbitrary standards set by a Western supremacist, who thinks their culture is superior to everyone else and the rest of the world is “primitive”. Promoting a tool by itself is not morally wrong. It seems like some people have a very low opinion about other people. They think that others will not be able to differentiate between a tool and the morals of its makers. I am sorry that I have a much higher opinion about adults.
Who is the Western supremacist in this scenario and what relationship do they have to morality? Kinda makes or breaks your whole argument