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Yeah, I've been thinking about this lately.. I guess no one is perfect and not immune to pressure, manipulation or emotions. Timothy C May called for the extermination of Jews and blacks, does that mean his Crypto Anarchists Manifesto is invalidated?

Garbage nsec 4d ago 💬 1

Some people say you should treat the ideas as having emerged from some platonic space and it doesn't matter who went into that space and plucked them out, you should judge the ideas on their merit alone.

I think the opposite, Timothy C May and Noam Chomsky both sound like total douchebags in real life, I'm happy to ignore anything they've said based solely on the fact that they seem like total douchebags. Other people who don't seem to be total douchebags have put the same general ideas in other words, I'm happy to take their phrasing instead.

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tree 木 4d ago 💬 1

I think what matters is what people actually do, not what they say online or who their friends are. I didn't know Timothy or Noam personally.

If we start dismissing ideas based on provocative statements or associations, we're heading nowhere. Everyone's got skeletons if you look hard enough.

I'd rather deal with people who are openly messy and expressive - at least you know what you're getting. Better than those who perform sainthood while doing the same shit behind closed doors.

Garbage nsec 4d ago 💬 1

Not saying dismiss their ideas. Just find other, better people who have articulated the same ideas and go with their articulation instead.

Yeah everyone's got skeletons, but you can kinda intuit who is really terrible behind closed doors and who is just minimally terrible.

tree 木 4d ago 💬 1

Where does it end though? Orwell had his skeletons. Should we stop quoting him too? This constant policing just means we're always searching for the next "clean" person to credit - until we discover their skeletons a few years later, then repeat the cycle.

It's exhausting. At some point we need to separate ideas from the messy humans who articulate them, or we're stuck in an endless purity spiral where nobody's ever good enough.

tree 木 4d ago 💬 1

TBH, maybe this is what's broken in current society. We've forgotten how to be human with each other. People make mistakes, have emotions, say stupid things - that's part of being alive.

This era is teaching us to behave like robots: always correct, always perfect, never wrong. But that's not how humans work. We need space to be messy, to fuck up, to learn. Cancel culture is just another form of control - instead of cops and bosses, now it's constant surveillance by everyone of everyone.

Maybe real freedom means accepting that people are flawed and forgiving them for being human.

Garbage nsec 4d ago 💬 1

I agree in general. Orwell I would say seemed a pretty decent guy as far as it goes, and I've no problem with forgiving people for saying stupid things, I agree with you we need much more of that.

But there is a line. Has to be. Timothy C. May was just completely bonkers unhinged, and Chomsky, being fully aware of the underage girls, I mean come on.

tree 木 4d ago

For me that line is probably different... it's being "evil" in a malicious or sadistic sense - actually causing harm to people, enjoying their suffering, deliberately destroying lives. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Putin - but not just mass murderers, also the everyday sadists and abusers who get off on hurting others.

Timothy C May was obviously intentionally provocative and later paranoid, but I don't believe he was evil in that sense. And that Chomsky became friends at his 84 years (!) with some malicious person - that doesn't prove anything about his life's work or ideas.

I really don't think this digging into people's pasts makes sense.