Thread by @textfiles

So, I have 27,000 fine folks or identifying-as-folks in my twitter follower count. The vast, vast, vast majority of you will not be affected by this specific drama one way or another. Regardless, I'm taking it as a teaching moment because I think there's something to be learned.

I've deleted a tweet I wrote endorsing a product. I mean, big deal, right? I was neither paid or compensated for the endorsement, it wasn't solicited - I just really appreciate good engineering, especially for a vanishingly small problem requiring ridiculously intense tools.

The actual technical accomplishment is truly a monument to engineering and a well-regarded arrival for a tiny, tiny audience. Oh, but what could the problem be.

Well, the problem is when the engineer's twitter is awash, really just riddled, with the sort of linkages to a whole range of troubling dog-whistles and direct paths to a pretty intense spectrum of race-baiting links, each of them leading down darker paths.

And it's super woven in there, like a wicker basket or marbling in a fatty steak - you kind of can't get the updates about the product without the links. This isn't like you chose to go to a party and the conversation got weird out on the deck. It's pretty much part of the deal.

So, what to do? Well, you could do what some number of people are doing, which is just kind of not pay too much attention to it, be a little disappointed, point out the strength of the product, and kind of keep on keeping on. Drama-averse, as they might be.

But then you have a missing stair thing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_s… - you get people wandering in going "hey, did everyone see what's going on over there?" and everyone could then explain that this is known but it's no big deal/handled/we don't have to deal with it, we're tiny.

That's, I guess, the fundamental question - can a social/subculture/hobby group be so small and so afraid of losing/turning off members that everyone just says that it doesn't matter how much of a path some members take as long as they don't bring it up in the main hangouts?

For me, it really comes down to how comfortable I am thinking it's "free speech" or "freedom" discussions when the framework of argument lies at what eventually becomes an analogue to the apparatus that wiped out a significant portion of my family tree.

So, I'm not buying the product, I'm not encouraging the purchase of it, and I'm not going to separate the work from the artist this time. It's just a little too close. I neither encourage nor discourage others to take the same path.

But I hope, in some way, and in other similar situations in other hobbies/groups/social realms, others at least give it the same thought as well. Thanks.