Jon Pretty

And everyone should attack racist and sexist ideas. They don't have a place in the Scala community or anywhere. But we don't defeat bad ideas by attributing them to the nearest lightning rod and attacking him as if he's a valid personification of them, when really he's not.

I've seen it suggested John is a "Nazi-sympathizer" recently. This is bad enough, but what saddens me more is seeing people I respect, and who know better replying, liking, but passing over the chance to offer a correction; out of convenience. It's a first-degree lie of omission.

Instead, attack the ideas themselves. Argue against racism, against sexism. Argue against homophobia and transphobia. If you're employing such weak proxies for those things as John de Goes, your zeal is doing a disservice to your cause. It is not getting you closer to your goals.

People have asked me before, "why defend John?" My goal is not to defend John. I only want to do what I can to uphold the values I believe are important in the Scala community. For me, that means condemning any injustice to @Ryan_Signify or John, and equally to Jamie Allen too.

I don't see a meaningful difference between inviting a racist speaker and not rescinding that invitation once you become aware they are racist. Your wording suggests that LC was never aware of who moldbug was, which is false.

Maybe there's not a huge meaningful difference, but the problem is this moral equivalence gets applied more than once. Is there a meaningful difference between inviting one racist speaker and inviting five?

Is there a difference between a conference with five racist speakers, and a racist conference? Is there a difference between an organiser of a racist conference and a racist organiser of a conference? IS there a difference between a racist organiser and a nazi?