Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
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I refuse to use the Brave browser, and I was prepared to abandon Firefox, over then-CEO Brendan Eich's $1000 donation in support of California's proposition 8 (banning same-sex marriage). I will never forgive the supporters of that proposition. I will not knowingly support their businesses.
I've lost all respect for Scott Adams (of the Dilbert comic strip) and Kelsey Grammar (Frasier actor). Their continued support for Donald Trump is damning.
I specifically had Grammer in mind in the last sentence of my reply. Such a shame :(
What did Brave do to you?
My problem is with Brendan Eich.
Honestly, there is so much art and so many services and tools out there, that I try to avoid sending money towards ones made by shitty people.
I loved HP as a kid, but I'm not going to support JKR's dullard takes on trans people. It's clear she knows literally nothing beyond what her transphobic friend and their wine club "LGB Alliance" of straight white women tell her, but she still feels the need to parrot it online in front of millions of people. And guess what? There are other books about magic out there.
In terms of my judgement criteria, it's not some fixed system, but my 2 main considerations are:
Generally-speaking, if either of those can be answered with "A lot", I avoid it.
So for instance, in the case of Hogwarts: Legacy, while JKR wasn't responsible for making the product almost at all, she publicly indicated that she was making a lot of money from it, so I did not purchase it.
Ditto for AWS; once I was able to afford a cheap refurb server, I shut down my AWS accounts and been self-hosting everything.
Very similar to how I view it. I will also add that if they have a platform and use it for terrible things, then that also comes into play.
Quite a bit as I've always found it difficult to separate the artist from the art.
I've never read any of HP (it was "witchcraft" and "of the devil" when I was growing up in the bible belt lol), but all the unenlightened opinions from JKR really don't inspire me to give her any of my money, so I doubt I'll be reading it just to see what all the fuss was about.
Even shows/books that I used to like, once I learn the author / actor / whatever is kind of a trash person, it just ruins the experience for me.
As many have said there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and you can't know everything about everyone, so no matter what you're going to end up supporting something unethical at some point.
That being said, all I can do is act on the information I have, and when I learn about some situation like this, I don't have an easy answer or decision flow chart. But I do ask myself two questions.
How much will my support enable more of the behaviour I find abhorrent? And how much will the knowledge ruin my appreciation of the thing?
I cannot read Ender's Game even though I always meant to since I found out about Orson Scott Card's politics about ten years back. And while there's (somehow) way, way worse people out there the knowledge, especially the holocaust denial, just ruins any enjoyment I could get from the books or movies, regardless of any separate-art-from-artist arguments.
But I am a huge Lovecraft fan, and he was also just the worst. But the guy's dead, it doesn't matter if I buy his books or not. And even then despite his popularity across Geekdom he's a relatively niche author. His views aren't going to reach a lot of people.
I think this works out differently if the creator is someone current and powerful or influential. If we can blunt the impact of a popular creator spreading toxic views that prevents a lot more bad than than the same frome someone dead or niche. Even if that's only lack of support, that's still more.
I guess what I'm saying it is has less to do with the details of the bad views or actions, and more about much my support helps enable those. The less I contribute by watching or buying or clicking, the less I'm concerned about it. Unless it just personally bothers me.
I don't know if that's the right answer but it's the one I've got right now
Well let me just help you about Ender there - imagine an akschyaly clever kid, fedora wearing, huffing their own farts while being annoying on twitter and trying to suck their own dick all day. The image is a pimply kid almost reaching their dick, the cum blasts past their face and hits mein kampf on the spine, the kid goes into a crying diatribe about something.
I think that's about it really, might have missed a part of the plot
I think it's a little silly for anyone to grandstand on self-important moralistic consumption, because you can't be a consumer of most things in the US without contributing to evil labor practices on some level.
Nearly everyone owns a computer or cell phone, and those are all produced with parts sourced unethically on some level or labor that is impoverished in a more remote or regressive part of the world.
And some artists are so incredibly good it's impossible to ignore the quality even with their questionable morals, like Michael Jackson or Salvador Dali for example.
Everyone should make an effort to be mindful of their consumption, in my opinion, but I will always roll my eyes at people who are preachy about it. As some have mentioned, the secondary market is a great thing for trying to manage the problematic side of things, and even better, you're upcycling when you by used.
I am a very "death of the artist" kind of guy, but I won't give my money to people will will use it for evil. So while I'm perfectly happy to, say, buy a Roman Polanski movie secondhand, I'm not going to purchase a new copy.
As much as I resent it being the way of things, money is power under capitalism. Where possible, I try not to cede mine to people looking to do nefarious things or disseminate shitty ideals. While I don’t have much personally and Kant was a pretentious douche canoe, I’m still idealistically partial to the universal maxim.
Yeah, no ethical consumption under capitalism or whatever but we can try not to prop up people who are brazenly making the world shittier. Thinking our actions don’t matter is how we get complacency.
A lot. Also, thanks for the heads-up on Kagi. Anybody have recommendations for a privacy-respecting search engine that isn't run by chuds? Paid is fine as long as it doesn't suck.
Its tricky, because how much do I really know about people's views who I've never met? Especially more famous people who might just be crafting a public image. They might be hiding aspects of thier views that are bad publicity, or just being controversial to drum up attention.
First off, the kagi news is a bummer. I've really liked it and picked up a subscription mostly because of some buzz I saw around here, but seeing this news is a shame and setting up some red flags in my mind.
But to answer your question, I think I personally have a couple ways I approach this...
If the evidence someone is transphobic, racist, etc...is from a long time ago (eg someone is digging up ancient tweets to prove someone is some sort of "-ist" today), I tend to give them more grace because people should be allowed to change. I know I didn't have great views on some of this stuff when I was younger and it's easy to forget these celebrities/people in power are fallible human beings. I'll take their response to unearthing these views as a sign of whether or not they're worth supporting going forward. If they're regretful and seem like they're trying to do better, I'm good. The kagi creator seems to not pass this standard for me.
If it's something I want to use/consume and it could impact more than just the individual. JK Rowling is a good example of this. I'd struggle to want to buy any of her books again because I see a clearer line of sight from my purchase to her pocket. But something like Hogwarts Legacy, which I knew I would enjoy and my wife would love, and is made by many people with a passion for her world, I'm OK with it. The line to Rowling is a lot blurrier and impacts people who don't have a say in what project(s) they work on.
It's also easier to ignore or skip smaller scale things like an indie game from a deplorable developer vs. the next Marvel/HP/insert your beloved franchise game from someone equally deplorable. None of this is ever perfect and time and attention are finite resources for all of us. If Harry Potter is how you need to unwind because it's your favorite thing, more power to you. It's not my job nor anyone else's to police the things you like or make you feel bad for liking them.
We should all do our best to try and support good people in a system that incentivizes bad people and give ourselves some grace when we (seemingly inevitably these days) find out those people were actually scum.
I think there's something to be said about timeframe even for individuals who held deplorable views. Purchasing art from a dead artist doesn't go to supporting their life or spreading their shitty viewpoint - instead it will go to a company which holds the rights or an estate which benefits the family. Unless we happen to know the company/estate is deplorable in some way or another, we shouldn't judge them based on the connection with the original artist - after all we don't get to choose our parents and may not hold the same views they do.
100%. And going down that path you can start to enter into the whole "OK, so all companies are bad or do bad things, but I also need to be a functioning member of society."
I can hate what Shell/Marathon/BP are doing to the environment but I also need to make sure my car gets me to work. Google or Apple can enact terrible policies I disagree with but generally speaking I have to deal with them to have a cell phone. Easier when we're discussing a piece of artwork (not a core need in life) but it's where my comment about a system that incentivizes "bad people" really came from.
So I think my moral philosophy is actually closest to show The Good Place now that I see it written out!
Kagi is hard because it is so very much better than any alternative I have tried. I don’t like the guy’s views but it would substantially impact something I do for work and pleasure dozens of times every day to give it up, so I’m really struggling with that.
I generally avoid giving meaningful contributions to chuds when possible. I was considering getting a Kagi subscription before, but upon seeing this that is no longer the case.
Have you boycotted JKR
I was never a Harry Potter fan to begin with, but if I were then I would be, yeah.
or dropped your opinion about Picasso
I don't expect people who died centuries ago to be woke, so probably not. That someone like Picasso would be racist/sexist/queerphobic is a default assumption for me, so that already lowkey colors my perception of them when analyzing their work.
Is it about the general vibe of a product or piece of media, or are you more discerning? What goes into this decision and why?
It's about applying pressure to provoke capitulation. I want to make clear to both them and everyone watching that being a dipshit in such a way will cost them resources and reputation. This is less effective when the creator is dead, though, so I'm not particularly concerned about their art.
Picasso actually died in 1973, but yeah, still decades ago.
TIL. He's a lot more recent than I thought.
This actually reminds me of my favourite Pablo Picasso quote. (Note: I don't really know anything about Picasso, so take that with a grain of salt)
In the New York Times in 1969 (https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/07/21/90114401.html?pageNumber=6), when asked about the moon landing, he said "It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it, and I don't care".
Certainly. There's a big difference between me giving cash and uplifting someone who is actively harming people today, and supporting a dead man's art.
Of course remember there's nuance as well. It doesn't cost me much to stop interacting with JKR's output, but buying quality shoes that don't in some way support sweatshop owners or fast fashion represents a significant time/money investment on my part.
And if there's something important for my health than it goes right out. idk, maybe Dr. Scholl was there on Jan 6 and I was prescribed those Dr. Scholl's foot goobers by a podiatrist, I'm not going to quibble too much.
Which ties in to the privilege of being socially conscious. It costs me nonzero money and energy that some might not have to do all of these things. I cannot blame or fault the person who works at Chick-fil-A paying rent, even if their work supports CFA.
A creator’s worldview influences me a whole lot on whether I’ll use their stuff or not. I don’t think we can afford the luxury of supporting jerks anymore. There’s just too much shit going on. Consuming is voting. That’s the rational part. The affective part is that when I learn that the creator’s a jerk, I just don’t feel like engaging with their stuff anymore. It’s basically a turn off for me.
The kagi controversy is unfortunate. I’ve been considering biting the bullet, but there’s no way I’m paying for a search engine I don’t feel good about. Also I very naively didn’t realize until now kagi was just aggregating Google, Yandex or whatever, stripping the advertisement rot and applying some extra magic. Won’t they get the rug pulled right from under them the second they reach any sort of relevance?
My.limit is where the utility provided is less than the annoyance I get from the creator. JKR is immensely annoying, far more than I enjoy their work so they will never see a dime out of me. Melon husk is a shit head and not entertaining so they don't get my money or content and so on. But Google gets some data out of me since they don't literally shitpost in my general direction about their opinions on people different from them.
If I know who the CEO is there is already a problem at the company level. If I care about who the CEO is, there is a MASSIVE issue for the company as I am many times more likely to make a decision based on who they hired rather than the quality of any product. The same goes for arts.
The only thing that's changed about artists and people in power is that we now know a lot more about their beliefs and personal lives than we used to. One thing that hasn't changed is that everybody has skeletons in their closet and is the hero in their own story.
As such, and given that I don't seek out salacious details about people I'll never meet, so long as their irrelevant-to-the-content/product personal views don't filter into what they produce, I tend to be unaware of anything else about them.
There are of course exceptions, with Musk being at the top of the list. But as I'm not in an income bracket that would let me avail myself of any of his products, it's still largely irrelevant.
And the further back you go in someone's history to find dirt, the more likely they've changed. I'd hate to be judged now by some of my early columns in college when I was in my edgy atheist libertarian raver phase, so I'm inclined to give others a pass on adolescent musings.
With more recent stuff, as people let more of their personality into their crafted public personas, it's not all that difficult to deduce whether their worldview is going to be offensive. But commerce overall is not about whether I'd enjoy grabbing a beer with someone so much as whether their product fulfills a need.
It depends. People are allowed to have their own opinions as far as I'm concerned.
If their products are good, I see no reason why I shouldn't use them. Even if I don't agree with said opinion.
However, if they are actively making the world a shittier place for others, then I start to have a problem with them.
Like JKR not being pro-trans is just her opinion. And as far as I know, she hasn't gone on a crusade against anyone yet.
But Blizzard encouraging the sexual harrasment of it's female employees is a totally different beast. And I didnt feel right keeping supporting them.
But it's a line everyone has to figure out for themselves.
Like JKR not being pro-trans is just her opinion. And as far as I know, she hasn’t gone on a crusade against anyone yet.
using a large public platform to disseminate the same kinds of anti-trans arguments currently being used by bigots to draft legislation putting trans people at risk is not just an opinion. like, it isn't a crusade, but when there is a crusade going on and you're saying the same thing the crusaders are saying, its not a good look.
I'm not really up to date on JKR to be honest. It was mostly an example of someone who was asked her opinion, gave it and it pissed people off enough for it to become an issue.
There's a reason we shouldn't look to celebrities for answers or anything other than the entertainment they supply.
That's a really hard question for me. It's mostly a feeling more than a science so it becomes a bit hard to lay it down rationally and I know that doing that will result in weird inconsistencies but if I had to define it, it's probably these three things.
I find myself thinking that if I associate a particular piece of art as the vision of a single person rather than a collective work, I tend to be more critical of that art or product. Rationally speaking, I know Kagi is made by more than one person and I know the same to be true of Brave but the fact that I strongly associate both to, in my view, very concrete people whose ideology is very clearly shown in the product, it becomes very hard for me to dissociate the product from supporting that person. Of course, if the vibe of the product or art is off, I just don't want to indulge with it - it's essentially an instant turn off. Sometimes it's just a little thing but it lives rent free in my mind.
If the person that has an influence is dead, well, I don't have a feeling of contribution to something bad and I might overlook that dislike for the author.
If I don't need it and I don't vibe with the author, well, I won't buy it. There's better things out there. On the other hand, if I have no option but to use that product, I might swallow my pride.
When it comes to creative stuff (non-essential goods), I try to only support people with good conscience.
I have cut Netflix because of what the CEO has said. I have boycotted Ubisoft and Activision games because of the continued harassment issues in the company.
There are things I want to watch or play. But if this means supporting shitty people, I would instead prefer to use those resources to support the people I like. After all, its not like there are lack of entertainment in this world.
For essential goods (supermarket chains, goods made in less developed countries with labour issues, etc.), I am less strict because....well sometimes they are impossible to avoid.
It doesn't effect my decision on what to buy or watch. Like I can't buy chocolate or just basic groceries without supporting slavery so if some person is a massive asshole it would just be hypocritical to boycott them and not the million worse things that you are basically required to monetarily support just to survive.
I'd probably be more selective if I was rich but I don't have the time or money to fuss about that.
So instead you do nothing? How is that remotely rational?
There's nothing I can do unless I want to become a hunter gatherer. For example if I want to boycott companies that profit from and enable slavery I would need a lot of research time and more money just for basic groceries which I don't have, that alone brings infinitely more harm to the world than watching content made by some asshat. It's the phenomenon of no ethical consumption under capitalism.
I do things though as in I'm a member of a local anarchist group and we do political work for candidates that are willing to push our ideas. A lot of that is support for affordable locally sourced food and clothes as well as cooperative business models. I see that as having much more impact than any boycott which are usually useless.
It's the phenomenon of no ethical consumption under capitalism.
I know that saying and in my experience it's handwaving, lazy bullshit.
Let's say your daily routine included buying a snuff film about shooting three people and buying groceries at a megacorp store that mistreats it's employees. How would stopping to buy the snuff films not be a morally good thing even tho you continue shopping at that store? No one in their right mind would then say you are a hypocrite for not buying murder movies.
I'm not saying it's not morally good, that's not what no ethical consumption under capitalism means. It means there's no way around doing infinitely more harm by living than the harm you do by watching any media.
Also the analogy works better if by buying groceries you are supporting the creation of like 1000 snuff films a minute but you sometimes watch a movie directed by a sexist asshole. Sure, you can stop watching the movies but morally it's a drop in an ocean of wrong.
there’s no way around doing infinitely more harm by living
morally it’s a drop in an ocean of wrong.
Then why did you bother joining your co-ops? Why bother engaging with local political candidates? Why bother with locally-sourced food and clothing? Isn't it just delusion to fight against an infinite foe?
I think the answer is that you don't truly believe what you're telling us. I think you pretend to be a Friedrich Nietzsche nihilist because that suits the aesthetics of anarchy, but deep down you're a Victor Frankl nihilist. Just like the rest of us, you want to put one more drop in the bucket because whether or not it makes a difference to the cosmos, it makes a difference to you.
I wish cooperative businesses were common here and I would like to work for one which is why I'm in a group that advocates for them, it's not a moral question, same with the other stuff. It also can and has had a real world effect(We helped push free public transit through) while consumer boycotts almost never do which is why morality doesn't play a part in my buying decisions. I'd like to focus on things that can help more than just make me feel good.
Also nihilism is fucking retarded, I'm not sure why you are attributing that to me. It's the 14y olds philosophy that just wants to be edgy.
Also nihilism is fucking [redacted], I’m not sure why you are attributing that to me.
To recap:
There’s nothing I can do unless I want to become a hunter gatherer. [...] there’s no way around doing infinitely more harm by living [...] morally it’s a drop in an ocean of wrong. [...] it’s not a moral question, same with the other stuff
If you had just said that you don't bother boycotting because your effort is currently being spent in more productive activities, then I would've given an upvote and left. But that's not exactly what you said. You said that any attempt at improving society through personal morality (short of removing yourself from it) is pointless due to the scale of the harm society inflicts. Even if you didn't mean it, that's what you stated, so that's the point I've been disagreeing with over here.
The stance that personal morality should have no place in the shaping of society (and that the common man's fight to improve society is irrelevant and naive due to the scale of the ultimate victory of the strong over the weak) is a paraphrasing of Nietzsche's disavowal of "slave morality." The stance that a person should only advocate for things that help them personally is a paraphrasing of Nietzsche's ideal of "master morality." If you don't want people associating you with that philosophy, you should be careful not to repeat it.
Sorry, if I came off as too agro, I really hate nihilism.
It wouldn't be entirely true to say I don't do boycotts because I'm busy doing other things, a more accurate reason would be twofold:
Consumer boycotts are notoriously ineffective and almost never have any results.
Morally it's only harm reduction, you aren't doing good, but avoiding doing something bad, on a scale where the reduction is insignificant.
Even if the stars aligned I probably wouldn't do boycotts for those reasons, I prefer actions that bring about good results if I choose to do something.
How much does a creator's worldview influence whether you use their tech or consume their media?
Depending on what we call "worldview"... either 0%, or 100%.
In this particular case:
SearXNG
SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled.
Kagi
Kagi Inc. is a company [...]
Google, Bing, etc.
How much does their respective owner's worldview matter to me?
As for art, my opinion of the art doesn't change whether I think the artist is a great or a horrible person; doing otherwise would be either dishonest... or imply the art can't stand on by itself (I call that kind of art "trash", no matter the author).
Not at all. I'm a user of the product/service, not the creators friend or even acquaintance. If their product sucks, I'm more apt to speak against that. If the persons worldview sucks, that's their problem; so long as it does not infect their tech or media. If/when it does, that's a different aspect.
ever since kagi expressed that they're not interested in caring about the effect of LLMs on the environment (https://kagifeedback.org/d/2425-would-love-to-see-a-blog-post-about-how-kagi-views-the-environmental-impact-of-ai-and-the-ethics-of-how-llms-are-trained/2), i had already hopped off because i could see their talk about "making the world a more humane place" was just talk. so i'm not really surprised to see this shit unfolding either
i'm surprised to see that the dude who replied on my post is actually the kagi guy, though. that's surprising, i took him for some q&a support mod lmao
but yea i'm trans so i do my best not to support transphobic (or otherwise bigoted) people. seems like it's in my best interest y'know. and sometimes i don't know! i was pretty excited for kagi at first blush, it's really a shame they're not worth the time or effort
I don't care if the creator is racist, sexist an asshole or whatever. I only care that their vision for the product aligns with what I want from the product.
Zero. Influencer has a negative connotation to me. I associate it with shock media, cringe, and self-centered hubris. At best it's a production, meant to create a persona and a market around that.
I don't want to be influenced, I want to experience art, story, kindness, food, the world all more holistically than through a screen.
@Gaywallet I think it all comes down to personal values. For example, I just cannot see myself having an account on Lemmy because the creators are apologists for a terrible, criminal regime, that is responsible for the death of thousands of people in my country and for affecting the lives of many in a negative way.
I participate in Lemmy communities like here on Beehaw with my Friendica account, but that's it.
If someone would be an apologist for Russia, again, I would likely not use their product. And if I would know that their product is reflecting their worldview in any way, would not be vital and would have an alternative from a creator whose moral views align more to mine, I would switch away as well.
As for the media some producer makes (e.g. music, video), I think it depends on what the message these creations send. The creator's views I think matter less unless it's reflected in their creation.
Edit/on a side note: As an unpopular opinion, I think the cancel culture does exist, but not to the extent the far right likes to tout. Sometimes people are just being enraged for the most mundane stuff and this creates a lot of unnecessary drama and makes everyone fail to see the forest by the trees. If people would more emphasize the fact that they do not like a certain service because it doesn't align their values, then it would sound way more different.
I'm probably subjective on this too though, things might be different and I might be wrong. But that's how I see things.
not a bit.