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Comment by tmp_throwaway_q | Hacker News Reader

Gotta be honest, this seems like making a mountain out of a molehill. Yeah, DHH is an awful person. His endorsement was removed from the page pretty quickly, but of course not fast enough to avoid the social media mob handing down their verdict upon the thankless maintainers. I sympathize with the Neovim developer in that thread, the driveby Github commenters with seemingly no other involvement in the project are some of the least well-socialized people alive.

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The social media mob descended because one of the neovim maintainers was immediately actively hostile and defensive in the github issue, accusing the person who opened the issue to be making "demands" and "threats" (when there were no such demands or threats).

If the first reply on that issue was, "sure, you're right, could you submit a PR to remove it from the website", or even "this isn't important to me but I can see why this might turn people away, let's remove it", then there wouldn't have been any kind of drama.

Actually calling someone a nazi for opposing mass immigration is certainly a choice, but it's not one we should be rewarding with deference. It carried an implicit threat, and the github issue was a form of triangulation intended to force others to take a position on something they're not party to.

I've never liked DHH, but as far as I can tell, he's neither a white supremacist or a nazi. I'm also not the viewpoint police, and I have zero trust or patience for anyone that tries to be.

To be fair, it’s not hard to say “white supremacy is bad and I’m not cool with it”

It took me only 10 seconds to write.

It's also hard to stay cool and agree with the mob dogpiling you over (tbh) a triviality. Anyone who's had to have difficult conversations in the real world knows that. I'm not going to expect people to respond in the best way to such things (easy to project this expectation when you're an anonymous name in the crowd, though).

There wasn't dogpiling at first. The maintainer was the first person to reply to the initial issue report, and they were dismissive, defensive, and accused the person who opened the issue of bad faith.

All of that was uncalled-for and unnecessary, and then the dogpiling started.

I still don’t understand how quoting something that someone said about Neovim means that you support Nazism, just because said person happened to be a Nazi.

> only 10 seconds to write

I'm White (99.44% pure Celtic-British Isles), and I type 100wpm. Isn't it ironic.

To be fair, it’s not hard to say “grooming children is bad and I’m not cool with it”

It took me only 10 seconds to write.

In this case, all evidence points to the lead maintainer sympathizing with DHH's views. If his immediate hostility towards someone politely suggesting the removal of DHH's endorsement didn't make his stance clear enough, here's an archive of his previously public YouTube playlist titled "history," full of talks from far right ideologues like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin.

https://archive.is/3cNBr

The relatively small core team has a member giving talks about Neovim at DHH's conference and another one prominently displaying Palantir as their employer in their GitHub profile.

It's clear where their sympathies lie, and that GitHub issue wasn't a one-off coming from a stressful online interaction.

I'm not gonna gather 'evidence' for or against what some guy who happens to maintain a text editor I use thinks about the issues of the day. It's just creepy behavior, and a huge violation of personal boundaries. Why do you think this is an acceptable thing to do? Go outside.

Regardless, the material you've posted doesn't indicate much about him to me beyond that we have political differences, which is okay. That's literally fine. It's definitely not enough to condemn someone as a Nazi sympathizer.

Before telling someone to "go outside," it's a good idea to make sure that you haven't written an entire paragraph filled with personal attacks using fresh throwaway accounts.

The things I listed are very public, each of which has raised very public concern. I didn't have to "collect" anything because the Neovim team already had a reputation for such things.

You may think the issues being raised are just "political differences." Enough people clearly see it differently. For many, the things DHH, Yarvin, and Thiel stand for crosses many lines. White supremacy, mass surveillance, or the destruction of democratic institutions aren't "fine." There's nothing more "creepier" than the ethnic targeting of people that Palantir enables.

Sorry, no, stalking people online is downright off-putting to anyone from the real world. Having non-political endorsements from people you (and, if you believe it, I) deeply dislike doesn't warrant this kind of treatment. You've simply worked yourself into a froth to justify doing it to someone you really don't know. What right have you to be 'concerned' about the Youtube videos someone watches in their private life? This is normal only to the social-media-mob-socialized.

This sort of runaway justification is a very common pattern from the self-righteous, across the political spectrum. It's why I need to use a throwaway to talk about these issues, even with people I ultimately agree with. Consider carefully how few hearts you've changed with this strategy.

So, yeah, I reiterate: go outside! Smell the roses! I'll follow my own advice, at this point.

What's off-putting is publishing a white suprematist course compilation on social media. Calling backlash against that "stalking" is utterly bizarre and detached from any actual meaning of the word.

Way back in junior high school our teacher showed us Adolf Hitler's speeches. Do you think she was actually a secret nazi preying on impressionable youths?

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