Since this thread seems to be locked, going to respond here: Framework supporting far-right racists?
@nrp, in all kindness: WTF?
I bought one of the original Framework laptops (1st gen FW 13), so I’ve been here since the beginning. I’ve recommended Framework to anybody who will listen - not because it’s the cheapest (it’s not), but because the concept of a laptop as repairable and upgradable as a desktop is *amazing*. It’s not the cheapest at the outset, but it can be the cheapest *over time*.
But I’m saying all of this to contextualize that I’ve been here since day 1 (as a customer, obviously).
I’ve helped out on the forums a lot, especially in the initial days (life got in the way, as it so often does), so it’s not like I’m a stranger there either (again, contextualizing since some people will probably come @ me saying I haven’t been around recently).
You are making the classic assumption that a ‘big tent’ can include fascists and far-right racists, xenophobes, transphobes, and others without alienating normal people. It can’t. I’m sure you’ve heard of the parable of the Nazi bar, so I won’t repeat it here, but it’s a quick web search away if you’re not familiar.
It is easy to say, in theory, that we should all just get along. But what do you do when the others *don’t* want to coexist? There is a difference between “your tax policy sucks” and “trans people shouldn’t exist”, right? We can agree that those are two different kinds of statements. And I hoped we could agree that the latter kind of statement doesn’t *deserve* the same kind of credence we might give to the former. But your response suggests otherwise.
“Diversity of thought” only works when people’s basic existince isn’t being challenged. It’s for tax policy and monetary policy, not for transphobia and racism. If someone came up and said “I believe we should have slavery again, and you have to respect my opinion because of diversity of thought”, what would your response be? I *hope* it would be to say “Nah bro, all people deserve freedom”.
So if you’re *so* committed to a big tent, would you be okay with giving money to Andrew Tate, defending it the same way? Or the literal Proud Boys? Or, to put it another way, if an open source project you supported turned out to have a leader who is a member of Patriot Front or the Proud Boys, would you stop monetarily supporting them? I pick those orgs because they are self-identified neofascists.
The people defending DHH seem to not *want* to read the evidence, including his *own words*. The *best* defense could be that supporting the project doesn’t mean supporting *him*, but that falls apart immediately if he’s benefiting *at all* from that monetary donation (is he?).
The *only* way this works out IMO is if the money goes strictly to the *org* and none of the members individually benefit from that money. Maybe that’s the case here, IDK.
But honestly, the framing of the response was completely disheartening because it discards literally *all* of the lessons we should have learned from the way Trump and *self-described* white nationalists have risen to power. They did it by suggesting awful things and saying we *must* give them airtime because of “diversity of thought”. They did it by insisting that their lies are truths, that transphobia and racism and Islamophobia and all of the rest of it are acceptable.
The point is that whether or not DHH is personally racist or Islamophobic or transphobic or whatever is honestly not the point. If his statements could have come out of the mouth of someone in The Proud Boys or Patriot Front, then I don’t care what he believes in his heart of hearts. At best, he is spreading racist lies. At worst, he believes them.
It shouldn’t be hard to stop supporting people like him, and the fact that *this* was your first response is very telling. At best, this is complacency and a sense of having cornered the market (where *else* are you going to go for extensively repairable laptops?). At worst, this is you *actively* saying you will throw money at whomever, no matter *how* odious a character they are.
You might want to rethink this, just in terms of keeping your customers who aren’t facists.