Thank you for the well-written post, it's really cleared things up for me!

On a side note: I can't understand why posts like this get flagged all the time, especially since the author did not express support for either side. It's a shame to see communities divided for political reasons, with people outright rejecting anything someone with opposite political views has relationships with, as if it were "contaminated". We end up becoming racists ourselves, even if someone's views are clearly wrong.

Any thoughts on this?

>A notable far-right presence inevitably results in the community becoming repulsive to a large part of its core audience. It’s happened on Usenet, DC++, IRC, Skype, PHPbb forums, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, and it will keep happening in the future.

I read most of the article, nodding along, till I got to the above part when it finally started talking about topics I know quite a bit about. The idea that usenet, IRC, all PHPbb forums, etc, became repulsive due to far right presence is simply false. Usenet was killed by the RIAA/MPAA. IRC is alive and well (and libera (the largest network) is extremely liberal but still tolerates opposing views as any healthy community should).

It makes me question what other falsehoods the author is so boldly and confidently stating due to lack of lived experience. We should keep in mind this article a meta-review rather than direct information.

This is a surprising read. I recently listened to Lex Fridman’s 6+ hour conversation with DHH, and don’t recall any mention of white nationalism, eugenics, or far-right adjacent topics. In 6 hours DHH presented himself as a passionate, opinionated, and intensely intelligent programmer & product builder.