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Comment by bdsa | Hacker News Reader

(On reflection, this is irrelevant.)

What's uncomfortable about it? Good people will have different opinions than you on controversial issues. Understanding that is the cornerstone of a tolerant liberal society.

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Wow. Skimming through that article, the articles linked at the bottom and some of Jeff’s comments and replies to the articles, he comes across way more hardcore and intense than the chill, wholesome guy I’m used to seeing. The stuff I just read was from over a decade ago, so maybe he’s changed, or maybe the only thing that’s changed is how outspoken he is about this. I like Jeff’s work, this bums me out.

Do you know which article did the OP link? They've edited their comment.

Most likely one of the blog posts I wrote in the early 00s about abortion.

I started writing my blog in 2004, and decided to leave up almost everything from the earliest days when it was on Xanga, then Thingamablog (SSG before it was cool!), and now Drupal.

Unlike most people, I'd rather be an open book. I figure intelligent people can understand how something written in high school/college days two decades ago can reflect on personality, while also understanding that those words are likely not the same words the person would write today.

It's also why I leave up my very early YouTube videos. It's not like everyone who has seen some success in their 30s/40s popped out of the womb the way they are today!

Thanks for your reply. I'm curious to know if your views have changed in the years/decade(s) since. (I'm asking specifically because there appear to be a few logical flaws in some of the arguments in one of your blog posts from 2009, at the risk of going significantly off topic for this HN thread)

Not only is it off-topic, but I don't think anyone is likely to learn anything interesting from a reply, and the most likely outcome is an abortion-related flamewar.

I don't agree with Jeff's 2009 views on abortion, but it's not really relevant to the work he's done here, and neither is whether or not he's changed his mind in any way about it.

I mostly agree with your point about it being off topic. However I wonder what decides what’s the threshold to separate the art from the artist metaphorically speaking. Not that I don’t think the different shades of grey shouldn’t be discussed in general, but if this was someone else with more controversial issues (eg Stallman) the discussion would be different, and some/many wouldn’t have considered that off topic to the discussion. Anyway, such things are fortunately not critical. (Fwiw I’m not particularly for or against what Jeff has written from an ideological view)

Before clicking on the link I thought you meant he was writing articles on Ansible and putting his non-Ansible opinions in the same articles. I have no problem with him writing his thoughts on his blog, whether they are on Ansible, abortion, or anything else.

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