> I had a lot of interaction with a startup incubator you know well, and ended up sitting in the discussions and planning around banning and erasing a young programmer we considered a threat to our financial interests, due to his concerns about authoritarianism in technology.

And… this wasn’t immediately seen as being deeply unethical and downright evil? Most of the western world punched Nazis on purpose 80 years ago… that doesn’t get to stop, because authoritarianism never goes away.

>In retrospect, he was harmless, but an example had to be made.

Wow. Just… wow. To destroy a life simply because of greed and because a person’s passion of fighting evil made you uncomfortable.

You need to understand you are very much the bad guy, here.