>Ethics matter. I don't believe there's any life after this one, but I find myself ruminating on what I've done. In 2015, 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. In retrospect, he was harmless, but an example had to be made. The decision was made to ban him here, try to get him fired though I don't know if we succeeded, and attack him with sockpuppets on Reddit, and it seems to have worked because you don't hear his name much.

What have you done since then to mitigate this very egregious harm?

I have not found your success, and I suspect it's because I too am "anti-authoritarian" -- I had folks try to convince me to do "scholarshop for service" and act like I was crazy when I expressed worry if the presidency went from D to R, someone might do crazy shit like initiate a government shutdown making it impossible to fulfull my service, and then I'd get a bill for a degree I didn't want.

https://cyberscoop.com/government-shutdown-cybersecurity-wor...

In fact, every prediction I made about creeping authoritarianism down to a member of the national guard being shot dead outside where I used to toil away as a public interest lobbyist has come true.

I'm having one of the worst emotional nights of my life tonight -- and maybe I'll regret this post, but why do you feel you're in any way good, to put your boot on on the necks of others then say all the right things at the last second to ease your conscience while those of us who actually acted in the public interest are harassed and abused?