I'll freely admit I'm having a hard time articulating why this article bothers me the way it does. It is in no small part because I think Sam's muddied the water, but also because I think I'm not great at having this kind of debate.

I'm not advocating against holding wrong or ignorant ideas. And you should be able to say whatever you want in a rational debate. Free speech, however, doesn't absolve you from the consequences of exercising that free speech. It does not shield you from criticism. Holding a bad idea has no consequences. Saying it out loud, like your grandpa at a gun range, does not always have consequences. But it sometimes does, and then we call it hate speech. Your grandpa can say racist things, but you can criticize his ideas.

Some ideas can be hateful, or dangerous, or oppressive, or all of the above, when said or spread or empowered. Some ideas can incite violence or harassment. Those consequences cannot be ignored. Sam wants the consequences and criticisms to go away, though, because it might lead to innovation. The ends (innovation) justify the means.

And Sam has quite the means. The thing I didn't touch on earlier is that he also wants to fund those people. That is about as empowering as it gets. It sends a signal that the consequences of the damage people have wrought doesn't matter. It says that the plight of minorities can be ignored if it might enable some racist alt-right doxxer to come up with an innovative idea, and that rubs me the wrong way.

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b_b, it was a rhetorical question. I brought up slavery solely an example of a damaging, oppressive idea that I think is being put in the same bucket as 'weird startup ideas' by Sam - as if ethics doesn't matter. I mean, imagine if in the list of wacky ideas like radical life extension, he'd brought up slavery. "We have a startup that's working on radically low labor cost! They're getting a lot of flak for it though. I wish here in SF they weren't attacked for their controversial idea. Man, people are toxic."