> Your loss.

Seems unlikely. I'd have read an argument but I don't generally consider links-to-youtube to be an argument.

> Is it that nobody should rely on people who have done something bad?

My point is it's not impossible to make ethical choices about spending, even in a world where you don't have full control.

The idea that it is wrong to make ethical decisions about how to spend your money, time or attention, either because the system we live in makes complete consistency impossible or because of some notion that we might force people judged as bad to starve, is just so bizarre.

A thread here the other day covered several brands of "Italian" or "Australian" tomato paste in Australia that have been caught using Chinese tomatoes, which are largely from areas we know use forced labour. I don't approve of forced labour and I'm willing to pay a little more to avoid contributing to that. If enough others join me, it might make a small difference. By directing what economic activity I can to products from nations with good standards of worker rights, I hope I help keep slavery-free products viable, until such time as we get a government with a backbone.

But am I boycotting everything made in China? Could I even conceptually avoid using all Chinese products when they're literally everywhere? No, that seems very unlikely to even be possible in this day and age. But I don't consider that the inability to do that negates the choices I make where I can. Your quote makes it seem like you do think that? All or nothing? Go live in a locally made yurt and grow your own food or just give up?

> If it is, then how should these condemned people live?

Well if there's no more profit to be had in selling the output of indentured servitude, it might stop? And these "condemned" people could do something else to make a living rather than being slavers?

If a particular author was known to be (for example) funding white supremacist groups, am I supposed to feel guilt that I might not buy their book? Why? They need to eat? Maybe they could stop the funding then?

Now, where your specific red lines are is going to be variable, and where it comes to artistic output things are always blurry. But I still don't think it's wrong to ask "Where is my money going? What second order effect is this purchase having on the world?"

An author who abandoned his family and lied about large parts of his life is clearly not a good person. Whether that puts you off reading them is up to you. I still (occasionally) reread HP Lovecraft, with the knowledge he was a pretty godawful racist, even for his times, and so is some of his work. That said, buying a book of his isn't going to fund him or his views these days, as there is no identifiable estate.