I read the original post DHH links to. I don’t think it warrants the kind of hate he gets.

DHH has always been very outspoken in his opinions. That’s why he bashed Heroku so badly when he introduced Kamal. It’s what makes Rails such a clear minded framework.

In his political blog, he’s raising an issue that’s occupying all of western politics. And he’s very aggressive about it - just how he was very aggressive when he said “stop paying ridiculous amounts for stupid managed clouds”.

Instead of arguing where he’s wrong, people - including the blog post you cite - write “that’s hateful and racist” and refuse to engage beyond that. That is the very shut-up mentality he writes about.

It frustrates me so much to see this here on HN. HN is supposed to be a place to discuss, not blame others. This resistance to engage in a constructive discussion, even if the person with the differing opinion isn’t articulating them well, or has errors in their reasoning that upset you, is super harmful. It’s what gives all these far right parties their rise to power. They occupy the subjects then that their voters have on their mind, because everyone else doesn’t dare to talk about it.

We could have constructive discussions around such topics. But if we don’t, all that happens is that those who don’t feel heard - in this case rightfully so, because we chose not to hear them - will develop more and more extreme ideas.