I am noticing a rise in Holocaust denial with the rising anti-Zionism coming out of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Many of these YouTubers, tiktokers, and podcasters point to the writings of David Irving as proof. I know he is a holocaust denier and an idiot, but I would like to read it so I could point out the exact flaws in Irving’s “evidence” and stop getting the comment “You haven’t even read it!”. I also don’t want to send a penny to this author, but also don’t want to break the law in getting access to it.
How would you go about this situation?
Do you have to agree with everyone you give your money to? What sort of economy would that be?
Buy the book on the premise that you want access to the content he spent energy and time to produce. Just like you’d pay to get access to any kind of content that you want to consume because it is the fair thing to do.
Or get it at the library like everyone else said.
Pirating it is not ethical of course, but furthermore it becomes hypocritical and intellectually dishonest if you would criticize some else for pirating content produced by any other author.
I do try. I actively boycott shitty companies (for 30 years and counting) and my list is long and swollen.
If more people took action on their principles our systems would be a lot less shitty.
Just because you can’t boycott everything doesn’t mean you should do nothing.
I don’t think people expect that you have to agree with everyone you give money to, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to try to avoid sending money to a Holocaust denier specifically for his Holocaust denial
But the OP wants access to that content. It doesn’t matter what the content is, what matters is someone wrote it and they are entitled to payment from those who want to consume it.
Alternatively they could just not read it or ask the people they are debating to send them a copy if they possess one.
I think the question includes a discussion of whether or not that access is worth sending money to the author, right? Like, even if OP completely agrees with your position about the author deserving money for access and also wants access, they may want to both avoid sending money to the author and to avoid stealing it more. Of course you mentioned the possibility of finding it in a library and someone else in the thread suggested finding it second hand, which are probably both preferable solutions here if they are practical
I just don’t think there’s any room for debate. You can get it on loan, rent it, buy it secondhand or buy it new. Anything else would be unethical.
That’s fine, that just means the ethical question is now “is accessing it in one of those ways worth the consequences of doing so?” You might well say yes or, as others in these comments have, argue that the consequences are negligible. You might say no. It’s still a relevant debate in the topic OP is asking about even if we completely accept your position about which ways of getting access are ethical
I have some big news for you about libraries and second hand book stores.
Do you have to agree with everyone you give your money to? What sort of economy would that be?
Probably a pretty nice one, actually.
Yeah isolating yourself from everyone you disagree with is awesome, truly nothing bad ever comes out of it.
Ergo we should feel obligated to give money to people who we believe are actively harming the world?
You are not obligated to read the book.
You should feel obligated to nothing except to remunerate people fairly for their work if you want it.
Sure, I am obviously not obligated to read the book, but what I was specifically responding to was the following remark:
Yeah isolating yourself from everyone you disagree with is awesome, truly nothing bad ever comes out of it.
which in turn was a response to the following:
Do you have to agree with everyone you give your money to? What sort of economy would that be?
Probably a pretty nice one, actually.
I am fine with isolating myself from evil.
People you disagree with may still produce something of value to you.
People who spread disinformation and conspiracy theories should profit as little as possible from it
My man, try Z-Library. Check the subreddit for the latest working URL’s that won’t get you doxxed.
Download a book? Illegally? Online? Through a popular torrent website?
I would never do such an illegal and terrible thing!!
That method is horrible because the author wouldn’t make any money off of it.
Yeah that would be bad. I think we can agree that if there’s one thing that’s even more important than the ideology of an author, it’s definitely capitalism, which is conveniently not an ideology at all, just one of the fundamental laws of the universe. That’s why it’s important to not pirate things for ideological reasons.
I heard there’s this Anna, keeping an archive of those horrible books.
Personally, I’d start with his wikipedia page, and the pages for his books. The people you’re talking to are likely caught in the fascism algorithmic funnel and have only watched videos rather than reading themselves. So they probably don’t have a deeper understanding than what wikipedia provides. That’s part of the appeal of conspiracy theories, that they’re bite-sized talking points that fit neatly together inside even the smallest minds.
I’m willing to bet there are people who have already done the work for you and picked apart the books, and there’s probably conspiracy theorists who have come up with stories for each of those points. And now we’re approaching the point of Branolini’s Law, “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it”
Beyond the scope of your Q, but if I could offer some advice: Instead of arguing, ask interrogating questions, as though you trust them and you’re genuinely trying to understand all the contours. You’ll quickly find many holes in their weak foundation. Success is bringing some awareness to how weak their info is. It’s like asking someone to show you around their messy apartment and now they’re a little embarrassed, so hopefully they’ll clean up or stop talking about it.
Honestly, though, I’d have those convos in person (and worryingly, i have). Algorithmic social media is not built for deep thought or meaningful discussions. IMO It’ll just suck up time and energy that can be better spent elsewhere.
Check if it’s available at a library?
If you borrow it from the library the author typically gets a little compensation
read it there
“Pssst look at what that guy is reading!”
Where? They don’t in the US.
Europe.
Piracy, maybe see if Internet archive has any of his writings. I would just try to find a source where I didn’t have to pay for it.
I would start by asking Anna if she has the book in her archive.
Library.
Ugh, of course those people would point to any source that supports their current claim, without vetting the source itself. They’ll even tell you that of course they don’t support antisemitism, while spouting that antisemitic Irving shit all day, and that’s okay because they pick and choose only what they agree with out of the rhetoric. As though they couldn’t find sources that support their point without the concomitant antisemitism.
First and foremost, then, I’d go about this by not denying the genocide in Gaza and not saying stuff such as “I bet you love Palestine” like it’s a pejorative, spacecadet.
My second point would be to recognise that there is no moral or ethical reason not to pirate Irving’s works. If you were able to find it at a library, it would be there because someone paid a publisher for the copy and likely some kind of library license. Some of that goes to Irving. There is no way to deny him profit and acquire his work legally. So, pirate it. Fuck that guy.
In most cases, it’s wrong to violate the social contract, especially while benefiting from it. However: the harm done by violating the social contract should be weighed against the harm of not violating it.
In this case, the harm of violating the social contract is pretty minimal, as copyright law is not a fundamental part of the fabric of society. One can even argue it’s kind of dubious, as something that moneyed interests favor very heavily with no similar moneyed interests favoring a strong public domain.
The harm of not violating it is not only do you give money to a holocaust denier, you’re giving it to him for denying the holocaust. Even worse, you’re giving him money for being wrong, and so effective at deception that you are compelled to spend money disproving him.
The whole point of copyright is to encourage useful works and spreading of knowledge and art. In this case the work is not spreading knowledge, but un-knowledge. Irving is exploiting a loophole in copyright law that allows him to work against its very purpose.
Thus I’d say violating the law is ethical as the benefits far outweigh the costs.
The ethics of social media dictate that stealing from people you’ve decided are evil is somewhere between totally ethical and a moral imperative.
Threw out Gaiman’s books , needs to be purged from history ( except Good Omens of course, because of Pratchett)
Huh? What did he do?
Lots of sexual assault allegations. I wasn’t a fan even before all of that came out so I didn’t follow it too closely.
Buy it from a used book store. He won’t get any money from it and you’ll support a local small business
libgen[dot]is 😎
True heroes are anonymous 🤫
