I suspect that on some level, many of the people slating Justine feel threatened by his genius, and that is part of the reason why they keep bringing up the same tired old laundry list of perceived sins in an attempt to do so.
The root cause problem seems to be that people who are highly intolerant to others' views and perspectives that they happen to disagree with have become an outsized voice in tech circles. Shunning, blacklisting and publicly denouncing has become a toxic norm.
Justine has expressed unorthodox views in the past but that's no reason to punish him forever, or indeed at all. To be as inclusive and tolerant as possible - towards an end goal of maximizing participation and enabling outstanding technical work to flourish - it is better to simply agree to disagree.
Justine might have - or perhaps used to have, seeing as this was over a decade ago - political views that are unorthodox and unpopular in mainstream tech circles. I don't agree with these views myself. But shunning him forever for this seems wildly disproportionate.
He is clearly a highly intelligent and highly accomplished individual, and an eloquent communicator. Indeed he is exactly the sort of person who organizations like the Internet Archive should be delighted to have speak on technical matters.
It comes across as very petty and short-sighted of the IA to rescind the invitation based on a handful of complainers complaining about non-technical issues that they are personally offended by.
Whatever happened to being tolerant of the perspectives and opinions of others, even if you strongly disagree?
It's a bad take to suggest that organizations should look past a person's loud supportive positions on eugenics because they might give a good tech talk. If Justine is as controversial as this post suggests (and it doesn't even name the controversial views!) why on earth would any organization want to give them a platform?
"Because they're smart" isn't a good enough reason. I wouldn't want to listen to a podcast that hosts eugenicists. I wouldn't want to appear on a podcast that hosts eugenicists. Even if they didn't talk about their problematic beliefs on the podcast.
There's no shortage of smart folks that don't have a complicated reputation. Organizations like the Internet Archive simply don't have to host them. And frankly, it sounds like they gave her the opportunity to explain her beliefs, and she chose not to. In a way, that's worse: it says "I don't want to explain my beliefs, because they're going to make me look worse" or "I don't want to disavow my problematic beliefs because I don't want to alienate people who share(d) those beliefs".
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