I am genuinely not worried about the livelihoods of the people who made the game. Not because I don't care, but because I honestly and genuinely believe that they will be okay. If I really thought that they were at risk of losing their homes, then that might be different, but I really just don't see that happening.

Technology jobs aren't like other jobs; high turnover and frequent job changes are normal. These are not a vulnerable population of workers. Even if the studio collapses, they will not be out of work for long. That's not me being cold, it's just that this is legitimately a non-issue to me and people trying to make a huge deal out of it seem genuinely ridiculous to me.

Being called a conservative capitalist made me chuckle. I actually believe that the government should spend whatever it takes to eliminate destitute poverty. Nobody with the high-demand skills needed to work on a game like this is in any serious, immediate danger of living in poverty, though. And if they are, then the solution isn't to prop up the company that made the game by guilting people into not boycotting the game for activist reasons. The solution is to have a comprehensive social safety net to prevent people from falling into destitution from losing their jobs.

...but all of that is an entirely different and complex conversation, and entirely beside the point.

At the end of the day, nothing can convince me that individual people choosing not to buy a game that supports someone who dehumanizes trans people is morally equivalent to shoplifting or making game creators homeless. I'm sorry, but that is just an absurd equivalency to draw.

> I generally refer to being on Twitter as a two-minute hate, because that's what it is. The platform is designed to make you angry and push you to lash out at people. Because the angrier you get, the more you engage. The more you engage, the more time you spend on the platform and the more ads to see. The more ads you see, the more money Twitter makes.

> Twitter is incentivized to make people upset and angry and feed empty social outrage as people cancel random people or engage in rapid slacktivism.

I agree with your assessment. I don't know what is has to do with anything I've said, though.

I also think you're making Rowling out to be a lot more innocent than she is. Twitter manipulates and exploits our feelings, sure, but to act like Rowling has no agency in this process and just "had no choice" but to become an extreme bigot because angry people on the internet called her out on her bullshit just absolves her of all responsibility for her actions.

She has a huge platform that she could use to spread love and tolerance, but instead she uses it to spite people who rightfully (albeit maybe not always tactfully) hold her accountable for her words and deeds.

I don't feel sorry that people aren't universally celebrating her anymore. Just because it doesn't hurt her finances much doesn't mean it is meaningless. Publicly naming and shaming people who spread hate and say intolerable things helps to strip them of their power and influence. At the very least, she no longer has an underserved squeaky clean image in the public eye. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but it matters to the people whose rights and dignity Rowling feels are negotiable.