Absurd is right. The chronology here is dishonest. The Marketplace people are taking the initiative to pre-empt critics? Well, that's horse-****. The mob usually forms first.
It's also amusing that on this construction the Marketplace supporter says an anti-fascist "CAN'T" boycott. So they're not even going to say, "You can go to the mattresses over this, but... you really shouldn't."
Conservative Jonah Goldberg criticizes environmentalists for allegedly being predisposed to masochism. For example, he acknowledges climate change is "a real problem," but says we do not necessarily have to "suffer" by limiting consumption and regulating industry; the free market can unleash technological solutions that are win-win. You know, like how we cut taxes for rich people and then treasury revenues surge. Win-win.
Certainly there are some cases where one has to bite the bullet, and other cases that are win-win-win-win -- so much winning that you're tired of all the winning. It could be a flawed heuristic, but I'm consciously inclined toward the former precisely because I know sub-consciously there are powerful evolutionary mechanisms inclining me toward self-deception-for-material-advantage. Motivated reasoning.
Similarly, when it comes to the culture war stuff, almost all of the incentives push people in the direction of tribal allegiance. Humans want to please their team. A "virtue signaling" defense of free inquiry, especially when it's for increasingly marginalized scumbags who are not in, shall we say, cultural ascent, is probably, all other things being equal, more principled than the position held by a typical person. This should be rather... obvious. For some strange reason, people do not often want to be associated with unpopular figures or opinions.
