Remember The Good Place? The point system for individual decisions lives rent free in my head.

You can’t adhere to this concept too strictly. There’s a long list of decisions that lead to the decision you actually get to make. One of the examples from the show was making a salad, but the tomato you bought was grown in pesticide-rich farmland, farmed by underpaid workers, shipped from Mexico to Indiana using fuel-inefficient vehicles.

There are a lot of little trade-offs we’re willing to make for the things we want. But how many trade-offs are we willing to make? And how big can a trade-off get before we just can’t justify it anymore?

If this sounds like my Where’s the Line? post, I admit that it kinda sounds like that to me too. This stuff is not black and white. Morals are not always clear cut. There’s nuance.

But sometimes, there really isn’t any nuance. Sometimes it really is clear cut.

For example, J.K. Rowling is an asshole. We’ve known this for quite some time. I’ve said it before. And I hate beating that drum, because I have so many other things I would like to do in my life.

I promise, I don’t really want every other blog post to be about how disgusted I am at the state things, but—if I’m being honest—I’m finding myself meta-disgusted at the moment. The disgust I am feeling lately is less about how awful the actual thing is and more about how there is a lack of collective disgust about it.

How is it that everyone seems unwilling to give up on Harry Potter to spite J.K. Rowling? I understand that the universe she created captivated people. I understand that books and films are enjoyable. But J.K. Rowling is and has been funneling a lot of her money—that was once your money—into anti-transgender causes. If that’s not enough, she uses her entire online existence to spread this revolting viewpoint.

Far too many people are far too comfortable ignoring the damage she is actively doing. And I just want to be clear: it’s fine to put her out of your mind as long as you are not also financially supporting her in any way.

It’s not worth it. In this very specific case, it is definitely not worth it.

The entertainment we have in this world is so vast. There are so many things to appreciate and enjoy that are not created by such a reprehensible human being. Find some of those things. Please.

Do not be a person who facilitates her hatred. Do not turn a blind eye to the money you spend on Harry Potter. You can’t justify it. You can only make excuses. Do not make excuses. Your money is better spent almost anywhere else. Your admiration for that story is better invested in something else. Stop introducing Harry Potter to your children.

On a personal note, while I don’t watch, read, or buy anything Harry Potter anymore, I’ve been feeling really guilty about having Harry Potter wallpapers on my website. So I removed them from the wallpapers index page. For the moment, the files are still in the archive directory, and the pages for the wallpapers still exist, but they are completely orphaned from the rest of the site. I think that’s the right thing to do, but I might remove them entirely later.

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