There's certainly a large amount of people prejudiced and powerful enough to harm those who don't fit their worldviews, but be careful, too, to not let cynicism taint your views or you might become a bit like them.[1]
Derek's post tells a personal anecdote, but the conclusion has a business angle: "I wanted to challenge that fear that someone is going to steal our ideas."
Sometimes you're hiding a business idea. Sometimes you're hiding a state secret, or keeping a state from discovering a secret. However, most of the time, we're hiding personal secrets about our lifestyles because society doesn't like them.
Since you mentioned "cis-straight", I think Derek's argument is in the same vein as the advice given to LGBT children: do not try to be someone else just because some people don't accept what you are. Be yourself and be proud, or at least comfortable.
[1]: You're right about the state or another powerful entity going after people who are somehow unsettling them. My question is: is it better, in the long run, to hide and stay silent, or to stand up and be heard by the rest of society?
Being openly gay in the 1940-50's in some places in the US may very well have been a death-sentence. Those people would have been wise to keep their sexuality private (or move somewhere a bit more progressive). Likewise today, you wouldn't have to look too hard to find countries where people have to hide their true beliefs from repressive governments or society out of a justified fear of harm.
What I think the commenter meant to say was that the blog author is a member of (I assume) a privileged class in (again, I assume) a privileged society. The public/open lifestyle he suggests might be a worth-while pursuit for others in a similar position as he, but it may very well be foolish for those less fortunate. Context matters.
Yet that is the conclusion he comes to.
The other possible conclusion, as I noted, is that he has previously been unaware of Free/Open Source and Creative Commons based licenses. In which case he needs not talk on secrets but rather on licensing.
And given that Derek has code licensed under MIT, your conclusion that he was unaware of that license is obviously incorrect.
If he was really interested in such ideas, he would know and use GPL/AGPL/MIT/Apache licences already for his code, and CC for his writings.
Instead he makes everyone hippy dippy stupid about secrecy and privacy. It might all be fine when you are rich, cis-straight and white, but a single non friendly idea and you are a threat to the state.
People that cheapen our privacy and secrecy rights shouldn't be allowed this much airtime.
Ridiculous. -1