[Karunamon]

From the linked site within the linked site:

>The controversy had nothing to do with the talk, which by all accounts was a great fit for the eclectic topics served up every year by the conference. Rather, the controversy surrounded the speaker’s political views, which were penned under a pseudonym years prior.

Can we please stop this? If I read right, this guy decided to kill a conference because he didn't like the political views (repeating that: political views, not actions)

..of someone else who was supposed to be at a parent conference.

Continuing on from the OP link:

>we cannot possibly organize a workshop under the umbrella of a conference that values the free expression of racist and fascist views...

Unless the person in question was expressing those views at a technical conference, this is a shockingly disingenuous and dishonest statement.

>..over the physical and emotional safety of its attendees and speakers.

And the appeal to "safety" is the cherry on top. Words are, by themselves, harmful to this person? What the FUCK is "emotional safety"?

These kinds of knee jerk reactions are more harmful to the free exchange of ideas than ten thousand /pol/'s.

[spicyj]

Just so everyone's on the same page, some of the thoughts in question:

https://twitter.com/aphyr/status/606576005667504129

[MattRogish]

Also, he's no garden variety racist. He's the creator of the "Neoreactionary Movement" http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement

Regardless of whether or not you think a racist should or should not present (be paid to speak? Edit: they are not paid to speak at this conf although some expenses are covered) the founder of a pro slavery, pro facist movement speaking at your conference is a different sort of thing.

[Karunamon]

the founder of a pro slavery, pro facist movement speaking at your conference is a different sort of thing.

Unless he is speaking about pro slavery and pro fascism, I have absolutely no reason to care.

Can we please learn to separate technical concerns from nontechnical concerns? And before anyone starts replying with "they're one in the same!" - only under certain circumstances. If the subject of the talk is garbage collection in a programming language, what the speaker believes about anything other than garbage collection in a programming language is IRRELEVANT.

[masklinn]

Why do you care so much what other people think and do? You don't care? Then don't. Other do care? Let them, since you don't care keep not caring?

[hnbroseph]

this seems more like meta-caring. i may not care about what anyone writes in a book, but it can be concerning when people start burning books they dislike.

[masklinn]

Nobody's burning books here, a number of people refuse to associate with Moldbug entirely, and one of them had a workshop at lambdaconf which they cancelled. That's about the extent of it.

And then Karunamon comes in and asserts that no, they can't have freedom of association and they must judge others by Karunamon's standards only.

[saryant]

FWIW, LambdaConf speakers are not paid.

[jonsterling]

Correct; we are typically given funding to attend though. (Travel & hotel expenses, free ticket to the conference.)

[saryant]

True, I forgot about the travel expenses as I'm a local speaker.

[ktRolster]

For the same purpose, here is some of his technical work. Sometimes lunatics can do good work:

http://urbit.org/docs/theory/whitepaper

[tel]

Without commenting on whether or not LamdbaConf is actually doing those things, the perception that it is is both (a) out of the control of LambdaConf and (b) completely up to the interpretation of, e.g., the PrlConf organizers.

In some sense, speaking at a conference or even a subconference is an act which builds the platform of that conference. If one wishes to not give energy to a platform which supports people who one believes should not have a large platform... then I can't really see what's wrong with canceling PrlConf.

[jblow]

Yeah ... I don't know what PrlConf is (and the link does nothing to explain) but LambdaCon's policy and statement about it seem totally well-reasoned and fine.

So cancelling whatever Prl is seems like yet more internet outrage culture that we would be better off with less of.

[tel]

Without commenting on LambdaConf's statement, PrlConf refers to the JonPrl language but much, much more broadly the general PRL ("Proof Refinement Logic") system of proof languages of which Cornell's NuPRL (http://nuprl.org/) is by far the most advanced example. Unfortunately, NuPRL is engineered such that it is really difficult to get started with it and usually depends upon having access to an instance of a NuPRL server running at a major institution. This prevents the spread of the ideas of PRL and both JonPrl and PrlConf are, most likely, attempts to reverse that.

Generally, PRL is a mechanism for proofs which varies slightly but significantly from the "proof calculus"-oriented provers like Coq/Agda by including at its very core an unbounded notion of untyped computation. This allows more interesting, exotic things to be expressed in PRL even if the proofs about them must ultimately be finite.

[jonsterling]

Great summary, thanks!

One clarification—we called it PrlConf intending to talk about proof assistants, but as our program came together, it turned out that most of the talks were about category theory, type theory and denotational semantics. I think these things are even more interesting than proof assistants!

I hope that we can find a way to put it back on somehow.

[tel]

I hope so too! I'd love to attend!

[EdwardDiego]

Literal thought policing...

[mbrock]

It's not thought policing. It's an individual's withdrawal from an event because of a disagreement. Basically, it's Jon Sterling saying "I don't want to organize a workshop alongside someone who advocates racial slavery."

Thought policing is bad because it violates the rights of individuals. Jon Sterling withdrawing from a conference does not violate the rights of any individuals. You are very wrong to call it "thought policing."

[pmalynin]

Yup.

Is their belief system so fragile, that letting a person speak will destroy it???

[xsmasher]

I'd say they have enough integrity to not support a parent organization that has made an odious decision.

There's a different between "allowing someone to speak (anywhere, at all)" and "providing them a platform." The parent org has decided to provide a platform, which has consequences.

You can disagree about the decisions made, but your "belief system so fragile" is a strawman.

[Karunamon]

The author has chosen to make a public statement with arguments X Y and Z, everyone else is free to critically evaluate those statements.

And yes, fragility I believe is the right word to describe killing a technical conference because he doesn't like another speaker.

[thescribe]

It reminds me of this quote, which I believe is attributed to GRRM.

“When you cut out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

[xsmasher]

A is free to make or not make controversial statements, B is free to provide or not provide a platform for A, C is free to support or not support B.

No ones rights have been abridged, and everyone's freedoms have been preserved.

[llamataboot]

Nope, not about fragility at all. It's about creating spaces where a large chunk of people aren't being literally attacked (and told they are better suited to being slaves) by a speaker. What's the problem? Free speech can also mean no speech. I have no problem with people pulling out if they disagree so strongly with the social views of another participant. This isn't the government smashing someone's printing press, this is people voluntarily deciding not to share the stage with someone whose views they abhor.

[Karunamon]

people aren't being literally attacked (and told they are better suited to being slaves) by a speaker.

Was that actually the content of his talk? If so.. okay, this makes perfect sense.

If not, it's crap.

[llamataboot]

Nope, talk content doesn't matter. If I know you believe that "rape doesn't exist" and you regularly publish about it, but you are giving a talk on 'advanced garbage collection in Ruby", I can still feel totally ostracized from the conference knowing what you've said in other spaces is literally an attack on my safety.

[Karunamon]

A speaker's personal views are not and cannot be an attack on your safety.