[emkk]

We've had a week that went from a fascist AI bot that was taken down immediately to a real fascist who is being tolerated. This person thinks the "weak" should be enslaved by "strong", nonsensical and subjective categorizations where no doubt "strong" probably includes him and means people like him in this view.

There is definetly a camp of developers (not outsiders) who have denigrated StrongLoops decision and praised LambdaConf. These are engineers who may work with members of groups targeted by this fascists' views, engineers who may review a Black / Latino applicant for a job, contribute to the overall work environment for them.

To my point, what I see is a co-optation of the meaning of the world tolerance. When there is an fascist antagonist on minority groups, it is easier for these "tolerant" everyday individuals to say hey fascists should matter too at tech conferences. Because thats what tolerant means, even the fascists and racists matter, no? Things that appear logically equivalent are not always the best things to do. Part of me thinks this is part of antebellum United States' original sin; the wealthy white class using race and slavery to spur hate-mongering from working-middle class whites, who saw Black people as their problem and not class inequity. This is the "vicious lie" that MLK talked about and continues to manifest today as Tim Wise deals with: www.timwise.org/2015/04/how-racism-explains-americas-class-divide-and-culture-of-economic-cruelty-an-excerpt-from-under-the-affluence/

[tzs]

> This person thinks the "weak" should be enslaved by "strong", nonsensical and subjective categorizations where no doubt "strong" probably includes him and means people like him in this view.

Citation needed. Based on this conversation in his recent AMA that does not seem like his position: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...

He seems to believe that some groups are better (from the slaver's point of view) at being slaves than others are. Namely, when enslaved to do agricultural work those from agricultural societies are better slaves than those from hunter-gatherer societies.

That's quite different from saying that anyone should be enslaved.

[tptacek]

Careful. Yarvin takes pains to be cryptic about his beliefs in his writing on line, but people who have spent time with him in the real world report that he's much more up front about it in person.

The popular interpretation of Yarvin's UR posts is probably not incorrect.

[humanrebar]

Not sure I follow all that, but MLK's theology (and the Declaration of Independence) recognize people as being special creatures. And each person is given an inherent dignity by his or her Creator. In American culture, this means limiting someone's freedom of expression (legally) has to come after some due process involving proof of real harm. The same impulse applies to social conventions, though there isn't the same bright line between tolerance and censorship.

Anyway, AI twitter bots aren't people, so they don't get the same benefit of the doubt. The false equivalence here is that "person" applies to robots as easily as human beings.