The fact is, I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. I would encourage others to make the same decision. I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. They are human beings and deserve all the rights and privileges thereof.
But I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them, pretending nothing is wrong.
This isn't a free speech issue, this is a "who do you want in your community" issue. In the light of a community, you can't, and you shouldn't, pull one aspect of a person's character and isolate it from the rest of their identity.
I hope people give me the same treatment. I am more than the content of my technical talks, and so is Yarvin.
"But consider the following: I am a pro-choice atheist. When I lived in Ireland, one of my friends was a pro-life Christian. I thought she was responsible for the unnecessary suffering of millions of women. She thought I was responsible for killing millions of babies. And yet she invited me over to her house for dinner without poisoning the food. And I ate it, and thanked her, and sent her a nice card, without smashing all her china.
Please try not to be insufficiently surprised by this. Every time a Republican and a Democrat break bread together with good will, it is a miracle. It is an equilibrium as beneficial as civilization or liberalism, which developed in the total absence of any central enforcing authority." - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-co...
"Cooperation is unstable, in both game theory and evolutionary biology, without some kind of punishment for defection. So it's one thing to subtract points off someone's reputation for mistakes they make themselves, directly. But if you also look askance at someone for refusing to castigate a person or idea, then that is punishment of non-punishers, a far more dangerous idiom that can lock an equilibrium in place even if it's harmful to everyone involved." - http://lesswrong.com/lw/42/tolerate_tolerance/
Is there a point at which you can treat a person as "sufficiently abhorrent" to dissuade you from associating with them? Does this point include being a productive member of society and taking part in a democratic civic life?
In terms of having a tolerant and open multicultural society, the only things that shouldn't be tolerated are actions and words that run counter to having a tolerant and open multicultural society. Sexism and racism run counter to a tolerant and open multicultural society. However, the exercise of authority to shun those with opinions you don't like is also intolerance. It's obeying "the letter" of tolerance but runs entirely counter to the spirit of tolerance. If you advocate a society where the government codifies and enacts tolerance, but all the citizens are intolerant in their civic life, then you advocate a society of divided enemy groups with a dead civic life, where opposing camps uneasily coexist, fling epithets over walls, and begin to regard the "others" as less than human.
You can't fight intolerance with intolerance precisely because you can't fight hate with hate. The only real way to fight intolerance is through real communication and convincing people. Venting frustration only plays into "an eye for an eye making the whole world blind."
I would not associate myself with, say, someone who in their off time writes long diatribes about how my ethnic group is lazy, incompetent, undeserving of legal rights and fit only to be exterminated or enslaved.
I'd be a fool not to shun this person and encourage others to do the same, however nice and pleasant they may be in person.
For one, social shaming can, occasionally, be an effective way to change behaviour: it's a short hand for "your opinion is wrong, because all these respectable people say so". For another, I don't have the time and energy or personal obligation to graciously engage with every single person who may be a complete asshole.
What you describe is not a new problem. To quote Karl Popper,
>Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them
Social shaming can only work when the person being shamed is being included in the society doing the shaming. If you shame and exclude someone, you are going to end up alienating and possibly radicalizing them.
Social shaming should be used carefully, sparingly and among close knit communities.
Social shaming that works: "You are welcome, but the things you are saying make me and the people around me feel bad."
Social shaming that doesn't work: "You are a bad person and are not welcome here."
For one, social shaming can, occasionally, be an effective way to change behaviour: it's a short hand for "your opinion is wrong, because all these respectable people say so". For another, I don't have the time and energy or personal obligation to graciously engage with every single person who may be a complete asshole.
What Social Media has generated is a millieu that jumps at the chance to engage in social shaming. It's the same sort of corruption as embodied in a state the jumps at the chance to prosecute to gratify the crowd, regardless of how actual justice is served. I see social shaming as so often practiced as a way for one group to enforce its will over another and assure itself of its own agency. (Such groups also profit non-materially from the additional division and outrage generated.)
it's a short hand for "your opinion is wrong, because all these respectable people say so"
If that's to apply, then the people who are using it first need to have convinced society at large.
Analogy: there are points of etiquette that only apply in a particular culture. If you try enforcing one culture's etiquette when you are the lone member of that culture in a different cultural group, then you are just being foolish. So what about when there are approximately equal numbers? Taking such action in that case also just causes division. It's only when there is a clear majority, and when the majority acts in a benevolent and inclusive fashion that pressure works. Absent benevolence from the majority, there is also only more division. This is just human nature.
In the group dynamic, it doesn't matter that in your mind, you "are right." For one thing, you are only human, so you could well be wrong or misapplying context. In the end, you are either coercing someone or convincing them. It's only the latter that brings true change.
>Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them
This is exactly my point. This is why an "intolerance in spirit" which damages civic life shouldn't be tolerated. Those who are intolerant of others having a different opinion are engaging in a form of selfish intolerance. They are like free speech advocates who suppress their opponents gatherings or religious people who think freedom of religion only applies to their own religion. Somehow such people only need to obey the letter of the law, and the spirit of their principle only needs to apply to those they like.
(EDIT: How can we measure the sincerity of someone's tolerance? Are they ready to tolerate someone who is presently behaving in a tolerant fashion? Or are they champing at the bit to be "righteously intolerant" because someone was intolerant in the distant past or in an entirely different context? I would say the former is sincere tolerance and the latter is a short-sighted and selectively applied "tolerance.")
As long as they don't act on their views (except to write essays explaining and discussing them), then no.
If they were rude to me or to others (in a personal way), then I would not want to associate with them, but that's true of anybody regardless of their views.
You're not OP but I can't dignify an asinine Yudkowsky quote with a reply, so you get one instead.
Why are essays non-actions in your view? Suppose someone had a lengthly career writing $MAXIMALLY_REPUGNANT_VIEW essays and promoting them on the internet. Indeed, was famous for it.
Is there no $MAXIMALLY_REPUGNANT_VIEW that would cause you to feel awkward about being known to associate with this person?
I never said essays are non-actions. In fact, I used them as an example of them a type of action: one which would not cause me to disassociate myself from someone else.
I might feel a little awkward about it, mostly because I'm sure there would be several people like you doing their damnedest to make me feel that way. I'm not a robot, and I'm subject to all the same sorts of social pressure as everybody else. But if essay writing was their only "crime", I like to think that I would resist that pressure. I believe strongly in the freedom of expression and the marketplace of ideas (not just in the "constitutional law" sense, but in the "how we should act as individuals in a free liberal society" sense). It's the only antidote to groupthink.
Imagine how much sooner public attitudes to homosexuality might have shifted if people had always felt free to discuss alternatives to the status quo without being ostracized.
Not that I don't think we should hold people to certain standards. I just think those standards should be behavior-based, not opinion-based. In another reply, you mentioned Karl Popper's quote about not tolerating intolerance, which I fully agree with. But intolerance is a behavior, not an opinion. People have called this guy a racist (and maybe he is; I haven't read his writing), but it's the people who refuse to be in the same room as him who are acting intolerantly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this guy seems happy to share the conference with anyone who wants to attend, regardless of their race. That's tolerance, no matter what he thinks in his secret heart of hearts, or even what he has written about on the internet.
"While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger." (John Rawls from the same link in the other thread)
So some people sincerely believe Yarvin's very presence is a threat while others find his online philosophical rants to be little more than meanderings.
With that said here's my answer to your thought experiment:
Yarvin would be uninvited if he had been proven (not alleged) to have:
* harmed or advocated harm to anyone
* rallied for pro-discriminatory policies
* lobbied for pro-discriminatory policies
* addressed someone with discriminatory slurs
If he were to deny the evidence then it would be a done deal and he would be banned.
However, everyone gets a chance to repent in my book. So if he had been proven to do these things and he came clean (or eventually came clean) then he would get a chance to publicly apologize online for wide distribution - and again live at the conference at the start of his talk.
---
The real answer to your question is that I would not associate with anyone proven to have done abhorrent things. But I regularly associate with people who have all kinds of abhorrent thoughts.
This factually false. Preventable deaths as the result of government policy are atrocious, but they are not murder. "Capitalists" would not come out looking good either if the deaths that resulted from government policy in capitalist countries were called "capitalist murders."
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying the gulags weren't murder, or that the Holodomor wasn't murder. I'm saying the only way you get to canards like "communists murdered 100 million people" (100 million is a lot of people) is including people who died as the result of poor central planning in situations where there is no evidence for genocidal or repressive intent.
I'm saying the only way you get to canards like "communists murdered 100 million people" (100 million is a lot of people) is including people who died as the result of poor central planning in situations where there is no evidence for genocidal or repressive intent.
If you lock someone in a room, prevent him from leaving, and don't give him food, he will die, and you will be (correctly) charged with murder.
Can you name the capitalist countries that have murdered millions of their own citizens for us? Or even one such country? Nazi Germany was an authoritarian socialist regime, so don't even try going there.
Surely this is about as rationally meaningful as counting the number of deaths caused by people who nominally identify as Christian and basing your opinion of all Christians on that.
I've followed this saga with much confusion and I wonder if you could explain why you'd avoid a conference with a speaker like this.
For me, if I'm evaluating a conference speaker, all I care about is:
1. Is the topic useful or interesting?
2. Is the speaker well informed and the content correct?
3. Does the speaker present the material well?
I couldn't care less about them otherwise, and especially not their political views. For most conference speakers, I couldn't tell you anything about their political views, because it's just not relevant.
What's your reasoning for including that aspect of a speaker when evaluating the conference?
I also wonder, if we take it as a given that political views are important, do you vet all conference speakers' views before you attend a conference? Or do you have faith that the community will root out views you find unacceptable?
Indeed, nowhere in a tech conference have I ever been forced to drink beer or converse with anyone I didn't want to.
These communities are large enough where you don't have to directly engage with all people or even attend every single talk. Find your own subgroups within the larger community who you want to spend time with, avoid the rest. Pretty easy. I do this with at tech meetups all the time by avoiding business/PR people. And I probably disagree with the politics of at least 90% of people at any of these conferences to varying degrees.
What matters is there are people there you want to learn from (about the topic at hand) and spend time with.
I do not vet the politics of all my co-speakers. That said, if my black friends are dropping out of a conference because they feel deeply uncomfortable even being near someone, that's as clear a signal as I'm likely to get that something isn't right.
Why not? For all you know, you might be attending talks from raging Nazis or hardcore Stalinists or people who think government-mandated key escrow is a decent idea. Is it only a problem if you know about it?
There is a big difference between someone who secretly or privately holds an offensive belief, and someone who publicly advocates an offensive belief. This is not about Yarvin's "beliefs," this is about what Yarvin has done and is doing, including using this controversy as an opportunity to again expound offensive and fallacious claims about race. This post goes into a lot of detail:
For me, pretty much. If those shitty ideas are important enough to the speaker that they've bubbled into my direct knowledge, then I'm forced to make a decision. Like, every talk I've been to could have been a speaker that thinks that I personally am the next Hitler and they're seething with hatred for me the whole time, but until I'm aware of it it's not really a problem.
This was not as clever a question as you thought you were posing.
That's great for you, but you don't dictate whether people who see things differently have valid views or not.
Consider that what is "relevant" in your experience depends heavily on what kind of bullshit society throws your direction on a daily basis. It's easy to not see a problem here if you're not the group Yarvin advocates subjugating. If you are part of that group or empathize with it, things obviously looks a bit different.
> That's great for you, but you don't dictate whether people who see things differently have valid views or not.
Why do you say this? Did I say something that indicated otherwise?
I'm just here asking why a person thinks the way they do, and giving my own thoughts so they have something to compare with. To come in and act like I'm trying to impose my views, and imply that my views are invalid because I'm not the target of oppression in this instance, is pretty bizarre.
Moldbug's political views aren't the issue, it's his political action. He has a record of going to conferences and advocating racism: working to exclude. And one of Lambdaconf's sponsors is a racist political blog, which sounds unprecedented. (Evidence in my comment history.)
(The context is a country which kills and incarcerates blacks, post-slavery. Racism is political action which directly impacts the lives of confgoers and users. Toxic for education and networking.)
Any conf organizer has heard people say, "It's not the talks, it's the hallway conversations!" Racist political groups are now desperate enough to nakedly show their influence out in the open. Harder for them to dominate quietly.
That's the first I've heard of it if so. For example, this statement which appears to have a lot of supporters in the community says nothing about hallway conversations, and merely objects to him being chosen as a speaker:
If it was, "this guy keeps harassing conference goers and holding unofficial mini sessions on how awesome racism is" then I might reconsider my position, but that's not what I've seen anybody (besides you, here, anyeay) say.
(But then again, how is stabbing someone with a knife relevant to a talk's quality?)
(But then again, how is a talk's quality relevant to free expression of views?)
Professional conferences "censor" speakers who don't provide what their audiences want. And have codes of conduct censoring harassing speech. You too: does everyone get to deliver speeches in your home? Visit your workplace and undermine you?
> But then again, how is stabbing someone with a knife relevant to a talk's quality?
It's not. I find no reason to exclude an ex-convict that has been charged and served his jail-time. Including them back into the society is the only way we can at least hope to combat recidivism.
I respectfully note that their conclusion is the opposite: that you can separate the person from the talk. That an informative talk well spoken by an asshole is still informative. And, well, the speaker may still be a jerk. But the conference wants to have an air of professionalism, and therefore you should go to be informed, not as a vote in a popularity contest of any kind.
They also seem to have a strong intolerance of the practice of assholery. So should anyone overstep, it sure seems like retribution will be swift. So if people behave, then there should be no worry: people are expected to behave. And if anyone bullies - in any way - expect moderation with extreme predjudice (that is a great phrase in English).
There may be many closet assholes out there, but we don't bar them, since we expect people to behave by default. Expect the best of people and prepare to be temporarily impressed or disappointed.
"But the conference wants to have an air of professionalism"
There is very little chance Yarvin would get past the HR department of any client I can think of, are there professional environments you can think of where his reputation wouldn't cause significant difficulties to participation?
I'm not sure an argument from professionalism is the appropriate one. More if you have a club you can invite whoever you like, and if others are not comfortable with the members they can choose not to attend.
I'm sure John De Goes is earnest, the risk is that his conference may be attended solely by similarly earnest people who look precisely like John De Goes, and for whom emotional assault is unverifiable and incomparable, hypothetical.
> There is very little chance Yarvin would get past the HR department of any client I can think of
I really don't understand how personal opinions aren't protected in the same way as religion (i.e. that they can't be a reason not to hire someone). Religion is just as much a choice as any other personal belief/opinion, and it has caused at least as much, if not much more, harm as e.g. racism and sexism. In addition, it's a signal that the person is fundamentally irrational or immature (cf. an adult that believes Santa or unicorns exist).
It depends. I wouldn't hire Yarvin, because his record of alleged racist writing and speech suggest he would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. But Lambdaconf appear to have decided that explicitly muzzling his alleged racist and political views for the duration of the conference is likely to work, or at least it makes sense to give him the benefit of the doubt, and I agree on that. Also, similarly, my standards on who I would wish to work with are stricter than who would deter me from attending a technical conference. Calling supporters of Nelson Mandela mother f*ers is not a good culture fit.
Yep. I certainly disagree with that conclusion. There are a wealth of awesome talks by awesome people out there. If Yarvin was excluded, his slot would have been filled by an equally interesting, equally informative talk not by a racist.
So everyone needs to show the proper intolerance towards the prescribed things? I'm glad you are coming out and saying that you are engaging in what you think is righteous intolerance.
However, I think taking such a stance misses the point.
Why should I be tolerant of people who clearly are not tolerant of others? I mean, we're not talking about some benign disagreement, like whether you like PHP or Ruby. We're talking about someone who has flat out said that slavery should return, and certain classes of people are not deserving of basic human dignity.
I'm sorry, but I see nothing wrong with not being tolerant of those views. Tolerating them sends the message that they are acceptable views that have merit.
In a similar way, letting a known something person speak means they're not intolerant of something. I mean, yeah, you could make that argument, but it sure doesn't seem substantial or useful. That's the point of Xyism at the end: it doesn't have much to do with functional programming , and functional programming is what the conference is explicitly about.
And there is an explicit threat against assholery: perform it and you'll be excluded. Don't and you'll have the same protection any other person has.
It is implicitly not about a very large range of things, namely mostly stuff that isn't functional programming.
Not at all! I can disassociate myself from Yarvin, and even "no-platform" him while fully acknowledging that he's a legit functional programmer with interesting technical ideas.
But I can't engage with him as a peer, in community, without denying or ignoring (or accepting) that he's a racist.
It seems to me that a truly 'healthy' community would not draw it's boundaries so tightly.
If I were building a community I'd want it to be one that welcomed even those with views I found despicable so long as they could engage in thoughtful, reasonable discourse. A community should allow for people to be wrong, and still be welcome.
Having near zero interest in Curtis' political writing his recent AMA [0] and Medium post [1] come off as earnest and harmless.
I think the parent comment is referring to how people have tried to argue that Yarvin will be able to sequester one part of his personality and creative output, and that the rest of us should pretend his Moldbug persona doesn't affect the rest of him.
Even if one takes it to be "just" trolling, I find it in bad taste -- and if one takes it at face value, it's the sort of statements that would make it hard for me to attend an event with him in attendance. I consider myself to have a thick skin, and I generally don't care if nutjobs moan on about violence etc - except for the fact that ABB posted this kind of drivel himself, and based a lot of his mindset around it. So blogs of this kind is part of creating the nutjobs that go out and kill people. Any amount of smug moral relativism isn't going to make me say that I think stuff like this is ok.
All that said, I do support LamdaConf's decision in this case: They set out to do blind submissions, and stayed with that. They've now realized that the idea of a pure meritocracy is indeed a parody, not a real thing -- so they'll end up with a speaker selection process that is "overtly" political (even if they claim the opposite). This is of course inevitable, as no-one gets to "opt out" of politics: the "none statement" is a statement in itself (although not always a statement for the status quo).
I agree that there seems to be areas where "political correctness" has become a form of normative straight-jacket -- the same kind of conservative tendency that fuels bigotry. And I say that as a feminist and a communist/anarchist, and someone that is a strong believer in affirmative action.
Ironically perhaps, I think this is a decision Yarvin would agree on.
I would posit that it is "drinking beer and breaking bread", or otherwise spending time with, and getting to know others in the profession. I would also argue that a programming conference is not the appropriate forum to discuss or debate ideas related to racism, sexism, etc.
> The fact is, I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. I would encourage others to make the same decision. I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. They are human beings and deserve all the rights and privileges thereof.
That's fine. If they left it at, "I don't want to go to this conference anymore", then fewer people would have an issue here. I certainly wouldn't care enough to get involved either way. It's the next step of, "...and therefore the conference should be killed off" that I have a problem with.
There's obviously a continuum here based on community size.
On one end, there are large communities. He has accounts on Twitter and Hacker News. Are you going to stop visiting? Would you avoid a shopping mall if he's there? Avoid sitting in the same movie theater?
On the other end, it's certainly reasonable to decline a dinner invitation if you don't like one of the other guests.
A conference seems like a larger and more impersonal gathering. You don't have to go to the talk, but you could go to other talks.
Listening to a technical talk at a technical conference qualifies as drinking beer and breaking bread? I dunno about that.
I've always felt that professional adults should be able to work with people who think different things that them. If you work in an office with 50+ people I guarantee you have coworkers who think horrible terrible things that you passionately disagree with. But that's ok. Because we're all professionals and those naughty thoughts aren't relevant and aren't brought up.
In 2012 there were 747,408 sex offenders in the US. The population was 314,100,000. This means 0.2% of the population are sex offenders.
So, ignoring clustering, if you work for a company with 500 people, then 1 of your coworkers is a sex offender.
For instance if you work for Facebook, 25 of your coworkers are sex offenders. How can you live with that? Should you quit on moral grounds because you can't work with sex offenders?
For a less extreme example. 44% of americans are "pro-life". How big of a company do you need to overcome clustering effects and have a coworker that believes the opposite of what you do? 10? 50?
I know this isn't the popular opinion in the modern world, but originally free speech was argued to be better than censorship, because even though negative or false ideas are present, these bad ideas can illuminate the truth.
Free speech creates a sort of natural selection of ideas--keeping the herd of ideas stronger.
"Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself."
This is really a wonderful post. Too many open source projects, conferences, and the like have turned into witch hunts by, as John mentions, the morality police. Maintainers are bullied into adopting CoCs even if there have been no issues at all in their community, and distancing themselves from valued members of their community for something dumb they may have said or done in entirely different contexts or years ago.
The whole set of posts John has provided on the matter have been extremely fair and thoughtful.
I read an FAQ on neo-reactionism and it's totally insane. But I would be fine with the guy lecturing about computers if he knew his stuff. Honestly I find intelligent, rational people who come to radically different conclusions about society to be fascinating.
On the other hand, if Hitler himself was alive and gave a speech on art, I wouldn't want to hear it because of his politics and actions. So clearly there is a spectrum for me, and at some point the politics become so bad I can't stand the person.
Also, by giving this person a speaking role, he becomes more authoritative in all subjects, so it probably is better not to help him. In summary, lots to think about!
I would love to hear a speech by Hitler. Regardless of his actions, he was a master persuader and accomplished (affected the world) in a decade more than most people couldn't in 1000 years! We could all learn a lot from him - which of course doesn't mean that we would have to use the skills for the same means he did.
That's not in conflict with what was said in your quote. Hitler changed the world enormously. It was terrible, but the influence is undeniable. I'm reminded of all the people I've seen making fun of Time for naming Hitler their Man of the Year, without realizing that Man/Person of the Year is purely about the size of impact, not how good it is.
If Hitler were alive and giving a speech about art, I would either expect he were giving a speech within the confines of a prison, or else I would try and tip off the Mossad as to when and where he was speaking. I think the operative difference here is that Hitler actually conspired to kill a few million people, whereas a neoreactionary blogger just spouts kooky stuff on the Internet.
How crazy -- I'm vaguely familiar with Curtis' work, and would have never known (or cared) about his political views until the people looking to "no platform" him gave him a platform.
Especially with a view like this at a conference like this. By attempting to deny him a platform at an event which is often based on a meritocracy (like so much of hacker culture) they are admitting his position might have merit and hence must be censored rather than simply dismissed by anyone who hears it.
To be clear neither his political or technical views hold merit, his project is an interesting mental exercise, but I doubt many will see any technical merit.
That wasn't the point of protesting his presence at LambdaConf. The point was so that people who want to go to LambdaConf and feel threatened and humiliated by someone's enthusiastic support of racism and slavery don't have to associate with such a person.
It is so exasperating that so many people who aren't denigrated and targeted by his hateful politics think this is a matter of abstract principle. Somehow, letting my and others' humanity be a matter of political opinion is the mature, apolitical position. Utterly frustrating attitude. It's perfectly fine to be tolerant of Yarvin's views, it is completely unreasonable to ask others to associate with a person who envisions a world where their humanity is forfeit.
In public life we have to - and should - encounter and tolerate people whose opinions we find abhorrent. I would much prefer a world where I feel emotional discomfort being in the presence of someone I loathe than a world where such a person is prohibited from ever being near me, because of social ostracism. It provides for a much richer marketplace of ideas.
If you don't like him, protest him. Disturb him with your words as much as he disturbs you with his.
Free speech is such a pretty principal when you can always foist its costs on other people. You can keep your marketplace.
I'm going to be emphatic, because i am emphatic about this position:
Free speech is a powerful principle because speech has power. Because speech can hurt people, because speech can change the world. If speech did not matter, free speech would not matter.
If speech matters, and speech has power, then its effects must be considered. To do anything less is irrational. The idea that rejecting Yarvin's ideas so emphatically that we would deny him platform would lead to unjust suppression of speech is a fallacy. It is a slippery slope. So many people who strive to be rational individuals and avoid cognitive biases, and yet balk at treating speech for what it is instead of a sacred object that should be worshipped.
By saying Yarvin should be allowed to speak, you are merely saying that protecting his speech is more important than the emotional and professional cost it exacts on the people he targets. And yes, he targets people. Through all his extremely verbose, meandering writings, a clear thread of contempt for certain others' runs.
"The relationship of master and slave is a natural human relationship: that of patron and client." - Curtis Yarvin
You can react to speech the way you want. But you're not taking any moral high ground with your approach when you explicitly deny the impact of speech on others and how they react to it. Association is a form of speech. Petitioning others to stand with you is a form of speech. Protecting Yarvin's speech on the grounds of principle, which is rejecting others' speech out of hand in contradiction of the same principles is inconsistent. All speech has consequences, and there is no neutral advocacy of "free speech" because truly free speech is a realm of conflict and inconsistency.
You're making a lot of assumptions about me. Just like everyone else in the world, people have said things that have hurt me, too. But I can recognize that the temporary emotional injury I experience is not a good reason to overturn the entire foundation of liberal society. Free speech is a pretty principle because if, god forbid, the tables were ever turned, I would enjoy its protections as much as Curtis Yarvin does now. It has nothing to do with whether he is wrong and I am right, or whether the things he believes have any special power to injure me.
Inclusivity, egalitarianism, and protecting the views of the minority are in direct contradiction to Curtis Yarvin's thought. So ironically, Curtis Yarvin's mere presence at such a conference would be a direct contradiction of his views. In other words, they're arguing against him by inviting him.
It should be noted 'free speech' is the reason you can have this conversation in the first place.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. That is, if you wish to not have your opinions censored you cannot ask for the censorship of other opinions you feel offensive.
I wish bigots and other prejudiced people would spare us, but I value my freedom to speak my mind more than I dislike hearing hateful speech.
This anti-free speech and being against keeping politics out of technology/business conferences is as radical and distasteful as anything I've read about neoreactionary.
Rights apply to government interactions with its subjects. Lambdaconf isn't a government, none of us are. And really? Being disinvited is the same as secret police renditions?
But let's take your absurd comparison in good faith: I don't care whether they have the "right" or not, I would oppose retaliation by a state on the merits of the situation. Again I will repeat my exasperation at the idea that one must have a rule that applies to all conflicts of speech uniformly without consideration of context or details of the conflict. No one here wants to grapple with the effects of hate speech on others, they simply want to ignore them, and that is completely irrational. Free speech absolutism is irrational and behaves like dogmatic religion.
Yarvin was disinvited because his political beliefs are threatening (and yes, several people used the word "threatened").
Therefore, communists should also be disinvited if anyone feels threatened.
Yes or no?
I mentioned nothing about "the state", by the way. Clearly Lambaconf is a private organization that can invite (or disinvite) anyone it wants.
I am asking why "feeling threatened" by Yarvin (who, as near as I can figure out --- there's no way I'm going to plow through all that turgid prose) is a political party of one, and who (again, as far as I know) has never actually harmed anyone, is a valid reason for disinvitation while feeling threatened by communists (who most assuredly have actually murdered millions of people) is not.
Quoting from a Lobste.rs post [1] on the other side of this issue:
> Here’s a different approach, which explains this quite reasonably: LambdaConf made a lot of effort to contact organisations involving PoC, introducing diversity scholarships etc. to gain some fame. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, they decide to run a person which is clearly incompatible. These organisations cut their ties and oppose the project they supported. It’s all very unsurprising. You can’t shout “everyone is equal, please spread!” and then invite someone on the speakers list who wrote hundreds of thousands of words how he thinks people are fundamentally unequal by disposition and some should be slaves.
> I’d be far less aggravated if LambdaConf had just been a run-of-the-mill conference, but it tried to be the diverse conference in FP. Now it shows that they actually meant “libertarian”. Appropriating terms like “inclusive” or “diverse” for that is just a recipe for disaster...
> LambdaConf chose to be a temporary, short space where anything goes unless it’s not physically violent. What they communicated was something different though. And that difference is biting them now, making sponsors jump off and people protest.
In sum: people are upset because they feel used - that LambdaConf made one set of promises and advertised in a specific way to gain fame, then flipped on those values afterward.
Using the words "inclusive" and "diverse" to describe a position which encourages banning people who think differently than most is highly problematic and disingenuous.
What an amazing article; cool-headed, rational and very well-argued. Especially the "Appendix" containing definitions and short doscussions/arguments is worth reading.
I think the policy to ignore social media is a valuable innovation. For a couple of years, I have hoped to see companies adopt this policy to protect their employees from being capriciously let go.
> In March 2016, the organizers of [LambdaConf] announced that they would include neo-reactionary Curtis Yarvin on the program despite widespread protest.
> LambdaConf, an annual gathering of programmers in Boulder, Colorado, has faced calls from social justice warriors to cancel a talk by Curtis Yarvin, the developer of the Urbit programming environment, due to his political views.
TL;DR LambdaConf invited a controversial speaker and people got very upset.
The whole story:
LambdaConf accepted a talk by Curtis Yarvin [0] for his work on Urbit [1][2] through a blind selection process. Before announcing the speaker list they realized this could be controversial and wrote about their decision to invite him anyway [3].
There was enormous push back on social media [4, 5], causing a number of sponsors to withdraw. An IndieGogo was set up to raise money for the conference [6] and was funded within 24 hours [7]. Soon after, a number of people co-signed a statement opposing LambdaConf's decision [8].
A controversial speaker and subsequent protests, what is inclusive and what is right. Open Bazaar vs Safe Space debate of the Conferences.
For an average person who is interested in functional programming this is a side show, but since we all are now about "Culture", this is one more phase of Culture wars.
You're not, it's just a microscopic drama that is engulfing a tiny subset of the FP world. I'm following a lot of these people and their Twitter stream has been flooded by reactions to this, which makes me think they really don't have much else to talk about.
Also at http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/11/ot47-openai/ "And a very different kind of campaign – computer science conference LambdaConf uses a blind review process to select topics for presentation. This year one of their selections was a talk on weird-namespace-software Urbit by Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug). A group of Twitter activists demanded that he be excluded from the conference for his political views. When the conference refused to capitulate, the activists started pressuring sponsors to pull out of the conference in the hopes of making the conference financially unviable. After some preliminary success, anti-censorship blog Status 451 launched a counter-campaign to get people concerned about freedom of opinion in tech to donate to LambdaConf and help make up the difference. This is usually where I’d ask you to donate, except that they reached their $15,000 goal within the first day of their campaign, they’re now 146% funded, and the only reason to give any more at this point is to give an even louder FUCK YOU to the people involved. Since that actually sounds pretty good, you can take a look at the campaign here. See also ESR’s take."
Exceptionally lucid and captures every this I think of and aligns well with my position.
It is ironically said that fundamental Christians of today would give Jesus the hardest time if this was his Era.
Likewise, I have observed that the most "militantly liberal expousers" seem to be the most intolerant of other views.(I speak as an observer from outside the western world where this is prevalent)
I hope this is the end of this issue.
This response will serve as template for future moral police people
I'm not a part of LambdaConf, nor would I plan to (not because of the controversy, but just because I don't have the time/money to attend any US-based conference)...
But these discussions remind me a lot of the "censorship" discussions that have been had both on places like reddit or twitter.
For the longest time, code of conducts were a thing that were accepted. Don't be a jerk, don't spout racist stuff at people. Loads of forums had it, and the places that didn't basically became 4chan (which is interesting in its own right but filled with pretty rude people).
Sometime between 1995 and 2015, we started thinking that rules that basically say "don't be a jerk" stopped being the norm.... I really wonder why. Now it gets classified as "censorship".
That being said, my understanding is that this guy's talk wasn't "How FP advances the causes of Stormfont", which makes it pretty hard to say outright "gotta kick him out".
But I wouldn't want Marine Le Pen or Trump at my FP conference, no matter how subtle and developed their views on FP are. My opinion does not entire conference submission guidelines make, but I can understand fighting against that. Social interactions don't work in a vacuum...
> Someone with progressive political views might feel emotionally threatened in the presence of rabid and well-known Trump supporters who are openly contemptuous of progressives in their personal lives […]
Ugh. I’m not sure how I would have selected examples of potentional emotional distress but a laundry list of caricatures of political, sexual, and religious attitudes wouldn’t have been my first choice.
This is a divisive issue, and originally I found myself agreeing with this post, because, in general, I expect a conference to about mature professionals focusing on the craft.
That said, LambdaConf advertises itself as a "magical place" with a "passionate and friendly community of like-minded souls."
Given that, I understand why people are upset. They are trying to have it both ways.
> Free speech advocates have gathered on one side, advocates for social justice on the other
wtf
Those two are supposed to be the same side. There's some really perverse twisting of words here to put social justice in opposition to free speech. How has the debate come to this?
A speaker-blind selection process selected a talk by someone who is considered by some to be offensive for reasons not directly relevant to the content of the talk.
Yet definitely relevant to the people who would choose to attend the conference. It's definitely going to make some people feel uncomfortable attending, knowing that they invited someone who believes that you are not deserving of human rights and dignity to speak.
The Lambdaconf guy who mindbogglingly rejects social media for being "fickle, highly emotional, and irrational" has no idea about free speech.
Moldbug has a record of going to professional confs and advocating racism. (Working to exclude people.) Furthermore, one of their sponsors is a racist political blog, which is unprecedented in my experience. (For evidence, see my comment history.)
Context: a country which notoriously kills and incarcerates blacks, as a replacement for slavery. Racism involves political actions which directly impact the lives of participants and users.
This creates an atmosphere completely counter to education. People always say "Hallway chats are the best part!" so it's not just about a talk.
I just think that one or both sides is being misrepresented or is being dishonest. If you don't want free speech, do you want censorship? If you don't want social justice, do you want social injustice? It's not like you must have one of censorship or social injustice. There's a false dichotomy going on here.
But there isn't, a blind selection process ended up selecting somebody that social justice deems as worthy of censorship. Hence free speech (blind selection of ideas on their merits - regardless of who it is) vs. social justice (ostracization of bigots by removing all platforms for their speech). The policies - of variations of these two ideological positions - are diametrically opposed in this case.
Agreed. In addition to "codes of conduct" that seem to assume all attendees are lecherous, racist rapists some conferences step outside their focus and end up turning away potential attendees. For example, this military member who really seems to be the target market for DjangoCon but who can't attend due to past pro-marijuana speakers. https://www.reddit.com/r/django/comments/4dihy4/django_train...
While I suppose there may be some codes of conduct out there that truly make those assumptions, most of the ones I've seen are simply predicated on the assumption that it's better to proactively make rules outlining acceptable behavior -- and, ideally, outlining both the ways complaints will be handled, including enforcement.
We'd all like to believe that "trust everyone to not to be jerks to one another" is code enough for any convention, and I get that "X, Y and Z will not be tolerated" can come across like taking sides in a debate. But establishing a CoC first is the social engineering equivalent of test-driven development. Handling complaints on an entirely ad hoc, subjective basis works as long as complaints remain relatively minor, but the failure mode can be pretty spectacular, and not in a good way.
About the chart on "moral reasoning", consequentialism, the idea that only the outcome is what matters, is an ethical system that one can base their morals off of. I'm not sure where they got the idea that they're two separate things.
Also the whole "xyism" thing seems to be their own made-up terminology for the idea of an illusory correlation in social psychology. Why not just say stereotyping groups is a bad idea instead of the weird references to logic and set theory?
I do not understand the prevailing opinions in this thread and I must confess that, even though I disagree respectfully with LambdaConf's choices (respectfully as in, hey, it's their conference and I can even understand their reasoning), seeing the uncertainty and the doubt and the bullying and the lack of empathy for the less fortunate, this is the first time I'm ashamed of being a software developer.
I personally don't understand how anybody can claim that his views aren't racist in the most profound hate-inducing ways, and for every such assertion it feels like a spit in the face at least of those that have had grandfathers surviving WWII, let alone the minorities amongst us that fear not for their job, but for their personal safety.
But keep thinking that hate speech is just political opinion that needs to be protected. And keep demeaning and silencing those that ring alarms, as if "SJWs" are amongst your biggest problems. Yeah, that worked out well in the past.
Left authoritarianism and right wing authoritarianism are two sides of the same coin [1]. I couldn't accept one without the other as they operate on the same principles. Which is why I am willing to go to a tech conference as long as the subject matter is entirely about technology. If it included political discourse by said people it would be a different story and I wouldn't attend. Attendance is voluntary. And as far as I'm concerned people are free to attend whatever political conference they please. The only time I would support forcing a speaker not to be able to attend is if he planned to give a speech specifically involving inciting violence, coercion, or other blatant criminal acts at that specific venue - and specifically a venue residing within my local community/country. The internet is a different story.
I don't recall this kind of brouhaha affecting more "academic" conferences, e.g. ISCA or Supercomputing, but I can't come up with a decent reason why that might be the case. Did the LambdaConf organizers just get unlucky?
An attempt to derive a concept of “inclusivity” from first principles, complete with made-up jargon words and diagrams.
DeGoes wants to be thought of as “inclusive” but doesn’t understand that the purpose of inclusivity is to hear from marginalised voices you might be systemically excluding. He thinks “ah, we’ll achieve ‘inclusivity’ by including everyone, even the odious!” Thus achieving literally the opposite. But that’s okay, he can show his working.
His new reactionary fandom (~ 0 of whom give two hoots about functional programming) are fully onside. Everyone else has left them to it; it’s unclear if DeGoes understands in any way that this is what has happened.
There's no such thing as "not becoming political". Hosting an event is a political act; so is selling tickets to the event or paying people to help you run it. These acts might be _normal_ but they're still _political_.
When someone says, "I don't want this to get political", what they're really saying is "I'm comfortable with the politics of the status quo and I want things to stay the way they are". Sometimes that's totally fine. In this case it means giving a voice to a racist advocate of slavery.
De Goes can have his conference, but arguing that this isn't a political decision is simply incorrect.
[q]In this case it means giving a voice to a racist advocate of slavery.[/q]
This is possibly disingenuous, and at least overly rhetorical.
They are not "giving him a voice" to talk about anything related to anything racist, and I'm sure if he used his slot to talk about anything racist, he would get perma-banned from the conference.
It is hard to say more than this without just repeating things said in the conference's statement. The idea is that a professional society ought to be able to cohere even when the members of that society disagree on matters outside the subject at hand. It seems like a good idea.
I'm not really familiar with the details of this whole LambdaConf drama, but your argument keeps showing up on my Twitter feed regularly and I never found it very convincing to be honest. I don't see why hosting an event is necessarily a political act and I don't see why when people say "I don't want this to get political" it means that they're happy with the status quo. People keep repeating these arguments online as if they were self-evident truths and never really explain well (or at all) why these statements are true.
In particular, an argument could be made that someone could find being forced to be surrounded by politics boring and tedious even if they agree with these ideas. If you don't believe me, just read the comments in any political HN post (such as this one); I guarantee you that you will find many of the comments obnoxious, even some of the ones you agree with in principle.
That's a totally reasonable question. I typed my initial response on my phone and was going for brevity.
People live in society together. Broadly speaking, political decisions are decisions about what the rules for how we should go about living and working together are. We tend to think of things as _obviously_ political when the community has a debate about whether or not something is acceptable (like abortion). But because politics sets the boundaries of social life, it also defines its interior.
For example, you and I (probably) both agree that it's totally reasonable to go to Starbucks and buy a cup of coffee. We don't think of this as an action anywhere near the boundaries of acceptable conduct, and so we both think of it as not having a whole lot of political meaning. A Marxist, however, would argue that we're participating in an exploitative system because we're using private property, shopping at a capitalist-owned business, etc.
We both don't buy their argument, but simply because they've made it, we're forced to concede that buying coffee is political act. By buying coffee, we're saying we're comfortable with the structures that created Starbucks, or that we judge any harmful consequences of buying coffee to be less important than our day to day convenience. The fact that the action is normal doesn't change the fact that at some point _we decided it was acceptable_, and that decision was _definitely_ political.
To give another example, the Free Software Foundation, is explicitly founded on the idea that everyday acts have political meaning, no matter how normal they are. Take this passage from their site (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-impor...):
>>>With proprietary software, the program controls the users, and some other entity (the developer or “owner”) controls the program. So the proprietary program gives its developer power over its users. That is unjust in itself, and tempts the developer to mistreat the users in other ways.
>>>Freedom means having control over your own life. If you use a program to carry out activities in your life, your freedom depends on your having control over the program. You deserve to have control over the programs you use, and all the more so when you use them for something important in your life.
The FSF is arguing that the way you distribute software is a political decision, not just a matter of technical convenience, and they're totally right to point this out.
Anyway. To bring it back to LambdaConf, De Goes is clearly wrong to claim that things have "become" politicized. It's more accurate to say that giving a speaking slot to racists was political acceptable and has become politically disputed. De Goes doesn't like that things have gone from acceptable to disputed, so he claims he doesn't want things to be "political". But things were always political, it's just that previously they weren't controversial.
This is why people who argue against "politicizing" issues are implicitly arguing for the politics of the status quo. They're arguing against change.
It means that, if I believed in the concept of "verbal assault" or "verbal violence", they would be equivalent to a militant terrorist group, planning and executing organized attacks.
It sounds like it means "I feel threatened by these people's views even though they've shown no interest in physically acting on them." Which is kind of ironic, given the context.
This is probably the most reasonable response to these sorts of pressures I've ever seen. One can hope that other groups will follow their lead and strive to act like fully-grown, professional, adults.
The attempt to be a neutral platform is laudable, and the wording used to express the idea seems to be well thought through.
The fact remains that even though that insist that they are not endorsing any of the speakers' views, the mere act of giving a divisive speaker an audience (even if the presentation is entirely topical and non-controversial) acts as an implicit endorsement. Denying this doesn't change the effective endorsement.
> the mere act of giving a divisive speaker an audience acts as an implicit endorsement
Giving a speaker a talk acts an implicit endorsement of all of their views? That doesn't even sound remotely true, yet you state it as if it was tautological.
Conf: "We're giving person A a presentation slot because they have a compelling presentation on topic W."
Possible Attendee: "Are you aware that person A has said things X, Y, and Z, which taken together can make people reluctant to associate with them?"
Conf: "We are aware of that but do not wish to make our conference about anything X, Y, or Z. The presentation is topical."
PA: "If you feature this speaker, you will cause some people to be reluctant to associate with your conference as well."
Conf: "We understand that, but speaker A is discussing topic W, not topics X, Y, or Z. We choose to feature the speaker because of their presentation on W."
By taking this position, the conference associates itself with the speaker. Possible attendees will see this association and draw the conclusion that the conference endorses the speaker, even if that endorsement is only about non-controversial things that are within the topic of the conference.
Dryly stating that there is no endorsement of any off-topic position does not remove that association and the implicit endorsement.
Implicit endorsement by association is a real effect. Go talk to any major politician about how they can't be seen talking to anyone remotely controversial, because of how associating with that person might be seen as endorsement.
That said, you should know as well as I do that judges will often restrict media coverage of hearings and trials in various ways because they know that the people involved (lawyers & otherwise) can and will attempt to grandstand and make a show of it, using the media as a platform for their message.
Funny how, using your own logic, Google didn't take down Moldbug's posts. BTW, have you stopped using Google products since they endorse this kind of speech on the platform?
That said, you should know as well as I do that some people have indeed decided to stop using Google services based on their political behavior and viewpoints and actions ... or silence and inactions.
Not at all. Blogger (where Moldbug's posts are alive and well) is a _platform_ - and it's owned and operated by Google. Using your logic, Google is "endorsing" this type of speech. Oh yeah - so is AWS, Azure, Akamai, CloudFlare, etc. when they take a neutral view of content.
Honestly, I can't make heads or tails of it. There's some racist lingo, but more than anything this guy seems unhinged, like the kind of person I wouldn't want to be in a room with, let alone have a conversation with.
The general rule in Common Law (English speaking) legal systems is that if the lawyer knows (as opposed to suspects) that their client is guilty, they cannot let their client plead not guilty. They can still defend the client by pleading for a lesser sentence etc, or they can cease acting for the client. They don't have any obligation to tell the court, just an obligation not to lie to the court. Of course each jurisdiction will have its own rules about this.
Except you don't enter a plea for an action, you enter a plea for a criminal charge. A murderer can confess a crime to his lawyer (under privilege), and still honestly plead not-guilty to first-degree murder (for example, it could be considered manslaughter).
Yeah, it's definitely a catch 22. I do know that you are not allowed to present evidence that you know to be false, such as your client bringing you an alibi witness that is in direct contradiction to your other evidence.
I invite anyone to peruse that list and tell me these aren't some of the brightest professionals and integral community members in functional programming (subtracting me of course). I welcome anyone to make the claim that these individuals haven't come to their positions through reason and deep consideration for the ramifications of how this issue is resolved.
Let's assume everyone on this list is indeed here out of sincere and disinterested belief (I wouldn't underestimate peer pressure, or even more cynically : the subtle but real career brownie points one can earn at some organizations, for openly displaying one's allegiance to social justice causes)
But then how does being a "bright professional and integral FP community member" equate to undisputable authority on a completely unrelated moral topic ?
"Bright professionals" doesn't necessarily imply "thought leaders that have given this particular issue more careful consideration than anybody else". Heck, it doesn't even necessarily imply "good people".
I knew nothing about him or this controversy until know, but approaching it with an open mind I found the above clarification quite sincere, and way more articulated than that 3 paragraphs long open letter that features all of the familiar, easy rhetoric...
And yet, the 'intolerance' that you're so intolerant of goes without citation, without explanation, without discussion. Strikes me as blatant McCarthyism.
Perhaps my account is anonymous because the comment should stand on its own? The discussion surrounding this issue shouldn't require personal reputation. The facts should be sufficient.
This may not be a very popular belief but I honestly don't care what other people believe/think/worship/do as long as it doesn't harm any one else or me. I have extreme liberals on my Twitter feed as do I have extreme conservatives. People post stuff every now and again that kind of turns me off, but I still follow them because they have good stuff to say tech wise. I'm always open minded to what they post though.
In our profession we can't always work with the most open minded people(politically) but as long as the work gets done and they are open minded technically that's all that matters to me. I work with and hang out with people I don't agree with on certain things, drink beer, go over for dinner. No issue for me. I'm Libertarian, so politically I have something I can agree with on both sides usually.
As long as this guy doesn't give any hate speech or harm someone then I honestly don't see the problem.
While their explanation does have a lot of logical appeal (see: https://www.facebook.com/notes/satnam-singh/dr-spock-vs-dive...), it's important to remember that prospective attendees and speakers also have the right of free association.
The fact is, I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. I would encourage others to make the same decision. I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. They are human beings and deserve all the rights and privileges thereof.
But I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them, pretending nothing is wrong.
This isn't a free speech issue, this is a "who do you want in your community" issue. In the light of a community, you can't, and you shouldn't, pull one aspect of a person's character and isolate it from the rest of their identity.
I hope people give me the same treatment. I am more than the content of my technical talks, and so is Yarvin.