[mikeash]

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?

[dmix]

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.

[lukev]

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.

[mikeash]

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?

[tatterdemalion]

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:

https://medium.com/@codepaintsleep/lambdaconf-2016-controver...

[zardgiv]

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.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

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.

[mikeash]

> 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.

[calibraxis]

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.

[mikeash]

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:

https://statement-on-lambdaconf.github.io

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.

[thescribe]

Can you provide an example of any action he has taken that is not merely expressing a view?

[calibraxis]

Do you want evidence of him... shivving someone?

(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?

[tomp]

> 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.

[calibraxis]

It'd be great if you have evidence that Moldbug is an ex-con who underwent rehab for his racism!

If not, would you really invite someone with a record of stabbing people at conferences? Who writes literature advocating murder, etc?

(In the real world, Moldbug leverages society's obvious violence against African-Americans. He's therefore complicit in that systematic violence. That's why Lambdaconf's racist supporters are so desperate to support him, no matter how clumsily. That's why all these people were targeted on sjwlist.com for speaking out against violence: http://statement-on-lambdaconf.github.io/ )

[tomp]

> It'd be great if you have evidence that Moldbug is an ex-con who underwent rehab for his racism!

Unlike violent crime, racist speech isn't immediately dangerous. But in any case, if you believe he's a criminal, rally to have him arrested; him being a free man means that he has nothing to go in rehab for.

> society's obvious violence against African-Americans

You mean, African-American's obvious violence against African-Americans?

http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race...

[AnimalMuppet]

> > Can you provide an example of any action he has taken that is not merely expressing a view?

Apparently, the answer is: No.