[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.