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by amcastillo
4025 days ago
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Some important context to recognize in this incident is that it was a handful of explicitly (leftist) political personalities that rose any stink to begin with. Clark more or less names them all in his piece. Most of the ones who pushed to censor Urbit from Strange Loop even admitted that they personally were not attending the conference. Most conference attendants would not have had the first clue that a member of the Urbit team maintained a conservative political blog from 2007 to 2013 or so under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. The ones that did probably would not care too much about it as most of them are not preoccupied with aggressive radical politics. They'd attend the talk, or not, and go on with their lives. It's a heckler's vote. Now, the conversation is about Yarvin and his politics. But if these 3-4 radical and deeply political agitators had not made this an issue to begin with, everyone attending the conference would have just known they were attending a presentation on Urbit (if they even chose to check out that session). In other words, if this is established as a precedent, then a passionate enough fringe group can create the "destruction" they claim to be against to justify covert ideological policing. That this is occurring at a strictly technology event with a reputation for openness to innovative, experimental ideas is particularly chilling. "Nice conference you got there, shame if this speaker I don't like created a controversy for you"-type manipulation does not seem as bad or obvious when the targeted beliefs are foreign to your own. Stepping back and anticipating the implications reveals a troubling future, and one that is occurring in many industries at once. |
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That's really interesting that the most prominent voices against him aren't attending...I don't know.
I don't think that you have to imagine done kind of follow on effects...i think the US probably irreversibly stopped being a free society when it became a national security state. So, I guess what I'm saying that it doesn't seem our of character in the US. I would just add that it's actually bidirectional pressure from both the left and the right depending on the subject and the area.
I'll stop rambling... Thanks for the background info, though...