No one's endorsing him by letting him speak to an interested group.
Is Hacker News endorsing you by letting you comment here?
And I'd be concerned too if this conference let him talk about his viewpoints, but that's not what he's on the stage for. If someone looked into your history deep enough, wouldn't they be able to find something distasteful too?
Imagine not being able to talk about your software development career just because something thinks something you did (even if entirely unrelated!) was distasteful.
Do you think anyone seriously looks at Moldbug as an authority figure? Come on, you're blowing this way out of proportion. I think someone should be allowed to have their fringe views and be a member of the wonderful programming community. I don't agree with his views, but I'll defend his right to have them.
If you think it's easy to make editorial decisions on, I think you're missing some part of this.
> No one's endorsing him by letting him speak to an interested group.
If that is true, then it's also true that no one is censoring him by declining to let him speak at a conference.
> Is Hacker News endorsing you by letting you comment here?
No, but Hacker News has and will continue to make editorial decisions about who is allowed to post here. Race baiting trolls have been called "race baiting trolls" and kicked out of Hacker News right before my eyes.
> And I'd be concerned too if this conference let him talk about his viewpoints, but that's not what he's on the stage for. If someone looked into your history deep enough, wouldn't they be able to find something distasteful too?
Of course! I was a hyper-right self-denying religious racist as a child. I've been very open about the environment I was raised into, and done my best to work through those issues. I no longer endorse those views, and I've paid a heavy price for them.
But you seem to pretend that just because the subject of his talk is some technological function, that this means that he will not be interacting socially or simply being present. Isn't the best part of conferences the "hallway tract?" Do you think his presence will not influence that?
Have you read what this person has wrote? "Racism" is not "distasteful." Racism is a vile dehumanizing view of our peers.
> Imagine not being able to talk about your software development career just because something thinks something you did (even if entirely unrelated!) was distasteful.
Racist viewpoints, no matter their origin or justification, are not politics. They're a fundamental denial of other people's humanity. These views were once common, but now are frowned upon. People who vocally and publicly espouse them can and should face societal consequences. It is not like tech conferences are some special place where humans was away the stink of the outside world and emerge as beings of pure thought.
> I think someone should be allowed to have their fringe views and be a member of the wonderful programming community. I don't agree with his views, but I'll defend his right to have them.
No one is mad because of a fringe view. They're mad because he vociferously promotes a view of the world that fundamentally denies the humanity of many people who are members of the tech community. These targeted members are part of a community that faces systemic violence and discrimination in many parts of the United States.
We've seen this lame tactic before; people claim that any mention of feminism and the inherent biases of the programming community is "politics" and that should "stay out of tech." "Tech is neutral on this issue! All we care about is making something."
But when you take a neutral stance on someone clearly calling for oppressive action to be enacted against an entire category of humans, you are not being neutral. You're inherently supporting them, because inaction on human rights issues means not protecting human rights.
> If you think it's easy to make editorial decisions on, I think you're missing some part of this.
How is saying, "We don't support racism" even remotely difficult in 2016? Quite the opposite. With the way that sponsors are dropping off of LambdaConf, they've chosen the expensive road. The major sponsors are pulling out, and I have backchannel info that another one will on Monday.
I'm not sure why this comment is being downvoted (perhaps because HN is [thankfully] less and less tolerant of anything it perceives as factional) but I think I agree with all of it.
The kinds of conferences we're talking about here are private events. Conferences are free to make decisions about speakers any way they'd like, just like a magazine can choose to run or not run a story about any given author.
A lot of people talk about things like StrangeLoop and Lambdaconf as if they were academic venues, like USENIX. They are not; they are as different from academic conferences as The National Review is from IEEE Transactions on Networking.
Nobody is denying that conference organizers have a right to censorship. We're just saying that it's better if they don't exercise it! The reason why e.g. academic venues don't censor (I'm guessing this, your comment kind-of implies it) is because they strive to be better, to uphold the right kind of values!
I don't recall saying anything about censorship. I said it was "actually inadvisable". Because I think that his views have nothing to do with the presentation he's going to give. No one even realized that he was going to give this talk because the speaker names were anonymized to the editorial crew, probably as a way to prevent marginalized groups from being excluded.
> [...] Hacker News has and will continue to make editorial decisions about who is allowed to post here.
And those decisions are made judging by the person's interactions on HN and only HN, as far as I know.
> [...] you seem to pretend [...]
Am I being accused of something?
> [...] just because the subject of his talk is some technological function, that this means he will not be interacting socially or simply being present.
Firstly, there's a very well-written pledge that all LambdaConf attendees (speakers or otherwise) have to follow. What you are describing in his social interactions will be contained within those rules. He will be thrown out if he does something stupid.
Secondly, is his mere presence such an affront to you? Are you really unable to exist in the same space as a racist? I understand that those views are fundamentally wrong and really awful. But what does his presence have to do with it? Can you explain to me a scenario where his presence is a factor in the equation?
I know he's dehumanized people in his writing and I think that's a horrible thing. At the same time, what do his purposely self-anonymized writings have to do with his code?
> [...] can and should face societal consequences.
Witchhunting? ...I hope I'm misunderstanding you. Can you please elaborate on this point?
> [...] people claim that any mention of feminism and the inherent biases of the programming community is "politics" and that should "stay out of tech." "Tech is neutral on this issue! All we care about is making something."
I said none of that, and I don't agree that feminism or bias are politics. They're intertwined with society, which touches everything we do. I agree with many of the ideals at play here, and you're not wrong about systemic violence and discrimination. At the same time, I wouldn't prevent him from talking to a group of people because of what he believes in a different context. It's not in scope. We shouldn't be seeing side-effects here.
If I or anyone else made a conference for feminist issues or the like, then I'd have to reevaluate whether people are interested in hearing what he has to say. But that's not even in scope in this instance.
> [...] someone clearly calling for oppressive action to be enacted against an entire category of humans [...]
Citation needed on his call to action. A quote from him:
>> I promote only one kind of action: reading old books. I’ve explicitly denounced any other form of “direct action,” violent or otherwise.
> But when you take a neutral stance [above quote] you are not being neutral. You're inherently supporting them, because inaction on human rights issues means not protecting human rights.
False dichotomy
> 2016?
I know what year it is
> even remotely difficult
You're boiling down a complex concept to "supporting racism"
> they've chosen the expensive road
Being inclusive and open-minded is priceless to me
> I have backchannel info
Is it just me or do you seem to revel in this? Realize that this kind of stuff is penalizing people not even remotely close to this argument or whatever's happening.
> You're boiling down a complex concept to "supporting racism"
It's not complex. An infamous author of racist texts who also happens to do technology shows up at another tech conference and goes, "Wink wink nod nod I think black people make good slaves but we can be patient about that and passively do it."
There is no threat to his speech. There is every threat to his avenues for podiums from which to speak in public. No one is saying he can't attend. They're saying they don't want to go to a conference that gives a podium to a devout racist.
> At the same time, what do his purposely self-anonymized writings have to do with his code?
Nothing. This has nothing to do with his code. It never has been. Why do you keep bringing it up? Are you going to perhaps say, "Because it's a tech conference?" Because I'd reply, "Because it is a tech conference." It takes place between people, and only serves its attendees.
> Is it just me or do you seem to revel in this?
I loathe that this is my responsibility. I loathe that this is a thing we even have to discuss. I hate that these assinine actions and weak justifications need to be shot down again. They're boring, they're tiresome, they're morally baseless and intellectually bankrupt.
But I also feel like collecting bad actors in my peer group and helping to censure them is important. My reasons for that are my own.
> [He] shows up at another tech conference and goes, "Wink wink nod nod I think black people make good slaves but we can be patient about that and passively do it."
... this is a really unfortunate way to carry a discussion. And I'll remind you that he's not carrying his ideals to the conference. That'd be against the Pledge, as well as against his public statement in the article.
> There is no threat to his speech.
I'll say it again. "I don't recall saying anything about censorship." I didn't say anything about free speech or censorship.
> [...] a devout racist.
> Why do you keep bringing [his code] up?
What does race have to do with it? What doesn't his code have to do with it? It is indeed a tech conference, and I believe that anyone who has an interest in tech and is willing to follow the rules should be able to attend.
He has given every indication of those two things.
It does take place between people, you're right. But do you think he's going to be an awful person in person? And I'll quote back again to my previous post: "is his mere presence such an affront to you? Are you really unable to exist in the same space as a racist? I understand that those views are fundamentally wrong and really awful. But what does his presence have to do with it? Can you explain to me a scenario where his presence is a factor in the equation?"
It does not dis-serve the attendees of the conference for him to be able to go.
> I loathe that this is my responsibility.
This is your responsibility? What?
> [...] morally baseless and intellectually bankrupt.
Can you explain to me why you feel this to be the case?
And I agree that criticizing bad actors is a perfectly okay thing to do, within reason. I disagree with the idea that the shitstorm surrounding this is reasonable. This is totally excluding someone from a community. And as much as I agree with your right to have your opinion, I disagree with the idea of taking action on such an opinion.
I just can't fathom it. I don't get it. And I don't think that his racism in a totally different context precludes him from being able to participate in a conference.
> ... this is a really unfortunate way to carry a discussion. And I'll remind you that he's not carrying his ideals to the conference. That'd be against the Pledge, as well as against his public statement in the article.
Why exactly is it that a short written statement can somehow absolve someone of the social responsibility of a multi-year career of hate speech?
> What doesn't his code have to do with it? It is indeed a tech conference, and I believe that anyone who has an interest in tech and is willing to follow the rules should be able to attend.
No one has said he can't attend. Why would yous suggest this?
> But do you think he's going to be an awful person in person? And I'll quote back again to my previous post: "is his mere presence such an affront to you? Are you really unable to exist in the same space as a racist? I understand that those views are fundamentally wrong and really awful. But what does his presence have to do with it? Can you explain to me a scenario where his presence is a factor in the equation?"
It's not his presence. It's his authority figure as a speaker while being an outspoken member of the pro-racism community. Do you actually know what he writes about?
> And I agree that criticizing bad actors is a perfectly okay thing to do, within reason. I disagree with the idea that the shitstorm surrounding this is reasonable.
How is this unreasonable. "We will not support your conference if you give the podium to a famous and vocal racist who calls for the enslavement of black people." This is a boycott. No one is suggesting they be made to comply by force.
And the amount of pressure brought to the sponsors is minimal. Tiny. People are choosing not to support LambdaConf because the notion of handing the microphone to a prominent and vocal defender of racism is a vile notion.
Why is this so hard to grasp?
> This is totally excluding someone from a community. And as much as I agree with your right to have your opinion, I disagree with the idea of taking action on such an opinion.
Why should an intolerant bigot be included in any community? Don't these communities have a right and a duty to control their attendance as they see fit?
> How is this unreasonable. "We will not support your conference if you give the podium to a famous and vocal racist who calls for the enslavement of black people."
Citation needed for the claim that Yarvin has called for the enslavement of black people.
I've seen him say that black people made better slaves than, say, Native Americans, but that's quite different from saying that they should be slaves. See this discussion from his recent AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...
He has frequently called for the dissolution of the form of government that has spent decades and an incredible body count to outlaw slavery.
Mysteriously this doesn't quite add up to a wholesale endorsement of enacting slavery in the US. Just in whatever part of the world he'd like to help Thiel and the ultra-conservative libertarian people build.
And quite frankly, plain naked racism is almost always the justification for enacting slavery. Just because it's convenient for him to say he doesn't endorce active conversion to his "natural" relationship today doesn't mean that the notions aren't a direct precursor and a justification for said actions.
Let's not beat around the bush. It is straightforward, but tedious, to put together the sequence of things he's written that makes it clear that when he talks about the suitability of different races for slavery, what he is really talking about is the suitability for "blacks" --- a racial construct he appears to buy into wholeheartedly --- for slavery.
He is, in fact, (creepily) fixated on blacks vs. whites.
Do you really want a citation for this claim? I can provide one, but it will be complicated, because Yarvin is an obscurantist. Before giving you the bulleted list of facts that would back up this claim, I'd like to first know if you've actually read Yarvin's walls of text on his UR blog, and how closely you've read them.
Don't put any effort into it...I'm not that interested since I don't care what outside beliefs someone has at a technical conference as long as they leave them outside (and the conference rules of conduct either prohibit others from bringing them up or allow one to defend their outside beliefs if others bring them up).
I've read one or two of his walls of text, but kind of fogged out a bit due to the length so was more skimming than reading closely in many parts.
Generally, when I ask someone for a citation it is because I want to know if they have done their homework, or are just repeating what they read on some blog or forum.
If you say he is racist, I have no doubt you have checked for yourself, and if I did ask you for cites you'd give ones that strongly backed your points.
The person I was responding too...not so much. I was not impressed with his response.
From what you said here and elsewhere, it sounds like there are three levels to understanding Yarvin. At the first level, you see some statements about things like slavery that seem in isolation to be pretty bad.
At the second level, when you check for context of those specific statements, they seem reasonable. E.g., slavery as a natural human relationship. Given how long widespread slavery lasted in human history, it is hard to say that it is not natural. The key at level two is to realize that recognizing something as natural does not imply one thinks it is good. I'd say much of human advancement comes from deciding that we will NOT do things that are natural, because often natural behavior maximizes short term or local gain over long term or widespread gain. Hence, we have banned for good reason various natural behaviors such as slavery, rape, revenge killings, genocide against conquered people, and so on.
Then there is the third level, apparently, where you go deeper and decide that he really is racist underneath.
I've went to level two. You are at level three. The person I was responding to appears to be either at level one, or perhaps at level two but applying faulty logic (e.g., it was democratic governments that outlawed slavery, and Yarvin is against democracy, therefore Yarvin is in favor of slavery).
> Generally, when I ask someone for a citation it is because I want to know if they have done their homework, or are just repeating what they read on some blog or forum.
Quick.... quick question. Wouldn't that have been the kind of foundation research you were asking for and hoping for in the first place? And didn't I provide specific blog posts by the man in question w.r.t. his views on race relations?
Unless of course, your entire request was a disingenuous attempt to derail the conversation.
But now I'm being silly! Of course, that's exactly what you're saying it is. I appreciate how you freely admit that you aren't actually interested in evidence, you were just hoping to derail me. Your honesty is refreshing.
> The person I was responding too...not so much. I was not impressed with his response.
Have a nice day. Better luck next time on your astroturfing.
> And didn't I provide specific blog posts by the man in question w.r.t. his views on race relations?
I asked for a citation on the claim that he has called for the enslavement of black people. I specifically mentioned that I had seem him talk about how some groups were better slaves than others, and linked to a thread within his recent AMA.
You responded with a link to his blog where he said that slavery is a natural human relationship. I followed that link, searched for the places where he said slavery was a natural human relationship--and found nothing in those parts of the blog post where he called for enslavement or even said that it was a good thing.
Your second point was that he has said he is "amenable to white nationalist writings", and you cited a blog entry where he talked about this. There is no mention of slavery in that blog entry, and a bit of Googling has failed to turn up a connection between white nationalists and any advocacy for slavery.
You also brought up, without providing a cite, that he has discussed the suitability of different races for slavery. I had already noted that, since it was in the discussion from the AMA that I cited. In that discussion it was clear that he meant "suitability" in the sense that they work out better from the slaver's point of view. If one group of people tend to die when enslaved, and another tends to live, then the later are more suitable. Believing that doesn't imply that one believes that the second group should be slaves or that one supports slavery.
> I asked for a citation on the claim that he has called for the enslavement of black people. I specifically mentioned that I had seem him talk about how some groups were better slaves than others, and linked to a thread within his recent AMA.
Which we've established is his MO, which you've accepted from other sources without any claim at all.
> You responded with a link to his blog where he said that slavery is a natural human relationship. I followed that link, searched for the places where he said slavery was a natural human relationship--and found nothing in those parts of the blog post where he called for enslavement or even said that it was a good thing.
The entire discussion was about how good Carlyle's work on slavery was. The entire subject matter is a defense of the use of slavery and in particular black people as slaves. Which he was defending and promoting, as he then directly said slavery was a natural human relationship.
> There is no mention of slavery in that blog entry, and a bit of Googling has failed to turn up a connection between white nationalists and any advocacy for slavery.
I do not believe you did this. If you did you would see that it would at its core remove citizenship rights and protections from everyone not identified as 'white.' The primary goal is the deportation or detainment of the resident black population of America.
> You also brought up, without providing a cite, that he has discussed the suitability of different races for slavery.
You had accepted this as a prior condition and mentioned the AMA. Am I obligated to cite your sources now?
> Believing that doesn't imply that one believes that the second group should be slaves or that one supports slavery.
You know, a few people told me you were a good person to talk to. That you were one of the better commenters on HN. But this level of deliberate, defensive obtuseness is a great example of someone frantically putting their head in the sand.
Maybe you should ask the other person in this thread who you trust implicitly if I'm wrong about this. Either way, your judgement of my methodology and the degree to which you require me to spoonfeed you the vile substance of this conversation is immaterial to me.
We've defunded Lambdaconf and picked up the sponsors to Moonconf. Mission complete.
You've gotta be careful about the Carlyle cite. I think he chose it carefully. There is a lot to Carlyle, not just odious racial theories and slavery apologia. If you try to associate Yarvin to defense of chattel slavery of African Americans through Carlyle, he'll dive into the weeds of the rest of Carlyle's work and take potshots at you from the bushes.
Instead, you have to carefully unspool all the stuff Yarvin writes. It's not enough to observe him lovingly citing Carlyle; you have to note how he also cites him when the subject of race comes up, and you have to tie it back to things like his warm and generous citation of Nehemiah Adams --- a figure who, unlike Carlyle, is not very notable for anything other than providing a defense of slavery that sounds suspiciously compatible with everything else Yarvin says about social organization. And so on, and so forth.
It's easy to see how two very smart people could get so tied up discussing this, especially when one of them ('tzs) is only casually acquainted with the work we're talking about.
> The entire discussion was about how good Carlyle's work on slavery was. The entire subject matter is a defense of the use of slavery and in particular black people as slaves. Which he was defending and promoting, as he then directly said slavery was a natural human relationship.
OK...so now it sounds like I need to read the entire wall of text to get the point? That illustrates a big difference between how you responded to me and how tptacek responded to me.
After I said that I saw the AMA, and that Yarvin's discussion of suitability of various groups to slavery did not seem to indicate he called for enslaving black people, your answer was to cite a couple of his blogs posts, and mention very specific parts of those posts.
I went and read those specific parts of those posts, not the whole posts. I found that those parts did not support your argument.
tptacek, on the other hand, told me that he could provide a citation for the claim, but that it would be complicated because Yarvin is an obscurantist. The impression I get from this and other comments of tptacek is that individual parts of Yarvin's writings have reasonable non-racists explanations (deliberately) so you have to look at the whole giant walls of text.
tptacek has an excellent record of backing up claims with complete and accurate cites when requested, and from this and other comments he's made on the matter the impression I get is that if I were to ask for the details I'd end up with a big list of long articles that I'd have to read in their entirety to get the point. I don't want to read a bunch of giant walls of text on this subject, and it sounds like it would be a lot of work for him to produce it, so I didn't ask for it.
> Maybe you should ask the other person in this thread who you trust implicitly if I'm wrong about this.
I'm not saying you are wrong on this...I'm saying you've failed to show that you are right. I accepted tptacek's response not because of any implicit trust, but rather because he offered a good explanation for why he was not providing a list of citations unless I really wanted them.
If you had said something like "Yarvin can write reasonable justifications for individual points, like he did in the AMA, but when you look at the writing as a whole a different picture emerges" and then linked to a few of his posts, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because as with tptacek I'd have decided I was not interested in going that deep.
To be clear: I think you can get a pretty good bead on where Yarvin is coming from just from his writing (you have to read it diligently though, and I agree it's not worth the trouble).
But there are also very troubling eyewitness reports about things he's said in person that provide a pretty convenient shortcut to doing that.
> Why exactly is it that a short written statement can somehow absolve someone of the social responsibility of a multi-year career of hate speech?
It doesn't. I agree that what he said was unacceptable. But just because what he said was unacceptable, does that mean we shouldn't accept him and everything he does?
> No one has said he can't attend. Why would yous suggest this?
Right, sorry. He can attend for sure. I meant that he should be able to speak, since he'll be following all the rules and has an interest in tech.
> It's his authority figure as a speaker while being an outspoken member of the pro-racism community.
He doesn't identify himself by his racist beliefs. He keeps them separate from his technology. It has nothing to do with his tech. If he walked up to someone from a minority group and talked about his views at the conference, or if he said any of them from his podium, I wouldn't care as to what happened to him. But it looks like he'll make every effort to follow the rules.
> How is this unreasonable. "We will not support your conference if you give the podium to a famous and vocal racist who calls for the enslavement of black people."
It's not far from being reasonable, except you seem to be forgetting that he's never made a call to action. And the fact that his views on race, in the way that he holds them, have nothing to do with tech. Actually, it is kind of far from being reasonable.
> And the amount of pressure brought to the sponsors is minimal.
Look, I don't really care about pressure to the sponsors. The possible damage here to them is minimal. What I do care about is how this affects LambdaConf. It's really sad that there is damage done to LambdaConf just because of this.
You even said that they're "taking the expensive road." You realize how much this one issue is hurting them.
> Don't these communities have a right and a duty to control their attendance as they see fit?
Who is "these communities"? On my post with the text "This just in", I have more than 30 upvotes. Your posts are going gray. You are trying to control the attendance of the community as you see fit. And there are people in the community that disagree with you.
> Why should an intolerant bigot be included in any community?
If you exclude bigots, they will be bigots forever. Imagine if someone hadn't included you into their community when you were, as you described yourself, "a hyper-right self-denying religious racist as a child." If you were shunned by the community, wouldn't you still be that way today?
I believe in including bigots because I believe that people can change. I believe in including racists because I believe in working with people to achieve something great, regardless of who those people are.
You're not just intolerant of racism (which is an understandable thing), you're being intolerant of an entire person. And you're taking action on it. You yourself are acting in an intolerant manner.
And that's a shame, because you're a well-reasoned person, you're clearly intelligent, and I'm enjoying this discussion with you.
I'm intolerant of people who's world-view denies the personhood of an entire category of people. Differentiated just by how they look. He can choose to rectify his behavior and outlook and I will welcome him back into society. I believe people can change. And I will thank you for not assuming you know the hows or the whys of my past. It was not faux-tolerant people like you who would ever lead to that change. My past is full of enablers who spoke just like you did, conflating religious and ideolgocal freedom with bigotry and racism.
Intolerance of intolerance is a precondition to an actual open society. Suggesting I allow people to divide themselves in half in a way we'd never do in any other portion of society (imagine this person being appointed as a teacher at a university then promising his beliefs won't affect his communications with his students). It's ludicrous. It's absurd. Let him actually demonstrate the behavior he's pledging and then we can talk, but there is no rational reason to believe he won't bring conflict, strife, and bigotry with him wherever he goes. Even if you cannot see it because you don't seem to be the subject of his ire.
Mendacious Moldbug has brought this rejection upon himself in one of the few ways we universally recognize as a way to earn that rejection: by passing the identical fate upon a whole category of people just because of the circumstances of their birth. Far better to reject one toxic person than make every non-white person walk on eggshells throughout the conference. And you need not look far to find a number of people in the community who would feel that way, and already face substantial marginalization that no amount of behavior changing can ameliorate.
I'm fine being intolerant of intolerance. Any rational person should realize the implications of not speaking out against intolerance wherever we find it. And part of that speech is making proponents of intolerance feel unwelcome. We shouldn't invite Eric S Raymond or David Duke to speak at these events either.
> He can choose to rectify his behavior and outlook and I will welcome him back into society.
It's not particularly related to the rest of the discussion, but I'm curious as to what passes as rectifying his behavior. What would he have to do?
> It was not faux-tolerant people like you who would ever lead to that change.
Although I disagree with the "faux-tolerant" assertion (I believe I'm being tolerant!) I'll agree that the change probably wouldn't stem from me. I try to get along with people as much as I can. Perhaps this incurs a cost on others. This criticism is a fair one.
I'm not a reactionary-conservative (maybe that's who I'm being compared to?); I'm not trying to mislead you. I honestly believe what I'm typing. (I reserve the right to change it in the future but) I'm not trying to trick you. This is an honest discussion and I am treating it like one (and thanks for doing the same). I don't feign misunderstanding, I just honestly don't understand.
> Intolerance of intolerance is a precondition to an actual open society.
Isn't intolerance of intolerance an intolerant act in and of itself, though?
> (imagine this person being appointed as a teacher at a university then promising his beliefs won't affect his communications with his students)
I actually have had teachers that have taught in this way, both in high school and at university. Not that they promised any of this to the administration, but that they made a promise to us not to let their inherent political bias infect what they were teaching us. They would try to present, as best they could, both viewpoints. This, in and of itself, was a lesson to me.
People can hold two separate and conflicting ideas in their minds, while realizing the implications of both ideas. As a precise example, it's exactly how I was taught the functionalist and conflict perspectives of sociological theory. It is literally cognitive dissonance to accept both ideas, but you can't understand the whole of sociology without both of them. Cognitive dissonance can be a tool.
Hell, I had an English teacher in high school that was a known (and self-admitted, to a degree) misandrist (not to such a degree that the word connotes, but there was a bias). She asked all of her students to use ID numbers rather than names, because she realized that she always graded essays written by males lower than those by women, and that the disparity didn't exist when she didn't know. She was a fine teacher, and the bias rarely ever spilled over into how she taught otherwise. She was also the fairest grader I had that year.
> but there is no rational reason to believe he won't bring conflict, strife, and bigotry with him
He said he wouldn't. Until he does, I'll believe him. Maybe I'm a pushover for thinking so, but I also think people are innocent until proven guilty. He says some shitty things, but I don't think he'll say them on stage. And if he does, then he gets kicked out.
At the same time, tptacek's post here[1] disagrees. I don't have any direct citations, so I can't speak to it. And because of that, I'm going to believe Moldbug. I hate that I have to, but I think I can logically defend it, with a lack of further evidence. (I have to because I can. If I can't, I won't.)
> Far better to reject one toxic person than make every non-white person walk on eggshells throughout the conference.
We know at least a couple non-white people won't walk on eggshells. I remember this post[2], from someone who isn't white.
And I agree with the spirit of that post. If someone says something stupid, by God, let them shout their idiocy, so that we may hear it and strike it down with our logic and our facts. Let us put people in their place when they have asked for it and not a moment before.
Moldbug basically represents neoreaction. If he acts poorly, it'll show people like me (who are neutral on him for the time being) that he and what he represents is actually harmful. Suppressing how stupid someone is only makes their stupidity more effective. It's when their stupidity is visible that people can avoid it. To me, it's a win-win. Either he shows us some very strange and interesting tech, or he acts like a dick and no one listens to anyone from the neoreactionary movement ever again.
Being intolerant of wholly intolerant people is not a bad thing, but there are some people that can separate their intolerance from the other aspects of their lives. I don't think Moldbug is a wholly intolerant person. I think he holds intolerant views. And I think there is a distinction to be made, especially as these views are not in scope of the talk that he's giving.
Even if you consider my views misguided or wrong, do they at least follow logically?
> Isn't intolerance of intolerance an intolerant act in and of itself, though?
You're confusing yourself. Let me use reductio ad absurdum to point out how your logic is self-defeating. Please understand, I'm not ridiculing you, just pointing out the logical fallacy. Try this formulation...
Isn't hating "hate", in itself, hateful? Why, then, it follows that we should love "hate" in order to be loving! Hate people: it's what loving people would do!
There is a moral equivalence here that's wrong. Despising things that are evil isn't in itself evil, merely because you're employing a word or sentiment normally associated with evil. It's the loaded meaning of the words "despise" and "intolerant" that's tripping you up. Try the word "embrace" instead and things become much clearer.
Example: Isn't failing to embrace intolerance intolerant?
No, it's the very opposite.
> but I'm curious as to what passes as rectifying his behavior. What would he have to do?
Admit the worldview is wrong and he was mistaken, then hold that view publicly and without recantation for a reasonable sum of time. But that's for me. Other people may have different standards.
Forgiveness is not something that calendars well.
> He said he wouldn't. Until he does, I'll believe him. Maybe I'm a pushover for thinking so, but I also think people are innocent until proven guilty. He says some shitty things, but I don't think he'll say them on stage. And if he does, then he gets kicked out.
Ignoring his existing behavior and its duration is not a logical or reasonable act. It is a luxury you can express because his beliefs do not deny your essential humanity.
> And because of that, I'm going to believe Moldbug. I hate that I have to, but I think I can logically defend it, with a lack of further evidence. (I have to because I can. If I can't, I won't.)
You do not have to. You've chosen to ignore his writing. You've chosen to ignore his reported and verifiable actions. You've chosen to ignore the people hurt by those actions.
> If someone says something stupid, by God, let them shout their idiocy, so that we may hear it and strike it down with our logic and our facts.
How often do black people have to refute people who claim they're sub human before you're satisfied? You should let them know what they're on the hook for, if that's evidently the rule.
> that he and what he represents is actually harmful.
None of this is about neoreaction. No one has mentioned neoreactionaries. That he believes in an authoritarian government or all but fetishizes small corporate structure is supremely boring and unoriginal, he's repeating the same arguments about essential quality that we saw in the Victorian Era.
His "biodiversity" doctrine is the problem. And that's not a belief shared by all neoreactionaries (and I know a few who vehemently deny that this is a required tenant).
Racism is not politics, racism is not religion. Racism is hate. You keep trying to sneak in this equivocation like I won't notice. Like somehow if you say it often enough we'll all forget this is the central point of this entire discussion. It is the same moral and ethical cowardice that filled the original blog post.
> Even if you consider my views misguided or wrong, do they at least follow logically?
No. You have willfully discarded the evidence, discarded Occam's razor for a strained equivocation that wouldn't hold up in a first year college philosophy class.
You have further attempted to take a weak form of censure (i.e., "We decline to have you speak at this conference, though you may still attend.") and classify this into a rejection of that person's humanity and then pretended this is identical to Yarvin's views towards black people. At worst, that's disingenuous. At best, it lacks even a shred of human empathy.
Is Hacker News endorsing you by letting you comment here?
And I'd be concerned too if this conference let him talk about his viewpoints, but that's not what he's on the stage for. If someone looked into your history deep enough, wouldn't they be able to find something distasteful too?
Imagine not being able to talk about your software development career just because something thinks something you did (even if entirely unrelated!) was distasteful.
Do you think anyone seriously looks at Moldbug as an authority figure? Come on, you're blowing this way out of proportion. I think someone should be allowed to have their fringe views and be a member of the wonderful programming community. I don't agree with his views, but I'll defend his right to have them.
If you think it's easy to make editorial decisions on, I think you're missing some part of this.