Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf • Hacker News Board

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#151

Post by kevinburke » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

jmspring wrote: post #107

kevinburke wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curtis Yarvin is a professed fascist who has written about his belief that some races are more suited to slavery than others. That _does_ matter; it makes large swaths of the potential talk audience (and other attendees) feel unwelcome. How can you engage in polite, respectful discussion with someone who believes that you're more suited to be a slave than a free man?

It's a technical conference, submission accepted on said merits. If personal politics and beliefs are not apart of the talk, I don't care. Polarizing of personal beliefs, unless specific personal actions are documented, is comparable to a witch hunt. At least for me. My own beliefs waver on the spectrum of Silicon Valley, yet I have concerns for outside options I have. But, no, at a technical conference, if personal…

> If personal politics and beliefs are not apart of the talk, I don't care.

You can't separate the two. Spouses invited to a speakers dinner? What if my spouse is also a man? What if my spouse is a different race? Should we give priority to people of color and women in the speaker selection process? Are trans people allowed in whichever bathrooms they want? Giving a talk on preventing fraud and abuse, where part of your belief system is "women should be free to give opinions online without bullying, trolling and harassment?" How are you supposed to give that talk without communicating a value system?

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#152

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

13thLetter wrote: post #76

st3v3r wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that the guys in Donglegate did belittle and sterotype based on their tasteless jokes.

If one did that one would, of course, be wrong, both in the general case (the jokes were silly grade-school level puns that would concern no well-balanced person) and the specific case (if anyone was being stereotyped or belittled, it would be males, given that they were telling the jokes about a male presenter.)

Why? The "jokes" were clearly in bad taste, and meant to belittle women.

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#153

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

f0code wrote: post #81

st3v3r wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My allowed attendance would be contingent on remaining silent the entire time on premises." Only if you are incapable of acting like an adult human being. As someone who is also a member of the majority, I would find no problem in being able to follow the rules, because I can behave like an adult.

That is already expected of people. Why do we need to take a pledge before going to hear some people talk about code?

Because people like you claim that you'd never be able to speak, implying that you cannot act like an adult in public.

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#154

Post by Jweb_Guru » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 4:33 PM UTC

kevinburke wrote: post #150

xmj wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Curtis Yarvin is a professed fascist who has written about his belief that some races are more suited to slavery than others. Having read a good deal of his unqualified reservations, I wonder if you can source this quote for me please?

Search Google, Twitter, or send me an email. I'm not going to link to hate speech here.

This entire thread is a pretty depressing indictment of the sorts of people who hang out on HN. Seriously, nobody should care about offending Curtis Yarvin or any of his ilk.

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#155

Post by EdHominem » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

greenrd wrote: post #137

EdHominem wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the content they choose to sponsor (with a soapbox), and which they should curate.

You need a code of conduct to prevent that if you are not to pre-vet all slides, which is excessively bureaucratic and creates an implicit code of conduct anyway.

No, it's pretty easy. If you have a mandate you ruthlessly cull anything not on that mandate. You don't need a blacklist of banned topic, you have a whitelist of worthwhile ones and you ignore anything else.

Lambda is pretty solidly about functional programming. Maybe extending to programming/admin in general but not to politics.

Speakers should always be tweaking their talk for the audience anyways to handle different durations, venues, crowds, time of day, etc. If there's anything you don't want you can fix it here.

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#156

Post by programminggeek » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

I'm pretty sure secret societies and private groups will start forming as a result of people being pushed out of their right to speak openly about what they believe for fear it will offend others and ruin their careers.

It's probably already happening.

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#157

Post by mcantelon » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #124

mcantelon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Yarvin's Jewish, my guess is he's not a white supremacist.

"White" is a social construct that changes with politics. Hilariously, the Irish weren't considered "white" in the US, and had to achieve whiteness. Moldbug is surrounded with white privilege in a country where blacks are regularly murdered by the state in broad daylight.

Whites are murdered in broad daylight too. Police accountability is, in general, lacking.

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#158

Post by mcantelon » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #127

hga wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says the single word which best describes him is small c communist, so at best this sort of anarchism is a violent tactic, and historically a very unwise one. And would be a quickly lethal one in the well armed US.

It's good to be cautious when people say they believe in "democracy" or "communism". (Does democracy mean killing people for billionaires and their 4-year king? Serious democracy proponents must say things like "bottom-up democracy." Same with communism: does it mean marxism/maoism/leninism/stalinism?) Anyway, anarchists generally strive towards communism, if that means an advanced future society where you're free fr…

Anarchists don't generally strive towards communism because they recognize what history shows: communist states are even less accountable than modern oligarchal democracy.

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#159

Post by 13thLetter » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #152

13thLetter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one did that one would, of course, be wrong, both in the general case (the jokes were silly grade-school level puns that would concern no well-balanced person) and the specific case (if anyone was being stereotyped or belittled, it would be males, given that they were telling the jokes about a male presenter.)

Why? The "jokes" were clearly in bad taste, and meant to belittle women.

> Why? The "jokes" were clearly in bad taste, and meant to belittle women.

Can you quote the jokes and explain how they were meant to belittle women?

Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf

#160

Post by 13thLetter » Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 6:26 PM UTC

zorpner wrote: post #77

13thLetter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have no understanding of the first amendment. It applies, of course, only to the government's response to speech. Darn it, I thought we were going to get all the way through this discussion without someone wheeling out that old nag. Once again: Attempting to ban people from unrelated fora based on their political views is not against the letter of the First Amendment to do this. But attempting to ban people fro…

What?! That has no support in law, history, or the documents surrounding the creation of the bill of rights. The idea that private fora would be required to accommodate all comers is antithetical to the ideas behind the Enlightenment philosophy which engendered the first amendment. I honestly can't believe someone could be dumb enough to think that the founders would want the government to dictate who people were req…

You think that the fundamental principle behind the First Amendment and Enlightenment philosophy was that we really needed a natural rights justification to have people whose politics we disagree with ostracized from public life and prevented from earning a living?