“A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop” • Hacker News Board

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#161

Post by k_brother » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #125

paxdickinson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those calling for his removal from the conference cited this six-year-old blog post about Thomas Carlyle as their only specific complaint. http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-car...

This is factually not true, and since you claim to have read my complaints, this comment appears disingenuous. More specifically, I linked http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/mouthbreathing-machiavellis/ and http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/ as a brief introduction if you don't want to wade through the torrent of Dark Enlightenment shenanigans.

As someone new to this dialogue I find these second-hand sources highly suspect. There seems like a big difference between this one person and that movement. I don't really see him 'leading' anything. Why not stick to primary sources?

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#162

Post by twoodfin » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

gclaramunt wrote: post #105

yummyfajitas wrote: post #8

I wonder - suppose someone Alex Miller agreed with, but who also caused controversy, was met with opposition by folks who disliked her. For example, suppose a bunch of gamergate types were to complain about Brianna Wu giving a purely technical talk about pathfinding and AI. Would all the folks who are so quick to defend Strangeloop also defend it in this case? Somehow I doubt it.

In the same vein I would love to see the people defending the talk arguing in favor of a Noam Chomsky presentation

If it was technically interesting and met the same standards that saw the Urbit talk selected as one of dozens out of hundreds, bring it on.

Do you think classical liberals don't read "Syntactic Structures"?

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#163

Post by politicalhn4tw » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

emjr wrote: post #123

lukev wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.fr/2009/07/why-carl... Relevant obnoxious quote, in a sea of drivel: In all these relationships, the structure of obligation is the same. The subject, serf, or slave is obliged to obey the government, lord, or master, and work for the benefit of same. In return, the government, lord or master must care for and guide the subject, serf, or slave. We see these same relationship p…

"Natives did not make good slaves, and so Africans were imported." That alone is so innocuous as to appear in elementary school textbooks. Is this really what the whole row is about?

School textbooks also often make the case that Native Americans didn't make good slaves because they were native to the area and just walking away and vanishing was relatively easy for them. That's very different from asserting genetic racial differences were the factor at work.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#164

Post by djur » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:07 AM UTC

whatucantsay1 wrote: post #16

Mithaldu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure that the concensus is that the author of that submission is insane and trying to read his screed as something coming from a mentally healthy person is a waste of time.

I've read a lot of extreme things from both the left and right, and seen a lot of "insane screeds", but this wasn't one of them: https://improprietaryinfluence.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/a-st...

"After all, the people we are talking about are communists... Similarly, today, with the exception of a few points of economics, the ideas that almost everyone in communion with Harvard University believes are communist ideas, and would have been labelled as such even fifty years ago."

This is a core tenet of Moldbuggian neoreaction, that American and European politics are run by a "Cathedral" that adheres to communist beliefs. Claiming that mainstream political positions are communism is absolutely insane.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#165

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:07 AM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #152

tptacek wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one way to read it, I guess. The more straightforward way to read it would be to just use the normal accepted meanings of words, under which the quote straightforwardly argues that Africans are genetically adapted for slavery, and that arguments to the contrary constitute "political correctness". I feel like the only "reaching" I had to do to take that meaning from the quote was c/p'ing it out of my browser wi…

No, that's oversimplified, I find. The quote implies that the colonizers found Africans to be more suited to fulfilling slave roles, and that the master-slave cycle formulated earlier is a genetic one. It doesn't make a direct judgment whether the colonizers were correct. The jab at political correctness doesn't seem to be an absolute refutation of opposing arguments, so much as an outlining of the historian's fallac…

The term "politically correct" comes directly from the quote, as does African genetic predisposition for slavery.

It's also not an isolated, out-of-context quote. For instance, it's easy to find Moldbug holding forth about the evils of South African apartheid abolition.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#166

Post by al3x » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:09 AM UTC

PopeOfNope wrote: post #89

Afforess wrote: post #34

What outcomes do actions like this encourage? Well, it encourages controversial writers to stay in the shadows, hide their real identities, lest the vigilante mobs find them. This outcome also encourages people in general to say less, creates an atmosphere of self-censorship, and so harms our free society. Whatever happened to "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say i…

> Whatever happened to "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."? Marxism happened. Limiting speech has always been a tactic employed by the political left. Words like "racist", "sexist" and "homophobe" were designed to shut down free speech. It's extremely effective at silencing any opposition.

The political left in America were made enemies of the state during the era of McCarthyism. People's careers and personal lives were ruined during that Red Scare. That is "silencing". That is "limiting speech".

Who on the right today has been similarly "silenced"? If someone is called out for racism and then voluntarily chooses to exit public life or withdraw further commentary, that's their own cowardly choice. Being criticized does not "silence" anyone.

The right in America has a political and media apparatus that far outstrips that of the left in funding. Worry not: hate is no danger of being silenced in this country. Far-right demagogues continue to fill newspapers, magazines, think tank briefing, the Internet, and airwaves with their ideas despite decades of criticism from the left.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#167

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:09 AM UTC

politicalhn4tw wrote: post #158

tptacek wrote: post #143

Isn't Urbit named for the Mencius Moldbug blog, whose writer repeatedly refers to same as "UR"? How distinct is Urbit and Yarvin from the advocacy of the Moldbug UR blog? The association between Yarvin and that blog isn't exactly cryptic; for instance, Yarvin has given somewhat recent video-recorded talks espousing many of the same ideas as the blog, purposefully and in some depth. Is it possible that the most boring…

Below you commented that you hadn't put much effort into understanding Urbit, but here you're evaluating its technical value.

No, I said I was faintly acquainted with Urbit's code --- meaning, I've read through it, but hadn't retained much. How familiar are you with that code?

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#168

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:10 AM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #146

tptacek wrote: post #143

Isn't Urbit named for the Mencius Moldbug blog, whose writer repeatedly refers to same as "UR"? How distinct is Urbit and Yarvin from the advocacy of the Moldbug UR blog? The association between Yarvin and that blog isn't exactly cryptic; for instance, Yarvin has given somewhat recent video-recorded talks espousing many of the same ideas as the blog, purposefully and in some depth. Is it possible that the most boring…

I have at least attempted to be _very_ clear that I do not begrudge the organizers of this conference for exactly the reason that you say. Your 'boring interpretation' lines up with my understanding of the situation. As has been said many times in this thread, Yarvin is free to say what he believes, and I am free to say what I believe, and organizers are allowed to do what they want. This is how a free market of idea…

It seems fair to point out that this turn of events seems highly compatible with Yarvin's own worldview.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#169

Post by urbit » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:11 AM UTC

lukev wrote: post #116

k_brother wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you provide citations for those posts? This is the first I have heard of either Curtis or Moldbug, and I'm having trouble seeing the connection you're drawing. However, it seems to be the consensus. [edit: I see that there are secondary sources — but I'm curious about a primary source. Shouldn't that be the most important?]

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.fr/2009/07/why-carl... Relevant obnoxious quote, in a sea of drivel: In all these relationships, the structure of obligation is the same. The subject, serf, or slave is obliged to obey the government, lord, or master, and work for the benefit of same. In return, the government, lord or master must care for and guide the subject, serf, or slave. We see these same relationship p…

"He has literally written that several of his co-speakers are genetically more fit to be slaves while he, a white male, is genetically designed to be a master."

Certainly a powerful use of the word literally.

Frankly, I'm actually considering recanting. Who wouldn't rather be Galileo than Giordano Bruno? But recanting is a serious matter - it's the sort of thing you need to get right the first time.

To appear at future conferences without my fellow speakers worrying that I'll enslave them or kick off Holocaust 2.0, it'd be ideal if someone can tell me what I have to believe. I'm guessing it's either:

(a) all human beings are born with identical talents and inclinations.

(b) human beings may be born with different talents and inclinations, but these talents and inclinations are distributed identically across all living populations.

Let's face it, Strange Loop is an awesome conference - there's a reason I applied. And I think Alex's decision is totally understandable for practical reasons, as someone downthread explains. If there's a chance of being invited back next year, I could totally go for (b). But if it has to be (a), I might still be all "e pur si muove" and stuff.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#170

Post by twoodfin » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 12:12 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #101

whatucantsay1 wrote: post #5

Interesting -- another discussion of this incident was at the top spot of HN some 30 mins ago, and was flagkilled. Is it that we're not interested in discussing it, or only interested in discussing it if certain people / viewpoints are not allowed?

That other post was not a good-faith analysis of the incident, and its denouement was a single-sentence graf that claimed every intellectual adversary of Yarvin was a communist. I flagged this post as well, because the community interest in the norms of a single tech conference don't outweigh the the fact the issues here are toxic to the community itself. HN is terrible at discussing politics, and this is basically a…

I'm curious what "politics" you think this discussion is about. I mean, if Yarvin were an avowed Stalinist, I hope we'd have the same arguments being made, which don't have much to do with his particular heterodoxy.

Don't security conferences attract some rather idiosyncratic characters? Why should I choose one that culls those too far outside the mainstream over the merit of their presentations?