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

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

#171

Post by devalier »

cactusface wrote: post #140
emjr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

No, it's because he said it was due to genetic differences between population groups. This makes him a "true" racist in that he believe there are different races, or sub-species, of homo sapiens (sapiens). There is a scientific consensus that this is not the case, because races only exist if population groups are completely isolated, which humans never have been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

Science is not a democracy, and consensus means little when the peer review and tenure review process is designed to reward conformity rather than truth.

Use your own brain. Denying the existence of races is completely absurd. See for instance:

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-scientific-basis-for... and https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-i...

And lots more reading here: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#race

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

#172

Post by [deleted] »

andrewchambers wrote: post #157
cactusface wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's because he said it was due to genetic differences between population groups. This makes him a "true" racist in that he believe there are different races, or sub-species, of homo sapiens (sapiens). There is a scientific consensus that this is not the case, because races only exist if population groups are completely isolated, which humans never have been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

I find asserting superiority of one race over another hard to justify, but is it crazy to think there are differences? Dogs are the same species, but people do assign traits like aggression/playfulness to different breeds.

[deleted]

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

#173

Post by al3x »

devalier wrote: post #53
antics wrote: post #43

I recently helped organize a conference. Since it is apparently not obvious to many people, I'd just like to point out that amongst conference organizers, it is an extremely common belief that your primary responsibility is to deliver a good conference experience to your conference-goers. This is not just a belief StrangeLoop holds -- it is a belief that many beloved tech conferences have (e.g., PyCon), and if you th…

It would be fine to ban Curtis if his talk was about his politics. It would be fine to ban him if he did not agree to abide by the code of conduct. The conference obviously does not owe him a platform to discuss his politics. But his talk was about Urbit, not about his politics, and Urbit is a genuinely fascinating piece of technology. Even if the project fails, by studying it, I have learned a lot of ideas that I ha…

As a friend texted me this morning: "the talk on Urbit could have been dismissed on technical grounds". Perhaps it's interesting to you, but it brings very little that's new to the table in terms of research. Urbit's author, meanwhile, has had nothing but invective for people doing valuable research in the relevant sub-fields of compsci that his work touches upon. Purely from a technology perspective, this in an individual who operates in bad faith.

> "And how are we supposed to correct problems in society if we cannot talk honestly about them?"

Pick up a paper. Do you think our society lacks an ongoing discussion of the repercussions of racism? Moldbug has no place in this discussion because the views he's defending – that people of some ethnic backgrounds are subhuman and fit only for slavery – were roundly rejected by society decades ago. Including him would be pandering to a common denominator so low it barely even registers today.

> "Now maybe Alex wishes to cater to the more thin-skinned in his audience"

As I suggested to another commenter: why don't you take a look at who was asking Yarvin's dismissal on Twitter and inquire with them as to whether they would describe themselves as "thin-skinned". Better yet, try asking them in person the next time you cross paths at a tech event. It's easy to characterize the hypothetical "other" in your head. Why not test your own thick skin and look them in the eye when you call them cowards?

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

#174

Post by steveklabnik »

overgard wrote: post #159
steveklabnik wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why does it matter what his political beliefs entail on a technical subject? More to the point, while I'm guessing you didn't dox him or whatever, the fact that he wrote under a pseudonym and (as a person having read his blog) had no idea of his actual name, I get the impression you went out of your way on this one. I don't really care about right or left (I think both sides are idiotic), but it seems like you're goi…

Your first sentence implies that technology and politics are divorced. I disagree with this. Furthermore, _certain_ views merit more consideration than others, especially with regards to something like a conference, see raganwald's comment elsewhere in this thread about conferences being cultural.

Second, I've been aware of Yarvin long enough that I am not particularly aware of how I came to know the psudonym. I don't remember it as being particularly private. I did not go out of my way, I saw his name on the program and instantly remembered. I'm not in the habit of digging through histories, but when I see a name I recognize, I recall a history like anyone else.

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

#175

Post by overgard »

al3x wrote: post #151
overgard wrote: post #134

I'm sort of baffled by this: why would anyone care if he's giving a tech talk? It reminds me of the Brendan Eich situation. I disagree with his political views, but also.. who gives a shit? It's immaterial to the job. I used to read moldbug and I thought he was really incisive for a while, but his blog kept getting more and more, uh, esoteric. (basically unreadable -- it got hard to figure out what point he was even…

There were a number of people who voiced their objections on Twitter. It's easy to ask the rhetorical question here, but if you really want an answer, go check out what they said. In particular, people who represent groups that Moldbug treats as subhuman in his writing expressed concern and dismay. Perhaps looking through their eyes for a moment might illuminate why a person would care.

Ok but, letting a person speak isn't implicit approval of all their viewpoints. And if his talk is about tech, his political motivations aren't even relevant. I could see the motivation if like, he was going to bring in a wild group of radicals from his appearance or something and that would be disruptive, but as far as I know his viewpoints are pretty fringe.

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

#176

Post by MichaelGG »

dang wrote: post #94
jessaustin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I posted this because I felt HN people are smart enough to question and discuss this decision without being told to do so by some goofy conservative blog. (N.B.: I didn't and would never flag that other submission, because goofy conservatives don't bother me and the actual topic was interesting, but I understand that tastes differ so I'm not surprised that others flagged it.)

The earlier post was flagkilled by users. We unkilled it because there was an ongoing discussion, but did not turn off the flags. That's what we do in nearly all such cases. The current post was penalized by the flamewar detector, but we've canceled the penalty because the community clearly wants to talk about this, and what you posted is as close to a canonical source as we're likely to get.

Is it acceptable to flag such things? I only flag such articles because the discussion quality tends to be really low. There's little insight in the comments. While they may be important topics, and I'm sure some folks have interesting ideas, the results don't seem very useful.

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

#177

Post by tptacek »

twoodfin wrote: post #170
tptacek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

First, no, I don't think security conferences tend to attract white supremacists who advocate for the abolition of democracy and hint at the benefits of a restoration of apartheid.

Second, security conferences --- at least the kind I'm familiar with --- are different from Strange Loop. Strange Loop speakers are selected on the basis of presenting interesting and entertaining ideas to the audience. There are a couple people who get Black Hat talks on those terms, but most Black Hat talks are accepted based on how important their technical contribution is. If you have a new EMET bypass technique, nobody really cares whether you're a closet monarchist, because they're there to see the EMET bypass, not you.

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

#178

Post by twoodfin »

dang wrote: post #160
twoodfin wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for unkilling it. The most fascinating part of this issue to me remains how "uninterested" HN is in discussing it (insofar as the mechanics of HN allow us to collectively express interest).

I'm not sure what you mean by "it", but this thread has 158 comments. That's not uninterested.

Fair point. I meant that if the HN front page were your only source of information, you'd have to be pretty lucky to have stumbled across any of these threads.

I don't have any objections to the way HN works, just surprised so many users see this topic as flag-worthy relative to those seeing it as an interesting discussion.

EDIT: Nevermind. I see this is back on the front page.

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

#179

Post by steveklabnik »

tptacek wrote: post #168
steveklabnik wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As, I would imagine, the professed beliefs of many on HN, yet here we are.

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

#180

Post by tptacek »

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?

I do not accept the premise of this argument, unless we're talking about textbooks from the 1910s.
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