Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

s3.amazonaws.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 443 posts

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

#191

Post by overgard »

steveklabnik wrote: post #174
overgard wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

> Your first sentence implies that technology and politics are divorced. I disagree with this.

I find that perspective strange. Machinery does not particularly care what end it's put to.

> 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.

You try to minimize your association, but you took the effort to get him banned from speaking about a neutral topic because you dislike his political views. You ARE a censor. Frankly I think you're way worse than him, because at least he'd let you talk.

Amusingly it appears I have been slowbanned because of my participation in this conversation. Oh well.

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

#192

Post by tptacek »

topynate wrote: post #188
steveklabnik wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things. I was not planning on getting involved in this conversation, but since dang decided to un-flag it, I'm going to leave one or two comments, but don't plan on sticking around very much. As tptacek said elsewhere in this thread, politics + HN == nightmare. First of all, many more people complained than me. You didn't look very hard. Second, I'm not _strictly_ a communist: I'm certainly very left-wing, and…

Few quick questions: I'm a Zionist (see my top-level post and its link.) Does that make me unacceptably racist, in your view? I know Deleuze thought Zionism was a racist ideology. Given that, in a conference as large as Strange Loop, there are undoubtedly people who do think Zionism is a proper subset of racism, would you support them in a call to have me excluded from that conference? If not, what exactly about eith…

I'm not sure how this is a fair question to ask Klabnik, since the issue in Yarvin's case isn't whether somewhat obscure namedropped French philosophers think his views are racist. Edit: It seems to me like there's no controversy about whether Yarvin's views are racist; it's barely controversial to suggest that he's a white supremacist (if that's something he wants to distance himself from, he's done himself no favors by overtly nodding to white nationalism in his own writing).

I'd also suggest you keep in mind that Urbit is, as technical ideas go, both marginally impactful (at least today), and extraordinarily idiosyncratic (see: the Nock ASCII pronunciation guide).

It is not remotely unreasonable for conference organizers barely acquainted with Urbit to be concerned that Yarvin's strident philosophical views might be entwined with his technical ideas, which one could fairly argue are --- unlike his politics --- obscurantist. If Urbit was more important, I'd understand more about the controversy. But this doesn't seem like a difficult call.

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

#193

Post by al3x »

overgard wrote: post #175
al3x wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Letting a person speak" isn't the only impact of inviting that person to your event, particularly an event that facilitates social gatherings and an ongoing dialogue between its attendees. If we just wanted to exchange information as efficiently as possible, we wouldn't bother with the time and expense of in-person conferences. The event provides a social context, and that's why we put so much monetary and cultural value on attendance in comparison to, say, sitting at home and reading an academic paper or a blog post.

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

#194

Post by krapp »

politicalhn4tw wrote: post #156
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…

You have argued to suppress Yarvin's ideas in one realm based on his unrelated ideas in another realm. This is emphatically not how the free market of ideas is supposed to work.

>This is emphatically not how the free market of ideas is supposed to work.

I don't think you appreciate what the "free" in "free market" refers to...

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

#195

Post by colinhb »

All I long for is logical consistency and empathy...

Various comments from the discussion:

> 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."?

Getting dis-invited from a tech conference is not losing the right to say anything. The state is not punishing Yarvin for his speech. Giving a talk at a private tech conferences is not a right protected by anyone.

> Kicking people from your tech conference because they were racist outside of it hands veto power to whoever determines what racism is and when something is 'too racist'.

I'll defend Alex's right to organize a conference. You are free to organize another conference. (More generally, the market of conferences will decide whether Alex is doing a bad job.)

> In the end, if you're a straight white male, you will fall prey to it because you're not a protected class. You can see this playing out in video games, movies and SF&F publishing right now.

If you are a straight white man, accept that the world isn't perfect (you suffer the consequences of being a member of an identifiable group) and count yourself lucky that you don't have to face the other (often deadlier) forms of oppression faced by other groups.

> My personal opinions would get me called racist, sexist and homophobic by Marxist standards and I was exhausted by the political mask I had to assume just to find and keep work.

I imagine it was a lot easier to wear that political mask than it would have been to change your skin-color, gender, or age. Your way in the tech industry will be quite difficult if you get any of those wrong.

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

#196

Post by danso »

urbit wrote: post #169
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…

"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 fut…

I don't have anything to add to this thread except to say that this is a gracious response and thank you for chiming in even while being at the center of controversy.

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

#197

Post by tptacek »

twoodfin wrote: post #190
tptacek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So if Strange Loop were a conference with presenters chosen totally on technical merit, you would still prefer they dis-invite a presenter with Yarvin's racial views? I think you're arguing that it's a trade-off regardless (sure) but do you have any idea where a political line is, Left or Right, where we should start expressing disapproval when those on the wrong side are excluded? I'll take your word for it that Yar…

I don't know how to answer your first question.

I'll leave it at this. If I was Strange Loop's organizer, what I might have written is:

I don't know exactly how to articulate where our line is on providing a stage and a microphone to people with ideas I find repellent. I've never been in a position to need to draw that line. I'm not interested in spending a lot of time surveying it further. For now, it suffices to say that wherever the line is, advocacy for apartheid and genetic predisposition to slavery crosses it.

Incidentally, the use upthread of the term "Stalinist" is telling. Yes: if Yarvin had been a Stalinist, I do think we'd be having the same discussion, Yarvin's views seeming approximately as far to the right as "Stalinism" would put him to the left.

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

#198

Post by obstinate »

steveklabnik wrote: post #179
tptacek wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When it comes to reactionary beliefs, there is a significant contingent on this site that believes one ought to be able to hold them publically with no consequences in any other space. This happened with that Mozilla CEO that resigned, the scientist who wore the shirt with scantily clad women on it, and a number of other situations where the privileged paid nominal costs for their mistakes. It is very upsetting to a subset of our fellow hners that you can't express antisocial ideas consequence-free.

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

#199

Post by repetae »

al3x wrote: post #193
overgard wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Letting a person speak" isn't the only impact of inviting that person to your event, particularly an event that facilitates social gatherings and an ongoing dialogue between its attendees. If we just wanted to exchange information as efficiently as possible, we wouldn't bother with the time and expense of in-person conferences. The event provides a social context, and that's why we put so much monetary and cultural…

The guy obviously has some rather ugly views, but as far as I can tell he submitted a conference about his technology and unless there's some other evidence that he's not able to separate his politics from his work, why not assume good faith?

Maybe you know something I don't know, but what evidence is there to assume that he couldn't put his viewpoint aside and be a positive force for the social context?

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

#200

Post by [deleted] »

hibikir wrote: post #187
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?]

It's pretty difficult. Racism, like other ideas that at some point were not considered unacceptable in public, is nowadays covered in what we could call Hermetic writing: In other words, instead of saying what they really want to say, a racist says things that imply they are OK with racism. A way that you can find all over his writings is talk about how people and businesses should be free to refuse dealing with peop…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN