“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”

#261

Post by smitherfield » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:00 AM UTC

yarvin9 wrote: post #257

nkurz wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urbit -- Since we have you have you here, could you respond to the accusations of racist views that are being attributed to you? In particular, do you consider yourself to be "racist", and if so, what does this term mean to you? I read your blog for years, and I never got that sense that you were advocating for personal or institutional discrimination against individuals on the basis of their race. Did I miss this po…

I shouldn't post as urbit. Quite a few other people, few of whom agree with me on anything, have worked on the project. The word "racist" and its conjugations does not appear in the English language until the 1920s - see Peter Frost's cultural history [0]. If you asked Shakespeare if he was a "racist," he would not know what you meant. "Racist" is essentially a term of abuse which no group or party has ever applied t…

"Racist" is essentially a term of abuse which no group or party has ever applied to itself.

To be a little pedantic, that's not strictly true; as Frost points out, "racist" was originally intended as a literal translation of the German völkisch, which the Nazi Party certainly self-described as. But I suppose you could say that's the exception which proves the rule.

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

#262

Post by 13thLetter » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:00 AM UTC

obstinate wrote: post #198

steveklabnik wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Nominal consequences"?!! Eich lost his job. The scientist was forced to make a tearful apology on national television on what should have been the proudest day of his life. Would you be comfortable with losing your job and being humiliated world-wide because some mob was offended at you? If not, why not?

Not that it matters, but you palmed a card there by equating holding the same position on gay marriage as Barack Obama in 2008, or wearing a tacky bowling shirt, as "reactionary." It kind of seems like anything which disagrees with a microscopic sliver of online activists is reactionary now.

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

#263

Post by yarvin9 » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:01 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #165

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's easy to find South Africans "holding forth" etc. For example: [0].

"The number of black people who believe life was better under South Africa's apartheid regime is growing, according to a survey published yesterday... In a rebuke to the African National Congress government, more than 60 per cent of all South Africans polled said the country was better run during white minority rule."

Yes, that's from 2002. Everyone who thinks the ANC has improved since 2002, please raise your hand.

While I didn't click on this thread to banter about details, details like this matter in a way - because South Africa is a real country and not a story or a song. In the real country, pressure from nice white people who live in America helped replace one one-party government, the Nationalists, with another, the ANC.

If the ANC governs South African blacks better than the Nats, the nice white people did a good thing for South African blacks; otherwise, they did a mean thing. Surely this is true whatever the names of the parties, the skin colors of the government bureaucrats, etc, etc, etc.

The possibility that, while listening to "Biko," singing "Free Nelson Mandela," and generally having a grand old time, our nice white people actually damaged the lives of actual real people (eg, there are 500,000 rapes a year in ANC-governed South Africa) does not seem to occur to our collective progressive consciousness. It seems much easier to express "guilt" about our 17th-century ancestors than to consider the possibility that we, ourselves, actually caused real harm.

[0] http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/12/12/1039656168811.h... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_South_Africa

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

#264

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:05 AM UTC

13thLetter wrote: post #262

obstinate wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Nominal consequences"?!! Eich lost his job. The scientist was forced to make a tearful apology on national television on what should have been the proudest day of his life. Would you be comfortable with losing your job and being humiliated world-wide because some mob was offended at you? If not, why not? Not that it matters, but you palmed a card there by equating holding the same position on gay marriage as Barack…

[deleted]

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

#265

Post by obstinate » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:05 AM UTC

13thLetter wrote: post #262

obstinate wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Nominal consequences"?!! Eich lost his job. The scientist was forced to make a tearful apology on national television on what should have been the proudest day of his life. Would you be comfortable with losing your job and being humiliated world-wide because some mob was offended at you? If not, why not? Not that it matters, but you palmed a card there by equating holding the same position on gay marriage as Barack…

"Lost his job." Boo hoo, he's still insanely rich, and could probably get a job anywhere less progressive and public than Mozilla. Also, no public indication that he was compelled to leave, although I'll grant you there's a better than even chance that that was the case.

"Forced to make a tearful apology" Rather say that he made a tearful apology, because he regretted his wrong action and felt apologetic. Or, if you have access to some sort of privileged information and actually know that he was forced, I've got another rejoinder: forced to apologize!? No! The humanity.

Nominal.

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

#266

Post by 13thLetter » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:05 AM UTC

al3x wrote: post #173

devalier wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 indi…

"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."

What a crazy coincidence. This talk was accepted when nobody knew who Yarvin was, but now that you and your friends want to cast him out into the wilderness for disagreeing with your political opinions, all of a sudden you realize that the talk was technically uninteresting anyway. What are the odds, huh?

"Moldbug has no place in this discussion because the views he's defending –"

Was he going to defend those views in his technical talk? If not, what's the problem?

"Better yet, try asking them in person the next time you cross paths at a tech event."

Not going to happen, because that would be defined as "harassment" and get the asker fired. You guys have the industry locked up real tight.

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

#267

Post by 13thLetter » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:07 AM UTC

sagichmal wrote: post #112

devalier wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right of course. From a business standpoint, Alex did the right thing and he will not suffer consequences. Other conferences have done the same and will continue to do so. This is part of a lamentable, ongoing trend. Individual action by people like me will not stop it.

> This is part of a lamentable, ongoing trend. There is plainly nothing lamentable about a private enterprise opting out of suffering a fool a platform. This is literally the market of free ideas at work: if you hold detestable opinions, you may find yourself unwelcome in many places.

It's interesting how the people crowing "Free market in ideas! Free market in ideas!" tend to be opposed to free markets in almost any other context. How many of the people enforcing the thoughtcrime laws are self-proclaimed socialists, or Communists, or "Jacobins"?

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

#268

Post by yarvin9 » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:09 AM UTC

cactusface wrote: post #245

andrewchambers wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism is asserting superiority of one group of humans over another, and generalizing without evidence. You could think certain people are genetically better adapted to cold or hot climates. That by itself is not racism, it becomes racism when you say that everyone who cannot stand cold weather is inferior, when in reality, it is totally dependent on circumstances. I think people failing to see the difference stops s…

I'm repeating myself here, but per WP, "Scientific racism is [...] alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races."

It seems worth taking this criticism up with the authors of, for example, Risch et al 2005 [0].

From the abstract: "Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity."

It seems worth asking how a paper like this got published, as late as 2005. Scientific racism may be even more entrenched than many have feared...

[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/

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

#269

Post by smitherfield » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:14 AM UTC

yarvin9 wrote: post #250

colinhb wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Or: (c) The inter-group variation in the talents and inclinations of human beings is completely dominated by the intra-group variation. In other words, "…

I think if you read (b) again, you'll see that it's exactly the same hypothesis as your (c).

As a disinterested (in both senses of the word) outside observer, I'd point out that while his (c) is pretty much the same as (b), sans the editorializing it's in no way incompatible with any of the previously mentioned Yarvin/Moldbug quotes.

Take, for example, the statement "America is richer than Mexico." By which is meant, "on average, Americans are richer than Mexicans." Someone else could say: "But there are plenty of homeless people in America, and Carlos Slim is the richest man in the world! There are vastly greater internal differences in wealth within America and Mexico than the difference between the two countries' averages."

Perfectly true. But, it doesn't then logically follow that America and Mexico must not differ in terms of average wealth, or that the difference in average wealth between the two countries is irrelevant or less relevant than their internal inequality.

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

#270

Post by 13thLetter » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:14 AM UTC

al3x wrote: post #166

PopeOfNope wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Bein…

"Who on the right today has been similarly "silenced"?"

Well, you just personally silenced Yarvin, so there's one.