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

271–280 of 443 posts

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

#271

Post by Houshalter »

corporealist wrote: post #80

Alex Payne founded a socialist blog: https://www.jacobinmag.com/ Why is writing about certain political ideas OK, but writing about certain other political ideas not OK? Why are those certain other political ideas "not OK" enough for someone to be banned from a technology conference?

Scott Alexander makes a very good point about this here (http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-...). I can't do it justice, but I'll try to summarize it, because that piece is very long.

Imagine you lived in soviet Russia. If you criticize the communist government, and said that the previous capitalist system was better, you would be shot. But if you criticize the government and said we needed more communism, you'd get praise.

If you are in favor of reform, and new policies, and support the direction society is currently headed, you won't be ostracized. People might not agree with you, but they won't have you shot.

But imagine trying to suggest we go back and undo the changes that have been made? Imagine someone advocated reestablishing slavery, or getting rid of women's right to vote, etc. They would be ostracized.

You might not agree with the person who wants to create a new system. But the person advocating we go back to the old system, no. He's trying to undo all the progress we've made!

Society has fought that battle and established that the losing side was wrong. It may have been controversial at one time, but now everyone knows that slavery is definitely wrong. The liberal isn't fighting lost wars, he's moving onto new battles. Where no one has yet been declared a loser.

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

#272

Post by cactusface »

yarvin9 wrote: post #268
cactusface wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-ide…

What do you do with all the interracial children? Please forgive the oxymoron.

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

#273

Post by [deleted] »

obstinate wrote: post #265
13thLetter wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by cwyers »

escape_goat wrote: post #252
colinhb wrote: post #195

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 anyo…

I think your counter-arguments are very bad. I thank you for sharing them here, because I don't think they reflect uncommon opinions at all, and I think they are too easily accepted without reflection. With regards to the "defend to the death your right to say it" hyperbole, I agree that it is overstated. Furthermore, it is true that getting dis-invited from a tech conference does not involve losing the right to say…

This is a slippery slope fallacy. It turns out that in reality we are quite capable of allowing tech conferences to choose their presenters and to disallow presenters who have made uncomfortably racist comments without ending up at the point where it has a chilling effect on other types of speech.

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

#275

Post by chrismcb »

I want to make sure I understand the situation. A conference, designed to disseminate information, choose the best talks among those that entered. But one of the speakers has some beliefs that so e conference attendees do not share. These beliefs have nothing to do with the talk. So the conference choose to dismiss one of the top selections, meaning knowledge so etching perceived as good won't be shared. Because a few people didn't like the guy? Isn't this a disservice to the other attendees who might have wanted to hear the talk? Doesn't this mean the conference is less than what it could have been?

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

#276

Post by topynate »

cwyers wrote: post #274
escape_goat wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your counter-arguments are very bad. I thank you for sharing them here, because I don't think they reflect uncommon opinions at all, and I think they are too easily accepted without reflection. With regards to the "defend to the death your right to say it" hyperbole, I agree that it is overstated. Furthermore, it is true that getting dis-invited from a tech conference does not involve losing the right to say…

This is a slippery slope fallacy. It turns out that in reality we are quite capable of allowing tech conferences to choose their presenters and to disallow presenters who have made uncomfortably racist comments without ending up at the point where it has a chilling effect on other types of speech.

I flatly deny that the process as described is capable of discernment. What happened was: speaker announced, lots of people complain, conference organiser withdraws invitation to avoid focus on "inclusion and/or presence." Note that the organiser explicitly excluded consideration of the merits of the complaints.

Now compare my invocation elsewhere in this thread of the spectre of an anti-Zionist boycott: the complaints would be of a very similar nature, including references to 'racism', the number of complainants could be quite large, particularly if there was an organised attempt to find them (there is in fact a very considerable degree of organisation for anti-Zionist boycotts), and the strength of feeling would be equally high. Therefore it is only a matter of time at this point until Israelis are prevented from attending conferences like Strange Loop, as indeed we already are in much of the world.

I note in passing that those who favour excluding Yarvin have yet actually to state their opposition to this sort of thing.

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

#277

Post by Dewie3 »

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…

And people are free to criticize the conference organizers.

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

#278

Post by Dewie3 »

overgard wrote: post #191
steveklabnik wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ins…

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

Well it's a human activity like anything else. The technology itself might not be "political" [though that's debatable], but the attitudes and views of the practitioners will colour everything surrounding it. And Klabnik has shown that he has a big enough personality to impact the communities that he chooses to involve himself with, for better or for worse.

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

#279

Post by theorique »

aestetix wrote: post #247
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…

I have helped organize many conferences, including some that had >2000 attendees. And including conferences that had unpopular speakers. I think it's important to understand that inviting someone to speak does not mean you endorse what they say. If that were true, if a conference held a debate on opposing views, which view should the conference be endorsing? The conference serves as the messenger, not the message. Th…

This is a perfectly sensible way to do things. The concept that a person's politics is so "evil" that their talk acceptance must be rescinded is, frankly, childish. It treats attendees like small children, who can't rationally deal with the situation of a person with opposing views.

Of course, if a person promises to speak on a technical topic, and then goes on a political rant, that's a reason to shut them down or walk out: the audience isn't getting what was expected and promised. But the mere fact of a person's unrelated political views being used to remove them from a speakers list - this is the sort of thing that you would expect from the USSR.

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

#280

Post by sudioStudio64 »

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…

If you have time, and I completely understand if you don't, could you elaborate on the authoritarianism thing?

Why on earth would that turn out to be a good thing this time?

Post reply on HN