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Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

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Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#61

Post by [deleted] »

oldmanjay wrote: post #41
oldmanjay wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time understanding the "hate speech is violence" perspective. I feel like that position can only be held by someone who has never actually been assaulted using real, actual violence. I guarantee, being punched feels a heck of a lot worse than standing next to a person who (potentially) talked positively about slavery.

As a follow up, I've read a bunch of Unqualified Reservations since this whole brouhaha started (and I read some before, I find it occasionally amusing) and I've never seen any of the racism or hate speech I see claimed. I have seen a lot of out-of-context examples, but every one I tracked down was simply using shocking imagery to make a larger point. There is quite a bit that speaks frankly of slavery and the relati…

[deleted]

Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#62

Post by lrc »

"Emerging languages, alternative databases...code-heavy." That's from StrangeLoop's 'About' page. The fact is, the talk would have worked, not the least because it's consistent with the conference's overall mission.

Folks looking for a polite argument with Curtis could have had one.

Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#63

Post by cactusface »

nkurz wrote: post #8

In case you were wondering what Curtis's talk might have been about (and whether it would have held any technical merit) this page has a link to Clark's earlier introduction to Urbit: http://popehat.com/2013/12/06/nock-hoon-etc-for-non-vulcans-... The "Exit, voice, and loyalty" terminology might seem odd if you don't know it's origins. It's from 1970 book by economist A. O. Hirschman that's coming back in popularity:…

> While clearly legal, it's strikes me as a terrible precedent to require speakers on technical topics to pass a political litmus test.

It's funny, in some countries you have laws against hate speech - it probably wouldn't be legal to write stuff like "blacks make good slaves because of their genetics" [sic] - but in the US because of the free speech thing society relies on all these extrajudicial lynch mobs. So... terrible precedent or common sense?

Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#65

Post by oldmanjay »

Cowen wrote: post #60
oldmanjay wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a follow up, I've read a bunch of Unqualified Reservations since this whole brouhaha started (and I read some before, I find it occasionally amusing) and I've never seen any of the racism or hate speech I see claimed. I have seen a lot of out-of-context examples, but every one I tracked down was simply using shocking imagery to make a larger point. There is quite a bit that speaks frankly of slavery and the relati…

> unless the very concept of slavery is supposed to be considered racist I've never read a word of Moldybug or whatever, but in the American context, the very concept of slavery is absolutely considered racist and rightly so. America's history of slavery is completely inseparable from racism.

Slavery as a concept has nothing to do with American racism or American history. Slavery existed long before America was a dirty thought in a pilgrim's hatted head, and it still exists today, and it will likely exist so long as humans are recognizably human.

To outright decide that all mentions of a word have such a narrow context is something I cannot accept as valid. It's thoughtcrime.

Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#66

Post by hga »

almaIV wrote: post #58
hga wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably his as of yet inchoate concept of a tech "antifa[scism]" movement does not, at this time, "call for violence against any person". Heck, it doesn't have to, when all his side has to do is the "Nice tech career you have here, it would be a shame if anything happened to it" (why Alex Miller had to capitulate). Violence will be entirely irrelevant until those of us who are getting shut either start staging a c…

I made this word up a long time ago, but the "nice tech career you have there" move can be called 'bluelisting' -- i.e. censorship of someone's outside-employment speech via threatening someone's at-employment livelihood. I think it's a problem, and an increasingly huge one. People who are virulently anti-libertarian inexplicably adopt very libertarian "employers should be able to hire/fire anyone they want" response…

If society has no battlegrounds for beliefs, democracy is permanently is screwed, because you need some kind of battleground for beliefs to refine beliefs in concordance with reality in the first place.

Many of us US gun owners say "Soap box, ballot box, bullet box", but of course long term denial of the first invalidates the second. We're watching all this in horror because we really don't want to be forced to the third.

Especially since one way or another, such former democracies fail hard when faced with inconvenient truths the ruling class has been denying and "The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!" Doesn't have to be political, could be e.g. transmissible bird flu coupled with our current SJW public health authorities, as the Texas Ebola cases demonstrated.

Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#67

Post by sudioStudio64 »

lrc wrote: post #64

Thought experiment: is there any extremity of leftist (or progressive if you prefer) thinking (say, on a personal blog) that could conceivably get one disinvited to speak on a technical topic at a conference of this sort?

It depends on what you call left. I bet someone that seriously proposed violence against some institutions or industries would get disinvited. Animal rights extremists or eco-terrorist organizations might fit that bill too.

Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#68

Post by mindslight »

oldmanjay wrote: post #41
oldmanjay wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time understanding the "hate speech is violence" perspective. I feel like that position can only be held by someone who has never actually been assaulted using real, actual violence. I guarantee, being punched feels a heck of a lot worse than standing next to a person who (potentially) talked positively about slavery.

As a follow up, I've read a bunch of Unqualified Reservations since this whole brouhaha started (and I read some before, I find it occasionally amusing) and I've never seen any of the racism or hate speech I see claimed. I have seen a lot of out-of-context examples, but every one I tracked down was simply using shocking imagery to make a larger point. There is quite a bit that speaks frankly of slavery and the relati…

Such mischaracterization is a giant red flag for knowing you're dealing with groupthink. Moldbug's points venture into forbidden thoughts and attack the national religion, so the knee jerk reaction is to regroup at ad-hominem by ascribing simplistic straw men.

FWIW, reading "A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations" made me identify as liberal. I wholeheartedly agree with Moldbug's analysis of the arrow of time and condemnation of the machine(s) of USG and the Cathedral. But I believe he unjustly discounts the idea of distributed force wherein aggression is unproductive, and IMHO making that work at lower levels is a better goal than the federated centralization of take-it-or-leave-it fiefdoms. (Then again, this growing feel-good "SJW" cancer has me rethinking how enlightened such a society could be, but I digress...). He also discounts how technology has made subjects ever-more transparent to their rulers, with a simple handwave that rulers wouldn't be interested in unnecessary policing. (If I am guilty of oversimplifying here I apologize - it's been a while since I read him and I'm recalling my main takeaways.)

I don't believe in Urbit for similar reasoning - it seems like its entities are opaque objects where the only primitive is composition, and punts to delegation for solving the hard problems. I'd previously gone down a similar "immutable universal code" fugue with r6rs as the basis and eventually considered it a dead end.

Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#69

Post by scott_karana »

maxmax wrote: post #40
nemo wrote: post #13

While Moldbug holds hideous political views, if the talk is on tech. and doesn't overlap him advocating hideous things, then this is akin to the old Hollywood blackballing, the excuse for dropping him was pathetic, and I agree that promoting a culture of free speech must be a core value of a liberal society. I'm pretty far-left (though more liberal than leftist), and found the black-and-white leftist-bashing in the a…

Hitler was a decent painter, but I wouldn't want him in my gallery.

Why? Is it harder to dehumanize people when you see their mundane side?

The fact that a horrible, unconscionable, genocidal dictator was also a painter makes his paintings more interesting, if anything.

Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)

#70

Post by sudioStudio64 »

oldmanjay wrote: post #53
sudioStudio64 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you are coming from but verbal abuse can be incredibly scarring. As someone that experienced both I can assure you of that... And ill grant that you weren't really talking about abusive speech... But hate speech especially from a superior...be it job or school... An authority figure, I could see where that would be just as bad.

Well just to keep this on topic, I'm not aware of any authority Curtis Yarvin has, so how could anything he says rise to that level?

Fine point.
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