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.
Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
71–80 of 194 posts
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#72To play devil's advocate, a conference is not only about the speeches, but also about the people you can meet there. Inviting Moldbug bring not only his own person but also his followers. It's understandable if your goal is to foster a diverse crowd to not invite a group of people who constantly argue against any kind of modern society.
Imagine if your sentence was reformulated like this instead.
> Inviting Harvey Milk bring not only his own person but also his followers. It's understandable if your goal is to foster a diverse crowd to not invite a group of people who [insert claim here] against any kind of modern society.
See the problem? :(
Tolerance is hard, I know, but something we need to foster nonetheless.
Even if we don't allow these people to conferences, we still share roads, grocery stores, national identity, tax revenues, employment opportunities, classrooms, etc, with them. Humanity sucks badly enough at cooperation already! Let's not ever actively discourage it!
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#73Politics is a common topic here, of course. I've participated in my share of such discussions. But I couldn't tell you who took what position. I'd definitely never look at a prospective conference speaker and say, oh, that's the guy who believes X, where X is any political subject. Not even as a neutral observation, let alone as criticism.
Is this a real thing? This conversation feels like a window into an alternate universe.
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I for one support Curtis on this issue, but tend not to post here on the subject except under an alternate username. I do this because I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line. If I were to hazard a guess, I think I'm not alone in this and I think you're not in a minority (or at least a small one). The recent HN stories…
> I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line This is something I'd love see SJW's here react to. How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you? Would you prefer convincing them of the correctness of your position, but willing to accept that at least by making th…
I've been involved in anti-racist/anti-fascist work, either directly or on the periphery, for about ten years at this point. This takes many forms, from street confrontations with fascists, protests at book readings and other events, and also disrupting fascist conferences and similar.
Anti-Racist Action is the organization that has developed the most tactical and strategic influence in this space, not by design, but by chance (and it largely doesn't exist anymore). Disrupting fascist meetings by denying them space by getting hotels to drop them is the bread and butter of any ARA chapter. It's the easiest thing to do, and most modern tumblerites aren't willing to get in the streets with a bandanna and a baseball bat, so it's what gets done now. And in fact, it's likely that this sort of thing happens because ARA activists got involved in more liberal groups, etc., and the tactics just trickled down.
Personally, I have developed political differences with the "SJW" orthodoxy myself (though obviously in the other direction), and have seen the effects of this sort of attack applied on a social level. It has made my own work slightly more difficult, because I have to pick my comrades more carefully to ensure that they won't alienate me from my network. But this isn't a big deal for leftists, because there are already so many camps that are mutually oppositional that you'd need to do that already for some of your politics anyway. What's new in the last few years is having that extend away from your class alignment. (This is an answer to a question you didn't really ask, which is how the "SJW" community itself is affected by this, though it is what came to mind when I asked myself how I felt about it.)
As far as this issue and other similar issues are concerned, I'm overjoyed that, as you put it, a climate of fear exists for fascists, misogynists, racists, and similar. I hope that this continues and only worsens for these people.
I'm happy for many reasons. The first is that it has, as you've said, made privileged people afraid. I think this is only the beginning. Privilege creates safety, and as it is removed, I think the unsafety of the oppressed will in part come to the currently privileged classes. But if I could flip a switch and make every man feel the persistent, gnawing fear that a woman has of men, I would in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even consider whether the consequences were strategic, I would just do it.
I'm also happy that these people are achieving real victories. This is nearly impossible to do in a post-reformist landscape, and so the people involved in getting this fascist kicked out of this conference will have a real victory under their belt where their friends who are campaigning against some law that will inevitably pass or for some reform that will inevitably never happen won't. I hope that these victories can motivate people into taking more action. Burnout is a huge problem in activism and successes stave it off.
I would not say that I set out to defeat a "discourse-stifling" monster. The monsters I set out to defeat were patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy. These systems violently oppress, they don't "stifle discourse." In fact, they LOVE discourse! When people are discoursing, they aren't in the streets. I've seen so many promising movements hobbled by reformism that I'm glad the possibility no longer exists, though that isn't at all the fault of SJW-outrage (and is rather a consequence of the fact that the economy is in large part so perilous that nobody can afford the concessions that were previously won by reformists). So if discourse is permanently removed as a tactical and strategic option for future leftists, I'll consider it a victory.
You might be unsurprised to find out that free speech is not valued on the left or among "SJW" groups. I suggest you research this further, because I can't communicate to you in a single hacker news comment why this is, or what theoretical basis it has.
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#75Earlier 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.
Even in this reply you've had to use a metaphor for physiological abuse (a scar, a bodily mark of harm) to elevate the seriousness of emotional damage, to the extent this emotional damage is even lasting, and it doesn't have to be, while something like a scar is unequivocally permanent barring some kind of advanced cosmetic treatment. Whether some emotional damage is "scarring" (i.e. permanent) will depend on, well,…
There are mental trauma, that has not been caused by physical trauma, that will end up being like the gash you describe never being able to acclimatize to.
I take your point about the use of the word scarring...I was just trying to draw a certain type of similarity into the conversation...it certainly isn't a perfect analogy.
One other thing, though...is it really a surprise that discussing mental or emotional damage would use a physical analogy? We don't culturally have a large body of language for describing things accurately that are "just in your head."
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#76Note: it was written in 2010 and I am sure that over the last 5 years a lot will have changed.
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#77In 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:…
That said, this entire conversation has an amazingly suppressive effect on me. This is primarily because i come from east germany, have grown up in its social era until my early teens, and have seen how it changed since the wall fell, and thus consider myself strongly socialist and glad that germany itself still is strongly socialist. I am left.
And i find myself under attack for what i consider to be a human-friendly view. I see talk of leftists, the red guard, communists, etc. etc. etc. and find the american internet to be extraordinarily busy painting what i consider to be my political leaning as "terrorist".
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#78His view on gender 'roles' is also dangerously close to hate speech (and before any of you calls me an islamophobic: as a non-muslim white male he has no cultural heritage that could justify his opinion, so it's different).
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line This is something I'd love see SJW's here react to. How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you? Would you prefer convincing them of the correctness of your position, but willing to accept that at least by making th…
Responding under a throwaway. I've been involved in anti-racist/anti-fascist work, either directly or on the periphery, for about ten years at this point. This takes many forms, from street confrontations with fascists, protests at book readings and other events, and also disrupting fascist conferences and similar. Anti-Racist Action is the organization that has developed the most tactical and strategic influence in…
Re: Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Responding under a throwaway. I've been involved in anti-racist/anti-fascist work, either directly or on the periphery, for about ten years at this point. This takes many forms, from street confrontations with fascists, protests at book readings and other events, and also disrupting fascist conferences and similar. Anti-Racist Action is the organization that has developed the most tactical and strategic influence in…
Thank you for confirming my suspicion that if you scratch the surface, all political extremists are motivated by the same all-consuming, destructive nihilism.
(edit: parent edited post, this no longer makes sense. Original was about revolutionaries never expecting the guillotine to fall on their own neck)