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Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

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Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#121

Post by sparky_z »

phillmv wrote: post #111
sparky_z wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said essays are non-actions. In fact, I used them as an example of them a type of action: one which would not cause me to disassociate myself from someone else. I might feel a little awkward about it, mostly because I'm sure there would be several people like you doing their damnedest to make me feel that way. I'm not a robot, and I'm subject to all the same sorts of social pressure as everybody else. But if…

I suppose I just don't understand why you'd consider proselytizing abhorrent views to be an insufficient cause or behaviour. They occupy space, and are capable of terrorizing others just all the same. To extend my other comment, which you've read: Suppose you and I were friends. Suppose further that I discover that you routinely have over Mr Qux, who has an extensive archive of Medium posts suggesting that society wo…

I honestly don't think a person like you're describing actually exists (as an otherwise perfectly polite and well-adjusted member of society--including to members of that ethnic group that they interact with personally). But lets suppose for the sake of argument that they did.

I probably wouldn't invite them over to my house, nor champion their job application at my workplace. That goes beyond tolerance. But what I wouldn't do is try to get dropped from giving a convention talk (which they're qualified for), or seek to get them fired from their job or shunned from their peer group.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#122

Post by Turing_Machine »

phillmv wrote: post #63
apsec112 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But consider the following: I am a pro-choice atheist. When I lived in Ireland, one of my friends was a pro-life Christian. I thought she was responsible for the unnecessary suffering of millions of women. She thought I was responsible for killing millions of babies. And yet she invited me over to her house for dinner without poisoning the food. And I ate it, and thanked her, and sent her a nice card, without smashi…

Thought experiment: Is there no set of personal views sufficiently abhorrent to dissuade you from associating with a given person?

How about communism? Communists have murdered somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 million people in the last century.

If some guy with idiosyncratic political views and a blog qualifies, surely communists must?

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#123

Post by calibraxis »

Kalium wrote: post #49
jordigh wrote: post #45

> Free speech advocates have gathered on one side, advocates for social justice on the other wtf Those two are supposed to be the same side. There's some really perverse twisting of words here to put social justice in opposition to free speech. How has the debate come to this?

A speaker-blind selection process selected a talk by someone who is considered by some to be offensive for reasons not directly relevant to the content of the talk.

The Lambdaconf guy who mindbogglingly rejects social media for being "fickle, highly emotional, and irrational" has no idea about free speech.

Moldbug has a record of going to professional confs and advocating racism. (Working to exclude people.) Furthermore, one of their sponsors is a racist political blog, which is unprecedented in my experience. (For evidence, see my comment history.)

Context: a country which notoriously kills and incarcerates blacks, as a replacement for slavery. Racism involves political actions which directly impact the lives of participants and users.

This creates an atmosphere completely counter to education. People always say "Hallway chats are the best part!" so it's not just about a talk.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#124

Post by Turing_Machine »

danharaj wrote: post #28
Aqueous wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When will people learn that you don't fight a view by attempting to suppress it?

That wasn't the point of protesting his presence at LambdaConf. The point was so that people who want to go to LambdaConf and feel threatened and humiliated by someone's enthusiastic support of racism and slavery don't have to associate with such a person. It is so exasperating that so many people who aren't denigrated and targeted by his hateful politics think this is a matter of abstract principle . Somehow, lettin…

What about someone who grew up in a communist state, with friends and relatives being hauled off by the secret police on a regular basis?

Those people might feel threatened by communist speakers. Do they then have the right to "no platform" those speakers?

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#125

Post by incepted »

swampthinker wrote: post #3

Sorry, I guess I've been living under a rock. What's the context for this?

You're not, it's just a microscopic drama that is engulfing a tiny subset of the FP world. I'm following a lot of these people and their Twitter stream has been flooded by reactions to this, which makes me think they really don't have much else to talk about.

It's pathetic, really.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#126

Post by calibraxis »

mikeash wrote: post #62
lukev wrote: post #16

Of course, LambdaConf has every right to define its community in the way it sees fit. While their explanation does have a lot of logical appeal (see: https://www.facebook.com/notes/satnam-singh/dr-spock-vs-dive... ), it's important to remember that prospective attendees and speakers also have the right of free association. The fact is, I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin a…

I've followed this saga with much confusion and I wonder if you could explain why you'd avoid a conference with a speaker like this. For me, if I'm evaluating a conference speaker, all I care about is: 1. Is the topic useful or interesting? 2. Is the speaker well informed and the content correct? 3. Does the speaker present the material well? I couldn't care less about them otherwise, and especially not their politic…

Moldbug's political views aren't the issue, it's his political action. He has a record of going to conferences and advocating racism: working to exclude. And one of Lambdaconf's sponsors is a racist political blog, which sounds unprecedented. (Evidence in my comment history.)

(The context is a country which kills and incarcerates blacks, post-slavery. Racism is political action which directly impacts the lives of confgoers and users. Toxic for education and networking.)

Any conf organizer has heard people say, "It's not the talks, it's the hallway conversations!" Racist political groups are now desperate enough to nakedly show their influence out in the open. Harder for them to dominate quietly.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#127

Post by ankushnarula »

phillmv wrote: post #63
apsec112 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But consider the following: I am a pro-choice atheist. When I lived in Ireland, one of my friends was a pro-life Christian. I thought she was responsible for the unnecessary suffering of millions of women. She thought I was responsible for killing millions of babies. And yet she invited me over to her house for dinner without poisoning the food. And I ate it, and thanked her, and sent her a nice card, without smashi…

Thought experiment: Is there no set of personal views sufficiently abhorrent to dissuade you from associating with a given person?

"While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger." (John Rawls from the same link in the other thread)

So some people sincerely believe Yarvin's very presence is a threat while others find his online philosophical rants to be little more than meanderings.

With that said here's my answer to your thought experiment:

Yarvin would be uninvited if he had been proven (not alleged) to have:

* harmed or advocated harm to anyone * rallied for pro-discriminatory policies * lobbied for pro-discriminatory policies * addressed someone with discriminatory slurs

If he were to deny the evidence then it would be a done deal and he would be banned.

However, everyone gets a chance to repent in my book. So if he had been proven to do these things and he came clean (or eventually came clean) then he would get a chance to publicly apologize online for wide distribution - and again live at the conference at the start of his talk.

---

The real answer to your question is that I would not associate with anyone proven to have done abhorrent things. But I regularly associate with people who have all kinds of abhorrent thoughts.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#128

Post by danharaj »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #124
danharaj wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't the point of protesting his presence at LambdaConf. The point was so that people who want to go to LambdaConf and feel threatened and humiliated by someone's enthusiastic support of racism and slavery don't have to associate with such a person. It is so exasperating that so many people who aren't denigrated and targeted by his hateful politics think this is a matter of abstract principle . Somehow, lettin…

What about someone who grew up in a communist state, with friends and relatives being hauled off by the secret police on a regular basis? Those people might feel threatened by communist speakers. Do they then have the right to "no platform" those speakers?

Rights apply to government interactions with its subjects. Lambdaconf isn't a government, none of us are. And really? Being disinvited is the same as secret police renditions?

But let's take your absurd comparison in good faith: I don't care whether they have the "right" or not, I would oppose retaliation by a state on the merits of the situation. Again I will repeat my exasperation at the idea that one must have a rule that applies to all conflicts of speech uniformly without consideration of context or details of the conflict. No one here wants to grapple with the effects of hate speech on others, they simply want to ignore them, and that is completely irrational. Free speech absolutism is irrational and behaves like dogmatic religion.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#129

Post by McGlockenshire »

mcphage wrote: post #119
McGlockenshire wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attempt to be a neutral platform is laudable, and the wording used to express the idea seems to be well thought through. The fact remains that even though that insist that they are not endorsing any of the speakers' views, the mere act of giving a divisive speaker an audience (even if the presentation is entirely topical and non-controversial) acts as an implicit endorsement. Denying this doesn't change the effec…

> the mere act of giving a divisive speaker an audience acts as an implicit endorsement Giving a speaker a talk acts an implicit endorsement of all of their views? That doesn't even sound remotely true, yet you state it as if it was tautological.

The endorsement is implicit, not explicit.

Conf: "We're giving person A a presentation slot because they have a compelling presentation on topic W."

Possible Attendee: "Are you aware that person A has said things X, Y, and Z, which taken together can make people reluctant to associate with them?"

Conf: "We are aware of that but do not wish to make our conference about anything X, Y, or Z. The presentation is topical."

PA: "If you feature this speaker, you will cause some people to be reluctant to associate with your conference as well."

Conf: "We understand that, but speaker A is discussing topic W, not topics X, Y, or Z. We choose to feature the speaker because of their presentation on W."

By taking this position, the conference associates itself with the speaker. Possible attendees will see this association and draw the conclusion that the conference endorses the speaker, even if that endorsement is only about non-controversial things that are within the topic of the conference.

Dryly stating that there is no endorsement of any off-topic position does not remove that association and the implicit endorsement.

Implicit endorsement by association is a real effect. Go talk to any major politician about how they can't be seen talking to anyone remotely controversial, because of how associating with that person might be seen as endorsement.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#130

Post by thescribe »

calibraxis wrote: post #126
mikeash wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've followed this saga with much confusion and I wonder if you could explain why you'd avoid a conference with a speaker like this. For me, if I'm evaluating a conference speaker, all I care about is: 1. Is the topic useful or interesting? 2. Is the speaker well informed and the content correct? 3. Does the speaker present the material well? I couldn't care less about them otherwise, and especially not their politic…

Moldbug's political views aren't the issue, it's his political action . He has a record of going to conferences and advocating racism: working to exclude. And one of Lambdaconf's sponsors is a racist political blog, which sounds unprecedented. (Evidence in my comment history.) (The context is a country which kills and incarcerates blacks, post-slavery. Racism is political action which directly impacts the lives of co…

Can you provide an example of any action he has taken that is not merely expressing a view?
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