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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)

#161

Post by amcastillo »

davidgerard wrote: post #159
amcastillo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people who blog on these ideas maintain pseudonyms to prevent Strangeloop-like witch hunts ruining their professional lives. Neoreactionary ideas have been picked up and directly cited by cultural influencers like Ross Douthat, Ed West, and William Gibson, however. They see themselves as a right wing Frankfurt School - not noteworthy for their identities, but for their subtle cultural impact.

> Frankfurt School - not noteworthy for their identities, but for their subtle cultural impact. ah, the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory? http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism um, ok

No, the school of social philosophy associated with Carl Grünberg, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse.

Check out Eclipse of Reason, Escape from Freedom, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, and The Theory of Communicative Action when you get a chance. Primary sources and all.

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

#162

Post by Sacho »

sdfghjkl34567 wrote: post #136
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fascist You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Why is this not gray? I thought hacker news was above memes.

Personally, I also don't understand what definition of fascism you are using(and another person call you out on it earlier...). Defining it as "the one I've built up in my mind" pretty much means it's noise to me, since it does not carry any information(I have no idea what kind of definition you've built up in your mind).

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

#163

Post by sdfghjkl34567 »

amcastillo wrote: post #155
sdfghjkl34567 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wikipedia history for ARA itself is a pretty reductive list of actions compared to all ARA-aligned actions. Again, I mentioned ARA because they popularized the tactic of shutting down meetings by pressuring hotels (which is not to say they invented secondary target activism), not because it was the only group doing so or for any other specific reason. Anti-racist and anti-fascist organizing happens under the mant…

> Anti-racist and anti-fascist organizing happens under the mantle of a thousand different groups all over the world. And yet we are asked to believe that an obscure blogger flirting with monarchist political thought would introduce a dangerous authoritarian element if allowed to present on a technical topic. Thanks for putting this into context.

I would not call Moldbug obscure; neo-reactionaryism is growing especially in tech circles and legitimizing its source is a dangerous act, not because he will seize power given the platform, but because it communicates a lack of concern with the threat "neo-reactionaryism" or fascism represents.

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

#164

Post by sdfghjkl34567 »

nkurz wrote: post #160
sdfghjkl34567 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dictionaries are descriptions, not proscriptions, of words. I'm not "using" any definition of fascism other than the one I've built up in my own mind based on my own lived experiences. I'm not going to be questioned on a dictionary. It is true that all exercises of political power are at the end of the day coercive. My personal take on this is to minimize political power, but to do this takes a specific social arrang…

It is much, much easier to get a fascist talk removed from a conference How does one distinguish a "fascist talk" from a "technical talk presented by one accused of being a fascist"? Is the difference relevant? I think Moldbug views himself as anti-fascist, and argues that Fascism and Communism are alternative undesirable endgames for democracy: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/carlyle... And I'm…

>How does one distinguish a "fascist talk" from a "technical talk presented by one accused of being a fascist"?

Well, pragmatically, the difference is immaterial, because to maximize the memetic intensity of anti-fascism, we have to attack all fascists everywhere all the time. Within the fold, there is very little opposition, because once one valid point has been made, going against it is nearly impossible.

This is the real danger in going down the ideological-purity path the way the mainstream extreme-liberal tumblerite bloc has. I get around this by maintaining a network of people I trust implicitly as comrades and who also trust me, but this is how ideologic drift happens in, say, activist groups.

>I think Moldbug views himself as anti-fascist

Well, nobody's the villain of their own story.

>Is the blogger a pseudonym, a construct, a caricature, or an alter-ego? Should a comedian be equated with their on-stage persona? An actor with the character they play? An author with their protagonist?

Do you think Moldbug is intended as a fiction?

>I (truly) appreciate the insight your earlier comments provide.

Don't think they provide so much insight. I'm one person and pretty idiosyncratic in my ideology and praxis. I am certainly not representative and I'm sure I would disagree with (just as an example) most of the people whose twitter comments were cited in the OP's article.

I just wanted to say that yes, I fully enjoy the fact that people are now afraid to be racist, sexist, etc., at tech conferences.

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

#165

Post by sdfghjkl34567 »

Sacho wrote: post #162
sdfghjkl34567 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this not gray? I thought hacker news was above memes.

Personally, I also don't understand what definition of fascism you are using(and another person call you out on it earlier...). Defining it as "the one I've built up in my mind" pretty much means it's noise to me, since it does not carry any information(I have no idea what kind of definition you've built up in your mind).

It is not possible for anyone to understand what definition of any word anyone is using. Regardless of dictionaries human concepts are organic and subjective and very difficult to communicate. The entirety of human art is based on this concept. If you can see only noise there perhaps you have subsisted on a barren rule-based if-then existence a little too long.

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

#166

Post by venomsnake »

sdfghjkl34567 wrote: post #136
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fascist You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Why is this not gray? I thought hacker news was above memes.

Because it is more coherent than your posts.

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

#167

Post by oldmanjay »

Cowen wrote: post #149
oldmanjay wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Concepts are understood in contexts. Everyone involved in this context is American, so it's natural for slavery here to be viewed through an American context. In that context, slavery is inherently racist. After all, it's not like Moldbug's writing shies away from this idea. > Not all humans are born the same, of course, and the innate character and intelligence of some is more suited to mastery than slavery. For oth…

I'll agree, it's very human and natural for people to deliberately misunderstand things so they can work themselves into a rage over things. It's intellectually dishonest, particularly in this case, and so I give it no shrift.

If all you have to make your case is rhetorical tricks (like "look! somewhere in this man's million plus words he talked about Africans being slaves! Slavery is therefore a specific kind of racist in all conversations") then I work from the premise that there isn't much of a case to be made.

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

#168

Post by Cowen »

oldmanjay wrote: post #167
Cowen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concepts are understood in contexts. Everyone involved in this context is American, so it's natural for slavery here to be viewed through an American context. In that context, slavery is inherently racist. After all, it's not like Moldbug's writing shies away from this idea. > Not all humans are born the same, of course, and the innate character and intelligence of some is more suited to mastery than slavery. For oth…

I'll agree, it's very human and natural for people to deliberately misunderstand things so they can work themselves into a rage over things. It's intellectually dishonest, particularly in this case, and so I give it no shrift. If all you have to make your case is rhetorical tricks (like "look! somewhere in this man's million plus words he talked about Africans being slaves! Slavery is therefore a specific kind of rac…

> it's very human and natural for people to deliberately misunderstand things so they can work themselves into a rage over things.

Kind of like what you're doing right now?

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

#169

Post by Manishearth »

ptomato wrote: post #42
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.

If speech advocating things (or "public identification with") that are harmful is violence, communism certainly qualifies with a death count of around 150 million.

Communism doesn't advocate that though. People advocating it are not necessarily supporting those deaths or saying they were necessary for communism to have worked there.

On the other hand, saying that some races are more suited to slavery is about as direct as it gets.

Besides, those deaths weren't due to the policies of communism, rather the particular regime. Hell, British colonialism is responsible for a lot of deaths too. Tons were under the East India Trading company (and the governments that it morphed into), which was a capitalist venture and all of its harmful policies were profit-oriented. There are probably other examples, I don't know.

(I don't exactly support communist ideals, but I don't really think it's something that deserves to be taboo'd.)

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

#170

Post by Sacho »

Cowen wrote: post #149
oldmanjay wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Concepts are understood in contexts. Everyone involved in this context is American, so it's natural for slavery here to be viewed through an American context. In that context, slavery is inherently racist. After all, it's not like Moldbug's writing shies away from this idea. > Not all humans are born the same, of course, and the innate character and intelligence of some is more suited to mastery than slavery. For oth…

You're unintentionally perpetuating the stereotype that US citizens do not know or care about history. Those people involved may be American, but surely some of them can look beyond their own noses to realize that a person speaking in broad, abstract strokes isn't talking about them in particular.
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