Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy • Hacker News Board

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#21

Post by tomp » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:36 PM UTC

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…

> In the light of a community, you can't, and you shouldn't, pull one aspect of a person's character and isolate it from the rest of their identity.

Isn't this exactly what you're doing?

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#22

Post by marshray » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:36 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #11

What an amazing article; cool-headed, rational and very well-argued. Especially the "Appendix" containing definitions and short doscussions/arguments is worth reading.

Yeah, it's going to drive people nuts.

Edit: (people on both sides)

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#23

Post by 1123581321 » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:37 PM UTC

I think the policy to ignore social media is a valuable innovation. For a couple of years, I have hoped to see companies adopt this policy to protect their employees from being capriciously let go.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#24

Post by gwright » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:37 PM UTC

From the article:

> Someone with progressive political views might feel emotionally threatened in the presence of rabid and well-known Trump supporters who are openly contemptuous of progressives in their personal lives […]

Ugh. I’m not sure how I would have selected examples of potentional emotional distress but a laundry list of caricatures of political, sexual, and religious attitudes wouldn’t have been my first choice.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#25

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:39 PM UTC

marklyon wrote: post #10

hoodoof wrote: post #4

Seems conferences are quite a controversial thing these days.

Agreed. In addition to "codes of conduct" that seem to assume all attendees are lecherous, racist rapists some conferences step outside their focus and end up turning away potential attendees. For example, this military member who really seems to be the target market for DjangoCon but who can't attend due to past pro-marijuana speakers. https://www.reddit.com/r/django/comments/4dihy4/django_train...

[deleted]

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#26

Post by rtpg » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:39 PM UTC

I'm not a part of LambdaConf, nor would I plan to (not because of the controversy, but just because I don't have the time/money to attend any US-based conference)...

But these discussions remind me a lot of the "censorship" discussions that have been had both on places like reddit or twitter.

For the longest time, code of conducts were a thing that were accepted. Don't be a jerk, don't spout racist stuff at people. Loads of forums had it, and the places that didn't basically became 4chan (which is interesting in its own right but filled with pretty rude people).

Sometime between 1995 and 2015, we started thinking that rules that basically say "don't be a jerk" stopped being the norm.... I really wonder why. Now it gets classified as "censorship".

That being said, my understanding is that this guy's talk wasn't "How FP advances the causes of Stormfont", which makes it pretty hard to say outright "gotta kick him out".

But I wouldn't want Marine Le Pen or Trump at my FP conference, no matter how subtle and developed their views on FP are. My opinion does not entire conference submission guidelines make, but I can understand fighting against that. Social interactions don't work in a vacuum...

Glad I don't have to participate at this

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#27

Post by tomp » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:39 PM UTC

lbarrow wrote: post #15

There's no such thing as "not becoming political". Hosting an event is a political act; so is selling tickets to the event or paying people to help you run it. These acts might be _normal_ but they're still _political_. When someone says, "I don't want this to get political", what they're really saying is "I'm comfortable with the politics of the status quo and I want things to stay the way they are". Sometimes that'…

> In this case it means giving a voice to a racist advocate of slavery.

The alternative is to give voice to an almost-militant group of bullies bent on oppressing opinions of people whe don't think like them.

Only one of these positions is logically internally consistent.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#28

Post by danharaj » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:40 PM UTC

Aqueous wrote: post #14

ng12 wrote: post #6

How crazy -- I'm vaguely familiar with Curtis' work, and would have never known (or cared) about his political views until the people looking to "no platform" him gave him a platform. Streisand effect, people.

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, letting my and others' humanity be a matter of political opinion is the mature, apolitical position. Utterly frustrating attitude. It's perfectly fine to be tolerant of Yarvin's views, it is completely unreasonable to ask others to associate with a person who envisions a world where their humanity is forfeit.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#29

Post by powera » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:40 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #20

Apropos of anything else, the 'lawyer' example is a bad one, and contrived for the purpose of example. If an attorney "knows" that their client is guilty, they are duty-bound as officers of the court to make that knowledge known. Obviously that doesn't happen as much as it should...

Your statement is factually incorrect, at least in the US court system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney%E2%80%93client_privil...

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#30

Post by danharaj » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:40 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #27

lbarrow wrote: post #15

There's no such thing as "not becoming political". Hosting an event is a political act; so is selling tickets to the event or paying people to help you run it. These acts might be _normal_ but they're still _political_. When someone says, "I don't want this to get political", what they're really saying is "I'm comfortable with the politics of the status quo and I want things to stay the way they are". Sometimes that'…

> In this case it means giving a voice to a racist advocate of slavery. The alternative is to give voice to an almost-militant group of bullies bent on oppressing opinions of people whe don't think like them. Only one of these positions is logically internally consistent.

What does "almost-militant" mean?