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“A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

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Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#241

Post by A_COMPUTER »

Rangi42 wrote: post #231
A_COMPUTER wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but meaningless. Any OS that has the concept of a root or admin user with total control has monarchy hard-coded into it too.

Which is not actually meaningless. Technical features like "root user" or "wheel group of root-capable users" have political implications. From `info su` [0]: > Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to…

I also have my familiarity from those same sources and I do agree that it imitates his neocameralism ideas. The mistake in my argument is that I considered the single-user system where the user controls root, so you're very right. Since urbit is a distributed system, its design will have political implications. Ironically though it would give you more control than current systems, so that's kind of an argument in his favor. As far as I could tell, I didn't see any aspects of racialism or slavery in urbit.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#242

Post by ThrustVectoring »

ncallaway wrote: post #60
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are extremely good game-theoretic reasons to support a policy of allowing full debate on ideas and zero tolerance on attacking the person holding the idea. Specifically, I'm imagining a degenerate case where there's a norm of killing people who do X, as well as people who don't kill people who do X, as well as people who advocate making the anti-X policy more lenient. My point is that we can end up in a bad sit…

As a disclaimer: I don't have any context outside of the linked article. I don't know the candidate, what viewpoints they hold, or how those viewpoints have been previously expressed. > "support a policy of allowing full debate on ideas and zero tolerance on attacking the person holding the idea." If I had infinite time on this planet, I'd agree with you. However, my time is extremely limited. It's the most precious…

I think we're talking about slightly different topics here. What I'm hearing from you is along the lines of "I shouldn't feel obligated to spend my time listening to racists about their racist ideology." I was trying to aim more at "we shouldn't interfere with a racist having on-topic technology discussions with third parties." Both the differences are important. Choosing who you will and won't engage with is a different beast than who is and isn't allowed to talk about things. Whether certain topics are appropriate for a given context is a different thing than whether choosing wrong on one topic means you are no longer an appropriate person to talk about another.

In short, I'm encouraging you to ignore the crank, but not censor him from talking about context-relevant topics.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#243

Post by vikiomega9 »

DanBC wrote: post #77
leereeves wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of extremist attacks a child because of their father's political views?

Shunning "others" is very common behaviour. Shunning the child of "others" is very common.

I think this falls under socially discriminating while being legally tolerant. [1]

I wonder why it's ok to discriminate as such. Should one just accept this behavior as part of a social contract? If someone were to say "I'll put a gun to your head" but does not do so, is it not ok to let them be?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/david-brooks-i-am-...

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#244

Post by cactusface »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #225
cactusface wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's because he said it was due to genetic differences between population groups. This makes him a "true" racist in that he believe there are different races, or sub-species, of homo sapiens (sapiens). There is a scientific consensus that this is not the case, because races only exist if population groups are completely isolated, which humans never have been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

Except that no one in ordinary discourse uses "race" in the way you are, which means "species" (the whole not-interbreeding thing is often taken as definitive of "species".) "Race" as it is commonly used means "variety" or "breed", and the claim that there are observable and significant statistical differences between human populations in geographic regions is, one hopes, uncontroversial. Those differences come from…

Different races cannot interbreed, but only because they are geographically isolated.

Different species cannot interbreed (generally speaking), even if they are not geographically isolated.

Humans are not geographically isolated. Geographical barriers have contributed to the creation of population groups, but these are distinct from races in that there is a mechanism for DNA to move between them (somebody takes a trip and makes a baby).

Anyway, Wikipedia says in the lead sentence of that article I linked to that simply classifying people into discrete races is scientific racism.

"Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races."

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#245

Post by cactusface »

andrewchambers wrote: post #229
tjradcliffe wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redefining the word "race" so it does not apply to the human varieties does not make the fact of human varieties go away, and so fails to make a counter-argument against racists. "Racism" exists, and saying "race doesn't exist" doesn't change that. All it does is mean that to be consistent you'll have to call it "variety-ism", which is awkward and irrelevant.

Racism is asserting superiority of one group of humans over another, and generalizing without evidence. You could think certain people are genetically better adapted to cold or hot climates. That by itself is not racism, it becomes racism when you say that everyone who cannot stand cold weather is inferior, when in reality, it is totally dependent on circumstances. I think people failing to see the difference stops s…

I'm repeating myself here, but per WP, "Scientific racism is [...] alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races."

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#246

Post by cardiffspaceman »

PopeOfNope wrote: post #85
shalmanese wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of person stereotypes an entire state of 40 million people based on their experiences in one small town?

The kind that uses logic and reason instead of rhetorical appeals to emotion. The 'personal is the political' is part of the culture in california and is common throughout the state. And if you don't believe me, you should go on a job hunt and tell every interviewer who talks to you that you're a republican. Now that I think about it, I want to do just that and document the results. Should be interesting.

There is a group of guys where I work who call themselves VRWC[1] when they go to lunch together. This is in San Diego County. There may be liberal pockets in California but there are also conservative ones. Though Jerry Brown is governor now, we also have had such bleeding heart liberals as Reagan, Deukmajian, Wilson, and Schwartzenegger hold that title.

[1] VRWC refers to a Hillary Clinton sound-bite about a "vast, right-wing conspiracy."

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#247

Post by aestetix »

antics wrote: post #43

I recently helped organize a conference. Since it is apparently not obvious to many people, I'd just like to point out that amongst conference organizers, it is an extremely common belief that your primary responsibility is to deliver a good conference experience to your conference-goers. This is not just a belief StrangeLoop holds -- it is a belief that many beloved tech conferences have (e.g., PyCon), and if you th…

I have helped organize many conferences, including some that had >2000 attendees. And including conferences that had unpopular speakers.

I think it's important to understand that inviting someone to speak does not mean you endorse what they say. If that were true, if a conference held a debate on opposing views, which view should the conference be endorsing? The conference serves as the messenger, not the message.

The traditional way to handle these issues is to have a complaint procedure. Either an email address, or even someone at the event who can handle such complaints. Keep in mind, attendees are under no obligation to go to every talk, so if you want to enjoy the event, you are welcome to simply not go to the talk you don't like.

In terms of the situation in question, by virtue of this action, StrangeLoop has now become a political conference, whether they wanted to or not. I am unclear on how their speaker selection process will change going forward. If I decide to submit a talk, do I need to worry that, after I arrange all my travel and such, that I will be dis-invited because of statements I have made in an unrelated venue?

I fully support the right of a conference to select who their speakers are, but when they use criteria unrelated to their stated mission, it does change the perception of the event.

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#248

Post by ElComradio »

hibikir wrote: post #187
k_brother wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you provide citations for those posts? This is the first I have heard of either Curtis or Moldbug, and I'm having trouble seeing the connection you're drawing. However, it seems to be the consensus. [edit: I see that there are secondary sources — but I'm curious about a primary source. Shouldn't that be the most important?]

It's pretty difficult. Racism, like other ideas that at some point were not considered unacceptable in public, is nowadays covered in what we could call Hermetic writing: In other words, instead of saying what they really want to say, a racist says things that imply they are OK with racism. A way that you can find all over his writings is talk about how people and businesses should be free to refuse dealing with peop…

"What I find most amusing is that in that libertarian utopia where people can discriminate at will, you can discriminate people because of their political views"

This is also a dominant feature of progressive utopias. :)

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#249

Post by devalier »

al3x wrote: post #173
devalier wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be fine to ban Curtis if his talk was about his politics. It would be fine to ban him if he did not agree to abide by the code of conduct. The conference obviously does not owe him a platform to discuss his politics. But his talk was about Urbit, not about his politics, and Urbit is a genuinely fascinating piece of technology. Even if the project fails, by studying it, I have learned a lot of ideas that I ha…

As a friend texted me this morning: "the talk on Urbit could have been dismissed on technical grounds". Perhaps it's interesting to you, but it brings very little that's new to the table in terms of research. Urbit's author, meanwhile, has had nothing but invective for people doing valuable research in the relevant sub-fields of compsci that his work touches upon. Purely from a technology perspective, this in an indi…

Urbit's author, meanwhile, has had nothing but invective for people doing valuable research in the relevant sub-fields of comp-sci that his work touches upon. Purely from a technology perspective, this in an individual who operates in bad faith.

I believe that I first found Moldbug via a post he wrote about the corruption and degeneracy in CS research: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/whats-w... I believe his critique to be accurate. There is nothing wrong with invective when it is true. Surely you are no stranger to invective against people who you think are in the wrong. Moldbug has always been someone who can both dish it and take it. Science and technology are moved forward via heated competition of people who are furiously working to prove that the other guy is full of crap, and that they have the true answer.

Why not test your own thick skin and look them in the eye when you call them cowards?

Thin-skinned is not a synonym for coward. Cowards say: "thank you sir, may I have another." People are thin-skinned because they think they can get their way if they make a fuss. Which they did. I have no interest in saying anything to their face, because they are strong, and I am weak.

As for the racism question...I have a proposal for you.

Can we make you dictator of an American city? Yes you, Alex Payne. We could shoot for Brooklyn, or Baltimore, or St. Louis, or even my current city of Cleveland. If you are not the imperious type, we could just take the entire Jacobin board of directors, and make them the trustees of the city, and have you guys appoint a suitable executive.

As plenary rulers, you get full power to root out racism, correct inequalities, reduce homicide rates back to what they were in 1905, restore the rotting and decaying buildings, solve the wealth gap between the sexes, the races, and the classes, once and for all. You get to reorganize the police, fix the schools, and do whatever else you think is necessary. We'll give you lots of time. How much do you need? 20 years, 30 years, 50 years? That is fine.

I'm not actually joking about this. If you want this deal, we can talk about how to make it happen. It won't happen overnight, but I think a lot on the right would actually be amenable to this. You win, we lose. We take the knee, you rule. Seriously. You're going to win any way. As you say, Curtis's views were already soundly rejected. If you're going to win, I would rather have it all above board, so that if your plans fail to restore our cities, then at least you can't blame the wreckers, you can't say that you're ideas weren't truly implemented, etc. And hey, maybe you'll succeed and that'll be awesome. Either way, it is better for everyone if we just formalize the relationship and acknowledge that you are in charge.

So what do you say?

Re: “A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

#250

Post by yarvin9 »

colinhb wrote: post #213
urbit wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He has literally written that several of his co-speakers are genetically more fit to be slaves while he, a white male, is genetically designed to be a master." Certainly a powerful use of the word literally . Frankly, I'm actually considering recanting. Who wouldn't rather be Galileo than Giordano Bruno? But recanting is a serious matter - it's the sort of thing you need to get right the first time. To appear at fut…

> I'm guessing it's either: > (a) all human beings are born with identical talents and inclinations. > (b) human beings may be born with different talents and inclinations, but these talents and inclinations are distributed identically across all living populations. Or: (c) The inter-group variation in the talents and inclinations of human beings is completely dominated by the intra-group variation. In other words, "…

I think if you read (b) again, you'll see that it's exactly the same hypothesis as your (c).
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