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Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

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Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#61

Post by st3v3r »

wtbob wrote: post #33
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 do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. > I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. > But I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them, pretending nothing is wrong. Is a conference 'drinking beer and breaking bread,' or is it an appropriate forum to 'discuss or debate ideas'?

I would posit that it is "drinking beer and breaking bread", or otherwise spending time with, and getting to know others in the profession. I would also argue that a programming conference is not the appropriate forum to discuss or debate ideas related to racism, sexism, etc.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#62

Post by mikeash »

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 political views. For most conference speakers, I couldn't tell you anything about their political views, because it's just not relevant.

What's your reasoning for including that aspect of a speaker when evaluating the conference?

I also wonder, if we take it as a given that political views are important, do you vet all conference speakers' views before you attend a conference? Or do you have faith that the community will root out views you find unacceptable?

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#63

Post by phillmv »

apsec112 wrote: post #41
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…

"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?

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#64

Post by antifasci »

lukev wrote: post #38
tomp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Not at all! I can disassociate myself from Yarvin, and even "no-platform" him while fully acknowledging that he's a legit functional programmer with interesting technical ideas. But I can't engage with him as a peer, in community, without denying or ignoring (or accepting) that he's a racist.

It seems to me that a truly 'healthy' community would not draw it's boundaries so tightly.

If I were building a community I'd want it to be one that welcomed even those with views I found despicable so long as they could engage in thoughtful, reasonable discourse. A community should allow for people to be wrong, and still be welcome.

Having near zero interest in Curtis' political writing his recent AMA [0] and Medium post [1] come off as earnest and harmless.

0 - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...

1 - https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lam...

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#65

Post by dmix »

danharaj wrote: post #39
Aqueous wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In public life we have to - and should - encounter and tolerate people whose opinions we find abhorrent. I would much prefer a world where I feel emotional discomfort being in the presence of someone I loathe than a world where such a person is prohibited from ever being near me, because of social ostracism. It provides for a much richer marketplace of ideas. If you don't like him, protest him. Disturb him with your…

Free speech is such a pretty principal when you can always foist its costs on other people. You can keep your marketplace. I'm going to be emphatic, because i am emphatic about this position: Free speech is a powerful principle because speech has power. Because speech can hurt people, because speech can change the world. If speech did not matter, free speech would not matter. If speech matters, and speech has power,…

This anti-free speech and being against keeping politics out of technology/business conferences is as radical and distasteful as anything I've read about neoreactionary.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#66

Post by st3v3r »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #48
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 respectfully note that their conclusion is the opposite: that you can separate the person from the talk. That an informative talk well spoken by an asshole is still informative. And, well, the speaker may still be a jerk. But the conference wants to have an air of professionalism, and therefore you should go to be informed, not as a vote in a popularity contest of any kind. They also seem to have a strong intoleran…

One could say that, by letting a known asshole speak, they are not showing a strong intolerance of the practice of assholery.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#67

Post by barsonme »

danharaj wrote: post #39
Aqueous wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In public life we have to - and should - encounter and tolerate people whose opinions we find abhorrent. I would much prefer a world where I feel emotional discomfort being in the presence of someone I loathe than a world where such a person is prohibited from ever being near me, because of social ostracism. It provides for a much richer marketplace of ideas. If you don't like him, protest him. Disturb him with your…

Free speech is such a pretty principal when you can always foist its costs on other people. You can keep your marketplace. I'm going to be emphatic, because i am emphatic about this position: Free speech is a powerful principle because speech has power. Because speech can hurt people, because speech can change the world. If speech did not matter, free speech would not matter. If speech matters, and speech has power,…

It should be noted 'free speech' is the reason you can have this conversation in the first place.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. That is, if you wish to not have your opinions censored you cannot ask for the censorship of other opinions you feel offensive.

I wish bigots and other prejudiced people would spare us, but I value my freedom to speak my mind more than I dislike hearing hateful speech.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#68

Post by SolarNet »

douche wrote: post #40
wtbob wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. > I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. > But I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them, pretending nothing is wrong. Is a conference 'drinking beer and breaking bread,' or is it an appropriate forum to 'discuss or debate ideas'?

That's sort of the question of whether conferences are training and professional development, or thinly veiled junkets...

I think it's (intended to be) closer to the first, basically like an academic forum.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#69

Post by dmix »

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…

Indeed, nowhere in a tech conference have I ever been forced to drink beer or converse with anyone I didn't want to.

These communities are large enough where you don't have to directly engage with all people or even attend every single talk. Find your own subgroups within the larger community who you want to spend time with, avoid the rest. Pretty easy. I do this with at tech meetups all the time by avoiding business/PR people. And I probably disagree with the politics of at least 90% of people at any of these conferences to varying degrees.

What matters is there are people there you want to learn from (about the topic at hand) and spend time with.

Re: Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy

#70

Post by flubert »

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?

>Those two are supposed to be the same side.

How is it different from how "Progressive" and "Classically Liberal/Libertarian" are pretty much opposites?

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