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

http://popehat.com/2015/06/10/two-kinds-of-freedom-of-speech-or-strangeloop-vs-curtis-yarvin/

by protomyth • 11 years ago

137 189 11 years ago

popehat.com

lexcorvus3• 11 years ago

In this context, I think it's worth reading the article "The Curious Case of Mencius Moldbug" at Slate:

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/cur...

savanaly2• 11 years ago

If anyone is wondering about the actual views and arguments of Moldbug and his neoreactionaries, they were covered and responded to by economist blogger Noah Smith here.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/neoreactionaries....

The crux of it (and something I never saw quite covered in all the essays bouncing around) is

"Essentially, neoreaction is the dream of a society of mostly white people, living in a hierarchy based both on group membership (aristocratic lineage, gender, race) and individual ability (IQ). The neoreactionaries do not demand total racial purity. But many seem to think that if multiple races live in the same country, the races should be placed in a hierarchy of power, status, and freedom, apparently based on the average IQ of their racial group. Since the movement is about European traditionalism, it's not clear whether white people would be given a special place in the hierarchy, even above those groups whose average IQ is higher than that of whites.

As for women, many neoreactionaries appear to want them to return to traditional social roles - homemaking and child-rearing - and to submit more willingly to the sexual desires of men. Finally, there is some sense that within these group boundaries, the neoreactionaries might want a limited meritocracy - in other words, maybe the smart should rule. However, some neoreactionaries (particularly Anissimov) praise the idea of aristocracy, apparently believing that naturally superior people would manage to win the titles of nobility, and that their descendants would remain superior.

In other words, the neoreactionaries want the West to be a lot like the Ming Dynasty, but for white people. I've often thought of Europe as "the China that never quite made it"; neoreaction seems like the latest manifestation of a dream that refuses to die. "

amcastillo10• 11 years ago

And I'll tack on a mention of an explanation of Moldbug and his movement from the perspective of an economish blogger Andrea Castillo. AKA me.

https://theumlaut.com/2014/07/29/a-gentle-introduction-to-ne...

lexcorvus3• 11 years ago

the actual views and arguments

Getting the views of neoreactionaries from Noah Smith is like getting the views of Luther's 95 Theses from Pope Leo X. How about, you know, just reading Moldbug?

http://moldbuggery.blogspot.com

13thLetter3• 11 years ago

And? The question is not "how fringe is Yarvin's politics," the question is "does the fact that he has fringe politics mean he should be kicked out of a conference where he would not be speaking about politics."

forgottenpass• 11 years ago

Clark does a great job elucidating the point I've heard many other people struggle to present. One of the things I love about writers that specialize in legal matters, they're very good at articulating a position.

The "questions for sponsors" bit is particularly sharp at cutting towards the discrepancy between the standards dissenters expected from the conference and those they saw. There may be widely agreeable answers to the "how is this justifiably different?" question, but the conversations so far have largely skated around it with sophistry.

Also, I'd recommend everyone read the "Tolerating everything except the outgroup" link, but the writing style and/or position might prevent you from seeing the message.

clarkhat• 11 years ago

Despite writing at a legal blog, IANAL, but am a mere techie like yourselves.

Or was, till I took an arrow to the knee.

Anyway, thanks for your kind words re the post!

sudioStudio6419• 11 years ago

I enjoy your writing but I think I disagree with the successes that you attribute to the blue team. Some of them are right on, but some successes are only that if you say that blue means liberal like Adam Smith was a liberal and not a mercantilist. That's just my take though. Cheers!

theorique8• 11 years ago

It's a good summary - generally balanced, but skewing toward the side of letting CY speak on Urbit, and asking some pointed questions about why he was removed after acceptance.

nkurz3• 11 years ago

In case you were wondering what Curtis's talk might have been about (and whether it would have held any technical merit) this page has a link to Clark's earlier introduction to Urbit: http://popehat.com/2013/12/06/nock-hoon-etc-for-non-vulcans-...

The "Exit, voice, and loyalty" terminology might seem odd if you don't know it's origins. It's from 1970 book by economist A. O. Hirschman that's coming back in popularity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty. Hirschman gives an 1978 intro/postscript in his own words here: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~plambert/comp/hirschman.pdf

I'm surprised by apparent predominance of support here on HN for Strangeloop's position. While clearly legal, it's strikes me as a terrible precedent to require speakers on technical topics to pass a political litmus test. I'd be interested to know the actual direction that the sentiment lies. Do those who support Curtis appearing at the talk (wisely?) refrain from posting out of (legitimate?) fear of career repercussion? Or am I (comfortable speaking because I'm largely outside the industry) in the minority?

Castlereagh• 11 years ago

Do those who support Curtis appearing at the talk (wisely?) refrain from posting out of (legitimate?) fear of career repercussion?

This. It also has the perverse effect of leaving the defense of "racists" to actual racists (e.g., [1]), thereby leading to guilt by association: "See, only racists are willing to defend this guy, so he's obviously a racist!"

[1] https://twitter.com/B8GodDante/status/607201146017615872

theorique8• 11 years ago

More recently, perhaps within the past year or two, I've been seeing online a polarization and evaporative cooling effect in action. There doesn't seem to be as much middle ground and nuance as there has been in the past. Any support or acceptance for an officially disapproved entity is tantamount to total or unqualified support or acceptance.

Many moderates - in this case, moderate supporters of Yarvin, as shown in the comments here - appear to be fearful of getting tarred with the scarlet "R" and facing career threat. The scarlet "S" and "M" are also significant.

In contrast, the "C" is not threatened nowadays, if it ever was. Left-wing extremism is given a pass, while right-wing extremism is always tarred with the "R" brush. People rarely use the "F" word - they just default to "R", which is far more damaging.

(I mean: racist / sexist / misogynist / communist / fascist above.)

joelgrus2• 11 years ago

Do those who support Curtis appearing at the talk refrain from posting out of fear of career repercussion?

No and yes. I have been pretty vocal about it on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606474432509394944 https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606673594198794240

but I've also been sitting on a 75%-written blog post that I'm hesitant to actually post.

Not because of career repercussions (I have never had an employer who really gave a shit what I write about in my spare time) but because of conference repercussions.

I am promoting a book, and to that end I am scheduled to speak at various conferences and meetups. And I worry that the mob would somehow try to get me uninvited. It's not like there's an actual policy that Yarvin violated that I can be confident I'm on the right side of.

So I am torn between my natural inclination to say exactly what I think, and the more practical takeaway of "don't write or have written anything that might anger the mob".

topynate• 11 years ago

You're getting bitten by preference falsification, as proposed by Timur Kuran.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification

existencebox• 11 years ago

I typically avoid posting in these sorts of threads, very little good has come from political debates on the internet that I've seen, but your last sentence pushes me to speak up.

Status-quo social thoughtcrime is rather terrifying to me. There's no "easy" way to amend laws or lobby a system to address the issue, as one would against a governmental stance.

It's also cyclical, as less "clean" people speak out against it, the "only rapists defend rapist" situation mentioned by sister posts occurs, and the entire culture of defending someone who might be distasteful, separating the issue from their broader history, diminishes.

I can't claim to judge you for your decision, I fully acknowledge the unfortunate state of things and your ability to make a choice that best serves your needs, but for the sake of putting my money where my mouth is; I think he should have been allowed to speak (espousing viewpoints I disagree with is far and beyond an offensive enough act to cause me to want to petition against someone, and even then, I would not attempt to convey that aversion as anything more than my personal stance).

The fact that I (or you, or any of us) feel any uncertainty due to fear of the repercussions for merely voicing this opinion only serves to reinforce my conviction that it needs to be voiced.

theorique8• 11 years ago

It's not like there's an actual policy that Yarvin violated that I can be confident I'm on the right side of.

This is the bigger issue - the chilling of all controversial views and debate.

It's less about "violated Rule XXIV, subsection (c) of the Code of Conduct" and more about "wrote some stuff that made us feel funny and we're worried that something awkward might happen at the meeting". Yes, the organizers have the power to rewrite the schedule for bad reasons or no reason at all. But it's important to point out what was done, and why we think it was done.

d9h549f34w62• 11 years ago

I for one support Curtis on this issue, but tend not to post here on the subject except under an alternate username. I do this because I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line.

If I were to hazard a guess, I think I'm not alone in this and I think you're not in a minority (or at least a small one). The recent HN stories seem to get a good number of "silent upvotes" before anyone steps into the fray to add a comment.

sudioStudio6419• 11 years ago

I would say that depending on the area and subject there is also a "freedom justice" crowd that can be just as crazy and groupthink-ish.

I also find myself not posting sometimes because of repercussions at a later date....not too often, but you know...

tjradcliffe5• 11 years ago

I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line

This is something I'd love see SJW's here react to. How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you?

Would you prefer convincing them of the correctness of your position, but willing to accept that at least by making them afraid you are helping further your cause?

Or are you concerned you've become the kind of discourse-stiffling monster you set out to defeat?

Or are you proud you've made the priviledged afraid?

Or something else entirely?

Because don't kid yourself: people are increasingly afraid to speak up on these issues because they are genuinely afraid of the consequences to their future employment prospects. Personally, I see that as a shameful situation, antithetical to any reasonable notion of a just society.

[Disclaimer: I've been accused at times of being an SJW, an MRA, a shill for Big Carbon, and quite a few other things besides.]

jbigelow76• 11 years ago

I'm surprised by apparent predominance of support here on HN for Strangeloop's position.

Do you not recall the self-immolation of the Mozilla Community during the Brendan Eich CEO fiasco? Big overlap in the two communities.

cactusface2• 11 years ago

While clearly legal, it's strikes me as a terrible precedent to require speakers on technical topics to pass a political litmus test.

It's funny, in some countries you have laws against hate speech - it probably wouldn't be legal to write stuff like "blacks make good slaves because of their genetics" [sic] - but in the US because of the free speech thing society relies on all these extrajudicial lynch mobs. So... terrible precedent or common sense?

Mithaldu3• 11 years ago

I'm all for Strangeloop canceling his talk, however not for reasons of his political leanings, but because i consider Urbit to be nonsense and the way it handles itself to be dishonest.

That said, this entire conversation has an amazingly suppressive effect on me. This is primarily because i come from east germany, have grown up in its social era until my early teens, and have seen how it changed since the wall fell, and thus consider myself strongly socialist and glad that germany itself still is strongly socialist. I am left.

And i find myself under attack for what i consider to be a human-friendly view. I see talk of leftists, the red guard, communists, etc. etc. etc. and find the american internet to be extraordinarily busy painting what i consider to be my political leaning as "terrorist".

sudioStudio6419• 11 years ago

I think it comes from scarcity and changing demographics... there is a very real feel of loss off status and power among the white middle and working class.

You are right about the crazy views on socialism and German politics in general.

a8da6b0c91d4• 11 years ago

Please provide one example of a person being fired, or otherwise enduring serious economic consequences, for publicly voicing socialist or communist views. There are none. There are dozens of quite recent examples of rightists or libertarians or traditional Christians enduring serious consequences for free speech. In America we once had the red scare where a witch hunt hit socialists/communists. These days we have the "brown scare" hitting anyone right of Jeb Bush.

sudioStudio6419• 11 years ago

Even though I'm deliciously close to 200 karma I'm going to ask this anyway...

If someone has a view that is actually destructive for the forum its aired in ( I'm speaking hypothetically now ) does it have to be accommodated.

By that, and I genuinely want to know what you guys think, what if a political candidate advocated the end of democratic elections? A "one man, one vote, one time" kind of thing. How is that handled in an open society?

Extreme conservative opinions like Mr Yarvins are actually shocking to me. I don't think his particular writings should be banned or anything like that. However, are they so reactionary as to represent to the organizers a position that they don't want to even tacitly or obliquely endorse?

I will say this, the first post on this subject the other day saw me having one of the most interesting exchanges I've ever had on HN. That was cool.

amcastillo10• 11 years ago

Some important context to recognize in this incident is that it was a handful of explicitly (leftist) political personalities that rose any stink to begin with. Clark more or less names them all in his piece. Most of the ones who pushed to censor Urbit from Strange Loop even admitted that they personally were not attending the conference. Most conference attendants would not have had the first clue that a member of the Urbit team maintained a conservative political blog from 2007 to 2013 or so under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. The ones that did probably would not care too much about it as most of them are not preoccupied with aggressive radical politics. They'd attend the talk, or not, and go on with their lives.

It's a heckler's vote. Now, the conversation is about Yarvin and his politics. But if these 3-4 radical and deeply political agitators had not made this an issue to begin with, everyone attending the conference would have just known they were attending a presentation on Urbit (if they even chose to check out that session).

In other words, if this is established as a precedent, then a passionate enough fringe group can create the "destruction" they claim to be against to justify covert ideological policing. That this is occurring at a strictly technology event with a reputation for openness to innovative, experimental ideas is particularly chilling.

"Nice conference you got there, shame if this speaker I don't like created a controversy for you"-type manipulation does not seem as bad or obvious when the targeted beliefs are foreign to your own. Stepping back and anticipating the implications reveals a troubling future, and one that is occurring in many industries at once.

sudioStudio6419• 11 years ago

You know, I've actually heard of that as an actual racket in other industries...

That's really interesting that the most prominent voices against him aren't attending...I don't know.

I don't think that you have to imagine done kind of follow on effects...i think the US probably irreversibly stopped being a free society when it became a national security state. So, I guess what I'm saying that it doesn't seem our of character in the US. I would just add that it's actually bidirectional pressure from both the left and the right depending on the subject and the area.

I'll stop rambling... Thanks for the background info, though...

theorique8• 11 years ago

Given that the reaction of the organizers was to remove Yarvin's talk, with extremely vague justifications, I think both sides could agree that the answer to this question is "yes".

hga12• 11 years ago

But didn't Alex Miller make it clear he knew nothing about Yarvin's politics, that he was exercising a Heckler's Veto due to the people who were protesting Yarvin's politics?

As has been noted by others, this could be interpreted as the latter issuing a "Nice conference and career you have there, it would be a shame if anything happened to them". A political interpretation, yes, but one of pure power politics, vs. anything requiring an actual analysis of the putative issue, Yarvin's politics.

nemo3• 11 years ago

While Moldbug holds hideous political views, if the talk is on tech. and doesn't overlap him advocating hideous things, then this is akin to the old Hollywood blackballing, the excuse for dropping him was pathetic, and I agree that promoting a culture of free speech must be a core value of a liberal society.

I'm pretty far-left (though more liberal than leftist), and found the black-and-white leftist-bashing in the article didn't add much besides giving the author the opportunity to vent his spleen at a segment of leftists while pretending we're all some monoculture, which is ludicrous. Would have been better to just focus on the issue of why an open society needs to be willing to accept diverse political views, even hideous ones like Marxism or neoreactionary craziness, without using it as a platform for pontificating about a crudely conceived culture war.

maxmax• 11 years ago

Hitler was a decent painter, but I wouldn't want him in my gallery.

ta929292• 11 years ago

I would.

In Hungary after the government change they saved a whole bunch of communist statues that were being taken down and made a museum out of it. I think it's interesting and worth seeing.

nemo3• 11 years ago

The problem with Hitler wasn't just the ugly and noxious ideas he had, but what he did. Moldbug is a ignorant crank, but on that front he isn't doing much besides ranting, largely in the incoherent jargon he's invented. I don't like him, and can't stand his views, but I fully believe that preserving his freedom to think and say ignorant and stupid things is important to protect, and any attempt at a cure is likely worse than the poison.

I'm been told by plenty of people that I'm a loon with crazy political views (Tea Party family members mostly), but if I was working on an interesting tech. project, and wanted to do a talk at a tech. conference about it, I'd hope that wouldn't be a factor in conference organizers rejecting me.

If I'd started a political party founded on ideals of illiberalism, dictatorship, and subjugation of the people I hated and worked to gain political power in the US, then I'd say not accepting me at a conference could be more easily justified as the conference would then become a political platform for me regardless of what the talk was about.

scott_karana2• 11 years ago

Why? Is it harder to dehumanize people when you see their mundane side?

The fact that a horrible, unconscionable, genocidal dictator was also a painter makes his paintings more interesting, if anything.

csense• 11 years ago

while pretending we're all some monoculture, which is ludicrous

Actually, progressives do seem to be relatively monocultural when it comes to, as the article says toward the end, "tolerating everything except the outgroup." Either that, or the intolerant faction(s) are very dominant and end up getting their way quite a lot.

As well as the examples cited in the article, another good example is Brendan Eich being forced out as chief of Mozilla due to having political views that some progressives deemed to be "incorrect."

nemo3• 11 years ago

"The left" is an umbrella term for all kinds of causes that don't all share the same concerns, values, or goals, while "progressive" is basically a replacement term picked up once right-wing propagandists had poisoned "liberal" and "left" enough that some people gave up using them (which was a dumb move IMO). Environmentalists, labor rights activists, gay rights activists, and anti-war activists fit under the umbrella but often have little in common, and can have stark disagreements. I'm going to guess you don't identify as someone on the left, and so you get your information about what's happening from filtered sources rather than spending time paying attention to the debates, bickering, and disagreements that various sorts of left-wingers have, rather than taking a detailed at what's actually thought or discussed. I understand, I ignore Tea Partiers, though I also try not to claim they are a monoculture, since I know I don't really know much besides what the latest staggeringly stupid thing one of them said was, which is certainly not representative. That's the problem with Internet echo-chambers, they radically warp perspective by limiting what information you see as well as bias its presentation, and give an reductionist illusion of some single entity when there are many diverse factors in play.

Alternately, you could just look at the actual cases the ACLU takes, which often enough support people and causes that aren't darlings of some faction or another on the left.

For the record I was against Eich's firing (and know a number of leftists who were similarly against), I donate to the ACLU and the Sierra Club, and used to be an anti-war protester long ago. I also am enough of an exception to your generalization that you might want to reconsider your stereotype.

Kelly2• 11 years ago

To play devil's advocate, a conference is not only about the speeches, but also about the people you can meet there.

Inviting Moldbug bring not only his own person but also his followers. It's understandable if your goal is to foster a diverse crowd to not invite a group of people who constantly argue against any kind of modern society.

davidgerard5• 11 years ago

To be fair, neoreactionaries are mostly notable for their startling lack of real-world achievements. Yarvin is exceptional in this regard. (Tunney has disclaimed "neoreaction" of late.) They tend to have extensive blogging credentials, however. (And are a dab hand with an occasional cheese dip.)

edit: if there are others with notable real-world achievements, I will eagerly accept correction.

defen2• 11 years ago

Peter Thiel? I don't think he's ever come out and explicitly said "I am a neoreactionary", but he did say "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible," and the co-founder of Tlön (company that is making Urbit) is a Thiel fellow.

amcastillo10• 11 years ago

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.

jart2• 11 years ago

Tunney here. I'm not a neoreactionary. I never was.

- 2014/05/27: @ReactionaryTree I don’t identify as a neoreactionary. Although I talk to a lot of people who do. https://twitter.com/justinetunney/status/471281445013843968

- 2014/05/30: @tesseractiv I don't identify as a neoreactionary. I already had my movement. I don't want to join any others. https://twitter.com/justinetunney/status/472425936692854784

- 2014/06/28: @nullvoid9 I'm not a neoreactionary :'( I'm also friendly and will treat you with the same respect you give me. https://twitter.com/justinetunney/status/482757375854522368

- 2014/08/04: Who said I was a neoreactionary? I keep telling people I'm not, but no one believes me. http://ask.fm/JustineTunney/answer/116475763475

- 2015/01/15: @DurrutiOvercloc Well, most of the things. Like, I’m not pro-slavery. I’ve also never called myself a neoreactionary. https://twitter.com/justinetunney/status/555603973286400000

- 2015/03/11: @jhamby @justkelly_ok I'm not a neoreactionary. I've never been one. Also Shanley is a huge racist. https://twitter.com/justinetunney/status/575829516079263744

anon_adderlan10• 11 years ago

To be fair, neoreactionaries are mostly notable for their startling lack of real-world achievements.

That's not fair at all. You make a value judgment by referring to (but not defining) 'real-world achievements' and follow it up with an ad hominem, instead of deconstructing the actual ideas involved.

It also makes perfect sense that following any political view radically different from the mainstream will lead to less 'real-world' success, as not only does compromising your politics for success potentially alienate you from your allies, but mainstream society will be actively and deliberately trying to prevent you from achieving that success (and apparently speaking at technical conferences).

For example, I would not have been successful in the Roman Empire, Communist Russia, or Nazi Germany unless I was willing to compromise my politics. I'm not exactly successful now because my politics don't precisely line up with the 'mainstream'. But that still says nothing about how ethical or tenable my political stance is.

sudioStudio6419• 11 years ago

That's a good way of putting something I was thinking. And you clearly said "devils advocate"...it may be an unpopular point but its probably close to what the organizers were actually thinking.

scott_karana2• 11 years ago

Inviting Moldbug bring not only his own person but also his followers. It's understandable if your goal is to foster a diverse crowd to not invite a group of people who constantly argue against any kind of modern society.

Imagine if your sentence was reformulated like this instead.

Inviting Harvey Milk bring not only his own person but also his followers. It's understandable if your goal is to foster a diverse crowd to not invite a group of people who [insert claim here] against any kind of modern society.

See the problem? :(

Tolerance is hard, I know, but something we need to foster nonetheless.

Even if we don't allow these people to conferences, we still share roads, grocery stores, national identity, tax revenues, employment opportunities, classrooms, etc, with them. Humanity sucks badly enough at cooperation already! Let's not ever actively discourage it!

moosey• 11 years ago

This is diving into the Paradox of Tolerance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance). This posits, should we tolerate the intolerant? Comparing Harvey Milk, who fought for increased tolerance of a group, vs Moldbug, who argues against increased tolerance of another minority group, doesn't exactly follow.

I'm uncertain if I'm willing to consider the position with Moldbug intolerance, because of the paradox listed. This is not someone with a pro-gun or anti-tax or some other form of political speech that are culturally arguable without being an intolerant viewpoint against a group of people.

Still, that's just pointing out the difference. I feel like a bit of a fence sitter to be honest. That being said, I have left jobs because of a boss that had, what I considered, intolerant viewpoints of LGBT and non-white people.

steveklabnik3• 11 years ago

I've protected my twitter account because of https://gist.github.com/steveklabnik/7cd3267a631c4847c34d

Basically, a Breitbart columnist said that they were putting an article about me today. When this happens, a wave of harassment generally follows. I did not delete that or any other tweet on this issue.

(They seem to have decided to post about something else instead, we'll see.)

As I said in the last thread, I don't really plan on reading and responding to much here, but since this is on the front page, might as well correct the inaccuracy.

oldmanjay5• 11 years ago

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.

oldmanjay5• 11 years ago

As a follow up, I've read a bunch of Unqualified Reservations since this whole brouhaha started (and I read some before, I find it occasionally amusing) and I've never seen any of the racism or hate speech I see claimed. I have seen a lot of out-of-context examples, but every one I tracked down was simply using shocking imagery to make a larger point. There is quite a bit that speaks frankly of slavery and the relationships involved, but nothing I've seen that I could consider racist, unless the very concept of slavery is supposed to be considered racist... which is ridiculous, in my opinion.

edit: wording

ptomato• 11 years ago

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

sudioStudio6419• 11 years ago

I get where you are coming from but verbal abuse can be incredibly scarring. As someone that experienced both I can assure you of that... And ill grant that you weren't really talking about abusive speech... But hate speech especially from a superior...be it job or school... An authority figure, I could see where that would be just as bad.

saryant3• 11 years ago

How do you reconcile your statement that "I have not called for violence against any person and do not condone it." and your tweet about being "100% okay" with a violent "antifa" movement?

http://popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/steve.png

steveklabnik3• 11 years ago

I support communities defending themselves against violence.

hga12• 11 years ago

Presumably his as of yet inchoate concept of a tech "antifa[scism]" movement does not, at this time, "call for violence against any person". Heck, it doesn't have to, when all his side has to do is the "Nice tech career you have here, it would be a shame if anything happened to it" (why Alex Miller had to capitulate). Violence will be entirely irrelevant until those of us who are getting shut either start staging a counterrevolution (don't ask me how) or start forming our own counterrevolutionary tech culture; then things might get interesting, especially since we can limit our venues to those which allow concealed carry ^_^.

Which, oddly enough, includes Strange Loop! (Unless the Peabody Opera House screens attendies with metal detectors (!), in Missouri law even a "no guns" sign at such a venue only means you have to leave if asked.)

davidgerard5• 11 years ago

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement

Ken is the free speech Popehat, Clark is the ... lesser Popehat.

13thLetter3• 11 years ago

You might want to try using an argument of some sort next time.

rayiner• 11 years ago

Ironically, conservatives wouldn't be working themselves up over why Strangeloop might want to exclude Yarvin. Tribalism is intrinsic to humanity, and central to the concept of a tribe is the power to exclude. We like to associate with people that think like we do. We place limits on that for idealistic reasons, but it's ridiculous and futile to try and erase all elements of tribalism from our social interactions.

NhanH• 11 years ago

Just tangentially related, but I believe one of PG best essay (imo) would be appropriate for all parties involved: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

lrc6• 11 years ago

"Emerging languages, alternative databases...code-heavy." That's from StrangeLoop's 'About' page. The fact is, the talk would have worked, not the least because it's consistent with the conference's overall mission.

Folks looking for a polite argument with Curtis could have had one.

lrc6• 11 years ago

Thought experiment: is there any extremity of leftist (or progressive if you prefer) thinking (say, on a personal blog) that could conceivably get one disinvited to speak on a technical topic at a conference of this sort?

sudioStudio6419• 11 years ago

It depends on what you call left. I bet someone that seriously proposed violence against some institutions or industries would get disinvited. Animal rights extremists or eco-terrorist organizations might fit that bill too.

lrc6• 11 years ago

I thought of eco-terrorism too. But then I thought of William Ayers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

13thLetter3• 11 years ago

Some of the people who purged Yarvin are Stalinists, so I'm going to go with "no."

jart2• 11 years ago

The more left-wing you are, the more society will reward you. For example, I was never really able to get a good job until after I had spent a bunch of time doing radical left-wing activism. Around age 27, I helped organize thousands of people to stage protests in Manhattan. I ran subversive media campaigns. I openly called for an anarchist-communist revolutionary overthrow of the U.S. Regime (which is ironic if you consider that America is already a communist country.)

All these experiences helped me get socially connected with a lot of powerful and important people. They all loved me. I even put the fact that I engaged in this sort of troublemaking on my resume. I'm not kidding. I even talked about it at job interviews. Stuff like this impresses people. There's no doubt in my mind that it led to my current level of success, writing code for a living.

mikeash• 11 years ago

This whole concept of paying attention to fellow techies' political views is weird to me. The concept of caring about them to this degree is even weirder.

Politics is a common topic here, of course. I've participated in my share of such discussions. But I couldn't tell you who took what position. I'd definitely never look at a prospective conference speaker and say, oh, that's the guy who believes X, where X is any political subject. Not even as a neutral observation, let alone as criticism.

Is this a real thing? This conversation feels like a window into an alternate universe.

theorique8• 11 years ago

Is this a real thing? This conversation feels like a window into an alternate universe.

I'm with you there.

I've helped organize a couple of small regional meetings, and I have literally zero idea what the political leanings of the speakers or attendees were. Nor did I care.

If someone were into radical politics in his free time, that would be his own business. If any of the speakers had veered off into unrelated violent or rude speech (e.g. racism, calling for war, political uprising, etc) at the podium, for a technical talk, that would be addressed on the spot. (I've never seen this happen.)

anon_adderlan10• 11 years ago

I've helped organize a couple of small regional meetings, and I have literally zero idea what the political leanings of the speakers or attendees were. Nor did I care.

But if you are informed of their political leanings, and then don't take 'appropriate' action, then that says something about YOU, like how you endorse and advocate such politics.

See how it works ;)

lhnz• 11 years ago

For those interested in the tech, I found this article on the technology behind Urbit a fairly interesting start: http://moronlab.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/urbit-functional-prog...

Note: it was written in 2010 and I am sure that over the last 5 years a lot will have changed.

leppr• 11 years ago

Well, he is an active detractor of Democracy, it's possible he could try to spread his agenda through technology (take a look at the colonialist imagery in Urbit).

His view on gender 'roles' is also dangerously close to hate speech (and before any of you calls me an islamophobic: as a non-muslim white male he has no cultural heritage that could justify his opinion, so it's different).

tjradcliffe5• 11 years ago

I have very little idea what Yarvin's view on "gender roles" is but assume it's a traditional Anglo-European one that subjugates women to men, the same as virtually every culture everywhere has before the past hundred-odd years.

So this seems to suggest that you believe that "non-Muslim white males" have no cultural heritage whatsoever, which is... odd.

theorique8• 11 years ago

This still doesn't explain why Yarvin being present at a conference, giving a non-political talk on technology (presumably with no so-called "hate speech" content), represents a threat to anything or anyone at said conference.

The answer is: it doesn't. He was removed because some politically influential leftists wanted him declared a non-person.

anon_adderlan10• 11 years ago

Well, he is an active detractor of Democracy

The trouble with democracy is that it's not a system of government where everyone has their say, but one where the majority rules. A democracy does not protect individual rights, but the 'rights' of the majority. And members are not required to have any skills or qualifications before making an impact on how the government is run. Democracy is NOT an ideal, there's a lot to criticize, and even the founders of the United States understood this. But all these excluded middle thinkers think that if you're critical of democracy, then you're pro communist/socialist/monarchist/etc, which is nonsense.

Here's a relevant example of where relying on democracy would have compromised citizens constitutional rights.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/06/12/gay_marriage_a...

His view on gender 'roles' is also dangerously close to hate speech

Then you really have no idea what hate speech is, and should ask someone who survived the holocaust or had a cross burning in their front yard.

and before any of you calls me an islamophobic: as a non-muslim white male he has no cultural heritage that could justify his opinion, so it's different.

When the hell did islamophobia enter the picture?!? Regardless, you don't need 'cultural heritage' to 'justify' an opinion. You do however need facts to support a conclusion. Are you saying that certain conclusions can only be made by those with a specific cultural heritage, regardless of the facts?

mcguire• 11 years ago

On the one hand, I find this situation disturbing, because a technical talk at a technical conference has nothing at all to do with politics. On the other hand, I somewhat understand Strangeloop's situation: it is pretty clear that even if this a completely technical talk, the other attendees would make it about politics---you know, the whole "bad speech should be fought with more speech" thing?---which would cause problems for the conference.

On the third hand, though, I find the popehat post, complete with the use of "social justice warrior", to be especially repellent. Although I do congratulate Clark on the ability to be a conservative intellectual---I now have a puddle of condescension on my office floor.

TheCartographer3• 11 years ago

So, a question: now that Alex Miller's activities outside of the technical content of Strangeloop - I.E., banning a presenter over his personal politics - have created such a large distraction from the technical content that is to be presented at Stangeloop, will he be stepping down?

anon_adderlan10• 11 years ago

The problem I have is not with who was removed or not, which I couldn't care less about, but how it was done.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sl-notes/yarvin.txt

So on the word of a few individuals he doesn't name, with information he doesn't bother to validate for himself, Alex decides to remove Curtis from the lineup because he might be 'distracting', not because of what he'd say, but just because he'd be present. This implies an environment where we're powerless against unnamed accusers, an authority who is unwilling to evaluate the merits of a case, and a group of people who are so unable to separate technical matters from politics that the mere presence of someone they disagree with makes it impossible to focus.

And you know what? I've seen exactly this sort of behavior from other corporations and both the 'left' and 'right'. It's something all groups naturally default to, and active measures need to be taken in order to avoid it. And while I get why people want to remain anonymous, I also know you cannot have the free flow of ideas when anonymous accusers can cost you your position, by making accusations they never need to verify, over things you never intend to address at a venue.

We need to challenge ideas, not bury them, especially at a conference like Strangeloop. And if the Urbit presentation was deemed good enough to hear before these facts came to light, then it's still good enough to be challenged on that basis.

P.S. By excising Curtis Yarvin in an attempt to avoid "overshadowing the talk and acting as a distraction for launching the conference as a whole", Alex Miller has done just that. And if I were to put on my tinfoil hat and give a bad faith reading of all this, considering the internet savvy are well aware of the Streisand Effect, I'd say this was exactly their intent.

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

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