I have a VERY deep problem with this that has nothing to do with the views of anybody involved.
The problem I have is that this is a mob turning its power on someone with FAR LESS power than the mob in question. It is one thing when the mob attacks someone of greater power as greater power can defend itself. It is something else when a mob expresses itself with positive support for the downtrodden--that's still okay. However, attacking someone unable to match with equal social defense is NOT okay. We have a word for that--it's called "bullying".
The people involved may feel righteous, but that doesn't change the fact that they are bullies. And, I am disappointed that a conference of geeks can't seem to identify social bullying when it occurs in front of them.
As always, people only seem to be able to empathize when they are on the receiving end of the pointy stick.
> this is a mob turning its power on someone with FAR LESS power than the mob in question
Most of the discussions and conversation about power deal with 1-on-1 situations: person X has more power than person Y, for reasons A, B, and C. But group action—that's a different matter, and I don't know how it figures into the picture. Person X may have more power than P, Q, R, S, or T—but P, Q, R, S, and T together may have more power than X. Or they may not. When and how they do is an important question, that I wish we had better answers to.
> but P, Q, R, S, and T together may have more power than X. Or they may not. When and how they do is an important question, that I wish we had better answers to.
There are rarely clean answers when the problem is social.
In this instance, however, it is very clear that the mob has far more power than the individual they are targeting.
For the person in question, if he had equivalent power, he could simply replace the sponsors and lost speakers with people who shared his views. At that point, the mob would be VERY reluctant to pull out for fear of leaving the stage to people whom they find distasteful.
The fact that this mob would have a very different behavior if he actually had real power is telling and disappointing.
I am not sure you're analyzing the power structure correctly. The organizers of the conference had never been subjects to marginalization and harassment prior to the incident; they're only subjects to protest now. The people making the protests -- minorities in tech -- have been subject to constant harassment and marginalization, both before the incident and during the incident, and they will be subject to marginalization long after.
It's like you're complaining about a small army that attacks a much larger one at a point where its defenses are relatively weak. That's good tactics; not unfairness. Women got the vote, and racial segregation was reduced using the exact same means that you call bullying. Protest is a very effective tool of social change, and in order for it to work it needs to protest things it has a chance of winning. Like a small army, it can only do so by concentrating power on one target at a time. That's just the only viable strategy for the weaker side.
As someone who is not aware of what is all the problem about and couldn't really understand from the linked text, can someone provide me with some more context please. What is the difficulty that is affecting lambdaconf? What happened?
A speaker invited to that conference has posted racist and bigoted statements on his blog. Lambdaconf is (currently anyway) deciding to invite him to speak anyway, causing all kinds of chaos.
That same person was once invited at another conference (QCon I think?) but was then uninvited after the organizers of that conference were made aware of that person's posts.
> has posted racist and bigoted statements on his blog
Still need a citation on this. LambdaConf's own review found this:
He is quoted by white supremacists but denies being one;
He has never written any hate speech or resorted to insulting or vulgar language (except as a literary device);
He is not pro-slavery in the historical sense, but believes individuals have a right to voluntarily sell themselves into slavery;
He believes that democracy is a failure (incompatible with “freedom”), and that white male software engineers are most qualified to run “government”.
I'm not reading that whole thing. Got a choice sample?
The only thing I can find is
"Thus, Spaniards and Englishmen in the Americas in the 17th and earlier centuries, whose sense of political correctness was negligible, found that Africans tended to make good slaves and Indians did not. This broad pattern of observation is most parsimoniously explained by genetic differences."
He's saying that, to colonists, Africans made better slaves, and that a part of that, though not all of that, could be explained by genetic differences. He's certainly not saying "we should enslave Africans", or even "Africans make better slaves". Without touching the statement itself, I don't see how that statement means that he's a white supremacist or a bigot. (Also, this was written in 2009.)
[To me this seems like another witch hunt for smug social points as if it wasn't, somebody would have pointed out the actual problems of the statement, or that truth of modern white/western supremacy is that we all benefit from it, as many Africans are still essentially enslaved. What any of this has to do with speaking at a tech conference is beyond me.]
My understanding is as follows. The root problem is that merely identifying races on a genetic basis is racist. If you believe that the race of a human refers to anything more than a social / ethnic / cultural construct, you are a racist.
This seems like a fairly neutral belief. However it's wrong scientifically by definition. In population biology, races are formed when there is absolute geographical isolation of a population. Without isolation, you get clustering of alleles but you don't get distinct races. Over time, the clustering of alleles diminishes, much like gas dissipating into a room.
If you're really struggling with this, just ask which race does the child of a man from race A and a woman from race B belong to? And when that child reproduces with more people from either race A or race B, what race do they belong to? And then ask how long has there has been contact between human populations? Do we know if there was ever a time that human populations were truly isolated?
End result is that biologists agree there is only one human species, Homo sapiens, and one human race (a.k.a. subspecies), Homo sapiens sapiens.
> Scientific racism is [...] the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races.
So what happens here is that first Moldbug puts forth the false premise that there are genetic / biological races. Then he says stuff like black people have a lower IQ, but he's not discriminating, rather it's the belief that having a higher IQ is better that's discriminatory. (This was in the recent blog post about how he's not a racist.) Not only is this a really slippery position, but everyone gets so caught up in his arguments built on the false premise of the existence of races that it actually starts to implicitly build support for the false premise. I personally believe that getting people to accept this premise is the point of the trolling.
So what happens here is that first Moldbug puts forth the false premise that there are genetic / biological races. Then he says stuff like black people have a lower IQ...
According to Moldbug, there is a cluster of humanity called "black". It may not meet your requirement of perfect separation, but is merely a cluster, and biracial individuals exist who break perfect separation. So lets call it a "cluster in genotype/phenotype space" ("cluster" for short) instead of a "race" to disambiguate these concepts.
If Moldbug used the word "cluster" instead of "race", would he not be racist? (I.e., s/race/cluster/g in his post.) What if he used the word "race" but his definition agreed with the definition of your word "cluster"?
Moldbug claims this cluster has an IQ distribution which is has a lower mean than that of other clusters (e.g. whites and asians). Do you believe this claim is false? If this claim were true, would a person who believes it be a racist?
You are racist iff you believe races exist or should exist. If you are using the word race to denote cluster even though you know better, you are being irresponsible on purpose and I consider you a racist in the "races should exist" sense. Moldbug knows better, he's not a stupid cookie.
A good environment and good genetics are necessary for high IQ. You can't meaningfully measure the contribution of genetics in the absence of a good environment. We may as well debate AGW.
I don't have a problem with identifying genetic clusters (descendants of people from Africa), I don't have a problem with the existence of stereotypes (African Americans a.k.a. blacks do poorly on IQ tests), I just have a problem with people knowingly jumping to conclusions on the basis of science that isn't there (the black race has a genetically lower IQ and that's why they fundamentally make good slaves). Moldbug isn't insidious because he's wrong, he's insidious because he knows he's wrong. Perhaps more accurately, he knows that he can't prove that he's right but he hides it.
The Eulering article was interesting, cheers. I think the anthropologists probably have a lot to say about all this, filed under ethnocentrism.
P.S. Just as an aside, I think you need to consider that genes dilute fairly rapidly into a gene pool, that humans have been migrating forever, and that there are no real purebreeds or biracial people from a population biology perspective. That said, this isn't a denial of clustering.
P.P.S. It's probably just as intellectually lazy to claim that all population groups have the same level of genetic intelligence, it's just a lot less offensive.
I must say I don't understand your position. You adopt a definition of "race" so extremely narrow that it doesn't describe anything in the real world. Then you use the term "cluster" to describe the same exact concept that most people use the term "race" to describe. Finally, you call people racist if they don't s/race/cluster/g.
Why go through all this wordplay just to define most folks as racist? Why not simply adopt the common usage of the word "race"?
And with this definition of racist (uses one set of jargon rather than another), why should we care if someone is racist?
(I say your definition is uncommon because most people use "race" to refer to what you call "cluster". For example, the US Census asks for "race" rather than "cluster".)
I guess in my experience people use the word race to mean any one of subspecies, cluster, or culture. Generally speaking, the biologists and the pro-genocide / pro-segregation people mean subspecies, the non-biologist geeks mean cluster, and the social scientists mean culture ("race is a social construct"). A lot of lay people don't really know what they mean. This just comes from asking people I talk to what they mean by race when they say race / racism / racist. So I just prefer to take the definition of race that we use for all other species, for the sake of accuracy. I can believe if in your experience everyone thinks race means cluster. And probably I could have gone on less of a polemic about it, so thanks for listening.
Interestingly, someone told me once that the anthropologists say that the best way to classify humans is on the basis of the food they eat. I don't have a source for that but it just seems like such an effective way to partition people.
Yeah I think it's primarily intelligence. (Although I've read only a tiny portion.) Odd in a way, because the physical attributes are easier to argue and test. My guess is that Moldbug would rather shoot for him being smarter by nature than him being weaker by nature.
Race, or exposure to lead 2 generations back, which is why we can observe white people with the exact same tendency based on where their grandparents lived? Or slavery 5 generations back, which is why we can observe similar traits in Americo-Indian populations that are not in the Us but were enslaved? Maybe some other characteristic that we are not observing clearly yet is the factor that turns on and off genes?
Maybe we can turn the right set of genes back on? We've seen weirder cases of epigenetics and behavior without being racist, as you are being here.
For all you know, maybe you turned on the wrong set of genes from doing too many deadlifts and squats with the kind of twitch muscles that you predominantly have, and you've not only disrupted your back, but you've also disrupted your children and your children's children's musculoskeletal support system (and you'll need surgery every 10-15 years from now on too.
You might want to compute the epigenetic probabilities of that. It is enormously difficult, but it is more realistic than intelligence being racial/computable in the kinds of inheritance models you tend to link to/imply about via models you link to about race. "Race" is ultra-broad term, genetically speaking, where we are talking about sets of markers and characteristics established multi millions of years ago around the time when humans were first migrating out of Africa. WE've been evolving and mutating since then everywhere - and there are trends for all of humanity for more intelligence, genetic speaking. It is considered a positive, multi-gene trait, and tends to be bred for and become dominant quickly in any population it gets into. Intelligence as a genetic trait (or set of traits) is racially blind)
You quoting SSC on the subject == you confirming your own racial biases and not keeping up on the subject of intelligence. Drop it. Or choose to admit you can be not scientific, not logical, and not mathematically inclined when it suits you.
> If this claim were true, would a person who believes it be a racist?
Yes. Well, it's complicated (not because it's nuanced but because you haven't rigorously defined what "it" means in a way that covers all relevant variables), but yes.
And here's why. As usual, the reason some people have a hard time understanding this is that they construct a model with their own set of axioms, then follow some inference rules, reach a conclusion, and then convince themselves that they're rigorous. This is plainly false, because their choice of axioms and variables not only uniquely determines the outcome, but a different choice of variables and axioms would lead to a completely different outcome, and that other choice may be far more reasonable given the facts. So far the preamble. Now for the explanation:
You make an axiomatic assumption that "black" is just an arbitrary "cluster". This is factually false. A far more historically correct axiomatization would be that "black" is a "cluster of people singled out by Europeans, and then systematically tortured, killed, enslaved, disenfranchised, humiliated and marginalized for generations". Now, is it possible that a test could be constructed that would statistically yield lower score for a cluster of people singled out for humiliation and marginalization? Absolutely, but your question was about a person who believes IQ etc..
Most people clearly understand that such a test is meaningless (i.e. that it does not measure intelligence) in the ethics of distributing power, and therefore "believing it" is not even something they consider. It's like asking me if I believed that the people living in some distant galaxy eat something similar to cheese. Yes, it's possible, but it's not something you think about. Now, in order to precisely answer your question, I need to understand exactly what you mean by a "person who believes it". Do you mean a person who thinks it's feasible to construct a test that a marginalized group would score lower on than the hegemony? In that case, no, they would not be racist. If, OTOH, they believe that a marginalized group happens to be intrinsically less intelligent and therefore less deserving of power in society, then yes; they would 100% be racist.
So the flaw is (as always) in the premise that "black" is an instance of the free variable "cluster". That assumption needs justification, which frankly would be very hard to come by given historical evidence. In fact, "black" and "IQ test" having a very strong causal bond (with IQ tests being designed for the very purpose of excluding marginalized group). It would even be more correct (although very, very far from accurate) to say that "IQ" is defined to be "that which gives blacks lower scores", or even "blacks is those who score less" (which is even far less accurate, but still more accurate than your premise), than presuming (counter to historical evidence) that the two are independent variables.
But he doesn't say there are biological races. All he says in that quote is that biology is the simplest explanation for different outcomes of slavery for different groups of humans.
(Of course, he's wrong, there are other equally simple explanations, like "culture".)
In any case, it's not clear if he is implying that the simplest explanation is even true. He changes the subject in the next sentence after it: this isn't an article about genetics. One interpretation is that, yes, he's a racist and he sees no reason to explain further since he sees his racism as self-evident. Another is that he doesn't care about the cause, and just mentions a simple explanation in order to be able to move on to what he actually wants to talk about.
I don't know which of those (or something else) is true. It's an offhand sentence in a long article, many interpretations are possible.
His whole deal is genetics, it's the core of his argument. But if you read it carefully you notice all this rhetorical sleight of hand. The guy is one of the most transparently disingenuous writers I've ever encountered. I feel like the arrogance is just a cover for a weak argument that is just too painfully tedious to deconstruct.
> Here’s how you are not-racist. You hold two beliefs: one, neurological problem-solving performance (ie, “intelligence”) is homogenously distributed across the genetically inhomogeneous human species. Two, it’s better to be smart than stupid.
> Ergo, no race is better than any other race, because all races are equally smart. Is that right? I hope I have it right.
> Here’s how I’m not-racist: I share neither belief.
But he's a racist because he uses the word race in a genetic context, and so are you if you do the same - which is what he's trying to get you to do.
[ Sorry, I realize that this isn't the most coherent post... ]
He is saying something dangerously close to racism. I don't think it is racist, for the following reasons. I also think it's wrong, for other reasons, mentioned at the end.
He says he doesn't think "intelligence" is uniform across human populations. That sounds racist because e.g. the Nazis said Jews were mentally inferior, and racists in the US said black people were mentally inferior. Racists believe such things, and they believe them about an entire race as a whole.
However, the tricky part is that it's hard to avoid the topic without being anti science. For example, black people are far more likely to have sickle cell anemia for genetic reasons. That's a well-known fact, and it isn't racist to mention it. What Yarvin mentions in that post is that he thinks intelligence might work the same as sickle-cell anemia. When put that way, it's not racist. It's not about races as a whole, it's about genes not being uniform across all groups.
However, obviously the difference between the racist statement and the non-racist scientific one is worryingly close. For that reason, a lot of people take the easy way and oppose even considering genetic differences in populations. That's not a good solution.
The good solution is that Yarvin is wrong for other reasons. Intelligence is NOT like sickle-cell anemia. Intelligence is a very amorphous concept, with changing definitions over time. It's not an objective, scientific quality like "has sickle-cell anemia". And we know that that ill-defined aspect of intelligence has been misused in the past, when "intelligence" tests were used to prove that black people, Jews, and Italians were mentally inferior, for example. Instead, when intelligence is studied carefully, it's actually a mix of a huge array of skills, and many of them depend on culture and training and context. Even if genes affect brains which affect mental abilities, the mediation of culture, training and context are so large that it is meaningless to talk about intelligence differences in race. There is also a huge amount of relevant genes; sickle-cell anemia has one.
The bottom line is that we know Yarvin is wrong because this was studied. For example, black children raised in adopted families have noticeably different results on IQ tests than non-adopted children with similar genetics. We know genes matter here, but we know they matter in such a complex way, and other factors matter just as much, that saying "group X is inferior" is wrong.
So no, I don't think Yarvin is being racist there - even if he cuts it close - but he is in fact wrong on the facts of the matter. We don't need to call him a racist to show he's wrong, the facts do that.
I get the IQ argument and agree. Thanks for the elaboration.
The problem I have is that population groups aren't races, even if you're talking about sickle cell anemia. "Black" is not a subspecies of human. And because of the way Yarvin conflates the word race with population group, I consider him a racist. In a matter-of-fact kind of way, simply by virtue of believing in the existence of races.
For what it's worth, in my experience most of the people that use the word race are racist, including the so-called anti-racists. It's a pointlessly divisive concept, both scientifically and socially.
It's also far from clear how "racist" the statements were - most of the people on twitter don't seem to have actually read Moldbug/Yarvin. Proponents of ostracizing Yarvin are notably unwilling to actually discuss why they believe it's racist.
(I admit, I've not come anywhere near reading his entire work. He's longwinded and that's a big barrier.)
My best summary of the controversial part of the blog that I can come up with is this: Suddenly we see the relationship between slavery and government. Serfdom and slavery can be described as microgovernment and nanogovernment respectively. In government proper, the normal human role of patron is filled by a giant, impersonal, and often accidentally sadistic bureaucracy...In serfdom, this role is filled by a noble house...In slavery, mastership is exercised by a mobile individual whose slaves go with him.
We see these same relationship parameters emerging...This is a pretty good clue that this structure is one to which humans are biologically adapted.
The larger part of the essay is about creating order in society and Robert Carlyle's views on that.
The specific quote which is interpreted as supporting slavery is this: Thus, Spaniards and Englishmen in the Americas in the 17th and earlier centuries, whose sense of political correctness was negligible, found that Africans tended to make good slaves and Indians did not. This broad pattern of observation is most parsimoniously explained by genetic differences.
This is mostly tangential to his main points, however.
Curtis Yarvin was hosting an AMA on Reddit a few days ago. One participant Joram2 grilled him on this aspect of his writings. After some discussion, Joram2 was satisfied that there wasn't any racist intent there:
He's basically a very effective troll. It seems an actual technique in that community is to write turgidly about a bunch of provocative-but-plausibly-deniable points, and then leave out the therefores except for doing a rhetorical wink/nudge. It's exhausting.
Have you considered the possibility that maybe he actually believes the ideas he is promoting? I.e., rather than writing with the goal of trolling a bunch of people who only read his blog years later, maybe he was actually interested in the ideas he's writing about?
Sometimes people write a lot about esoteric topics - my blog is a ton of statistics and code. Maybe Yarvin is just a nerd?
I too read his blogs and didn't find it so egregious that it's worth banning him. However, his AMA and latest blog post are even more racist. He's either too intellectually stunted to understand why what he says could be offensive, or he's playing games. It's sad.
An interesting titbit of information from LambdaConf's organiser: "In the past few days, we’ve also seen a huge bump in the number of people applying for our diversity scholarship program (49 applications so far), and we’re doing everything in our power to give out as many scholarships as possible." [0]
It's good of Julie and Chris to continue supporting the conference, and (I think) a real shame how quick the other sponsors were to bow out. Hopefully in future people will try to think more about the positive work they can do and less about how they look. (Obviously, for those that really have strong moral reasons to exit, it's a shame but completely understandable.)
I guess one of the positives is that we now have two conferences [1], so those that can't stand the idea of being in the same room as Yarvin can be around other people that think exactly the same.
Anyone thinking about attending moonconf should take a quick look at their Code of Conduct:
No one at any events associated with Maitria, may speak to, touch, stare at, follow, or otherwise engage someone without their consent. Making jokes within earshot of someone you know (or even think) is upset by them is a violation of consent. Acting as though someone's gender is other than what they say it is is also a violation of consent. Doing things that people feel shitty about is often a violation of consent. Doing them more than once is even more likely a violation of consent.
> No one at any events associated with Maitria, may speak to [snip] someone without their consent.
Taken literally, that means that nobody can ever initiate a conversation there.
Taken just slightly less literally, though, it means that if you go up to someone and ask "Can I talk to you?" and they say "No", then you can't talk to them. That seems like the way reasonable human beings ought to behave.
I agree that the last two sentences seem easy to abuse.
This also requires a pretty extreme degree of a priori self-censorship just to be safe: "Making jokes within earshot of someone you know (or even think) is upset by them is a violation of consent"
There seems to be a signal of intent there; some people are accidentally senseless jerks (including yours truly), and a simple reprimand is enough to tone it back. By contrast, the sort this seems to be aimed at would likely scoff it off. I guess like "Hey man, don't be a jerk" followed by either "Oh sorry, didn't mean any offense" or "Hey! I'm not a jerk!"
Like many moderation policies, I guess we can just hope the moderators are, well, moderate.
Can I respond to a statement you made? So that you are properly informed of what you would be consenting my response of, it is the following statement:
>That seems like the way reasonable human beings ought to behave.
I give consent for you to reply only to the above question and nothing else.
To the two people [0] who downvoted, would you care to explain why being a reasonable person asking for consent before communication was a problem? I didn't consent to the downvotes (a non-verbal form of communication and a microaggression, might I add) but I will consent to listening to your explanation. If you'd like to discuss it like a reasonable person.
[0] Or one person on two accounts, given the time frame of both downvotes happening almost immediately one after the other nearly 20 hours after the original post.
* Don't be a creep or stalker
* Don't tell sexist / racist jokes
* Don't tell a trans man he's really a woman, or a trans woman she's really a man
* Be a grown up
* No, seriously
which seems pretty reasonable.
The arguments against a conference having a code of conduct aren't really that different from the arguments against the Constitution having a Bill of Rights back in the day, and now in these latter days I think we can see how that all worked out.
That may be what's meant, but it's not what it actually says. If your Code of Conduct is worded so poorly that it's literally impossible to avoid breaking it, then it's unclear to me what the purpose is. You're left with discretionary enforcement, which is what you already had before you sat down to write a CoC.
I'm eating the downvotes on this one, but compare quotes like "the people surrender nothing, and as the retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations"[0] versus "codes of conduct are not necessary because harassment is already illegal."
so we're going on implicit nonverbal body language sorts of things? how does this account for diversity? people from different backgrounds, different socializations, etc give and receive signals differently.
this is like communications 101.
this legit seems kind of insensitive, ableist and elitist.
> if you're autistic and can't read body language, assume that nobody wants to talk to you
This is a good point, which is why we exercise judgment. Pretty much all laws are written for an imaginary "average individual" because they cannot possibly account for all the wide diversity of people's mental and physical abilities, but that's why determining whether there's been a violation of the law is entrusted with a person, not an algorithm, who can consider whether there have been extenuating circumstances, and being autistic qualifies. Obviously, many laws aren't meant for people who are unable to comply with them, and every law recognizes that there may be valid reasons for breaking it.
'Fraid not. The conference is still having three concurrent tracks for three days, nigh 80 speakers. Our training and everything else we're doing (I'm Chris) is still happening too.
Does free speech have the power to corrupt other minds at a level that that free speech should instead be controlled? I get the general sense that a lot more people answer "Yes" to that question than has been historically true (at least, post-1776 American true).
I see a disturbing amount of rhetoric online (primarily from the hard left, but both sides are doing it now), portraying "freedom of speech" as not a principle worth defending, but rather a very limited proscribed set of freedoms spelled out in the First Amendment. In other words, the state cannot take action against you because of your speech (jail, fines, etc), but arbitrary non-state, non-violent punishments are allowed and even encouraged.
So, in this worldview, if someone produces unacceptable speech, it would be entirely legitimate to: get him fired from his job, ensure that he never gets hired again, get him evicted from his apartment, not allow him to shop at your store, disallow his attendance at any private functions, etc. This xkcd perfectly summarizes this worldview, although I think it was produced earnestly and not as a demonstration of how terrible it is: https://xkcd.com/1357/
Note that "unacceptable speech" is entirely undefined - it's whatever the community (which could be any arbitrary subset of humans due to the global reach of the internet) deems to be unacceptable.
The thing that concerns me the most is that I still remember how our former socialist government curbed criticism and it was pretty much entirely through non-state actors - critics and "undesirables" found them selves out of their jobs, their children got scholarships denied, landlords suddenly didn't want to rent apartments, reporters found themselves fired for gross negligence, funding (both governmental and private) for academic institutions housing critical scientists just disappeared. At the end of the day it mattered absolutely nothing WHO was the actor - expressing opinions against the party line could threaten your livelihood, your future and future of your children.
Because of that it's utterly terrifying to me when I see those notions here on HN - it seems like visitors on this site know very little about history of the 20th century and the reasoning for many ways how modern (supposedly) free states are set up.
Note that that's not to say that people cannot be criticized for their opinions - but there's a difference between criticism and attempting to destroy someones career and ability to join social circles. It's a blurry line, but still a line. It's the difference between politely shutting up your racist homophobic uncle on a gathering or demanding that his pension is revoked.
> it seems like visitors on this site know very little about history of the 20th century and the reasoning for many ways how modern (supposedly) free states are set up
Most of them actually don't care a fig for the "free" part. That's why it's becoming increasingly popular for the anti-free speech crowd to explicitly describe themselves as anti-liberal. (This may also be why "liberal" is falling out of favor, with "progressive" taking up the slack.) There's absolutely no caution or skepticism about political power as such, only interest in directing it as forcefully as possible against anyone they consider beyond-the-pale.
Your last line there is the key, and the filter by which we can see if that comic is worrying or wise.
HN has a rather brutal philosophy in flagging/downvoting items lacking substance and shadowbanning troll-ish folk; it seems to work ok and is usually not too sinister (and when it is, human intervention/moderation can often help). By contrast, large communities like states and national institutions can - with just a hint and a nod - inflict surprisingly chilling effects throughout communities of millions.
So where do we draw the line? I dunno. Whereever we draw it, it's got to be parametric with enough inputs to take into account at least the rough subtleties of the situation. Because the comic is right: I don't need to put up with an asshole's bullshit, but I also don't want to destroy them. Just, you know, tone it down a smidge and stop being a jerk.
I'm fairly passive. Normally I do that by ignoring them, changing the channel, or just avoiding the website. Rarely I'll actively flag or downvote (ugh, so hamfisted). And sometimes, I just go away if they take root. With high-signal web analytics, tracking, stats, and other social-buzz things, my avoidance may actually be logged and noted. Maybe I help starve out what I consider noise, thus boosting what I consider signal.
What if a lot of people in a community are just outraged? Or are very sensitive to easily become outraged? I think that's where things get underdamped fast, and where your worries come into play. My only thought is to starve it of energy 'till it settles down, but we've seen enough self-sustaining bullshit storms that I bet passive resistance doesn't work much anymore for that.
I'm not sure where the boundary of acceptable responses to contentious speech may lie, but surely choosing to avoid an expensive and optional conference because it has booked a particular speaker is well within one's options. Free speech doesn't obligate anyone else to listen.
> surely choosing to avoid an expensive and optional conference because it has booked a particular speaker is well within one's options.
Definitely. But what about contacting all of the conference's sponsors, and insinuating that they're racist if they don't denounce the conference and pull their sponsorship? Or encouraging all of the previous speakers to denounce the organizers? Both of those happened.
Probably both allowed, but... wow, some real nasty behavior.
The moment there was an alternate conference in the same town on the same weekend announced by the objectors it became about a balance of resources and attendees. Those who are organizing, presenting, and attending Moonconf have every reason to badmouth anyone associated with LambdaConf.
Here's an early Storify story of reactions to allowing Yarvin to speak - you will find that the most vocal objectors have continued to bash and badmouth anyone associated with LambdaConf: https://storify.com/adngyipa/lambdaconf-debate-in-tweets
This comment (plus many others on Twitter that you can find by searching "lambdaconf sponsors") suggests that all sponsors but one pulled out due to pressure.
So I put some tweets in another message, but they weren't exactly the ones I was referring to; like I said, search is difficult on a phone. But I didn't want to make it seem like I was misconstruing what was said, so I wanted to post some clearer ones as well:
Ah, sorry, I did not realize that. One of twitter's many endearing features is how easy it is to take tweets out of context. I'd edit my post to remove it, but I can't.
I think that's a fine opinion. It's an active choice to not get involved, and I think dynamic partitioning is a good way to handle things (dissent and go one's own way).
It's a bit ironic, since I hadn't really known about the conference, and it sounds really cool. After all, I can just not go to that speaker - whoever he is (the controversy really doesn't interest me) - and see some of the other neat talks. I think as far as conference prices go, it's not too bad, but I wasn't planning on it (and there's always the ever-larger cost of travel/lodging), so I suspect I won't see it =/
I also wonder if it is a somewhat generational thing.
Younger people are more used to some level of surveillance, whether through NSA, facebook, google, advertising cookies, etc. They're more comfortable with surveilling as a general concept, whether they're subjected to it, or they're the ones doing the surveilling. I remember when it was considered extremely rude to google someone before meeting them for the first time. And I'm not old, this was very recent history.
And with Twitter there is the whole callout culture. I used to be in favor of outing hypocrites, but not anymore when I witness the incredibly asymmetric response that public shaming can inspire. And how that response can then be defended as free speech.
So with all that mixed together, free speech is basically equated with mob mentality. When I think that there really should be a few principles inserted that distinguish between the two. Perhaps some personal responsibility in understanding what kind of public impact your free speech can have. Like, refusing to attend a conference is fine; attempting to organize a boycott on grounds like these, especially if successful, threatens the free exchange of ideas.
Also I think there is a generational difference regarding compartmentalization. Like for me I've always had a personal mode, a work mode, a music mode - different modes. For people that are more used to sharing everything wherever, maybe it's ridiculous to them to see someone else try and hold up those boundaries. (This could drive some of the criticism against LambdaConf, in that they'd completely minimize the point about Yarvin attending and leaving Moldbug out of it.)
Finally, there's the conflated argument between being PC and being hostile to challenging ideas; feeling like your worldview is being attacked. They're not the same thing. Being PC is generally a good thing, I see it as a simile for "respectful". But when safe zones and trigger warnings are taken to their extremes, you basically have a community guilty of self-coddling and refusing to have their views challenged and expanded.
What's wrong with that worldview? Seems like the only issue is employers and landlords (??) overreacting. Why shouldn't someone be able to say "No soup for you 'cause I think you're an asshole?" Or why shouldn't I be able to not want to work with someone because they think npm did nothing wrong?
I find it troubling what people get upset about these days. But it seems entirely their right to be upset about whatever they feel like. And others' right to mock them for it.
It's disappointing that platforms like Facebook and Google don't seem neutral (the latter two taking steps to prevent gun sales). But until they're regulated it seems entirely OK for them to promote their own views.
> I find it troubling what people get upset about these days. But it seems entirely their right to be upset about whatever they feel like. And others' right to mock them for it.
The thing is, any individual actor doing these things is fine, and can look at their own actions and feel that they are acting ethically. But when that gets scaled up to the entire society, especially with outrage culture and mass coordination via instant worldwide communication it doesn't work. I don't know, it's like some weird variation on the prisoner's dilemma or something.
I think you're describing the right to free association. But when free association is dominated by mob mentality it becomes a minefield for dissenting voices.
so, ideally, undesirables couldn't find shelter because nobody should be forced to have undesirable tenants. undesirable shouldn't be able to find food, because no entrepreneur should be forced to sell their goods to undesirable customers.
undesirables, in an ideal world, should die slowly of hunger in the gutter.
So what's your proposal for how to restrict the speech of others so they're unable to call for people to be fired? I'd be even more interested in your proposals to require everyone to be admitted to privately owned stores and private functions.
These calls for consequence-free speech are fundamentally hypocritical, because they require the speech of others to be suppressed so that the offending party doesn't suffer (where "suffer" has a very broad definition).
Freedom of speech is freedom to criticize. You, of course, are free to criticize in return. But don't pretend that your calls for people's speech to be suppressed are some kind of noble act.
> So what's your proposal for how to restrict the speech of others so they're unable to call for people to be fired? I'd be even more interested in your proposals to require everyone to be admitted to privately owned stores and private functions.
Why do you assume I'm proposing restricting people's speech? I'm pointing out a thing some people are doing which I think is bad, and suggesting that they should think about the kind of world they're creating when they do that. Nowhere did I suggest that they shouldn't be allowed to do it.
You are arguing against a perspective that wasn't voiced here. Unless you'd like to expand on how someone is saying that criticism should be suppressed or restricted in some sense.
Person A: says something offensive
Person B: Dear Person A's Employer: Person A says offensive things and you should fire him.
Person C: Hey Person B, you shouldn't write letters like that.
who is attempting to restrict speech in this situation?
Either person B or C, depending on whether or not they are enforcing laws for the government. Possibly person A depending on what was said I suppose (e.g. if it's new legislation).
"Either person B or C, depending on whether or not they are enforcing laws for the government."
If there's no problem with B's behavior, the takeaway is that no one can say anything that anyone would take offense to, because they'd be putting their employment at risk. No thanks.
There are ways besides government force to chill free speech.
"This xkcd perfectly summarizes this worldview, although I think it was produced earnestly and not as a demonstration of how terrible it is: https://xkcd.com/1357/"
Yes, that one was enough to make me stop reading xkcd.
1. The First Amendment is US-centric and also only applies to government.
And:
2. So what?
Just because you can say racist shit doesn't mean I have to listen to it, acknowledge your existence, participate in any event that decides to invite you to speak, or anything else.
You're entitled to your own actions, but you have no entitlement to the action of others in response.
The world doesn't owe you anything. Treat others as you'd like to be treated, etc, etc.
> Treat others as you'd like to be treated, etc, etc.
Good point—as someone who's helped organize a conference, I'd really like people to not try sabotaging my conference because they didn't like one of the speakers we chose. So, I guess that's where I stand. Is your comment indicative of how you would like us to treat you?
I suspect that if you actually ask people, you'll find relatively few who think it's OK to control free speech, but a lot more who think it's OK to react to it.
Many normal people would say that it should be limited. But this seems very contradictory to the idea of freedom of speech. Its like you can say what ever you want, as long as the ruling body of people is ok with it. Freedom of speech is not meant to protect what most people think is already ok to say. Freedom of speech is to protect unpopular opinions like Moldbugs from the masses. I for one am very comfortable going to a conference with communists, reactionaries, and anarchists. Not that I am saying individual action is the same as state sponsored opinions.
Does free speech have the power to corrupt other minds at a level that that free speech should instead be controlled?
Yes. And ironically, the one who convinced me of that point is Yarvin/Moldbug. (He actually argued, partly tongue-and-cheek, that Egypt should shut off its internet from the world. And while this sounds outrageous and terrible, remember that he was right about the revolutions in the Arab world, and virtually everyone in the tech world who cheered on the revolutions were wrong).
I think it is fine that some speech is considered beyond the pale. Some speech is in fact dangerous. Power comes from the barrel of the gun -- but speech is used to organize the gun holders. Speech tells the people with the guns who the bad guys are.
My problem is that the wrong people are controlling speech, and for the wrong reasons. De-platforming is being instigated via a heckler's veto -- the biggest cry-bullies try to dictate what is acceptable. I'd rather have speech controlled by an official council selected by a random lottery of citizens, than by self-appointed censors.
And also I don't agree with banning Yarvin/Moldbug in particular. I have found Yarvin/Moldbug to be an amazingly insightful and interesting blogger. The history and sources he has cited has greatly enhanced my understanding of the world. Sometimes he can be abrasive, hyperbolic or a troll, but overall I am better off for having read him. I hate it that I'm scared in real life to mention that I have read his material. I'd rather see him inside the Overton window of conversation.
But the worst aspect of the current attempt to deplatform, is that the line of what is acceptable is constantly changing. If I say "it's silly that someone with male equipment be allowed to use a women's bathroom", does that make me transphobic? Should I be banned from conferences? What about five years from now, when the line has moved? And what belief that is normal now, will be unacceptable in twenty years?
I'm having trouble grasping the coherence of your point.
While it may be fine to believe that some speech is considered beyond the pale (and let's leave aside the forms of speech people already agree on, like yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater), the question remains, who is the arbiter, and what standards do they apply? The point is that there isn't a consistent answer to that question. And since an inconsistent answer would lead to abuse, and to the "wrong" people having their speech suppressed, the only alternative is instead to defend free speech even when objectionable, and thus argue that it shouldn't be controlled.
The whole crux is what you're saying about the "wrong" people controlling speech, and for the "wrong" reasons. There is no consistent definition for "wrong" here, not that cannot be turned around and used against you or the people you'd define as "right".
Which is why I essentially agree with your final paragraph, at least the sentiment about not being able to predict the moving lines of what is acceptable if we were to assign values of what kind of speech should and shouldn't be controlled. But since I don't agree with your first three paragraphs, I don't understand your point of view.
The activists trying to get him banned are not achieving anything useful.
They are raising awareness of the man, his online persona "Moldbug", and the writings of that persona. This is the Streisand effect. If your goal is to get fewer people to read his views, then causing drama around him is completely counterproductive. I only heard about him from the previous drama (Strange Loop), and more people are hearing about him for the first time now.
And he's not writing under that persona anymore. There is no stream of new articles coming out. The only news about him is when activists try to get him banned.
In addition, Yarvin may be wrong, but he's also wrong in (at least to me) a unique way.
Ironically, what little I read of his when he was linked to by Scott Alexander at Slater Star Codex awhile back made me appreciate the US bureaucracy a lot more than I had prior to reading him. If anything, I went away feeling much more comfortable with how the current US government operates day to day and far less troubled by how little effect "democracy" actually has in this country.
I doubt that's what Yarvin intended, of course, but if I had just heard "racist" and "bigot" and shunned him entirely, as many people seem to think I should have, I'd be less informed today and substantially less positive about our government. I'm glad I didn't.
I had heard of Yarvin and dismissed him last year.
But thanks to this controversy, I've spent many hours reading his writing in the past week. Although I vehemently disagree with his technocratic conclusions I found his willingness to think openly refreshing - particularly for someone who grew up and lives in a viscously egalitarian environment. My takeaway is that we all censor our own thinking because of fear of groupthink and banishment.
The fact that sponsoring a functional programming conference elicited an explanation of this length shows that something in our society is profoundly fucked up.
Some interesting thoughts on that by one of the relevant people in this story are here: http://degoes.net/articles/lambdaconf-controversy , in the "Professionalism" section. He explains why, in his opinion, these clashes between the private and the professional are becoming more common.
> Personally, if a conference allows all peaceful people to attend and speak so long as they treat attendees exceedingly well, then guess what I think it’s going to select for?
> Wait for it… a diverse community of peaceful people who are willing to treat attendees exceedingly well, even when they strongly disagree with them!
> That doesn’t sound terrible to me. In fact, I wish the whole world were more like this.
Agreed. The more I learn about this, the happier I am that LambdaConf has taken the stand they have. It's not about Yarvin, it's about everyone else, and they seem to get that.
In the limit it is hypocritical to select against someone who wants to select against people. This is where moonconf falls short - in the limit, they would kill in the name of empathy. Complete hypocrisy.
MM is rarely explicitly racist; it's more like he espouses ideas that obviously entail racial superiority and then stops shy and pretends like you're an idiot if you actually believe those "obvious" entailments The Progressives or whoever have been selling you.
(Preface: It's hard to explain, and the following might sound like a bit of an ad hom, but that's not how I mean it. It's just a really useful lense through which to view MM's writing -- especially if you find yourself thinking "he's just saying kinda true things that aren't very PC!". Understanding the rhetorical ploys an author is using can help you see through the trees to the heart of the author's argument and then -- in MM's case -- be sure you're well-founeded in summarily rejecting it.)
Reading MM is like reading an above-average-but-not-exceptionally-bright high schooler who went on a depth-first search of Google for every topic he writes about. The authority emaninating from a depth-first search is obviously flawed because it ignores the forest for the trees, but can be oddly convincing if you don't notice what's going on. Or at least difficult to refute in a clear-headed and logical way because you get stuck in the quagmire of meaningless specificities.
Concretely, MM's writing generally has a well-developed thesis with logical arguments and reasonable citation, but falls flat on its face for reasons that can only be described as "common sense". MM's hope -- or maybe his own blieve -- is that his authoritative knowledge of particularities supporting his point trumps the forest of "common sense" generalities.
But the dozens of obvious objections that aren't addressed by MM -- or are just hand-waved away with a bit of rhetoric about some evil other (progressives, etc.) -- really are at the heart of the matter. A few historical examples really are no replacement for a global view of historical reality.
Of course MM is smart enough to be well-aware of the elephants in the room. However, he's maybe more interested in trolling than in debate. Or maybe really does blieve they're unsubstantiated progressive lies. IDK. In any case, instead of addressing these elephants head on, he kind of summarily dismisses the most obvious rebuttals with a bit of a literary eye roll.
For example, in one comment he rambles on about colonialism being not-so-impeachable because those Africans were brutes prior to and after colonization. The problems with a statement like this really are quite obvious, but his comment goes on at length about particularities of specific European leaders and African dynasties instead of addressing head-on the litany of common-sense high-level objections to his poisition.
It's like when a high schooler puts forth a totally untenable position that is just wrong, and considers himself unimpeached because no one in the room has a response to the particular arcane knowledge he used to backup his point. Even though that knowledge was totally tangential or at best provided one supportive data point in an infinite sea of data suggesting he's dead wrong.
I think people who disagree that MM's writing is racist are mostly just hoodwinked by the above rhetorical ploy -- getting so specific about a few trees that the reader forgets about the forest, and therefore conclusing that the author doesn't need to be held responsible for the obvious historical entailments that follow from his advocacy.
> Concretely, MM's writing generally has a well-developed thesis with logical arguments and reasonable citation, but falls flat on its face for reasons that can only be described as "common sense". MM's hope -- or maybe his own believe -- is that his authoritative knowledge of particularities supporting his point trumps the forest of "common sense" generalities.
This is a little disturbing, the idea of something being wrong due to "common sense", (or maybe popular perception?) despite being logically argued and well cited.
If MM cherry picks historical examples, fair enough, but then the work needs to be matched to refute - to present all the counter-examples that where omitted.
I'm not going to actually respond to a decade of writing in one comment.
My comment was not meant as an indpendent discrediting of MM.
My comment was meant as a reading guide for someone who wants to read MM in good faith without wasting their time "down in the (irrelevant) weeds". A guide to the systematic flaws in MM's reasoning and writing style.
The process really is common sense:
1. Figure out what MM is actually saying, the evidence he provides, and then -- instead of engaging with that evidence -- first look for the obvious counter-evidence.
2. Beware of implicit theses. If the post doesn't directly and unambiguously address some point of interest -- but instead of just kind of rhetorically implies a position on that point of interest -- then ignore it.
It's not that MM is wrong "because common sense". It's that he's wrong, and the way of demonstrating he's wrong is by using common sense reasoning techniques instead of engaging with his inane details.
I don't think all his writing is like this. Some of it is clear and cogent. This was specifically an indict of his writing on race-related writing. When MM's writing goes wrong, it almost always follows this pattern (highly specific missing-forest-for-the-trees with the explicit central thesis carefully scoped and the actual central thesis left unstated). But it doesn't always go wrong.
The word "racist" and its conjugations does not appear in the English language until the 1920s - see Peter Frost's cultural history [0]. If you asked Shakespeare if he was a "racist," he would not know what you meant.
"Racist" is essentially a term of abuse which no group or party has ever applied to itself. Like most such epithets, it has two meanings - a clear objective one, describing a person who fails to believe in the anthropological theories of human equality which became first popular, then universal in the mid-20th century; and a caricature of the vices, personal or political, typically engaged in by such a foul unbeliever.
Holy shit your quote is a perfect example of exactly what I'm talking about.
1. It dismisses an obvious truth. You know, that there actually really were/are actually people who actually thought black/latino/etc. people were actually inferior... actually. For Real. Historical Fact. Period. That the term "racist" clearly and unambiguously identifies those people, regardless of whether people disagree about the edge cases.
2. MM dimisses this totally obvious objection by quoting historical inanity (who the fuck cares if the word wasn't in common usage until the 20's? What does that actually have to do with anything?! "Cathedral" didn't enter common usage (under MM's defintion)... ever. Guess the term means nothing in the context in which he's using it? This observation is pure unadulterated inanity)
3. And also while making some unsubstantiated comment about those icky Progressives for those In The Know.
4. Note that what MM literally said (that in addition to being an epithet, "Racist has a clear objective meaning") actually directly contradicts your interpretation of what he said:
> The word is just an epithet with an ever changing meaning. It's not a descriptive label.
I'll excuse you for the lapse in reading comprehension since you actually perfectly translated MM's true meaning. MM said X. He gave unimpeachable evidence for X. And you interpreted X to mean the slightly different Y. Unsurprisingly, since it's totally clear that Y is what MM actually intends his reader to walk away beliving. The rub is that MM didn't actually provide any cogent argument for Y. But his defense of X sure did sound authoritative and unpeachable!
It doesn't seems to me that racist "clearly and unambiguously identifies those people", especially as stated "no group or party has ever applied to itself".
In contrast, there are groups that have applied to itself the word "communist", and so far as it applies to them, it is clear and (somewhat) unambiguous. The scope, however, of who it doesn't apply to, and who it may be used against is ambiguous e.g. McCarthyism.
This doesn't mean that I agree that the word is purely abusive (and as such agree with MM), but I don't think his opinion is either completely wrong, without merit, or obviously so.
You know, that there actually really were/are actually people who actually thought black/latino/etc. people were actually inferior... actually. For Real. Historical Fact. Period. That the term "racist" clearly and unambiguously identifies those people.
No it does not. For it is not at all defined what it means to view "black people as inferior".
For instance, it is a fact about the world that across a vast number of tests of cognitive ability -- SAT's, NAEP, LSAT's, AFQT, IQ tests, etc, -- the average score among blacks is about a standard deviation lower than the average among whites. This is not controversial, I read articles in the NY Times all the time about closing the test score gap. If I believe have read evidence that convinces me that 1% of that gap is due to differences in gene frequency between the races, am I a racist who believes that "black people are inferior"? What if I believe that genes explain 10% of the gap? 50%? 100%? At what percentage am I an evil bigot who should be excluded from polite society?
> What if I believe that genes explain 10% of the gap? 50%? 100%?
At exactly the point where you think this actually fucking matters when evaluating the value of those people. That's the "clear, objective" meaning MM refers to. If The Cathedral invented demonization of racism then I'll happily attend the sunday mass.
Or maybe just before that, where you take some raw statistics and draw wild conclusions from it in order to prove your prior. Like people used to do by measuring skull sizes, just slightly more refined this time 'round.
As a matter of fact, people using the term "Racism" in the 1920's-1950's were often referring to people who genuinely believed they had scientific evidence that jews/blacks were inferior.
Racism accompanied with the epistemology du jour is still objectionable. Just because you earnestly believe something doesn't make that belief impeachable.
At exactly the point where you think this actually fucking matters when evaluating the value of those people.
Well I certainly would wish that the entire issue of the racial test score gap would be dropped. We should only worry about treating individuals based on who they are as individuals, and that does not require using statistics broken down by race.
But the racial test score gap is a huge issue, and blame does get assigned, and action is taken based on that blame. So if I am in a conversation and someone says, "Well if you don't think schools/culture/racism/poverty causes the gap, what does?", then I'm going to give my honest opinion. If that explanation includes genes, then am I a racist bigot who should be ostracized from polite society?
> At exactly the point where you think this actually fucking matters when evaluating the value of those people.
In that case, you must believe that Yarvin is not a racist, because he has stated at great length (not that he's capable of talking at other lengths, of course) that the value of other people has absolutely nothing to do with their intelligence, whether it's 0% genetic or 100%.
For example, in one comment he rambles on about colonialism being not-so-impeachable because those Africans were brutes prior to and after colonization. The problems with a statement like this really are quite obvious
It seems to me you could divide African history into several phases:
1. Pre-Colonialism
2. Era of conquest, enslavement, and plunder (1500s-1900)
3. High Colonialism (c1920-1960)
4. Rule by Cathedral (ie, nominal rule by Africans, but with massive meddling by NGOs, academic experts, leftist activists, and the US State Department)
I took classes on this in college, followed this debate over time, and read many Moldbug cited materials. It seems to me quite clear that era 3 was better for Africans than era 1 and era 4. What Moldbug de-emphasizes in those debates is that era 2 was probably the worst of all. And I think it is ok to criticize him for his lack of emphasis to that point.
However, I think he is right to be upset over the denial that era 3 was better than era 4. Or if it is admitted, the blame always goes the colonialists for not preparing the people for independence, or the blame goes to the CIA, or the blame goes to companies that still maintained a presence in Africa. Never is it admitted that Cathedral meddling has had a massively bad influence.
It seems obvious to me that in the countries of the Congo, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the Ivory Coast, that replacing the prior system (which was either colonial rule, limited suffrage) with an attempt at universal suffrage democracy, resulted in massive destabilization and those countries much more violent, and made them materially worse off (I list these because I have actually looked into their history, the same is probably true of the other countries, but I am less sure). Yet it is completely forbidden to make this argument in academia or any establishment media. On this point, Moldbug is very much in the right, and the official point of view is wrong.
Which starts with not obfuscating the history of colonialism in order to push a single-minded obsession with discrediting something called Cathedral that is, vaguely, all the badness of progressivism.
This is kind of my point wrt MM. He says a lot of True Things that, in the end, amount to nothing. And then pretends he's substantiated some grand thesis about the evils of the Cathedral. But it's often all just inane bullshit when you stop to figure out how the pile of highly specific factoids actually substantiates the overall claim. This isn't always true; there are always diamonds in the rough, and MM wrote prolifically. But the style of argument and accompanying rhetoric lends itself to these sorts of logical leaps from cherry-picked particular to validation of over-arching thesis.
Edit: Also, pre-colonialism is a shitload of time. Asserting Africans were categorically better off during High Colonialism than during the millions of years of human history that is lumped together as "pre-colonialism" is a pretty bold assertion.
With reference to Africa, you can define the Cathedral as the permanent staff of the U.S. State Department, the universities and think tanks that operate with a revolving door with the State Department, and the NGOs funded by State (or funded by the UN which is in turn funded by USG according to State Department policy). There was a conventional wisdom among this network of institutions. They had great power, they pushed policies across Africa. They insisted that the colonial rulers give up power and hold universal suffrage elections, and used the hard and soft power of the world hegemon to make it so. They got their wish, and that change resulted in disaster across the continent.
Today i learned why anyone cares what lambdaconf does: The ticket prices sit at an absolutely ridiculous minimum of $500. I can't imagine what could possibly justify that expense.
For context: I've attended many conferences, in the sizes of 100 to 4000: Purely technical; technical with lots of music and beer; focused on arts, crafts and acting. Never have i seen a regular price over $150.
Now here comes LambdaConf, a con about a niche language, with a sponsor that describes it as "a lot of those speakers are new to speaking at tech conferences" and "reasonably priced".
I can't help but feel something is amiss here, either in their self-portray, or my understanding.
1. This speaker denies fitting that description, and of those that read his work, some agree that he isn't, while some disagree, and some aren't sure. Perhaps not surprising, since he wrote a lot, and it's fairly complex. This is therefore not a clear-cut case.
2. Worse, what racial supremacy means depends on who is talking. For example, Black Lives Matters protestors have claimed that a public library, which by federal law cannot exclude people based on race, is white supremacist for that very reason: http://www.infowars.com/black-lives-matter-accuses-public-li...
There is no simple way or simple solution here. These are hard questions, with no clear answers.
You're basically assuming that your moral code (that you happen to share with the majority at this moment in history) is the correct one, and you should be able to wield power to silence anyone who thinks differently. Now maybe you are right about his views, maybe I even agree with you, but that isn't the point. The whole point of the enlightenment is that people are allowed to think/write/muse about ideas that the majority might not approve of.
It's clear that whether you invite or don't invite someone to a conference, you are making a stand.
What the organizers of that conference fail to see is that inviting someone with such a toxic and racist personality will only encourage that person to keep posting their hateful comments.
From everything I've heard Moldbug is now purely a historical figure in the "Dark Enlightenment", although I suppose more real than Emmanuel Goldstein.
The problem I have is that this is a mob turning its power on someone with FAR LESS power than the mob in question. It is one thing when the mob attacks someone of greater power as greater power can defend itself. It is something else when a mob expresses itself with positive support for the downtrodden--that's still okay. However, attacking someone unable to match with equal social defense is NOT okay. We have a word for that--it's called "bullying".
The people involved may feel righteous, but that doesn't change the fact that they are bullies. And, I am disappointed that a conference of geeks can't seem to identify social bullying when it occurs in front of them.
As always, people only seem to be able to empathize when they are on the receiving end of the pointy stick.