
Hereticon - tempsy
https://medium.com/@foundersfund/hereticon-2bb9b23928d5
======
ixtli
Is anyone else worried about this trend where people seem to believe the more
angry someone gets at the things they say the more correct they must be?

~~~
ohduran
Oh, you're going to love this[1]:

> "Ladran, luego cabalgamos" ("They bark, therefore we ride") or "Ladran,
> Sancho, señal que cabalgamos" ("They bark, Sancho, sign that we ride") is
> also atributed to the book but it actually comes from Goethe's 1808 poem
> Kläffer ("Barker"; obviously, without the interjection of "Sancho": :But
> their strident barking / is only a sign that we ride"). In its stock phrase
> version, it's used to say that an attack from one's enemies over a recently
> taken action is a sign that you are doing the right thing. There is an even
> more insulting version, "Ladran, señal que son perros" ("They bark, sign
> they are dogs").

[1][https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/DonQuixote](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/DonQuixote)

~~~
ixtli
Amazing. Don Quixote is a very underrated book.

~~~
ohduran
True. Every TV trope you can think of is already there.

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jelliclesfarm
How does one obtain a pass or ticket or invite or whatever to attend
Hereticon? If its the same folks who will be curating topics and speakers at
Hereticon as in:

[https://foundersfund.com/anatomy-of-next/](https://foundersfund.com/anatomy-
of-next/) then, count me in!

They had me at the "Sex in Space" podcast. Bonus points for having two parts.

Part 1: [..]Sex, reproduction, and marriage have been linked for most of human
history, but today that paradigm is evolving. This season of Anatomy of Next
we’ve looked at every aspect of turning Mars into a habitable world. Now what
about the changes in biology that are going to alter the way we populate our
world? From artificial gametes derived from skin cells and genetically-
modified embryos to artificial gestation – this is the future of sex.[..]

Part 1 is more interesting than Part 2. Part 2 beckons Heinlein. Two thumbs
up!

I wish Quanta Mag and Nautilus Mag would have live events too.

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Crinus
Instead of a conference why not just an internet forum that focuses on user
anonymity (not even nicknames) so that writers can both express exactly what
they think and readers can focus on the messages instead of the posters? After
all the idea is about the messages themselves being the "heretic" aspect, not
the people.

~~~
papreclip
You end up with actual thought crime (racism) instead of "drag
culture"(rupaul's drag race is mainstream tv now)

Well-behaved users leave the site for a nicer place, which becomes a vicious
cycle. In the end you have noone left but jerks and racists (see voat, 8chan)

~~~
Crinus
What is the connection between "well behaved" users and non-racists (or
whatever)? Cannot racists be well behaved and non-racists (what is the
opposite of racist?) be badly behaved?

I mean, sure, people will leave. But if you aren't interested in discussing
something that would be opposite to your beliefs and opinions then why would
you participate in such a forum in the first place?

It is right there in the purpose of the forum: a place to discuss highly
unpopular ideas and opinions. Who would join such a place and expect it to not
be met with discussions they'd dislike?

~~~
TeMPOraL
The place you want should have strong but clearly defined moderation that
allows one to voice unpopular opinions and only banning the low-effort spam
and actual advocacy of harming people. The phenomenon GP described (which I
remember 'Eliezer likened to evaporative cooling) relates more to the level of
discussion than to the topic itself.

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pjc50
This is going to have people reading out the blood libel on stage, isn't it?

~~~
defen
It sounds like they're going for new, potentially-interesting heretical ideas,
not stupid old ones.

~~~
theamk
Is there such a thing? Do you have an example?

Because every time I heard about people getting banned / disinvited, it was
usually because of old ideas.

~~~
defen
Ideas don't just appear out of the ether, so for any given idea, it's possible
to point to influences and declare the idea therefore "not new". So, by "new",
perhaps what I really mean is "newly considered acceptable in a small but
influential or passionate community".

The conference also doesn't seem to be exclusively devoted to "ideas that get
you banned from things." To pick a seemingly non-political example from the
list - are there any mainstream medical or nutritional experts talking about
the benefits of starvation?

~~~
theamk
Well, they are pretty clear that they are looking at "ideas that get you
banned":

> heretical thinkers have been met with hostility, even death, and vindicated
> by posterity.

> Imagine a conference for people banned from other conferences.

.. which actually brings the good question: why is "benefits of starvation"
listed in the topics list? Pubmed lists over 120K articles for "fasting", and
some of them seem to be pretty positive: [0] (disclaimer: I have not read the
paper, only glanced at abstract)

Why would someone recommending starvation may be banned from the conferences,
if there are many people who are doing research in this area? I have a couple
of ideas, and they are pretty grim.

[0]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29086496](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29086496)

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lukifer
I support the idea in principle, but it's inevitably going to serve as a flame
to bad-actor moths. Relevant: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-
culture-war-thread...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-
thread/)

I think Haidt's Heterodox Academy has a better approach, focused around
academia, and all the accompanying values and norms which often aren't present
in "heretical" ideospheres. (Perhaps there's a corollary to Gresham's Law
regarding emotionally inflammatory ideas?)

~~~
itsarnavb
There are controls. I believe they're selective about who they let in, and let
present.

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chasing
> Imagine a conference for people banned from other conferences.

Sounds like a nightmare.

Anyway, maybe it's just the conferences I go to. But. I've never heard of
someone getting kicked out for offering a controversial but considered opinion
on something.

"Y'know, we've found that PHP is really the best tool fo---"

"OUT WITH YE, HERETIC. DO NOT RETURN."

Usually people are banned for, y'know, doing something destructive or
offensive that's out of the bounds of normal discourse. The idea being that
banning them improves the experience for everyone else, which is (usually) a
good thing.

~~~
daxorid
_I 've never heard of someone getting kicked out for offering a controversial
but considered opinion on something_

"Kicked out" is stronger than what usually happens. More like "disinvited".

Yarvin/Strangeloop is the canonical example. More recently it was Hurd/BHUSA.

It usually takes the form of speakers being dis-invited because they hold
opinions, unrelated to the topic of their talk, that are unacceptable to a
vocal minority of the attendees.

~~~
grey-area
Some things are beyond the pale. Actions, and opinions, have consequences.

This has always been the case, and I don't think it's a bad thing - there
should be limits to tolerance, and those limits are defined by harming other
people, or advocating their harm. I would hope a _vocal majority_ would oppose
a racist white nationalist like Yarvin.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _there should be limits to tolerance, and those limits are defined by
> harming other people, or advocating their harm_

Here's the problem point: what do you mean by "advocating"? I'm all for not
tolerating people who issue explicit calls to violence, but once you extend
this to advocating or even talking about things that can be used _by others_
to justify calls to violence, and attempt to remove that person, I think we
should stop tolerating _you_ because the paradox of tolerance applies
recursively: the moment you go overboard with not tolerating the intolerant
and start claiming collateral damage, it is you who's actively intolerant and
needs to be removed to safeguard the society.

I don't know much about Yarvin beyond what I picked up here and over at SSC,
but I don't recall him ever advocating actual, explicit harm to anyone. Being
wrong about something does not cross the "intolerance" line if it's not
followed by advocating hurting people (or excluding them from society).

~~~
chasing
> Being wrong about something does not cross the "intolerance" line if it's
> not followed by advocating hurting people (or excluding them from society).

A little historical context:

Treating black people as if they're "lower IQ" than white people has been the
basis of hundreds of years of brutal oppression.

Which is why people are extremely uncomfortable giving someone who espouses
those sorts of views _any_ power whatsoever.

Oh, and fuck people who believe that. They're racist. They're wrong. And I
don't want to be anywhere near them, personally or professionally. How's that
for exercising my freedom of speech?

If that makes me intolerant of dumb racists, whelp, I guess I'm intolerant.

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SideburnsOfDoom
And it's from Peter Thiel

Which makes complete sense; of course it's old bigoted nonsense in new guises.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-vc-firm-
founders...](https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-vc-firm-founders-
fund-hereticon-conference-immortality-ufo-2019-10?r=US&IR=T)

[https://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-
coul...](https://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-couldnt-vote)

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Chris2048
> Topics including but not limited to: biological self-determination
> (modification, design), geo-engineering, transhumanism, the abolition of
> college, transgressive media, sex, the softer side of doomsday prepping, the
> nature of conspiracy, the benefits of starvation, constitutional monarchy
> (what?!), revisionist demography, immortality, drag culture, and building
> nations

Nothing actually Heretical then.

~~~
tempsy
I think the whole idea is a place to discuss ideas that are “heretical” by
modern left wing “cancel culture” standards.

~~~
Chris2048
I think the opposite is True - none of these topics trigger cancel culture,
and I can't see anything that protects speakers anyway.

~~~
tempsy
How so? Drag culture and sex/gender are among the most triggering of topics.

~~~
pjc50
What do you mean by "triggering" here?

~~~
tempsy
"Triggering" is the outrage caused by voicing an unpopular opinion, usually
one that is counter to modern socially liberal views.

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busterarm
There will be pitchforks...

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pwinnski
Yes, profoundly good ideas have historically been met with resistance. So have
profoundly bad ideas, and I suspect the ratio approaches a googol to one.

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ardillamorris
I clicked on this thinking there was a new font, maybe a cousin of
Helvetica...

