
Typelevel boycotts LambdaConf over politics - dudul
http://typelevel.org/blog/2016/03/24/typelevel-boulder.html
======
taylodl
I've attended several conferences and not once have I ever checked into the
political advocacy of any of my session's presenters. Nor have any of my
presenters ever brought up politics. I go to conferences to discuss
programming, frameworks, architectures and technologies. In so doing I don't
care what your political views may be, what your religious views may be, what
your sexual preferences may be - I don't care about any of it.

I simply enjoy connecting with other people as passionate about programming as
me.

------
nbb
When you boycott something at the type level, it's a compiler error to buy
something from that firm.

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swang
Thread poster personally does not like Typelevel.

Thread poster editorializes title accusing typelevel of politics.

Thus the circle continues.

~~~
tragic
Yes. I disagree with their decision, but it would be good if a passing mod
could make the title less inflammatory.

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13thLetter
A group that's policing who can use their services based on political
disagreements is definitely not a group that it's safe to do business with.
Who knows what they'll take offense at next?

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Right, condemning a vocal advocate of white supremacy and racial slavery is a
slippery slope to WHO KNOWS WHAT DANGERS.

~~~
Mizza
Where's the coming from? The only thing I've seen as evidence of that is
[http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/underst...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/understanding-racial-idealism.html) \- but I
don't read that as an advocacy of white supremacy, it's just saying that Nazis
were "utopianist" (as in _they_ believed in a utopian ideology), and it's
actually as an analogy to characterize modern liberals.

"Vocal advocate of white supremacy and racial slavery" seems like a bit of a
slander, but maybe I'm missing part of the equation.

~~~
theorique
_" maybe I'm missing part of the equation"_

You're not. The main issue is that Moldbug writes in depth about controversial
things, without including enough Leftist bromides like "Hitler was the worst"
or "slavery is evil". This is very triggering to Leftists in the tech industry
and so they want him removed from any conference where he happens to be
presenting a talk.

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analognoise
"We're going to take our ball and go home; we don't want to play with you!"

What a bunch of children. They don't agree with a person's personal views,
which are totally tangental to the subject of the conference, so they pick up
their ball and go home?

Since when did everyone become such cowarda towards people with different
ideas? Why not show up with a diverse group of kick ass programmers, and show
him he's not so great?

No, we'll run and cry, and make blog posts about it. Stay strong. /s

~~~
lemmsjid
While I am not one to shy away from a political argument, it's pretty easy to
put myself into TypeLevel's shoes. As they say in their blog post, due to the
notoriety of the speaker it's almost inevitable that an event about
programming would become an event about political argument.

If they aren't in the mood to preside over such an event, it's reasonable not
to have it at all. They are not obligated to be in the business of public
debate, and the results of such debates could easily harm their reputation.
It's important in life to pick your battles. Having read about the speaker in
question, it's pretty much impossible that TypeLevel employees would be able
to magically argue him out of his existing position, and it's probably equally
inevitable that he would be unable to argue them into his position.

None of the above seems childish to me. Most people I know, with few
exceptions, make such decisions all of the time. Are you going to have a good
Thanksgiving, or are you going to get into it with your reactionary relative
for the thousandth time?

~~~
13thLetter
But that's simply victim-blaming.

This is a professional conference about a particular apolitical topic. If the
speaker, no matter how controversial or unpopular his unrelated personal views
might be, is going to stay on the topic and not bring up politics, then anyone
who tries to bring politics into it is being the disruptive force, not the
speaker, and _that_ is the person who is creating an unsafe atmosphere and
needs to be ejected from the conference.

> it's pretty much impossible that TypeLevel employees would be able to
> magically argue him out of his existing position, and it's probably equally
> inevitable that he would be unable to argue them into his position.

Why is it necessary for either of them to argue the other into their position?

> Are you going to have a good Thanksgiving, or are you going to get into it
> with your reactionary relative for the thousandth time?

I'll tell you what I wouldn't do: I certainly wouldn't demand that my
reactionary relative not be permitted to attend, and if she's gracious enough
to not start a fight at the dinner table I won't start one myself. If she can
be polite, I can be polite.

~~~
nrinaudo
But typelevel has not cancelled lambdaconf, nor asked for it to be cancelled
or even change its speakers lineup. They decided not to hold _another_ event
that was affiliated with lambdaconf.

If we're going to keep running with this thanksgiving comparison, they're not
asking for the relative not be invited. They're having a party the day after,
a party to which the crazy relative was never invited, and decided to cancel
_that_.

~~~
13thLetter
> They decided not to hold another event that was affiliated with lambdaconf.

You make it sound like they randomly woke up one day and decided, for no
particular reason whatsoever, to not hold an event they had already put
enormous effort into planning and scheduling. They are cancelling their event
in an attempt to pressure LambdaConf into bowing to their political demands.

> If we're going to keep running with this thanksgiving comparison, they're
> not asking for the relative not be invited. They're having a party the day
> after, a party to which the crazy relative was never invited, and decided to
> cancel that.

How would that behavior make any sense, though, if you're a person who doesn't
want to disrupt the Thanksgiving dinner? They already didn't invite the crazy
relative to their own party; what more do they want?

~~~
nrinaudo
No, they are cancelling an event because they feel holding it would endorse
views they find disgusting. You might not agree that it does, or that the
views are disgusting, but that is irrelevant to their decision. The only
people truly inconvenienced by this are: \- themselves, because they're
throwing away a lot of hard work \- the people that wanted to attend their
conf, which makes _typelevel_ look bad, not lambdaconf.

Back to the thanksgiving dinner thing: they don't really want anything other
than to make it clear what they're having an issue with. But they're not
asking for anything, just saying: this is incompatible with my values, I'm
taking myself out.

What else do you want them to do? Compromise their values? Who are you to
demand that of them? Or demand the crazy relative be booted, making the whole
thing horrible for the host? They took the only reasonable action given their
values: take themselves out of the equation, and explain why. Anything else
would have been either childish or cowardly (again, given their core values,
which you might disagree with or not feel quite as strongly about).

~~~
13thLetter
> What else do you want them to do? Compromise their values? Who are you to
> demand that of them?

If their values are "we cannot interact in a professional manner with people
who hold views we dislike," their values are bad and they _should_ compromise
them. If we can't get along with those with whom we disagree when necessary to
accomplish unrelated things, we might as well disband this country and start
arming up for civil war, because that's where this road ends.

~~~
nrinaudo
Has it occurred to you it's entirely possible that some people at typelevel
are black? And you're saying that yes, they _should_ interact with and condone
the views of someone that would see them enslaved and feels they are
inherently inferior and should have fewer rights than him?

Maybe you could. Maybe, if someone had consistently argued that you and your
family were of an inferior race and should bow to their will as is your
ordained place in the universe, you could shrug it off and say, "let's agree
to disagree and get on with things".

I'd guess this has never happened to you though. I'd guess you can have this
position because this is not _your_ safety and _your_ rights that are in
danger. It's always so much easier to consider hatred acceptable when you're
not its target.

~~~
dudul
Should someone very religious refuse to interact with somebody who is pro-
choice? Should a gun-afficionado refuse to interact with somebody advocates
for gun-control?

In a professional environment we all have to compromise. You can't expect to
only run into people who share your values and/or validate and approve your
life style, or even what you feel is your identity.

~~~
nrinaudo
There's a fairly obvious distinction between not sharing someone's values and
asserting that someone is a sub-human and should have lower rights due to not
being of the right color.

I'm fine with working with people whose don't share my values. I wouldn't be
with someone who very publicly and very repeatedly advocated me and my family
being enslaved. If you are, good for you! just don't expect everybody to share
your obvious strength of character and forgiving nature.

