
Why you should come to LambdaConf anyway - akalin
https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lambdaconf-anyway-35ff8cd4fb9d#.6j7vn13rg
======
nailer
Folk seem to be easily declaring this person an obvious racist, but all the
quotes I've seen to support this so far are either:

\- The author writing they support _willing_ slavery (which doesn't really
seem to be slavery).

\- A quote (that circulated Twitter as evidence of racism) saying that
suitability to slavery was 'parsimoniously' linked to race. Which seems to
rely on the audience not knowing what 'parsimonious' means.

The author's an idiot and an edgelord (and also a shitty writer, hence the
pain of finding quotes in his crap), but from what I've seen so far he's not
worse than other people who've spouted 'kill all X' and been supported by
other conference organisers.

~~~
bad_user
Slavery is about humans being classified as property, with property law
applied to slaves, which means that slavery cannot be _willing_ by definition.
And past examples of slavery that he uses in support of his claims haven't
been willing at all, while at the same time he tries to muddy the waters by
classifying student debt as being slavery.

Now you can argue that in the US student debt is slavery, given that declaring
bankruptcy on student debt is very hard (due to BAPCPA). This I think is a
failure of the US education system, making me glad that I was raised in an
European country where the education system is largely subsidized by the state
and where public schools are still the best ones. Even so, I'm not interested
in arguing that student debt in the US is a form of debt bondage, which is
classified as "modern day slavery" by the United Nations and being prohibited
by internal law.

The far bigger issue is this logical fallacy that's being used to justify this
author's thoughts on the matter: " _if X is at least as worse as Y in my
worldview and Y is tolerated, then X should be tolerated as well_ ".

And that's just wrong. For one because it often is an unfair comparisson
(student debt vs Afro-Americans born into slavery and completely owned by
their masters). But also because tolerance for Y does NOT exempt X from being
judged. Couldn't find a name for this logical fallacy, but it should have one
;-)

~~~
nailer
> "if X is at least as worse as Y in my worldview and Y is tolerated, then X
> should be tolerated as well"

Has the author argued that people should be classed as property anywhere in
their writings?

~~~
bad_user
I don't understand your question. That assertion was directed at your
argument, not the author's.

~~~
nailer
It's a very simple question, what specially don't you understand?

You seem to think the author made some kind of assertion that people as
property is OK, when the author has written the opposite. Is there evidence to
support that?

~~~
bad_user
No, I haven't made that claim and no, the author has not written the exact
opposite, unless we speak a different English (always a possibility given it's
not my native tongue).

~~~
nailer
OK. You don't think the author supports slavery either. I'm not sure why we're
even discussing this!

The author wrote specifically they believe slavery is a bad thing in their AMA
here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/)

------
cousin_it
I think Curtis Yarvin's biggest flaw is that he gets carried away. (He shares
that flaw with some other guru personalities, like Eliezer Yudkowsky.) He'll
write a big post to make programmers less nervous about his presence at
LambdaConf, and he'll stick "BTW nerds ruined Detroit" right in the middle of
that post, just because he can't resist a tangent. Inviting him to speak was a
noble choice, but I feel sympathy for the conference organizers who are
probably praying that he doesn't do the same on stage. It's good that he's
promising to speak only about programming. I wish this post had followed the
same guideline.

~~~
cogware
Agreed, it would have been wiser for his post to just be about LambdaConf and
FP.

~~~
mcphage
> it would have been wiser for his post to just be about LambdaConf and FP

But the reason for his presence causing LambdaConf problems has nothing to do
with FP.

------
lhnz
Quite satisfying to see somebody decry the elite's IQism (something both the
right and the left are guilty of), insult Trump and his voters, and call the
mob out for the chimpanzee-like pleasure they partake in.

    
    
        ____
    
    

I don't think he can change anybody's mind by telling them he cannot be racist
because he doesn't believe intellect makes somebody a better person. (1.) How
do we know he's really telling the truth and it's not just sophistry? (2.)
Beliefs that are tied to self-esteem are difficult to undo, and a belief in
human neurological uniformity (HNU) is often helpful when you do not want to
be thought of as racist, yet wish to allow yourself feelings of intellectual
superiority.

    
    
        ____
    
    

I've found it very interesting to watch people come out and say what they
really think. For example, the CTO of NPM recently tweeted "This is like when
we made Eich quit Mozilla. There are views we have decided are unacceptable
and we will ostracize you for having them." [0]

After all of the activism for 'safety' and 'codes of conduct', I did not
expect to see people finally admit that it's really about about the right to
be employed or have an audience if you are to hold or have held 'bad' beliefs.

Still, it may well be the case that everybody that has been de-platformed or
fired over the past decade has deserved it, or that certain people must be
purged in order for us to maintain a public square that is acceptable for
minorities. Even if it is for the greater good, I still hope that those with
political power will come to reflect on their actions and evaluate the harms
that they might have inadvertently caused others. Ultimately very few people
believe themselves to be evil and deserving of punishment. And if one day a
mistake is made and the wrong person is thrown under the bus, a lack of
remorse or responsibility will not be seen as endearing.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/seldo/status/714272018976284672](https://twitter.com/seldo/status/714272018976284672)

------
bad_user
TL;DR - racism sprinkled with claims of not being a racist by the author's
definition of racism. An article written because the author does not want his
political advocacy to affect his carrier, so he thought that more toxic
opinions would serve towards that purpose.

The sad thing is that LambdaConf, a super awesome conference organized by
super awesome folks, is now destroyed, losing all good will because of this
one single act. Which is what happens when you've got tolerant people being
taken advantage of and going to the extreme of tolerating intolerance.

~~~
cogware
How is LambdaConf "destroyed"? That seems like pure hyperbole. The conference
will go on, and most people won't remember this Moldbug business longer than
15 minutes.

It's also not clear to me what is the "intolerance" that they are tolerating.
Can you provide textual evidence for Moldbug being intolerant? In the post, he
comes across as tolerant, albeit with a narrative outside the political
mainstream.

~~~
bad_user
> _most people won 't remember this Moldbug business longer than 15 minutes_

People attending? Maybe they'll forget. But many of the regular speakers or
sponsors from FP conferences will not.

On the Scala side I know of at least the Typelevel Summit in Boulder being
canceled ([http://goo.gl/2HAVca](http://goo.gl/2HAVca)) and along with
sponsors like 47 degrees pulling their sponsorship for LambdaConf
([http://goo.gl/h9WucI](http://goo.gl/h9WucI)). Note that the Typelevel
members are community leaders that have contributed to many projects,
including Scalaz, Cats, Algebra, Shapeless, Simulacrum, Machinist, Ensime,
Spire, etc. And on the Clojure side you've got people like David Nolen of
ClojureScript and Om fame saying that LambdaConf is now on the list of
conferences he'll never attend.

People follow leaders and if you think this won't have repercussions for
LambdaConf, think again.

> _In the post, he comes across as tolerant, albeit with a narrative outside
> the political mainstream._

Related to this article, I'm not interested in arguing the fine nuances of his
argument or the English language, but when you don't consider other people as
being your equal, that's racist by definition. A fact made clear by Moldbug's
writing. And the fact that there are people that jump in defense of his
narrative highlights the importance of speaking and acting against such
beliefs.

~~~
j-pb
The point is not about him being a racist or not. As long as he doesn't bring
his personal views to a professional setting I don't care about them.

I also don't mind if people don't attend his talks as a form of protest. Heck
I probably wouldn't go to them myself.

But demanding somebody be cancelled from a conference because you don't agree
with them on something that has nothing to do with the topics of said
conference seems to set a bad precedence.

After all that might give others the right to demand people not be permitted
to speak because they are communists, gay, hippies, or what else.

As for tolerant people being tricked into allowing intolerance. I'm pretty
sure everybody there has a limit on intolerance that they won't tolerate
anymore. I firmly believe that everybody has the absolute right for physical
protection, so if he had a history of violence there would have been a clear
cut line.

However, I don't think that anybody has the right to not be offended, or to be
protected from "emotional harm". I expect adults to be able to control
themselves enough that this shouldn't be an issue. If all he's done is being
an ass, that doesn't justify him being kicked out.

Sticks and stones.

~~~
bad_user
> _The point is not about him being a racist or not. As long as he doesn 't
> bring his personal views to a professional setting I don't care about them._

You're free to have that belief, but like it or not, being included as a
speaker at an important conference gives a person prestige and credence for
his ideas and others might not like it.

> _demanding somebody be cancelled from a conference ... because they are
> communists, gay, hippies ..._

Right here is the mistake that I think the organizers of LambdaConf did.

You cannot compare gays and hippies with white supremacists, because being gay
or hippie does not rob others of their humanity. Communism, in the theoretical
sense, wouldn't be guilty of that either.

Now, I've heard somebody making a valid point: another speaker happens to work
on military drones, that ultimately have been used to target women and
children. Why aren't people outraged about that one?

Well, maybe we should be outraged about that one as well, though the context
is different, as military drones, like science in general, can be used for
both good and evil. For example the same science that gave us a process for
producing nitrogen and synthetic fertilizer is also responsible for gas
warfare in WWI. So context matters, I'm not ready yet to condemn the work on
military drones as being evil (though it probably is), but I sure am ready to
condemn racism, because personally I believe that racism represents the worst
of humanity, being the justification given to most wars that ever happened.

> _I don 't think that anybody has the right to not be offended, or to be
> protected from "emotional harm"_

First of all we aren't talking about _what is legal_. If we are, then having a
belief that somebody shouldn't speak at a conference is perfectly within our
right for freedom of expression. And this isn't censorship, but Ostracism, an
act which again, is perfectly within our right for freedom of association.
People are always free to organize events that accept this person (with
LambdaConf choosing this path) and the author can even start his own
conferences and communities.

That said, in my country at least, the freedom of speech does not hold for
hate speech and you can be prosecuted for causing emotional harm due to hate
speech targeting groups based on religion, ethnicity, race or sex. Note that
whether the author would escape guilt, that's for a court to decide and I'm
not a lawyer, but to me his writings sure sound like hate speech.

And don't get me wrong, if he would be found innocent of hate speech by a
court, then I expect for people to uphold his right for freedom of speech, but
again, that doesn't mean people can't exercise their own freedom of speech or
freedom of association.

~~~
j-pb
> included as a speaker at an important conference gives a person prestige and
> credence for his ideas

The question is does it give credence to the ideas presented at the conference
or does it give credence to all of his ideas?

On a somewhat unrelated note, I find that we place people that give talks at
conferences, on a way to high pedestal. It feels like presenting oneself has
become more important than writing code.

> Communism, in the theoretical sense, wouldn't be guilty of that either.

Neither does racism "in the theoretical sense" as the author of the article
argues. And I'm not buying his argument either, so you simply can't ignore the
the fact that communism produced the biggest genocides.

>Why aren't people outraged about that one?

To be honest I actually would be all in to ban a person developing military
drones that can be used for "offensive" attacks from the conference.

A person directly developing tools for murder has crossed the line of non-
violence I talked about earlier.

> racism ... being the justification ... to most wars ...

So would you ban all religious people because religion has been used as a
justification for war over and over again?

To me there is a difference between believing something bad and having the
intention to act on it. I don't care about the author as long as he doesn't go
out the next day to spit on a black person. And from what I've read the author
has this weird "different but equally worth" racism that is somewhat "benign"
(as in tumor).

The person developing the drones however is directly ruining peoples lives. Of
course he doesn't pull the trigger, but he willingly gives a gun to a
psychopath.

> First of all we aren't talking about what is legal.

Why would we? If he had planned on doing something illegal at a conference and
then got banned for it there would be zero discussion.

> in my country at least

UK? And I'm pretty sure that you won't be persecuted for causing "emotional
harm" but for "disturbing the peace" or "inciting violence" or something
similar.

Note that in this case people claim that the emotional harm isn't caused by
him giving a racist talk (which would be hate speech and which he's not going
to give), but _his mere presence_.

And I think as an adult one should be able to tolerate the presence of another
person no matter how much one hates their views.

> people are always free to organize events that accept this person (with
> LambdaConf choosing this path) and the author can even start his own
> conferences and communities.

>that doesn't mean people can't exercise their own freedom of speech or
freedom of association.

Of course people are free to not attend. But then they should accept the vote
people cast and stop the brigading.

I am very sure that the people most vocal about this right now would try to
stop and ruin any "racist" conference by putting pressure on sponsors and
speakers.

------
davidgerard
The thing is that Yarvin's been a huge edgelord with his neoreactionary
blogging. And then it turned out people took him as seriously as he hoped to
be taken ... and this is now hanging over his startup business like a
radioactive anvil.

The ultimate issue is: “don’t be a provocateur and then whine when you find
out that the people you deliberately pissed off are pissed off at you.”
[http://philsandifer.tumblr.com/post/141737493541/responses-y...](http://philsandifer.tumblr.com/post/141737493541/responses-
you-cant-code-or-buy-your-way-out-of) (and note, that's a somewhat sympathetic
post)

------
m_fayer
A tour de force in not-racist-racism, arrogant humility, plain-spoken
obscurantism, and selfless egocentrism.

------
BWStearns
Is anyone else wondering about the Maine comment? I thought Lambdaconf was in
Colorado this spring.

------
chipsy
No faith in his claims if he speaks like he writes.

------
draw_down
> Forget Grandma! Let’s get back to the real question. Am I a racist? The
> answer is: no. But, I see why you might think so.

Oh boy.

