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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 mi

by cogware 11y ago

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 11y ago
> 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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    > 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.
- airless_cotton 11y ago
  I really hope that the mob is proud of its actions when the conference is canceled. "Hey, everybody is worse off now, but at least me made our point!" If the conference isn't canceled, I really hope the organizers make a list of people and companies who tried to kill the conference and never sell them a ticket to a future conference again. (No bad blood, just helping them remember their big words.)
mcphage 11y ago
> How is LambdaConf "destroyed"? That seems like pure hyperbole. The conference will go on I don't think that's a given; all but one of their corporate sponsors have pulled out, so it might not be feasible. I don't know how many of their sponsors were providing money vs. sponsoring events, though.

by cogware 11y ago

bad_user 11y ago

> 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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  > 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.
airless_cotton 11y ago
I really hope that the mob is proud of its actions when the conference is canceled. "Hey, everybody is worse off now, but at least me made our point!" If the conference isn't canceled, I really hope the organizers make a list of people and companies who tried to kill the conference and never sell them a ticket to a future conference again. (No bad blood, just helping them remember their big words.)

mcphage 11y ago

> How is LambdaConf "destroyed"? That seems like pure hyperbole. The conference will go on I don't think that's a given; all but one of their corporate sponsors have pulled out, so it might not be feasible. I don't know how many of their sponsors were providing money vs. sponsoring events, though.