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> I asked for a citation on the claim that he has called for the enslavement of black people. I specifically mentioned that I had seem him talk about how some g

> I asked for a citation on the claim that he has called for the enslavement of black people. I specifically mentioned that I had seem him talk about how some groups were better slaves than others, and linked to a thread within his recent AMA. Which we've established is his MO, which you've accepted from other sources without any claim at all. > You responded with a link to his blog where he said that slavery is a natural human relationship. I followed that link, searched for the places where he said slavery was a natural human relationship--and found nothing in those parts of the blog post where he called for enslavement or even said that it was a good thing. The entire discussion was about how good Carlyle's work on slavery was. The entire subject matter is a defense of the use of slavery and in particular black people as slaves. Which he was defending and promoting, as he then directly said slavery was a natural human relationship. > There is no mention of slavery in that blog entry, and a bit of Googling has failed to turn up a connection between white nationalists and any advocacy for slavery. I do not believe you did this. If you did you would see that it would at its core remove citizenship rights and protections from everyone not identified as 'white.' The primary goal is the deportation or detainment of the resident black population of America. > You also brought up, without providing a cite, that he has discussed the suitability of different races for slavery. You had accepted this as a prior condition and mentioned the AMA. Am I obligated to cite your sources now? > Believing that doesn't imply that one believes that the second group should be slaves or that one supports slavery. You know, a few people told me you were a good person to talk to. That you were one of the better commenters on HN. But this level of deliberate, defensive obtuseness is a great example of someone frantically putting their head in the sand. Maybe you should ask the other person in this thread who you trust implicitly if I'm wrong about this. Either way, your judgement of my methodology and the degree to which you require me to spoonfeed you the vile substance of this conversation is immaterial to me. We've defunded Lambdaconf and picked up the sponsors to Moonconf. Mission complete.

tzs 11y ago
> The entire discussion was about how good Carlyle's work on slavery was. The entire subject matter is a defense of the use of slavery and in particular black people as slaves. Which he was defending and promoting, as he then directly said slavery was a natural human relationship. OK...so now it sounds like I need to read the entire wall of text to get the point? That illustrates a big difference between how you responded to me and how tptacek responded to me. After I said that I saw the AMA, and that Yarvin's discussion of suitability of various groups to slavery did not seem to indicate he called for enslaving black people, your answer was to cite a couple of his blogs posts, and mention very specific parts of those posts. I went and read those specific parts of those posts, not the whole posts. I found that those parts did not support your argument. tptacek, on the other hand, told me that he could provide a citation for the claim, but that it would be complicated because Yarvin is an obscurantist. The impression I get from this and other comments of tptacek is that individual parts of Yarvin's writings have reasonable non-racists explanations (deliberately) so you have to look at the whole giant walls of text. tptacek has an excellent record of backing up claims with complete and accurate cites when requested, and from this and other comments he's made on the matter the impression I get is that if I were to ask for the details I'd end up with a big list of long articles that I'd have to read in their entirety to get the point. I don't want to read a bunch of giant walls of text on this subject, and it sounds like it would be a lot of work for him to produce it, so I didn't ask for it. > Maybe you should ask the other person in this thread who you trust implicitly if I'm wrong about this. I'm not saying you are wrong on this...I'm saying you've failed to show that you are right. I accepted tptacek's response not because of any implicit trust, but rather because he offered a good explanation for why he was not providing a list of citations unless I really wanted them. If you had said something like "Yarvin can write reasonable justifications for individual points, like he did in the AMA, but when you look at the writing as a whole a different picture emerges" and then linked to a few of his posts, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because as with tptacek I'd have decided I was not interested in going that deep.
- tptacek 11y ago
  To be clear: I think you can get a pretty good bead on where Yarvin is coming from just from his writing (you have to read it diligently though, and I agree it's not worth the trouble). But there are also very troubling eyewitness reports about things he's said in person that provide a pretty convenient shortcut to doing that.
tptacek 11y ago
You've gotta be careful about the Carlyle cite. I think he chose it carefully. There is a lot to Carlyle, not just odious racial theories and slavery apologia. If you try to associate Yarvin to defense of chattel slavery of African Americans through Carlyle, he'll dive into the weeds of the rest of Carlyle's work and take potshots at you from the bushes. Instead, you have to carefully unspool all the stuff Yarvin writes. It's not enough to observe him lovingly citing Carlyle; you have to note how he also cites him when the subject of race comes up, and you have to tie it back to things like his warm and generous citation of Nehemiah Adams --- a figure who, unlike Carlyle, is not very notable for anything other than providing a defense of slavery that sounds suspiciously compatible with everything else Yarvin says about social organization. And so on, and so forth. It's easy to see how two very smart people could get so tied up discussing this, especially when one of them ('tzs) is only casually acquainted with the work we're talking about.

tzs 11y ago

> The entire discussion was about how good Carlyle's work on slavery was. The entire subject matter is a defense of the use of slavery and in particular black people as slaves. Which he was defending and promoting, as he then directly said slavery was a natural human relationship. OK...so now it sounds like I need to read the entire wall of text to get the point? That illustrates a big difference between how you responded to me and how tptacek responded to me. After I said that I saw the AMA, and that Yarvin's discussion of suitability of various groups to slavery did not seem to indicate he called for enslaving black people, your answer was to cite a couple of his blogs posts, and mention very specific parts of those posts. I went and read those specific parts of those posts, not the whole posts. I found that those parts did not support your argument. tptacek, on the other hand, told me that he could provide a citation for the claim, but that it would be complicated because Yarvin is an obscurantist. The impression I get from this and other comments of tptacek is that individual parts of Yarvin's writings have reasonable non-racists explanations (deliberately) so you have to look at the whole giant walls of text. tptacek has an excellent record of backing up claims with complete and accurate cites when requested, and from this and other comments he's made on the matter the impression I get is that if I were to ask for the details I'd end up with a big list of long articles that I'd have to read in their entirety to get the point. I don't want to read a bunch of giant walls of text on this subject, and it sounds like it would be a lot of work for him to produce it, so I didn't ask for it. > Maybe you should ask the other person in this thread who you trust implicitly if I'm wrong about this. I'm not saying you are wrong on this...I'm saying you've failed to show that you are right. I accepted tptacek's response not because of any implicit trust, but rather because he offered a good explanation for why he was not providing a list of citations unless I really wanted them. If you had said something like "Yarvin can write reasonable justifications for individual points, like he did in the AMA, but when you look at the writing as a whole a different picture emerges" and then linked to a few of his posts, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because as with tptacek I'd have decided I was not interested in going that deep.

tptacek 11y ago
To be clear: I think you can get a pretty good bead on where Yarvin is coming from just from his writing (you have to read it diligently though, and I agree it's not worth the trouble). But there are also very troubling eyewitness reports about things he's said in person that provide a pretty convenient shortcut to doing that.

tptacek 11y ago

You've gotta be careful about the Carlyle cite. I think he chose it carefully. There is a lot to Carlyle, not just odious racial theories and slavery apologia. If you try to associate Yarvin to defense of chattel slavery of African Americans through Carlyle, he'll dive into the weeds of the rest of Carlyle's work and take potshots at you from the bushes. Instead, you have to carefully unspool all the stuff Yarvin writes. It's not enough to observe him lovingly citing Carlyle; you have to note how he also cites him when the subject of race comes up, and you have to tie it back to things like his warm and generous citation of Nehemiah Adams --- a figure who, unlike Carlyle, is not very notable for anything other than providing a defense of slavery that sounds suspiciously compatible with everything else Yarvin says about social organization. And so on, and so forth. It's easy to see how two very smart people could get so tied up discussing this, especially when one of them ('tzs) is only casually acquainted with the work we're talking about.