5 ms·

A speaker invited to that conference has posted racist and bigoted statements on his blog. Lambdaconf is (currently anyway) deciding to invite him to speak anyw

A speaker invited to that conference has posted racist and bigoted statements on his blog. Lambdaconf is (currently anyway) deciding to invite him to speak anyway, causing all kinds of chaos. That same person was once invited at another conference (QCon I think?) but was then uninvited after the organizers of that conference were made aware of that person's posts.

tome 11y ago
I think you're referring to Strange Loop, not QCon. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/curtis_yarvin_booted_from_strange_loop_it_s_a_big_big_problem.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/cur...
vox_mollis 11y ago
(QCon I think?) It was StrangeLoop, and the dis-invitation effort was spearheaded by Steve Klabnik and Bodil Stokke.
- jgalt212 11y ago
  Bodil Stokke has strong opinions like the ocean has water.
yummyfajitas 11y ago
It's also far from clear how "racist" the statements were - most of the people on twitter don't seem to have actually read Moldbug/Yarvin. Proponents of ostracizing Yarvin are notably unwilling to actually discuss why they believe it's racist. (I admit, I've not come anywhere near reading his entire work. He's longwinded and that's a big barrier.) The actual blog post that's criticized is here: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-car... My best summary of the controversial part of the blog that I can come up with is this: Suddenly we see the relationship between slavery and government. Serfdom and slavery can be described as microgovernment and nanogovernment respectively. In government proper, the normal human role of patron is filled by a giant, impersonal, and often accidentally sadistic bureaucracy...In serfdom, this role is filled by a noble house...In slavery, mastership is exercised by a mobile individual whose slaves go with him. We see these same relationship parameters emerging...This is a pretty good clue that this structure is one to which humans are biologically adapted. Nozick had a much shorter essay (Yarvin is not known for brevity) which expresses the same idea: http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/nozick_slave.html http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/no... The larger part of the essay is about creating order in society and Robert Carlyle's views on that. The specific quote which is interpreted as supporting slavery is this: Thus, Spaniards and Englishmen in the Americas in the 17th and earlier centuries, whose sense of political correctness was negligible, found that Africans tended to make good slaves and Indians did not. This broad pattern of observation is most parsimoniously explained by genetic differences. This is mostly tangential to his main points, however.
- infodroid 11y ago
  Curtis Yarvin was hosting an AMA on Reddit a few days ago. One participant Joram2 grilled him on this aspect of his writings. After some discussion, Joram2 was satisfied that there wasn't any racist intent there: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/d1da212 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...
- tunesmith 11y ago
  He's basically a very effective troll. It seems an actual technique in that community is to write turgidly about a bunch of provocative-but-plausibly-deniable points, and then leave out the therefores except for doing a rhetorical wink/nudge. It's exhausting.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Have you considered the possibility that maybe he actually believes the ideas he is promoting? I.e., rather than writing with the goal of trolling a bunch of people who only read his blog years later, maybe he was actually interested in the ideas he's writing about? Sometimes people write a lot about esoteric topics - my blog is a ton of statistics and code. Maybe Yarvin is just a nerd?
    - tunesmith 11y ago
      I'm more referring to his effect than his intent. Call it accidental trolling.
      - yummyfajitas 11y ago
        So after effort which you describe as "exhausting" you can find racism in Moldbug's writing that you acknowledge he may not have intended. Yep, he's definitely a villain of the worst sort.
        tunesmith 11y ago
Mizza 11y ago
> has posted racist and bigoted statements on his blog Still need a citation on this. LambdaConf's own review found this: He is quoted by white supremacists but denies being one; He has never written any hate speech or resorted to insulting or vulgar language (except as a literary device); He is not pro-slavery in the historical sense, but believes individuals have a right to voluntarily sell themselves into slavery; He believes that democracy is a failure (incompatible with “freedom”), and that white male software engineers are most qualified to run “government”. http://amar47shah.github.io/pages/lambdaconf-yarvin-call-for-feedback.html http://amar47shah.github.io/pages/lambdaconf-yarvin-call-for... Since then, it's just been a "me too" pile on, which is apparently the new par for the course.
- codygman 11y ago
  http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-car... Googling that blog for slave, race, etc gets you more.
  - Mizza 11y ago
    I'm not reading that whole thing. Got a choice sample? The only thing I can find is "Thus, Spaniards and Englishmen in the Americas in the 17th and earlier centuries, whose sense of political correctness was negligible, found that Africans tended to make good slaves and Indians did not. This broad pattern of observation is most parsimoniously explained by genetic differences." He's saying that, to colonists, Africans made better slaves, and that a part of that, though not all of that, could be explained by genetic differences. He's certainly not saying "we should enslave Africans", or even "Africans make better slaves". Without touching the statement itself, I don't see how that statement means that he's a white supremacist or a bigot. (Also, this was written in 2009.) [To me this seems like another witch hunt for smug social points as if it wasn't, somebody would have pointed out the actual problems of the statement, or that truth of modern white/western supremacy is that we all benefit from it, as many Africans are still essentially enslaved. What any of this has to do with speaking at a tech conference is beyond me.]

tome 11y ago

I think you're referring to Strange Loop, not QCon. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/curtis_yarvin_booted_from_strange_loop_it_s_a_big_big_problem.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/cur...

vox_mollis 11y ago

(QCon I think?) It was StrangeLoop, and the dis-invitation effort was spearheaded by Steve Klabnik and Bodil Stokke.

jgalt212 11y ago
Bodil Stokke has strong opinions like the ocean has water.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

It's also far from clear how "racist" the statements were - most of the people on twitter don't seem to have actually read Moldbug/Yarvin. Proponents of ostracizing Yarvin are notably unwilling to actually discuss why they believe it's racist. (I admit, I've not come anywhere near reading his entire work. He's longwinded and that's a big barrier.) The actual blog post that's criticized is here: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-car... My best summary of the controversial part of the blog that I can come up with is this: Suddenly we see the relationship between slavery and government. Serfdom and slavery can be described as microgovernment and nanogovernment respectively. In government proper, the normal human role of patron is filled by a giant, impersonal, and often accidentally sadistic bureaucracy...In serfdom, this role is filled by a noble house...In slavery, mastership is exercised by a mobile individual whose slaves go with him. We see these same relationship parameters emerging...This is a pretty good clue that this structure is one to which humans are biologically adapted. Nozick had a much shorter essay (Yarvin is not known for brevity) which expresses the same idea: http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/nozick_slave.html http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/no... The larger part of the essay is about creating order in society and Robert Carlyle's views on that. The specific quote which is interpreted as supporting slavery is this: Thus, Spaniards and Englishmen in the Americas in the 17th and earlier centuries, whose sense of political correctness was negligible, found that Africans tended to make good slaves and Indians did not. This broad pattern of observation is most parsimoniously explained by genetic differences. This is mostly tangential to his main points, however.

infodroid 11y ago
Curtis Yarvin was hosting an AMA on Reddit a few days ago. One participant Joram2 grilled him on this aspect of his writings. After some discussion, Joram2 was satisfied that there wasn't any racist intent there: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/d1da212 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...
tunesmith 11y ago
He's basically a very effective troll. It seems an actual technique in that community is to write turgidly about a bunch of provocative-but-plausibly-deniable points, and then leave out the therefores except for doing a rhetorical wink/nudge. It's exhausting.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Have you considered the possibility that maybe he actually believes the ideas he is promoting? I.e., rather than writing with the goal of trolling a bunch of people who only read his blog years later, maybe he was actually interested in the ideas he's writing about? Sometimes people write a lot about esoteric topics - my blog is a ton of statistics and code. Maybe Yarvin is just a nerd?
  - tunesmith 11y ago
    I'm more referring to his effect than his intent. Call it accidental trolling.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      So after effort which you describe as "exhausting" you can find racism in Moldbug's writing that you acknowledge he may not have intended. Yep, he's definitely a villain of the worst sort.
      - tunesmith 11y ago

Mizza 11y ago

> has posted racist and bigoted statements on his blog Still need a citation on this. LambdaConf's own review found this: He is quoted by white supremacists but denies being one; He has never written any hate speech or resorted to insulting or vulgar language (except as a literary device); He is not pro-slavery in the historical sense, but believes individuals have a right to voluntarily sell themselves into slavery; He believes that democracy is a failure (incompatible with “freedom”), and that white male software engineers are most qualified to run “government”. http://amar47shah.github.io/pages/lambdaconf-yarvin-call-for-feedback.html http://amar47shah.github.io/pages/lambdaconf-yarvin-call-for... Since then, it's just been a "me too" pile on, which is apparently the new par for the course.

codygman 11y ago
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-car... Googling that blog for slave, race, etc gets you more.
- Mizza 11y ago
  I'm not reading that whole thing. Got a choice sample? The only thing I can find is "Thus, Spaniards and Englishmen in the Americas in the 17th and earlier centuries, whose sense of political correctness was negligible, found that Africans tended to make good slaves and Indians did not. This broad pattern of observation is most parsimoniously explained by genetic differences." He's saying that, to colonists, Africans made better slaves, and that a part of that, though not all of that, could be explained by genetic differences. He's certainly not saying "we should enslave Africans", or even "Africans make better slaves". Without touching the statement itself, I don't see how that statement means that he's a white supremacist or a bigot. (Also, this was written in 2009.) [To me this seems like another witch hunt for smug social points as if it wasn't, somebody would have pointed out the actual problems of the statement, or that truth of modern white/western supremacy is that we all benefit from it, as many Africans are still essentially enslaved. What any of this has to do with speaking at a tech conference is beyond me.]