10 ms·

Of course, LambdaConf has every right to define its community in the way it sees fit. While their explanation does have a lot of logical appeal (see: https://w

by lukev 11y ago

Of course, LambdaConf has every right to define its community in the way it sees fit. While their explanation does have a lot of logical appeal (see: https://www.facebook.com/notes/satnam-singh/dr-spock-vs-diversity/10154092724913630 https://www.facebook.com/notes/satnam-singh/dr-spock-vs-dive...), it's important to remember that prospective attendees and speakers also have the right of free association. The fact is, I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. I would encourage others to make the same decision. I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. They are human beings and deserve all the rights and privileges thereof. But I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them, pretending nothing is wrong. This isn't a free speech issue, this is a "who do you want in your community" issue. In the light of a community, you can't, and you shouldn't, pull one aspect of a person's character and isolate it from the rest of their identity. I hope people give me the same treatment. I am more than the content of my technical talks, and so is Yarvin.

tomp 11y ago
> In the light of a community, you can't, and you shouldn't, pull one aspect of a person's character and isolate it from the rest of their identity. Isn't this exactly what you're doing?
- exolymph 11y ago
  I think the parent comment is referring to how people have tried to argue that Yarvin will be able to sequester one part of his personality and creative output, and that the rest of us should pretend his Moldbug persona doesn't affect the rest of him.
- lukev 11y ago
  Not at all! I can disassociate myself from Yarvin, and even "no-platform" him while fully acknowledging that he's a legit functional programmer with interesting technical ideas. But I can't engage with him as a peer, in community, without denying or ignoring (or accepting) that he's a racist.
  - antifasci 11y ago
    It seems to me that a truly 'healthy' community would not draw it's boundaries so tightly. If I were building a community I'd want it to be one that welcomed even those with views I found despicable so long as they could engage in thoughtful, reasonable discourse. A community should allow for people to be wrong, and still be welcome. Having near zero interest in Curtis' political writing his recent AMA [0] and Medium post [1] come off as earnest and harmless. 0 - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv... 1 - https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lambdaconf-anyway-35ff8cd4fb9d#.29ttu63e2 https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lam...
base698 11y ago
I know this isn't the popular opinion in the modern world, but originally free speech was argued to be better than censorship, because even though negative or false ideas are present, these bad ideas can illuminate the truth. Free speech creates a sort of natural selection of ideas--keeping the herd of ideas stronger.
- fao_ 11y ago
  But in no case was the right of speech lost, merely the right of audience, or rather, of publicity.
  - base698 11y ago
    "Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself."
wtbob 11y ago
> I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. > I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. > But I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them, pretending nothing is wrong. Is a conference 'drinking beer and breaking bread,' or is it an appropriate forum to 'discuss or debate ideas'?
- douche 11y ago
  That's sort of the question of whether conferences are training and professional development, or thinly veiled junkets...
  - SolarNet 11y ago
    I think it's (intended to be) closer to the first, basically like an academic forum.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  I would posit that it is "drinking beer and breaking bread", or otherwise spending time with, and getting to know others in the profession. I would also argue that a programming conference is not the appropriate forum to discuss or debate ideas related to racism, sexism, etc.
apsec112 11y ago
"But consider the following: I am a pro-choice atheist. When I lived in Ireland, one of my friends was a pro-life Christian. I thought she was responsible for the unnecessary suffering of millions of women. She thought I was responsible for killing millions of babies. And yet she invited me over to her house for dinner without poisoning the food. And I ate it, and thanked her, and sent her a nice card, without smashing all her china. Please try not to be insufficiently surprised by this. Every time a Republican and a Democrat break bread together with good will, it is a miracle. It is an equilibrium as beneficial as civilization or liberalism, which developed in the total absence of any central enforcing authority." - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-community-and-civilization/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-co...
- phillmv 11y ago
  Thought experiment: Is there no set of personal views sufficiently abhorrent to dissuade you from associating with a given person?
  - apsec112 11y ago
    "Cooperation is unstable, in both game theory and evolutionary biology, without some kind of punishment for defection. So it's one thing to subtract points off someone's reputation for mistakes they make themselves, directly. But if you also look askance at someone for refusing to castigate a person or idea, then that is punishment of non-punishers, a far more dangerous idiom that can lock an equilibrium in place even if it's harmful to everyone involved." - http://lesswrong.com/lw/42/tolerate_tolerance/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/42/tolerate_tolerance/
    - zardgiv 11y ago
      Quoting a big old paragraph from someone else without providing any of your own content is just lazy.
  - sparky_z 11y ago
    As long as they don't act on their views (except to write essays explaining and discussing them), then no. If they were rude to me or to others (in a personal way), then I would not want to associate with them, but that's true of anybody regardless of their views.
forrestthewoods 11y ago
Listening to a technical talk at a technical conference qualifies as drinking beer and breaking bread? I dunno about that. I've always felt that professional adults should be able to work with people who think different things that them. If you work in an office with 50+ people I guarantee you have coworkers who think horrible terrible things that you passionately disagree with. But that's ok. Because we're all professionals and those naughty thoughts aren't relevant and aren't brought up.
- Swizec 11y ago
  Exactly this. In 2012 there were 747,408 sex offenders in the US. The population was 314,100,000. This means 0.2% of the population are sex offenders. So, ignoring clustering, if you work for a company with 500 people, then 1 of your coworkers is a sex offender. For instance if you work for Facebook, 25 of your coworkers are sex offenders. How can you live with that? Should you quit on moral grounds because you can't work with sex offenders? For a less extreme example. 44% of americans are "pro-life". How big of a company do you need to overcome clustering effects and have a coworker that believes the opposite of what you do? 10? 50?
platz 11y ago
> I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them Degoes is not making an argument that you are obligated to attend.
HCIdivision17 11y ago
I respectfully note that their conclusion is the opposite: that you can separate the person from the talk. That an informative talk well spoken by an asshole is still informative. And, well, the speaker may still be a jerk. But the conference wants to have an air of professionalism, and therefore you should go to be informed, not as a vote in a popularity contest of any kind. They also seem to have a strong intolerance of the practice of assholery. So should anyone overstep, it sure seems like retribution will be swift. So if people behave, then there should be no worry: people are expected to behave. And if anyone bullies - in any way - expect moderation with extreme predjudice (that is a great phrase in English). There may be many closet assholes out there, but we don't bar them, since we expect people to behave by default. Expect the best of people and prepare to be temporarily impressed or disappointed.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  One could say that, by letting a known asshole speak, they are not showing a strong intolerance of the practice of assholery.
  - HCIdivision17 11y ago
    In a similar way, letting a known something person speak means they're not intolerant of something. I mean, yeah, you could make that argument, but it sure doesn't seem substantial or useful. That's the point of Xyism at the end: it doesn't have much to do with functional programming , and functional programming is what the conference is explicitly about. And there is an explicit threat against assholery: perform it and you'll be excluded. Don't and you'll have the same protection any other person has. It is implicitly not about a very large range of things, namely mostly stuff that isn't functional programming.
    - st3v3r 11y ago
      "And there is an explicit threat against assholery: perform it and you'll be excluded" Yet, this guy has performed it. And he's not being excluded.
  - 11y ago
mikeash 11y ago
I've followed this saga with much confusion and I wonder if you could explain why you'd avoid a conference with a speaker like this. For me, if I'm evaluating a conference speaker, all I care about is: 1. Is the topic useful or interesting? 2. Is the speaker well informed and the content correct? 3. Does the speaker present the material well? I couldn't care less about them otherwise, and especially not their political views. For most conference speakers, I couldn't tell you anything about their political views, because it's just not relevant. What's your reasoning for including that aspect of a speaker when evaluating the conference? I also wonder, if we take it as a given that political views are important, do you vet all conference speakers' views before you attend a conference? Or do you have faith that the community will root out views you find unacceptable?
- dmix 11y ago
  Indeed, nowhere in a tech conference have I ever been forced to drink beer or converse with anyone I didn't want to. These communities are large enough where you don't have to directly engage with all people or even attend every single talk. Find your own subgroups within the larger community who you want to spend time with, avoid the rest. Pretty easy. I do this with at tech meetups all the time by avoiding business/PR people. And I probably disagree with the politics of at least 90% of people at any of these conferences to varying degrees. What matters is there are people there you want to learn from (about the topic at hand) and spend time with.
- jasonwatkinspdx 11y ago
  That's great for you, but you don't dictate whether people who see things differently have valid views or not. Consider that what is "relevant" in your experience depends heavily on what kind of bullshit society throws your direction on a daily basis. It's easy to not see a problem here if you're not the group Yarvin advocates subjugating. If you are part of that group or empathize with it, things obviously looks a bit different.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    > That's great for you, but you don't dictate whether people who see things differently have valid views or not. Why do you say this? Did I say something that indicated otherwise? I'm just here asking why a person thinks the way they do, and giving my own thoughts so they have something to compare with. To come in and act like I'm trying to impose my views, and imply that my views are invalid because I'm not the target of oppression in this instance, is pretty bizarre.
skybrian 11y ago
There's obviously a continuum here based on community size. On one end, there are large communities. He has accounts on Twitter and Hacker News. Are you going to stop visiting? Would you avoid a shopping mall if he's there? Avoid sitting in the same movie theater? On the other end, it's certainly reasonable to decline a dinner invitation if you don't like one of the other guests. A conference seems like a larger and more impersonal gathering. You don't have to go to the talk, but you could go to other talks.
e12e 11y ago
After some quick speed-reading on Yarvin's blog, I came across this tasteless drivel on terrorism: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.no/2011/07/right-wing-terrorism-as-folk-activism.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.no/2011/07/right-wi... Even if one takes it to be "just" trolling, I find it in bad taste -- and if one takes it at face value, it's the sort of statements that would make it hard for me to attend an event with him in attendance. I consider myself to have a thick skin, and I generally don't care if nutjobs moan on about violence etc - except for the fact that ABB posted this kind of drivel himself, and based a lot of his mindset around it. So blogs of this kind is part of creating the nutjobs that go out and kill people. Any amount of smug moral relativism isn't going to make me say that I think stuff like this is ok. All that said, I do support LamdaConf's decision in this case: They set out to do blind submissions, and stayed with that. They've now realized that the idea of a pure meritocracy is indeed a parody, not a real thing -- so they'll end up with a speaker selection process that is "overtly" political (even if they claim the opposite). This is of course inevitable, as no-one gets to "opt out" of politics: the "none statement" is a statement in itself (although not always a statement for the status quo). I agree that there seems to be areas where "political correctness" has become a form of normative straight-jacket -- the same kind of conservative tendency that fuels bigotry. And I say that as a feminist and a communist/anarchist, and someone that is a strong believer in affirmative action. Ironically perhaps, I think this is a decision Yarvin would agree on.
mcphage 11y ago
> The fact is, I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. I would encourage others to make the same decision. I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. They are human beings and deserve all the rights and privileges thereof. That's fine. If they left it at, "I don't want to go to this conference anymore", then fewer people would have an issue here. I certainly wouldn't care enough to get involved either way. It's the next step of, "...and therefore the conference should be killed off" that I have a problem with.
tomp 11y ago
> I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. They didn't deliberately include him. They just didn't exclude him. They actually deserve the adjective "inclusive". Personally, I too would encourage as many people as possible to exclude themselves, in particular due to their intolerance.

by lukev 11y ago

tomp 11y ago

> In the light of a community, you can't, and you shouldn't, pull one aspect of a person's character and isolate it from the rest of their identity. Isn't this exactly what you're doing?

exolymph 11y ago
I think the parent comment is referring to how people have tried to argue that Yarvin will be able to sequester one part of his personality and creative output, and that the rest of us should pretend his Moldbug persona doesn't affect the rest of him.
lukev 11y ago
Not at all! I can disassociate myself from Yarvin, and even "no-platform" him while fully acknowledging that he's a legit functional programmer with interesting technical ideas. But I can't engage with him as a peer, in community, without denying or ignoring (or accepting) that he's a racist.
- antifasci 11y ago
  It seems to me that a truly 'healthy' community would not draw it's boundaries so tightly. If I were building a community I'd want it to be one that welcomed even those with views I found despicable so long as they could engage in thoughtful, reasonable discourse. A community should allow for people to be wrong, and still be welcome. Having near zero interest in Curtis' political writing his recent AMA [0] and Medium post [1] come off as earnest and harmless. 0 - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv... 1 - https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lambdaconf-anyway-35ff8cd4fb9d#.29ttu63e2 https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lam...

base698 11y ago

I know this isn't the popular opinion in the modern world, but originally free speech was argued to be better than censorship, because even though negative or false ideas are present, these bad ideas can illuminate the truth. Free speech creates a sort of natural selection of ideas--keeping the herd of ideas stronger.

fao_ 11y ago
But in no case was the right of speech lost, merely the right of audience, or rather, of publicity.
- base698 11y ago
  "Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself."

wtbob 11y ago

> I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. > I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. > But I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them, pretending nothing is wrong. Is a conference 'drinking beer and breaking bread,' or is it an appropriate forum to 'discuss or debate ideas'?

douche 11y ago
That's sort of the question of whether conferences are training and professional development, or thinly veiled junkets...
- SolarNet 11y ago
  I think it's (intended to be) closer to the first, basically like an academic forum.
st3v3r 11y ago
I would posit that it is "drinking beer and breaking bread", or otherwise spending time with, and getting to know others in the profession. I would also argue that a programming conference is not the appropriate forum to discuss or debate ideas related to racism, sexism, etc.

apsec112 11y ago

"But consider the following: I am a pro-choice atheist. When I lived in Ireland, one of my friends was a pro-life Christian. I thought she was responsible for the unnecessary suffering of millions of women. She thought I was responsible for killing millions of babies. And yet she invited me over to her house for dinner without poisoning the food. And I ate it, and thanked her, and sent her a nice card, without smashing all her china. Please try not to be insufficiently surprised by this. Every time a Republican and a Democrat break bread together with good will, it is a miracle. It is an equilibrium as beneficial as civilization or liberalism, which developed in the total absence of any central enforcing authority." - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-community-and-civilization/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-co...

phillmv 11y ago
Thought experiment: Is there no set of personal views sufficiently abhorrent to dissuade you from associating with a given person?
- apsec112 11y ago
  "Cooperation is unstable, in both game theory and evolutionary biology, without some kind of punishment for defection. So it's one thing to subtract points off someone's reputation for mistakes they make themselves, directly. But if you also look askance at someone for refusing to castigate a person or idea, then that is punishment of non-punishers, a far more dangerous idiom that can lock an equilibrium in place even if it's harmful to everyone involved." - http://lesswrong.com/lw/42/tolerate_tolerance/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/42/tolerate_tolerance/
  - zardgiv 11y ago
    Quoting a big old paragraph from someone else without providing any of your own content is just lazy.
- sparky_z 11y ago
  As long as they don't act on their views (except to write essays explaining and discussing them), then no. If they were rude to me or to others (in a personal way), then I would not want to associate with them, but that's true of anybody regardless of their views.

forrestthewoods 11y ago

Listening to a technical talk at a technical conference qualifies as drinking beer and breaking bread? I dunno about that. I've always felt that professional adults should be able to work with people who think different things that them. If you work in an office with 50+ people I guarantee you have coworkers who think horrible terrible things that you passionately disagree with. But that's ok. Because we're all professionals and those naughty thoughts aren't relevant and aren't brought up.

Swizec 11y ago
Exactly this. In 2012 there were 747,408 sex offenders in the US. The population was 314,100,000. This means 0.2% of the population are sex offenders. So, ignoring clustering, if you work for a company with 500 people, then 1 of your coworkers is a sex offender. For instance if you work for Facebook, 25 of your coworkers are sex offenders. How can you live with that? Should you quit on moral grounds because you can't work with sex offenders? For a less extreme example. 44% of americans are "pro-life". How big of a company do you need to overcome clustering effects and have a coworker that believes the opposite of what you do? 10? 50?

platz 11y ago

> I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them Degoes is not making an argument that you are obligated to attend.

HCIdivision17 11y ago

I respectfully note that their conclusion is the opposite: that you can separate the person from the talk. That an informative talk well spoken by an asshole is still informative. And, well, the speaker may still be a jerk. But the conference wants to have an air of professionalism, and therefore you should go to be informed, not as a vote in a popularity contest of any kind. They also seem to have a strong intolerance of the practice of assholery. So should anyone overstep, it sure seems like retribution will be swift. So if people behave, then there should be no worry: people are expected to behave. And if anyone bullies - in any way - expect moderation with extreme predjudice (that is a great phrase in English). There may be many closet assholes out there, but we don't bar them, since we expect people to behave by default. Expect the best of people and prepare to be temporarily impressed or disappointed.

st3v3r 11y ago
One could say that, by letting a known asshole speak, they are not showing a strong intolerance of the practice of assholery.
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  In a similar way, letting a known something person speak means they're not intolerant of something. I mean, yeah, you could make that argument, but it sure doesn't seem substantial or useful. That's the point of Xyism at the end: it doesn't have much to do with functional programming , and functional programming is what the conference is explicitly about. And there is an explicit threat against assholery: perform it and you'll be excluded. Don't and you'll have the same protection any other person has. It is implicitly not about a very large range of things, namely mostly stuff that isn't functional programming.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    "And there is an explicit threat against assholery: perform it and you'll be excluded" Yet, this guy has performed it. And he's not being excluded.
- 11y ago

mikeash 11y ago

I've followed this saga with much confusion and I wonder if you could explain why you'd avoid a conference with a speaker like this. For me, if I'm evaluating a conference speaker, all I care about is: 1. Is the topic useful or interesting? 2. Is the speaker well informed and the content correct? 3. Does the speaker present the material well? I couldn't care less about them otherwise, and especially not their political views. For most conference speakers, I couldn't tell you anything about their political views, because it's just not relevant. What's your reasoning for including that aspect of a speaker when evaluating the conference? I also wonder, if we take it as a given that political views are important, do you vet all conference speakers' views before you attend a conference? Or do you have faith that the community will root out views you find unacceptable?

dmix 11y ago
Indeed, nowhere in a tech conference have I ever been forced to drink beer or converse with anyone I didn't want to. These communities are large enough where you don't have to directly engage with all people or even attend every single talk. Find your own subgroups within the larger community who you want to spend time with, avoid the rest. Pretty easy. I do this with at tech meetups all the time by avoiding business/PR people. And I probably disagree with the politics of at least 90% of people at any of these conferences to varying degrees. What matters is there are people there you want to learn from (about the topic at hand) and spend time with.
jasonwatkinspdx 11y ago
That's great for you, but you don't dictate whether people who see things differently have valid views or not. Consider that what is "relevant" in your experience depends heavily on what kind of bullshit society throws your direction on a daily basis. It's easy to not see a problem here if you're not the group Yarvin advocates subjugating. If you are part of that group or empathize with it, things obviously looks a bit different.
- mikeash 11y ago
  > That's great for you, but you don't dictate whether people who see things differently have valid views or not. Why do you say this? Did I say something that indicated otherwise? I'm just here asking why a person thinks the way they do, and giving my own thoughts so they have something to compare with. To come in and act like I'm trying to impose my views, and imply that my views are invalid because I'm not the target of oppression in this instance, is pretty bizarre.

skybrian 11y ago

There's obviously a continuum here based on community size. On one end, there are large communities. He has accounts on Twitter and Hacker News. Are you going to stop visiting? Would you avoid a shopping mall if he's there? Avoid sitting in the same movie theater? On the other end, it's certainly reasonable to decline a dinner invitation if you don't like one of the other guests. A conference seems like a larger and more impersonal gathering. You don't have to go to the talk, but you could go to other talks.

e12e 11y ago

After some quick speed-reading on Yarvin's blog, I came across this tasteless drivel on terrorism: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.no/2011/07/right-wing-terrorism-as-folk-activism.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.no/2011/07/right-wi... Even if one takes it to be "just" trolling, I find it in bad taste -- and if one takes it at face value, it's the sort of statements that would make it hard for me to attend an event with him in attendance. I consider myself to have a thick skin, and I generally don't care if nutjobs moan on about violence etc - except for the fact that ABB posted this kind of drivel himself, and based a lot of his mindset around it. So blogs of this kind is part of creating the nutjobs that go out and kill people. Any amount of smug moral relativism isn't going to make me say that I think stuff like this is ok. All that said, I do support LamdaConf's decision in this case: They set out to do blind submissions, and stayed with that. They've now realized that the idea of a pure meritocracy is indeed a parody, not a real thing -- so they'll end up with a speaker selection process that is "overtly" political (even if they claim the opposite). This is of course inevitable, as no-one gets to "opt out" of politics: the "none statement" is a statement in itself (although not always a statement for the status quo). I agree that there seems to be areas where "political correctness" has become a form of normative straight-jacket -- the same kind of conservative tendency that fuels bigotry. And I say that as a feminist and a communist/anarchist, and someone that is a strong believer in affirmative action. Ironically perhaps, I think this is a decision Yarvin would agree on.

mcphage 11y ago

> The fact is, I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. I would encourage others to make the same decision. I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic, in any forum where it makes sense to do so. They are human beings and deserve all the rights and privileges thereof. That's fine. If they left it at, "I don't want to go to this conference anymore", then fewer people would have an issue here. I certainly wouldn't care enough to get involved either way. It's the next step of, "...and therefore the conference should be killed off" that I have a problem with.

tomp 11y ago

> I do wish to exclude myself from any community that deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. They didn't deliberately include him. They just didn't exclude him. They actually deserve the adjective "inclusive". Personally, I too would encourage as many people as possible to exclude themselves, in particular due to their intolerance.