7 ms·

"Controversial" is the pinnacle of weasel words. How do you feel about his belief that some ethnic groups are genetically better slaves, and do you think that h

by zardgiv 10y ago

"Controversial" is the pinnacle of weasel words. How do you feel about his belief that some ethnic groups are genetically better slaves, and do you think that his views would make people from those ethnic groups feel welcome in your community?

mundo 10y ago
It would demonstrate a lot about the HN community if we could get through an entire Urbit post without it devolving in to yet another debate on Curtis Yarvin's (incredibly lengthy, vague and contradictory, and entirely irrelevant) views on race.
- kefka 10y ago
  Its the whole of collections of views he is public about. We talk a great deal of "Good Fit" and the like when working on projects with others, or working for someone. This is a case where he would work better with his own kind: racists, sexists, and bigots. Like attracts like.
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    You mean aside from the project under discussion? Why are his personal views even relevant here?
    - zorpner 10y ago
      Because they're so repugnant that they make reasonable people question why anyone would be willing to tolerate, let alone defend him. He's freely declared himself so reprehensible that it impairs his ability to lead any project because it will inevitably attract this type of discussion. If you'd prefer this not to be the case, please outline what restrictions on free speech you'd like emplaced so that people would not be able to discuss his views.
      - ZenoArrow 10y ago
        Stop with the ad hominem attacks and start posting something of substance. If you have examples of these 'repugnant' views then share them, I haven't seen anything that matches that description when read in context.
        JeremyBanks 10y ago
        I would benefit from this. I don't doubt that Curtis's views are probably offensive, but I haven't seen a clear description of them to conclude that for myself. I tried reading some of his writing, but it seemed so abstract and obfuscated that I gave up before understanding what he was trying to get across. I've seen one-sentence descriptions of his beliefs and they sound horrible, but I've also seen enough tweet-length mischaracterizations of others' beliefs to take those as accurate. Is there like an intermediate-level overview of Curtis's offensive beliefs, with a glossary and index? I'd be surprised if nobody's assembled one; it could make the ad hominems so much more effective.
        ineptech 10y ago
        The closest thing I know of is Scott Alexander's Reactionary Philosophy in an Enormous, Planet-Sized Nutshell [1]. It's more of an essay/argument than an impartial overview, but (besides being a good read by one of the smartest and most interesting bloggers on earth) I think it's the most even-handed, neutral and informative thing you're likely to read about Yarvin's beliefs. (NB - the article refers to Yarvin as "Mencius Moldbug", his nom de plume for political ranting) [1] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-in-an-enormous-planet-sized-nutshell/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-...
        JeremyBanks 10y ago
        Great! I love Scott Alexander's writing, so I'll definitely check this out. Thanks for the pointer.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
    - cwyers 10y ago
      Because there are a great fewer purely technical decisions in the world of software than some people around here seem to believe, and people's beliefs, worldviews, experiences and identities matter. They matter a lot. And to the extent that software is, as they say, "eating the world," the kinds of people who are writing software and the kinds of people that aren't has a profound impact on our society. If you look at Bitcoin and the blockchain as a purely technical achievement, it's marvelous and incredible, a testament to human ingenuity. The problem is that money is not a purely technical problem, and people involved in Bitcoin who ignore that open themselves to a whole lot of relearning, like when people who are given the ability to steal a whole lot of money end up stealing a whole lot of money, like at ShapeShift[1]. Banks have been dealing with these kinds of problems for decades (or, depending on how you look at it, hundreds if not thousands of years). But if you only concern yourself with the technical aspects of Bitcoin, not the social or political aspects, you can miss things that seem obvious with the benefit of hindsight. And the software that people creates has implications that range far beyond technical questions. A great example of how we can encode assumptions that come from our beliefs, our experiences, who we are and where we happened to be born into software without even realizing that we've done so is the fantastic essay "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names[2]." Reading that should be a real eye-opener about how, without intending to, programmers can end up writing software that is built for people Like Them and is unaccomodating to people who Aren't Like Them. Most of the talk about his personal views here are about his views on race. It shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone that the sort of people who are at Hacker News are likely more white than the rest of America, much less the world. As are a lot of the people writing software in use today. Sometimes that means that Google Photos categorizes someone's pictures of himself and his girlfriend as "gorillas"[3], which is the sort of error one imagines Google would be a lot less likely to make if they had more African-Americans working on their code and testing their software before release. Or machine learning algorithms that courts use to predict recidivism rates in determining sentencing have much higher false positive rates for African-Americans than whites.[4] And making this place more welcoming to Curtis Yarvin by focusing discussion on the technical merits of Urbit and ignoring his personal views is a signal to a lot of other people about what we as a community value and what we don't. And I think it's a bad signal, because it alienates people with valuable and important viewpoints that we ought to be finding ways to be more open to, not less. 1) https://news.bitcoin.com/looting-fox-sabotage-shapeshift/ https://news.bitcoin.com/looting-fox-sabotage-shapeshift/ 2) https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... 3) http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/1/8880363/google-apologizes-photos-app-tags-two-black-people-gorillas http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/1/8880363/google-apologizes-p... 4) https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm...
  - isthisracist 10y ago
    >racists, sexists, and bigots. Here we go, I've got no arguments of my own lets just throw out buzzwords because person A doesn't agree with my views. I guess this guy must be hitler
  - kaid 10y ago
    So you come here only to insult? or are you advocating thoughtcrime? nazi german and ussr and their thoughtcrime days had long gone, hope you aren't in any effort to bring them back.
- cwyers 10y ago
  It wouldn't demonstrate anything that would make it a community I want to be a part of, though.
TruthAndDare 10y ago
> his belief that some ethnic groups are genetically better slaves I'm curious, do you take that to speak well or ill about the ethnic groups in question?
- chriswait 10y ago
  It's a shame you were downvoted here, you're asking a pretty interesting question.
  - TruthAndDare 10y ago
    Yeah, I mean, being strong as an ox would mean both that your abilities are superior to those of others and that you would make for a useful slave.
5F36B5F62640 10y ago
The comments that I have seen from him on that topic (and it should be noted that I have only read a small part of his comments so this may not be representative of his thoughts on these matters) implied that those groups were better slaves because they were more resilient or stronger, so were able to better survive slavery than less resilient or weaker groups. I don't see why that would make people from those groups feel unwelcome. If anything I would expect people from the groups that he says were genetically not as good as slaves to be the ones who would feel unwelcome. The implication is that they are weaker or less resilient.
- zardgiv 10y ago
  Wait, so your argument is that only Native Americans would feel unwelcome in this community? Is this supposed to be in his favor? EDIT: For clarity
  - lhnz 10y ago
    > So your argument is that Native Americans should feel unwelcome in this community? You're putting words in 5F36B5F62640's mouth. And to be absolutely honest, anybody reading this can see that you're the one attempting to make people feel unwelcome in this community. Edit: The commenter has now upgraded his comment but the original with added emphasis is quoted above.
    - zardgiv 10y ago
      That was the example Moldbug used, claiming that Africans made genetically better slaves than Native Americans. 5F36B5F62640 contended that the groups that were not better slaves should feel unwelcome. This is just the basic logical implication of taking those two claims together. Rather than attacking me personally, is there something I missed or was incorrect about?
      - lhnz 10y ago
        You created a 'should' from a 'would', and therefore implied that 5F36B5F62640 had ill-feelings towards Indians. I'm not attacking you personally, nor am I speaking to you personally. I am just pointing out to anybody reading this, that you just tried to smear somebody. Of course, whether you did so on purpose is another matter.

by zardgiv 10y ago

mundo 10y ago

It would demonstrate a lot about the HN community if we could get through an entire Urbit post without it devolving in to yet another debate on Curtis Yarvin's (incredibly lengthy, vague and contradictory, and entirely irrelevant) views on race.

kefka 10y ago
Its the whole of collections of views he is public about. We talk a great deal of "Good Fit" and the like when working on projects with others, or working for someone. This is a case where he would work better with his own kind: racists, sexists, and bigots. Like attracts like.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  You mean aside from the project under discussion? Why are his personal views even relevant here?
  - zorpner 10y ago
    Because they're so repugnant that they make reasonable people question why anyone would be willing to tolerate, let alone defend him. He's freely declared himself so reprehensible that it impairs his ability to lead any project because it will inevitably attract this type of discussion. If you'd prefer this not to be the case, please outline what restrictions on free speech you'd like emplaced so that people would not be able to discuss his views.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      Stop with the ad hominem attacks and start posting something of substance. If you have examples of these 'repugnant' views then share them, I haven't seen anything that matches that description when read in context.
      - JeremyBanks 10y ago
        I would benefit from this. I don't doubt that Curtis's views are probably offensive, but I haven't seen a clear description of them to conclude that for myself. I tried reading some of his writing, but it seemed so abstract and obfuscated that I gave up before understanding what he was trying to get across. I've seen one-sentence descriptions of his beliefs and they sound horrible, but I've also seen enough tweet-length mischaracterizations of others' beliefs to take those as accurate. Is there like an intermediate-level overview of Curtis's offensive beliefs, with a glossary and index? I'd be surprised if nobody's assembled one; it could make the ad hominems so much more effective.
        ineptech 10y ago
        The closest thing I know of is Scott Alexander's Reactionary Philosophy in an Enormous, Planet-Sized Nutshell [1]. It's more of an essay/argument than an impartial overview, but (besides being a good read by one of the smartest and most interesting bloggers on earth) I think it's the most even-handed, neutral and informative thing you're likely to read about Yarvin's beliefs. (NB - the article refers to Yarvin as "Mencius Moldbug", his nom de plume for political ranting) [1] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-in-an-enormous-planet-sized-nutshell/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-...
        JeremyBanks 10y ago
        Great! I love Scott Alexander's writing, so I'll definitely check this out. Thanks for the pointer.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
  - cwyers 10y ago
    Because there are a great fewer purely technical decisions in the world of software than some people around here seem to believe, and people's beliefs, worldviews, experiences and identities matter. They matter a lot. And to the extent that software is, as they say, "eating the world," the kinds of people who are writing software and the kinds of people that aren't has a profound impact on our society. If you look at Bitcoin and the blockchain as a purely technical achievement, it's marvelous and incredible, a testament to human ingenuity. The problem is that money is not a purely technical problem, and people involved in Bitcoin who ignore that open themselves to a whole lot of relearning, like when people who are given the ability to steal a whole lot of money end up stealing a whole lot of money, like at ShapeShift[1]. Banks have been dealing with these kinds of problems for decades (or, depending on how you look at it, hundreds if not thousands of years). But if you only concern yourself with the technical aspects of Bitcoin, not the social or political aspects, you can miss things that seem obvious with the benefit of hindsight. And the software that people creates has implications that range far beyond technical questions. A great example of how we can encode assumptions that come from our beliefs, our experiences, who we are and where we happened to be born into software without even realizing that we've done so is the fantastic essay "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names[2]." Reading that should be a real eye-opener about how, without intending to, programmers can end up writing software that is built for people Like Them and is unaccomodating to people who Aren't Like Them. Most of the talk about his personal views here are about his views on race. It shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone that the sort of people who are at Hacker News are likely more white than the rest of America, much less the world. As are a lot of the people writing software in use today. Sometimes that means that Google Photos categorizes someone's pictures of himself and his girlfriend as "gorillas"[3], which is the sort of error one imagines Google would be a lot less likely to make if they had more African-Americans working on their code and testing their software before release. Or machine learning algorithms that courts use to predict recidivism rates in determining sentencing have much higher false positive rates for African-Americans than whites.[4] And making this place more welcoming to Curtis Yarvin by focusing discussion on the technical merits of Urbit and ignoring his personal views is a signal to a lot of other people about what we as a community value and what we don't. And I think it's a bad signal, because it alienates people with valuable and important viewpoints that we ought to be finding ways to be more open to, not less. 1) https://news.bitcoin.com/looting-fox-sabotage-shapeshift/ https://news.bitcoin.com/looting-fox-sabotage-shapeshift/ 2) https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... 3) http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/1/8880363/google-apologizes-photos-app-tags-two-black-people-gorillas http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/1/8880363/google-apologizes-p... 4) https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm...
- isthisracist 10y ago
  >racists, sexists, and bigots. Here we go, I've got no arguments of my own lets just throw out buzzwords because person A doesn't agree with my views. I guess this guy must be hitler
- kaid 10y ago
  So you come here only to insult? or are you advocating thoughtcrime? nazi german and ussr and their thoughtcrime days had long gone, hope you aren't in any effort to bring them back.
cwyers 10y ago
It wouldn't demonstrate anything that would make it a community I want to be a part of, though.

TruthAndDare 10y ago

> his belief that some ethnic groups are genetically better slaves I'm curious, do you take that to speak well or ill about the ethnic groups in question?

chriswait 10y ago
It's a shame you were downvoted here, you're asking a pretty interesting question.
- TruthAndDare 10y ago
  Yeah, I mean, being strong as an ox would mean both that your abilities are superior to those of others and that you would make for a useful slave.

5F36B5F62640 10y ago

The comments that I have seen from him on that topic (and it should be noted that I have only read a small part of his comments so this may not be representative of his thoughts on these matters) implied that those groups were better slaves because they were more resilient or stronger, so were able to better survive slavery than less resilient or weaker groups. I don't see why that would make people from those groups feel unwelcome. If anything I would expect people from the groups that he says were genetically not as good as slaves to be the ones who would feel unwelcome. The implication is that they are weaker or less resilient.

zardgiv 10y ago
Wait, so your argument is that only Native Americans would feel unwelcome in this community? Is this supposed to be in his favor? EDIT: For clarity
- lhnz 10y ago
  > So your argument is that Native Americans should feel unwelcome in this community? You're putting words in 5F36B5F62640's mouth. And to be absolutely honest, anybody reading this can see that you're the one attempting to make people feel unwelcome in this community. Edit: The commenter has now upgraded his comment but the original with added emphasis is quoted above.
  - zardgiv 10y ago
    That was the example Moldbug used, claiming that Africans made genetically better slaves than Native Americans. 5F36B5F62640 contended that the groups that were not better slaves should feel unwelcome. This is just the basic logical implication of taking those two claims together. Rather than attacking me personally, is there something I missed or was incorrect about?
    - lhnz 10y ago
      You created a 'should' from a 'would', and therefore implied that 5F36B5F62640 had ill-feelings towards Indians. I'm not attacking you personally, nor am I speaking to you personally. I am just pointing out to anybody reading this, that you just tried to smear somebody. Of course, whether you did so on purpose is another matter.