7 ms·

Kicking people from your tech conference because they were racist outside of it hands veto power to whoever determines what racism is and when something is 'too

Kicking people from your tech conference because they were racist outside of it hands veto power to whoever determines what racism is and when something is 'too racist'. The same goes for the other beyond-the-pale isms like sexism, fascism, etc. I commented on a flagged post on why this is an issue for me personally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9674958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9674958

braythwayt 11y ago
If I am the CEO of a company, and I listen to people before making my own decision, am I “handing them veto power?” I think this is Alex Miller’s decision.
- paxdickinson 11y ago
  It'll be his decision next time too. And now that the Red Guards know he'll succumb to even the slightest bit of pressure, there will certainly be a next time.
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    I don’t know that we can use words like “succumb.” It’s always that way when you have a strong opinion about a particular matter. For example, we can praise Obama for listening to scientists on certain matters, than complain he is caving under lobbying pressure on others. In the end, I prefer to say that it is Alex’s decision. He didn’t crumble, succumb, get browbeaten, or anything else. He decided, and that means you can hang the responsibility around his neck. People who can’t decide shouldn’t run things, it’s that simple.
    - paxdickinson 11y ago
      If you'd ever personally faced the wrath of the social justice left, you would probably agree that "succumb" is a highly appropriate word for it.
      - braythwayt 11y ago
        I’m loathe to personalize this discussion with a comparison of your anecdotal experiences and mine. And to be honest, once we start bandying about hot-button phrases like “the social justice left,” I have a feeling that we’re on a slippery slope towards ayn rand and men’s rights. So I’ll just step off here.
    - PopeOfNope 11y ago
      > He didn’t crumble, succumb, get browbeaten, or anything else. How can you possibly know that? People have lost their jobs and have been forced out of their own companies for less than allowing somebody who other people might consider "racist", "sexist" or "homophobic" to talk at their conference. You can't be aware that these things have happened to other people and say that it doesn't influence the decision. Once it was brought to his attention, the decision Alex faced was either let Curtis go on and eventually be forced out of his own conference or disinvite him and strengthen the atmosphere of political compliance. I think he made the right short term choice for him, which is all you can realistically expect people to do, but in the long term allowing this sort of thing to persist will come and bite him in the ass. The longer this goes on, the more radical you need to be to not become victim to the political correctness mob. In the end, if you're a straight white male, you will fall prey to it because you're not a protected class. You can see this playing out in video games, movies and SF&F publishing right now. Joss Whedon and Wil Wheaton especially are vocal feminists who have taken a beating by feminists because their views aren't extreme enough.
      - braythwayt 11y ago
        TL;DR: “Our way of life is under attack by all those mobs of non-straight, non-white, non-males.”
        PopeOfNope 11y ago
        Look at the people making the accusations. They're all straight, white men. Socialists are typically upper middle class straight white men. Nice try painting me as racist, sexist or homophobic, though. Look at the twitter hashtag #notyourshield. The PC hatemob isn't liked by women, people of color or LGBT. They tend to dislike straight, white men telling them what it's like to be black, female or gay.
        braythwayt 11y ago
        I have a real problem with your telling me what people of colour like and don’t like. Last time I checked, you don’t speak for me either. And the entire premise of your world-view is broken. When you frame these white liberals as “speaking for” people of colour or speaking for women, or speaking for LGBT people, you are presuming that racism, sexism, and homophobia are strictly issues for people of colour, women, and LGBT people. And therefore, if someone who isn’t one of these people speaks out against it, they must be some kind of paternal mansplaining social justice warrior. In reality, some such people exist, but so do people who are egalitarian, and feel that racism, sexism, and homophobia are simply wrong. They aren’t speaking for anyone but themselves, and that is why you get some people pointing that out. But just because they don’t speak for me, for example, doesn’t invalidate that they speak truth to power. As long as they don’t claim to speak for me, thats fine. Unlike you, who tried to suggest what people of colour think without qualifying your statement by admitting that you want to present some cherry-picked examples that suit your cause. Painting people who speak out as a “PC Hatemob” really speaks to the fact that you relish taking an extremist position. So given that you are way out in batshit-crazy tinfoil-hat land, what’s in it for me to talk to you? I doubt that anyone reading our respective words is going to be swayed from whatever position they already held. People who agree with you will mindlessly upvote you for saying what Fox News has been saying for years. Nothing you have said really provokes any kind of “hmmm...” from me. It’s like talking to a well-written Markov Chain that was trained on a corpus of GamerGate tweets.
- topynate 11y ago
  A realist view looks at the various players and makes an informed judgment of what their power is. Alex Miller indisputably has final say on who attends the conference. That doesn't make him a dictator. If he doesn't follow people like Steve Klabnik and Alex Payne on stuff like this, the personal and business consequences to him will be immense. As his statement says, he hasn't read Yarvin's political writings. Nevertheless it took him only a few hours to decide that it would not be possible to have Yarvin present. Is that not strong evidence that Miller felt his options were limited?
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    That’s how it is for dictators, too. They look at the world and make decisions designed to to optimize for the outcomes the desire, without compromising their values. Let’s say that people on HN decide that they don’t want to attend any conference that has a Code of Conduct, because that interferes with their “right to free speech.” If a conference organizer decides that HN is enough of a market that they tear up their CoC, that’s their decision. We don’t say that somehow, they have less free will because of the actions of HN. Their options aren’t limited. They chose to do something that involved HN. If Alex doesn’t like this kind of controversy, Alex can stop running conferences. Sure there are actions by all sorts of players in a complex world, but the buck for every decision stops somewhere, and in this case, it stops with Alex.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ncallaway 11y ago
> it hands veto power to whoever determines what racism is and when something is 'too racist' This sounds like the function of the free marketplace of ideas. One is allowed to espouse any ideology that you wish. However, other people are allowed to respond with their own speech. They can call the idea racist if they want. They can take away speaking platforms if they want. Whether a statement is "racist" is a determination made by the current social taboos and mores of a society. I think there are a lot of terrible ideologies out there, and I like that we don't have to give them equal platforms. The free marketplace of ideas means we don't have to "teach the controversy" and give both sides "equal opportunity for debate". Which is great. There are plenty of people who's methods and ideas I so disagree with that I don't think it's worth my time to listen to them (neo-nazis, members of the Westboro Baptist Church).
- twoodfin 11y ago
  But what does any of that have to do with a talk on urbit?
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Similarly, if Jessitron (singling her out solely because she wrote a really good blog post today [1]) wants to talk about microservices in clojure, and folks want to keep her out because of her views on women in technology, you are ok with that also? Let me also emphasize that no one disputes that strangeloop has the legal right to do this. The discussion is simply over whether the strangeloop organizers are a bunch of anti-intellectuals who deserve to be in the spotlight for their decisions. [1] http://blog.jessitron.com/2015/06/ultratestable-coding-style.html http://blog.jessitron.com/2015/06/ultratestable-coding-style...
  - ncallaway 11y ago
    Again, a disclaimer: I know pretty much nothing about this specific instance except the linked article. I don't know the candidate speaker, their political views, or anything of that nature. No examples in this comment are meant to be reflective of this specific situation. > "wants to talk about microservices in clojure, and folks want to keep her out because of her views on women in technology" For me, it comes down to how they express their opinions in the public sphere. This matters a lot. If someone develops a persona known for lobbing rhetorical grenades, making ad hominem attacks, or is unnecessarily mean or negative, then I don't have a problem holding them out of a conference — even if I agree with their viewpoints. If they, on the other hand tend to behave in a reasonable way, and are capable of having calm and rational debates, then I would want to see them included in the conference — even if I disagree with their viewpoints.
pep888 11y ago
No, it is not. That is flatly untrue nonsense. It is always SL's decision, that they are making with feedback It saddens me that you're making this obviously fallacious argument, because your reasoning is so transparent. You're a Zionist, who has sworn allegience to a genocidal government. As a supporter of genocide, you are concerned that someday you'll face consequences for your decision to materially support mass murder. So, you're trying to criminalize, and shame the idea that anything is ever wrong... because some part of you knows that what you're doing is one of the worst things in all of human history. That's also why you make up phrases like 'Progressive Except Palestine', to attack those who oppose the genocide that you so love.
- paxdickinson 11y ago
  This guy sounds like he would be happy to see anti-Zionism as a litmus test for conference speakers. Is that the kind of tech industry you want? Should speakers at technical conferences have all their political opinions pre-vetted for approval by a panel of progressives?
  - PopeOfNope 11y ago
    Aren't we already there, though? This is one of the reasons I left Silicon Valley three years ago. My personal opinions would get me called racist, sexist and homophobic by Marxist standards and I was exhausted by the political mask I had to assume just to find and keep work. Luckily, SV isn't as large a percentage of the tech industry as it likes to think. It's just over represented on tech news sites.
    - ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
      So, you have to be a Marxist to be offended by homophobia? Or are redefining Marxist as "someone who gets offended by non 'politically correct' speech"?
- topynate 11y ago
  Much as I dislike entering into this sort of (highly off-topic) conversation, it needs pointing out that "Progressive Except Palestine" was coined by people who agree with you. Just search for it and see what comes up.

braythwayt 11y ago

If I am the CEO of a company, and I listen to people before making my own decision, am I “handing them veto power?” I think this is Alex Miller’s decision.

paxdickinson 11y ago
It'll be his decision next time too. And now that the Red Guards know he'll succumb to even the slightest bit of pressure, there will certainly be a next time.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  I don’t know that we can use words like “succumb.” It’s always that way when you have a strong opinion about a particular matter. For example, we can praise Obama for listening to scientists on certain matters, than complain he is caving under lobbying pressure on others. In the end, I prefer to say that it is Alex’s decision. He didn’t crumble, succumb, get browbeaten, or anything else. He decided, and that means you can hang the responsibility around his neck. People who can’t decide shouldn’t run things, it’s that simple.
  - paxdickinson 11y ago
    If you'd ever personally faced the wrath of the social justice left, you would probably agree that "succumb" is a highly appropriate word for it.
    - braythwayt 11y ago
      I’m loathe to personalize this discussion with a comparison of your anecdotal experiences and mine. And to be honest, once we start bandying about hot-button phrases like “the social justice left,” I have a feeling that we’re on a slippery slope towards ayn rand and men’s rights. So I’ll just step off here.
  - PopeOfNope 11y ago
    > He didn’t crumble, succumb, get browbeaten, or anything else. How can you possibly know that? People have lost their jobs and have been forced out of their own companies for less than allowing somebody who other people might consider "racist", "sexist" or "homophobic" to talk at their conference. You can't be aware that these things have happened to other people and say that it doesn't influence the decision. Once it was brought to his attention, the decision Alex faced was either let Curtis go on and eventually be forced out of his own conference or disinvite him and strengthen the atmosphere of political compliance. I think he made the right short term choice for him, which is all you can realistically expect people to do, but in the long term allowing this sort of thing to persist will come and bite him in the ass. The longer this goes on, the more radical you need to be to not become victim to the political correctness mob. In the end, if you're a straight white male, you will fall prey to it because you're not a protected class. You can see this playing out in video games, movies and SF&F publishing right now. Joss Whedon and Wil Wheaton especially are vocal feminists who have taken a beating by feminists because their views aren't extreme enough.
    - braythwayt 11y ago
      TL;DR: “Our way of life is under attack by all those mobs of non-straight, non-white, non-males.”
      - PopeOfNope 11y ago
        Look at the people making the accusations. They're all straight, white men. Socialists are typically upper middle class straight white men. Nice try painting me as racist, sexist or homophobic, though. Look at the twitter hashtag #notyourshield. The PC hatemob isn't liked by women, people of color or LGBT. They tend to dislike straight, white men telling them what it's like to be black, female or gay.
        braythwayt 11y ago
        I have a real problem with your telling me what people of colour like and don’t like. Last time I checked, you don’t speak for me either. And the entire premise of your world-view is broken. When you frame these white liberals as “speaking for” people of colour or speaking for women, or speaking for LGBT people, you are presuming that racism, sexism, and homophobia are strictly issues for people of colour, women, and LGBT people. And therefore, if someone who isn’t one of these people speaks out against it, they must be some kind of paternal mansplaining social justice warrior. In reality, some such people exist, but so do people who are egalitarian, and feel that racism, sexism, and homophobia are simply wrong. They aren’t speaking for anyone but themselves, and that is why you get some people pointing that out. But just because they don’t speak for me, for example, doesn’t invalidate that they speak truth to power. As long as they don’t claim to speak for me, thats fine. Unlike you, who tried to suggest what people of colour think without qualifying your statement by admitting that you want to present some cherry-picked examples that suit your cause. Painting people who speak out as a “PC Hatemob” really speaks to the fact that you relish taking an extremist position. So given that you are way out in batshit-crazy tinfoil-hat land, what’s in it for me to talk to you? I doubt that anyone reading our respective words is going to be swayed from whatever position they already held. People who agree with you will mindlessly upvote you for saying what Fox News has been saying for years. Nothing you have said really provokes any kind of “hmmm...” from me. It’s like talking to a well-written Markov Chain that was trained on a corpus of GamerGate tweets.
topynate 11y ago
A realist view looks at the various players and makes an informed judgment of what their power is. Alex Miller indisputably has final say on who attends the conference. That doesn't make him a dictator. If he doesn't follow people like Steve Klabnik and Alex Payne on stuff like this, the personal and business consequences to him will be immense. As his statement says, he hasn't read Yarvin's political writings. Nevertheless it took him only a few hours to decide that it would not be possible to have Yarvin present. Is that not strong evidence that Miller felt his options were limited?
- braythwayt 11y ago
  That’s how it is for dictators, too. They look at the world and make decisions designed to to optimize for the outcomes the desire, without compromising their values. Let’s say that people on HN decide that they don’t want to attend any conference that has a Code of Conduct, because that interferes with their “right to free speech.” If a conference organizer decides that HN is enough of a market that they tear up their CoC, that’s their decision. We don’t say that somehow, they have less free will because of the actions of HN. Their options aren’t limited. They chose to do something that involved HN. If Alex doesn’t like this kind of controversy, Alex can stop running conferences. Sure there are actions by all sorts of players in a complex world, but the buck for every decision stops somewhere, and in this case, it stops with Alex.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

ncallaway 11y ago

> it hands veto power to whoever determines what racism is and when something is 'too racist' This sounds like the function of the free marketplace of ideas. One is allowed to espouse any ideology that you wish. However, other people are allowed to respond with their own speech. They can call the idea racist if they want. They can take away speaking platforms if they want. Whether a statement is "racist" is a determination made by the current social taboos and mores of a society. I think there are a lot of terrible ideologies out there, and I like that we don't have to give them equal platforms. The free marketplace of ideas means we don't have to "teach the controversy" and give both sides "equal opportunity for debate". Which is great. There are plenty of people who's methods and ideas I so disagree with that I don't think it's worth my time to listen to them (neo-nazis, members of the Westboro Baptist Church).

twoodfin 11y ago
But what does any of that have to do with a talk on urbit?
yummyfajitas 11y ago
Similarly, if Jessitron (singling her out solely because she wrote a really good blog post today [1]) wants to talk about microservices in clojure, and folks want to keep her out because of her views on women in technology, you are ok with that also? Let me also emphasize that no one disputes that strangeloop has the legal right to do this. The discussion is simply over whether the strangeloop organizers are a bunch of anti-intellectuals who deserve to be in the spotlight for their decisions. [1] http://blog.jessitron.com/2015/06/ultratestable-coding-style.html http://blog.jessitron.com/2015/06/ultratestable-coding-style...
- ncallaway 11y ago
  Again, a disclaimer: I know pretty much nothing about this specific instance except the linked article. I don't know the candidate speaker, their political views, or anything of that nature. No examples in this comment are meant to be reflective of this specific situation. > "wants to talk about microservices in clojure, and folks want to keep her out because of her views on women in technology" For me, it comes down to how they express their opinions in the public sphere. This matters a lot. If someone develops a persona known for lobbing rhetorical grenades, making ad hominem attacks, or is unnecessarily mean or negative, then I don't have a problem holding them out of a conference — even if I agree with their viewpoints. If they, on the other hand tend to behave in a reasonable way, and are capable of having calm and rational debates, then I would want to see them included in the conference — even if I disagree with their viewpoints.

pep888 11y ago

No, it is not. That is flatly untrue nonsense. It is always SL's decision, that they are making with feedback It saddens me that you're making this obviously fallacious argument, because your reasoning is so transparent. You're a Zionist, who has sworn allegience to a genocidal government. As a supporter of genocide, you are concerned that someday you'll face consequences for your decision to materially support mass murder. So, you're trying to criminalize, and shame the idea that anything is ever wrong... because some part of you knows that what you're doing is one of the worst things in all of human history. That's also why you make up phrases like 'Progressive Except Palestine', to attack those who oppose the genocide that you so love.

paxdickinson 11y ago
This guy sounds like he would be happy to see anti-Zionism as a litmus test for conference speakers. Is that the kind of tech industry you want? Should speakers at technical conferences have all their political opinions pre-vetted for approval by a panel of progressives?
- PopeOfNope 11y ago
  Aren't we already there, though? This is one of the reasons I left Silicon Valley three years ago. My personal opinions would get me called racist, sexist and homophobic by Marxist standards and I was exhausted by the political mask I had to assume just to find and keep work. Luckily, SV isn't as large a percentage of the tech industry as it likes to think. It's just over represented on tech news sites.
  - ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
    So, you have to be a Marxist to be offended by homophobia? Or are redefining Marxist as "someone who gets offended by non 'politically correct' speech"?
topynate 11y ago
Much as I dislike entering into this sort of (highly off-topic) conversation, it needs pointing out that "Progressive Except Palestine" was coined by people who agree with you. Just search for it and see what comes up.