6 ms·

Google is helpful here. There are plenty of articles that have been written about him (speaking as someone else who hadn't heard of him until today). This is th

Google is helpful here. There are plenty of articles that have been written about him (speaking as someone else who hadn't heard of him until today). This is the one I'm reading right now: http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/mouthbreathing-machiavellis/ http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/mouthbreathing-machiavellis/

leereeves 11y ago
I'd never heard of him either. Now we have. If the goal of banning him from the conference was to suppress his ideas, his opponents remind me of George Bush standing beneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner.
- tptacek 11y ago
  The goal of banning him is probably not to "suppress his ideas". I'd imagine the goal is something more like "not allowing the experience of conference attendees to be made a little less pleasant in the service of what is a quirky and maybe interesting but probably pretty marginal technical talk".
  - leereeves 11y ago
    Allowing some to have a more pleasant experience by excluding others... Once upon a time, liberals argued against that.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      I don't think you really believe, were the shoe on the other foot and you were the one organizing Strange Loop, that there's nobody you'd consider excluding.
      - leereeves 11y ago
        I've never refused to work with anyone because of their political beliefs.
        cwyers 11y ago
        Calling support for slavery a "political belief" is rather tame at best and outright misleading at worst.
        tptacek 11y ago
        I haven't read a Moldbug post that actually supported slavery.
        cwyers 11y ago
        In that Carlyle essay, he says these, among other things: "Once we get this far, we are almost all the way to Carlyle on slavery. We have not agreed that a man can be born a slave, but we agree that he can sell himself into slavery. That is: he can sign a contract with a master in which the slave agrees unconditionally to obey and work for the master, and the master agrees unconditionally to protect and support the slave. Moreover, this contract need not be a mere expression of sentiment. It can and should be enforced by the State, just as a loan is. If the slave changes his mind and runs away, the State will capture and return him, billing the master for the expense. Or at least, these are reasonable terms under which two parties might agree on the permanent relationship of master and slave." "A person makes a good slave if he is loyal, patient, and not exceptionally bright or stubborn. But even great intelligence is not necessarily a bar to a good experience in slavery, as the experience of many Greek slave philosophers, such as Epictetus, shows. A slave must carry the unique burden of personal dependency and obedience, which we are all used to expressing only toward impersonal government agencies." "Of course, like gay marriage (or ordinary marriage), slavery is not without its abuses. When we think of the word 'slavery,' we think of these abuses. Thus, by defining the word as intrinsically abusive, like marriages in which one party beats the other, we can conveniently define away all the instances of slavery (or, for that matter, marriage) in which the relationship is functional." I mean, if those are not actually supporting slavery, it seems to be only because he takes care to voice a lot of pro-slavery rhetoric without actually crossing that line.
        devalier 11y ago
  - gladius17 11y ago
    "The goal of banning him is probably not to "suppress his ideas"" Wrong, moron. That is exactly what the goal is. It is of course not something that a moron like you would ever admit to....because it sounds bad. But we can argue and argue and eventually it will come out. And then you'll make some other excuse why it's still OK. Because you're a hypocritical piece of shit asshole.
  - anon_adderlan 11y ago
    Um, as far as I understand, he wasn't banned from attending StrangeLoop, just that he had his talk pulled. Given that, could we please either clarify this with Alex, or stop claiming this as it just further distorts the truth and politically weaponizes this situation even further?
13thLetter 11y ago
Why read an article _about_ him, as opposed to reading what he actually said? Are you concerned about contracting wrongthink?
- obstinate 11y ago
  I do not know the man's writings. There are many links on that page to things he wrote. So this is the most informative link I am likely to be able to provide. As for why not read his writings: why not read the writing of the timecube guy, or those of reactionary christian authors? Because I try not to waste my time on idiotic polemic.
  - tjradcliffe 11y ago
    If you keep firmly in mind that he's a complete crank, his iconoclasm can be quite entertaining in short intervals (maybe one article a year.)
- gwern 11y ago
  Probably because his blog posts are like millions of words of meandering stream of thought and links to public domain books and you would have to spend the next few months of your free time to read most of his posts? Occasionally funny and insightful, but concise and well-written they are not, burying the real content under mountains of fluff.
  - dropit_sphere 11y ago
    You're gwern, so if you said you'd read enough to say you understand his writing, I'd believe you. But someone reading the Baffler article will not have the same understanding you do---and worse, they'll think they do.

leereeves 11y ago

I'd never heard of him either. Now we have. If the goal of banning him from the conference was to suppress his ideas, his opponents remind me of George Bush standing beneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

tptacek 11y ago
The goal of banning him is probably not to "suppress his ideas". I'd imagine the goal is something more like "not allowing the experience of conference attendees to be made a little less pleasant in the service of what is a quirky and maybe interesting but probably pretty marginal technical talk".
- leereeves 11y ago
  Allowing some to have a more pleasant experience by excluding others... Once upon a time, liberals argued against that.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I don't think you really believe, were the shoe on the other foot and you were the one organizing Strange Loop, that there's nobody you'd consider excluding.
    - leereeves 11y ago
      I've never refused to work with anyone because of their political beliefs.
      - cwyers 11y ago
        Calling support for slavery a "political belief" is rather tame at best and outright misleading at worst.
        tptacek 11y ago
        I haven't read a Moldbug post that actually supported slavery.
        cwyers 11y ago
        In that Carlyle essay, he says these, among other things: "Once we get this far, we are almost all the way to Carlyle on slavery. We have not agreed that a man can be born a slave, but we agree that he can sell himself into slavery. That is: he can sign a contract with a master in which the slave agrees unconditionally to obey and work for the master, and the master agrees unconditionally to protect and support the slave. Moreover, this contract need not be a mere expression of sentiment. It can and should be enforced by the State, just as a loan is. If the slave changes his mind and runs away, the State will capture and return him, billing the master for the expense. Or at least, these are reasonable terms under which two parties might agree on the permanent relationship of master and slave." "A person makes a good slave if he is loyal, patient, and not exceptionally bright or stubborn. But even great intelligence is not necessarily a bar to a good experience in slavery, as the experience of many Greek slave philosophers, such as Epictetus, shows. A slave must carry the unique burden of personal dependency and obedience, which we are all used to expressing only toward impersonal government agencies." "Of course, like gay marriage (or ordinary marriage), slavery is not without its abuses. When we think of the word 'slavery,' we think of these abuses. Thus, by defining the word as intrinsically abusive, like marriages in which one party beats the other, we can conveniently define away all the instances of slavery (or, for that matter, marriage) in which the relationship is functional." I mean, if those are not actually supporting slavery, it seems to be only because he takes care to voice a lot of pro-slavery rhetoric without actually crossing that line.
        devalier 11y ago
- gladius17 11y ago
  "The goal of banning him is probably not to "suppress his ideas"" Wrong, moron. That is exactly what the goal is. It is of course not something that a moron like you would ever admit to....because it sounds bad. But we can argue and argue and eventually it will come out. And then you'll make some other excuse why it's still OK. Because you're a hypocritical piece of shit asshole.
- anon_adderlan 11y ago
  Um, as far as I understand, he wasn't banned from attending StrangeLoop, just that he had his talk pulled. Given that, could we please either clarify this with Alex, or stop claiming this as it just further distorts the truth and politically weaponizes this situation even further?

13thLetter 11y ago

Why read an article _about_ him, as opposed to reading what he actually said? Are you concerned about contracting wrongthink?

obstinate 11y ago
I do not know the man's writings. There are many links on that page to things he wrote. So this is the most informative link I am likely to be able to provide. As for why not read his writings: why not read the writing of the timecube guy, or those of reactionary christian authors? Because I try not to waste my time on idiotic polemic.
- tjradcliffe 11y ago
  If you keep firmly in mind that he's a complete crank, his iconoclasm can be quite entertaining in short intervals (maybe one article a year.)
gwern 11y ago
Probably because his blog posts are like millions of words of meandering stream of thought and links to public domain books and you would have to spend the next few months of your free time to read most of his posts? Occasionally funny and insightful, but concise and well-written they are not, burying the real content under mountains of fluff.
- dropit_sphere 11y ago
  You're gwern, so if you said you'd read enough to say you understand his writing, I'd believe you. But someone reading the Baffler article will not have the same understanding you do---and worse, they'll think they do.