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In case you were wondering what Curtis's talk might have been about (and whether it would have held any technical merit) this page has a link to Clark's earlier

by nkurz 11y ago

In case you were wondering what Curtis's talk might have been about (and whether it would have held any technical merit) this page has a link to Clark's earlier introduction to Urbit: http://popehat.com/2013/12/06/nock-hoon-etc-for-non-vulcans-why-urbit-matters/ http://popehat.com/2013/12/06/nock-hoon-etc-for-non-vulcans-... The "Exit, voice, and loyalty" terminology might seem odd if you don't know it's origins. It's from 1970 book by economist A. O. Hirschman that's coming back in popularity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty. Hirschman gives an 1978 intro/postscript in his own words here: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~plambert/comp/hirschman.pdf http://homepages.wmich.edu/~plambert/comp/hirschman.pdf I'm surprised by apparent predominance of support here on HN for Strangeloop's position. While clearly legal, it's strikes me as a terrible precedent to require speakers on technical topics to pass a political litmus test. I'd be interested to know the actual direction that the sentiment lies. Do those who support Curtis appearing at the talk (wisely?) refrain from posting out of (legitimate?) fear of career repercussion? Or am I (comfortable speaking because I'm largely outside the industry) in the minority?

Castlereagh 11y ago
Do those who support Curtis appearing at the talk (wisely?) refrain from posting out of (legitimate?) fear of career repercussion? This. It also has the perverse effect of leaving the defense of "racists" to actual racists (e.g., [1]), thereby leading to guilt by association: "See, only racists are willing to defend this guy, so he's obviously a racist!" [1]: https://twitter.com/B8GodDante/status/607201146017615872 https://twitter.com/B8GodDante/status/607201146017615872
- theorique 11y ago
  More recently, perhaps within the past year or two, I've been seeing online a polarization and evaporative cooling effect in action. There doesn't seem to be as much middle ground and nuance as there has been in the past. Any support or acceptance for an officially disapproved entity is tantamount to total or unqualified support or acceptance. Many moderates - in this case, moderate supporters of Yarvin, as shown in the comments here - appear to be fearful of getting tarred with the scarlet "R" and facing career threat. The scarlet "S" and "M" are also significant. In contrast, the "C" is not threatened nowadays, if it ever was. Left-wing extremism is given a pass, while right-wing extremism is always tarred with the "R" brush. People rarely use the "F" word - they just default to "R", which is far more damaging. (I mean: racist / sexist / misogynist / communist / fascist above.)
  - hga 11y ago
    You can expand the above a bit by distinguishing between "c", "I, Steven Klabnik, am 'a communist' as the simplest thing to describe me", vs. "C", "I, Julius Rosenberg, became a member of the US Communist Party when it was popular, required careful vetting and submission to party discipline, which by definition made me a traitor." And this reminds me of a quote by the not moderate Jim Hightower, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos."
joelgrus 11y ago
Do those who support Curtis appearing at the talk refrain from posting out of fear of career repercussion? No and yes. I have been pretty vocal about it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606474432509394944 https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606474432509394944 https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606673594198794240 https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606673594198794240 but I've also been sitting on a 75%-written blog post that I'm hesitant to actually post. Not because of career repercussions (I have never had an employer who really gave a shit what I write about in my spare time) but because of conference repercussions. I am promoting a book, and to that end I am scheduled to speak at various conferences and meetups. And I worry that the mob would somehow try to get me uninvited. It's not like there's an actual policy that Yarvin violated that I can be confident I'm on the right side of. So I am torn between my natural inclination to say exactly what I think, and the more practical takeaway of "don't write or have written anything that might anger the mob".
- topynate 11y ago
  You're getting bitten by preference falsification, as proposed by Timur Kuran. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification
  - joelgrus 11y ago
    I mean, I feel like I'm conveying my exact preferences pretty clearly ("let Yarvin speak"), the question is more how much I want to antagonize the people who got him uninvited.
- existencebox 11y ago
  I typically avoid posting in these sorts of threads, very little good has come from political debates on the internet that I've seen, but your last sentence pushes me to speak up. Status-quo social thoughtcrime is rather terrifying to me. There's no "easy" way to amend laws or lobby a system to address the issue, as one would against a governmental stance. It's also cyclical, as less "clean" people speak out against it, the "only rapists defend rapist" situation mentioned by sister posts occurs, and the entire culture of defending someone who might be distasteful, separating the issue from their broader history, diminishes. I can't claim to judge you for your decision, I fully acknowledge the unfortunate state of things and your ability to make a choice that best serves your needs, but for the sake of putting my money where my mouth is; I think he should have been allowed to speak (espousing viewpoints I disagree with is far and beyond an offensive enough act to cause me to want to petition against someone, and even then, I would not attempt to convey that aversion as anything more than my personal stance). The fact that I (or you, or any of us) feel any uncertainty due to fear of the repercussions for merely voicing this opinion only serves to reinforce my conviction that it needs to be voiced.
d9h549f34w6 11y ago
I for one support Curtis on this issue, but tend not to post here on the subject except under an alternate username. I do this because I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line. If I were to hazard a guess, I think I'm not alone in this and I think you're not in a minority (or at least a small one). The recent HN stories seem to get a good number of "silent upvotes" before anyone steps into the fray to add a comment.
- sudioStudio64 11y ago
  I would say that depending on the area and subject there is also a "freedom justice" crowd that can be just as crazy and groupthink-ish. I also find myself not posting sometimes because of repercussions at a later date....not too often, but you know...
- tjradcliffe 11y ago
  > I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line This is something I'd love see SJW's here react to. How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you? Would you prefer convincing them of the correctness of your position, but willing to accept that at least by making them afraid you are helping further your cause? Or are you concerned you've become the kind of discourse-stiffling monster you set out to defeat? Or are you proud you've made the priviledged afraid? Or something else entirely? Because don't kid yourself: people are increasingly afraid to speak up on these issues because they are genuinely afraid of the consequences to their future employment prospects. Personally, I see that as a shameful situation, antithetical to any reasonable notion of a just society. [Disclaimer: I've been accused at times of being an SJW, an MRA, a shill for Big Carbon, and quite a few other things besides.]
  - protomyth 11y ago
    "How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you?" I don't think they care or, more specifically, if you fear then you don't think correctly and should shut-up[1]. Its quite a common attitude in movements and has happened many times. 1) or they'll add you to a blacklist to shut you up - the clean modern version of disappearing a person
jbigelow76 11y ago
I'm surprised by apparent predominance of support here on HN for Strangeloop's position. Do you not recall the self-immolation of the Mozilla Community during the Brendan Eich CEO fiasco? Big overlap in the two communities.
cactusface 11y ago
> While clearly legal, it's strikes me as a terrible precedent to require speakers on technical topics to pass a political litmus test. It's funny, in some countries you have laws against hate speech - it probably wouldn't be legal to write stuff like "blacks make good slaves because of their genetics" [sic] - but in the US because of the free speech thing society relies on all these extrajudicial lynch mobs. So... terrible precedent or common sense?
Mithaldu 11y ago
I'm all for Strangeloop canceling his talk, however not for reasons of his political leanings, but because i consider Urbit to be nonsense and the way it handles itself to be dishonest. That said, this entire conversation has an amazingly suppressive effect on me. This is primarily because i come from east germany, have grown up in its social era until my early teens, and have seen how it changed since the wall fell, and thus consider myself strongly socialist and glad that germany itself still is strongly socialist. I am left. And i find myself under attack for what i consider to be a human-friendly view. I see talk of leftists, the red guard, communists, etc. etc. etc. and find the american internet to be extraordinarily busy painting what i consider to be my political leaning as "terrorist".
- sudioStudio64 11y ago
  I think it comes from scarcity and changing demographics... there is a very real feel of loss off status and power among the white middle and working class. You are right about the crazy views on socialism and German politics in general.
- a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
  Please provide one example of a person being fired, or otherwise enduring serious economic consequences, for publicly voicing socialist or communist views. There are none. There are dozens of quite recent examples of rightists or libertarians or traditional Christians enduring serious consequences for free speech. In America we once had the red scare where a witch hunt hit socialists/communists. These days we have the "brown scare" hitting anyone right of Jeb Bush.
  - Mithaldu 11y ago
    I'm not very familiar with US politics. When i say attacked, i was primarily talking about the articles talking about strangeloop. (It sounds like you misunderstood me there.) On the other hand, consider how "Obamacare" was attacked, and (if i understood correctly what came out of your country) changed, cut and successfully damaged, thus affecting wide parts of the US population. ( http://www.galen.org/newsletters/changes-to-obamacare-so-far/ http://www.galen.org/newsletters/changes-to-obamacare-so-far... ) Also, i find it a little disingenuous to ask for something and in the same breath declare delivery of such impossible.

by nkurz 11y ago

Castlereagh 11y ago

Do those who support Curtis appearing at the talk (wisely?) refrain from posting out of (legitimate?) fear of career repercussion? This. It also has the perverse effect of leaving the defense of "racists" to actual racists (e.g., [1]), thereby leading to guilt by association: "See, only racists are willing to defend this guy, so he's obviously a racist!" [1]: https://twitter.com/B8GodDante/status/607201146017615872 https://twitter.com/B8GodDante/status/607201146017615872

theorique 11y ago
More recently, perhaps within the past year or two, I've been seeing online a polarization and evaporative cooling effect in action. There doesn't seem to be as much middle ground and nuance as there has been in the past. Any support or acceptance for an officially disapproved entity is tantamount to total or unqualified support or acceptance. Many moderates - in this case, moderate supporters of Yarvin, as shown in the comments here - appear to be fearful of getting tarred with the scarlet "R" and facing career threat. The scarlet "S" and "M" are also significant. In contrast, the "C" is not threatened nowadays, if it ever was. Left-wing extremism is given a pass, while right-wing extremism is always tarred with the "R" brush. People rarely use the "F" word - they just default to "R", which is far more damaging. (I mean: racist / sexist / misogynist / communist / fascist above.)
- hga 11y ago
  You can expand the above a bit by distinguishing between "c", "I, Steven Klabnik, am 'a communist' as the simplest thing to describe me", vs. "C", "I, Julius Rosenberg, became a member of the US Communist Party when it was popular, required careful vetting and submission to party discipline, which by definition made me a traitor." And this reminds me of a quote by the not moderate Jim Hightower, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos."

joelgrus 11y ago

Do those who support Curtis appearing at the talk refrain from posting out of fear of career repercussion? No and yes. I have been pretty vocal about it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606474432509394944 https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606474432509394944 https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606673594198794240 https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/606673594198794240 but I've also been sitting on a 75%-written blog post that I'm hesitant to actually post. Not because of career repercussions (I have never had an employer who really gave a shit what I write about in my spare time) but because of conference repercussions. I am promoting a book, and to that end I am scheduled to speak at various conferences and meetups. And I worry that the mob would somehow try to get me uninvited. It's not like there's an actual policy that Yarvin violated that I can be confident I'm on the right side of. So I am torn between my natural inclination to say exactly what I think, and the more practical takeaway of "don't write or have written anything that might anger the mob".

topynate 11y ago
You're getting bitten by preference falsification, as proposed by Timur Kuran. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification
- joelgrus 11y ago
  I mean, I feel like I'm conveying my exact preferences pretty clearly ("let Yarvin speak"), the question is more how much I want to antagonize the people who got him uninvited.
existencebox 11y ago
I typically avoid posting in these sorts of threads, very little good has come from political debates on the internet that I've seen, but your last sentence pushes me to speak up. Status-quo social thoughtcrime is rather terrifying to me. There's no "easy" way to amend laws or lobby a system to address the issue, as one would against a governmental stance. It's also cyclical, as less "clean" people speak out against it, the "only rapists defend rapist" situation mentioned by sister posts occurs, and the entire culture of defending someone who might be distasteful, separating the issue from their broader history, diminishes. I can't claim to judge you for your decision, I fully acknowledge the unfortunate state of things and your ability to make a choice that best serves your needs, but for the sake of putting my money where my mouth is; I think he should have been allowed to speak (espousing viewpoints I disagree with is far and beyond an offensive enough act to cause me to want to petition against someone, and even then, I would not attempt to convey that aversion as anything more than my personal stance). The fact that I (or you, or any of us) feel any uncertainty due to fear of the repercussions for merely voicing this opinion only serves to reinforce my conviction that it needs to be voiced.

d9h549f34w6 11y ago

I for one support Curtis on this issue, but tend not to post here on the subject except under an alternate username. I do this because I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line. If I were to hazard a guess, I think I'm not alone in this and I think you're not in a minority (or at least a small one). The recent HN stories seem to get a good number of "silent upvotes" before anyone steps into the fray to add a comment.

sudioStudio64 11y ago
I would say that depending on the area and subject there is also a "freedom justice" crowd that can be just as crazy and groupthink-ish. I also find myself not posting sometimes because of repercussions at a later date....not too often, but you know...
tjradcliffe 11y ago
> I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line This is something I'd love see SJW's here react to. How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you? Would you prefer convincing them of the correctness of your position, but willing to accept that at least by making them afraid you are helping further your cause? Or are you concerned you've become the kind of discourse-stiffling monster you set out to defeat? Or are you proud you've made the priviledged afraid? Or something else entirely? Because don't kid yourself: people are increasingly afraid to speak up on these issues because they are genuinely afraid of the consequences to their future employment prospects. Personally, I see that as a shameful situation, antithetical to any reasonable notion of a just society. [Disclaimer: I've been accused at times of being an SJW, an MRA, a shill for Big Carbon, and quite a few other things besides.]
- protomyth 11y ago
  "How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you?" I don't think they care or, more specifically, if you fear then you don't think correctly and should shut-up[1]. Its quite a common attitude in movements and has happened many times. 1) or they'll add you to a blacklist to shut you up - the clean modern version of disappearing a person

jbigelow76 11y ago

I'm surprised by apparent predominance of support here on HN for Strangeloop's position. Do you not recall the self-immolation of the Mozilla Community during the Brendan Eich CEO fiasco? Big overlap in the two communities.

cactusface 11y ago

> While clearly legal, it's strikes me as a terrible precedent to require speakers on technical topics to pass a political litmus test. It's funny, in some countries you have laws against hate speech - it probably wouldn't be legal to write stuff like "blacks make good slaves because of their genetics" [sic] - but in the US because of the free speech thing society relies on all these extrajudicial lynch mobs. So... terrible precedent or common sense?

Mithaldu 11y ago

I'm all for Strangeloop canceling his talk, however not for reasons of his political leanings, but because i consider Urbit to be nonsense and the way it handles itself to be dishonest. That said, this entire conversation has an amazingly suppressive effect on me. This is primarily because i come from east germany, have grown up in its social era until my early teens, and have seen how it changed since the wall fell, and thus consider myself strongly socialist and glad that germany itself still is strongly socialist. I am left. And i find myself under attack for what i consider to be a human-friendly view. I see talk of leftists, the red guard, communists, etc. etc. etc. and find the american internet to be extraordinarily busy painting what i consider to be my political leaning as "terrorist".

sudioStudio64 11y ago
I think it comes from scarcity and changing demographics... there is a very real feel of loss off status and power among the white middle and working class. You are right about the crazy views on socialism and German politics in general.
a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
Please provide one example of a person being fired, or otherwise enduring serious economic consequences, for publicly voicing socialist or communist views. There are none. There are dozens of quite recent examples of rightists or libertarians or traditional Christians enduring serious consequences for free speech. In America we once had the red scare where a witch hunt hit socialists/communists. These days we have the "brown scare" hitting anyone right of Jeb Bush.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  I'm not very familiar with US politics. When i say attacked, i was primarily talking about the articles talking about strangeloop. (It sounds like you misunderstood me there.) On the other hand, consider how "Obamacare" was attacked, and (if i understood correctly what came out of your country) changed, cut and successfully damaged, thus affecting wide parts of the US population. ( http://www.galen.org/newsletters/changes-to-obamacare-so-far/ http://www.galen.org/newsletters/changes-to-obamacare-so-far... ) Also, i find it a little disingenuous to ask for something and in the same breath declare delivery of such impossible.