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While Moldbug holds hideous political views, if the talk is on tech. and doesn't overlap him advocating hideous things, then this is akin to the old Hollywood b

by nemo 11y ago

While Moldbug holds hideous political views, if the talk is on tech. and doesn't overlap him advocating hideous things, then this is akin to the old Hollywood blackballing, the excuse for dropping him was pathetic, and I agree that promoting a culture of free speech must be a core value of a liberal society. I'm pretty far-left (though more liberal than leftist), and found the black-and-white leftist-bashing in the article didn't add much besides giving the author the opportunity to vent his spleen at a segment of leftists while pretending we're all some monoculture, which is ludicrous. Would have been better to just focus on the issue of why an open society needs to be willing to accept diverse political views, even hideous ones like Marxism or neoreactionary craziness, without using it as a platform for pontificating about a crudely conceived culture war.

maxmax 11y ago
Hitler was a decent painter, but I wouldn't want him in my gallery.
- ta92929 11y ago
  I would. In Hungary after the government change they saved a whole bunch of communist statues that were being taken down and made a museum out of it. I think it's interesting and worth seeing.
- nemo 11y ago
  The problem with Hitler wasn't just the ugly and noxious ideas he had, but what he did. Moldbug is a ignorant crank, but on that front he isn't doing much besides ranting, largely in the incoherent jargon he's invented. I don't like him, and can't stand his views, but I fully believe that preserving his freedom to think and say ignorant and stupid things is important to protect, and any attempt at a cure is likely worse than the poison. I'm been told by plenty of people that I'm a loon with crazy political views (Tea Party family members mostly), but if I was working on an interesting tech. project, and wanted to do a talk at a tech. conference about it, I'd hope that wouldn't be a factor in conference organizers rejecting me. If I'd started a political party founded on ideals of illiberalism, dictatorship, and subjugation of the people I hated and worked to gain political power in the US, then I'd say not accepting me at a conference could be more easily justified as the conference would then become a political platform for me regardless of what the talk was about.
- scott_karana 11y ago
  Why? Is it harder to dehumanize people when you see their mundane side? The fact that a horrible, unconscionable, genocidal dictator was also a painter makes his paintings more interesting, if anything.
csense 11y ago
> while pretending we're all some monoculture, which is ludicrous Actually, progressives do seem to be relatively monocultural when it comes to, as the article says toward the end, "tolerating everything except the outgroup." Either that, or the intolerant faction(s) are very dominant and end up getting their way quite a lot. As well as the examples cited in the article, another good example is Brendan Eich being forced out as chief of Mozilla due to having political views that some progressives deemed to be "incorrect."
- nemo 11y ago
  "The left" is an umbrella term for all kinds of causes that don't all share the same concerns, values, or goals, while "progressive" is basically a replacement term picked up once right-wing propagandists had poisoned "liberal" and "left" enough that some people gave up using them (which was a dumb move IMO). Environmentalists, labor rights activists, gay rights activists, and anti-war activists fit under the umbrella but often have little in common, and can have stark disagreements. I'm going to guess you don't identify as someone on the left, and so you get your information about what's happening from filtered sources rather than spending time paying attention to the debates, bickering, and disagreements that various sorts of left-wingers have, rather than taking a detailed at what's actually thought or discussed. I understand, I ignore Tea Partiers, though I also try not to claim they are a monoculture, since I know I don't really know much besides what the latest staggeringly stupid thing one of them said was, which is certainly not representative. That's the problem with Internet echo-chambers, they radically warp perspective by limiting what information you see as well as bias its presentation, and give an reductionist illusion of some single entity when there are many diverse factors in play. Alternately, you could just look at the actual cases the ACLU takes, which often enough support people and causes that aren't darlings of some faction or another on the left. For the record I was against Eich's firing (and know a number of leftists who were similarly against), I donate to the ACLU and the Sierra Club, and used to be an anti-war protester long ago. I also am enough of an exception to your generalization that you might want to reconsider your stereotype.
  - sudioStudio64 11y ago
    That was fantastic. Thank you.

by nemo 11y ago

maxmax 11y ago

Hitler was a decent painter, but I wouldn't want him in my gallery.

ta92929 11y ago
I would. In Hungary after the government change they saved a whole bunch of communist statues that were being taken down and made a museum out of it. I think it's interesting and worth seeing.
nemo 11y ago
The problem with Hitler wasn't just the ugly and noxious ideas he had, but what he did. Moldbug is a ignorant crank, but on that front he isn't doing much besides ranting, largely in the incoherent jargon he's invented. I don't like him, and can't stand his views, but I fully believe that preserving his freedom to think and say ignorant and stupid things is important to protect, and any attempt at a cure is likely worse than the poison. I'm been told by plenty of people that I'm a loon with crazy political views (Tea Party family members mostly), but if I was working on an interesting tech. project, and wanted to do a talk at a tech. conference about it, I'd hope that wouldn't be a factor in conference organizers rejecting me. If I'd started a political party founded on ideals of illiberalism, dictatorship, and subjugation of the people I hated and worked to gain political power in the US, then I'd say not accepting me at a conference could be more easily justified as the conference would then become a political platform for me regardless of what the talk was about.
scott_karana 11y ago
Why? Is it harder to dehumanize people when you see their mundane side? The fact that a horrible, unconscionable, genocidal dictator was also a painter makes his paintings more interesting, if anything.

csense 11y ago

> while pretending we're all some monoculture, which is ludicrous Actually, progressives do seem to be relatively monocultural when it comes to, as the article says toward the end, "tolerating everything except the outgroup." Either that, or the intolerant faction(s) are very dominant and end up getting their way quite a lot. As well as the examples cited in the article, another good example is Brendan Eich being forced out as chief of Mozilla due to having political views that some progressives deemed to be "incorrect."

nemo 11y ago
"The left" is an umbrella term for all kinds of causes that don't all share the same concerns, values, or goals, while "progressive" is basically a replacement term picked up once right-wing propagandists had poisoned "liberal" and "left" enough that some people gave up using them (which was a dumb move IMO). Environmentalists, labor rights activists, gay rights activists, and anti-war activists fit under the umbrella but often have little in common, and can have stark disagreements. I'm going to guess you don't identify as someone on the left, and so you get your information about what's happening from filtered sources rather than spending time paying attention to the debates, bickering, and disagreements that various sorts of left-wingers have, rather than taking a detailed at what's actually thought or discussed. I understand, I ignore Tea Partiers, though I also try not to claim they are a monoculture, since I know I don't really know much besides what the latest staggeringly stupid thing one of them said was, which is certainly not representative. That's the problem with Internet echo-chambers, they radically warp perspective by limiting what information you see as well as bias its presentation, and give an reductionist illusion of some single entity when there are many diverse factors in play. Alternately, you could just look at the actual cases the ACLU takes, which often enough support people and causes that aren't darlings of some faction or another on the left. For the record I was against Eich's firing (and know a number of leftists who were similarly against), I donate to the ACLU and the Sierra Club, and used to be an anti-war protester long ago. I also am enough of an exception to your generalization that you might want to reconsider your stereotype.
- sudioStudio64 11y ago
  That was fantastic. Thank you.