Typelevel boycotts LambdaConf over politics | Hacker News Reader

Typelevel boycotts LambdaConf over politics

typelevel.org

23 pointsdudul29 comments

I've attended several conferences and not once have I ever checked into the political advocacy of any of my session's presenters. Nor have any of my presenters ever brought up politics. I go to conferences to discuss programming, frameworks, architectures and technologies. In so doing I don't care what your political views may be, what your religious views may be, what your sexual preferences may be - I don't care about any of it.

I simply enjoy connecting with other people as passionate about programming as me.

When you boycott something at the type level, it's a compiler error to buy something from that firm.

Thread poster personally does not like Typelevel.

Thread poster editorializes title accusing typelevel of politics.

Thus the circle continues.

Yes. I disagree with their decision, but it would be good if a passing mod could make the title less inflammatory.

Welcome to the Catch-22 of the-political-is-personal!

Excusing Yarvin's thoughtcrime as mere "politics" is indeed inflammatory, if you think everyone needs to share the same religion.

If you accept that reasonable people can disagree politically, then the title ("Typelevel boycotts LambdaConf over politics") succinctly describes the situation.

But it isn't the title of the linked article. It's been editorialized which is counter to the guidelines of this site. Poster should have made an initial comment along with the post (with its original title) explaining their position rather than pushing it into the title.

Sure - when everything is relative, the only remaining judgment is to not get involved. So we replace what could be a summary about what something means to our community, with mechanistic duplication of the OP title.

I do understand it keeps the noise down by raising the barrier to editorialization (make your own new post), and perhaps that's uniformly for the better. I just think that characterizing that particular summary as "accusing" is more divisive than the summary itself.

It simply says, "over politics". It doesn't even say what politics. Depending on the reading it suggests somewhere between pettiness or conviction. The only editorializing that makes some sense is to include that it's related to LambdaConf (provides context for those aware of the issues facing LambdaConf's organizers, but doesn't alter the substance of the title).

And this has nothing to do with relativity. Titles can be as non-neutral as possible and be appropriate. They should not be altered by submitters in a way that adds or changes a message not present in the original.

> Depending on the reading it suggests somewhere between pettiness or conviction

Exactly, that whole range is still outside some technical issue related to the purpose of the conference. The tech community was started by weirdos with odd views who didn't belong, and is now being warped by the same monkey power structure we grew up eschewing.

> Titles can be as non-neutral as possible and be appropriate. They should not be altered by submitters in a way that ...

Because one of the million monkeys is likely to complain, and conjure up an army of a thousand more. Hence every judgment becomes relative, so we have to fall back to mechanistic rules.

I actually like Typelevel projects and use a lot of them everyday. Contrary to them, I don't have any problem making a difference between technologies and political views.

A group that's policing who can use their services based on political disagreements is definitely not a group that it's safe to do business with. Who knows what they'll take offense at next?

Right, condemning a vocal advocate of white supremacy and racial slavery is a slippery slope to WHO KNOWS WHAT DANGERS.

If Yarvin's views are as few, shallow, and unnuanced as you've characterized them as, then surely they can be easier refuted through reasoned argument instead of monkeysphere games.

(And just for the record, I disagree with the utility of Yarvin's technical architecture for the same philosophical reasons I disagree with Moldbug's political prescriptions. But I find his perspective refreshing and analysis spot-on. And I find social ostracization based on traditionally-unassociated context extremely repugnant)

Where's the coming from? The only thing I've seen as evidence of that is http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/underst... - but I don't read that as an advocacy of white supremacy, it's just saying that Nazis were "utopianist" (as in _they_ believed in a utopian ideology), and it's actually as an analogy to characterize modern liberals.

"Vocal advocate of white supremacy and racial slavery" seems like a bit of a slander, but maybe I'm missing part of the equation.

"maybe I'm missing part of the equation"

You're not. The main issue is that Moldbug writes in depth about controversial things, without including enough Leftist bromides like "Hitler was the worst" or "slavery is evil". This is very triggering to Leftists in the tech industry and so they want him removed from any conference where he happens to be presenting a talk.

"We're going to take our ball and go home; we don't want to play with you!"

What a bunch of children. They don't agree with a person's personal views, which are totally tangental to the subject of the conference, so they pick up their ball and go home?

Since when did everyone become such cowarda towards people with different ideas? Why not show up with a diverse group of kick ass programmers, and show him he's not so great?

No, we'll run and cry, and make blog posts about it. Stay strong. /s

What are you going on about? typelevel had another conference organised outside of lambdaconf. It's affiliated with it, but doesn't happen at the same time - the idea being that you could come for lambdaconf, but take the opportunity to see what these typelevel folks are all about. The fact that they cancelled the typelevel conference changes nothing for lambdaconf.

They decided to cancel it because they feel that being associated with an advocate of white supremacy over the lesser races hurt their image, or were offended by said views. It's their prerogative, just as it's lambdaconf's prerogative to invite that man. They're not asking people to boycott lambdaconf, they're not even blaming lambdaconf for doing this - they explicitly state that they respect their right to do so. I read an implicit "just as you should respect our right to associate, or not, with whoever we want" there.

How is standing up for what you believe in cowardly? they find these ideas disgusting and protest them in a peaceful yet visible way. What would you rather have them do? ignore the issue and compromise their ethics because, well, it's easier (read: be cowards)? or make a more confrontational stand, such as trying to get lambdaconf speakers to cancel?

The issue is not whether moldbug is great or not - it's whether typelevel wants to be associated in any way, shape or form with ideas that they find abhorrent. They decided they didn't want to, and I can't really fault them for that.

So typelevel had another conference, outside of lambdaconf, not related to lambdaconf. But still, they decide to cancel because they don't want to be associated with one speaker of lambdaconf.

Sounds like it was somehow linked to lambdaconf, at least implicitly.

I did say affiliated, third word of the third sentence.

While I am not one to shy away from a political argument, it's pretty easy to put myself into TypeLevel's shoes. As they say in their blog post, due to the notoriety of the speaker it's almost inevitable that an event about programming would become an event about political argument.

If they aren't in the mood to preside over such an event, it's reasonable not to have it at all. They are not obligated to be in the business of public debate, and the results of such debates could easily harm their reputation. It's important in life to pick your battles. Having read about the speaker in question, it's pretty much impossible that TypeLevel employees would be able to magically argue him out of his existing position, and it's probably equally inevitable that he would be unable to argue them into his position.

None of the above seems childish to me. Most people I know, with few exceptions, make such decisions all of the time. Are you going to have a good Thanksgiving, or are you going to get into it with your reactionary relative for the thousandth time?

You still invite that reactionary relative because that's what the event is about - family. In this case it's about programming. Being so gun-shy about different (unrelated) opinions people would cancel events isn't absurd? Any gathering over 10 people is likely to have at least one asshole in the bunch. I get the feeling actual programmers aren't pushing this PC crap, but hangers-on who want to dictate everyone else's thoughts - and they're scoring victories, which seems even crazier to me.

But that's simply victim-blaming.

This is a professional conference about a particular apolitical topic. If the speaker, no matter how controversial or unpopular his unrelated personal views might be, is going to stay on the topic and not bring up politics, then anyone who tries to bring politics into it is being the disruptive force, not the speaker, and that is the person who is creating an unsafe atmosphere and needs to be ejected from the conference.

> it's pretty much impossible that TypeLevel employees would be able to magically argue him out of his existing position, and it's probably equally inevitable that he would be unable to argue them into his position.

Why is it necessary for either of them to argue the other into their position?

> Are you going to have a good Thanksgiving, or are you going to get into it with your reactionary relative for the thousandth time?

I'll tell you what I wouldn't do: I certainly wouldn't demand that my reactionary relative not be permitted to attend, and if she's gracious enough to not start a fight at the dinner table I won't start one myself. If she can be polite, I can be polite.

But typelevel has not cancelled lambdaconf, nor asked for it to be cancelled or even change its speakers lineup. They decided not to hold another event that was affiliated with lambdaconf.

If we're going to keep running with this thanksgiving comparison, they're not asking for the relative not be invited. They're having a party the day after, a party to which the crazy relative was never invited, and decided to cancel that.

> They decided not to hold another event that was affiliated with lambdaconf.

You make it sound like they randomly woke up one day and decided, for no particular reason whatsoever, to not hold an event they had already put enormous effort into planning and scheduling. They are cancelling their event in an attempt to pressure LambdaConf into bowing to their political demands.

> If we're going to keep running with this thanksgiving comparison, they're not asking for the relative not be invited. They're having a party the day after, a party to which the crazy relative was never invited, and decided to cancel that.

How would that behavior make any sense, though, if you're a person who doesn't want to disrupt the Thanksgiving dinner? They already didn't invite the crazy relative to their own party; what more do they want?

No, they are cancelling an event because they feel holding it would endorse views they find disgusting. You might not agree that it does, or that the views are disgusting, but that is irrelevant to their decision. The only people truly inconvenienced by this are: - themselves, because they're throwing away a lot of hard work - the people that wanted to attend their conf, which makes typelevel look bad, not lambdaconf.

Back to the thanksgiving dinner thing: they don't really want anything other than to make it clear what they're having an issue with. But they're not asking for anything, just saying: this is incompatible with my values, I'm taking myself out.

What else do you want them to do? Compromise their values? Who are you to demand that of them? Or demand the crazy relative be booted, making the whole thing horrible for the host? They took the only reasonable action given their values: take themselves out of the equation, and explain why. Anything else would have been either childish or cowardly (again, given their core values, which you might disagree with or not feel quite as strongly about).

> What else do you want them to do? Compromise their values? Who are you to demand that of them?

If their values are "we cannot interact in a professional manner with people who hold views we dislike," their values are bad and they should compromise them. If we can't get along with those with whom we disagree when necessary to accomplish unrelated things, we might as well disband this country and start arming up for civil war, because that's where this road ends.

Has it occurred to you it's entirely possible that some people at typelevel are black? And you're saying that yes, they should interact with and condone the views of someone that would see them enslaved and feels they are inherently inferior and should have fewer rights than him?

Maybe you could. Maybe, if someone had consistently argued that you and your family were of an inferior race and should bow to their will as is your ordained place in the universe, you could shrug it off and say, "let's agree to disagree and get on with things".

I'd guess this has never happened to you though. I'd guess you can have this position because this is not your safety and your rights that are in danger. It's always so much easier to consider hatred acceptable when you're not its target.

Should someone very religious refuse to interact with somebody who is pro-choice? Should a gun-afficionado refuse to interact with somebody advocates for gun-control?

In a professional environment we all have to compromise. You can't expect to only run into people who share your values and/or validate and approve your life style, or even what you feel is your identity.

There's a fairly obvious distinction between not sharing someone's values and asserting that someone is a sub-human and should have lower rights due to not being of the right color.

I'm fine with working with people whose don't share my values. I wouldn't be with someone who very publicly and very repeatedly advocated me and my family being enslaved. If you are, good for you! just don't expect everybody to share your obvious strength of character and forgiving nature.

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