Hacker News Reader

Comment by pklausler | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure where the boundary of acceptable responses to contentious speech may lie, but surely choosing to avoid an expensive and optional conference because it has booked a particular speaker is well within one's options. Free speech doesn't obligate anyone else to listen.

View on HN

> surely choosing to avoid an expensive and optional conference because it has booked a particular speaker is well within one's options.

Definitely. But what about contacting all of the conference's sponsors, and insinuating that they're racist if they don't denounce the conference and pull their sponsorship? Or encouraging all of the previous speakers to denounce the organizers? Both of those happened.

Probably both allowed, but... wow, some real nasty behavior.

Such behavior infringes on the opportunity of others to decide whether or not they want to hear the speech in question.

is this just supposition or can you show where this actually happened?

The moment there was an alternate conference in the same town on the same weekend announced by the objectors it became about a balance of resources and attendees. Those who are organizing, presenting, and attending Moonconf have every reason to badmouth anyone associated with LambdaConf.

Here's one of the early objectors citing a presenter who has openly and thoughtfully struggled with attending LambdaConf: https://twitter.com/swannodette/status/714851217512513536

Here's an early Storify story of reactions to allowing Yarvin to speak - you will find that the most vocal objectors have continued to bash and badmouth anyone associated with LambdaConf: https://storify.com/adngyipa/lambdaconf-debate-in-tweets

This comment (plus many others on Twitter that you can find by searching "lambdaconf sponsors") suggests that all sponsors but one pulled out due to pressure.

https://twitter.com/fatneckbeardguy/status/71358678287339520...

So I put some tweets in another message, but they weren't exactly the ones I was referring to; like I said, search is difficult on a phone. But I didn't want to make it seem like I was misconstruing what was said, so I wanted to post some clearer ones as well:

"@47deg Hi, are you still going to sponsor LambdaConf if they give a platform to someone who thinks blacks are suited for slavery?" - https://twitter.com/ekrubnivek/status/713501535515226113

"@andrewfnewman @adrienneleigh So, the racist organizers of lambdaconf selected his talk knowing who they would get? Smart move, clearly!" - https://twitter.com/extempore2/status/714502151884505088

"If you've spoken at LambdaConf: have you repudiated its organizers for making the choice to include bigots and exclude marginalized people?" - https://twitter.com/fatneckbeardguy/status/71280436894525030...

FWIW, extempore2 was making the opposite point - he's been one of the most vocal in criticizing the boycotters.

Ah, sorry, I did not realize that. One of twitter's many endearing features is how easy it is to take tweets out of context. I'd edit my post to remove it, but I can't.

Twitter search is terrible, especially on a phone, but here is some:

https://mobile.twitter.com/antifuchs/status/7128837259948236...

https://mobile.twitter.com/antifuchs/status/7128835537977057...

I think that's a fine opinion. It's an active choice to not get involved, and I think dynamic partitioning is a good way to handle things (dissent and go one's own way).

It's a bit ironic, since I hadn't really known about the conference, and it sounds really cool. After all, I can just not go to that speaker - whoever he is (the controversy really doesn't interest me) - and see some of the other neat talks. I think as far as conference prices go, it's not too bad, but I wasn't planning on it (and there's always the ever-larger cost of travel/lodging), so I suspect I won't see it =/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com