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Comment by paxdickinson | Hacker News Reader

FWIW I only saw two twitter comments complaining before the disinvitation, and one of those was proud communist Steve Klabnik.

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A few things. I was not planning on getting involved in this conversation, but since dang decided to un-flag it, I'm going to leave one or two comments, but don't plan on sticking around very much. As tptacek said elsewhere in this thread, politics + HN == nightmare.

First of all, many more people complained than me. You didn't look very hard.

Second, I'm not _strictly_ a communist: I'm certainly very left-wing, and I often role-play a communist, because I think Americans need a connection to an actual left. My allegiance is ultimately to Deleuze, not Marx. To put it in terms of a meme image I saw the other day, around non-leftists, I usually use 'communist' as a shorthand, but amongst leftists, a more nuanced discussions can be had, for sure. EDIT: ahh, here we go: http://m.imgur.com/r/FULLCOMMUNISM/MLlIQAS

Finally, since you're dragging personal views into this, I'll just leave this here: http://valleywag.gawker.com/business-insider-ctos-is-your-ne...

It was relevant to the statement I was replying to: "I see more and more echoes of the worldview and tactics that ultimately killed just shy of a hundred million people or so last century, and yes, it scares me." You've labeled yourself a communist in the past, if that's not strictly accurate I stand corrected.

My personal background is well known. I'm here logged in with my real name, I'm not hiding it. I don't know how Gawker's opinion of me is exactly relevant to whether or not you're a communist but that's fine.

If there's nothing wrong with being a communist why are you acting like I've slandered you by bring your background into this? It doesn't add up.

Few quick questions:

I'm a Zionist (see my top-level post and its link.) Does that make me unacceptably racist, in your view? I know Deleuze thought Zionism was a racist ideology.

Given that, in a conference as large as Strange Loop, there are undoubtedly people who do think Zionism is a proper subset of racism, would you support them in a call to have me excluded from that conference?

If not, what exactly about either my views or those people's intensity of repugnance for them is insufficient to get me kicked? If so, then as there are by far more racists of the Zionist stripe likely to attend, shouldn't you be looking into that? Why aren't you?

I'm not sure how this is a fair question to ask Klabnik, since the issue in Yarvin's case isn't whether somewhat obscure namedropped French philosophers think his views are racist. Edit: It seems to me like there's no controversy about whether Yarvin's views are racist; it's barely controversial to suggest that he's a white supremacist (if that's something he wants to distance himself from, he's done himself no favors by overtly nodding to white nationalism in his own writing).

I'd also suggest you keep in mind that Urbit is, as technical ideas go, both marginally impactful (at least today), and extraordinarily idiosyncratic (see: the Nock ASCII pronunciation guide).

It is not remotely unreasonable for conference organizers barely acquainted with Urbit to be concerned that Yarvin's strident philosophical views might be entwined with his technical ideas, which one could fairly argue are --- unlike his politics --- obscurantist. If Urbit was more important, I'd understand more about the controversy. But this doesn't seem like a difficult call.

if that's something he wants to distance himself from, he's done himself no favors by overtly nodding to white nationalism in his own writing

This is incredibly misleading. Replace "overtly nodding" with explicitly disavowing: the post in question is literally called "Why I am not a white nationalist" [1]. And that's not "people have accused me of being a white nationalist, here's why I'm not", it's "here's why I don't believe this thing I find wrong." Oh, and here's what he has to say about racist blogs:

(The Internet is also home to many out-and-out racist blogs. Most are simply unreadable. But some are hosted by relatively capable writers, such as "The Uhuru Guru" or "Big Effer." On these racist blogs you'll find racial epithets, anti-Semitism (see why I am not an anti-Semite) and the like. Obviously, I cannot recommend any of these blogs, and nor will I link to them. However, if you are interested in the mind of the modern racist, Google will get you there.)

Does that sound like the writing of a racist to you?

[1]: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-i-a...

He clearly is not a fan of the modern racist. That's unsurprising, because (thankfully) the educated sector of our culture has turned it into a taboo, and so to be a modern racist is for most people to be the sort of yutz who writes things on Stormfront.

He sure does seem to have a finely-tuned appreciation of archaic racists, though.

I feel like --- maybe I've misinterpreted the whole piece, but this is what I think right now --- the misrepresentation here is yours. You lean on the title of the post, "Why I Am Not A White Nationalist", but if you've read it, I'll hazard a guess that in your heart you'd agree that it could be subtitled "But Not NOT One, Either".

I have read it. I don't find "But Not NOT One, Either" to be an accurate characterization. Basically, Moldbug's position is that white nationalists include lots of vile racists, but that by itself doesn't mean they're wrong about everything, and we should evaluate such ideas critically if we want to actually solve the problems they identify (which in fact many progressives would identify as well, though the phrasing and emphasis usually differ substantially). Some quotes:

Of course, I am not a white nationalist. I am not arguing that you should be a white nationalist. I am just suggesting that there are many bad reasons not to be a white nationalist.

[…]

So why am I not a white nationalist?

I am not a white nationalist because I don't find white nationalism useful or effective. I don't feel it helps me accurately perceive reality. In fact, I think it distorts reality. And I believe white nationalism is a very ineffective political device for solving the very real problems about which it complains.

Your choices of what to quote are telling. For instance, one of those quotes is preceded by a lengthy (and thinly veiled) Derbyshire-esque description of black people as social ill. Shortly after it, we have these cheerful grafs:

This is the trouble with white nationalism. It is strategically barren. It offers no effective political program. You can be as smart as you want and think about white nationalism forever, and you will not come up with any productive strategy for collective action, white or otherwise.

At its best, white nationalism offers a sensible description of a general problem. [em mine] This problem certainly exists, and it falls under the larger category of bad government. (If allowing the old cities of North America to be overrun and rendered largely uninhabitable by murderous racist gangs isn't bad government, really, I'm not sure what is.)

He's not a white nationalist. He's something else.

There's also the historical context of this post, which is William Saletan's idiotic Slate posts about rational IQ variation.

I think a reader of this thread can understand why I'd say that it's you who were being misleading. I feel like that was probably unintentional on your part, because if you were trying to mount a careful bad-faith defense of Yarvin's writing, you probably wouldn't write things that would beg people to further quote it.

"There's also the historical context of this post, which is William Saletan's idiotic Slate posts about rational IQ variation."

When I first read that Saletan post I found it pretty convincing. And when I did much more follow-up reading, reading lots of books and journal articles from all sides, it seemed like the preponderance of the evidence is on the side of there being significant ethnic based variation. For example - https://liberalbiorealism.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/the-likel... and his other posts, or https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-i...

You seem like a smart and open minded person. Why did you find Saletan's posts idiotic? I'm genuinely interested in your opinion. Don't answer in this thread though, email me at the address in my profile. You're writing under your real name, and in the possibility that I convince you, I don't want you to get purged.

There is no possibility that you will convince me, and so I think that particular discussion is not a good use of either of our time. No part of the obstacle you'd face in trying involves other people's opinions of me; I feel very comfortable with the subsets of people that incline towards and against taking me seriously.

If it helps, you can think of my opposition to the notion that blacks are somehow intellectually inferior to whites as religious, and you might just as productively spend your time trying to convert me to Zoroastrianism.

There is no possibility that you will convince me

Is there any possible evidence, any possible information, that could convince you that genes for IQ were not equally distributed among the races?

For my sake, there would be plenty of possible information that would convince me of the idea of neurological uniformity across ethnic groups, for example: studies of cross-racial adoption that showed the gap being erased, the existence of at least one black nation or city turning into Taiwan or Singapore, a closing of the gap in IQ tests, etc, etc.

If I can be convinced by evidence, but you cannot be convinced by evidence, then it is you who has a religious belief, and not me.

His admission really is incredibly revealing, and refreshingly, even depressingly honest. He's literally saying no amount of reason or evidence could change his mind on a matter that is obviously (in principle) falsifiable. I think it's safe to say that, so far as full contact with reality is concerned, he is a lost cause.

To what ends would you change his mind on this issue? For Internet points, or for a greater good? I don't begrudge anyone with a religious devotion to the other view in this particular matter, if only because we have "known" wrong facts before, based on evidence that appeared to be sound and was considered to be incontrovertible at the time. And even true facts based on sound evidence are not always absolute, or unalterable. You just want it on record, or what?

To what ends would you change his mind on this issue? For Internet points, or for a greater good?

The "gap" between the races on matters such as income, education achievement, or the demographics of Google engineers is a source of constant handwringing.

There are two explanations that are publicly admissible:

1) You can slander and libel white people and blame racism 2) You can slander and libel black people and say it's because of "black culture", because black parents don't tell their kids to do well in school

If you take a third position, the position that thousands of years of evolving in different environments and civilization complexity levels meant that there is a different statistical distribution in different traits, which means there is a different

This third position blames no one, yet the holders of this position are called bigots and are banned from conferences if they even mention this view under a pseudonym in an unrelated context. I confronted tptacek, because he is a person that I have up until now respected, yet he called Saletan an idiot for holding this third position. So I was interested in why tptacek called Saletan an idiot, and I was also interested in the more general problem of how to convince reasonable people to stop slandering black people or slandering white people on the issue of the gap between the races.

William Saletan does not hold that position. He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly. To argue that he agrees with you today requires you to argue that he wrote dishonestly. Were that the case, I'd have no reason to believe anything he wrote was in good faith. As it stands, the simplest explanation was: he was writing discursively, as an essayist; his ideas seemed good at the time; he was corrected; he changed his mind.

I also didn't call Saletan an idiot, obviously.

OK, apologies for the misquote. Let me apply a patch to replace "yet he called Saletan an idiot for holding this third position" with "yet he called an article idiotic that provided supporting evidence for this position." The gist of my comment still stands.

"He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly"

Are you referring to this article? http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur... I read this as him downplaying the certainty of the genetic hypothesis, in order to get the heat off his back. It is pretty obvious he is scared at getting purged: "I don't want this role...You'll have to judge the evidence for yourself." It is not obvious that he changed his mind. And he apologizes for not disclosing Rushton's associations, not for citing Ruston. He doesn't make any claims that Rushton's studies were bad science that should not be cited. Again, sounds like non-apology apology to get the heat off his back. But I can't peer into Saletan's soul so I don't know.

I don't actually think Saletan's article is a great article. I'm lukewarm on how accurate Rushton's stuff is; I think other evidence for the hypothesis that Saletan leaves out is actually more compelling. But I don't think the article is idiotic either.

If your argument requires us to stipulate that Saletan wrote something dishonestly, I'm not sure why I have to concede that the apology was the dishonest bit. Let's just conclude then that he's entirely untrustworthy and move on.

I'm not sure I would call it honest. It's what non-anonymous folk have to say to avoid being excommunicated. Hey, for all I know, you and he are actually the same person on two different sides of the anonymity wall.

>If I can be convinced by evidence, but you cannot be convinced by evidence, then it is you who has a religious belief, and not me.

He just stated that his belief is religious...

(Well, he didn't state that exactly, but he did state that you may as well treat it as such.)

Oh, I think you're right, I parsed his comment incorrectly.

The funniest part about this is that you quote "If allowing the old cities of North America to be overrun and rendered largely uninhabitable by murderous racist gangs isn't bad government, really, I'm not sure what is." as prima facie evidence that Yarvin is unfit for polite society, while apparently living in a city where 38 people were shot last weekend (and over 1000 so far this year) by the same racist gangs he speaks of.

The overwhelming majority of violence in Chicago is gang violence between predominantly African American gangs, confined to poor neighborhoods that are the direct product of segregation, redlining, and "white flight". That's not a reaching analysis and it isn't "SJW"-speak; it is the clear, documented history of the city of Chicago.

So, two responses to your weird comment.

First: it's false that Chicago gangs are "racist". They aren't hunting down white people. They're hunting down rival gangs. They do that because they are, for the most part, teenagers locked in a vicious cycle of poverty and a total lack of opportunity.

Second: it's extremely sad if from these circumstances you've managed, like Yarvin seems to have, to draw a conclusion about the inferiority of African Americans.

I don't know you, but I feel like I've seen your name around HN for awhile now, and I hadn't had any reason to attach "racially prejudiced" to what little metadata I store about you. I'm hoping instead that I've just misread you. But "racist gangs" is a term you chose to use, which is disquieting.

I didn't say that they are hunting down white people. But it is inarguable that gangs in America (whether Crips, Bloods, Mafia, Russian-, MS-13, Irish, the Aryan Brotherhood, or otherwise) are organized along racial/ethnic lines. I would argue that violent street gangs are much more racist than software engineers are sexist, for example; but if I were to say "It is false that there is a sexism problem in tech" you would probably strongly disagree.

You just said that 38 people died last weekend in Chicago at the hands of racist gangs. But all 38 of those people were probably of the same ethnicity as the gangs. I don't understand what evidence you have to build an argument that they're "racist" on.

There is sure as shit some racism tied up in gang violence, but it isn't the kind of racism Yarvin wants to talk about. He'd apparently rather talk at excruciating length about the racism of gang members.

I also think maybe you and I just shouldn't discuss this issue.

It's important to consider the audience of this blog post.

Many of the readers may in fact be white nationalists looking to Moldbug for justification for their ideals, and I'd speculate the post is written how it is because it's just not helpful to tell them their concerns are flat-out invalid.

I am not here to defend this position, I am simply here to say I find it to be something other than indefensible.

If you read more broadly about "neo-reactionism", it's not hard to reach the conclusion that white supremacy --- or some intellectual abstraction isomorphic to it --- is one of its defining features. They're like the Non-Threatening Boys Magazine version of white power.

it's not hard to reach the conclusion that white supremacy --- or some intellectual abstraction isomorphic to it --- is one of its defining features

On the contrary, it's impossible to reach that conclusion if you read even cursorily. For example, neoreactionaries generally accept the results of mainstream academic studies concluding that Chinese are on average more intelligent than Europeans, and that European Jews are on average more intelligent than European Gentiles. These are not views traditionally associated with "white supremacy," to say the least.

P.S. +1 for the reference to one of my favorite sly Simpson's jokes.

+1 for retention of humor in a pretty dreary discussion.

When one writes "X is a racist" (or "white nationalist", or something like this, or something that essentially means that), a reader would certainly assume that you're talking about modern and commonly known representatives of this class. If after that you have to qualify - no, I didn't mean the common meaning of that word but I meant some arcane and archaic meaning that is not immediately obvious but means something different that I could define if I was called on it - I think you own the misinterpretation. If you used the non-obvious meaning, you should explicitly state that, since you know there is an obvious meaning which would completely overwhelm any other meaning.

I assure you that the racism of, for example, Yitzhak Herzog (who heads Israel's main centre-left party), is as obvious to the ideological opponents of Zionism as Yarvin's is to you. If you doubt me, ask them.

It should be clear from my other comments that I am concerned with the principle of excluding people from apolitical fora on the grounds of racism alone. How justified or controversial it is to call someone a racist fails to engage the argument that it's a social evil to apply that test.

As to the technical value of Urbit itself, having passed a process explicitly designed to support neutral evaluation (blind review and ranking) it's unfair to start picking holes. (One thing I saw was a bit of point-and-laugh at the style of the C code used to implement it, which frankly is no worse or different than I've seen used in some more obscure languages like False, for example.)

If I Google your name, am I going to find a very well known blog in which you repeatedly and at length argue about the inferiority of Palestinians as a race? No? Then, again, not sure what your Zionism point has to do with anything.

Strange Loop has a blind review system?

I'm going to start repeating myself if I get into your first paragraph, and no offence but I'd rather hear what Klabnik has to say. If that's unfair then let it be unfair.

Strange Loop has a two/three phase system, in which applications are blind-ranked, a panel takes the top ranked applications and further filters them based on 'softer' criteria (which may include demographic ones) and the final say is Alex Miller's. That at least is what I gathered from reading the blog about how talks are selected, and also from reading people on twitter discussing how Urbit got by them in the blind review stage.

In any case, it is way past my bed-time after this HN outage.

Sorry about that. It annoys me when people do that to me too.

Thank you, seriously. And good night.

There was a way to point out that Klabnik's politics may conflict him out of this debate, but calling him a "proud communist" wasn't it. Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN. Sometimes the line between personal attack and ideological critique is blurry. The closer you get to that line here, the more carefully you need to write.

If CY's writing on Carlyle is relevant, why is noting that SK lobbies for more programmers to integrate Marx and other left-radical writers beyond reproach? http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-12-15-marx-anarchism...

It isn't. The manner in which it was evoked in the above comment was rude and dismissive, and that's the problem.

Incidentally, I'm irritated by Klabnik's politics. But I don't find them disqualifying. I am not so sure about Yarvin's. Can I reliably articulate why I think that's fair? No, I don't think so. And I can live with that.

"Which opinions are disqualifying and should be no platformed? Don't worry, I know them when I see them."

That's comforting.

I understand what you're saying and I can live with your discomfort.

I can live with his discomfort too (tbh), but the fact remains a lot of people are saying "Urbit is finished as a project after this" and they may be right; but even if Yarvin is a huge racist and deserves to be no-platformed (which, at least to my satisfaction, is not established), Urbit is now bigger than him, and it has been for near two years.

There are other contributors and they are tangibly harmed by this action, now and in the future. I think they will get over it. But I would guesstimate that overwhelmingly most of them are not interested in Moldbug or his politics, and they (we?) are also casualties of this shitstorm.

Please don't forget about it.

What does "no-platformed" mean? Invitation to a private conference is not like academic tenure. It's done at the pleasure of the conference organizers. This one chose not to open their venue to Yarvin. Even Yarvin doesn't seem too alarmed.

I think a lot of this is just people want their drama fix.

(There's a different pathology that makes me want to write about it. I'm aware, it doesn't need to be pointed out, but thanks in advance.)

I am talking about SK, who has never attended strangeloop and admits he did not have any plans to go this year either, who was literally shouting "no platform for fascists" from his twitter account in the immediate time prior to the publicizing of the news of un-invitation.

That's what it means. Not just him, of course, but por ejemplo, and since you asked. If we ever do see Curtis invited to speak at any more conferences, I think we can also expect a repeat performance from the internet mobs.

If that's true, that wasn't a great thing for him to have done.

Later: a cursory look at Klabnik's feed suggests it's likely to be true. Again: not a great thing for Klabnik to have done.

I said that I have not been to Strangeloop before, but that's because it's scheduled during the busiest conference weekend of the year, and I historically always have conflicts. This year, I have a conference that overlaps the first day, and am trying to decide if I can make it work.

I am not upset. The Urbit folks have hit the repos with renewed vigor, and more people are talking Urbit on Twitter this week than in the 10-20 prior weeks combined. If you're pleased with the outcome too, then we're both glad.

The manner that SK evoked CY's politics has not only been rude but literally dismissive - resulting in the cancellation of an interesting technical talk.

This boils down to personal politics - I only see one camp forcibly silencing another.

Klabnik in that post seems to be advocating anarchism, which Marx struggled for decades to expunge from the socialist movement. I'm not that familiar with Klabnik's politics, but having skimmed that piece I would be surprised to learn he was actually Communist.

Klabnik says the simple, one word definition of himself is "communist", although in detail it's more nuanced.

Moldbug explicitly disavows fascism, yet here we are. If we're going to split hairs we need to be consistent.

I obviously can't see the original comment. But though being labelled a communist might be like calling someone a nazi in general American culture, some people freely identify as such. Klabnik doesn't seem to have a problem with that name, in fact.

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