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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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