Victim blaming.
Also, the cat is cute. Meow.
…cats are better than people…
This, where you say you “don’t believe” in one of two things under discussion, and then spend the rest of the thread trying to avoid taking a stand on the second?
This is one of those occasions where “don’t believe/no stand” really comes off as “I don’t care what happens to them.”
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What is it that you’re saying people have to be afraid of at this conference?
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Pretty much, yes. Although I would say it more that the rest of the thread was actually other people trying to pretend that I was taking a stand on it by putting words in my mouth.
The irony is, IMO, that my original point – that overblown rhetoric is overblown, causes people to respond reactively, and doesn’t help anyone in the struggle towards securing a more just, social world – is pretty much confirmed by the thread itself, where people’s reactivity pretty much blinded them to the point to begin with (evidenced by the fact that no one even commented/noticed the actual point I did make).
Not taking a stand is taking a stand. You did make a point, just not the one you thought you did.
But have no fear - I’m sure everybody in this thread is just blinded by by our hive-mindedness, and you’re the lone Rational Actor.
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(I’m not being a dick, or casting anything, or making judgements, or any of that crap).
We do actually have Tautology Club.
Yep. I don’t know a thing about him, but it took about a minute to engoogle that he’s “only there to speak about Urbit”, and another couple of minutes to learn that Urbit is an incomplete, dubiously practical effort at an ultra-libertarian system for anonymous distributed computing.
Now, this might well involve technical problems which are interesting to think about for their own sake, just like the idea of, say, race-specific anthrax or anti-female CAPTCHAs. So if the conference organisers think their attendees will find such stimulation valuable then they should book the guy.
But to be clear, the subject itself is strongly political, regardless of the speaker, and it’s disingenuous to pretend that if you host such a discussion you aren’t cultivating certain political flavors. And potential attendees know that you know that, which reinforces the sense that you’re carving out a special place for the technical interests of right-wing bonkers people. So don’t do that if it’s not what you mean to do.
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Star Trek gets mighty awkward when you realize that it tends to be pretty racist; they just replace races with species.
And if the attendees decide that this dudebro is the bee’s knees?
From the Urbit demo video (I am quite interested in distributed computing, so, ya know…):
I’d rather the next Internet not be designed by someone so eager to keep things “harmonious and productive” with built-in segregation, thank you very much!
If the goal is to ensure “politics doesn’t erode apolitical relationships” then the guy’s life is also a walking demonstration of why his project will fail.
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Thanks. It is hard to tell from the web whether someone is genuinely nasty, or whether they got on the wrong side of some internet feeding frenzy hate-fest. I could go and search for their works, but even a search may be biased towards the worst quotes taken out of context. But one personal encounter - and as it is on the web I cannot assume it is 100% accurate, but it sounds genuine - tells us a lot.
I would probably do the same as your friend - listen to the interesting ideas, and blank out the trolling. I am so glad I don’t have to organize talks and take decisions like this, because I would have probably let him in on that reasoning; while most people here would have gone the other way. Tricky one.
It will host every other kind of weirdo, so why not?
Because while some kinds of weirdos are harmless, some are not.
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…researchers sent young whites and blacks out to interview for low-wage jobs in New York City armed with equivalent résumés, the result was:
A) Whites and blacks were hired at similar rates.
B) Blacks had a modest edge because of affirmative action.
C) Whites were twice as likely to get callbacks.
The answer is C, and a black applicant with a clean criminal record did no better than a white applicant who was said to have just been released from 18 months in prison.
A majority of whites believe that job opportunities are equal for whites and blacks, according to a PBS poll, but rigorous studies show that just isn’t so.
…
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Shouldn’t they decide that… hopefully, some would protest against it and pull out, but isn’t it at the end of the day, up to the people attending? I do think that condoning people like him at places like this is ultimately bad for diversity in the field overall.
DS9 tended to have the most complex view of different species, but it was still kind of essentialist, wasn’t it?
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Sad to see more of the commentariat advocating censorship than usual… nothing disinfects quite like sunlight.
I wish people put as much of themselves into building people up, as they do into tearing them down. Has anybody plotted out yet how many Trump posts there are on bOINGbOING for every Sanders post, or vice-versa? Has there ever been a toplevel post regarding Jill Stein at all? Google can’t find even one, when I search the site.
Indeed, “a civilized society would kill Yarvin or give him his say.” Word up, Mr. Beschizza.
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Have you asked it of this guy? He’s pro-slavery, pro-rape, etc. Please, tell us why you think we should not call him out on his BS and let him carry on, as if he’s actually contributing to our society?
And again, it’s not censorship if an organization that is not the government disinvites someone. If the attendees decide he’s not worth listening to, that’s not censorship - that’s a group of individuals making a decision.
Although, I totally agree that Jill Stein should get some stories here on BB. I’d love that.
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Refusing to provide a platform to a spewer of hateful, damaging views (and thereby tacitly endorsing them) is not the same thing as censorship. Refusing to provide a platform to this crypto-Nazi leaves him completely free to spew his shit in other venues.
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The first rule of Tautology Club is that it is the first rule of Tautology Club.
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