Comment by brighteyes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brighteyes | Hacker News Reader

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1. Bin Laden actually killed thousands of people. If, instead, your example was a Muslim preacher who advocated controversial views, but was not violent himself nor the head of a violent organization, then yes - we should accept such a Muslim preacher, if he has an interesting technical talk to give.

2. Has Moldbug actually self-identified as a Nazi? He has offensive views to many, to be sure, but Nazi is much more specific, and to me, a weird way to interpret what he writes. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that what you call "Nazi" I would call "disgusting, wrong, and troubling." The fact we don't agree on what precisely he is - even if we both dislike him - is one reason why we should not ban him. Especially since on other people we might not agree on who to ban (e.g. some consider abortion doctors to be literal murderers; should they ban such doctors from a programming conference?).

3. About the diversity situation in tech: the article mentions how another industry, medicine, handles this kind of thing. LambdaConf's decision is the default in that industry. In fact, in practically all industries. Yes the gender difference in tech is larger than in medicine. That is inconsistent with your claim.

1. Do you think people like Hitler just arise out of the sea one day, like Aphrodite, completely unbidden? No. Worms like Moldbug lay the path for the actually physically dangerous people to rise up.

2. I'm not gonna get bogged down in a nomenclature debate. We both agree he's a terrible person; that's enough for my argument to work.

3. This would only be true if this were the ONLY factor for the diversity problem (there are others)

1. Sure, but trying to stamp out every person with opinions you think might lead to something bad someday is, frankly, more frightening to me than Moldbug. What you advocate threatens our existence as an open society.

For social progress to happen, we need people to tolerate unlikable minorities. That's how things like gay rights happen, as 30 years ago, your arguments could have been use to ban a gay activist from a tech conference.

Yes, tolerating unlikable minorities like whatever Moldbug is has risks. But it's a risk we have to take.

It's not about "might." That's like saying the sun "might" set, or the tide "might" recede. Worms like Moldbug have a 100% historical record of mutating into terribly destructive individuals when given even the slightest leeway. On the other hand, tolerating them has a zero percent success rate. Zero! Never, not once, in history have Fascists been beaten by anything by the usual liberal, democratic means of discourse and praxis.

And again, not all opinions are equal. The opinion "we should noplatform gays" and "we should noplatform Fascists" aren't remotely in the same world just because they share the same first three words.

Imagine if we applied this argument to other facets of life! Imagine if people thought doctors were as bad as cancer because they tried to poison cancer cells. Imagine if people thought the Jews who rose up in the Warsaw ghetto and murdered Nazis were as bad as the Nazis themselves!

Also LMAO it's not a risk for everyone. It isn't a risk at all for the usually affluent/usually white liberals that usually stand in the way of noplatforming people like Moldbug. It IS a risk for people of color, women, the disenfranchised, etc. It is facile for someone to say "well that's a risk we have to take" when it's hardly a risk to you at all. Of course politicians use this logic all the time to justify the mass slaughter of civilians abroad. "Well, it might result in collateral ~~murder~~ damage, but that's just a risk we'll have to take."

> Worms like Moldbug have a 100% historical record of mutating into terribly destructive individuals when given even the slightest leeway.

You're thinking of all the ones that you know the outcome of, like Hitler. But there are many, many idiots like Moldbug that simply do not succeed in doing anything. Many Hitlers go back to painting after failing at politics, some even after some initial promise.

Statistically, ignoring Moldbug will work. And actually banning him is counterproductive: I only heard about him through these bans, and it led me to read a bunch of his work out of curiosity. I wasn't convinced (I'm not exactly his target audience anyhow for demographic reasons), but others might be.

> not all opinions are equal.

The point is we don't know which are equal. 30 years ago, most people thought the ethical thing was to ban gay people. And 30 years from now, things you and I do now will look bad to people.

Given we might be wrong, just like all past and future generations, it's a good idea to be tolerant.

Of course, we shouldn't tolerate all behavior - if someone sexually harasses someone, we should ban them and report them to the police. But for just having a certain belief, or other personal attribute that is not part of a programming language conference, we should not ban people.

(Btw, it's not me that's downvoting you.)

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