The author decided not to go.
In other news (of the weird), Lambdaconf now promotes this political blog which sponsors them: https://twitter.com/aphyr/status/716427389350359040
In other news (of the weird), Lambdaconf now promotes this political blog which sponsors them: https://twitter.com/aphyr/status/716427389350359040
Neil deGrasse Tyson: "There's nothing you can ever tell scientists about the natural world that will hurt their feelings."
Grim Dark Future Hat: "Blacks have lower average IQs. Your move."
Guess there's reasons not to invite speakers notorious for advocating racism against fellow conference-goers and their families! [1] (And why one hires knowledgeable diversity consultants who've seen these dynamics a thousand times.)
[1] "It was really quite lovely. Later that day, in the jeep to the ranch house where everyone was staying, he started up with the casual racism, and everyone ignored him." (https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/606799534983770112)
Guess there's a reason we don't invite speakers notorious for advocating enslaving fellow conference-goers' families
So our standard is, if diversity activists can lie, and make the lies stick, then we don't let the target of their lies speak anywhere? Sounds reasonable.
Speaking of "lies": not inviting him to a private event != not letting him speak "anywhere". (Furthermore, this response came 9 minutes after mine, and carries a quote I immediately edited and cited evidence for. While fuming about the Lambdaconf sponsor author's attempt to "hurt" Neil Degrasse Tyson, I was momentarily careless.)
> signed this scientific consensus about the bell curve
If you'll excuse me, I do not have any interest in debating The Bell Curve (I believe about race & IQ?) with people who rapidly show up to support obvious racists and write stuff like: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10945507)
The whole point is to attack Blacks using techniques of so-called "scientific racism".
(And not discussing racist pseudo-science is merely protection of your own intelligence. My brief neglect to cite evidence warned me that exposure to low standards made my own slip! :)
The enemies who blast this stuff at each other resemble no one so much as each other. Meanwhile the rest of us just want to get away from it. It isn't productive, and it spoils HN for things that are actually interesting, which spoils its whole purpose.
Inflammatory political arguments and talking points degrade this place, as the utter lameness of the current subthread makes clear. That isn't conversation; it's destructive of conversation. We want good conversation here.
Good conversation is unpredictable and involves people listening to and respecting one another. That's what matters, not blasting people with predetermined rhetoric.