I'm intolerant of people who's world-view denies the personhood of an entire category of people. Differentiated just by how they look. He can choose to rectify his behavior and outlook and I will welcome him back into society. I believe people can change. And I will thank you for not assuming you know the hows or the whys of my past. It was not faux-tolerant people like you who would ever lead to that change. My past is full of enablers who spoke just like you did, conflating religious and ideolgocal freedom with bigotry and racism.
Intolerance of intolerance is a precondition to an actual open society. Suggesting I allow people to divide themselves in half in a way we'd never do in any other portion of society (imagine this person being appointed as a teacher at a university then promising his beliefs won't affect his communications with his students). It's ludicrous. It's absurd. Let him actually demonstrate the behavior he's pledging and then we can talk, but there is no rational reason to believe he won't bring conflict, strife, and bigotry with him wherever he goes. Even if you cannot see it because you don't seem to be the subject of his ire.
Mendacious Moldbug has brought this rejection upon himself in one of the few ways we universally recognize as a way to earn that rejection: by passing the identical fate upon a whole category of people just because of the circumstances of their birth. Far better to reject one toxic person than make every non-white person walk on eggshells throughout the conference. And you need not look far to find a number of people in the community who would feel that way, and already face substantial marginalization that no amount of behavior changing can ameliorate.
I'm fine being intolerant of intolerance. Any rational person should realize the implications of not speaking out against intolerance wherever we find it. And part of that speech is making proponents of intolerance feel unwelcome. We shouldn't invite Eric S Raymond or David Duke to speak at these events either.
> He can choose to rectify his behavior and outlook and I will welcome him back into society.
It's not particularly related to the rest of the discussion, but I'm curious as to what passes as rectifying his behavior. What would he have to do?
> It was not faux-tolerant people like you who would ever lead to that change.
Although I disagree with the "faux-tolerant" assertion (I believe I'm being tolerant!) I'll agree that the change probably wouldn't stem from me. I try to get along with people as much as I can. Perhaps this incurs a cost on others. This criticism is a fair one.
I'm not a reactionary-conservative (maybe that's who I'm being compared to?); I'm not trying to mislead you. I honestly believe what I'm typing. (I reserve the right to change it in the future but) I'm not trying to trick you. This is an honest discussion and I am treating it like one (and thanks for doing the same). I don't feign misunderstanding, I just honestly don't understand.
> Intolerance of intolerance is a precondition to an actual open society.
Isn't intolerance of intolerance an intolerant act in and of itself, though?
> (imagine this person being appointed as a teacher at a university then promising his beliefs won't affect his communications with his students)
I actually have had teachers that have taught in this way, both in high school and at university. Not that they promised any of this to the administration, but that they made a promise to us not to let their inherent political bias infect what they were teaching us. They would try to present, as best they could, both viewpoints. This, in and of itself, was a lesson to me.
People can hold two separate and conflicting ideas in their minds, while realizing the implications of both ideas. As a precise example, it's exactly how I was taught the functionalist and conflict perspectives of sociological theory. It is literally cognitive dissonance to accept both ideas, but you can't understand the whole of sociology without both of them. Cognitive dissonance can be a tool.
Hell, I had an English teacher in high school that was a known (and self-admitted, to a degree) misandrist (not to such a degree that the word connotes, but there was a bias). She asked all of her students to use ID numbers rather than names, because she realized that she always graded essays written by males lower than those by women, and that the disparity didn't exist when she didn't know. She was a fine teacher, and the bias rarely ever spilled over into how she taught otherwise. She was also the fairest grader I had that year.
> but there is no rational reason to believe he won't bring conflict, strife, and bigotry with him
He said he wouldn't. Until he does, I'll believe him. Maybe I'm a pushover for thinking so, but I also think people are innocent until proven guilty. He says some shitty things, but I don't think he'll say them on stage. And if he does, then he gets kicked out.
At the same time, tptacek's post here[1] disagrees. I don't have any direct citations, so I can't speak to it. And because of that, I'm going to believe Moldbug. I hate that I have to, but I think I can logically defend it, with a lack of further evidence. (I have to because I can. If I can't, I won't.)
> Far better to reject one toxic person than make every non-white person walk on eggshells throughout the conference.
We know at least a couple non-white people won't walk on eggshells. I remember this post[2], from someone who isn't white.
And I agree with the spirit of that post. If someone says something stupid, by God, let them shout their idiocy, so that we may hear it and strike it down with our logic and our facts. Let us put people in their place when they have asked for it and not a moment before.
Moldbug basically represents neoreaction. If he acts poorly, it'll show people like me (who are neutral on him for the time being) that he and what he represents is actually harmful. Suppressing how stupid someone is only makes their stupidity more effective. It's when their stupidity is visible that people can avoid it. To me, it's a win-win. Either he shows us some very strange and interesting tech, or he acts like a dick and no one listens to anyone from the neoreactionary movement ever again.
Being intolerant of wholly intolerant people is not a bad thing, but there are some people that can separate their intolerance from the other aspects of their lives. I don't think Moldbug is a wholly intolerant person. I think he holds intolerant views. And I think there is a distinction to be made, especially as these views are not in scope of the talk that he's giving.
Even if you consider my views misguided or wrong, do they at least follow logically?
> Isn't intolerance of intolerance an intolerant act in and of itself, though?
You're confusing yourself. Let me use reductio ad absurdum to point out how your logic is self-defeating. Please understand, I'm not ridiculing you, just pointing out the logical fallacy. Try this formulation...
Isn't hating "hate", in itself, hateful? Why, then, it follows that we should love "hate" in order to be loving! Hate people: it's what loving people would do!
There is a moral equivalence here that's wrong. Despising things that are evil isn't in itself evil, merely because you're employing a word or sentiment normally associated with evil. It's the loaded meaning of the words "despise" and "intolerant" that's tripping you up. Try the word "embrace" instead and things become much clearer.
Example: Isn't failing to embrace intolerance intolerant?
No, it's the very opposite.
> but I'm curious as to what passes as rectifying his behavior. What would he have to do?
Admit the worldview is wrong and he was mistaken, then hold that view publicly and without recantation for a reasonable sum of time. But that's for me. Other people may have different standards.
Forgiveness is not something that calendars well.
> He said he wouldn't. Until he does, I'll believe him. Maybe I'm a pushover for thinking so, but I also think people are innocent until proven guilty. He says some shitty things, but I don't think he'll say them on stage. And if he does, then he gets kicked out.
Ignoring his existing behavior and its duration is not a logical or reasonable act. It is a luxury you can express because his beliefs do not deny your essential humanity.
> And because of that, I'm going to believe Moldbug. I hate that I have to, but I think I can logically defend it, with a lack of further evidence. (I have to because I can. If I can't, I won't.)
You do not have to. You've chosen to ignore his writing. You've chosen to ignore his reported and verifiable actions. You've chosen to ignore the people hurt by those actions.
> If someone says something stupid, by God, let them shout their idiocy, so that we may hear it and strike it down with our logic and our facts.
How often do black people have to refute people who claim they're sub human before you're satisfied? You should let them know what they're on the hook for, if that's evidently the rule.
> that he and what he represents is actually harmful.
None of this is about neoreaction. No one has mentioned neoreactionaries. That he believes in an authoritarian government or all but fetishizes small corporate structure is supremely boring and unoriginal, he's repeating the same arguments about essential quality that we saw in the Victorian Era.
His "biodiversity" doctrine is the problem. And that's not a belief shared by all neoreactionaries (and I know a few who vehemently deny that this is a required tenant).
Racism is not politics, racism is not religion. Racism is hate. You keep trying to sneak in this equivocation like I won't notice. Like somehow if you say it often enough we'll all forget this is the central point of this entire discussion. It is the same moral and ethical cowardice that filled the original blog post.
> Even if you consider my views misguided or wrong, do they at least follow logically?
No. You have willfully discarded the evidence, discarded Occam's razor for a strained equivocation that wouldn't hold up in a first year college philosophy class.
You have further attempted to take a weak form of censure (i.e., "We decline to have you speak at this conference, though you may still attend.") and classify this into a rejection of that person's humanity and then pretended this is identical to Yarvin's views towards black people. At worst, that's disingenuous. At best, it lacks even a shred of human empathy.
Intolerance of intolerance is a precondition to an actual open society. Suggesting I allow people to divide themselves in half in a way we'd never do in any other portion of society (imagine this person being appointed as a teacher at a university then promising his beliefs won't affect his communications with his students). It's ludicrous. It's absurd. Let him actually demonstrate the behavior he's pledging and then we can talk, but there is no rational reason to believe he won't bring conflict, strife, and bigotry with him wherever he goes. Even if you cannot see it because you don't seem to be the subject of his ire.
Mendacious Moldbug has brought this rejection upon himself in one of the few ways we universally recognize as a way to earn that rejection: by passing the identical fate upon a whole category of people just because of the circumstances of their birth. Far better to reject one toxic person than make every non-white person walk on eggshells throughout the conference. And you need not look far to find a number of people in the community who would feel that way, and already face substantial marginalization that no amount of behavior changing can ameliorate.
I'm fine being intolerant of intolerance. Any rational person should realize the implications of not speaking out against intolerance wherever we find it. And part of that speech is making proponents of intolerance feel unwelcome. We shouldn't invite Eric S Raymond or David Duke to speak at these events either.