Online critics complained about the lineup at a conference. They couldn’t believe who had been taken seriously and invited to give a talk. And they managed to get the organizers to disinvite someone. Fie, you shout. For shame! What about open discussion and debate about the ideas? Unbelievable. How could they defile the principles of free speech and freedom of thought to reject Rock Star and Indiana Jones of the superfood universe?
That’s right. They disinvited David Avocado Wolfe.
Following an online backlash for hosting alternative health guru David “Avocado” Wolfe as a speaker at the annual Biohacker Summit in October, held this year in Finland, organisers announced that Wolfe has been removed from the conference lineup.
What a crime. But is it possible that some people are so unqualified, so repugnant, so wrong that they don’t deserve a speaking slot at a conference? Say it ain’t so. I was going to suggest Ken Ham as the keynote speaker of the Society for the Study of Evolution meetings next year.
What about Free Speeeeeeeeach-eeach-eeach-eeach?
I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want someone who believes gravity is a conspiracy theory to their convention.
Following an online backlash for hosting alternative health guru David “Avocado” Wolfe as a speaker at the annual Biohacker Summit in October, held this year in Finland, organisers announced that Wolfe has been removed from the conference lineup.
Wait until the Gigantic Steak Lobby* hears about this! Will they be deplatformed from cardiologists’ conferences?
That’s parsed: (Gigantic Steak) Lobby not Gigantic (Steak Lobby)
Getting disinvited to the “Biohacker Summit” is kind of like being banned from a homeopathy or hollow earth conference. It’s either a badge of honor or a serious embarrassment depending on how it goes down.
There have been a lot of posts and comments here about free speech/hate speech. It seems that many could benefit from reading about the history of free speech, Popehat has some information as does Simple Justice.
-basement dwelling troll
*looks*
very first line:
so, when you start off with a simplistic strawman like this, I’m hardly tempted to bother reading further, and indeed, the article is full of BS and logical fallacies galore.
Popehat must hide the good stuff behind all this bullshit?
Marcus Ranum #2: “That’s parsed: (Gigantic Steak) Lobby…”.
That’s one of the uses of hyphens: write “Giant-Steak Lobby” to make your meaning clear. See 6.39 in: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11570/to-hyphenate-or-not#answer-11622
The view of many style guides these days is to omit such hyphens when there’s no ambiguity. E.g., 6.41 in the above answer and the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-h
“There is no need to use hyphens with most compound adjectives, where the meaning is clear and unambiguous without: civil rights movement, financial services sector, work inspection powers, etc. Hyphens should, however, be used to form short compound adjectives, eg two-tonne vessel, three-year deal, 19th-century artist. Also use hyphens where not using one would be ambiguous, eg to distinguish “black-cab drivers come under attack” from “black cab-drivers come under attack”. A missing hyphen in a review of Chekhov’s Three Sisters led us to refer to “the servant abusing Natasha”, rather than “the servant-abusing Natasha”.”
If in doubt I’d include the hyphen, though, to avoid the reader having to go back and re-parse when they’ve read enough of the sentence to realize that their first guess at the meaning was wrong.
I thought deplatforming was what fashion-conscious people had to do at the end of the 70s when flatter shoes came back into style.
Ichthyic, you might want to calibrate your sarcasm meter and read a little further in the Popehat article. If you dismiss articles after reading only the first line, you may be missing out on a lot of cogent analysis.
New acronym for elite universities and other organizations, e. g. NYT: LIPO. Liberal in Pretension Only.
Meaning, of course, fake liberal as an excuse to shift the window further to the conservative side.
Sheesh.
Indeed. From that Popehat post, The Seductive Appeal of the “Nazi Exception” (all emphasis in the original):
Whilst one might disagree with Popehat’s rhetorical approach, or perhaps some of the claims, arguments, or examples, blindly asserting the very opposite of what is actually said is at the least intellectually dishonest.
Artor@8, blf@10,
I think Ichthyic understood exactly what Popehat is getting at from the first line, and rightly dismissed the article as simplistic crap.
Ichthyic and KG: Just curious – what background and study do you have in law?
How does one get to be an expert in who deserves the Heckler’s Veto?
Two sentences read would only be enough for someone who knows it all – oh, excuse me.
jahigginbotham #12
How old are you?
@13chigau – Older than the number of points Kobe scored in his last game. That’s kind of why it’s fun/disheartening to read many of the fatuous comments here, presumably by kids who will someday mature.
jahigginbotham@4,12,14,
I notice you have no actual arguments to put forward, just facile insults. Not surprising perhaps, as you self-identify as a basement-dwelling troll. Popehat, and you, might like to consider that there are numerous countries in which restrictions on hate speech exist, and which nevertheless have not degenerated into tyrannies (I live in one of them). But Popehat and you appear to suffer from OWHITUSAC* syndrome. There are serious arguments both for and against such laws, and for and against institutions such as universities restricting who they give platforms to speak, but simply asserting that arguments for any such restrictions are “childish nonsense”, is itself lackwitted garbage, typical of self-styled “libertarians”. You, and Popehat, might also like to consider that hate speech which is allowable under US law can have – and is undoubtedly intended to have – the effect of terrorising its targets and thus curtailing their rights to free speech, as well as their right not to be terrorised. But clearly Popehat, and you, don’t give a shit about that.
*Only What Happens In The USA Counts
How long before Black Lives Matter is accused of hate speech?