LambaConf, an annual conference for functional programmers based in Colorado, is once again under fire from leftists in tech for refusing to engage in political censorship.
This year, their target was Ed Latimore, an African-American physics major and heavyweight boxer who leftists accuse of being a “bigot.”
Last year, leftists attacked the conference, which rejects political intolerance, after they invited programmer and political thinker Curtis Yarvin to speak. Leftists accused Yarvin, himself Jewish, of being a white supremacist and slavery apologist, both of which he has denied.
LambdaConf resisted efforts to ostracize Yarvin, and in response leftists bombarded their sponsors with emails, asking them to pull out. However, the conference was rescued by a crowdfunding campaign, which raised more than $20,000 to fund LambaConf.
This time round, SJWs have gone after LambaConf for hosting Ed Latimore, a heavyweight boxer, U.S. Army veteran, and physics major, who gave a talk at the conference on overcoming fear.
SJWs targeted Latimore over a number of tweets he made, which they say identify him as a “Men’s Rights Activists” and a “Red-piller.” This view is apparently based off a single tweet from Latimore last week.
“Red-pilling” is a term used by those on the right to describe the process of acquiring forbidden, or “red-pilling,” knowledge that moves one’s political views in a rightward direction. It was popularized by men’s rights advocates who used to to describe the realization that modern feminism is flawed beyond repair.
The Red Pill is also the title of a documentary on the men’s rights movement by former feminist activist Cassie Jaye. It recently won the “Women in Film” award at Digifest. Jaye, merely for taking a balanced approach to the men’s rights movement, faced similar attacks to Latimore, including attempts to have the film boycotted by cinemas.
As Latimore’s tweets spread, they sparked fury amongst the social justice warriors of tech, who were already angry at LambaConf for its history of resistance to their doctrine of political conformity.
One SJW says she was “left in tears” after the conference ignored her complaints about Latimore, who she accuses of being a “misogynist.”
Gupta later accused repeated the claim that LambaConf hosted a “white supremacist” last year, arguing that it was endorsing a “nasty strain of bigotry” in tech, and has accused Latimore of sending an “army” after her on social media. Gupta also claimed to have been the victim of attempted sexual assault at the conference, . (CORRECTION: Gupta has clarified that the alleged incident did not take place at LambdaConf, but at a separate event later that evening in Denver)
It is not clear what Gupta, a self-confessed newcomer to technology, was doing at a conference for high-level functional programming. A number of the accounts she follows on Twitter, including @Ruby and Christie Kohler, are tech SJWs who have been publicly criticizing LambaConf for some time.
One senior programmer familiar with the matter said: “Her stated goal for attending a high level programming conference was to learn more about Elixir. It’s not unreasonable to say that, but I would wonder how someone with 7 months experience as a developer knows what it is.”
After Gupta’s tweets, other tech SJWs quickly chimed in with attacks on LambaConf, and a range of unsubstantiated claims about Latimore that the speaker has since denied.
The tech SJWs are also targeting LambaConf once again. SJWs are calling for boycotts, and compiling information on LambaConf speakers, including information on their race and gender.
John De Goes, the principal organizer of LambaConf, has publicly defended Latimore.
“Ed Latimore is a kind and generous man who is truly passionate about helping people” said De Goes.
“I don’t agree with Ed on everything, but he’s a source of endless insight and inspiration, and I’m upset at the way people are lying about him and trying to smear his reputation.”
LambaConf has been in the crosshairs of social justice warriors for some time now. In addition to inviting Curtis Yarvin last year, the conference has also adopted the Fantasyland Institute Code of Professionalism (FCOP), a code of conduct for software development communities and tech conferences that explicitly forbids discrimination on political grounds. According to the FCOP’s description:
FCOP is a code of conduct designed specifically for professional communities. Professional communities, unlike social communities, political communities, religious communities, and support groups, exist to serve a professional agenda, not a social, political, religious or personal one.
Professional communities are inclusive and diverse. They do not take sides in religious or political matters. Above all, they are focused on ensuring that all civil individuals can come together and work productively in an environment that upholds the highest standards of professionalism, regardless of any differences between members that are inherent to pluralistic societies.
FCOP was developed in response to the Contributor Code, a set of rules designed by tech SJW Coraline Ada Ehmke, that seeks to impose politically correct speech codes on tech communities. In contrast to the Contributor Code, FCOP is designed to protect rather than assault political diversity.
Many of the SJWs currently attacking LambaConf are the same people who attacked the conference over its invitation of Curtis Yarvin, and its later adoption of FCOP. The current controversy, and the barrage of accusations currently being flung at LambaConf, are not an isolated occurrence therefore, but just another flare-up in a long-running fight against the SJWs of tech.
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