Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Remove Richard Stallman

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 87 posts

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#21

Post by badatshipping »

krapp wrote: post #20
badatshipping wrote: post #18

I've noticed that people who write posts like this like to quote their subject, and then go, oh my, how shocking! what an appalling thing to say! without addressing the thing that was said, which in this case was (among other things): “I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.” He was responding to…

>I'm offended that people like Stallman are made to feel bad for being who they are, just because they're a minority. Richard Stallman is not a minority, either at MIT or in programming culture.

Fair point, but the expected norm in society, the one that posts like this draw from, centers around outward tact. Like, the whole moral injunction the author is trying to establish here is that he's saying tactless things.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#22

Post by AndrewBissell »

badatshipping wrote: post #18

I've noticed that people who write posts like this like to quote their subject, and then go, oh my, how shocking! what an appalling thing to say! without addressing the thing that was said, which in this case was (among other things): “I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.” He was responding to…

Stallman seems quite "offended" on behalf of Minsky in his original email, so your whole thesis here that he is somehow blind to the moral considerations at play won't hunt.

What is shocking about Stallman's email is he apparently thinks it would absolve Minsky of guilt to simply assume that Virginia Roberts "willingly presented herself" to him for sex. But this is of course nonsense -- it's the exact set of conditions under which sex is forced on many trafficked victims who are handed off by some procurer. And of course no one really believes that Minsky didn't know the score; many try to defend him by saying, "but he was disturbed by her offer and didn't accept it!" That he continued to associate with Epstein after that, rather than immediately leave or offer help to Roberts and Epstein's other victims, says all there is to day about Minsky's character which Stallman feels so compelled to defend.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#23

Post by AndrewBissell »

badatshipping wrote: post #21
krapp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm offended that people like Stallman are made to feel bad for being who they are, just because they're a minority. Richard Stallman is not a minority, either at MIT or in programming culture.

Fair point, but the expected norm in society, the one that posts like this draw from, centers around outward tact. Like, the whole moral injunction the author is trying to establish here is that he's saying tactless things.

No, it's not about tact, it's about advocating a viewpoint which demonstrably enables child predators and instills justified feelings of fear in women working at institutions alongside Stallman.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#24

Post by kemonocode »

So how many more people have to die before we finally understand cancel culture is an abysmally bad idea? Not that I believe RMS is in immediate danger, but for anyone else who's more weak-willed, a mean-spirited article like this would be a career-ending, if not life-ending matter.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#25

Post by krapp »

badatshipping wrote: post #21
krapp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm offended that people like Stallman are made to feel bad for being who they are, just because they're a minority. Richard Stallman is not a minority, either at MIT or in programming culture.

Fair point, but the expected norm in society, the one that posts like this draw from, centers around outward tact. Like, the whole moral injunction the author is trying to establish here is that he's saying tactless things.

The author might be offended by Stallman's lack of tact, but I don't think that's the "whole moral injunction." Rather, she places him as an exemplar of a culture that tolerates, if not celebrates, sexist and abusive behavior to the point of excusing and dismissing rape and sexual assault.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#26

Post by badatshipping »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #23
badatshipping wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but the expected norm in society, the one that posts like this draw from, centers around outward tact. Like, the whole moral injunction the author is trying to establish here is that he's saying tactless things.

No, it's not about tact, it's about advocating a viewpoint which demonstrably enables child predators and instills justified feelings of fear in women working at institutions alongside Stallman.

That's my whole issue here. The author's post makes it sound like her problem is with his lack of tact. She complains about his "choice of words," about how it wasn't "appropriate" to send an email to undergrads, how "shocked" she is.

If the problem is that his viewpoint is morally reprehensible, why not just say that, and let's hear some arguments in that direction?

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#27

Post by krapp »

badatshipping wrote: post #26
AndrewBissell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not about tact, it's about advocating a viewpoint which demonstrably enables child predators and instills justified feelings of fear in women working at institutions alongside Stallman.

That's my whole issue here. The author's post makes it sound like her problem is with his lack of tact. She complains about his "choice of words," about how it wasn't "appropriate" to send an email to undergrads, how "shocked" she is. If the problem is that his viewpoint is morally reprehensible, why not just say that, and let's hear some arguments in that direction?

>If the problem is that his viewpoint is morally reprehensible, why not just say that, and let's hear some arguments in that direction?

I had no problem parsing that subtext from the article. I don't know why you didn't, maybe you just skimmed it?

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#28

Post by DoreenMichele »

This is a really hard topic to discuss. It has a tendency to become a he said/she said argument space where women line up on one side to bash what a man is saying and men line up on the other side to defend the man. That just deepens the "gender war" conflict.

I didn't read entirely through the whole thing. It's not my cup of tea.

I don't know how we get to a better place, but attempts to dissect a piece written by a woman who is extremely upset, so upset she can't function and feels compelled to publicly vent, is probably not it.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#29

Post by quotemstr »

People like the author of this article --- people who haven't accomplished a hundredth of what RMS has --- have power only because reasonable people fear that they'll be next if they don't join the mob. You don't have to be afraid. We don't have to put up with cancel culture. All that's necessary is to just ignore these angry articles and focus on meaningful work, treating anger as a distraction.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#30

Post by DanBC »

badatshipping wrote: post #18

I've noticed that people who write posts like this like to quote their subject, and then go, oh my, how shocking! what an appalling thing to say! without addressing the thing that was said, which in this case was (among other things): “I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.” He was responding to…

> He was responding to a student,

He is responding to say that this rape of children was not rape and it was not assault and it was not so bad after all.

Of course people are going to be upset if he interjects a "well, actually" to defend a child rapist.

Post reply on HN