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

31–40 of 87 posts

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#31

Post by badatshipping »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #22
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 conditio…

Did he try to absolve Minsky of guilt? I thought the thesis of his defense of Minsky was:

"Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism."

"The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X."

He's not wrong that "sexual assault" is used ambiguously to describe a wide range of behaviors, some worse than others. If a guy does something that's 7/10 bad, and everyone's saying it's 9/10 bad, what's the right way to point out that it was only 7/10 bad?

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#32

Post by [deleted] »

badatshipping wrote: post #31
AndrewBissell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conditio…

Did he try to absolve Minsky of guilt? I thought the thesis of his defense of Minsky was: "Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism." "The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading…

[deleted]

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#33

Post by badatshipping »

krapp wrote: post #27
badatshipping wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I know she thinks that, but it's not what her post is about. She quotes Stallman, assumes the reader will agree that what he said was problematic, then spends the rest of the article discussing how we shouldn't tolerate problematic people.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#34

Post by [deleted] »

badatshipping wrote: post #31
AndrewBissell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conditio…

Did he try to absolve Minsky of guilt? I thought the thesis of his defense of Minsky was: "Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism." "The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading…

[deleted]

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#35

Post by rumanator »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #14
kentrado wrote: post #13

First, he didn’t even give the typical, whiney, ‘he’s accused but not convicted’ defense. No, Stallman went much further than that. I find it curious that she talks about this as if it is a bad thing. The most sensible thing is to wait until conviction to pass judgement. Why is that whiney?

> The most sensible thing is to wait until conviction to pass judgement. This is the most sensible thing if you're a juror on a case . Otherwise, judgment may be called for long before a trial even starts, particularly when it comes to dead men (or participants in an elite criminal network which operates above the law) who will never even be brought to trial.

> This is the most sensible thing if you're a juror on a case.

No, it's the most sensible thing in each and every single case, whether you're a juror or just someone reading the news.

Let the pitchforks remain in the past, and let's enjoy the benefits of living in a civilized society where rule of law and demonstration of guilt is what dictates punishment.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#36

Post by rumanator »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #11
sheldor wrote: post #9

"Did I even really know who Richard Stallman was before those emails? To be honest, not really" Oh, dear

Imagine it, someone who works (possibly at some remove) with a set of tools without necessarily engaging in a deep, intensive study of the figureheads who led in their creation. And then to engage with the written words of that figurehead as if they were on some sort of equal footing. The gall!

She singled out the man because he is who he is, and that's clearly a desperate attempt to bash her personal target. Let's not play dumb.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#37

Post by AndrewBissell »

badatshipping wrote: post #31
AndrewBissell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conditio…

Did he try to absolve Minsky of guilt? I thought the thesis of his defense of Minsky was: "Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism." "The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading…

This is such an odd argument. No one kvetches over the meaning of "murder" because some are more brutal or premeditated than others.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#38

Post by AndrewBissell »

kemonocode wrote: post #24

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.

Won't someone please think of the rape apologists?

If RMS is as thoroughly divorced from social needs and considerations as his defenders are claiming then I'm not sure why we should expect, say, removal from the FSF to have any psychological impact on him whatsoever.

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#39

Post by AndrewBissell »

rumanator wrote: post #35
AndrewBissell wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most sensible thing is to wait until conviction to pass judgement. This is the most sensible thing if you're a juror on a case . Otherwise, judgment may be called for long before a trial even starts, particularly when it comes to dead men (or participants in an elite criminal network which operates above the law) who will never even be brought to trial.

> This is the most sensible thing if you're a juror on a case. No, it's the most sensible thing in each and every single case, whether you're a juror or just someone reading the news. Let the pitchforks remain in the past, and let's enjoy the benefits of living in a civilized society where rule of law and demonstration of guilt is what dictates punishment.

Do you honestly believe moral judgments of historical or famous figures have to be suspended in every case where word of their misdeeds emerged after their deaths and they were never brought to trial?

Re: Remove Richard Stallman

#40

Post by beatgammit »

sumeno wrote: post #16
tutfbhuf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"statutory rape", full stop. To be precise.

These were human trafficking victims. They were raped.

That's what statutory rape means... rape. The question is whether assault was involved. And this is completely unrelated to whether the girls were trafficked, unless there's evidence that he conspired with Epstein.

And that's the type of hair splitting that RMS does, and he needs to be more careful about it. He's not wrong in what he said, but he could be wrong for saying it.

Post reply on HN