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In Defense of Richard Stallman

geoff.greer.fm

211–220 of 681 posts

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#211
post #76

Diversity -- but no diversity of opinion... Inclusiveness -- but let's ostracize the non-conforming aspie... Fairness -- but let's fire people or make them resign from unrelated positions for their personal opinions, because obviously all of a person's life should serve as a big PR, and god forbid they don't play the role 24/7. Someone might call them for it on Twitter, and what could their employee/organization do o…

Below is a quote from an interview, where Norman Finkelstein discusses the subject of thought policing. Norman Finkelstein has of course been affected by the defense of political correctness, as documented in the documentary "The Trials of Norman Finkelstein."

"What he should have done was in my opinion deliver one policy speech. 'This is where we stand on antisemitism. This is where we stand on the mechanisms for dealing with antisemitism in our party. Case closed.' The other major mistake he made was .. a complete abandonment of the principle of free speech. People have a right to say and think whatever they want. 'I'm a member of the Labour Party. OK. I subscribe to Labour Party's political platform. That's what makes me a member.' But that doesn't mean you have the right to troll my Facebook postings, you have the right to vet everything I say or post on Instagram. I mean that's Romania under Ceausescu, that's North Korea under Kim Il Sung. That's now going to be the mandate of the Labour Party? To be trolling in your thoughts and ideas? To see whether you are an antisemite? Everybody, including you, including your camera people harbors some antisemitic stereotypes... OK. Who cares? I mean It's very hard to extirpate, ... because it's rooted in thousands of years. I mean it's everywhere. It's part of the atmosphere, it's part of the environment, it's part of the history. Do I not harbor any anti-black stereotypes any racist stereotypes? Do I harbor no sexist stereotypes? No! And now we are going to have a Labour Party, which is going to [?] the depths of your conscience, ... looking for some evidence of antisemitism, ...? It's complete lunacy and it's a complete repudiation, abandonment of the most fundamental principles of what's called the Enlightenment beginning with as the Germans put it in that nice German folk song Die Gedanken sind Frei (Thoughts are free). People have the right to think what they believe, and since thought is inseparable from speech, you have the right to think and speak as you please. And if you don't like what a person is saying then you have the right either not to listen or try to persuade the person ... but what you don't have the right to do is penalize people, punish people, expel people for their thoughts... It's a complete political disaster because all it does is it forces people to repress what they're thinking until a demagogue comes along and starts saying what you're thinking, what you were forced to repress. And instead of your erroneous thoughts having been answered, the fact that you were forced to repress them, it validates it for you. ... And then the demagogue comes along and starts to exploit all of those repressed thoughts. So morally it's unacceptable to try to police people's thoughts and politically it's a complete disaster." https://youtu.be/OPYfLY2cAi4?t=616

Update: There is also that famous video where Finkelstein talks about the "crocodile tears" of a German student taking about the son of Holocaust survivors being ... offensive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O5zgXeCynQ&t=209s

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

before someone goes into a defensive rage... rms being a creep and particularly women at MIT going to great lengths to avoid him is well documented these remarks, while slightly distorted by the media, are still part of a pattern of dismissing sexual assault (including the way RMS insists on not using the word assault despite it being well understood that assault does not have to be physical violence) rms is the sort…

You, too - stop lying. People have been asking for documentation in every thread about this and it never shows up. Stop fucking lying.

https://twitter.com/corbett/status/994012399656042496

https://twitter.com/starsandrobots/status/994267277460619265

https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/994010501460865025

https://twitter.com/wiredferret/status/1173042834179534849

https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi...

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#213
post #45

Humanity is converging on ideological monoculture. There is one correct way to think, and if you're dumb enough to step outside of those bounds, people _will_ come after you, and destroy whatever you have. One comment here even suggested that RMS is a rapist in so many words, really? I submit that you cannot have innovation without inconvenient characters. You must allow a plurality of ideas and ideals to exist, even…

> There is one correct way to think,

Yes, when it comes to "is raping children okay?" there is only one way to think - "No, raping children is not okay".

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite some specific evidence for your specific claims?

On his website, for example, Stallman says that he "reject[s] the term sexual assault" completely.[1] ~edit: I have included the full quote below as I did not intend to twist/misrepresent in any way. Stallman writes: " The term is applied to a broad range of actions, ranging from stealing a kiss to rape, as well as other things in between. It acts as propaganda for treating them the same. There seems to be an excepti…

I think the whole point of the Stallman discussion as of lately is that people only decide to read what they want to read, ignoring context.

> I don't think that rape should be treated like stealing a kiss, so I reject the term "sexual assault" completely.

From my understanding, he disagrees with the term because it is imprecise, and the greater of two evils might be mixed up with the lesser - with the result that the greater evil might be perceived as less evil as it actually is.

(Edit: A sibling comment gets the above thought better, describing it as an "umbrella term".)

The way you quote him, you try (seem to) to imply that he thinks there is no such thing denoting "sexual assault". Or using the same logical reasoning: Are you, spats1990, implying that rape should be treated like "stealing a kiss"? I doubt you are, but I strongly doubt he does either.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#215
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Wrong. You, and many others, seem incapable of parsing basic sentences. RMS claimed it was plausible that she presented herself to Minsky as willing, due to coercion by Epstein. There's a big difference.

And what could be more normal than an 17 year old girl on a billionaire's private island willingly offering free sex to a man in his 70s? How could Minsky possibly have suspected that anything was amiss?

Have you considered the possibility that your definition of normalcy is not equivalent to what's technically possible, or may be even the truth?

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#216
post #87
post #47

Our culture has made a very bright line decision that sex with minors is unacceptable. Expressing doubt about this cultural norm, or especially advocating against it, is considered unacceptable. Of course one can argue with the merits of those two facts, but they are plainly true and fairly widely accepted. The very concept of statutory rape reinforces how clear this judgment is. The reference to "statutory" means th…

> His actions just make him unqualified to be a leader. So you're saying that the only people qualified to be "a leader" are the ones who subscribe to your particular flavour of groupthink and no other? Nice thought policing there.

> Nice thought policing there.

I'd call it gatekeeping. I hear woke people are against this kind of behavior.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#217
post #76

Diversity -- but no diversity of opinion... Inclusiveness -- but let's ostracize the non-conforming aspie... Fairness -- but let's fire people or make them resign from unrelated positions for their personal opinions, because obviously all of a person's life should serve as a big PR, and god forbid they don't play the role 24/7. Someone might call them for it on Twitter, and what could their employee/organization do o…

I don’t know Stallman so I can’t speak to his behavior first hand. He certainly holds some controversial opinions. Some of them resulting in the philosophical structure for FOSS, some on the other hand on the fringes.

That said the language of diversity, fairness, inclusivity, tolerance, etc. isn’t meant to be taken literally (though it is by the intended audience, expectedly), or alternatively it’s applied at the discretion of those in power at the time. In the USSR and China (and other places) terms got used and abused to defeat previous in-groups (factions who held the same beliefs, mind you) who were taking too much power or were threatening those in power (even though all these people were in the same group or party).

All these terms are tools. They kind of mean them but they are double edged swords which will be used at discretion and will be interpreted at discretion as well.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#218
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On his website, for example, Stallman says that he "reject[s] the term sexual assault" completely.[1] ~edit: I have included the full quote below as I did not intend to twist/misrepresent in any way. Stallman writes: " The term is applied to a broad range of actions, ranging from stealing a kiss to rape, as well as other things in between. It acts as propaganda for treating them the same. There seems to be an excepti…

...and does a great job explaining his pov. It's not like he's saying that sexual assaults do not exist, and people should be able to rape / immodestly touch whoever they please with impunity. > Sexual assault: The term is applied to a broad range of actions, ranging from stealing a kiss to rape, as well as other things in between. It acts as propaganda for treating them the same.

"Violent crime" also applies to a broad range of actions. It's not a propaganda term for treating all kinds of violent crime as the same. Why would that be the case for sexual assault?

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#219

Can we stop these threads? They are not productive, we have all chosen our sides on this particular "metoo" vs. "cancel culture" debate and nobody is having their minds changed.

These threads raise awareness for more people.

Especially people who may not otherwise have known.

Silencing, censoring, the discussion only allows it to keep getting worse, instead of potentially less worse.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for the specific request, but it must be a first hand account of an event. This second hand account can easily be the result of RMS being a difficult person to be around, for any number of reasons, constructed via word of mouth into a sexual issue. I haven't read the description of anything that resembles sexual abuse by RMS. (edited to remove an unintended reference to sexual assault)

> I'm sorry for the specific request, but it must be a first hand account of an event. The excerpt is from an e-mail that John Gruber received in 2011. It is the written testimony of someone who witnessed the events in question first hand.

It's a blog post written around an excerpt from an email of someone who did not witness the abuse event, but knew and interacted with the abused at the time. In my book, that's a second hand account of the event.
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