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In Defense of Richard Stallman

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Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#381

Post by enriquto »

klingonopera wrote: post #316
Insanity wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, his appeal to ideals might work for some (it does appeal to me). But surely that's not the best way of selling things to the majority of the population, let alone companies. I'm tempted to agree with you that he might have made it more difficult. It's not just the message you use to sell something, it's also the way in which. If people associate FSF too much with RMS it could be harmful for FSF, because they'll…

Yeah, from the looks of things, the FSF might become more of a threat to proprietary software vendors now, if they have new charismatic leader (at the risk of selling-out on their ideals, though).

wait, are you saying that RMS was not charismatic enough?

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#382

Post by agumonkey »

coldtea wrote: 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…

yes there's something stinky about the recent "movements". Even though I'm sure most population trends like this had a similar blind bias to it.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#383

Post by mieseratte »

ziofill wrote: post #371
CogitoCogito wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. None of the things you mention is actually the issue. > Diversity: It's not about opinion, but about an authority figure doing things that harm his colleagues. I could have the opinion that you're an idiot and a liar, but if we were working together and I would constantly say that in the workplace where everyone hears, I would probably get fired. > Inclusiveness: It's not about ostracising, either, certainly no…

The ability to brush off the words of a respected superior (parent, manager, supervisor, etc...) is not equally distributed in the population. Female students have a disadvantage over male students, especially in fields that are male-dominated (such as CS or Physics), LGBT members are even more disadvantaged. The harm is in the compounding of a hostile environment, and when the hostility comes from a person of consid…

> Don't take my word for it, there is a lot of research on these social dynamics.

Well unless you cite the research, the only option you've given us is to take your word.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#384

Post by makomk »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #256
meerita wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What posts are you talking about? He didn't state anything related to child sex, plus, Eptein wasn't only offering that so it is unclear that Minsk had sex with minors. It's obvious that Stallman condemn that, but to his eyes, nothing is crystal clear and he is not the kind of person who will fall so easily in any logic fallacy. I think people is mob lawing him without any reason more than "he just stated some facts"…

“I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.” “There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.“

That second quote is a summary of this Guardian article that he's linking to, published on the same day in 2013: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/03/paedophilia-...

What's more interesting is the reason that Guardian article exists. It's basically an attempt to justify why Liberty (then the National Council for Civil Liberties), a respectable British political pressure group with close ties to our Labour party, was lobbying the government to legalise sex between adults and children a few decades ago. (They were also affiliated with the Paedophile Information Exchange, which was exactly what the title suggests.)

Why does something that happened a few decades ago matter now? Obviously it was relevant to the whole scandal over historic allegations of childhood sexual abuse, especially since PIE was run by pedophiles in important political positions. On top of that, one of the most important current-day Labour politicians Harriet Harman bootstrapped her political career using the important roles her and her husband played in the National Council for Civil Liberties during the exact time period where they had those ties to PIE and were doing that lobbying. She's still relevant today; various journalists and politicians are trying to wrangle her a position as Speaker or maybe even Prime Minister.

We could well end up with someone building a path to one of the most important positions in UK government on her role in an organisation lobbying in support of pedophilia a few decades ago whilst Stallman is made homeless based, in part, on his summary of the apologia for that lobbying printed in the mainstream press.

(Stallman completely missed this subtext, but that's not surprising; I don't think the full details became public knowledge until some time later.)

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#385

Post by CathedralBorrow »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #369
CathedralBorrow wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, took him until a few days after the whole storm had started. Good timing to have such a profound reversal in your view on pedophilia.

So? Stallman is the last person on earth I'd suspect of opportunistic opinion changing. The whole life of this person revolves around being stubborn in his point of view regardless of what others think about it. I've seen many people suggesting that that last note is a kind of "damage control", but that's probably the least believable accusation when it comes to rms.

That's fine, I'm just skeptical. I'm sure he'd understand.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#386

Post by CogitoCogito »

ziofill wrote: post #371
CogitoCogito wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. None of the things you mention is actually the issue. > Diversity: It's not about opinion, but about an authority figure doing things that harm his colleagues. I could have the opinion that you're an idiot and a liar, but if we were working together and I would constantly say that in the workplace where everyone hears, I would probably get fired. > Inclusiveness: It's not about ostracising, either, certainly no…

The ability to brush off the words of a respected superior (parent, manager, supervisor, etc...) is not equally distributed in the population. Female students have a disadvantage over male students, especially in fields that are male-dominated (such as CS or Physics), LGBT members are even more disadvantaged. The harm is in the compounding of a hostile environment, and when the hostility comes from a person of consid…

> The ability to brush off the words of a respected superior (parent, manager, supervisor, etc...) is not equally distributed in the population. Female students have a disadvantage over male students, especially in fields that are male-dominated (such as CS or Physics), LGBT members are even more disadvantaged. The harm is in the compounding of a hostile environment, and when the hostility comes from a person of considerable power such as the famous Stallman, the hit is all the worse. Don't take my word for it, there is a lot of research on these social dynamics.

So the answer is that a respected person may not ever have any opinion that can be construed as offensive ever in their entire life? I mean in this case Stallman didn't even go to any effort to spread these ideas around. The fact that they are even known is due to the articles written about a few posts spread over the last couple decades.

Also I'm a little unclear about your references to female students and LGBT members...weren't the posts that people took offense to mostly regarding pedophelia? Did I miss his other writings?

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#387

Post by viraptor »

rndgermandude wrote: post #306
viraptor wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the second case happened? He resigned from a prestigious position on his own terms. If I expected anyone to tell straight "I've been forced to resign" or "I've been fired due to politics", it would be RMS. He didn't, and nobody seems to be preventing him to take part in public life - as evidenced by the number of posts, there's a number of people who still want to work with him.

He was witch-hunted on the internet by a serial witch-hunter, some "journalists" who lack basic reading comprehension and the lynch mob that ensured. It's naive to believe he resigned voluntarily. He was pressured into it, probably believed the witch-hunters, lynchmobgoers and finger pointers to a certain degree that he indeed is evil, resigned to protect what he created and therefore was nice enough to not shit all…

He built a global movement challenging people publically and he's happy to semi-publically state his opinions about sexual assault at the worst possible time, but he will stay silent about pressure to step down to be nice? I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#388

Post by lazylizard »

CPLX wrote: post #230
ndury wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if i'm wrong but it sounds like you're trying to say 'People who have a leadership role in an educational or advocacy setting are not entitled to have a certain opinion or preference that does not fall within the lines our "society" has drawn out to be normal?' AFAIK there are plenty of high positioned people in important positions whom have a special preference to something. Whether it be a kink or a tota…

I mean the guy can think whatever the fuck he wants. He can even tell his friends. He can use nipple clamps and be consentingly spanked with kitchen implements. Nobody gives a shit about any of that stuff. But if you publicly say stuff like this: "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." "I think…

But he was the leader of the free software foundation. Free as in speech.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#389

Post by Foxboron »

>He is now likely homeless and his friends (such as Eric Raymond) have had trouble contacting him.

and as esr wrote:

>I guess he was sleeping in his office and can’t anymore.

But this hasn't been true for years.

>Until around 1998, my office at MIT was also my residence. I was even registered to vote from there. Nowadays I have a separate residence in Cambridge not far from MIT. However, I am rarely there, since I am nearly always travelling out of town.

https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#390

Post by CogitoCogito »

rimliu wrote: post #377
CogitoCogito wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. None of the things you mention is actually the issue. > Diversity: It's not about opinion, but about an authority figure doing things that harm his colleagues. I could have the opinion that you're an idiot and a liar, but if we were working together and I would constantly say that in the workplace where everyone hears, I would probably get fired. > Inclusiveness: It's not about ostracising, either, certainly no…

You can start here: https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi...

> You can start here: https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi...

Start with what exactly? What is this in response to?

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