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In Defense of Richard Stallman

geoff.greer.fm

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Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#421

Post by Ensorceled »

johnday wrote: post #12

It does rather smack of the old police tactic: When someone's known to have done something Bad, but the police cannot prove it, they send them to prison for a minor crime such as tax evasion. I'm not saying that RMS has committed any crimes of course, but there are other reasons that people do not see him as a political figure that they can rally behind in the modern day. A lot of this is entirely about image. People…

This is a weird way to think of it. All of these organizations have been putting up with Stallman's problematic behavior for a long time. This incident reopened a dark chapter in MIT history, too soon and Stallman has a history of, at best, minimizing the impact of pedophilia.

This was a final straw situation.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#422

Post by tasuki »

foldr wrote: post #185
isoprophlex wrote: post #103

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?

> How could Minsky possibly have suspected that anything was amiss?

Reportedly, Minsky did suspect that something was amiss and refused the offer.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#423

Post by makomk »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #412
makomk wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's certainly a link you've made. Any thoughts on the first quote? The one where he writes "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children". Do you think he's just factually summarizing some news article there as well?

Presumably that was his actual views back then. People have relied heavily on that second quote to prove that he still holds those views though.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#424

Post by rndgermandude »

lexs wrote: post #248
blowski wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If Stallman was a charming, charismatic, handsome guy with a square jaw and good hair the whole conversation would probably have a different lens placed on it.

Are you applying the incel meme of the chad and virgin here? Quite disgusting honestly...

There is study after study after study concluding that pretty people on average have it easier in life, are treated better, have it easier to achieve successful careers, have it easier to find sexual partners, get away with more things, etc...

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#425

Post by sascha_sl »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #413
sascha_sl wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the one to draw the feminism card on HN because I know I'll attract a swarm of people that'll 'disagree' with me by shouting things at me, but that is called rape culture, and despite the confusing name, it is not solely about rape. If that sounds hard to believe I can empathise, it took a personal anecdote for me to get and notice the spread of it too. If you're wondering how one would be disincentivize…

I scrolled for a bit, but that didn't answer my question about MIT's culpability and lack of action on allegations made to them. Oh wait, you're saying that no allegations were made to them? Did I read that right?

I don't know, there doesn't seem to be any documented instances of that I can find. Doesn't mean there wasn't any, but as I said, disincentives to reporting are high.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#426

Post by CathedralBorrow »

dzamie wrote: post #403
CathedralBorrow wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone tells me they think that it's sometimes fine to have sex with children, I don't need any evidence of action to want to distance myself from that person. > If anything, it's you who left out the part where Stallman already said, before this incindent, that he was wrong. I.e. he said it because he actually changed his mind and believes he was wrong, not in order to "save face" or clear his image or avoid sca…

>they think that it's sometimes fine to have sex with children From what I can tell from the snippets posted here, he isn't saying it's fine, he's saying he's seen insufficient evidence to form an opinion - and in such a state, he resists those who would force one on him with faulty reasoning. Or, to put it another way, he views morality with three responses [yes, no, I don't know], which causes friction with people…

I don't think there's anything I can say to reply to this, since the strawman you've raised is not at all similar to what my views are. And I generally think it's a cheap trick to assume that other people disagree because their minds are too simple to comprehend.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#427

Post by sascha_sl »

eej2ya1K wrote: post #356
sascha_sl wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Are you... are you serious? Do you expect this to convince sane people? The disingenuousness on display in these threads is amazing. "Maybe this is RMS's last-ditch effort to return to his glory days, when he could put abortion references in the documentation, and talk about virginity in his conference talks, and nobody would push back." "I’m a CIS male and I’ve avoided GPL and every event he’s associated with in bos…

>Do you expect this to convince sane people?

I don't expect this to convince insane people. By which i mean you're insane. You take people using inclusive language as automatically dismissible. Clear sign I'm wasting my time.

>Oh, and for some reason pretty much everyone in these threads is either mistaken or deliberately lying about his recent comments about Minsky.

These threads are mostly dated 2018. The one tweet that isn't is referencing a talk from August. I don't know what you're talking about.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#428

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #209
meerita wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read the mail from Stallman and I couldn't believe people forced him to resign just because he stated that 1 it is not clear assault 2, he don't disbelieve his colleague had sex. BTW: I have also suffered the tough, complicated, unstable and rare personality of Stallman. Not for that I want to see him dead but like everyone else, when he has been unrespectful with me, I let him know. Everyone who knows Stallman…

Well there were also those posts about having sex with children sometimes being quite fine. Edit: The downvotes are interesting given that this is how Stallman himself characterized those posts: "Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it."

Have you actually read the contents of the Guardian article Stallman linked? No? Here come a few quotes:

> If there's no bullying, no coercion, no abuse of power, if the child enters into the relationship voluntarily … the evidence shows there need be no harm.

> A Dutch study published in 1987 found that a sample of boys in paedophilic relationships felt positively about them.

> And a major if still controversial 1998-2000 meta-study suggests – as J Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, Chicago, says – that such relationships, entered into voluntarily, are "nearly uncorrelated with undesirable outcomes".

> Most people find that idea impossible. But writing last year in the peer-reviewed Archives of Sexual Behaviour, Bailey said that while he also found the notion "disturbing", he was forced to recognise that "persuasive evidence for the harmfulness of paedophilic relationships does not yet exist".

So why nobody attacks The Guardian for publishing such statements? Yes, these things are against common sense, against natural feelings, and I refuse to believe them. But Stallman was just repeating what someone else researched.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#429

Post by EdwardDiego »

sascha_sl wrote: post #425
EdwardDiego wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I scrolled for a bit, but that didn't answer my question about MIT's culpability and lack of action on allegations made to them. Oh wait, you're saying that no allegations were made to them? Did I read that right?

I don't know, there doesn't seem to be any documented instances of that I can find. Doesn't mean there wasn't any, but as I said, disincentives to reporting are high.

Which makes me worry about MIT the organisation then - a healthy organisation would have processes in place to minimise those disincentives.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#430

Post by FactolSarin »

roenxi wrote: post #380
claudeganon wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if this is just more grandstanding of the “SJWs run amok” variety, but in case you’re unaware, his recent comments were just the tip of the iceberg: https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi... Someone else downthread also linked about how a woman he worked with on a Linux project had to be warned of his arrival ahead of time so she could leave because of his aggressive advances toward…

Something like 50% of that article isn't Stallman related, and some of the choice quotes are a bit unbelievable. Eg: > I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.” That sounds like a joke. I mean, it is a joke. That isn't a serious comment/strategy on harassment. No creep has ever been forestalled by someone claiming to be a vi user. 1 stupid opin…

I don't know. Have you ever read Stallman's appearance requirements[1]? I mean, yeah, it's probably a joke. But I wouldn't be shocked it it were true either.

[1] https://github.com/ddol/rre-rms/blob/master/rider.txt

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