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Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

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Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#271

Post by atq2119 »

flippinburgers wrote: post #67

If you read the article she notes that the infamous "hot ladies" photo was the result of someone else writing and then snapping that shot of his office door. People only see what they want to see. I see a bunch of people beating up on and attacking an awkward "nerd". It reminds me of high school.

> I see a bunch of people beating up on and attacking an awkward "nerd". It reminds me of high school.

That perfectly captures my own impression of this whole debacle.

People keep piling on RMS because he's "weird" rather than anything objectively bad that he's done - notice how often his travel binder is being raised even though it's really completely harmless. That's literally witch-hunt behaviour: persecuting somebody because he's different.

And of the things he was attacked for that would be objectively bad, so much of it turns out to be either a misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or outright fabrication (like apparently the "hot ladies" sign).

I can believe that there is a true kernel of bad behaviour from RMS, but it's blown way out of proportion by all the other stuff around it, and that gives this whole affair the stench of persecuting somebody merely for being different. It's very frustrating.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#272

Post by raxxorrax »

gok wrote: post #221
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #72

We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity. Aligning yourself with what main stream society thinks is correct is now more important than anything else. The response of course is that "bad behavior should never be excused, regardless of ability!" which leads to a losing argument in which we try to say what kind of good excuses what kind of bad. But this presupposes the conformist stance: that fitting in with the…

Bull fucking shit. What got RMS in trouble was not questioning the status quo. It was exploiting the status quo.

Sure. The free software guy exploited the status quo. This inquisition reminds me of the people trying to protect women from the Muslim hordes and other instances.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#273

Post by curiousgal »

lallysingh wrote: post #77
dreamcompiler wrote: post #61

The fact that one is neuro-atypical doesn't mean one cannot also be an asshole. RMS was both, and people finally got fed up with the latter bit.

He's a bad representative for neuro-atypicals

List one neuro-atypical with as many achievements and as much world-changing added value.

To me this whole ordeal is simple to look at:

RMS: created software that shaped today's world and hurt some people's feelings.

RMS' criticizers: ...?

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#274

Post by glangdale »

jamesrcole wrote: post #197
aonsager wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is a benefit to radical thinking and nonconformity, but "do it without hurting others" is a reasonable line to draw. Stallman was viewed as a toxic individual who caused harm, and this is what our society is trying to weed out. I still believe, perhaps naively, that it's possible to maintain not-normal opinions without causing pain to the people around you. And this is something that everyone needs to do, w…

Social progress involves making-acceptable things that were previously offensive and outrageous to the majority. Things that were considered harmful to society. Things like equal rights for women, minorities, different sexualities. For progress to be possible, people must be able to say offensive things that others find unpleasant. You might say, but it’s not those kinds of “harmful” views we want to stop, only the g…

I've finding it hard to understand what sort of progress is reached by, say, enabling weird dudes to constantly and inappropriately hit on women.

Suppose there is some future society that has decided that weird stinky dudes that make inappropriate remarks, stare at women's tits and compulsively hit on attractive women who are just trying to exist in a professional setting are actually A-OK. Why is that society's alleged values superior to our own?

If we are trending towards a direction that makes what we now regard as sexual harassment ok (again) then I would say we're going in the wrong way, and there's no more reason to regard that hypothetical futures' values as better than ours, any more than we regard the 1950s values better now.

This doesn't remotely analogize to "gay rights" or racial tolerance, etc. Being enraged/uncomfortable about, say, interracial marriage or consensual gay relationships was always a matter of people becoming involved in things that were none of their damn business (e.g. "I'm angry about what those gays are doing behind closed doors") or denying them to right to participate in society as equals. Not liking stuff like sexual harassment is something we do because of its effect on the person involved (e.g. "it's hard to be taken seriously as a professional and feel that I have dignity when Stallman makes remarks about my virginity and stares at my tits") or others like them.

IMO second guessing what you think (?) and say is hardly all that difficult. People could go a long way by (a) being kind and (b) acting (shock horror) professional in a professional context and not trying to use the workplace to get dates or get laid, and (c) shutting the hell up once in a while rather than treating us to their opinions about Every Goddamn Thing. Honestly, the sheer egomania of Stallman deciding the whole world needed to hear his thoughts on underage sex is pretty wild.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#275

Post by goo432124 »

ringshall wrote: post #204
kelnos wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that's correct, and that the "hot ladies" thing happened as she describes, how do you excuse away all the other inappropriate and harassing behavior he's displayed over the years?

"inappropriate and harassing behavior" What exactly are you claiming he did to harass people? What exactly did he do that was inappropriate?

Stallman did nothing to harass people. It's all hearsay. Some of the supposed harassment stories contain verifiably false details, for example, that Stallman was in an open marriage. Stallman was in fact never married. There is a very good reason that we do not admit this level of evidence in courts of law.

You know all the people on Twitter claiming that "numerous" women have confided in them that Stallman kept them out of tech? It's all fake. These claims are identical in structure and purpose to Joseph McCarthy's famous "I have here in my hand a list" line. What the mob is doing now to Stallman is exactly the same thing that the mob did to everyone suspected of communism in the 1950s.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#276

Post by eccfcco15 »

marmada wrote: post #63
Pfhreak wrote: post #43

Dude has gone out of his way to make other people uncomfortable. I use singular they for my pronouns. He's so bothered by this that he goes out of his way to not only tell me I'm wrong for doing so, but to invent his own language for referring to folks who use gender neutral pronouns (which no one will understand, because it's not widely used). I would certainly question whether I was welcome at an event where he was…

I don't understand why his pronoun scheme is antagonistic. He still respects that you want gender neutral pronouns, he just won't use they because he thinks they has a standard plural meaning. I don't understand why people have an obligation to use "they" specifically as long as they respect the gender neutral concept.

Disclaimer: I use they/them pronouns. As far as I’m concerned, there’s two ‘gender neutral concepts’, people who you don’t know the pronouns of, and people who explicitly use gender neutral pronouns. If he wanted to refer to people as per by default, I don’t care, you do you. But as soon as I tell someone that I go by they/them, I would absolutely expect them to respect that. By reading his article on pronouns, it sounds as though he likely would not do so.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#277

Post by noobermin »

jeffchien wrote: post #144
favorited wrote: post #5

Here[0] is a post by someone else who (by his own account) "worked for RMS longer than any other programmer." While he obviously has had a long relationship with Stallman, one of his key takeaways was: "RMS’s loss of MIT privileges and leadership of the FSF are the appropriate responses to a pattern of decades of poor behavior. It does not matter if they are appropriate responses to a single email thread, because the…

I must admit I didn't know who Mr. Bushnell was, so I looked him up. Finding out about his dismissal from GNU Hurd back in 2003 was quite ironic to me: > RMS has now "dismissed" me as Hurd maintainer because I have publicly spoken against the GFDL, saying that a GNU maintainer must support and speak in favor of GNU policies. If this is really RMS's reason, then it means that he demands the right to control the speech…

One of the issues whenever this sort of cancelling occurs is of the people who come out of the woodwork to join in the calls, it turns out some of them have personal issues with the person aside from their contentious conduct. This is why these things, as others have mentioned, should be tried in official channels, not merely be executed in response to public attitudes and press releases.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#278

Post by Pfhreak »

mattsfrey wrote: post #250
kd5bjo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about disregarding uncomfortable truths, it’s recognizing that speaking truth in an uncomfortable way accomplishes very little. To get someone to change their behavior, you need to first show them that you understand their perspective, even if you disagree with it. Otherwise, they’ll mentally dismiss your arguments as coming from a different tribe without really listening— emotions and group identity are ver…

A nuanced response, but my main point is about self censorship, what does one do if ultimately their conclusion is contradictory to their opponents. Acquiesce to maintain the peace or state their claim? I personally will always back truth regardless of its comfort to the audience whoever they might be

Pragmatically, you will achieve less this way. Eventually, you will hit the limits of others tolerance for what they will perceive as arrogance.

Perhaps this is of little concern to you, but if you absolutely want to maximize your accomplishments, you must be sufficiently flexible so that when you do speak truth it carries weight and import.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#279

Post by jl6 »

strenholme wrote: post #243
ralfd wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here [0] is someone else who (by his own accord) worked with both RMS and Bushnell and is saying Bushnell is bullshitting and grinding an axe: [0] https://mobile.twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/11744336549420... > Bushnell and I overlapped in our employment at FSF. ... The general culture of inclusiveness and tolerance that RMS fostered meant that, at least when I was there alongside Bushnell, that social circle i…

Thank you for the link. My impression is that RMS mainly had some opinions which were leftover from the “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s which were not particularly shocking or out of line back then, but are considered job-losing toxic opinions here in 2019. For the record, as someone who saw that whole movement first hand, I disagree with the whole “free love” movement and think sex should only be done in…

What’s considered toxic about the free love movement?

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#280

Post by strenholme »

mirimir wrote: post #261
strenholme wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the link. My impression is that RMS mainly had some opinions which were leftover from the “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s which were not particularly shocking or out of line back then, but are considered job-losing toxic opinions here in 2019. For the record, as someone who saw that whole movement first hand, I disagree with the whole “free love” movement and think sex should only be done in…

Yeah, from someone who was there, that's almost it. I'd add hacker punk as another key influence. But seriously, you don't say that stuff in public these days. Edit: Even if you're joking, or just doing it to light people up. Which was, you know, quite the thing. Back in the day. And damn, had to work at it, but I found a couple BOFH episodes that actually mention women.[0,1] 0) https://bofh.subversivedata.com/story/…

Yeah, I agree that you don’t say that stuff in public these days, and I have always felt that, with Romeo-and-Juliet exceptions, the age of consent should be respected.

Keep in mind that, around the time RMS posted those more controversial blog entries (which I still feel are being quoted out of context [1]), the Wikipedia was allowing out and out pedophiles to post their disgusting and repulsive pro-pedophilia advocacy [2]. And, yes, I found that advocacy repulsive back then and find it repulsive today. [3]

[1] https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ No, I did not write this article, but I think it makes some legitimate points.

[2] https://archive.is/iG9KX (Trigger warning for victims of child sexual abuse)

[3] At https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_mo... (Again, trigger warning) I expressed my opinion in 2004 that what the Wikipedia was allowing w.r.t. pro-pedophile opinions back then was repulsive, an opinion I still hold today.

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