They took his words out of context:
https://medium.com/@richardsmith_76348/richard-stallman-was-...
https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/09/30/in-defense-of-richard-stal...
Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
291–300 of 580 posts
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
So by that logic, if there was a group of mostly autistic/aspie men and they felt unsafe around one neurotypical woman, she should be the one to lose her position at a university, lose her position at a nonprofit that she founded, and be kicked out on the street, right? "Feeling unsafe" is an absurd metric to use. Lots of things feel unsafe but are actually extremely safe. Many people feel unsafe flying on airplanes.…
> if there was a group of mostly autistic/aspie men and they felt unsafe around one neurotypical woman, she should be the one to lose her position at a university Yes, if her behaviour was not workplace appropriate.
That's a different question. None of the stories about Stallman are from coworkers. They are from people who shared meals with him, people who attended talks he gave, or people who went to his office. In his position at MIT, Stallman did not teach classes. Anyone who didn't like his behavior was free to tell him off and/or leave. They would suffer zero consequences to their career or schooling.
Also, I replied to someone who said, "If someone cannot handle social situations without making people feel unsafe they should not be in a leadership position." That commenter did not seem to care about whether the behavior was workplace appropriate; only about the feelings of some people who encountered Stallman. That was my point of contention: feelings are too subjective and too easily faked to justify what happened to Stallman.
One thing that has really annoyed me throughout this whole kerfuffle is how slippery the anti-Stallman arguments are. First people claimed he supported Epistein and child rape. Once those were revealed to be blatant lies, people fell back to anonymous emails claiming weird (but not coercive or harassing) behavior from decades ago. When none of those stories could be confirmed (and many of them were disconfirmed, such as the "hot ladies" photo and John Gruber's claims of "overt sexual advances to women"), people fell back to, "He made women feel unsafe." These claims of unsafe feelings lacked objective quantifiable behavior. I feel unsafe around my CEO. It's possible that he could be having a bad day and fire me for no particular reason. Does that mean my CEO should be forced to step down from his position? I don't think so. In Stallman's case, there wasn't even a power differential. He had no influence on the livelihoods of those who felt creeped out by him.
Now you put forth the standard of acceptable workplace behavior in non-workplace environments. If that makes one guilty then none of us are innocent.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#293> He takes everything literally and doesn’t necessarily take feelings and the reactions of others into account when making statements that are outside the bounds of his expertise in free software. Whelp, then no one should be that surprised when people stop taking his feelings into account and decide they no longer want to be associated with him. Not being an asshole is a two-way street.
He’s autistic. Suddenly the people who were annoyingly vocal about being “inclusive” are forgetting Stallman’s disability. He says “creepy” things because he doesn’t understand social cues or casual communication at a certain level. Everyone in this thread demonizing RMS should be ashamed of themselves. This is the same reason why he can’t hold a relationship, or why he sleeps in his office. He’s just far out there -…
> He’s autistic.
Please. He's not been "autistic" in that conversation thread. He's been rational. That's not a kind of disability that needs to be excused.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
He’s autistic. Suddenly the people who were annoyingly vocal about being “inclusive” are forgetting Stallman’s disability. He says “creepy” things because he doesn’t understand social cues or casual communication at a certain level. Everyone in this thread demonizing RMS should be ashamed of themselves. This is the same reason why he can’t hold a relationship, or why he sleeps in his office. He’s just far out there -…
I don’t mean to sound snarky, but this really discounts so many factors in how autism is dealt with and even worse it makes it sound as if autistic people are unable to learn how their actions impact people around them, which is of course completely untrue. Autistic people may have difficulty interpreting things such as social cues, but they are absolutely not incapable. We have indications from many of those closest…
Sorry, but I couldn't bring myself to read your whole reply. It is like you are saying that people without legs are not unable to walk, they are unwilling.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because one basic way of showing any respect at all for someone is calling them by their preferred name and pronouns. Refusing to do so suggests that you somehow know someone else better than they know themselves. If someone is that upset about it they can seethe elsewhere on their own time, but when interacting with someone, just use their preferred name/pronouns.
> Because one basic way of showing any respect at all for someone is calling them by their preferred name and pronouns This argument makes no sense as before knowing you, I cannot know neither your name nor “preffered pronoun”. I’m going to call you by the default pronouns defined for the default genders as established by millennia of biological and linguistic evolution. Anyone demanding everyone else to deviate from…
Sure, but I don’t really expect people to know how to refer to me before they meet me. Context provides some clues, and if they guessed then they’d probably be correct. “They/them” also works if in doubt. But presumably when you meet someone they’ll tell you what they want to be called (their name), and potentially their preferred pronouns. It’s more common in some circles than others, but all it requires is being a good listener and some humility. If you misgender someone by accident, it’s an honest mistake and that’s okay.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#296I met Mr Stallman only once, so I don't know him, but remembering this only encounter I feel that he is not one of those humans who wield power expertly. So he fell. I think this is like a putsch. We will see what happens with GNU the next ten years.
I don't mean to exculpate nor denounce him, just point out that he is different.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#297> Look at his real history — not the sign about welcoming “hot ladies” on his MIT Media lab office door, which someone else wrote as a joke and which he removed but not before someone took a photo of it — but his record in helping to give everyone in the world access to free software. He has truly made our world a better, more free place. Just because someone did good things doesn't automatically make the bad things…
> Just because someone did good things doesn't automatically make the bad things he said or did go away
This is not what your quote says.
> Stallman has an established record going back more than ten years of saying despicable things about women and children
I would be interested to see them.
> She is part of the problem and one of the reasons why women are having such a hard time in the industry today.
This is a very bold claim, would you happen to have anything to base it off other than her personal opinions that she expressed about Stallman?
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#298There's a rule: If Stallman is invited to speak at your conference under NO circumstances should you allow him to stay at your place, nor at the home of anyone you care about or even don't outright hate (ask Miguel de Icaza about it some time). Why does that rule exist? Because he has, many times, shown up and refused to leave for weeks. He brings random flings back to your place. He refuses to shower or observe basi…
> The first time Stallman cornered a woman in an elevator at MIT and blocked her from leaving
Is this a thing that happened or something you just thought up? I've talked to women who worked with Stallman at MIT and complained to me about ways he hit on them and they never mentioned anything like that.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#299Earlier 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…
> for creativity, it’s important to be able to think and express yourself without always needing to second guess yourself. And I think we’re creating a society where everyone has to always second guess everything they think and say in case they accidentally say something that may bring in the outrage mob
It's funny you should say this. This is one of the defining traits of Stallman in my memory. He would go out of his way to get loudly outraged about relatively trivial things that others would do. Email out asking for responses to a survey and reward people with Amazon gift cards? He would attack you for supporting the evil corporation Amazon, often derailing the original thread. Share an interesting article/webpage/project? He would attack you for not offering a javascript-free option. Set up a video-based experiment in the lab? Better make sure Stallman doesn't see that camera and disable it/make a huge scene about his privacy being infringed upon.
You reap what you sow I guess.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
He’s autistic. Suddenly the people who were annoyingly vocal about being “inclusive” are forgetting Stallman’s disability. He says “creepy” things because he doesn’t understand social cues or casual communication at a certain level. Everyone in this thread demonizing RMS should be ashamed of themselves. This is the same reason why he can’t hold a relationship, or why he sleeps in his office. He’s just far out there -…
If you have a condition where you have trouble interacting socially with people, while also running an influential organization and acting as its figurehead, you need to be able to mitigate these issues. If this means you have an assistant who you run emails by before sending them, so be it. If your assistant also takes a look at your office (given to you as a favor by a respected educational institution) and tells y…
> the problem isn't that he's unable to understand, the problem is that he's unwilling to
This is a common line used to attack non-neurotypical people (and not only!). They have not considered the possibilities that their explanations or arguments are weak however.