Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by noobermin » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:49 AM UTC

solidasparagus wrote: post #299

jamesrcole wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hi…

This makes him an annoying true believer. This doesn't make him "harmful" in the sense that they seemed to mean.

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

#322

Post by kragen » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:49 AM UTC

strenholme wrote: post #287

jl6 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s considered toxic about the free love movement?

It normalized the objectification of women [1] and allowed sexual predators [2] to flourish. [1] Objectification: instead of treating a woman like a person, they were reduced to being a body to satisfy a man’s base urges. [2] Sexual predator: Men who do not care about women as human beings but merely see them as potential sexual conquests, and who do dishonest and manipulative stuff to get a woman to have sex with th…

Hmm, I think those are pre-existing pathologies in society that free-love folks have worked really hard both to prevent—by empowering women, by frowning upon non-lesbian couplings, by talking extensively about informed and enthusiastic consent, and by fostering cross-gender friendships the monogs were suspicious of—and to reduce the harm from, for example, with birth control, condoms (and strong norms against not using them), and by socially supporting single motherhood. Sex parties in free-love circles very frequently have strict rules against alcohol, while many serial monogamists can only copulate when intoxicated. So I think you're probably mistaken.

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

#323

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:50 AM UTC

jstewartmobile wrote: post #56

dang wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post vilifications about vilifications. Even if you're right, it only makes this place strictly worse. Also, please don't turn this into a regional flamewar. We don't need any of that here either. Also, no partisan flamebait please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is where I get confused about the rules. If flamebait is off limits, why aren't good-stallman / bad-stallman articles on an indefinite hiatus?

Because it's a major story, because many commenters have been thoughtful, and because we don't control everything that gets posted here.

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

#324

Post by yocheckitdawg » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:50 AM UTC

glangdale wrote: post #274

jamesrcole wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alle…

The argument isn't that enabling weird dudes to inappropriately hit on women is the progress we are after, that is a complete misunderstanding of the point.

The argument is that often renegade and maverick thinkers are deeply deeply flawed on an individual level and would do stuff like that. This doesn't really fit well into the "progress category" of civil rights, it's more about advances in technology.

TBH I don't know jack about Richard Stallman, but my understanding is he played a huge role in developing the idea of free software which has had enormous benefit to the world in general.

The question is does the benefit the ideas and works of Richard Stallman have brought warrant the personal costs he has imposed on many people around him? And in the future, are the potential personal costs another Richard Stallman would bring worth the advances they could bring in another area?

To put it even more bluntly, will it be possible to have the types of significant progress we desire in technology or what area, while excluding people who on a more personal level we find deeply problematic? Can the best parts of a Richard Stallman or Steve Jobs be separated from the worst parts? Can we in a sense "sanitise" progress so that only people we find socially acceptable are the ones who will do it? What if the people who will do most for humanity's collective properity are (a) assholes (b) unprofessional, and (c) never the shut the hell up about stuff they know nothing about?

I don't have an answer here, but it is going to be an issue worth thinking about going into the future.

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

#325

Post by strenholme » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:50 AM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #315

strenholme wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It normalized the objectification of women [1] and allowed sexual predators [2] to flourish. [1] Objectification: instead of treating a woman like a person, they were reduced to being a body to satisfy a man’s base urges. [2] Sexual predator: Men who do not care about women as human beings but merely see them as potential sexual conquests, and who do dishonest and manipulative stuff to get a woman to have sex with th…

I was there, and part of it. You may find it hard to believe, but there were lots of young women who were just extremely promiscuous. Just as promiscuous as the young men were. Free sex was a political statement. A form of rebellion against the status quo . And of course, it was enabled by the ready availability of antibiotics and hormonal birth control.

I saw a lot of that movement too, probably not as much as you.

My sense is that no one was finding any real satisfaction from having short term strictly sexual relationships, and my sense in this day and age of #MeToo (which I very strongly feel has become a witch hunt) is that some men were hurting some women emotionally by only wanting them for sex.

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

#326

Post by input_sh » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:52 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #320

input_sh wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness. June 28th 2003: http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html > I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based…

man, taken seriously most of it does sound awfully wrong of course, no argument here. Yet about taking it seriously - this is the quote that follows yours a bit later : " Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. "

Ah, the old "it's just a joke" justification.

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

#327

Post by strenholme » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:55 AM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #306

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…

> [P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness. June 28th 2003: http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html > I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based…

I mention this elsewhere in this sub-thread, but RMS was not completely out of line in 2003 or 2006 writing those kind of things. It was an era when it was still an open question whether the Wikipedia should have pro-pedophilia advocacy in their entries.

For the record, I have never endorsed those positions [1], but I also see that they were on the fringe of acceptable discussion at the time.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_mo... for how I felt about pro-pedophile advocacy back in 2004, in an era when a small outspoken fringe worked really hard to make it part of the Wikipedia.

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

#328

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:56 AM UTC

menotyou43 wrote: post #3

Umm.... absolutely not. These quotes (directly from his site) beg to differ: > “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 par…

So people are not free to say things other people may find stupid or ignorant? What if I thought that your comment was stupid and ignorant and had some power over your job position? Should I use this power then?

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

#329

Post by pseudalopex » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:58 AM UTC

inimino wrote: post #248

Pfhreak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why people have an obligation to use "they" specifically as long as they respect the gender neutral concept. The same reason we use people's names. Or their nicknames. Or their middle names sometimes. Or their stage names, noms de plume, or noms de guerre. When you are introduced to someone you expect to be spending some time around, you might ask them, "Do you prefer Henry or Hank? Charles or Ch…

Just a few points to present another perspective. - RMS's main reason for introducing "per, pers, ..." was to use them in written English; this was just his own weird solution to a problem that a lot of people have noticed in modern English, the lack of a good singular pronoun for "a person" in general, without referring to anyone in particular. Lots of people have come up with crazy ideas for this, not many people a…

Nobody said he was trying to antagonize nonbinary people. The problem is how he responded when people told him he had.

People having preferred pronouns is a new idea in most English speaking cultures because intersex, transgender, and nonbinary identities are new ideas in most English speaking cultures. Stallman doesn't use an older generation's standard. He says we should respect other people's gender identities by using the appropriate pronouns.[1]

Many people felt singled out when Facebook insisted on full and legal names, for what it's worth.[2]

[1] https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_cont...

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

#330

Post by dcolkitt » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 7:00 AM UTC

xenadu02 wrote: post #246

There'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…

> why did VA Linux send an email all female employees letting them know when Stallman would be visiting so they could work from home or make themselves scarce

[Citation needed]

> For that matter, how many people (especially women) dropped out of MIT, moved to another major, or left the lab because of Stallman?

I don't know? How many? I have an open mind on this issue. But can you even identify one specific person who fits this criteria?

> Because he has, many times, shown up and refused to leave for weeks

So, now we've reached the point where public figures are expected to resign over the crime of being a bad houseguest?

What's next? Accusations that Guido van Possum can't parallel park? Handwringing over Rob Pike's poor penmanship? Twitter threads collecting all the instances where Tim Berners-Lee was seen with food stuck between his teeth?

More and more the whole Stallman affair just seems like a desperate search for an ex-post facto justification. Like fire him first, then figure out the exact reason later.