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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

#401

Post by prepend »

Arnt wrote: post #363
kragen wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fouled up his room? What do you mean, like, he couldn't figure out how to operate the hotel room door lock?

No, he stayed as a guest at the home of one of the DKUUG regulars and his girlgriend, who afterwards wrote an angry article about it in the DKUUG-nyt. I see the early-nineties issues have been scanned, http://www.dkuug.dk/wp-content/themes/dkuug/arkiv , but I haven't the time to look through them now. The main issues were matters of personal hygiene and the way he treated the girlfriend. Much the same all been posted…

I still don’t understand what you mean by “fouled up his room?”

Do you mean he messed up the furniture? Spilled tomato sauce on everything? Overflowed the toilet?

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

#402

Post by stuaxo »

mantoto wrote: post #392
strenholme wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.wikip…

Just because a few people where discussing this doesn't make it out of line. I remember 2003-2006 well enough. There was no discussion in society about this.

This - it may be the case that Wikipedia was discussing this, but mainstream society was just the same as now.

The episode of Brass eye lambasting the scares about it actually came out in 2001, so the assertion is nonsense.

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

#403

Post by glangdale »

jamesrcole wrote: post #282
glangdale wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I was reponding to these statements "there is a benefit to radical thinking and nonconformity, but "do it without hurting others" is a reasonable line to draw. ... I still believe ... that it's possible to maintain not-normal opinions without causing pain to the people ar…

You're looking for a neutral principle that doesn't exist. Why is the trajectory of society towards "evolving and improving" assumed here? Why is someone's view of what is "just and good" in the future automatically better? What if we wind up in a dystopia and reintroduce slavery? Is that automatically "better" because it's out there in the future?

At this point people usually go looking for a get out of jail free card where they can conjure up a neutral principle and say "no, I meant progress towards good things", which of course "begs the question" in the classic sense.

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

#404

Post by glangdale »

yocheckitdawg wrote: post #324
glangdale wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure that the entire careers of a Stallman or a Jobs are inseparable from them acting like dickheads at some point in their career.

It may be the case that having "Future Stallman" or "Future Jobs" be persuaded to rein in their excesses (rather than being tolerated and encouraged to be raging assholes, at least in some contexts and ways) might be of benefit both to the people around them, but also, the talented individuals themselves.

Maybe we can apply discussions of "the soft bigotry of low expectations" also to badly behaved white middle class people too, and they could do better?

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

#406

Post by jasonvorhe »

johnny22 wrote: post #259

Anybody else surprised this is posted on medium of all places? I'm surprised Stallman would agree to such a thing.

So he should get to decide where is name is being mentioned? As if it wasn't enough that he's dictating which video streaming codec is used for his talks.

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

#407

Post by jasonvorhe »

PHGamer wrote: post #284

even if he is an asshole, he has the right to say what he wants. I sorta get FSF ditching him because linux is going corporate (which I am very much against). but MIT (and western schools in general) are no longer places where free speech is allowed and that is the greater atrocity.

MIT first needs to clean up the shit show they've allowed to foster in their midst with regards to taking funding from convicted rapists of adolescent girls first.

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

#410

Post by bmn__ »

input_sh wrote: post #378
marvin wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are obvious examples of «things you can’t say», e.g. opinions that are considered normal in some societies and times, and anathema in others. (For reference, in case someone hasn’t read it: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html ) Without saying anything about my own stance on these opinions, it’s intellectualy weak to consider it a firable offense to have uttered them thirteen years ago. People should be stronger…

Those words didn't disappear and resurfaced from some secret tape or whatever. They're on his own blog, first-party information quoted all over the place, and recent email scandal just proves that he never really changed. Also, here's a quote of his about people with Down syndrome: > If you'd like to love and care for a pet that doesn't have normal human mental capacity, don't create a handicapped human being to be y…

The quoted sentence addresses the parents or potential parents who purposefully make mentally handicapped children, not the handicapped children.

It's easy to make these kind of reading/comprehension mistakes when one gets caught up in cancel culture and their outrage mobs.

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