At least Stallman resigned himself. Other presidents are doing much more horrible things and do not plan to resign ever.
Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
461–470 of 580 posts
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Nobody said he was trying to antagonize nonbinary people.
The first sentence of this thread: "Dude has gone out of his way to make other people uncomfortable."
I'm simply saying that, on the basis of your [1] alone, I would not come to that interpretation.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Autism might hypothetically lead to doing that until someone pulled him aside and told him it was creepy and made others uncomfortable. It's not with autism, but I have first hand experience telling a mentally ill person (diagnosis was schizoaffective) that certain behavior is creepy and made women uncomfortable. They didn't listen. They argued it with me very intensely instead. In some cases part of the illness is…
Was the argument about whether the behavior made people uncomfortable? Because I'm thinking that after 10, 20, 50 people told him that it did, it might sink in.
Well, with this topic I am getting far from Stallman, who if we assume is on the autistic spectrum is quite a bit different from my experiences with delusional people or psychotic disorders.
But if you've ever argued with a delusional person, they don't give up their beliefs easily. Frequently what happens is they'll turn it on you. So if I say, "you're making those women uncomfortable", he'll argue and say there is a problem with me, that I am too prudish or jealous of his romantic success. And they get very angry and obsessive about being confronted.
I don't know what it'd be like for 20 or 50 people to question these beliefs, but 10 definitely won't convince him. And with the nature of this complaint, a lot of time people are either too polite or too scared to tell him. It seems to me though, the best way to get it to sink in for him is an atypical antipsychotic.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Autism might hypothetically lead to doing that until someone pulled him aside and told him it was creepy and made others uncomfortable. It's not with autism, but I have first hand experience telling a mentally ill person (diagnosis was schizoaffective) that certain behavior is creepy and made women uncomfortable. They didn't listen. They argued it with me very intensely instead. In some cases part of the illness is…
Such person is then not suitable for leadership position nor any position where communication matters. The way leaders interact trickle down and creates culture. People mimic leaders more then we care to admit. And when you put such person in position where women have choice between leaving and being undermined by his behavior or being insulted or have to work around potential danger to reputation etc or what it is t…
I don't think what you've written is in conflict with anything I said.
In the case of this person I am referring to, it's been rather self-selecting and he's not in any positions of authority. It's pretty different from Stallman's purported autism-spectrum behavior too.
But it's also important to note that with the right medications, people like the case I'm describing can do better. So I'd like to afford that, while we agree that people don't make great leaders, authorities, communicators in that state or condition, they don't necessarily get there by being bad or totally irredeemable people, help is available to them and we should hope that they find it and stay "on the wagon", to use a metaphor from somewhere else.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stallman resigned in the face of people who had always known who he was being faced with the reality that the rest of the world also knew. The motivation wasn't the misquotes of his already abhorrent argument. (source: former FSF board member)
source: Google employee. FTFY! That Google, the Ad company threatening user's privacy, abusing user's rights, collecting user's data. The company fined for 5 billion dollars in an anti trust case in EU. The company behind YouTube, fined for 170 million dollars for collecting kids data [1] The company behind Chrome, that recently proposed a change to stop ad blocking extensions from working (did I say they sell ads?)…
Yes, the Eben Moglen who is suing another free software organisation for trademark infringement, threatened to sue them for copyright infringement under a ludicrous misreading of the relevant license, threatened to ruin the life of an FSF board member, and who was fired by the FSF for briefing against the FSF's interests while being paid by Oracle.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stallman resigned in the face of people who had always known who he was being faced with the reality that the rest of the world also knew. The motivation wasn't the misquotes of his already abhorrent argument. (source: former FSF board member)
Why do you consider his argument abhorrent before it was misquoted?
Because attempting to redefine "sexual assault" such that it only applies to cases that involve physical violence is an attempt to reduce the perception of the seriousness of the crime
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was also one that I can't be bothered to find that goes something along the lines of "teens sext each other, therefore child pornography should be legal".
Well, there was that recent case about the tween girl who got convicted of distributing child pornography for sexting another tween. So it's obvious to me that underage sexting itself shouldn't be prosecuted as child porn. Because if they're old enough to prosecute as adults, they're also old enough to legally share naked pictures of themselves. But of course, it's arguable that third parties -- especially adult thir…
Look, this conversation right here that you're making is exactly why people beiing willing to take a stance against these sorts of "thou shalt be dumped upon for even mentioning" things is necessary.
He's not a fool in that regard. He understands that as long as you can attach paedophilia to something, this type of outrage phenomena can completely sink any attempt at civil discourse, and can be weaponized in order to force through liberty/civic rights destructive measures. Think about it.
We could frame an Act to implement Panopticon for the sake of catching Paedophiles, and then poof! Resistance disappears because if you dissent, you're now pro-paedophile! Yet every last civic minded person who values personal freedom/liberty should be able to tell that the inevitable result of such a system being implemented is inevitable abuse.
Now replace that with LGBT rights, or women's rights, or sexual assault, or any other controversial theme under the sun.
You cannot have the Nazi exception. In any form, or on any topic. Freedom is Freedom. And you can't even dismiss it with a handwave to the freedom to experience consequences either, because you're just perpetuating the sin you're willing to punish Stallman for by tolerating the outright lies of the reporter which fueled the whole thing in the first place.
https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-t...
People need to put the pitchforks down, and go about your day. You should advise the people who started the entire hubbub that the proper place to deal with that disagreement was with Stallman himself in private, maybe with an administrator.
If we resort to mob justice to get our way, we end up throwing out any semblance of Order to our country, instead we just end up with a reflexive gaggle of inflammable passions waiting for the next match to be struck.
I hate to say it, but you really can't fault Stallman on this one. You can be annoyed. You can find it distasteful; but in the end he is exactly right. It is important that the more heinous the accusation, the greater the pains needed to be taken to ensure that we specifically and only read into what is actually there, and adhere to what is actually actionable by law.
Otherwise you see exactly what has erupted here. An outburst of rage against someone completely uninvolved, combined with the burning down of the metaphorical village for what?
A Five Minute Rage?
Christ, how Orwellian! 1984 isn't even being misused as a manual. It's here and now. God help us.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should a 10 year old be allowed to smoke, drink, and do harder drugs? If no then why should a 10 year old be able to pick their adult sex partner(s)?
If I have the wrong opinion on the matter, will you assassinate my career for it regardless of the rationality of any argument I might make?
How do you reach that conclusion from what I posted? If punishing people for the wrong ideas is wrong is RMS wrong for saying those who release closed source software are deserving of punishment?
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should a 10 year old be allowed to smoke, drink, and do harder drugs? If no then why should a 10 year old be able to pick their adult sex partner(s)?
There are plenty of anarchists in the world who would respond with an emphatic "yes". Should we be taking steps to ensure anarchists aren't allowed to write software or work at a university?
Did I say he should not be" allowed to write software or work at a university"?
It is concerning to me that RMS would allow kids to make adult decision while at the same time saying that adults selling software to other adults under licenses he doesn't like should be punished.
Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of anarchists in the world who would respond with an emphatic "yes". Should we be taking steps to ensure anarchists aren't allowed to write software or work at a university?
Did I say he should not be" allowed to write software or work at a university"? It is concerning to me that RMS would allow kids to make adult decision while at the same time saying that adults selling software to other adults under licenses he doesn't like should be punished.
I think it's reasonably sound logic from a libertarian perspective.
The more concerning thing is he's not allowed to simultaneously discuss that line of thinking while working at MIT.