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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

#481

Post by DanBC »

ng12 wrote: post #480
JaimeThompson wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He thinks people should be punished for selling proprietary software correct? He also isn't sure than "voluntary pedophilia" is harmful / that people before puberty should be able to pick their sex partners despite not even being a teenager. Limiting this to being just a discussion on what can be "discussed" isn't valid. He appears to support actions that harm others by some of his statements.

> He thinks people should be punished for selling proprietary software correct? No? I'm not really sure what you mean by "punish" here. He advocates for Free Software -- to my knowledge he's never advocated for punishing anybody. > He appears to support actions that harm others by some of his statement. How? Where's the harm? What's harmful about questioning the age of consent being 18 (which, may I remind you, varie…

> Why are some aspects of US law declared beyond the scope of acceptable discourse?

They're not, it's fine to talk about these things, and there are plenty of places where people discuss all aspects of law around sexual offending.

The wrong time and place to talk about them is when your organisation is discussing potential problems because a high profile person linked to your organisation has been accused of raping a coerced child. People in that thread needed a useful way to deal with "MIT has links to Epstein, and Minsky is accused of raping a child". RMS's diversions into "is it rape?" and "is it assault?" were not helpful to that thread.

Either RMS was oblivious to the distress and distraction his comments would cause, or he knew and didn't care. Neither is good.

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

#482

Post by ng12 »

DanBC wrote: post #481
ng12 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He thinks people should be punished for selling proprietary software correct? No? I'm not really sure what you mean by "punish" here. He advocates for Free Software -- to my knowledge he's never advocated for punishing anybody. > He appears to support actions that harm others by some of his statement. How? Where's the harm? What's harmful about questioning the age of consent being 18 (which, may I remind you, varie…

> Why are some aspects of US law declared beyond the scope of acceptable discourse? They're not, it's fine to talk about these things, and there are plenty of places where people discuss all aspects of law around sexual offending. The wrong time and place to talk about them is when your organisation is discussing potential problems because a high profile person linked to your organisation has been accused of raping a…

> Either RMS was oblivious to the distress and distraction his comments would cause

First, the conversation was internal, it was leaked to the public. Second, it's nothing new. He's been documenting his opinions for decades. Third, it was a relevant discussion because he was talking about the characterization of the events by the media.

If you just have a bone to pick with RMS I'm not sure what there is left to discuss.

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

#483

Post by coleifer »

_skel wrote: post #122

His job, as the head of the FSF and GNU, was to represent those organizations to the public, which includes many people who don't know him. Being judged and vilified by people who don't know you is what happens to public figures. If your behavior brings disrepute on the organizations you represent, you should let those organizations find different representatives. RMS was right to step down. He is still free to say w…

He founded the FSF. He created GNU. He is not an elected government official or a CEO.

SJWs are parasites. They are incapable of producing value. Rather, they attack and insinuate themselves into existing high-value organizations. They want power and attention.

This is a power grab and the SJW crowd don't care whose lives they ruin.

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

#484

Post by lolc »

mjg59 wrote: post #466
lolc wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It can be taken that way. But if "sexually" is omitted from "sexually assaulted" a statement can easily be misunderstood. If you add in the context that there was no direct accusation of sexual assault by the victim towards Minsky, I do find reasonable to talk about how these terms are used. I even understand his argument that these terms best not be used in accusations because there are better ones.

I find your interpretation of "an attempt to reduce the perception of the seriousness of the crime" a highly incharitable reading of what he says!

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

#485

Post by Arnt »

sgt wrote: post #445
Arnt wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That archive is a gem on its own! I can't find the article about RMS though, and I've scanned through about 16-17 issues so far. Do you happen to know which issue it is? Aside from that, this is a great magazine and it's so much fun reading through old articles from the 80s and 90s about Unix. I didn't know Denmark had such a large Unix scene back then.

I've clicked a fair few myself, looking for it... I read the story in 1994 or slightly later, but it was old already. I'm running the whole archive through pdfsandwich now to be able to grep.

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

#486

Post by steveeq1 »

danso wrote: post #380
steveeq1 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is it's selectively applied. I can just as easily argue that rap music as "harmful" and what they said were "terrible" things, and yet there is no public outrage over that. In western society, it seems, thugs are exempt from all the politically correct standards that the rest of us are expected to abide by.

> I can just as easily argue that rap music as "harmful" and what they said were "terrible" things, and yet there is no public outrage over that. Are you serious? "Sistah Souljah moment" was the epitome of "cancel culture" in the Clinton years. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/13/bill-clinton-s... https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/17/us/the-1992-campaign-raci...

That's an exception. Rap music is very prevalent in today's society, and almost all of the subject matter deals with rape, killing, and selling drugs. You basically had to go back to the '90s to find an example.

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

#487

Post by meruru »

trianglem wrote: post #342
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'm not even sure I have a problem with the hot ladies comment irregardless of whether he wrote it or not.

You shouldn't. There's nothing wrong with it. Having an interest in the opposite sex is the most normal thing in the world and there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to state it.

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

#488

Post by watwut »

asveikau wrote: post #464
watwut wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

I agree with that and I did worked with people who are on the spectrum.

My pet peeve in these discussion is the argument that boils down to "he is autistic therefore everyone else should bend over and take whatever abuse that person unleashes on them and be understanding back". This argument is present up thread.

That does not work and just makes situation worst for everyone.

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

#489

Post by throwaway72729 »

throwiay789 wrote: post #458
DanBC wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was an era when it was still an open question whether the Wikipedia should have pro-pedophilia advocacy in their entries. NAMBLA and similar will take every opportunity to push pro-paedophile[1] and pro-abuse positions. Your example just speaks to the nativity of Wikipedia (and a bunch of other US tech companies) around people who commit contact offences against children. But we need to be clear: this was not in…

>I guess we need to say that some people with a sexual interest in children will not commit offences against children, and so some pro-paedophile commentary is acceptable. this is just incredibly stupid to believe, pro-paedophile commentary is acceptable? why in the ever living fk would that be aceptable? because a pedo might not actually commit those acts? are you stupid?

Are you trying to advocate here that it’s at all acceptable to police thought crimes?

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

#490

Post by meruru »

chasing wrote: post #201
Mugwort wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easily the most autistic person I know. No contest.

Meaning he actually has a diagnosis? Or he just kind of behaves like you think an autistic person probably behaves?

I couldn't find any authoritative source, but it's hard to believe anything else if you've been following him for a while.
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