Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#191

Post by Avshalom » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

SilverRed wrote: post #186

Avshalom wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of autistic people and they're all scrupulously kind and emotionally intelligent. The idea that autistic people are assholes is an artifact of every other gamer on the internet self diagnosing themselves with aspergers in the 00s and then using that as an excuse to be un-introspectively cruel to each other.

Autism is very different for everyone who has it. No one is saying that autistic people are assholes, but that stallman may not see or understand how his comments are taken or why people will get upset when the comment is factually correct.

Literally:

>>thoughtless / mean / an ass

>This is precisely what people with autism tend to be

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#192

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

dkersten wrote: post #171

hourislate wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that the media outlets and "Woke Twitter", etc, were misquoting him saying he was defending Jeffrey Epstein and doing everything they could to get him fired from the FSF, etc. What's even worse was none of these "WOKE" were even concerned with "the victims of sexual assault" or any other noble cause. This was organized for ideological reasons and their goal was and is to replace everyone in a relevant positi…

The worst part is that the blog post that started a lot of that literally quoted RMS one sentence and the rephrased it as something completely different in the very next sentence. And nobody called them out for it. He basically just said "Minsky may not have known because Epstein most likely forced the girl into acting as if her was willing" (paraphrased from memory) and it got turned into "RMS said the girl was will…

[deleted]

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#193

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #98

nostrademons wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ribbonfarm called this a couple years ago: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g... Specifically battlefront #8. He calls it consequential because the the neurodivergent/PC conflict highlights an inherent paradox in the PC worldview. Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one. When a…

Honestly asking, what's the difference between someone being neurodivergent and just thoughtless / mean / an ass?

[deleted]

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#194

Post by bobsled » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

zeruch wrote: post #102

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #8

I think it is strange that, on the one hand, the tech world has been advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people – society should accept that people on the autism spectrum are different and that’s OK. But at the same time RMS has been attacked for some statements very probably stemming from his autism that, while they may seem a bit shocking and at odds with the mainstream, were not illegal or intentionally of…

It's not just neurodivergence, but its that he recognizes where he jabs people and pretty much admits he doesn't care. I once had this conversation about with with ESR and I remember him saying "RMS doesn't care about the 'social overhead' of most person to person interactions" and so he kind of does his own normative preferences, thinking that because he finds them ideal, that others shouldn't be offended....but the…

I would recommend looking into the less pleasant facts about others you consider philosophically brilliant, especially those further removed from us in time, before you denounce Richard Stallman as irredeemable to history.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#195

Post by jdub » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

Richard says he's not autistic. People who try to conflate his bad behaviour and autism are excusing his behaviour and unfairly generalising about autistic people.

Richard is argumentative about his bad behaviour. He's not oblivious. Plenty of people have spoken to him about it. You'd think he might take a hint after being removed from his own organisation and all the surrounding commentary. He doesn't care.

(Separately, "techrights" is run by an obsessive troll who harasses people in the FLOSS community.)

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#196

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

henearkr wrote: post #190

dragonwriter wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The commented pedophilia was the allegated one of Marvin Minsky with a 17 yo girl, No, it was a comment in response to a group of Dutch pedophiles forming a political party with the stated goal of first reducing the age of consent for sex to 12, and eventually eliminating it altogether. What Minsky was accused of is sex with someone post-pubescent but below the age of consent, which isn't an act indicative of pedop…

Oh, thanks for pointing out. You're right, so the Minsky case does not belong to the controversy around RMS positions. I did not know of this Dutch group, and I think their purpose is wrong.

I think he also specifically defended Minsky, IIRC, onn the grounds that it wasn't clear Minsky had any reason to suspect that it wasn't voluntary and that, given that, did nothing morally wrong (if you think sex with prepubescent children can be voluntary and if so not harmful, obviously it's unsurprising to think the same thing for post-pubescent near-adults); his defense of Minsky is still controversial (people don't generally think that the age of consent is a bad idea, especially when there is a also a wide gulf in ages between parties), but not as extreme as his separate defense of pedophilic sex generally.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#197

Post by gruez » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:11 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #108

For those who do not know RMS personally: "I worked for RMS longer than any other programmer. ... This was an own-goal for RMS. He has had plenty of opportunities to learn how to stfu when that’s necessary. ... I can confirm the unfortunate reality that RMS’s behavior was a concern [in the 1990s], and that [Marvin Minsky's] protection was itself part of the problem. He was never held to account; he was himself coddle…

>and that [Marvin Minsky's] protection was itself part of the problem

So if your friend was accused of heinous crime, the right thing to do is to distance yourself as far as possible?

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#198

Post by vharuck » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

mssundaram wrote: post #138

bigtones wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selam Jie Gano, a female at MIT when he worked there wrote: “There is no single person that is so deserving of praise their comments deprecating others should be allowed to slide. Particularly when those comments are excuses about rape, assault, and child sex trafficking.”

Is something cut off in that quote? I don't understand how to read it

"There is no single person that is so deserving of praise [that] their comments deprecating others should be allowed to slide. Particularly when those comments are excuses about rape, assault, and child sex trafficking.”

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#199

Post by boomboomsubban » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

etrabroline wrote: post #149

bigtones wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selam Jie Gano, a female at MIT when he worked there wrote: “There is no single person that is so deserving of praise their comments deprecating others should be allowed to slide. Particularly when those comments are excuses about rape, assault, and child sex trafficking.”

Great quote. I think a large fraction of male programmers would disagree with Selam Jie Gano's characterization of RMS's statements. These kinds of "culture war" battles should not be happening in GNU. Free Software should be happening and people should be willing to leave these disagreements at the door. If you aren't, I am significantly less interested in working with you and I suspect many GNU contributors are as…

I don't get this. "You should abandon any other ideals you have when working for our ideological project."

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#200

Post by megous » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #110

cambalache wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was he being an actual child-predator, was he sharing child porn? Suppose some guy (Stallman or not) argues that the age of consent should be lowered to 14. Now you are in your right to oppose to that proposal or even be disgusted by it. What you dont have the right to is to silence and ostracize the guy or even suggest that opinion must have any type of consequence , be it legal or moral.

I have the right to attempt to silence or ostracise anyone for anything. Whether or not it’s successful depends on the situation and climate of the world at that time. He has the right to say whatever he wants to say as well. He wasn’t jailed for it just fired for it. Ask him to suck it up and then everyone here can also do the same thing instead of crying a river. Also, please try to show a single example of a perso…

Maybe you can tell us what's so magical about the age 18, that warrants calling people who support lower age limits pedophiles. (it doesn't even match the psychiatric definition)

Brain is not fully developed by age 18 anyway, not by a long shot, and there's no obvious developmental milestone there either, like puberty, or whatever.