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Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

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

#211

Post by jolux »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #101
jolux wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/richard-stallman...

I encourage you to read what he actually said rather than digest it through hit pieces, because it’s not even controversial. He said that, hypothetically, if someone had sex with a victim of sex trafficking unkowingly - that is, the sex part was knowingly, but the victim of sex trafficking part was unknown, then it would not be fair to charge the man with rape. If I kidnap a woman, sell her has a sex slave, and threa…

I read them this in light of his past statements here, which seem to cast the statements he made around Minsky differently. In particular,

"I am skeptical 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."

https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html

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

#212

Post by drivingmenuts »

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…

Has RMS ever been formally diagnosed as autistic, or is it just the perception/defense of armchair physicians?

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

#213

Post by ddingus »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #161
karaterobot wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wondering what the source is for Stallman being autistic? I see people saying he's autistic, and I even see people saying he has called himself "borderline autistic", but that's not quite the same thing as a diagnosis. I don't see a reliable source making that claim; even Wikipedia says nothing about it (except a backstage talk item about there not being any source on the claim). I admit, the circumstantial evid…

Given what the lengths he went through to create GNU in the 1970s, I’m willing to believe it.

Definitely above the mean drive, resolve, conviction.

There are, at any given time, few people who walk this world rating so highly on these scales.

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

#214

Post by howinteresting »

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…

I am an incredibly neurodivergent person and through focused effort, driven by caring about how other people feel, I've picked up on many social cues. I am comfortable excluding people who use their neurodivergence as an excuse to be unkind to other people.

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

#215

Post by howinteresting »

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…

Yes, the full quote with context makes it worse, not better.

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

#216

Post by [deleted] »

mjg59 wrote: post #86
hntrader wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't care about 'intent' as much as 'outcome'" Accidentaly killing someone with your car is very different to negligent driving which causes death which is also very different to intentionally killing someone with your car. Clearly intent and context matters a lot.

These are all different things, but the end result is that someone has been hit with a car. If your goal is to avoid people being hit with cars and someone keeps accidentally hitting people with their car, then you probably want to considering whether that person should be allowed to drive.

[deleted]

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

#217

Post by Dma54rhs »

throwawaycdn12 wrote: post #159
armchairhacker wrote: post #106

Some context I got from https://www.wired.com/story/richard-stallman-and-the-fall-of... : Stallman was pressured to resign from the board and MIT because of some of these controversies: - Jeffrey Epstein coerced one of his victims to have sex with Marvin Minsky. In an online thread, Stallman argued that this might not be sexual assault if Minsky didn't realize she was coerced. - 10 years ago, Stallman claimed that 14…

Canada only raised their age of consent from 14 to 16 in 2008. I don't think Canada should be cancelled as a result of this.

Many EU countries still at 14.

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

#218

Post by howinteresting »

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.

Speaking as an autistic person, that really does not matter. Even though I don't believe in free will, I do believe that a functioning society requires people with power (like RMS, in his capacity as a free software leader) to be held responsible for the harm they cause regardless of how neurodivergent they are.

What about all the other people who were excluded from the movement because RMS was an ass? A common human fallacy is to overindex on the contributions of assholes, while ignoring the potential contributions of those who were excluded by their actions.

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

#219

Post by afuchs »

bobsled wrote: post #194
zeruch wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

This is illegible and does not seem to follow from the rest of this thread. I'm missing where the GP made a statement about a person's "philosophical brilliance." Did I miss something, or is this meant to infer something else?

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

#220

Post by sneak »

gruez wrote: post #182
ramraj07 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Well, not really. If you try to ostracize someone for being black you'll quickly face legal and/or social sanctions. >Also, please try to show a single example of a person who defended pedophilia and ended up not being one? Does expressing skepticism…

> If you try to ostracize someone for being black you'll quickly face legal and/or social sanctions.

One wishes that were true, but in most places in the developed west it absolutely is not.

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