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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

#281

Post by jdub »

blagie wrote: post #271
jdub wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't do the right thing. He becomes agitated and sometimes aggressive when anyone points out that they're uncomfortable with his behaviour. He is not interested in their perspective or comfort.

You're even more confused. Please reread: "I'll generally excuse people who are trying to do the right thing. Richard is trying to do the right thing." I understand within your cultural frame and value system, ethical behavior is defined with regards to other people's comfort. That's not true for Richard (not for the culture I was born in, for that matter; I don't much care if people around me feel comfortable, nor i…

I'm not confused. It's possible to do the right thing in the large and in the small at the same time.

Using cross-cultural fluency to defend Richard Stallman, who doesn't care one iota about cross-cultural fluency, and constantly embarrasses people inside and outside his own culture, is weird.

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

#282

Post by seba_dos1 »

jolux wrote: post #276
seba_dos1 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's wrong with that take, exactly? It's a natural conclusion any critical thinker who strongly values individualism will come into before they start to consider the differences of power at play that make giving and recognizing actual consent very tricky (even for adults, let alone children); which actually isn't that obvious to notice at all if you have never been in such situation yourself before. This is a t…

>And what's wrong with that take, exactly? You know what's wrong with it and you described what's wrong with it over the next several sentences. Somebody who doesn't understand that is not fit to be a leader. If you don't understand those power imbalances, you are bound to do harm.

> If you don't understand those power imbalances, you are bound to do harm.

That's not a bad point. But then it turns out that it's not really connected to the statements about Minsky, is it?

> Somebody who doesn't understand that is not fit to be a leader.

This is stretching it way too far, since this assumes that understanding of power in hypothetical scenario that doesn't connect to yourself somehow translates to ones ability to assess their own power. This may be true for some, but doesn't have to be. I won't be convinced that someone is unfit to be a leader because they didn't recognize the issues of power in a hypothetical scenario they have never been in. Heck, I myself constantly learn and start to see them in cases I never considered before. Different perspective changes everything, and there are perspectives I simply never witnessed until someone told me about them!

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

#283

Post by dang »

hYKdTfpa wrote: post #3

The attacks on him were dubious at best.

Unrelated to the topic, but could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=community%20identity%20by:dang...

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

#284

Post by monsieurbanana »

gotostatement wrote: post #226
nostrademons wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's usually a matter of priorities. Neurodivergent/autistic people are usually unaware that what they say could cause offense: they lack either the emotional capacity to feel those emotions themselves, or the ability to empathize and predict that other people will feel them. Assholes know, they just care about other things more. They might throw their coworker under the bus for a promotion. Or they'll sexually haras…

Not to derail the conversation but I find it amusing to put sexual harassment in the same sentence as not paying rent

And this is why nothing can ever be safely said on internet without putting huge disclaimers everywhere.

"/!\ I do not mean to liken sexual harassment to rent default /!\".

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

#285

Post by fooker »

hda2 wrote: post #201
klyrs wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote has been at that url since 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20060821211348/https://www.stall...

Did he redact his statement or not? A simple Yes or No will suffice.

Yes or No answers are only relevant when you admit yourself to be incapable of nuanced thought.

Alternatively : “Have you stopped beating your wife?” A simple yes or no answer will suffice. :)

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

#286

Post by seba_dos1 »

nicklecompte wrote: post #111
subjectsigma wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its strange to me that you think RMS has to "prove" that he's autistic (and therefore deserving of sympathy) - but decades of activism and writing about progressive topics (workers rights, trans rights, ending discrimination, improving IP laws, etc) can get undone in a matter of days by anonymous and uncorroborated accusations, and that's totally fine. You want him to get onstage with his therapist or something? Look…

Stallman himself said he wasn’t autistic[1], so this is really a case of his fans inventing a diagnosis to protect someone who doesn’t deserve it, smearing millions of innocent people in the process. It’s really indefensible. And one of the most frustrating things about bullshit like “RMS can’t help himself because of his autism” is that bullshit never goes away no matter how definitively it is debunked. I also never…

It's worth noting that we went a long way when it comes to diagnosing autism/ASD/ADD since 2000 or even 2008 and we know that lots of neurodiversive people remained undiagnosed because of mismatching characteristics (especially among young girls). Also, Stallman suffers from hyperacusis, which is clearly described in "Free as in Freedom". Setting a diagnosis is a job for a specialist, but his acknowledgement of "a few of the characteristics" may actually be a much stronger hint than you believe (or even he does, especially if the main example he gives is the one about rhythm :P).

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

#287

Post by jolux »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #282
jolux wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And what's wrong with that take, exactly? You know what's wrong with it and you described what's wrong with it over the next several sentences. Somebody who doesn't understand that is not fit to be a leader. If you don't understand those power imbalances, you are bound to do harm.

> If you don't understand those power imbalances, you are bound to do harm. That's not a bad point. But then it turns out that it's not really connected to the statements about Minsky, is it? > Somebody who doesn't understand that is not fit to be a leader. This is stretching it way too far, since this assumes that understanding of power in hypothetical scenario that doesn't connect to yourself somehow translates to…

> That's not a bad point. But then it turns out that it's not really connected to the statements about Minsky, is it?

The statements about Minsky are harmful. What reason is there to be coming to somebody’s defense when they are credibly accused of something like that? Frankly I don’t want friends who would react like Stallman did if I were to be accused as seriously as Minsky has been.

People who are going to do harm because they don’t understand power imbalances should not be leaders. Yes, we’re all bad at something, but if that’s the thing you’re bad at, it’s probably not the place for you in our society. On this I will be firm. It is incumbent on leaders to understand power and take the potential for abuse in situations of power differential seriously. They must be scrupulous. These comments would not be made by someone who is scrupulous about power imbalances.

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

#288

Post by colechristensen »

userbinator wrote: post #148

The canary has been resuscitated... while I don't agree with everything he says, I think we do need an extremist or two to keep the fringes of opinion where they are.

I am quite fine with RMS being a software freedom zealot. I don't agree with his extremist views but agree that there is value in that kind of fringe existing.

This does not extend to some or many of his other expressed views and behaviors outside of the realm of software freedom.

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

#289

Post by higerordermap »

hourislate wrote: post #59
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 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…

There's a reason wokeism is fastest growing religion in the world.

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

#290

Post by spiritplumber »

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?

"Does wearing this thing make me look fat?"

"A bit. If your goal is to look thinner I'd try that other thing instead."

Is this a neurotypical person being a butt, or an autistic person trying to be helpful?

Answer: yes.

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