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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

#411

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Noos wrote: post #392
eyelidlessness wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re honestly asking, it’s a rude question as stated. But if you’re sincerely admitting you don’t understand the difference, the difference is this: Many people (including myself) have difficulty with certain social cues and expectations. Many of us can be offputting or come off as overly direct or disrespectful. Where we diverge is when and how we address that fact. Do we (only) lash out and expect the world to…

To be blunt, I think a lot of people here misuse autism. The autistic person I had to deal with a lot of times had "difficulty" with social cues in that he was an adult that had no idea of not standing by others when they were working, would endlessly repeat things, was more or less impossible to hold a conversation with, etc. We more or less had to babysit him as impromptu caretakers. It isn't "oh, I don't know how…

I have a hard time understanding if your mention of the co-worker was supposed to be an example of someone who misused autism or not?

>it's not something you use "neurodivergent" with seriously.

what do you use neurodivergent with seriously. I would think not being able to read a room is a big problem?

>Like generally there's a lot of disability chic or identity these days; but moderate autism makes it incredibly hard to act in daily life in the same way moderate OCD does.

is it incredibly hard to act in daily life with moderate autism, or is having moderate autism and complaining about its difficulties an example of disability chic or identity? It seems like you want to say it is the latter, but phrasing like 'incredibly hard' make it seem like you couldn't possible mean that.

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

#412

Post by bryanrasmussen »

orthoxerox wrote: post #391
spiritplumber wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

It could be a neurotypical Dutch being themselves. Societal norms vary from culture to culture, even within what we call the western world.

also a Dane I think, frankly it seemed polite.

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

#413

Post by yetihehe »

Noos wrote: post #392
eyelidlessness wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re honestly asking, it’s a rude question as stated. But if you’re sincerely admitting you don’t understand the difference, the difference is this: Many people (including myself) have difficulty with certain social cues and expectations. Many of us can be offputting or come off as overly direct or disrespectful. Where we diverge is when and how we address that fact. Do we (only) lash out and expect the world to…

To be blunt, I think a lot of people here misuse autism. The autistic person I had to deal with a lot of times had "difficulty" with social cues in that he was an adult that had no idea of not standing by others when they were working, would endlessly repeat things, was more or less impossible to hold a conversation with, etc. We more or less had to babysit him as impromptu caretakers. It isn't "oh, I don't know how…

> but moderate autism makes it incredibly hard to act in daily life in the same way moderate OCD does.

It's hard to live with moderate asperger syndrome, because you typically look and act normal, but are actually positioned in uncanny valley of behaviour. You try to act normally, but your responses are off enough to be mistranslated by others. You are expected to behave normally but you are missing those expectations. People who are visibly disadvantaged have lower expectations on them from the start.

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

#416

Post by lmm »

sellyme wrote: post #319
danielheath wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the extreme, it totally is. It's important to be right about the important things; it's nice to be right about irrelevant details too, but it's not nearly as important as maintaining a strong network of collaborators.

Maybe I've just been extraordinarily lucky in who I associate with, but no-one I would consider a potential "collaborator" (either in professional or personal life) would ever demand I be incorrect about something to suit their ideals. I've been trying to come up with examples where that might happen and the best one I can think of is someone's young child asked you if Santa was real, but even then I'm about 50/50 on…

> Maybe I've just been extraordinarily lucky in who I associate with, but no-one I would consider a potential "collaborator" (either in professional or personal life) would ever demand I be incorrect about something to suit their ideals.

I find that very hard to believe. To be correct you not only need to be able to say carefully thought-out, nuanced things; you also need to be able to speculate wildly, to take half-baked ideas where they might lead. But the half-baked version of some important truths probably sounds exactly like the most offensively ignorant notions you could think of.

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

#417

Post by lenkite »

skissane wrote: post #320
ethbr0 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What counts as "neurodivergent"? Just ASD? What about other psychiatric diagnoses? A lot of "non-autistic assholes" may have other diagnosable conditions, for example narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Are NPD or ASPD "neurodiverse" or "neurodivergent"? They are probably partially genetic, just as ASD is probably partially genetic.

Frankly, just about everyone would be "neurodivergent" in a different culture.

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

#418

Post by wvh »

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…

Well put. This is in my eyes the biggest problem with the whole "politically correct" and identity politics movement: it assume the worst of people digressing a chosen subjective universal ideal, in the process singling out lots of individuals despite the self-proclaimed goal of diversity and acceptance. It's pretty warped to demand respect for your own personal difficulties and particularities while bashing others for theirs, or in other words, demand to be treated with respect as a human being while failing to see the human in others.

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

#419

Post by themacguffinman »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #254
themacguffinman wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of an ideological project (or any project, really) is to try and get everyone pulling in the same direction. GNU/FSF is an organization for one specific ideal: free software. It's not intended as a vehicle for any random ideal people care about.

>It's not intended as a vehicle for any random ideal people care about. Who used it like that? Stallman's comments happened outside the organization, the tweet was from someone I think unrelated to the project. I can understand keeping other ideals out of the project, but in context you're telling people not to express other ideals.

> the tweet was from someone I think unrelated to the project

Seems fine for unrelated Twitter randos to say whatever they want about RMS, but would be distracting and counterproductive for GNU/FSF to permanently ban RMS in support of Twitter randos' unrelated ideals. I never said or implied anything about stopping Twitter randos from expressing or doing whatever they want.

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

#420

Post by dreen »

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…

> His philosophical brilliance has always impressed me, his personal presence is like rotting offal in the sun. He doesn't get the benefit of being remembered for the former when he puts in so much effort to broadcast the latter.

Sounds a bit like Diogenes the Cynic.

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