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

#531

Post by franga2000 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:00 PM UTC

howinteresting wrote: post #215

dkersten wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does it tho? There's definitely a difference between having sex with a 17yo when you think it's consentual without knowing someone else is forcing her in the background vs. forcing her yourself. Although I personally don't believe it, it is theoretically possible that Minsky didn't know - pointing that out, especially when very little information was available, seems at worst insensitive, but sounds mainly like a very logic-driven mind taking the presumption of innocence very seriously.

He also had a very good point about making the distinction between "sexual relations with a minor" and "sexual assault"/"rape" - again, I agree that both should be illegal and punushed harshly, but is having consentual sex with a 17yo really AS BAD as forcing yourself upon a person of any age?

As for his last point about the absurdity of the exact same thing being rape if done today, but perfectly normal if done mere days later: isn't it kinda absurd? Like, yes, there needs to be a boundary, but isn't it insane that there are only two categories: 18 is perfectly legal. I don't know a better system and wouldn't even attempt to propose a better one, but surely this isn't the best we can do?

To be clear: I don't particularly like Stallman and gladly point out his sexist and generally rude remarks and behavior when people glorify him, but this all just seems like a person only looking at the logical side of the story and ending up sounding extremely insensitive. The term "neurodivergent" would usually get thrown in here, although I'm reluctant to use it since it's far too broad and I don't have any specific information about RMS.

Inappropriate and insensitive? Yes! Defending rape, as some media outlets framed it? Not even close!

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

#532

Post by hutzlibu » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:02 PM UTC

etiam wrote: post #527

tptacek wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can stand by a friend without minimizing the harm they cause.

When the actual harm was zero? And perhaps more importantly when the accusations go well beyond anything evidence warrants?

Yep. That thinking is part of the problem.

Because you did not feel bothered by him you assume no one has a right to it?

And justified or not, there was real harm done to the reputation of FSF.

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

#533

Post by cmeacham98 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:02 PM UTC

u801e wrote: post #520

cmeacham98 wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this is relevant _at all_ to the linked article. You seem to be taking existing arguments that aren't even related to RMS's case and arguing against a strawman of an extreme version of them. No "mob justice" happened here. No women came forward and said RMS "hit on them" or whatever. RMS faced criticism for comments which justified rape and were close to victim blaming, and willingly resigned from his…

> willingly resigned from his position at the FSF because of it. I don't think willingly is the best way to put it. It was more along the lines that he was told there would be consequences and he could avoid them if he resigned.

It's possible this is true, although I personally suspect if he was willing to put out a statement that said something like (paraphrasing) "I did a dumb thing, I'm sorry, I now understand why rape is bad, and I'll work on being better about understanding why these types of things are bad" he would have kept the position.

However, even if I'm wrong, and he really was forced to resign, I don't think it detracts that much from my point that GP is arguing against strawmen like "fired for hitting on a women and being rejected" that are completely unrelated to RMS's case.

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

#534

Post by gwd » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:03 PM UTC

elric wrote: post #473

gwd wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is consistently failing to do the necessary part of a job, then it doesn't matter why they are consistently failing; they must be asked to step down and not do that job. One of the responsibilities of anyone in power is to avoid emboldening sexual predators and silencing victims. Anyone in power who does that should be called out; and anyone who continues to do it after being called out should be asked to…

Age of consent is seriously tricky business. And I think that's in part because it's really two things which are muddled together: young people having sex with each other; and older people having sex with younger people. It is absolutely fine for young people to consent to having sex with other young people. A minimum age makes little sense there. Very young kids do stupid things all the time, including touching each…

> Age of consent is seriously tricky business.

Right, and I carefully worded what I said about it to try to avoid expressing any opinion on the subject. :-)

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

#535

Post by prepend » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:06 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #367

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…

> It's not just neurodivergence, but its that he recognizes where he jabs people and pretty much admits he doesn't care. This is the thing for me. Being neuroatypical and unable to follow typical social cues, or having trouble expressing thoughtfulness or care is just a fact of life. But not being thoughtful and not caring is a choice.

> But not being thoughtful and not caring is a choice.

Not if you’re neurodivergent. I think the challenge is knowing who has different brain chemistry and who has regular chemistry and is choosing.

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

#536

Post by sneak » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #427

Mob justice is not OK just because women do it. If these women have anything substantial they should make formal reports/complaints, not anonymous vogue statements like, "he make me feel uncomfortable". Cannot believe that one even has to say this. Why are women always presumed to be innocent and men always presumed to be guilty? Also, frankly, there is a point at which, certain behaviour might make you feel uncomfor…

People are absolutely entitled to talk about and share experiences in which other people's behavior made them unconfortable. They don't even need anything "substantial".

You're conflating someone inflicting reputational damage ON THEMSELVES, as a result of their own behavior, with mob justice, which is something else entirely.

Don't do that.

> We cannot just fire anyone who has some harmless quirk that you don't appreciate.

That's the beauty of free association: yes we absolutely can.

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

#537

Post by chriswarbo » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

toiletfuneral wrote: post #23

capableweb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intentionally offensive I think this is spot on, because people stopped caring about someone's intention before judging them. Maybe people got so good at lying about their intention, that we don't believe them when they say "it wasn't my intention" when someone says something bad. The end result is the same, it doesn't matter what your intention was, you say something bad, you deserve bad back.

Yeah thats me, I don't care about 'intent' as much as 'outcome' All the well meaning in the world doesn't mean shit if you're creating hostility or demeaning others (that is not commentary on RMS, just in general)

I've been trying to think in terms of outcome recently, since I've found intent can (a) be combative rather than collaborative and (b) quickly devolves into a 'philosophical circle-jerk'.

For example, say someone makes a racist joke that's over the line, and we feel a need to call them on it. Framing things in terms of intent becomes a debate about 'are you a racist?', with side quests like 'what is racism?', and metaphysical introspection on the nature of one's 'true self', etc. All of which is irrelevant and distracting.

Framing things in terms of outcome lets us avoid such a quagmire, and avoids things becoming personal. In particular, if someone defends themselves as 'not a racist', we can agree and support them, e.g. 'in that case I'd try to avoid ABC, since XYZ'.

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

#538

Post by blagie » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

jdub wrote: post #281

blagie wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're completely confused. What constitutes the right thing is specific to culture. Culture a lot of components (nationality/ethnicity, professional culture, neurodiversity, etc.). You're imposing your value system on Richard. You're being called on it, and you're doubling down, which is exactly what you fault Richard for. Two posts in, you should know better.

From within Richard's cultural frame, he's doing the right thing in both the large and the small.

Making people feel uncomfortable, embarrassing people, and otherwise are perfectly valid tactics for achieving change in many cultures; just not the one you're from. The extreme emphasis on politeness is very Western (although many Confucian cultures have something similar in the concept of face).

And although it might seem weird to you for me to be making arguments from cross-cultural fluency, Richard would be a hypocrite if he were making an argument from cross-cultural fluency, but he's not, and I'm not Richard.

I've made the same argument to Americans acting inappropriately in all sorts of countries, even though in many of those cultures neither had (not, often, valued) cross-cultural fluency. I'm sorry, but you're being wrong in both the large and small things, just as much as an American in Iran or Japan expecting everyone to behave like them, and talking about how people are either jerks or overly generous when they behave differently, or when Americans talk aabout how cultures have bad attitudes towards children/women/education/civil rights/etc., or are just plain weird.

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

#539

Post by tw04 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:11 PM 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…

What Stallman said verbatim:

>The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.

>We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.

We'll set aside for a moment that he's trying to argue the only way that sexual assault can occur is if the attacker literally assaults the victim. It wasn't really the time or the place to try defending a friend by arguing semantics given the accusations.

I guess if some billionaire flew me to a private island in the Carribean where young attractive girls started throwing themselves at me, and I was the age and... attractiveness of Minsky, giant alarm bells would have been blaring in my head and I think that of pretty much every sane American male. To not take the entirety of the situation into account and try to paint it as an innocent "I met a girl at the bar who lied about how old she was" is more than a bit disingenuous

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

#540

Post by 1000units » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:11 PM UTC

undecisive wrote: post #515

cmeacham98 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every[1] reputable[2] source[3] I[4] can[5] find[6] (literally just the top search results for "stallman resigns" that have any info about the reason) says that Stallman resigned over his comments defending a fellow computer scientist over his participation in the Epstein scandal. Do you have a reason to believe otherwise? 1: https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman... 2: https://www.forbes.com/si…

I think the issue here is that you've misunderstood the politics of these kinds of "resignations". In the public mind (even if not in reality) when someone "resigns" because of "past comments", they have either been given an ultimatum - "Jump or be pushed" - or they are experiencing intrusions into their personal life (or there is behaviour from the community that makes this person believe these intrusions are immine…

It's somewhat incredible this guy went through six articles but couldn't find the actual resignation, which is very short and settles the question very clearly. How do we explain this?

To the FSF board,

I hereby resign as president of the Free Software Foundation and from its board of directors. I am doing this due to pressure on the Foundation and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations of what I have said.

Richard Stallman

edit. Downvoters: You never belonged here. You're the reason this place is garbage now. Don't you dare follow me to the next place. You stay on HN now. When the time comes even you can recognize only utter ruins, I'm not letting you in. You deserve what you make.