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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

#541

Post by ethbr0 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #314
ethbr0 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I guess part of my question was that what you said (pretty close to my own understanding of the definitions) is predicated on piercing the veil of intent. Versus most of the time, people who we don't know well do things for reasons that are inscrutable to us. And we're left to judge solely on that basis of that information.

The answer, then, is to not try to judge people you don't know. If you're not invested in someone enough to understand them, why should you be invested in them enough to try to destroy them?

Who said anything about destroy?

Truly for my own self-benefit, I often need to make decisions (e.g. with work colleagues, customers, strangers) on whether someone is (a) malicious or (b) misunderstood.

And that's a pretty important distinction.

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

#542

Post by cmeacham98 »

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…

Even if he really ""resigned"" rather than resigned, I think we both agree the cause was his comments about the Epstein situation, not a "MeToo/racism witch hunt" that I've seen no evidence to support.

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

#543

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

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…

How do we know that Richard Stallman is autistic?

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

#544

Post by cmeacham98 »

1000units wrote: post #540
undecisive wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wha…

I decided not to link it because it provides no context to what those things "I have said" are (and several of those news articles quote or link it themselves). News articles from around the time provide said context.

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

#545

Post by tw04 »

franga2000 wrote: post #531
howinteresting wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ver…

Minsky was an obese, balding old man. To imply that he should have expected or not had even a tiny bit of concern that an attractive young woman on a private island was throwing herself at him is ridiculous.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lomkCENpPXufPOLUkw6mzlgBljQ=...

If I were in my 60s and a 17 year old child was throwing themselves at me for sex, I would question what was going on. The fact it was on a private island in the middle of the Caribbean makes the feigned ignorance laughable. There's no planet on which the circumstances should have left Minsky with any doubt about what he was getting himself into.

I'll just say this HN: shame on you. The fact there are so many people here willing to defend someone that was participating in sex trafficking is pretty disgusting. I have no time for "cancel culture" or "SJW's" but this isn't even a little bit that. There's no planet on which Minsky didn't know exactly what he was doing. To defend those actions is honestly pretty abhorrent. I hope none of you have daughters, and if you do I hope you think long and hard about how you'd feel if they were in that situation.

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

#546

Post by temac »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #507
lanevorockz wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't rewrite history, main reason Richard was pushed out was a MeToo/racism witch hunt against him. He was not the only one attacked on it, most heads of open source projects were also a target at the same time.

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…

What "resignation" can mean in the context of such a situation for top high-level people might not be your typical resignation concept for e.g. employees, or even middle management.

For example ministers of most gov "resign" when they are told to do so, and yes they do resign, even when this is not from their own initiative, and even if they absolutely would not have done it if not told to. For other structures, you can have various kind of pressure playing a role.

We will probably never know the exact degree of pressure and the comprehensive list of who did it, the alliances, maybe the threats etc, and technically it absolutely was a resignation, but given RMS further actions in the GNU Project (that is: not resigning despite additional attempts to leverage his departure from the FSF to make him do likewise here too), I can only say I have my doubt on the total amount of practical freedom he had concerning the FSF part; and it is now probably not just him phoning back and saying: "oh by the way I changed my mind I want to come back", but more likely other "political" and/or alliances changes at the top letting that be even possible.

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

#547

Post by adrian_b »

mjg59 wrote: post #96
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the real problem with the culture today. People willfully, blatantly lying about other people to smear them and trying to convince everyone else to shun them as well.

I don't think it's unreasonable to interpret "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children" as a suggestion that there are circumstances under which paedophilia is OK. Suggesting that someone doing so is willfully, blatantly lying seems like an unsupported claim.

The problem is that pedophilia has a much wider meaning in the USA that in many other parts of the world.

I do not believe that any sane human being believes that pedophilia in the sense understood by himself/herself is OK in any circumstances.

Nevertheless there are millions or billions of humans who do not consider as pedophilia some acts that are considered pedophilia in USA, therefore they consider that those acts are OK, because they are not pedophilia.

For example, until recently few countries had such a high age of consent as USA.

Where I was born and I have grown, the age of consent was 14. So any consensual activity with someone e.g. 17-year old was considered OK and not pedophilia.

I have certainly never seen or heard any undesirable consequence of this lower age of consent, so I do not believe that there exists any proof that the belief of the US citizens, that consensual sexual relations with someone under the age of 18 are pedophilia, is right.

As another example, until recently, the consensual relations between an adolescent boy (i.e. older than 14) and a mature woman, unlike the opposite sex case, were never considered as pedophilia in most of the world, unlike in USA were there were many highly-publicized convictions in such cases.

I have still not seen any valid argument about why this American belief, that such relations must be considered pedophilia, is correct.

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

#548

Post by K0balt »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #507
lanevorockz wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't rewrite history, main reason Richard was pushed out was a MeToo/racism witch hunt against him. He was not the only one attacked on it, most heads of open source projects were also a target at the same time.

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…

This is what he said which some idiotic people have taken for some kind of endorsement of sexual assault:

"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X... The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing... 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…"

If pontificating as to the actual perpetrator of a crime is somehow being complicit in that crime, then I think we may need to overhaul our system of policing and justice for yet another reason.

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

#549

Post by Kaze404 »

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…

It's always fascinating to me that the free speech crowd can't stand seeing people facing consequences for exercising that right.

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

#550

Post by throwaway894345 »

christophilus wrote: post #477
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…

I wonder why some people draw such ire and others don't? For example, I'm surprised Charlie Munger hasn't been canceled yet. That old dude says whatever the hell he likes and DGAF. Anyway, I'm glad we have strong, independent voices in the world, and that not everyone has been brainwashed by sensitivity training.

I agree. On the racism side of the cancellation coin, you have ordinary people canceled for citing the preeminent scholar on the efficacy of nonviolent protest (who also happens to be black) and Tweeting an interview in which a black man expresses concern over black-on-black crime; however, you have the Canadian PM going around in blackface so often he can’t even keep count by his own admission and he’s regarded as basically a lovable goofball darling by the cancel culture folks while the others are “literal Nazis” or something. Mob justice isn’t great at assessing guilt or determining proportional sentences, but some people will defend it to the death.
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