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

#581

Post by tw04 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

adwn wrote: post #574

tw04 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mos…

> 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 [...] As you may or may not know, some women will voluntarily have sex with men in exchange for money, no coercion or assault required. If a billionaire flew you to a private is…

>As you may or may not know, some women will voluntarily have sex with men in exchange for money, no coercion or assault required.

Which is also illegal. And if you're having sex with a teenager for money, she probably has some pretty major life issues going on. Which as a 60-year-old - you should know better. Period.

>If a billionaire flew you to a private island with attractive woman offering to have sex with you, then the presumption that those women are paid prostitutes is not that far-fetched.

So... sex trafficking. By definition. Which is illegal both where it took place and in all party's country of origin.

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

#582

Post by caddemon » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #417

skissane wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To some extent yes, but have you ever interacted with RMS? His behavior goes way beyond the typical "coder with Asperger's" borderline cases you're thinking of.

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

#583

Post by cmeacham98 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #563

cmeacham98 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mu…

He could write out an exact description of what he said and what he has changed his views on, but I doubt people who has seen the media characterization of his comments would be made any happier. He could say "I previous thought the word sexual assault meant the word assault added a qualifier that required the application of force or violence, but I now know that the word assault in this case mean a legal definition…

It would change my perception, I can't really pretend to speak for "the media" though.

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

#584

Post by jdub » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

blagie wrote: post #538

jdub wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rig…

I'm not sure why you're still harping on about culture, as if Richard hasn't misbehaved and offended people everywhere he's been.

And don't conflate his personal behaviour with "tactics for achieving change".

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

#585

Post by wccrawford » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #489

wccrawford wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree they don't fully understand OCD, I think they know enough about it to sympathize. They know enough to know they don't actually have it, just some light compulsions. And as for "moderately obese"... I wouldn't have previously described myself that way, but I fit it. My doctor tells me I'm medically obese. Nobody looking at me would describe me that way, but they would admit that I'm over-weight. They all…

> And as for "moderately obese"... I wouldn't have previously described myself that way, but I fit it. Obesity is divided into 3 classes: class 1 (low-risk, BMI 30.0 to 34.9), class 2 (moderate-risk, 35.0 to 39.9), class 3 (high risk, 40.0 or higher). Using the term "moderate obesity" for class 2 obesity may not be exactly standard, but it has some logic to it. > I clearly don't have "OCD", but what do I have? There'…

IIRC, I'd actually be class 1 obese by that list, now. So maybe "Slightly obese"? That sounds even more ridiculous, but it's pretty accurate.

As for the OCD... Even that description sounds worse than what I have. But the existence of "subclinical OCD" makes me even less worried about people claiming to have "moderate OCD" or something. Not only is it a spectrum, but the experts seem to be fine with using the word to describe people that are almost it, with some qualifying words.

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

#586

Post by kaba0 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

f1refly wrote: post #335

mdoms wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it ableist to suggest that blind people don't make good air traffic controllers, that paralysed people don't make the best bicycle couriers or that a deaf person is perhaps not a suitable music critic? Everyone works within the limitations of our abilities, and some people are dealt difficult hands - but reality doesn't care about your feelings.

You should try to convince people Beethoven's music sucks because he was deaf. There's really no reason a deaf person can't be great with music.

Irrelevant to the topic, but he only went deaf at the end of his life.

I believe it is a reasonable assumption that someone would have a hard time composing music if he/she were born deaf.

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

#587

Post by danparsonson » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #548

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…

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…

I think you and I must be reading that differently and I also think maybe you're forgetting the context of all this. The victims were as young as 11 years old and that was widely known (and surely obvious to the men involved); his comment therefore boils down to "is it REALLY statutory rape if she seems like she's OK with it?" and the answer is, of course, yes. Surely you can understand why people would see that as an endorsement of sexual assault, albeit perhaps coming from a place of absurd ignorance rather than malevolence?

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

#588

Post by africanboy » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #465

africanboy wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But he is not good at being a leader Don't 35 years leading the FSF say otherwise? Judging from the reactions in the FSF community to his coming back, people were missing him.

Yes, accomplishments in his 35 years include: - A major fracture in the movement (arguably two, if you count GPL2/3). - Actively turning people off (Keith Packard, for example, described why they didn't license X under the GPL: "we had met Richard, and found him a challenging individual"; he later admitted that Stallman was right and that he should have listened). - Sidetracking of pointless issues ("GNU/Linux", "you…

According to this comment, he did better than any other leader in the World.

> Alienating of many people who are generally keen on most of the Free Software principles

Did donations went up or down during his leadership?

And what happened when he "left"?

How many people found out that Stallman was right in retrospect?

> Insisting on absolute freedom to the detriment of more freedom than the status quo.

That's the core mission of the FSF.

Our Core Work

The FSF sponsors the GNU Project—the ongoing effort to provide a complete operating system licensed as free software. We also fund and promote important free software development and provide development systems for GNU software maintainers, including full email and shell services and mailing lists. We are committed to furthering the development of the GNU Operating System and enabling volunteers to easily contribute to that work, including sponsoring Savannah the source code repository and center for free software development.

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

#589

Post by CJefferson » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #502

CJefferson wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question, is there anything useful he has said in the last 10 years he has said you can point to? He seems helplessly lost in the past, before the web, the explosion in javascript, etc. etc.

Is there anything different today concerning software that makes his old words obsolete? > before the web, the explosion in javascript https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html

The fact that "JavaScript won". You can't put that genie back in the bottle.

The FSF could have been at the forefront, providing support and useful code under the GPL and LGPL. Instead very little web code is under their licences, because their leader won't interact with the modern web.

I teach CS undergrads, and they in the main don't even know what RMS and the FSF are.

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

#590

Post by bjourne » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #553

yread wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that jerking off in front of people is OK or borderline? Stallman wasn't removed for "he once hit on me and I had to reject him". He wasn't criminalized at all, he resigned himself after saying stupid stuff.

This is what he said: "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 wor…

Not an endorsement of sexual assault, but definitely an attempt to downplay the crime. According to https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jef..., Minsky was 73-years-old at the time and the victim 17 and the assault occurred at Epstein's private island. Minsky must have known that, at the very least, she was pressured to have sex with him.