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

#741

Post by dkersten » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #545

franga2000 wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know a bunch of musicians and DJ's and many of them are.. not good looking.. but young (legal but not by that much) women still often throw themselves at them, just because they have some perceived prestige or fame or something. It does happen more than you might like to think, without anything nefarious going on.

> he fact there are so many people here willing to defend someone that was participating in sex trafficking is pretty disgusting.

Nobody is defending Epstein. If anything, we're arguing that the blame lies squarely with him and that he was an evil, sick man.

I'm not even really arguing on Minsky's behalf, although given the reports I've heard that he didn't actually engage in sex and given what I said above, and the fact that she most definitely was groomed and coerced to act a certain way, its not at all a given that he's guilty. Maybe he is, but we don't know. Also, as f1refly says, age is hard to judge. I personally find it impossible to tell many ages apart. Maybe if you put a 17 year old and a 25 year old side by side I could, but in isolation, many look more or less the same to me. Of course, I'm also not having sex with that age group. Still, telling what age someone is can be very hard and 17 year olds do often look older.

What I'm arguing is that the comments RMS made were not at all bad and taken completely out of context (and outright changed!) to demonize him.

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

#742

Post by pseudalopex » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #212

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…

Has RMS ever been formally diagnosed as autistic, or is it just the perception/defense of armchair physicians?

He said he isn't autistic in 2008.[1] I haven't seen anything about him getting diagnosed since then.

[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2551458/asperger-s-oxy...

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

#743

Post by ertian » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #659

ertian wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's a hell of a strawman...

"because he is a prominent figure and at the same time white, male" Oh right. I probably confused parent posters words for .. I don't know. Isn't he or she (less likely) exactly saying this? That RMS was targeted because he is white and male and not because of what he did and said? How is that not thinking along the lines of conspiracy? Exaggerated, yes. But strawman? Where exactly?

There's a huuuuge gap between "some prominent old white dudes might be targeted in specific communities" and "white guys are the most persecuted people on earth."

When the Stallman thing was still fresh, I saw people online argue that it _didn't really matter_ whether Minsky actually did anything wrong, or whether it was inappropriate for Stallman to defend him. There are too many old white guys in prominent positions in tech, and reducing their numbers is a good thing. Sure it'll mess up Stallman's life, but whatever, that's a small price to pay for progress. In other words, explicitly: it's okay to target him, even if the accusations aren't correct, because he's an old white guy.

I think that's something people really believe. I also think it's unfair, and shouldn't be tolerated. And yet...I don't believe anything _close_ to the argument you put in OP's mouth (and by extension, mine). No, white guys aren't even close to the most persecuted people on the planet--and yet, that doesn't make them immune from persecution in all forms, either.

So: you attempted to rebut an argument by reducing it to a ridiculous caricature of itself. That's called a strawman.

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

#744

Post by u801e » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #434

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.

Why is the person answering here considered to be the butt and not the person setting up the trap? Generally I believe it is know that there is no good answers to this question. So maybe we should assign blame on person asking it? That is if they don't really want the honest answer.

That's good way to put it. A more obvious trap question would be "have you stopped beating your wife?"

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

#745

Post by Balgair » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

dreen wrote: post #420

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…

> 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.

Glad I'm not the only one that thought this.

Stallman seems to be in a similar vein as many of the 'great philosophers'. In that his ideas are challenging and difficult, much like himself. Making the man not one that you like all that much. The phenomenon reminds me of an often misinterpreted Edmond de Goncourt quote:

"Almost no one loves the genius until he or she is dead. But then we do, because now life is better."

The quote is not talking about how the genius made our lives better through their work/effort. Rather, how they were so insufferable.

As to Stallman, only time will tell if he will join the Great Conversation as a loud voice or not.

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

#746

Post by hutzlibu » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

I am on a quest for facts, hard in this debate.

So this was the original post that lead to RMS resign.

https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...

Here is a defending one.

https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vili...

But there I have a question. Regarding the "Knight for justice (and hot ladies)" sign.

"not the sign about welcoming “hot ladies” on his MIT Media lab office door, which someone else wrote as a joke and which he removed but not before someone took a photo of it"

Was the sign a one-time joke, someone knowingly did, RMS left amused there for a while, days, weeks, months?

Or was he annoyed and removed it once he got to it?

Or was it part of a smear campaign? Even just happened recently at the time of the attacks, or way before?

Quite different scenarios. I suspect the first one to be true. But I am open to more solid facts, for example by someone, who actually was or is at the MIT.

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

#747

Post by Avamander » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #746

I am on a quest for facts, hard in this debate. So this was the original post that lead to RMS resign. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21... Here is a defending one. https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vili... But there I have a question. Regarding the "Knight for justice (and hot ladies)" sign. "not the sign about welcoming “hot ladies” on his MIT Media lab office door,…

Here's a better source than both of those: https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web

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

#748

Post by Aloha » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

exikyut wrote: post #481

Aloha wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm perfectly okay with us being presented as weird, it keeps the normal people away. ;-) Did you mean something else?

I remember reading someone come to roughly the same conclusion on /r/furry a while back, it was nice. So yeah, I do mostly mean that. But the reason there was a bit of extra hesitancy there is that I straddle the line on socialization to the extent that while half my brain would probably love going to a con, the other half would basically be cognitive-dissonance-BSODing the entire time. And I'm not sure if repeating…

Fandom interactions have their own well defined rules and norms. I apply one rulebook for fandom, another one for work, another one for non fandom friendly social interactions, just pondering it lightly, I can identify 6 or so unique rulebooks I use for different kinds of social interactions. I suspect I have even more.

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

#749

Post by phpnode » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

hn8788 wrote: post #42

bigtones wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they.... here is a direct quote from him on a pro-pedophilia political party in 2006 that many that people took offence with: “I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.” https://thenextweb.com/dd/2019…

When taken out of context it looks bad, but when it's part of a broader discussion about morality and law not always matching up, it makes sense. Age of consent laws vary around the world, and it doesn't make sense why someone could legally have consensual sex with someone in one country, but if they had sex in a place with different age of consent laws, they'd be branded a pedophile.

This is an example where the quote is actually worse with the broader context.

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

#750

Post by pseudalopex » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #460

kelnos wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, his post[0] didn't say anything about people of a similar age. His post linked to an article about a Dutch group forming a pro-pedophilia political party that wanted to drop the age of consent to 12, and then eliminate it entirely. RMS did not (as the parent said) directly argue that pedophilia is ok, but I don't see much distinction between directly arguing that vs. linking to something that does argue that, and…

He didn't say he agreed with it. He said "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children." There is a wide gap between being sceptical of a claim, and supporting its negation. Anyone who is applying critical thinking will occasionally be sceptical of things which are obviously correct. People were sceptical of the wheel. People have been sceptical of money since the creation of money. People w…

He dismissed opposition to it as "parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing". And he said it's "illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness".[1]

The article says what most people would call the age of consent in Brazil is 14.

[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%20...()