Live data from Hacker News

Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

perens.com

211–220 of 227 posts

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#211
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's the lead developer of the HURD Bushnell hasn't been working on HURD for a long time. He joined a religious order and works for google. > Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF Kuhn is now the president of a competing organisation to the FSF that doesn't mind promoting Facebook or Google for their outreach. > Here's a whole bunch of GNU project maintainers Guix has been in disagreem…

Right, the question was whether there are people who have meaningfully contributed to GNU who disagree with RMS, or the only complainers are internet randos. Obviously the answer to that question is a list of people who have previously been active FSF or GNU contributors and now are either inactive or have public disagreements with RMS. (By the way, Kuhn was on the board of the FSF while he was leading this "competin…

> Who, then, has the right to criticize RMS, if they don't?

Only people who are pure, demonstrated by worship of RMS, are free to criticize him. Of course, if they do so, they are no longer pure, and lose that license.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#212
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should not get to define what freedom means. This little bit right here sounds fascist. I'm not going to defend RMS' words or actions (I don't even know what the entire case against him is, and the more extreme this gets the less I want to pry into his personal life). I do think people are losing their minds to assassinate the guy. RMS has given us our entire industry and careers. Without free software, you wouldn'…

> He apologized and spent several years away from the organization he founded. September 2019 — March 2021 isn’t “several years”. Many of the othern elements of your description are similarly creative interpretations of the facts.

Oh come on! That's the substantive part of my comment you're going to criticize?

That's 16 to 18 months, not far from 24. This is such a nitpick.

Why don't you address the rest of my comment?

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#213
post #17

RMS is abusive. I'm autistic too. When I've behaved in similar ways, I've been similarly forced to account for my behavior. I resent the fact that ostensible defense of him as a person on the spectrum is so ideological. I distrust most of his defenders' sincerity when they talk about his neurodivergence, and I don't consider them allies.

You clearly are not an expert on autism. The disease is a huge spectrum of different behaviors, from almost normal, to severe retardation. I've seen RMS in real life, he's borderline can't take care of himself, that's not being abusive.

A day later I’m still astonished that someone called me out, myself being a person who is autisc, for not being an expert. How dare you.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes, and I'm sure the other camp would have similar complaints about the quality of your camp's signatures and membership. This is how it always goes when people square off on emotional topics: Victory through decibels.

One side of signatories is writing the free software we all use and has regularly and directly dealt with rms. The other side is shitposting in 4chan and probably has never had to meet rms. Yeah, the quality of the signatories is obvious.

Do you have evidence to support these allegations?

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS himself has rejected the suggestion that he is on the spectrum, so I’m not sure why you are casually suggesting that he is.

As I've pointed out before [0], his "self-undiagnosis" appears to be based on misconceptions; given that, how much weight should we put on it? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537802

Stallman said he didn't have most of the characteristics of Asperger's. Rhythm was just an example.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vegan can take all the offense they want to take so long as they don’t take it out on someone in the office, because there are so many reasons why doing so is wrong (sowing division is one, as mentioned in previous comment) even if veganism itself is scientifically and ethically justified. I’ll leave it at that unless you actually want to talk about veganism in length. But, going back to the variables that diversit…

So you draw the line at "no turmoil at the office". That's what important to you. That's what you value. That's what you consider respect. One person can be offended, but its on the person to take on themself. You can go anywhere you want with this. If I masturbate on my chair during my break, I don't harm anybody. Do you take offense ? Why ? I don't harm you. But the majority of society would feels it's weird, so yo…

As I said, no need to talk about absolutes and abstracts. Society as a whole isn’t the context, the context is the workplace, and context is key. There’s no question about how masturbating openly in the office is offensive, and there isn’t a single culture in the world where that is acceptable. I would certainly fire an employee who does that even during break time because the property they’d be doing it on would still be my property, and it certainly would affect the level of comfort and therefore productivity of my employees, so the example you provided is still unambiguously wrong in the office context.

> You are limited diversity to a class of parameters you valid. Diversity is, by definition, completely open. You don't decide to limit what's diverse. People are people, they are different. That's diversity.

Neither do you get to decide exactly what kind of diversity companies can aim for. It might not be explicit in the language, but you should know that companies are not going for unqualified diversity, where they put people from marginalized groups with the people who vocally marginalize them. Diversity initiatives typically aim to assemble a workforce that draws talent from multiple groups of people, but also except those that would actively hurt such people, because if they don’t draw a line, all that companies will end up creating is unproductive office drama. The argument about diversity being “completely open by definition” is actually irrelevant since diversity can be qualified and “diverse” != “universal”.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#217

How is a "You can't lead an organisation and be a role model if your views hurt a significant amount of people in the organisation" a non-judicial punishment? If you can't read or write you would also probably not lead a large organization, and it's not punishment. Can you rejoin if you have learned reading and writing? Yes. Stallman is not a janitor but in top management (I have the highest respect for janitors but…

As I understand it, it is non judicial because there is no judiciary system involved. This doesn't imply it's not an irrational action, i.e. you may justifiably avoid a person/thing that is linked with immoral behavior even if there is no sentence (say, avoid bitcoin because of climate issues).

I think they were asking about the punishment part.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be clear, I am not defending what RMS said, but "defending child rape" is oversimplifying and over exaggerating his position. He explicitly supported a political campaign that aimed to immediately reduce the age of consent to 12 and ultimately eliminate it, on the basis that sex acts that were “consensual pedophilia” was not only not an oxymoron, but also something that wasn’t harmful. (He also raised questions…

The lowest age for marriage in USA is 12 -- with judicial and parental approval. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_age_in_the_United_Sta... The lowest age of consent is 16 -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_age_in_the_United_Sta...

Marriage at 12 doesn't mean sex at 12. California has a law against "any lewd or lascivious act" with a child under 14 for example. Spouses aren't exempt.[1] And age of consent means without judicial or parental approval.

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If someone discloses to their employer that they are seeing a therapist, it would be inappropriate for their employer to put that disclosure in a press release." In principle yes, but not if that was the reason the person could not have the leadership role in the first place.

If someone confides in you their private medical information, it is inappropriate to put that information in a press release without their permission, full stop, no exceptions. Certainly morally, and possibly even legally. "Is it okay if I put your private medical information in our press release?"–many people would view that question as inappropriate to even ask.

"without their permission"

Yes.

But I didn't say it is appropriate, me saying this was only in your head.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One side of signatories is writing the free software we all use and has regularly and directly dealt with rms. The other side is shitposting in 4chan and probably has never had to meet rms. Yeah, the quality of the signatories is obvious.

Do you have evidence to support these allegations?

I saw the letter being drafted and promoted in /g/ and if you go there now you'll find threads talking about it, I bet. But it is 4chan and threads don't stay up long or get archived, so you can be content in thinking I'm lying if you prefer.
Post reply on HN