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A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

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Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#161

Post by krapp »

DarkCrusader2 wrote: post #98

> A competing letter in support of RMS exists and has accumulated considerably more signatures than the letter condemning RMS. > In response someone created a Chrome extension that marks repositories owned by a signatory of this support letter with red text on GitHub. This is incredible worrying. This is basically maintaining a repository of people with "incorrect" opinions. How long before such repositories are inte…

It surprises me that so many people are outraged by a Chrome extension that highlights names - and does nothing more as far as I know - denouncing it with all of the righteous anger that Hacker News can muster (including wanting to blacklist anyone who contributed to the extension, and wanting to see everyone with progressive politics purged from free software entirely) yet no one seems too bothered when RMS supporters want to have Molly de Blanc arrested for simply writing a petition[0] to begin with.

The hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance among Stallman's supporters never ceases to astonish.

edit: fixed the link.

[0]https://debian.community/molly-de-blanc-arrest-and-prosecuti...

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#162

Post by kstenerud »

junke wrote: post #158
kstenerud wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that one generation ago we as people of the free world abhorred the idea of punishing individuals for their beliefs. Now that has changed. It's not the first time this happened, and it certainly won't be the last, but it's always ended badly in the past.

religious beliefs != informed opinions Your boss or project maintainer in an open source project starts spreading conspiracy theories on the internet (Q, Flat Earth, whatever), to the point he becomes a public embarassment. Do you want to continue working with him?

> religious beliefs != informed opinions

Opinions are beliefs, and beliefs aren't by necessity religious.

> Your boss or project maintainer in an open source project starts spreading conspiracy theories on the internet (Q, Flat Earth, whatever), to the point he becomes a public embarassment. Do you want to continue working with him?

Thank you for the example. This never used to be an issue. 15 years ago, one didn't care what a colleague believed, so long as they conducted business in a professional manner. Nowadays one feels a need to distance ones self at all costs lest one be tarred with the same brush and similarly punished (as we see happening all around us these days - and in fact specifically in your earlier Chrome extension example).

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#163

Post by torthrowaway999 »

maweki wrote: post #53
henrikschroder wrote: post #32

> The primary author of the open letter, Molly de Blanc, writes on her personal blog: > > There is no space to argue over whether a comment was transphobic – if it hurt a trans person then it is transphobic and it is unacceptable. Ah, postmodernism! Where the words are made up, and intent doesn't matter!

In a sphere where we usually choose our names and expect other people to use them, instead of what's written in some official document, I don't see how chosen pronouns are any different. Honestly, it's not hard to call people what they want to be called. You might feel the line between innocent mistake and maliciousness has not been crossed. Other people do disagree.

Pronouns are just a way to refer to an entity in your text, the issue with classical pronouns like he, she, and it is that they imply certain properties about the entity that they refer (that they are a single entity, their gender, and whether they are a human). The pronoun itself is not a gender and I just can't see how using any polite pronoun that tries to not make any assumptions regarding properties of said entity is transphobic. Another alternative is to use the person's name to refer to them.

I guess using gender neutral pronouns exclusively for transgender people can be considered transphobic but this is not something that stallman advocates for. In fact his statements regarding gender neutral pronouns do not mention transgender people at all, it seems that he advocates for the gender neutral pronouns to be used for _everyone_ (which should in the long run be advantageous to transgender people).

Regardless though, he himself uses the pronouns that people ask him to use for them. So he is basically being accused for being a transphobe for... saying that having a single gender neutral pronoun to replace all pronouns is better? Really? It saddness me that people decide to "cancel" him instead of engaging in a (public or private) dialog with him. There is a good chance that he hasn't even heard their arguments.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#164

Post by gnomewascool »

dpatterbee wrote: post #52
outsomnia wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and what's actually the problem with that stance that justifies what is being done to Stallman? It should be OK with everyone to be referred to by name and the set of generic English words that can be applied to anyone.

The problem is that gender is a complicated social issue and not every transgender person wants to be thrown into an "other" category with their pronouns. Given how simple it is to use someone's preferred pronouns once they've been made clear to you, I don't see how it's a problem to do so.

RMS's stance is that "they" is not a grammatically valid singular pronoun, so he'll not use it.

If somebody told you that their preferred pronoun was "we", I doubt you'd use it.

> not every transgender person wants to be thrown into an "other" category with their pronouns

RMS's pronoun "perse" is gender-neutral (not non-gender).

The stance is IMO crazy, but he does have a point that using "they" as both singular and plural introduces ambiguity.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#165

Post by mavhc »

junon wrote: post #68
maweki wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a sphere where we usually choose our names and expect other people to use them, instead of what's written in some official document, I don't see how chosen pronouns are any different. Honestly, it's not hard to call people what they want to be called. You might feel the line between innocent mistake and maliciousness has not been crossed. Other people do disagree.

Because pronouns are ingrained into our language centers; we automatically and subconsciously classify people based on physical appearance and derive pronouns from that. For better or worse, it's part of our programming. Names, however, are not. We've learned names are not connected to any physical trait, and thus we process and store them differently. Expecting the entirety of humanity to simply "unlearn" language i…

https://deepbaltic.com/2018/03/20/being-non-binary-in-a-lang...

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#166

Post by PurpleFoxy »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #46
simion314 wrote: post #36

I am afraid to put my name/email/github id in support of RMS because some mob in future will draw incorrect equivalence with whatever they want like "you support RMS then you are an X " where X seems to be a pedo. I am also wondering how many GNU/FSF haters are participating in just because they prefer MIT/BSD and see GNU as a cancer eating at their money making scheme.

> I am afraid to put my name/email/github id in support of RMS because some mob in future ... That's exactly what these totalitarian wokists aim for: to make people afraid to oppose them. The only way to stop it is not cave in to their absurd demands. Be strong, live without fear, and do the right thing.

Another way is to comment and show support in a way that is not linked to your real identity. If people try to claim these are fake accounts, point out how people fear to show support publicly.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#167

Post by simion314 »

junke wrote: post #158
kstenerud wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that one generation ago we as people of the free world abhorred the idea of punishing individuals for their beliefs. Now that has changed. It's not the first time this happened, and it certainly won't be the last, but it's always ended badly in the past.

religious beliefs != informed opinions Your boss or project maintainer in an open source project starts spreading conspiracy theories on the internet (Q, Flat Earth, whatever), to the point he becomes a public embarassment. Do you want to continue working with him?

>Your boss or project maintainer in an open source project starts spreading conspiracy theories on the internet (Q, Flat Earth, whatever), to the point he becomes a public embarassment. Do you want to continue working with him?

Say I created an open source library and you are a contributor, now you find out that I am a pro-life (or communist or watch dubious japanese adult content), you are free to stop contributing sure, but why should you try to steal my job and project because you don;t like my opinions? You probably will say that is bad PR for my library and my library is very important for the community so you should spread a lot of missinformation about me to force me out and free the library using mod tactics.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#168

Post by ljm »

krapp wrote: post #161
DarkCrusader2 wrote: post #98

> A competing letter in support of RMS exists and has accumulated considerably more signatures than the letter condemning RMS. > In response someone created a Chrome extension that marks repositories owned by a signatory of this support letter with red text on GitHub. This is incredible worrying. This is basically maintaining a repository of people with "incorrect" opinions. How long before such repositories are inte…

It surprises me that so many people are outraged by a Chrome extension that highlights names - and does nothing more as far as I know - denouncing it with all of the righteous anger that Hacker News can muster (including wanting to blacklist anyone who contributed to the extension, and wanting to see everyone with progressive politics purged from free software entirely) yet no one seems too bothered when RMS supporte…

Looking at both examples, the entire situation is bothersome and, frankly, exhausting. I don't know where people find the energy to fuel all this outrage when there is surely somewhere to meet in the middle. It's difficult to take seriously, and understand the genuine underlying issues, when emotions all around are amplified to the extreme.

Campaigning to have someone arrested on one end and employing totalitarian tactics on the other comes across as absurd to me. It's practically authoritarian in-fighting.

I'm sure there is a real problem that deserves discussion here, but it's difficult to see through the dense fog of anger.

(edit: I did remove an original sentence from this comment about it being a toxic squabble. I decided that was a bit too dismissive, but you'll still see it in all its glory in one of the responses)

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#169

Post by torthrowaway999 »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #95
Toutouxc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find it difficult at all, because the way he sees it, what he says is strictly logically true. Possession of CP material does not hurt anyone. The fact that people who want to possess (and are willing to pay for) CP material are a huge reason for CP material to be created by whatever means available (that's the part that hurts people) seems to be lost on him. His ideas on free software and freedom in general…

I would really like to understand his opinion on accessory-after-the-fact and other crimes like dealing in stolen property. It would illuminate whether he’s actually a CP apologist or merely a poor legal philosopher who has bad judgment on the subject matter of his thought experiments.

What about neither? Have you accounted for that option?

Possession of CP is not an accessory-after-the-fact. CP is also not a physical good. This argument is similar to the argument comparing piracy to stealing a car.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#170

Post by undecisive »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #129
undecisive wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We cannot truly know someone's intent. Oh, you can get pretty close. What you do is you look at their attitudes towards the marginalized individuals, to marginalized communities, their opinions as a whole, their advocacy, their friendship groups, etc. If, on balance, they appear to support and promote people of colour or transgender people (as much as they do any other people group) - then this person is probably n…

The purpose of a system is what it does.

Really? Is the purpose of a combine harvester to kill people? Of course not. Yet people have died in combine harvester accidents.

Is the purpose of the electric car to make CO2? Of course not. Yet for a long time (not sure whether this has changed yet) more CO2 was wasted in their production and transport than they could ever hope to save in over 10 years of operation.

Is your purpose to make blaisé, ill-thought-out over-generalisations on the internet? Of course not. I imagine you lead a full and fulfilling life offline, spoiling orphaned kittens rotten and brokering peace treaties in your spare time.

Just because a person (or, if you prefer, a system) produces an unintended side effect - whether by accident, ignorance or bad publicity - it does not make that their purpose, or even reflective of the kindness in their core being.

And sometimes, these things can be fixed with education. Sometimes these things can be fixed with holistic reporting and good PR. Sometimes, other people need to learn to do their own research to understand and accept the context in which things are said.

But alas, the internet will never learn these things. Because the purpose of a system is what it does - and what the internet does really well is spread hate and division.

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