251–260 of 274 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was not aware that the justice system operated on the principle of “if I believe someone is innocent, I do not have to consider any of the evidence”.
That is not even near the same galaxy of what I wrote. But you do you.
At this point I think the most important thing is that mob rule is shown to not be the way. I don't know RMS, I don't even know much about RMS... but I have heard enough to know he's not the intolerant idiot he's been made out to be in these hateful letters. There are possibly other very reasonable criticisms for him being removed from his position, but the mob made that impossible to discuss now due to the overwhelm…
“I know nothing about the target, but he must be innocent!”
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> So, you realize that RMS is wrong on the GNU/Linux thing and somehow are still on the side of forcing pronouns? No, I recognize that RMS is wrong on trying to impose his choice of names as designators of other people’s work, and also recognize that he is wrong, for pretty much the exact same reason though with more significance, to impose his choice of pronouns as designators of other people’s persons.
Except that is not how it is. They are both asking, demanding, someone else to only use the words they deem tolerable. Whatever the situation, no one has to comply with such demand.
Nope. No one is demanding that Richard Stallman restrict which pronouns he uses to some set of nonobjectionable pronouns.
People are demanding that, when referring to another person, Stallman not impose names or pronouns he has chosen when he has been informed of the name or pronouns (if any; in some cases the applicable preference is “don’t use pronouns”) which the person identifies as labels for themself.
> Whatever the situation, no one has to comply with such demand.
There are very few times when one strictly has to do anything. OTOH, people don’t have to voluntarily associate with, work with, or contribute to Richard Stallman, or projects or organizations he is associated with, either.
You are free to proudly, publicly proclaim that you will only refer to the 43rd President of the United States as Bu$Hitler, and that no one can impose on you a different choice of names for that person, but you probably should not expect to get a job as executive director of his Presidential Library having done so.
Doing essentially the same thing to a much larger set of people is likewise something one can do, but expecting it to not have consequences, especially on one’s suitability for a position that is fundamentally about public communication, is irrational.
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Of course you'll agree. You will do it for two reasons: 1) you are a nice person and would like to be polite, avoiding offending anyone, 2) if you fail to do so, there are people who will make sure you'll regret your decision.
So being polite means I need to further the mentally ill in their delusion? The second one is a problem that's for sure. Cancel culture is getting out of hand.
Moreover, using HN primarily for ideological or political battle is one line at which we start banning accounts—regardless of what they're battling for or against—and it looks like your account is well over that line. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended, we'd appreciate it. There's lots more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
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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.
> Honestly, it's not hard to call people what they want to be called. So should I cater to someone who wants to be referred to as an Apache helicopter gunship? Where do you draw the line?
> 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!
Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological flamewar. It isn't interesting: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... Snarky one-liners on flamewar topics are flamebait, which the site guidelines ask you not to post: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Edit: I made a mistake in the following bit because I missed your initial ">". Sorry! Quoting the OP is obviously legit.)…
It's a quote from the article that's key in presenting the principles of their open letter. If the poster had gone to Molly's website and found it for themselves, and posted it here I'd certainly contest it's flamebait.
This seems different, because we're accepting that this article has a place here, I don't see how you can not quote key segments of the article.
The rest I definitely agree with.
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Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological flamewar. It isn't interesting: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... Snarky one-liners on flamewar topics are flamebait, which the site guidelines ask you not to post: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Edit: I made a mistake in the following bit because I missed your initial ">". Sorry! Quoting the OP is obviously legit.)…
Is this really shaming? It's a quote from the article that's key in presenting the principles of their open letter. If the poster had gone to Molly's website and found it for themselves, and posted it here I'd certainly contest it's flamebait. This seems different, because we're accepting that this article has a place here, I don't see how you can not quote key segments of the article. The rest I definitely agree wit…
> 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!
Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological flamewar. It isn't interesting: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... Snarky one-liners on flamewar topics are flamebait, which the site guidelines ask you not to post: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Edit: I made a mistake in the following bit because I missed your initial ">". Sorry! Quoting the OP is obviously legit.)…
But on a serious note, this is the core of bullshit that powers progressive identity politics, and progressive cancel culture.
I understand RMS' comments on "them/they" as a pedantic, semantic, technically correct grammar nazi argument. But then, the authors of the demand letter to cancel RMS argue, because a trans person took offense with his statement, RMS is a transphobe.
And this kind of smearing is only possible if you subscribe to the postmodern notion that intent doesn't matter, and that "x-phobe" simply means that you offended a person of group x, regardless of your intent.
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.
Your comment is posted here as a reply to another comment, but it seems like the content is unrelated. The quoted sentence says nothing about pronouns in particular. Instead, it says that if someone says anything at all that any trans person finds offensive then the person saying it becomes tainted without any recourse. (I checked the post it was from and it hasn't been taken out of context - it really is as general…
But intent matters. It has to matter. I believe RMS' intent with his "they/them is plural" statement is to be a grammar nazi, and not that he wants to put down trans people. His argument is tactless, pedantic, and he's wrong because language changes and grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive, but he's not transphobic. He's wrong, but not because some trans person took offense with what he wrote.
> 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!