We live in a new age, where we can know a lot more about the personal lives of famous people. Decades ago, the problematic personalities of famous people were hidden by the gate keepers. JKF benefited from this. It would be nice if there was a more uniform way to handle situations like this. RMS isn't alone, in being accused of unsavory things. Should we shun Bill Gates because of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? It's a thorny issue, because it's so hard to know much about the details of these problematic relationships.
EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
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Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#12We ll never know what "the situation" is and whatever "statements that do not correspond to any of our values" are.
Good job smearing mud without saying anything i guess. Did stallman say something since he was invited that was particularly noticeable? if not then these organizers don't know what they 're doing and this reflects bad on them
Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#13[deleted]
Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#14Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#15Anyone have a background summary? Last I heard he kept a mattress in his office and asked people to lay on it, and he had a stupid neutral pronoun idea he was very insistent on using. Has something stranger come up?
The main one, amoung many smaller things, were his comments around Jeffrey Epstein in 2019.
Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#16Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#17Bizarre turn of events. Who cares about his persona, people can decide for themselves if they want to hear him speak.
Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#18Literally canceled. Perhaps having an eternal memory of everything bad human beings ever do in their entire lives to be summoned up to destroy people is not such a good idea.
It's only Cancel Culture if it comes from the Cancél region of France.
Otherwise it's just sparkling consequences.
Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#19Anyone have a background summary? Last I heard he kept a mattress in his office and asked people to lay on it, and he had a stupid neutral pronoun idea he was very insistent on using. Has something stranger come up?
He objected to the word "assault" being used to describe Marvin Minsky (allegedly) having sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's underage victims.
Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona
#20My read of the French is TLDR:
[starts out by mentioning some people are complaining about RMS being schedule to talk], then:
"We have considered the decisions of certain organizations that serve as examples for us and have made certain choices in the past" ("avons considéré les décisions de certaines organisations qui nous servent d’exemple et qui ont fait certains choix avant nous").
then they go on to say they've decided to cancel the talk.
So - sounds like they're getting blowback and don't want to deal with all the politics / bad press around it? But also don't way to say they're just ducking out, and so have phrased it really weirdly.