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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

#111

Post by jzb »

olliej wrote: post #96

Ignoring the questions of whether Stallman's persona is good, bad, or irrelevant this kind of thing shouldn't still be happening. Stallman's personality is not new, and has not changed since the 80s, and nothing newly controversial has come out in like a decade at this point. It's inexcusable at this point to keep inviting him to give talks and then cancelling them. Either you're ok with hosting him regardless and an…

Believe it or not, a lot of people still don’t know much beyond RMS being the founder of gnu. I have certainly found that plenty of people are not aware of any controversies until they’re pointed out. Whether these organizers had any clue I don’t know.

I do think if you’re inviting someone to give a talk, you probably should do some homework to make sure that you’re comfortable with their persona. And if not, don’t invite them. But it’s less common knowledge than you might think.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#112

Post by Retric »

s0ulphire wrote: post #91
Retric wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re misunderstanding the definition of what that word means. 1) A 12/13 year old and a 16 year old experimenting is likely pedophilia depending on the biology of the 12/13 year old. 2) consent is a circular argument. The assumption that they can’t give consent arises from the assumption of harm and therefore cannot be used to justify harm. Animals for example can’t give consent to each other, that doesn’t…

The assumption that a child can't give consent is based on their lack of understanding of what exactly they're consenting to, same as a drunk person can't give consent for the same reason. So yes, a 16yo seeking out a 12yo to have sex with would be wrong. Or an 18yo with a 14yo. They are not peers.

I agree a 16 year old predator is problematic.

The question was about when the younger party instigates. If such contact is inherently harmful then two prepubescent experimenting with each other would presumably cause similar issues. I feel some cognitive dissonance between those two examples which is why I was hoping someone had some actual research on the topic.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#113

Post by Clubber »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #59
lostmsu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There’s a difference between a controversial opinion and one of the strongest taboos in American culture.

It's a fairly modern taboo, historically speaking.

While the unrestricted age of consent is between 16 and 18 in all U.S. states, the laws have widely varied across the country in the past. In 1880, the ages of consent were set at 10 or 12 in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7.[104] The ages of consent were raised across the U.S. during the late 19th century and the early 20th century.[105][106] By 1920, 26 states had an age of consent at 16, 21 states had an age of consent at 18, and one state (Georgia) had an age of consent at 14.[104] Small adjustments to these laws occurred after 1920.

Damn Deleware, 7?!

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#114

Post by henriquez »

When I worked at a nonprofit RMS was a lone voice advocating (respectfully) via email that our code be free. I don’t have a dog in this Epstein fight but when I look at the dude’s body of work and see that none of the allegations are basically new shit that has come to light, it makes me doubt the motives of the people “canceling” him.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#115

Post by actionfromafar »

ethbr0 wrote: post #87
tivert wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in reply to the GP, which was inappropriately flag-killed. The difference is probably that Stallman has no money or power, so he's an easy, safe target to attack.

The difference is that Gates pays his PR company a lot more than Stallman does his.

Not sure Stallman would even listen to a PR team if he had one.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#116

Post by skissane »

mardifoufs wrote: post #97
skissane wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is very controversial, even if he backpedalled (only after it resurfaced and created a lot of controversy). He said he didn’t understand the issue and talking to abuse survivors helped him understand it better, and that led to him changing his view. To me, that sounds like a person simply updating their views in response to new evidence-new to them even if much older to many others. Labelling it as “back-pedalling”…

To be clear, I'm not implying that he himself is a pedophile. I also get that he might have changed his mind, but Stallman is also not known to actually change his mind very often. I'm not a mind reader and it's just an impression that I've gotten in the way he apologized. But in any case my point was mostly that he actually made pretty controversial statements at some point, and it's a bit disingenuous to insinuate…

> I also get that he might have changed his mind, but Stallman is also not known to actually change his mind very often.

Yes, he rarely changes his mind-but, all evidence I’ve seen is that if he says he’s changed his mind about something, then he indeed has. I don’t see any good reason to doubt him on that-he’s the kind of person who speaks their mind (maybe even one of those people with a “poor filter”), I’ve seen zero evidence he’s someone who tries to hide their true views

> But in any case my point was mostly that he actually made pretty controversial statements at some point, and it's a bit disingenuous to insinuate that the statement in the article was just baseless smearing and that we won't know which statements are against their values.

Why does it matter what his past statements were if he has made clear he no longer agrees with them?

Saying you don’t want to platform a speaker because of their current views on unrelated topics - I feel uncomfortable about it, but in some cases it may be defensible. But saying you don’t want to platform a speaker because of their past views which they’ve since renounced on an unrelated topic - how is that defensible? “Baseless” seems an entirely apt description for it.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#117

Post by lockhouse »

thraway3837 wrote: post #74

[flagged]

> Correct move. Holding an opinion that is unethical, immoral and destructive to society is unacceptable. And nobody wants to be associated with that. I wish this was not up for debate, but unfortunately, we seem to want to debate the same things repeatedly no matter how many times we know that certain things are problematic.

Who gets to decide what opinions are correct and therefore allowed? Sounds very thought-police to me. There are many viewpoints that are commonly held by practitioners of the "woke" religion that I find to be unethical, immoral, and destructive, but I would never want to silence them. A debate enriches us all. If an idea holds no merit or substance it will fall apart in a fair debate, particularly if it can be supported by evidence. I am deeply suspicious of those who would silence debate and suspect their opinions lack substance.

> For what it's worth for the HN crowd: A lot of us are in various points of our careers. Some starting, some in the middle, some at the end. You can spend decades establishing yourself. But it only takes 1 second to destroy it all. Think before you speak, think before you act.

Is this right though? Should a decades long career be destroyed completely by 1 second of indiscretion? I personally find this viewpoint unethical, immoral, and destructive to society.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#118

Post by nearmuse »

thraway3837 wrote: post #74

[flagged]

> Think before you speak, think before you act.

People always did, especially the smart ones like Stallman. His blog literally consists of his provocative takes on various issues. Thinking results in having an argumentation for one's actions. That argumentation might be wrong, and the person could change their views when presented with evidence. If you never overlook blunders and allow to self-correct, you are discouraging original thinking.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#119

Post by kayodelycaon »

alex_lav wrote: post #55
tivert wrote: post #21

Did Stallman do anything new that offended certain political persuasions, or is this cancellation only due to previous controversies/peculiarities? Edit: the level of downvotes/flag-kills of comments just asking "why" and "what happened" is pretty depressing.

HN is pretty divided about Stallman. Bringing up the things he actually at one time said, even if later he said something different, results in a lot of downvoting and toxicity. You can't talk about him without it devolving into binary thinking and binary debates. Same as everything else in 2023 I guess. edit Even this comment, which is just listing a series of objective facts, is getting wildly upvoted/downvoted

HN was deeply divided on RMS when I joined back in 2009. Every thread on him was full of this. :/

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#120

Post by lockhouse »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #107
thraway3837 wrote: post #74

[flagged]

No, it doesn't only take a few stupid utterances. The moral crusaders only have power with those who have none. Donald Trump still isn't in prison for doing and saying far, far worse over several decades.

> Donald Trump still isn't in prison for doing and saying far, far worse over several decades.

Donald Trump isn't in prison because he hasn't been convicted of any crimes. Well except for in the court of public opinion, but fortunately for us, they hold no power within the American justice system.

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