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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

#261

Post by inglor_cz »

eps wrote: post #3

Was really looking forward it :-/ The wording of the cancellation is just ... wierd. Just as if they have to say something, but don't really want to say anything at the same time. Such a wishy-washy bs.

It really feels like a new Victorian age is upon us. Not only are you allowed to show an ankle under your skirt, even talking about female legs is frowned upon.

The similarities go deeper than that. A mostly-uncontested empire (then, British, now, American) produced a leisure class that does not really have anything better to do than play zero-sum Moral Olympic Games.

Which also means that the only way out is in increased competition from non-Western nations. No one can afford too much verbal fluff in a Cold War 2.0.

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

#262

Post by inglor_cz »

VagueMag wrote: post #27
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.

Stallman made some remarks defending Marvin Minsky (very poorly) from victims' allegations that he abused young girls on Epstein's island. Meanwhile, Reid Hoffman is now known to have visited the island and has not seen any firestorm of cancellations, as far as I'm aware.

This is actually consistent with Freddie de Boer's attempt to define wokeism [0]:

It is an abstract academic ideology where symbols and words matter a lot, while real-world activity does not.

[0] https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/of-course-you-know-what...

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

#263

Post by Fatnino »

1827163 wrote: post #253
usernew wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly gotta ask. Why is it that half the planet commenting on young sex with very strong, very critical opinions, keeps confusing the age of consent with the age you're allowed to vote? On 99% of the planet, if a 17yo acts like, and is willing to screw your brains out, you're good to go and quite legal. In fact, same for a 16yo. In fact, on half the planet including a large portion stateside, that works for 15 t…

This is so true. The "morality" when it comes to sex, is thinly disguised religious dogma, that has been passed down the generations unquestioned. A 17 year old is absolutely capable of consent. However I feel if she has been manipulated in any way then it should be illegal.

Illegal regardless of age.

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

#264

Post by jonathanstrange »

Georgelemental wrote: post #243
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re right, that is a misquote. But what he actually wrote honestly wasn’t that much better Agree. Broadly speaking, if someone is accused of a moral crime about which you have no privileged information, publicly hypothesizing about how they might be innocent is tantamount to a defence. It's a limit on free speech. And in private circles, it could be debated responsibly. But when stated publicly, the argument's c…

> Broadly speaking, if someone is accused of a moral crime about which you have no privileged information, publicly hypothesizing about how they might be innocent is tantamount to a defence. What ??? How ??? Are we supposed to assume that every accusation we hear about is true, and everyone is guilty until proven innocent?

This is especially ridiculous in the US where nearly every rich person can be expected to get sued about anything because it's common to hand out hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in settlements to avoid publicity before the case even reaches court.

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

#265

Post by gattilorenz »

noobermin wrote: post #254
asdfman123 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right, that is a misquote. But what he actually wrote honestly wasn’t that much better. The problem with a lot of these sorts things is intentionally making yourself blind to the emotional impact, pretending not to know, when some part of you does understand what you’re doing. It’s all just plausible deniability. We get it quite clearly, we don’t need it explained to us. You might say this is tone policing but…

How about you don't vaguely gesture to what he said and state what you understand he said?

"the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing" means that "most likely she told Minsky that she was entirely willing [and not being coerced, and Minsky didn't doubt that]".

I can't see any other intepretation of the statement. Whether that's a reasonable things to expect from Minsky (or whether we want to hypothesize at all on what happened) it's up for debate, but the formulation doesn't seem ambiguous.

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

#266

Post by xinayder »

myshpa wrote: post #145

"The original Remove Richard Stallman post contained leaked communications from a private mailing list. In it, the author quotes an email from Stallman where he explains that Marvin Minsky likely wouldn’t have known that the woman on Jeffrey Epstein’s island was coerced: …the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had…

So, in the end, RMS lecture in 2023 was cancelled because of a controversy that happened 2 years ago that since then has been solved?

IMO it just looks bad for EPFL if they decided to cancel the lecture based solely on this. If they knew about it, then why tell RMS he could hold a lecture only for them to cancel it on the last minute to bring back this topic again?

Exaggerating a bit but this is like inviting Linus Torvalds for a lecture, then cancelling it at the last minute because of his previous attitude towards the Linux git repository.

EDIT: I just read their response and they are boldly assuming that RMS would divert the topic from free software and open source during his lecture, which I find it very difficult to do so, unless asked, given what I know of his persona.

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

#267

Post by unsupp0rted »

I don't care about Stallman's views or interests outside of Open Source. I'll bet I disagree with him on 95% of things in general, whether or not those things are immoral or illegal in my view. Doesn't matter to me.

If he commits a crime, arrest him. Until then, I'll pay attention to him re: open source and ignore the rest.

Want to cancel his appearances? Fine, up to you.

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

#269

Post by [deleted] »

lockhouse wrote: post #117
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-poli…

[deleted]

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

#270

Post by ilceltico »

EPFL PhD student here, I'd like to point out that this statement is NOT from EPFL. The lecture was organised by a student association called CLIC, and the linked post was made by the association. As such, this is not a formal statement from EPFL by any means. The title of this thread is highly misleading and should be changed immediately.
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