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Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

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Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#101

Post by wtracy »

gyardley wrote: post #42
raganwald wrote: post #32

Social/Moral question: Is it acceptable to wish Mr. Stallman well in light of allegations that he has advocated for truly awful practices? e.g. Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. http://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html

Wow, I had no idea. That's repugnant. Why do people still invite him to conferences? Surely there's less-objectionable representatives of his views on software.

Um, because he's never stood up and advocated legalization of pedophilia at a conference? (Or even actually advocated legalization of pedophilia at all, but that's a separate issue.)

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#103

Post by mindcrime »

cglace wrote: post #94
me_myselft wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but in US you have to have a lot of money for receiving a very basic and fundamental human right: medical care...

Why is medical care a fundamental right?

It can't be, because if it's a fundamental right (read: entitlement) then someone else is obligated to provide that care. So, in a hypothetical world where no one chooses to go into the medical profession, we'd have to put guns to people's heads and force them to become doctors, because, after all, medical care is a "fundamental right." There's an obvious paradox in that.

Medical care is a "right" in the sense that it's something you shouldn't have to ask for permission to seek, but we aren't entitled to it. It's a service that can be provided and bought on the free market like all other services.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#104

Post by figglesonrails »

b0rsuk wrote: post #60
raganwald wrote: post #32

Social/Moral question: Is it acceptable to wish Mr. Stallman well in light of allegations that he has advocated for truly awful practices? e.g. Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. http://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html

Am I the only person to notice the word "voluntarily" (sic) ? Presumably he meant willingness of both sides. I haven't given the subject much thought, but it's certainly not in the same league as someone joining you in your bathtub against your will.

Legally, minors are considered "incompetent", the idea being that they wouldn't know if something would be harmful to them in the long run. Additionally, the level of wisdom/intelligence is just too different -- children are extremely easy to manipulate compared to adults, especially since adults are almost unanimously regarded as "authority figures", doubly so if a family member. Voluntary means little if you can't reason at the level of an adult. I don't think we can honestly say that a 7 - 10 year old child has the same reasoning and experience to make good choices.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#105

Post by lwhi »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #89
kprobst wrote: post #72

One of these days it's going to be for real and I wonder how many of his fans will be enraged when someone says something like "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone".

All of them. It's been my experience that Stallman fans refuse to deal with even fair criticism of him. That aside, I hope no one says that about him or anyone else ever. I have a lot of problems with Stallman and his ideology but when he dies I hope we can all take the high road. We may think it's the man we don't like but it's really his actions and beliefs we have a problem with and when a well respected public fi…

It amazes me that Stallman is viewed in this way. Steve Jobs was undeniably an asshole to many .. and Steve Jobs' fans refuse to deal with even fair criticism of him.

There's a strange warped perspective at play.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#106

Post by sp332 »

tjr wrote: post #83
benihana wrote: post #76

This presents an interesting situation. Is Stallman okay with being hooked up to medical computers even though they may not be running free software? What about the privacy issues involved in being checked into a hospital?

http://www.stallman.org/articles/asked_to_lie.html

Interesting. A similar thing happened to me at college: I had to sign that I would abide by a license agreement that was not actually available for me to read. I signed the paper, because it was MS software and I figured it was probably the usual EULA junk. A few weeks later, I was told that the college was possibly in violation of their agreement with MS because of my behavior! I went to the office and was scolded for buying more than one copy. I told them I had no idea, since I was never shown the agreement. They said, "Oh, we don't really show that to people. But you need to abide by it, we could be in big trouble if you don't!"

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#107

Post by kprobst »

skrebbel wrote: post #73
raganwald wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well actually, I haven’t expressed an opinion about whether his words are acceptable or whether he’s a bad person, whatever that means. I have heard more than a few people taking me to task for wishing him good health on account of his words, and one of the reasons I posted this was to hear from people like you.

ps. I really don't understand why people downvoted your comment.

"HackerNews isn't Reddit", until it is.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#108

Post by sp332 »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #89
kprobst wrote: post #72

One of these days it's going to be for real and I wonder how many of his fans will be enraged when someone says something like "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone".

All of them. It's been my experience that Stallman fans refuse to deal with even fair criticism of him. That aside, I hope no one says that about him or anyone else ever. I have a lot of problems with Stallman and his ideology but when he dies I hope we can all take the high road. We may think it's the man we don't like but it's really his actions and beliefs we have a problem with and when a well respected public fi…

That's not a detail. And that's not confirmed, that's denied.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#109

Post by sp332 »

skrebbel wrote: post #59
raganwald wrote: post #32

Social/Moral question: Is it acceptable to wish Mr. Stallman well in light of allegations that he has advocated for truly awful practices? e.g. Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. http://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html

There, you're doing it. It is all right for someone to be skeptical about any commonly held view, except when it's about sex with minors. In any discussion about any kind of sex with anyone under 18 whatsoever, if you're not 100% fully completely convincedly against it, then you're a bad person!!1 Why can't we just discuss this? Like we can discuss anything else? Especially in the US, where the norm appears to be tha…

Actually in New Hampshire you can get married at age 14 (with parental consent) and up here I don't think it's illegal to have sex with anyone under 18 as long as you are within 1 or 2 years of them in age. I've heard in Florida it can be suddenly illegal though, birthdays must be awkward...

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#110

Post by hub_ »

jonknee wrote: post #8

Ironic that the only way I was able to read that article was through non-free software (Google Translate). Hope he's OK.

Nope. You could learn Spanish and understand it. It is not like the content is encoded in a proprietary or patent encumbered format.
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