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Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

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Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#121

Post by whymauri »

geofft wrote: post #109
whymauri wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some less direct symbiotic benefits too, like the LibrePlanet has been at the MIT Stata Center for a couple years (at least). These sorts of things are facilitated by his role, for sure. I hope well-meaning conferences like that don't get disrupted by his resignation.

LibrePlanet has been at Stata through the sponsorship of SIPB, MIT's computer club, which has the ability to book rooms as a student group. Not through Stallman. (disclosure, I am an alum SIPB member.)

Oooh, nevermind then. An attendee had told me some inaccurate information a few years ago, then.

Thanks for the clarification. Glad to hear there probably(?) won't be any complication in future years.

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#122

Post by eoxenford »

Throughout this whole brouhaha, I’ve been astonished at how nobody in the mainstream press, nor any of those in tech calling for Stallman’s head, ever challenged the statement that Stallman said Epstein’s victims were “entirely willing.” Indeed, quite the opposite.

From the Medium post that kicked the whole thing off [1]:

…and then he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.

And from Vice [2, 3]:

Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing'

Stallman said the “most plausible scenario” is that one of Epstein’s underage victims was “entirely willing.”

And the Daily Beast:

Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were ‘Entirely Willing’

Here’s what Stallman actually wrote:

We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she [Epstein’s victim] presented herself to him [Marvin Minsky] as entirely willing.

In other words, Stallman isn’t saying she was willing, but rather that she likely acted as if she were willing. Lest there be any doubt, the next sentence reads:

Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.

So Stallman explicitly acknowledges the likelihood that Epstein coerced these girls and coached them to pretend to be willing to have sex with Minsky and others in Epstein’s circle. At no point does Stallman say they were willing—rather, he suggests the exact opposite.

Regardless of what one may think of Stallman, what else he wrote, or any of his other behavior, the wide dissemination and repetition of this lie is absolutely unconscionable. Those promulgating it should be ashamed.

[1]: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...

[2]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...

[3]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbm74x/computer-scientist...

[4]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-r...

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#123

Post by cannonedhamster »

partialrecall wrote: post #52
roywiggins wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect CSAIL is bristling with non-neurotypical people who didn't take this as a good time to come to the defense of Marvin Minksy in such a frankly bizarre way. It's one thing to say I don't think he did it , but to say "if he did it, it would not have been bad, and in this essay I will-" and to then distribute that to the entire CSAIL mailing list! I'll grant that some of the headlines about what RMS wrote were o…

I think Stallman is tactless, and I've thought that for years. That email didn't change anything I thought about him. I also think that being tactless is not a moral crime. It's aesthetically offensive and counterproductive from a leadership perspective, but being a bad leader doesn't make somebody a bad person.

It's always hard when people who built things you love have flaws. I remember my own reaction to hearing just how bad his behavior was. It's beyond the bounds of acceptable for anyone. Using his position to proposition women, handing it business cards to women he was interested in even in professional settings, defending pedophilia on his website as two consenting people when children can't functionally consent. Do I think he's a bad person? No. I disagree with a lot of what he's said and done and he's definitely pushed boundaries but I've never heard of him breaking boundaries, though it's highly possible. He was completely delightful when I met him in person. He's not the right person to be leading the free software movement anymore. He hasn't taken the steps required to develop the social skills needed for the role. He hasn't learned that there's a time for PR people to do the talking. He hasn't learned that there's appropriate times to not have a debate. These are all logical qualities of a leader that he doesn't have. Logically he should step back, reevaluate, and let what he's built continue to grow. It seems like he's doing that. He'll always have people willing to support him and work that he does.

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#124

Post by throwaway1918 »

roywiggins wrote: post #65
partialrecall wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Stallman is tactless, and I've thought that for years. That email didn't change anything I thought about him. I also think that being tactless is not a moral crime. It's aesthetically offensive and counterproductive from a leadership perspective, but being a bad leader doesn't make somebody a bad person.

If it comes down to whether RMS's position at CSAIL amounted to a leadership position or not, I'd venture that it did. Professors have institutional power that everyone else on the CSAIL list who isn't one don't have. Someone who abuses their name and position to blast screeds like that, I can see why CSAIL might not want him around anymore.

He was not a professor. He quit his job at MIT (as some sort of staff researcher/programmer) in 1984 to start the GNU project. He was an unpaid visiting scientist and had an office, although he was rarely in it (he spends a lot of time traveling). He did not have any institutional power beyond his participation as a rando on the mailing lists.

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#125

Post by coolandsmartrr »

geofft wrote: post #56

Worth noting that (as far as I know) Stallman was not a paid employee of MIT, certainly not a professor or anything. He had an office because, I believe, Gerry Sussman (and probably others) thought he should have an office. He's listed as a "visiting scientist" on CSAIL's page: https://www.csail.mit.edu/person/richard-stallman He's around on the mailing list (mostly to reply to every mention of software with a questi…

A little tangential, but I didn't know there was a utility called `finger`. Is this supposed to be a profile directory envisioned for an Internet back when it was more decentralized?

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#126

Post by darawk »

geofft wrote: post #80
esotericn wrote: post #16

Is anyone else baffled by the idea that discussing something on an intellectual level, even related to a person, has to somehow be a 'defense' or an 'offense'? I've spent basically my entire life discussing things in the abstract. I'm not a politician, I don't make laws, and frankly I wouldn't want that power. To me it makes absolute sense that someone would attempt to "defend" even the most heinous person. It's weir…

> It's weird to me that being considered a "defender of X" could even be a bad thing. That's the process by which we collectively make decisions, it's the basis behind stuff like fair trials for example; the lawyer acting for a defendant is not a bad person. Except that in fair trials we have the concept of stare decisis , that once something has been decided, it's been decided. We very intentionally do not have the…

> The arguments Stallman presented were hardly arguments and were not novel at all.

You think that Minsky being unaware of the coercion would not be a mitigating factor in accusing him of sexual assault? When was that decided?

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#127

Post by tbabb »

roywiggins wrote: post #65
partialrecall wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Stallman is tactless, and I've thought that for years. That email didn't change anything I thought about him. I also think that being tactless is not a moral crime. It's aesthetically offensive and counterproductive from a leadership perspective, but being a bad leader doesn't make somebody a bad person.

If it comes down to whether RMS's position at CSAIL amounted to a leadership position or not, I'd venture that it did. Professors have institutional power that everyone else on the CSAIL list who isn't one don't have. Someone who abuses their name and position to blast screeds like that, I can see why CSAIL might not want him around anymore.

Being a leader of any sort makes it worse, but I don't think it's a necessary condition for justifying his removal.

Each person contributes to the flavor of the community in which they participate. It is within the right of those who lead the community to curate its flavor by adding or removing people when necessary.

In this his case, his removal was well-justified for the cause of keeping the community welcoming and safe-feeling for members of all genders.

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#128

Post by cannonedhamster »

partialrecall wrote: post #28
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. He recanted those comments two days ago (after espousing them on his website at least between 2006 and 2013), and after his comments on the Epstein case started getting attention, which makes it look more like damage control than a genuine change in opinion. https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

I'd say recent statements more accurately reflect somebody's current beliefs than old statements. Considering how badly he's been recently slandered by media outlets leaving out context and mischaracterizing his remarks, I am disturbed by your willingness to exclude that context from your previous comment.

They were up on his website last I checked which was a week or two ago. I think that's considered recent.

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#129

Post by tzs »

melling wrote: post #6
arctux wrote: post #2

Related earlier post: > I want to respond to the misleading media coverage of messages I posted about Marvin Minsky's association with Jeffrey Epstein. The coverage totally mischaracterised my statements. > Headlines say that I defended Epstein. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've called him a "serial rapist", and said he deserved to be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended him — and other inac…

I didn’t follow the story. Was Stallman taken out of context? Anyway, he probably should have know better than to weigh in. One’s well thought out response and subtle points can often turn out to have a few holes. In fact... “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged”

> I didn’t follow the story. Was Stallman taken out of context?

Yes. This statement of Stallman's:

> We can imagine many scenarios, but 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 every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.

has been reported in several places as Stallman saying Epstein's girls were "entirely willing", completely ignoring that he was not saying they were willing--he was saying that Epstein would have required them to say they were willing.

If you have sufficient power over someone to force them to have sex with whomever you want them to, you almost certainly also have sufficient power over them to tell them to pretend to be doing it of the own free will. Epstein was massively evil, but he wasn't massively stupid, so almost certainly would have exercised such power.

Stallman was talking about Marvin Minsky's sex with a girl at Epstein's island retreat in 2001, which was a few years before Epstein's sexual atrocities became known. Stallman was arguing that from Minsky's point of view, he probably had no reason to suspect that he was not dealing with a consenting girl.

Re: Richard Stallman resigns from CSAIL at MIT

#130

Post by yuy910616 »

eoxenford wrote: post #122

Throughout this whole brouhaha, I’ve been astonished at how nobody in the mainstream press, nor any of those in tech calling for Stallman’s head, ever challenged the statement that Stallman said Epstein’s victims were “entirely willing.” Indeed, quite the opposite. From the Medium post that kicked the whole thing off [1]: …and then he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”. And from Vice [2…

This. BS article by Vice and the like... This is terrible
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