Richard M. Stallman resigns • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#141

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:34 AM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #90

aazaa wrote: post #14

I've seen some online cheering Stallman's resignation from MIT. I suspect they'll also be cheering about this resignation as well. But this is nothing to cheer about. Regardless of what low regard the man might be held as a person, he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. These are all hallmarks of scientific inquiry. It se…

Er, sorry, no. A public mailing list is not the correct venue for this discussion. Supposing as you do that society currently holds the wrong opinion on "does sex with minors constitute sexual assault?", the right answer is unlikely to be hashed out on a MIT list for CS activities. You also lend Stallman more weight than he deserves. His resignation will go unnoticed by all outside of our specific tech sphere and cer…

It's crazy to see people taking this stance on a public forum for tech companies. He's talking about Minsky just like you're talking about Stallman. What makes this the correct venue for you but not that for him?

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#142

Post by aidenn0 » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:35 AM UTC

bbanyc wrote: post #77

iamnothere wrote: post #43

RMS was defending Minsky, awkwardly. As someone who has a history of social awkwardness, he should be forgiven for this. He's been a good steward of the FSF, which has doing important work in the service of free (read: non-backdoored) hardware lately. I know there are good people still at the FSF, but I can only hope they are as incorruptible and dogged as RMS. The way this attack came suddenly out of the depths make…

Minsky was a child molester. There's no way to defend that.

I thought Minsky committed statutory rape, not child molestation, or am I behind on things that happened?

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#143

Post by robocat » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:36 AM UTC

mirceal wrote: post #15

djrobstep wrote: post #6

This is a good step. Stallman has been a liability as a figurehead for a long time, and software freedom deserves better standard-bearers. I saw Stallman once at a public lecture. He was incredibly rude, but is seemingly oblivious to how obnoxious he is being (he struck me as somebody heavily on the spectrum). I hate to think how many people have written off the cause of software freedom as a joke because of his cond…

you know, i saw Stallman at a conference once and the nice people at FSF were also there. FSF as a whole is doing important work and liked the talks they gave and how they were talking about some of the issues ivolved. Stallman on the other side came across as a nutjob. And it wasn’t because of his principles (which if you think about it are great and something to actually aspire to - at least in connection to softwa…

Note that "nutjob" and "mental health issues" are name-calling and I suspect against the HN guidelines e.g. see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#144

Post by wyldfire » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:37 AM UTC

RMS is indeed a visionary and deserves credit for the good works he's done in his life. He may also be a bad person. Or maybe he's a good person who shows extremely poor judgment. I don't really know much about the allegations so I won't defend him or persecute him.

But this is a good move for FSF. RMS must have realized (or been made to realize) that he is now a net-negative contribution to FSF.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#145

Post by nullc » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:38 AM UTC

dropit_sphere wrote: post #125

rosser wrote: post #97

I find the volume of the noise being made over whether or not the "entirely willing" bit was quoted out of context by the media for sensationalist purposes — which it 100% was — quite curious. To me, the place Stallman screwed up was in trying to quibble over terms in defense of a man who we have reason to believe had sex with an woman of an age in a jurisdiction where that might have constituted rape. Because that's…

>Stallman quibbled over the definition of rape. Hell yes he did . Wouldn't you? If I made my own country where "rape" was defined as "sex without first doing twenty jumping jacks," wouldn't you "quibble"? >everyone admits knowingly slept with an woman of an age in a jurisdiction where that constituted rape. So what? I drove 37 in a 35 today, who cares? You can't outsource your morality to the legal system like that.…

> If Minsky did something bad, say he did something bad. But don't launder your outrage through some country's laws.

It's hard for anyone to do that because virtually everything on this is speculation. The whole thing about Minsky stems from a single sentence in a recently unsealed enormous deposition ( https://twitter.com/_cryptome_/status/1159946492871938048 ) where one of Epstein's victims included Minsky in a list of people that epstein's assistant directed her to have sex with. She wasn't asked if sex actually happened with Minsky, and didn't claim it did, she was asked about the dates and couldn't recall.

A witness who claims to be present reported Minsky turning her down and complaining about the advance, additionally on the date that conference was held-- in 2002, Epstein's victim was 18. ( https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/ )

But since there are essentially no facts, not even concrete allegations-- people seem to feel free to make up their own version of events which are exactly as awful or harmless as they want them to be.

.... God save you if your imagination comes out different from the angry mob's and you dare share it with others.

Because Minksky has been dead for a few years there doesn't seem to be much interest in actually setting the facts straight, but there seems to be a lot of interest in using it as an excuse to be abusive to fellow humans.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#146

Post by dlp211 » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:39 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #120

Why does this feel like such a witch hunt? It is clear RMS was stunningly clueless to write anything about this, but surely we all know of similar engineers that would make a similar error? If everyone were held up to the same moral standard, we wouldn't have many people left in power! Just to be clear: I'm definitely not supporting hurting children (directly or indirectly) - I hope I'm not falling into the same tar…

Because RMS isn't just another socially awkward engineer. He is a leader and a part of a larger community and is therefore held to a higher standard. The reason for the higher standard is simple, leaders are entrusted with power and need to wield that power better than others. RMS has failed that test today.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#147

Post by leftyted » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:40 AM UTC

I never much liked Richard Stallman.

But he's a freethinker, and freethinkers necessarily exist outside the mainstream. So, despite not liking him, I also don't like this turn of events.

It does seem arbitrary to me that the same sexual encounter is classified as rape in Arizona and not rape in Virginia. I suppose we have to draw that line somewhere arbitrary. But I wonder if it was a mistake to classify what is called "statutory rape" as "rape" at all. We can make it illegal without calling it rape.

That said, to me, this doesn't seem like a hill worth dying on. But then Stallman is not known for being picky about hills. People like him (or loathe him) because he's principled, and therefore no hill is too small.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#148

Post by zibeski555 » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:40 AM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #90

aazaa wrote: post #14

I've seen some online cheering Stallman's resignation from MIT. I suspect they'll also be cheering about this resignation as well. But this is nothing to cheer about. Regardless of what low regard the man might be held as a person, he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. These are all hallmarks of scientific inquiry. It se…

Er, sorry, no. A public mailing list is not the correct venue for this discussion. Supposing as you do that society currently holds the wrong opinion on "does sex with minors constitute sexual assault?", the right answer is unlikely to be hashed out on a MIT list for CS activities. You also lend Stallman more weight than he deserves. His resignation will go unnoticed by all outside of our specific tech sphere and cer…

1. His post was not an out of context rant on an unrelated school mailing list. He was criticizing the words used by MIT students in connection with a protest at MIT, and that mentioned his ex-colleague. The MIT students posted this in the first instance, and it was a direct response to them. It seems to me like an appropriate forum.

2. Stallman's argument was simply to call a spade a spade, and not a defense of Epstein or Minsky. If you told 10 people (each unaware of any of the facts alleged) that Minsky sexually assaulted a girl, and then asked them to describe what they imagine occurred after hearing he sexually assaulted some, many might assume he violently assaulted someone. The degree of differences in guesses that you might receive makes the word functionally prone to tarnishing someone with a reputation for a different crime than the one they committed.

Stallman therefore asked for the incident to be described in unambiguous terms; for example, that Minsky had sex with a sex trafficked 17-year old 50 years his junior on Epstein's island. That does not mean he defends that scenario -- you can still view it as reprehensible, and condemn it, but at least you are not engaging in "accusation inflation", where you are condemning someone for a potentially worse crime than they committed.

3. I agree that Stallman is unnoticed outside this sphere, but this is part of a continued trend of threatening people's reputations and livelihoods for stating an opinion. I created a throwaway for the first time ever simply for this comment (which I think is relatively benign), so yes, I think this trend will continue to lead to self-censorship.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#149

Post by crankylinuxuser » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:40 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #103

aazaa wrote: post #14

I've seen some online cheering Stallman's resignation from MIT. I suspect they'll also be cheering about this resignation as well. But this is nothing to cheer about. Regardless of what low regard the man might be held as a person, he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. These are all hallmarks of scientific inquiry. It se…

"Asking questions" that deny people's humanity over and over isn't exactly a positive intellectual exercise. We pretty conclusively decided that race based chattel slavery was wrong a while ago. But why? Can we keep expressing ideas and demanding proof of these claims? Can we do it forever? Can we do it while holding positions of power at institutions that are attended by black students?

I'm pretty sure it's called "Sea-lioning" from this comic strip: http://wondermark.com/1k62/

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#150

Post by js8 » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 3:42 AM UTC

I am glad that people didn't force Chomsky to resign from MIT due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair.

Freedom of speech means that people are free to defend what other people find morally objectionable. The idea that the "leaders" should be morally pure is understandable, but ultimately very elitist.

It also reminds me of this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/neurodiver...