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In Defense of Richard Stallman

geoff.greer.fm

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Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#171

Post by foldr »

blowski wrote: post #85
sergiosgc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wasn't just awkward demeanor. He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again. Every episode I read about fell into the category of "socially awkward adult male". If we can't, as a group, tolerate awkwardness, we are very much down the rabbit hole of mandatory social conformity. By all means, point me to a real abuse scenario by Stallman. I like being prove…

Agreed. If Stallman was a charming, charismatic, handsome guy with a square jaw and good hair the whole conversation would probably have a different lens placed on it.

Hot, charming people get away with things that ugly awkward people don't. However, the lesson to be drawn from this isn't that it's ok to do those things. Rather, it's that life is unfair.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#172

Post by Aeolun »

computerex wrote: post #44
kolektiv wrote: post #18

Sigh. No. It's not just about one incidence of some mistakenly pedantic comments, as has been made clear by many, many people. It's a pattern of behaviour over years combined with no interest in listening to other people or accepting that he might be in the wrong. His behaviour towards women in particular has resulted in a lot of people sharing stories of his behaviour which, on their own, should be enough for someon…

He worked in MIT for over 30 years, do share any evidence at all of the pattern you are referring to.

And then fire whoever allowed it to go on for 30 years!

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#173

Post by magicalhippo »

gunibert wrote: post #51

As an observer from the outside i have to say, that i am as an "privileged white male" will pay much attention to what i will say in the future. This is my conclusion about what happened here and happened to Linus. The feeling that you have to be super sensitive will close more doors then before - prove me wrong.

One should indeed be careful about what one says at work.

When at work it's very different from when I'm at home with my mates. Me and my coworkers have to share space, and so the dynamics are not the same. If one of my mates gets hurt by my jokes at his expense, he can just decide not meet me. At work, my coworkers don't really have a choice.

On a related note, the Mercedes F1 team just fired four employees, apparently for making a poll of when one of their coworkers would break his Ramadan fast. Maybe funny for a group of pals, but not fitting at the workplace.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/146280/mercedes-dismissed-...

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#174

Post by sergiosgc »

foldr wrote: post #166
sergiosgc wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for the specific request, but it must be a first hand account of an event. This second hand account can easily be the result of RMS being a difficult person to be around, for any number of reasons, constructed via word of mouth into a sexual issue. I haven't read the description of anything that resembles sexual abuse by RMS. (edited to remove an unintended reference to sexual assault)

Why are you shifting the goalposts to sexual assault? No-one here is saying that RMS has sexually assaulted anyone, and he wasn't fired due to allegations of that nature.

Sorry, it was unintended. Thanks for pointing it out. I edited the text.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#175

Post by matthewmacleod »

klingonopera wrote: post #107
Traster wrote: post #23

There's quite a lot in this. I don't think it's helpful to throw in stuff like "He is now likely homeless" - gossip/rumour I'm sure this author would be decrying if the other side of the argument had brought it up. We don't know anything about RMS's personal life and shouldn't speculate. Now let's address the underlying point: You don't get X good thing without Y bad behaviour. I don't agree with this. It's a weird s…

> You don't get X good thing without Y bad behaviour. Consider the following: Humans have limited capacity, thus time, money and energy spent limiting Y inhibits resources available to creating X.

Consider the following: the existence and promotion of Y bad behaviour reduces the ability and willingness of humans to contribute to creating X, and the return of investment of time, money and energy spent in limiting Y results in more overall time, money and energy available to create X.

Better yet, consider the following: things are more complicated that ridiculous oversimplification.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#176

Post by NazisAreStupid »

Oh god, I'm going to have to reply to this, aren't I, because it's tripped one of my bête noirs.

Where do people on the Too Online spectrum get these terrible, horrible, no-good wrong ideas?

(1) The idea that email are "private communications" and that the RECIPIENT of the email SHARING that email is somehow violating a sacred trust? YOU HAVE NO RIGHT OF PRIVACY IN AN EMAIL AS TO THE RECIPIENT. The natural end state of this argument is "I send you a bunch of spam, and then complain when you report it to my SMTP provider for VIOLATING my SACRED PRIVACY." It's an incoherent argument. It's wrong.

(2) Even worse, here, this silly person tries to upgrade a "private email list" into deserving the same sort of privacy protections deserved by email (WHICH, LET'S BE CLEAR, AS FAR AS THE RECIPIENT IS CONCERNED, IS: NONE AT ALL).

So the argument being made here is: RMS wrote something in a more-or-less public forum, but I'm going to complain that other people took it to a different forum.

That's a terrible argument and the fact that this is the one he OPENS with makes me want to stop reading immediately.

Ugh ugh ugh.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#177

Post by danillonunes »

verroq wrote: post #81
Barrin92 wrote: post #10

> They focused on his tone deaf communication style and awkward demeanor. They spoke of behavior from decades ago and pointed out the fact that he had a mattress in his office. It wasn't just awkward demeanor. He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again. > He held his positions at MIT, GNU, and the FSF for over thirty years, and in that time nobody accused h…

> He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again. How do you know this? How do you know that he deliberately tries to make women uncomfortable? I don't think any women is comfortable near a fat, bearded virgin that eats things off his foot, but to accuse him of deliberately making women uncomfortable implies that he knows some of his actions are off limits and…

Ignorance is a bad excuse for undesired behavior. That's why when it comes to legal terms, you can't claim you didn't knew something was illegal and get away with it.

There are good reasons to defend (some of) Stallman's behavior, saying he don't know better is not one of them. If anything, it only makes me feel better about his current situation: Oh, the whole problem is that he didn't knew what he was doing? Well, he's learning a hell of a lesson now.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#178

Post by barry-cotter »

stochastic_monk wrote: post #96
DanBC wrote: post #8

> blatantly lie about what was said, I've seen this said a few times, and it needs to be cleared up. Stallman defended Minsky by saying it wasn't rape and it was assault. To mount this defence Stallman had to ignore common English definitions for both words, and he had to ignore the legal definitions of both words. People are angry at Stallman for what he actually said, not what you think they think he said. If you w…

His creepy, shirtless "get on my mattress" calls to female undergrads at MIT register as more than being awkward or autistic. That alone should be unacceptable behavior for faculty.

Has Stallman ever been faculty anywhere?

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#179

Post by Valmar »

fugly_nerd wrote: post #146
forgot_user1234 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again." You are making me feel unwelcome on this forum and your comment is unprofessional. > Yes, because of people like you, Geoff. When people like Stallm .... It's because of people like you that allegations ruin people's life. When there's nothing to prove, you are talking about what could have

Seriously I feel so attacked right now. Barrin92 is saying it is a crime to be awkward and people are upvoting it to the top. I thought people stopped picking on nerds after high school. Makes me want to kill myself to not deal with the anxiety of trying to make people like me.

You made a stupid comment. Own it. Don't play the victim.

People aren't attacking you personally.

Rather, people are criticizing your argument.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#180

Post by shademaan »

blowski wrote: post #85
sergiosgc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wasn't just awkward demeanor. He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again. Every episode I read about fell into the category of "socially awkward adult male". If we can't, as a group, tolerate awkwardness, we are very much down the rabbit hole of mandatory social conformity. By all means, point me to a real abuse scenario by Stallman. I like being prove…

Agreed. If Stallman was a charming, charismatic, handsome guy with a square jaw and good hair the whole conversation would probably have a different lens placed on it.

Is this a joke? This is disgusting.
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