Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

perens.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 227 posts

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#171

Post by emmelaich »

dragonwriter wrote: post #129
anonymousiam wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I am not defending what RMS said, but "defending child rape" is oversimplifying and over exaggerating his position. His remark related to the age of consent being different in different places (states/countries).

> To be clear, I am not defending what RMS said, but "defending child rape" is oversimplifying and over exaggerating his position. He explicitly supported a political campaign that aimed to immediately reduce the age of consent to 12 and ultimately eliminate it, on the basis that sex acts that were “consensual pedophilia” was not only not an oxymoron, but also something that wasn’t harmful. (He also raised questions…

The lowest age for marriage in USA is 12 -- with judicial and parental approval. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_age_in_the_United_Sta...

The lowest age of consent is 16 -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_age_in_the_United_Sta...

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#172

Post by Dracophoenix »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #169
3grdlurker wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how you understand accountability but people who have clinically-diagnosed mental conditions that keep them from having full agencies over their actions are out of the question. The online political discourse you are referring to rests on the assumption that people with bigoted views and behaviors have no such diagnoses and are willfully embracing and practicing bigotry on their own. You don’t even need…

So if a vegan is offended when you eat a meat sandwich at the office, how do you know who is respecting who? Society is currently not vegan in majority, so you could say they should adapt. Also you could adapt the point of view they are trying to do the least of harm, and are suffering from the harm you do. Then, you should adapt. Diversity is bound to cause friction. That's just how it is. There is no simple good an…

The points you've raised in your posts are a subject of one Aesop's Fables: the Miller, His Son, and Their Ass. [0]

[0]https://fablesofaesop.com/the-miller-his-son-and-their-ass.h...

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#173

Post by skinkestek »

Anyone wants another Mozilla?

Running their core product into the ground despite insane levels of funding?

Just make sure one chooses people based on agreeableness instead of based on merits an competence.

(Still a Firefox user, it still is better for my use but less so for each year and I really wish nobody had discovered that donation that got the Internet hate mob to mobilize against Brendan.)

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#174

Post by skissane »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #153
skissane wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release. If someone discloses to their employer that they are seeing a therapist, it would be inappropriate for their employer to put that disclosure in a press release. (Board members aren’t technically employees but I think the principle is the same.) > So you think someone with cognitive rigidity who can't change his habits is a good fit for a l…

"If someone discloses to their employer that they are seeing a therapist, it would be inappropriate for their employer to put that disclosure in a press release." In principle yes, but not if that was the reason the person could not have the leadership role in the first place.

If someone confides in you their private medical information, it is inappropriate to put that information in a press release without their permission, full stop, no exceptions. Certainly morally, and possibly even legally.

"Is it okay if I put your private medical information in our press release?"–many people would view that question as inappropriate to even ask.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#175

Post by Dracophoenix »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #96
staticassertion wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm no fan of Stallman, but I do find it worrying that some companies can unilaterally decide to sink the FSF if they don't like what it's doing. Why? That's like, the entire basis of every organization, that supporters don't have to support it. If a company selling a product behaves in a way you don't want to support you stop buying, if a charity stops supporting a cause you stop supporting it, etc.

The real question is why every single major company in America is vigorously enforcing social norms that significant portions of the population, often a majority, don’t even agree with. This is very different than other eras.

I agree with the first sentence (Whence the e-giant custodians?)but not the second. Every major institution throughout history (kingdoms, churches, trade companies) has enforced top-down norms and expectations (i.e prescriptive norms). This was the case even mid- and late- 20th century America (i.e post-Sexual Revolution). There were respites from the prying eyes of society. Secret parties, meetups with friends, country clubs, and, for the technically-inclined, an early Internet/BBS/Usenet culture. But they were all generally exceptions to prescriptive norms of the general society (notwithstanding the existence of their own specially-tailored conventions) simply because few people were aware of these things at the time or cared enough to make a big stink out of them to a large enough audience.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#176

Post by skissane »

dragonwriter wrote: post #143
skissane wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release. If someone discloses to their employer that they are seeing a therapist, it would be inappropriate for their employer to put that disclosure in a press release. (Board members aren’t technically employees but I think the principle is the same.) > So you think someone with cognitive rigidity who can't change his habits is a good fit for a l…

> If the FSF board wants to give him the opportunity to demonstrate an ability to change, why shouldn’t they? Because of the forseeable adverse impact on other people to whom thet are responsible? > Also, they are much better judges of whether he is trying to change, and whether or not he’s had success in that, than external observers such as you or I can be. The at least one FSF board member who departed, and the FS…

> Because of the forseeable adverse impact on other people to whom thet are responsible?

Some people don't want to have anything to do with an FSF in which Stallman is still involved. Other people don't want to have anything to do with an FSF in which Stallman is definitely excluded. Whatever they do is going to have an adverse impact, so they have to make a judgement call.

> The at least one FSF board member who departed, and the FSF’s management who likewise resigned over the issue, OTOH, are in at least an equally good position to the Board members who supported the move.

I don't know if we should interpret their resignation as a judgement that Stallman can't change (or isn't interested in changing), or as an expression of the view that other factors are more important in deciding whether he should be on the board than that one.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#177

Post by BiteCode_dev »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #106
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #27

There is a conflict here: on one hand we want diversity, accept people with their differences, their handicap or education. On the other hand we want them to behave the same way we do, otherwise we reject them. So your company should have people with handicap, but that have no effect on others. And diverse genders, but you should consider them all the same, even if we know we have diverse bodies, needs and behaviors.…

Do we really need diversity though? I would be perfectly fine if a development of a project would be done by strangers behind incognito aliases. I don't care if the contributed code comes from Black woman or Caucasian man or some cat who had learned to code. I believe that it is absolutely irrelevant topic that is forced on the industry by whatever reasons. If is not like the barrier to entry is too high: anyone who…

Diversity is like any characteristic, it has pros and cons.

It makes optimizing harder, add friction and augment costs.

But it also force evolution, and make a system more adapted and resiliant, healthier on the long run.

As usual, it depends, and intensity matters. Those questions don't have a definitive anwser, even cute ones like "just be nice to each others".

But regardless or whether we do need diveristy, it is promoted currently as the progressive point of view. If you go on social media and claim we don't want diversity, you will have a serious backslash. From the same persons that will ask autistic persons to behave like an average person. Hence my point on the dissonance.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#178

Post by antonvs »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #92
aortega wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly are not an expert on autism. The disease is a huge spectrum of different behaviors, from almost normal, to severe retardation. I've seen RMS in real life, he's borderline can't take care of himself, that's not being abusive.

I didn’t claim to be an expert. He’s not abusive because he can’t take care of himself. He’s abusive because he’s mean spirited and takes advantage of being excused for it because of his celebrity. I was never afforded that. Take your expertise and shove it up someone who isn’t a nobody. Edit: I regret saying anything please carry on praising the guy who treats people like garbage because people enable him. I’ll just…

I think you're absolutely right about the enablement aspect.

Stallman seems to have been protected from normal social feedback at least since starting at MIT as a graduate student in the 1970s.

Most reasonably functioning autistic people seem able to improve their social skills, at least to some degree, as they mature, if only as a conscious act ("masking").

The bubble Stallman lived in seems to either have prevented him from doing that, or worse, possibly allowed him to willfully ignore such personal development.

You see this unproductive coddling in the Perens article, which simply assumes Stallman's "handicap" is a fact of life over which he couldn't possibly have any conscious control.

In my experience, that's rarely the case, unless you're dealing with much more severely handicapped individuals, who may not even be verbal.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#179

Post by sjy »

eecc wrote: post #168
sjy wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He directly addressed child pornography by saying that “making such photos should be a crime, and is a crime, but that is no reason to prohibit possessing copies of the photos.” https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

Did you read what you quoted? The point Stallman made, in the most deliberately urticant and confrontational possible way, is: Are you willing to incarcerate people for drawings? However disturbing the subject? > 26 October 2014 (Prison for cartoon) A man in the UK has been sentenced for prison for having a cartoon depicting a fictional child in some sort of sexual situation. The advocates of this kind of censorship…

The part I quoted is clearly about photos, not drawings. I think arguing that possessing child pornography should be legal is “defending behavior a reasonable person would identify as Paedophilia.” Your reference to the formal definition of “child” made me think that you were unaware that Stallman had argued for this, and were attributing his cancellation solely to his remarks about statutory rape.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#180

Post by [deleted] »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #169
3grdlurker wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how you understand accountability but people who have clinically-diagnosed mental conditions that keep them from having full agencies over their actions are out of the question. The online political discourse you are referring to rests on the assumption that people with bigoted views and behaviors have no such diagnoses and are willfully embracing and practicing bigotry on their own. You don’t even need…

So if a vegan is offended when you eat a meat sandwich at the office, how do you know who is respecting who? Society is currently not vegan in majority, so you could say they should adapt. Also you could adapt the point of view they are trying to do the least of harm, and are suffering from the harm you do. Then, you should adapt. Diversity is bound to cause friction. That's just how it is. There is no simple good an…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN