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In Defense of Richard Stallman

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Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#411

Post by ianleeclark »

new2628 wrote: post #406
ianleeclark wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A fully growth women, so terrified of any contact with men to barricade herself behind a geranium all day, should raise a red flag. Cool victim blaming. > Any adult women should be able to stop and deal elegantly with an undesired proposition. They're in a professional environment, they shouldn't have to deal with this.

> They're in a professional environment, they shouldn't have to deal with this. Tell that to all the millions of people who are happily married to people they met in professional environments.

> Tell that to all the millions of people who are happily married to people they met in professional environments.

Ahh, cool, so we can keep harassing women insofar as there are sometimes positive benefits.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#412

Post by CathedralBorrow »

makomk wrote: post #384
CathedralBorrow wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.” “There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.“

That second quote is a summary of this Guardian article that he's linking to, published on the same day in 2013: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/03/paedophilia-... What's more interesting is the reason that Guardian article exists. It's basically an attempt to justify why Liberty (then the National Council for Civil Liberties), a respectable British political pressure group with close ties to our Labour…

That's certainly a link you've made. Any thoughts on the first quote? The one where he writes "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children". Do you think he's just factually summarizing some news article there as well?

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#413

Post by EdwardDiego »

sascha_sl wrote: post #328
EdwardDiego wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> before someone goes into a defensive rage... rms being a creep and particularly women at MIT going to great lengths to avoid him is well documented I can't believe this hasn't been asked yet - if the allegations are founded, why didn't MIT do anything as his employer? They have a statutory obligation to provide a safe workplace.

I hate to be the one to draw the feminism card on HN because I know I'll attract a swarm of people that'll 'disagree' with me by shouting things at me, but that is called rape culture, and despite the confusing name, it is not solely about rape. If that sounds hard to believe I can empathise, it took a personal anecdote for me to get and notice the spread of it too. If you're wondering how one would be disincentivize…

I scrolled for a bit, but that didn't answer my question about MIT's culpability and lack of action on allegations made to them.

Oh wait, you're saying that no allegations were made to them? Did I read that right?

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#414

Post by roenxi »

loktarogar wrote: post #393
roenxi wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like 50% of that article isn't Stallman related, and some of the choice quotes are a bit unbelievable. Eg: > I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.” That sounds like a joke. I mean, it is a joke. That isn't a serious comment/strategy on harassment. No creep has ever been forestalled by someone claiming to be a vi user. 1 stupid opin…

It's in the sphere of believability when it comes to Stallman. He's a pretty eccentric bloke.

He's been forced to resign from 2-3 organisations and we've got an article here that says he might be homeless and a suicide risk.

"He's a pretty eccentric bloke" is not enough to justify using something that looks like a joke as evidence of problems stretching back to 1980. That quote is 33% of the shocking evidence mentioned in this link section 2.

The vi vs emacs 'holy war' is also a long running joke that Stallman gets involved in sometimes. He doesn't actually object to vi.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#415

Post by viraptor »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #331
viraptor wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we can't, as a group, tolerate awkwardness, we are very much down the rabbit hole of mandatory social conformity. There's a difference between tolerating it to a degree and letting leaders continue uncomfortable awkwardness. If it's enough to distance people, maybe they're not a great candidate for a leader. That doesn't remove anything from their achievements and abilities to contribute or to spread new ideas.…

> There's a difference between tolerating it to a degree and letting leaders continue uncomfortable awkwardness. If it's enough to distance people, maybe they're not a great candidate for a leader. Honestly, they got him because they could. There's plenty of politicians, including state heads, regularly making offensive and sexist comments. I haven't seen anyone attempting or even proposing a coup because of that. It…

> In a blink of an eye, this incident made an old person not employable and apparently (according to the TFA) homeless.

He already entered his retirement age. (Unless I miscalculated) He's a clever man - if he's got no retirement fund, or stable accommodation by now, that's a different issue and only brought forwards faster, not created now.

I mean, if the accommodation was provided entirely unofficially by MIT this whole time and was yanked away without warning, I really sympathise. But I find that idea unlikely without some good confirmation.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#417

Post by mLuby »

dependsontheq wrote: post #260

Why is there so much hero worship in technology? Compared to other business areas we have myriads of heroes and fallen angels. If you think about it, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense, yes there are a lot of people that move technology forward by several years... and without those people some developments would have taken longer. But there is nearly no example where I would be willing to say without hero x - y woul…

Because powerful software can still be created by an individual. As with authors, artists, and composers, that lends itself to the heroic tale, of a lone genius toiling in secret to reveal a stunning breakthrough to the world.

Physical industries require groups of people, so you don't usually see heroes emerge from them.

(BTW I agree with you that "without [hero], [advance] wouldn't have happened" is suspect.)

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#418

Post by mrtksn »

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…

His "social interactions compiler" or the SIC thrown warnings for years but he and everybody around him choose to silence these warnings instead of fixing them.

Now he had an error. The error that doesn't make sense to him but obviously the SIC is not happy but instead of trying to dig into his algorithms they try to argue with the compiler.

Good luck with that.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#419

Post by CathedralBorrow »

Kbelicius wrote: post #405
CathedralBorrow wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but he did say that having sex with children is sometimes fine. Which is what I said.

> No, but he did say that having sex with children is sometimes fine Can you quote/link those instances since the two statements that you quoted don't say that at all.

"I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."

He's rejecting the arguments that pedophilia causes harm to children, because sometimes it's voluntary and therefore isn't harmful.

Do I really need to explain how "Pedophilia is sometimes not harmful to children" can be summarized as "Sometimes sex with children is fine"?

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#420

Post by klingonopera »

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…

> If someone has a lot to contribute but it never happens because their attitude sucks, that's on them. It's not on us to enable them.

It's not on you, maybe, but I'd be willing to put up with somebody's shit if they get the job done. And especially then if no one else has gotten it done so far.

Einstein bonked his cousin. And postulated the Theories of Relativity. Yeah, you'd think he could've thought of a better name.

I care about results, if someone's nice, that's a bonus. But don't deny the fact either, that some people will be nice because they need to hide an incompetence. I know, and they know, if you have the results, that that is the most important thing, being nice is optional. Not being nice also does not imply being rude, just neutral, by the way.

EDIT: And as a German, I'm intrinsically aware of the stereotype that we're often labelled as "rude", when we're actually being direct. So, who's at fault here? No one is, but we'd all go a long way to take a step back and realize, what's actually going on.

EDIT2: And I also often have to put up with the reverse of this, people who are so goddamned nice, I can't be mad at them for any longer than a few seconds, but basically can't get shit done. As an employee who often had to clean-up after others, I often got pissed at this, but fortunately, that's no longer my case.

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