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Richard M. Stallman resigns

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Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#501

Post by empath75 »

naringas wrote: post #114

it's rather interesting how all the information technology (social media, etc...) is slowly moving our culture towards increasing self-censorship. One has to have the right opinion or stay quiet. Having the wrong opinion about certain topics is getting more expensive. Stay away from taboos or else... never mind the fact that what we regard as wrong changes across different societies over time. Weirdly all the informa…

You say people should be able to to say what they want on one hand but that other people should not be able to say what they want on the other hand.

You’re free to say what you want and I’m free to not want to associate with your or not want to do business with you and encourage others to do the same.

I don’t see how you have one without the other.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#502

Post by LaGrange »

Jedd wrote: post #489
LaGrange wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RMS has called himself "borderline autistic". As someone actually autistic, he doesn't get to blame being a douchecanoe on being autistic. > His socially clueless black and white thinking makes it look like he is far in the spectrum. Then _learn_. Also, we're not talking about not getting social cues about when it's okay to start talking, we're talking his considered and repeated position on issues such as sexual a…

> As someone actually autistic, he doesn't get to blame being a douchecanoe on being autistic. Was he a douchecanoe? Is that even a helpful label for you to apply to him? Was he claiming he behaved / behaves the way you think he does solely because he's borderline autistic, or are you extrapolating?

> Was he a douchecanoe?

Yes.

> Is that even a helpful label for you to apply to him?

Yes.

> Was he claiming he behaved / behaves the way you think he does solely because he's borderline autistic

Yes.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#503

Post by [deleted] »

mnm1 wrote: post #445
nabla9 wrote: post #343

RMS has called himself "borderline autistic". His socially clueless black and white thinking makes it look like he is far in the spectrum. RMS is anal about meanings of terms and their use. That's not working well in the current climate where words carry perceived intent. I find myself agreeing with RMS with most of the terminology and its use in this case. Women who tell stories about him paint a picture of lonely s…

This is ridiculous in a culture that elected and continues to support an accused rapist to its highest office. If the highest office in the nation (and many others) can have such a scumbag without him being forced to resign, how can we expect someone in Stallman's position to be perfect and PC with his speech so idiots don't misunderstand his direct style of speech? Such hypocrisy, such bullshit, this argument is.

[deleted]

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#504

Post by kelnos »

gojomo wrote: post #412
csb6 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wrong opinion? Stallman questions whether the victim, who he admits was coerced into sex, was actually sexually assaulted. This is an incredibly shameful take on the situation. If any politician or public figure said this statement in the past 70 years, they would have ended their career. There are no Internet vigilantes hunting down dissenters. There are people trying to downplay sexual assault. As the internet…

I didn't read RMS's "take" as in any way excusing what happened to Giuffre, but rather disputing whether it was accurate to accuse Marvin Minsky of "sexual assault", if from Minsky's perspective at the time nothing seemed wrong. (Sensationalist reporting and selective paraphrasing, like you've done here, has conflated the two issues.) Suppose there's a boxer, "Joe", and he has a scheduled fight against a named oppone…

The problem with your analogy is that, in reality, "Joe" was presented with a beautiful woman over 50 years younger than him who supposedly wanted to have sex with him, while at a gathering on a billionaire's private island. If "Joe" were a reasonable, non-sketchy person, the absolute best interpretation there is that she was a prostitute of questionable age, which is still pretty bad. Going along with that without asking some very hard questions would seem to be not only morally questionable, but also personally risky.

(Of course, there's also reasonable debate as to whether or not Minsky actually had sex with her. One person who was present at the gathering claims Minsky didn't.)

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#505

Post by marble-drink »

I'm so relieved to find that at least on hacker news people can still evaluate this situation with reason. Out there it's a witch hunt and Stallman is now a witch.

RMS is a great man but sadly has difficulties communicating with the wider world. This has been true of many great minds throughout history. It's sad to see it happen to one of my own heroes but I believe history will do him justice if we continue to fight for free software.

I wish somebody would have simply advised him not to speak on such matters because nothing good could become of it. Maybe he needed a PR manager. That sounds awful, but apparently this is what the world wants: carefully filtered speech that doesn't stray far from what people already agree with.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#506

Post by big_chungus »

dexen wrote: post #447

Just as much as RMS was right[1], ESR was right[2]. The "cancel culture" is harming the free software movement by practicing human version of Microsoft's EEE[3]. The cancel culture enters the community, establishes interests groups, and starts knocking down prominent contributors. The demands are backed by angry crowds on social media rather than by contributions. It's time for us to defend each other, and to hold co…

The best example of this is the Ruby lang thread wrt the proposed code of conduct [0]. A "social justice warrior" who never contributed showed up, Coraline Emkhe, popped up and demanded Ruby adopt it. She has been ding this for years, going around to projects with which she is not involved and pressuring them to adopt a "contributor covenant" written by her which reflects her values first and foremost, and not necessarily those of the project.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#507

Post by kelnos »

freetime2 wrote: post #416
csb6 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wrong opinion? Stallman questions whether the victim, who he admits was coerced into sex, was actually sexually assaulted. This is an incredibly shameful take on the situation. If any politician or public figure said this statement in the past 70 years, they would have ended their career. There are no Internet vigilantes hunting down dissenters. There are people trying to downplay sexual assault. As the internet…

Essentially Stallman takes issue with accusing Marvin Minsky of sexual assault because: > The word "assaulting" presumes he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way. And then Stallman goes on to point out there is no evidence to suggest that Minksy acted violently toward the victim, and may have been unaware that the victim had been coerced by Epstein. Given that the definition of "assault" is "a physical a…

I think this is all missing the point. RMS may have been technically correct about what happened, but he chose to speak up at the wrong time, about the wrong topic, and derailed the conversation into a diversion that didn't add any value.

And to make matters worse, he tried to quibble about the definitions of "sexual assault" and "statutory rape", which is pretty insulting and hurtful to people who have been victims of those situations.

Now, I don't necessarily see that this should definitively add up to RMS being forced out of MIT and the FSF, but this, combined with decades of awful behavior around women and some pretty messed up attitudes around what he called "voluntary pedophilia", is an understandable camel's-back-breaking straw.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#508

Post by hope-striker »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #356
raxxorrax wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your "inclusivity" stops at Stallman, it seriously lacks performance. You use the wrong word. What you desire is conformity. edit: Additionally, because I think this isn't obvious here, Stallman opened up the knowledge about software to the whole world and put energy in keeping it that way. Anyone was able to profit from this.

He wants people to be treated in a uniform and equitable way, yes. That doesn't mean people "have to conform", but that our treatment of people should not be diverse: it should be the same for everybody, and accomodating of their diversity within the bounds of acceptable behaviour. RMS has been treated in the same way anybody else would be. He hasn't been given special treatment. We are therefore being consistent as…

No one's saying he's brave or contrarian here. He said something incredibly stupid, but (a) not the horrifying thing that news outlets are accusing him of, and (b) certainly not something worth trying to ruin his life over. This kind of misrepresentation and witch-hunting shouldn't even be done in rare circumstances, do you honestly believe that everyone should be treated like this?

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#509

Post by kstenerud »

It's unfortunate that scarlet letter offences are still alive and well in today's culture.

Normally, when someone engages in behavior seen as offensive, the procedure is to pressure the person to apologize and mend his ways, and only get rid of him if he refuses to do so.

But when a "scarlet letter" offence is involved, we jump straight to the punishment phase, removing the person outright with no judicial process. This is completely backwards, anti-democratic, and anti-freedom. It brings a chilling effect on everyone, because suddenly people start to realize that they're living under the Sword of Damocles, which could destroy them at any moment without warning. You can never be sure if something you say or do is going to get you publicly pilloried in future, and destroy your career, friendships, and reputation in the blink of an eye. Far better to just sit quiet and never say anything that might offend someone. Far better not to participate at all.

Mob justice always turns ugly in the end. That's why we have courts.

Re: Richard M. Stallman resigns

#510

Post by gdfasfklshg4 »

marble-drink wrote: post #505

I'm so relieved to find that at least on hacker news people can still evaluate this situation with reason. Out there it's a witch hunt and Stallman is now a witch. RMS is a great man but sadly has difficulties communicating with the wider world. This has been true of many great minds throughout history. It's sad to see it happen to one of my own heroes but I believe history will do him justice if we continue to fight…

> I wish somebody would have simply advised him not to speak on such matters because nothing good could become of it. Maybe he needed a PR manager. That sounds awful, but apparently this is what the world wants: carefully filtered speech that doesn't stray far from what people already agree with.

The world needs everyone to speak about every topic. If we all self censor then only the extremists will be speaking.

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