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Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

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Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#551

Post by prepend »

dragonwriter wrote: post #189
henearkr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[edit: I got the context wrong, see children comments] The commented pedophilia was the allegated one of Marvin Minsky with a 17 yo girl, whose coercion (by Epstein) into sexual acts was maybe (probably, in the words of RMS) not made clear to Minsky (nor the age). I precise, because 17 yo is a quite mature age for sexual activity (and more so for a girl than for a boy, because the sexual maturity of the body happens…

> The commented pedophilia was the allegated one of Marvin Minsky with a 17 yo girl, No, it was a comment in response to a group of Dutch pedophiles forming a political party with the stated goal of first reducing the age of consent for sex to 12, and eventually eliminating it altogether. What Minsky was accused of is sex with someone post-pubescent but below the age of consent, which isn't an act indicative of pedop…

> someone post-pubescent but below the age of consent

I think an adult having sexual acts with a minor is not good because of the power imbalance. At the time of the act, the age of consent in that jurisdiction was 16 [0], so the person was not below the age of consent. It has since been changed to 18.

I’m not agreeing with having a low age of consent, but since that’s a legal term, I’m posting this just to help you correctly state since this whole episode seems to be fraught with the need for precision.

[0] Minsky was in USVI, I believe, at the time was 16, now 18. Also oddly, the typical age of consent in the US is 16. https://www.ageofconsent.net/world/united-states

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#552

Post by dale_glass »

secondcoming wrote: post #522
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #8

I think it is strange that, on the one hand, the tech world has been advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people – society should accept that people on the autism spectrum are different and that’s OK. But at the same time RMS has been attacked for some statements very probably stemming from his autism that, while they may seem a bit shocking and at odds with the mainstream, were not illegal or intentionally of…

It also an issue I have with Codes of Conduct. There was a person who posted to the LKML about his autism and concerns over unintentionally violating the CoC, and whether he should continue to contribute or not. I don't recall anyone replying to him and his concerns either. Computing can possibly be considered a 'safe space' for people like the above but that has now been dismantled to suit other people. Who owns the…

On LKML I'm not really seeing the difficulty. Just stick to the point: "Here's a patch that does X, Y, and Z".

If having to criticize something do it on technical grounds: "This part here is wrong because it's possible to go past the end of the buffer in this case".

I know that some people sometimes post colorful rants on there, but I don't think it adds anything good to the atmosphere, and any time spent on coming up with florid prose could be spent on code that actually does something useful instead.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#553

Post by K0balt »

yread wrote: post #453
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #427

Mob justice is not OK just because women do it. If these women have anything substantial they should make formal reports/complaints, not anonymous vogue statements like, "he make me feel uncomfortable". Cannot believe that one even has to say this. Why are women always presumed to be innocent and men always presumed to be guilty? Also, frankly, there is a point at which, certain behaviour might make you feel uncomfor…

Are you saying that jerking off in front of people is OK or borderline? Stallman wasn't removed for "he once hit on me and I had to reject him". He wasn't criminalized at all, he resigned himself after saying stupid stuff.

This is what he said:

"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X... The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing... We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates…"

Not politically clever to say, but hardly an endorsement of sexual assault.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#554

Post by nyolfen »

hutzlibu wrote: post #508
lanevorockz wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't rewrite history, main reason Richard was pushed out was a MeToo/racism witch hunt against him. He was not the only one attacked on it, most heads of open source projects were also a target at the same time.

But it was no vague anonymous - he once hit on me - lynch mob, but very concrete criticism of RMS. Things he said and did in the past - and in the present. (only thing would be, that his "voluntary resign" was obviously done with a lot of pressure)

one of those criticisms as a i recall was 'he had a mattress in his office' as if this suggested something untoward rather than him sleeping in his office

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#555

Post by enriquto »

ethbr0 wrote: post #526
enriquto wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a southern European, I concur that US-ian fake politeness is quite disturbing.

As a southern American, I'd chalk a lot of it up to our multiculturalism. There are different parts within the US, where you'd get different answers to that question, almost always! But I'd say suggestion and (to use the southern term) social grace is one of the most nuanced and culture-heavy forms of communication. In that it assumes a lot of shared culture between you and the other party. As least down here, with >…

> most of those cues completely disappear cross-culturally.

If they simply disappeared, it would be alright. The problem is when they have the exact opposite meaning.

One example is US-ian unnaturally white teeth, that supposedly look OK there, but are somewhat creepy in the rest of the world. I mean, human teeth are not supposed to be white, but a range of very light ivory tones.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#556

Post by 1000units »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #544
1000units wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's somewhat incredible this guy went through six articles but couldn't find the actual resignation, which is very short and settles the question very clearly. How do we explain this? To the FSF board, I hereby resign as president of the Free Software Foundation and from its board of directors. I am doing this due to pressure on the Foundation and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations of wha…

I decided not to link it because it provides no context to what those things "I have said" are (and several of those news articles quote or link it themselves). News articles from around the time provide said context.

Your comments are a vicious and bigoted attack on autistic people, and you deserve to be cancelled. I am giving you the option to resign willingly before I contact your employer and all entities they do business with. Thanks.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#557

Post by 1000units »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #542
undecisive wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue here is that you've misunderstood the politics of these kinds of "resignations". In the public mind (even if not in reality) when someone "resigns" because of "past comments", they have either been given an ultimatum - "Jump or be pushed" - or they are experiencing intrusions into their personal life (or there is behaviour from the community that makes this person believe these intrusions are immine…

Even if he really ""resigned"" rather than resigned, I think we both agree the cause was his comments about the Epstein situation, not a "MeToo/racism witch hunt" that I've seen no evidence to support.

I would have liked to personally drive a cattlerod through Epstein's brain, and yet I don't think there was anything wrong with Stallman's comments. How do you square that? Maybe you have not properly characterized the situation.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#558

Post by srer »

Wonderful news!

I recall https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... happening at the same time as the FSF incident, which fortunately didn't pan out.

It felt to me that we were attempting to purge a man from his life work, for...What? I'm still not sure, a vague allegation of alienation of a hypothetical future user base.

I found the whole thing distasteful, and moved away from guix as a consequence. I do in earnest hope they rescind their statement - if nothing else the timing of it was terrible, like they were jumping on a bandwagon.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#559

Post by [deleted] »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #542
undecisive wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue here is that you've misunderstood the politics of these kinds of "resignations". In the public mind (even if not in reality) when someone "resigns" because of "past comments", they have either been given an ultimatum - "Jump or be pushed" - or they are experiencing intrusions into their personal life (or there is behaviour from the community that makes this person believe these intrusions are immine…

Even if he really ""resigned"" rather than resigned, I think we both agree the cause was his comments about the Epstein situation, not a "MeToo/racism witch hunt" that I've seen no evidence to support.

[deleted]

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#560

Post by throwaway894345 »

nostrademons wrote: post #41
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #8

I think it is strange that, on the one hand, the tech world has been advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people – society should accept that people on the autism spectrum are different and that’s OK. But at the same time RMS has been attacked for some statements very probably stemming from his autism that, while they may seem a bit shocking and at odds with the mainstream, were not illegal or intentionally of…

Ribbonfarm called this a couple years ago: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g... Specifically battlefront #8. He calls it consequential because the the neurodivergent/PC conflict highlights an inherent paradox in the PC worldview. Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one. When a…

> Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one.

I dispute the idea that PC is mostly defensive in nature; rather it seems to be overwhelmingly offensive, targeting people who frequently aren’t even in advantaged groups themselves. I would also suggest that Jews are treated pretty badly by the PC folks, as are Asians (although #StopAsianHate in the wake of what appears to be a non-hate-crime has been a convenient bludgeon).

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