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Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

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Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#61

Post by rbanffy »

gyardley wrote: post #42
raganwald wrote: post #32

Social/Moral question: Is it acceptable to wish Mr. Stallman well in light of allegations that he has advocated for truly awful practices? e.g. Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. http://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html

Wow, I had no idea. That's repugnant. Why do people still invite him to conferences? Surely there's less-objectionable representatives of his views on software.

Free speech also includes speech you disagree with and the exercise of democracy implies the need to discuss things that are repugnant to you.

I do not agree with them, but I defend their (both Dutch pedophiles and RMS) right to state their opinions. Even if I strongly disagree with both.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#63

Post by elemeno »

muyuu wrote: post #27
elemeno wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I appreciate all that Stallman's done over the years (though I don't always agree with him), that just strikes me as a remarkably dickish comment to make. To my mind, 20 minutes is hardly an unreasonable delay when you're not an emergency. To make a snide remark about it when you're a guest in the country and getting the advantages of their free health services is just poor taste and bad manners.

It was obviously a joke and I seriously doubt anyone would be offended by that. I know I'm not and I'm relatively understanding about the austerity measures.

You'd have to point me at something that would suggest it was said in jest then, since I don't see anything that would support that assertion.

Frankly, there's a reason why I used the word 'appreciate' rather than 'respect' and that's because while RMS has done much good for the world, he's also an extremist and a fundamentalist who's publicly held convictions in some areas indirectly damage the cause he's fighting for.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#64

Post by excuse-me »

skrebbel wrote: post #59
raganwald wrote: post #32

Social/Moral question: Is it acceptable to wish Mr. Stallman well in light of allegations that he has advocated for truly awful practices? e.g. Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. http://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html

There, you're doing it. It is all right for someone to be skeptical about any commonly held view, except when it's about sex with minors. In any discussion about any kind of sex with anyone under 18 whatsoever, if you're not 100% fully completely convincedly against it, then you're a bad person!!1 Why can't we just discuss this? Like we can discuss anything else? Especially in the US, where the norm appears to be tha…

You can get married at 16 in the UK (and most of europe) but if you took a picture of your wife giving birth you would be an evil child pornographer.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#65

Post by rogerbinns »

ews wrote: post #20
planetguy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if only he were in the United States where you don't have to rely on the Government for medical care...

I came here expecting a troll :) in Europe you don't have to rely on Government for health care: you have an array of options in the private sector, which are usually much better (in my experience) than the US private hospitals since they have to compete with a free and good-enough option. Most of the population prefer to use the free, government subsidized health system though.

The health system is not free nor is it government subsidised. It is paid for from taxes, which people pay according to their income. There is no additional charge to then use the system other than paying taxes. (IMHO this is a good thing and it is fair.)

In the US it is a complete mess. Half of all healthcare spending is done by the government anyway (Medicare, Medicaid, government employees, army/veterans etc) and hence paid for by tax payers according to their income but not available to most taxpayers. The other half is paid for by charities, individuals, companies and by taxpayers (the government chooses not to collect tax on premiums paid by companies). Add in "insurance" companies which act as middle men between the payments and the healthcare delivery, plus a lot of regulation, and a large number of people whose jobs are to try and increase or decrease payments from the other groups and the whole thing is an unholy mess.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#66

Post by ajross »

elemeno wrote: post #22
me_myselft wrote: post #6

Hi, I am from Barcelona, and I was there. Stallman is a great man. I dont know what happened at the end, but when we were in the talk the organizers told us that the talk is suspended because Stallman was not well. The medical service arrive 20 minutes after Stallman ask for attention. This delay was used by him to say: "Son los recortes, Rajoy nos quiere matar a todos", meaning: The delay is because of the cuts in t…

As much as I appreciate all that Stallman's done over the years (though I don't always agree with him), that just strikes me as a remarkably dickish comment to make. To my mind, 20 minutes is hardly an unreasonable delay when you're not an emergency. To make a snide remark about it when you're a guest in the country and getting the advantages of their free health services is just poor taste and bad manners.

It's also considered polite to cut people waiting for an ambulance to arrive to take them to the hospital a little slack.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#67

Post by raganwald »

skrebbel wrote: post #59
raganwald wrote: post #32

Social/Moral question: Is it acceptable to wish Mr. Stallman well in light of allegations that he has advocated for truly awful practices? e.g. Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. http://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html

There, you're doing it. It is all right for someone to be skeptical about any commonly held view, except when it's about sex with minors. In any discussion about any kind of sex with anyone under 18 whatsoever, if you're not 100% fully completely convincedly against it, then you're a bad person!!1 Why can't we just discuss this? Like we can discuss anything else? Especially in the US, where the norm appears to be tha…

Well actually, I haven’t expressed an opinion about whether his words are acceptable or whether he’s a bad person, whatever that means. I have heard more than a few people taking me to task for wishing him good health on account of his words, and one of the reasons I posted this was to hear from people like you.

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#68

Post by ajross »

me_myselft wrote: post #17
planetguy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if only he were in the United States where you don't have to rely on the Government for medical care...

Yes, but in US you have to have a lot of money for receiving a very basic and fundamental human right: medical care...

It's coming. The law is a mess, and phasing in slowly. But it passed, and it's real. It will no doubt have to be fixed over the coming decades, but universal health care in the USA is a reality.

But the "lot of money" thing is just reality: health care costs a lot of money, period. And it must be paid. Coming up with a regime to do so without leaving people out or inappropriately burdening them is a hard problem, and frankly no entity, government or private, can claim to have solved it "well".

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#69

Post by skrebbel »

raganwald wrote: post #67
skrebbel wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There, you're doing it. It is all right for someone to be skeptical about any commonly held view, except when it's about sex with minors. In any discussion about any kind of sex with anyone under 18 whatsoever, if you're not 100% fully completely convincedly against it, then you're a bad person!!1 Why can't we just discuss this? Like we can discuss anything else? Especially in the US, where the norm appears to be tha…

Well actually, I haven’t expressed an opinion about whether his words are acceptable or whether he’s a bad person, whatever that means. I have heard more than a few people taking me to task for wishing him good health on account of his words, and one of the reasons I posted this was to hear from people like you.

Genuinely curious, because I don't think I understood this: what do you mean with "people like me"?

Re: Richard Stallman Collapses At Barcelona Conference

#70

Post by cobrausn »

raganwald wrote: post #32

Social/Moral question: Is it acceptable to wish Mr. Stallman well in light of allegations that he has advocated for truly awful practices? e.g. Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. http://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html

Well, considering he considers the practice of having children 'menacing' (his words, not mine), even when it is the children of contributors to his own projects, I don't find myself really surprised.

http://edward.oconnor.cx/2005/04/rms

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