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An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

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Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#71

Post by smsm42 »

phasnox wrote: post #32
ndr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are, of course, free to choose who to support. Does "support RMS being on the FSF board for life" mean supporting him on everything he says, or even suggest supporting him for this quote?

> Does "support RMS being on the FSF board for life" mean supporting him on everything he says Of course not. I just say that I understand if people would not like no associate with him.

My opinion is that such people are stupid. I can understand people that disagree with RMS on his free-software philosophy, or views on software development, or management style, or his personal quirks or whatever and not wanting to work with him - fine, freedom of association, it's yours to choose. That's valid and understandable.

Making a choice because of a random opinion voiced once - which is completely immaterial as RMS himself is not a woman and his opinions about personal decisions of women have absolutely zero importance (which does not preclude him from voicing them, everybody can have an opinion, just some of them are pretty worthless and useless) - is just stupid. It's manually disabling your own intellect, removing all the huge body of useful information you could base your decisions on and concentrate your attention on one immaterial detail. It's like you being offered an awesome job in a great company with huge salary and you quitting on the first day because one person in your office has a pen of a wrong shade on his desk. I can only attribute such decisions to performative virtue signalling, because the alternative would be insanity.

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#72

Post by gentleman11 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #46
gentleman11 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody else find it a little scary to comment on this topic in case they get called out and targeted as well? The well written link posted to “wetheweb” discusses this a bit. Some quotes: > According to the Atlantic, a full 80 percent of Americans believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” While today some smear the free speech movement as a “racist dog-whistle” or a “far-right talking po…

>somebody is flagging this story to keep people from even discussing the topic. This applies to your entire comment, but the quoted line is most salient: Be careful not to fall into the victimized underdog mentality. There are legitimate concerns on both sides here, but there is a ton of noise in the form of pointing to imagined persons/crowds and accusing them of persecution . For example, submissions are frequently…

I reread your comment and I think you are at least partially correct about how I framed things. If you read this, is there a more constructive way I could have raised this concern?

I do not believe the comments in this thread constitute a low quality discussion. The story should not have been flagged, in my opinion at least, and this action has stopped some of the only balanced discussion of the topic I’ve seen online since the story first broke. It has people from both sides being mostly polite and has links to some high quality material. It’s just a topic that many people are upset by. Also, after getting flagged, they git repo saw the rate of new PR signings almost flatline

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#73

Post by junippor »

phasnox wrote: post #4
mikece wrote: post #2

I fully support RMS being on the FSF board for life. (I also think he would be fantastic making a cameo in a bit part in Disney's Mandalorian series, bitching about "damned proprietary code" used in imperial droids that makes them hard to reprogram but that's another topic for another message board...)

I find it hard to support a guy that says stuff like this: "There is a perverse movement among women to think that they should carry fetuses with Downs' syndrome to term, rather than abort them and try again. ... Next, people will take thalidomide to demonstrate how they can love babies born without limbs." - RMS

Not tactful, but he has a point. Some people are just fundamentalists (with bad fundamentals).

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#74

Post by enriquto »

gentleman11 wrote: post #29
gentleman11 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody else find it a little scary to comment on this topic in case they get called out and targeted as well? The well written link posted to “wetheweb” discusses this a bit. Some quotes: > According to the Atlantic, a full 80 percent of Americans believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” While today some smear the free speech movement as a “racist dog-whistle” or a “far-right talking po…

I have never gotten more upvotes so quickly but the only comments are by people who felt comfortable because they disagree. That says something

This will not last! The day of the judgement, those of us who voted for your comment will be disclosed, and we will be duly punished for our wrongthink.

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#75

Post by open-paren »

happytoexplain wrote: post #53
open-paren wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. During dinner with my in-laws (siblings and parents), my MIL brought up the now-removed phrase from the manifesto on BlackLivesMatter.com that says "We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another...". She and the rest of the table interpreted it as "BLM wants to abolish the family as a soc…

Is this an example of political correctness silencing you? I'm honestly asking, because it's interesting. Traditionally, the phrase refers to being "sensitive", so e.g. your opinion would be the politically correct opinion, and theirs would be the "not afraid to hurt feelings" opinion. But if you take the phrase more literally, it would refer to the fallacy of judging what is "correct" according solely to the politic…

My comment was more a direct response to the parent comment's question 'If anyone can give me an example of some political belief that is not justified in being "unacceptable"…', but my scenario only fits a wider definition "being silenced by political correctness". Every American probably has a different definition of what "political correctness is a problem in our country" means. The classic definition from right-leaning Americans is "the fight on how to say and do things in the most inclusive way possible is getting in the way of actually doing the things." But me being silenced by my in-laws fits under the umbrella of political correctness if you define it as "the ardor of your support for the 'correct' political thinking burns others". That concept currently goes by other names currently. I call it culture wars and general tribalism. I think the political correctness fight of a decade ago has shifted and evolved into the broader tribalism of today. So "political correctness" as you described it doesn't fit, but I think it fits with how I think the survey respondents interpreted it.

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#76

Post by happytoexplain »

enriquto wrote: post #74
gentleman11 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never gotten more upvotes so quickly but the only comments are by people who felt comfortable because they disagree. That says something

This will not last! The day of the judgement, those of us who voted for your comment will be disclosed, and we will be duly punished for our wrongthink.

It's rare that a comment floats on the line so perfectly - I don't even have a suspicion about whether you are mocking the parent for being dramatic/self-pitying, or if you are being sarcastic in a critique of those who are being accused of censorship.

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#77

Post by howeyc »

phasnox wrote: post #58
smoldesu wrote: post #22

As little as I like to do this, I think it's important to bring up the "autism" topic, because I see way too many autistic programmers being thrown under the bus for stuff like this. To start, the three smartest programmers I personally know are autistic, and all of them struggle to make sound judgement calls at the drop of a hat. I've seen them lambasted in IRC channels for saying stupid things or slipping up a func…

I'm trying to fight my own bias here, but.. I really don't know what to think. On one hand I'm totally against cancel culture for things like: - How you voted(e.g. Trump/Biden) - Your political views on any subject On the other hand, Stallman has called for the killing of babies with Down Syndrome. So, could I associate with someone like that? Could I comfortably work with someone that(for example) calls for the kill…

> On the other hand, Stallman has called for the killing of babies with Down Syndrome.

He did not say that. You make it sound like he's suggesting babies actually born should be killed. No. He's supporting the current practice of testing the fetus during pregnancy, and aborting if it has down syndrome.

Warning to others, this is what happens when you get caught up in cancel-culture wokeness, repeating allegations of others without verification. You end up repeating falsehoods as justfication, take things out of context, and confirm to onlookers you don't have the ability to form your own opinions through rational, logical thought.

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#78

Post by underseacables »

I realize this is satire, but I’m concerned about the other open letter that this is referring to. How is it not supporting cancel culture? According to it, any transgression, no matter how small, that goes against identity politics is seen as an immediate and everlasting scarlet letter. For heaven sake’s, I don’t even know this guy, and I have very little knowledge of the FSF, but clearly this kind of pitch forking is very dangerous and very counterproductive.

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#79

Post by smoldesu »

phasnox wrote: post #69
deadbytes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>calls for the killing of babies if they where jewish, black etc. How is this in any way equivalent? Being jewish or black are not disabilities. Downs syndrome is a horrible condition that greatly impacts your quality of life. I personally think abortion is horrible, but aborting babies who are going to enter life with awful disabilities is the least objectionable form of abortion there is. You should be outraged at…

>Downs syndrome is a horrible condition that greatly impacts your quality of life. I disagree. Have you ever met one person with that condition? The ones I've met, are happier than 99% of the people I know.

Maybe you should tell that to rms instead of throwing anecdata at people who disagree with you.

Re: An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF

#80

Post by DanBC »

deadbytes wrote: post #67
phasnox wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to fight my own bias here, but.. I really don't know what to think. On one hand I'm totally against cancel culture for things like: - How you voted(e.g. Trump/Biden) - Your political views on any subject On the other hand, Stallman has called for the killing of babies with Down Syndrome. So, could I associate with someone like that? Could I comfortably work with someone that(for example) calls for the kill…

>calls for the killing of babies if they where jewish, black etc. How is this in any way equivalent? Being jewish or black are not disabilities. Downs syndrome is a horrible condition that greatly impacts your quality of life. I personally think abortion is horrible, but aborting babies who are going to enter life with awful disabilities is the least objectionable form of abortion there is. You should be outraged at…

> Downs syndrome is a horrible condition that greatly impacts your quality of life.

People with DS frequently report greater life satisfaction that people without DS. The problem isn't DS, it's how people with DS get treated by the rest of society that's a problem.

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