81–90 of 237 posts
I just wanted to add that at no point does the article mentions that he collapsed. Looks like he suffered an increase in blood pressure and decided to call it of. A doctor was contacted and he was able to walk away by his own means.
This presents an interesting situation. Is Stallman okay with being hooked up to medical computers even though they may not be running free software? What about the privacy issues involved in being checked into a hospital?
This presents an interesting situation. Is Stallman okay with being hooked up to medical computers even though they may not be running free software? What about the privacy issues involved in being checked into a hospital?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being skeptical of a claim isn't the same as advocacy.
I agree with that, but I also know that we all make choices about which things we defend either directly or indirectly. Lawyers defend clients regardless of the repugnance of the allegations because it serves the greater good. Those of us who are not lawyers have the luxury of picking and choosing our battles. I can’t read the man’s mind, but I do know that he has made a choice to discuss the subject and a choice to…
Sadly, no.
I wish we could just relax and have faith on the preservation of such basic rights as free speech, but, unfortunately, this is not the case. It's all too easy to condemn someone for having an opinion we consider dangerous and to suppress their right to state it. We all must learn to live in a world where some people disagree with us in very fundamental ways, because, if we don't, we'll end up living in a world we'd rather not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuinely curious, because I don't think I understood this: what do you mean with "people like me"?
HN readers, especially those who might contruute another perspective. e.g. reg: Stallman is an important voice. detractor: He’s also advocating pedo. reg: He’s still an important voice. HN reader: Actually, he isn’t advocating pedo. <- new perspective
also, my compliments for not turning this into a flamewar. in retrospect, it would seem that i was about to.
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.
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.
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
The question (which is unethical to research) is "does voluntary pedophilia harm children?"
In all honestly, the answer is "probably most of the time". Right now, we can't say with absolute certainty that the answer is "probably most of the time". However, the cost of finding out the answer is via a controlled experiment too great, and given the ethics of science today, it definitely shouldn't be researched. We have a lot of reason to believe that children aren't mature enough to handle the consequences, and there are very common negative consequences associated with pedophilia that have been noted for decades. This evidence strongly points to the idea that it is bad, but it isn't proof any more than an apple falling is proof of gravity (it's a case for, but not a proof of). Our society saying "it's bad" isn't proof either.
What Stallman is writing is that he is skeptical of the claim that it is bad. That is a belief, and as already mentioned, testing it would be incredibly unethical. That doesn't make you a bad person for saying that without proof, you refuse to accept a claim.
While what he says may seem heretical, to burn him as a heretic is wrong. Until he says "we should test this" or "I support this group and/or changes of current laws", he hasn't suggested anything that would endanger/harm anyone. The proper response isn't "HERETIC", it is facts that we do know that suggest that this belief is likely (even if not proven in a formal study to be) wrong. For example, bed wetting, PTSD, sexual repression, hypersexualized behavior, extreme depression are symptoms experienced later in life. I don't know what the voluntary/involuntary ratio is, but this suggests that there are serious psychological consequences. Experts in the field would know more. The point being that in an open society, we discuss and counter, not silence and shut down.
Many people believe P = NP despite the years of no solution and a general consensus that researching a polynomial time algorithm is a waste of time. We don't have a proof that P =/= NP, so we can't counter, so we can't counter those who believe it, even if we regard their beliefs to be misinformed or likely to be wrong.
One of these days it's going to be for real and I wonder how many of his fans will be enraged when someone says something like "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone".
By the way, "he did not, for example, have a heart attack". Really? There are no confirmed details but he definitely didn't have a heart attack? Well are there confirmed details or not? If he didn't have a heart attack then there's at least one confirmed detail, right? Why the need to clarify that one point? I'm not saying its a lie but whenever someone tells me "I don't know what happened but I know this one thing didnt happen" they're either guessing or hiding something.
I hope he doesn't overexert himself.