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Tech bros: “I wonder why tech is so disproportionately male. Must be something biological.” Also tech bros: “I can’t believe RMS got forced out just for going on a crazy rant about rape on a CS mailing list. Why, any one of us could be next!”
The "tech bros" trope is getting quite tired; it would be more constructive to avoid such generalizations and stereotypes
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…
If his past behavior was sufficient justification for his sacking, then that should be enough. However, that is not why he was sacked. He was sacked on the basis of false allegations, and as an attempt by MIT to deflect from their own complicity in the Epstein scandal.
This is not (only) about finding a place for weirdo super-hackers to contribute to society (without bothering people too much) but about the truth dammit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that it has next to nothing to do with technology. MIT was still reeling from the fall out with the Media Lab and Epstein. If it wasn't for that, they might have gotten by with a simple apology, but that wouldn't be enough at this point. There is also a history of controversial stuff related to his time at the FSF which meant that probably wouldn't settle for a simple apology either (not that RMS seemed willi…
the FSF is a Ideological organization, how can you say " they didn't need an ideologue" when that is EXACTLY what they need FSF entire purpose is to push for the adoption of Free Software licensing (in opposition to Both "Open Source" and Commercial licensing)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because RMS isn't just another socially awkward engineer. He is a leader and a part of a larger community and is therefore held to a higher standard. The reason for the higher standard is simple, leaders are entrusted with power and need to wield that power better than others. RMS has failed that test today.
And what standard is that—not allowing leaders to discuss cases objectively in public in case they might be misconstrued?
It was the wrong forum, the wrong topic, and the wrong argument. It shows a complete and total lack of good judgement. Combined with his history of such a lack of judgement, that is the standard which we should hold people to.
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…
I wouldn’t call “not actively espousing hateful or bigoted views” “self-censorship”. And if people are afraid to be hateful or creepy in public, I’d call that a win. You don’t get to proclaim the advantages of chattel slavery and be magically immune from everyone’s responses, and afterwards you can’t complain about self-censorship when you think twice about writing or saying something abhorrent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn’t call “not actively espousing hateful or bigoted views” “self-censorship”. And if people are afraid to be hateful or creepy in public, I’d call that a win. You don’t get to proclaim the advantages of chattel slavery and be magically immune from everyone’s responses, and afterwards you can’t complain about self-censorship when you think twice about writing or saying something abhorrent.
Any sensible person nowadays stays away from certain discussions. Not sure if that's good or bad. Commenting this makes me a tad uneasy.
Moral outrage as a language game, especially where certain hot button issues are concerned, like anything involving sexuality, bears a striking resemblance with the language game that unfolds umong children when it is alleged that someone has the cooties.
When such an allegation is made there are three possible plays. Agree, disagree, or stay quiet. In my opinion, the best play is to vocally agree with the allegation when it is made by at least one popular kid or when a critical mass of kids agreeing with the allegation has already been reached. When a critical mass has not yet been reached and the allegation is backed by only a small number of kids and kids who are unpopular or of undetermined popularity status, the best play is to stay quiet while waiting to see if a popular kid joins the allegation or if a critical mass is reached, at which point you should start to also voice your agreement. Something you never ever want to do is to speak up to disagree.
This is because the claim "you've got the cooties", despite being by definition false, draws credibility from how many people agree with it. If someone finds themselves on the receiving end of the allegation, the only possible response is to go "no you've got the cooties" and try to build consensus around that.
So, Kid A goes "Kid B's got the cooties", Kid C goes "No he doesn't". That would be a very stupid play if Kid C is an unpopular Kid, because it would be likely to make Kid A pivot into expressing the view "Kid C's got the cooties", putting Kid C into a strategically worse position than he started out in.
Now, choosing between the vocally-agree versus stay-quiet plays: Vocally-agree is usually a better play. Because Kid B could respond by turning around and saying "no, Kid C's got the cooties!" That is unlikely, but the probability is greater than zero.
If, on the other hand, Kid C goes "Haha! It's true! Kid B's got the cooties" that makes Kids A and C allies, so it advances Kid C's position by getting it into the safety of the herd, so to speak. Because now, if Kid B goes "no, Kid C's got the cooties" you will find that Kid A will voice disagreement. So between Kid B having the cooties and Kid C having the cooties, the greater consensus is around Kid B having the cooties.
It quickly becomes apparent that the game unfolds around popularity and conformism as a self-fulfilling prophecy and that, at the end of the day, popular kid always wins, unpopular kid always loses.
So, about Stallman. Popular kids win. Yet again. Who would have thought that. Stallman's got the cooties.
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. T…
On the other hand even with this resignation he doesn't appologize for anything. He could even have made his point of thinking it's a misunderstanding and appologize, but didn't.
He has nothing to apologise for in this respect, but he does say:
> I'm sorry for that hurt. I wish I could have prevented the misunderstanding.
This could be seen as an apology, "I'm sorry" often is; but in context you can see it is not. It is literally "I'm sorry I could not prevent this hurt" without any sense that He is responsible.
Ironically, this sentiment only brought on more criticism: The claim that this was a "false apology", i.e. something masquerading as an apology despite not being one - but that was Stallmans intention, it is thwarted by all the other sentences in the same paragraph that make it clear he is being misquoted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, he started the movement and got it very far, with the dominant OS using his foundation's license. Despite his limitations. There is no one in the movement who should have the authority to sack him. But, he resigned himself. This is moot.
The president of the United States never fires anyone. He informs them he expects their letter of resignation on his desk at x time. FSF was pressured. RMS did not decide this all on his own of his free will.
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…
Can we please stop excusing bad behavior with some form of "oh because autism"? It's an insult to the many, many neuro-atypical people who don't say shitty, stupid things online, who don't act creepy around women, who don't have a sign on their MIT office that says "Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies)", who don't have a gross mattress in their office where they encourage people to lie topless, who don't try to pres…