6 ms·
At what cost? If he didn't follow these artificial principles he would be much more widely known, spreading his message further and possibly making a differenc
by brador 9y ago
At what cost?
If he didn't follow these artificial principles he would be much more widely known, spreading his message further and possibly making a difference in the fields he believes in most outside the tiny world of his closest research peers.
Instead, he's the equivalent of a digital hermit with a window due to his "no touch" views on privacy.
Everything he's done hints at a predilection towards severe risk aversion. And, in my opinion, it has hurt the world when we needed him the most.
- no-s 9y agoI think it's really the proper duty of everyone who understands to help protect intellectual freedoms. We don't need a popular cult of personality to make it work. His writings from 30 years ago are very relevant and prophetic even today, but like Ayn Rand people conflate the personality with the idea, an idea which stands on it's own merit when you separate it from Stallman. However he is amusingly charismatic, my entire family still remembers him from an FSF picnic roughly 20 years ago. Thankfully his publicist intercepted my wife before he could really get into it, but my daughter (who was 3-4 at the time) still vividly recalls his explanation of why he couldn't swim under water (might forget to how to breathe upon surfacing). Also my family paid me the highest compliment by afterwards describing Stallman as being "just like daddy"...
- pier25 9y ago> If he didn't follow these artificial principles he would be much more widely known Aren't all principles artificial? He could (maybe) be more valuable to society by making compromises but OTOH I doubt an idealistic person is driven by such motivations. Artists aren't motivated by being of value either and I doubt anybody would think that Picasso should have lived in any other way.