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The 12-50 statistics happens to be fact, I do not know how pointing that out is racist. Also ESR seems to be making the point that violent crime is result of lo

by qazpot 7y ago

The 12-50 statistics happens to be fact, I do not know how pointing that out is racist. Also ESR seems to be making the point that violent crime is result of low IQ instead of skin color. A lot of people including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris etc. have pointed out the dangers of islam and why in modern times it is the possibly the most dangerous religion. That does not make them or ESR an islamophobe.

devtul 7y ago
I find it distressing to hear people pushing the idea of ignoring data. As imperfect as they might be, research is our best effort of making sense of things as they are and making decisions based on our best sense of the facts.
DonHopkins 7y ago
Speaking of violent crime, here's a quote from the guy who threatened Bruce Perens' life, then tried to excuse it by explaining he was only trying to defame him: "When I hear the words "social responsibility", I want to reach for my gun." -Eric S Raymond
BeetleB 7y ago
>A lot of people including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris etc. have pointed out the dangers of islam and why in modern times it is the possibly the most dangerous religion. That does not make them or ESR an islamophobe. Well, Sam Harris did get into trouble for promoting racial profiling for terrorism. In any case, what I remember from ESR's blog (been about a decade since I read it), he did have a stance similar to "If you claim to be Muslim, I will assume you are in favor of X unless you make a statement renouncing it" (where X was something related to terrorism, etc). Ditto for famous Muslim figures - requiring a public statement for them to be OK in his book. Things like "If the Imam of your mosque is not denouncing terrorism every Friday then he is likely a closet terrorist supporter" (like they don't have anything else to preach about in villages in Indonesia?). He also did not welcome dialogue on the topic. When someone would post a comment confronting him on his blog, he pretty much said "It's my blog and I can say what I want - you are just a guest here, and I delete comments I don't like," While it's his right to do so, it's not exactly the attitude of someone looking for disconfirming perspectives or dialogue. (In fact, I think most of his horrible stuff were when responding to comments on his blog, not the actual blog posts). Not sure he still has those posts up on his blog. Personally, I think he's a horrible person. However, I'm against an outright ban of his stuff on HN. He was an important figure in the free software world, and did make very useful contributions with all the documentation he wrote.

by qazpot 7y ago

devtul 7y ago

I find it distressing to hear people pushing the idea of ignoring data. As imperfect as they might be, research is our best effort of making sense of things as they are and making decisions based on our best sense of the facts.

DonHopkins 7y ago

Speaking of violent crime, here's a quote from the guy who threatened Bruce Perens' life, then tried to excuse it by explaining he was only trying to defame him: "When I hear the words "social responsibility", I want to reach for my gun." -Eric S Raymond

BeetleB 7y ago

>A lot of people including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris etc. have pointed out the dangers of islam and why in modern times it is the possibly the most dangerous religion. That does not make them or ESR an islamophobe. Well, Sam Harris did get into trouble for promoting racial profiling for terrorism. In any case, what I remember from ESR's blog (been about a decade since I read it), he did have a stance similar to "If you claim to be Muslim, I will assume you are in favor of X unless you make a statement renouncing it" (where X was something related to terrorism, etc). Ditto for famous Muslim figures - requiring a public statement for them to be OK in his book. Things like "If the Imam of your mosque is not denouncing terrorism every Friday then he is likely a closet terrorist supporter" (like they don't have anything else to preach about in villages in Indonesia?). He also did not welcome dialogue on the topic. When someone would post a comment confronting him on his blog, he pretty much said "It's my blog and I can say what I want - you are just a guest here, and I delete comments I don't like," While it's his right to do so, it's not exactly the attitude of someone looking for disconfirming perspectives or dialogue. (In fact, I think most of his horrible stuff were when responding to comments on his blog, not the actual blog posts). Not sure he still has those posts up on his blog. Personally, I think he's a horrible person. However, I'm against an outright ban of his stuff on HN. He was an important figure in the free software world, and did make very useful contributions with all the documentation he wrote.