He seems to be fond of saying "well, technically" on every subject; regardless of if it is tone deaf. I don't want to pathologize Stallman, but I have a simmil

He seems to be fond of saying "well, technically" on every subject; regardless of if it is tone deaf. I don't want to pathologize Stallman, but I have a simmilar tendency, so I will project myself a bit here; and probably go a bit of a rant. This tendency stems from a way of thinking about the world. Inaccuracies build on themselves, so it is generally best to stamp them out when we can. If the technicality is not actually important, then surely everyone involved would have no problem with the correction. They may be annoyed that they had to spend a few minutes on clarifying such an obvious point. What happens with the kind of discussion that Stallman entered into is just weird. People seem to get deeply offended by the person stating the technicality while claiming that the technicality is not important and without even disagreeing with the technicality. This reaction (which seems to be consistent for the topic in question) has the almost tautological effect of excluding an entire class of thinkers from being able to participate in the conversation (or rather an entire class of thinking; some people are more able to switch between modes of thinking easier than others). I am obviously biased in this regard, but I happen to think this does a massive disservice to people who actually care about the issue, because I believe that this excluded mode of thinking happens to be extremely effective at problem solving. > "If we're debating the definitions of 'rape' and 'sexual assault', perhaps it's better to accept that this conversation isn't productive." If you are concerned about rape and sexual assault then discussing what those words mean is a vital part of dealing with the issue. It often illuminates the underlying reality as thinking about definitions involves considering the details of what you are trying to talk about, and definantly illuminates the conversation as you do not have different people thinking the same statement means different things. If you catagorically reject these discussions, then I do not see how you can go on to effectivly deal with the underlying issue.