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I've seen some online cheering Stallman's resignation from MIT. I suspect they'll also be cheering about this resignation as well. But this is nothing to cheer

by aazaa 7y ago

I've seen some online cheering Stallman's resignation from MIT. I suspect they'll also be cheering about this resignation as well. But this is nothing to cheer about. Regardless of what low regard the man might be held as a person, he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. These are all hallmarks of scientific inquiry. It sets a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship on a topic that really requires the disinfecting power of sunshine. This strengthens the power of those who have no use for scientific inquiry and are more interested in inquisition.

brian-armstrong 7y ago
Er, sorry, no. A public mailing list is not the correct venue for this discussion. Supposing as you do that society currently holds the wrong opinion on "does sex with minors constitute sexual assault?", the right answer is unlikely to be hashed out on a MIT list for CS activities. You also lend Stallman more weight than he deserves. His resignation will go unnoticed by all outside of our specific tech sphere and certainly will not "set a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship" (???). Should we cheer his resignation? It's undoubtedly a sad moment for him and his supporters, but Stallman's behavior quite likely has held back the FSF for some time. He's an ideologue, not a leader.
- aazaa 7y ago
  > ... Supposing as you do that society currently holds the wrong opinion on "does sex with minors constitute sexual assault?", the right answer is unlikely to be hashed out on a MIT list for CS activities. I expressed no opinion either way on that topic. I don't even consider the topic relevant to my position, which is that once we agree that merely asking some questions will result in harsh punishments, we're hosed as a society. Today, it's the question you hate that gets punished. Tomorrow it will be the question you hold most dear.
  - kthejoker2 7y ago
    The punishment is not the result of asking questions. The punishment is for his poor judgement of where to ask those questions - namely a mailing list owned and operated by MIT on which he served as a representative of while posting to that list. So your premise is flawed and thus your position is (ironically) irrelevant to the topic.
    - aazaa 7y ago
      Who decides which are the questions that a representative of the university can ask and which will lead to punishment? As far as I can tell, the discussion was on-topic given that a former professor, Minsky, was being accused of "assault." Stallman's questions and statements revolved around the use of that term and the trouble that its lack of specificity brings. The university is (ideally) full of scholars holding controversial views, asking uncomfortable questions, and being accused of all manner of crimes. If one of them (Minsky) can be tarred and feathered without a trial, any of them could be.
      - loeg 7y ago
        I don't know what kind of world you want to live in, but I enjoyed my university experience where most of my professors were scholars holding more or less banal views and, to the best of my knowledge, not a one being accused of "all manner of crimes." I don't think professors being accused of crimes is either common or beneficial to the spirit of learning and scientific inquiry.
        kortilla 7y ago
        >but I enjoyed my university experience where most of my professors were scholars holding more or less banal views If their views are banal, then there is likely nothing novel academically coming out of them. That’s literally the opposite point of professorship, tenure, and academic inquiry. I recommend you look up the definition of “banal” because you either used it wrong or you don’t know what the point of tenure is.
    - 7y ago
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  It's crazy to see people taking this stance on a public forum for tech companies. He's talking about Minsky just like you're talking about Stallman. What makes this the correct venue for you but not that for him?
- zibeski555 7y ago
  1. His post was not an out of context rant on an unrelated school mailing list. He was criticizing the words used by MIT students in connection with a protest at MIT, and that mentioned his ex-colleague. The MIT students posted this in the first instance, and it was a direct response to them. It seems to me like an appropriate forum. 2. Stallman's argument was simply to call a spade a spade, and not a defense of Epstein or Minsky. If you told 10 people (each unaware of any of the facts alleged) that Minsky sexually assaulted a girl, and then asked them to describe what they imagine occurred after hearing he sexually assaulted some, many might assume he violently assaulted someone. The degree of differences in guesses that you might receive makes the word functionally prone to tarnishing someone with a reputation for a different crime than the one they committed. Stallman therefore asked for the incident to be described in unambiguous terms; for example, that Minsky had sex with a sex trafficked 17-year old 50 years his junior on Epstein's island. That does not mean he defends that scenario -- you can still view it as reprehensible, and condemn it, but at least you are not engaging in "accusation inflation", where you are condemning someone for a potentially worse crime than they committed. 3. I agree that Stallman is unnoticed outside this sphere, but this is part of a continued trend of threatening people's reputations and livelihoods for stating an opinion. I created a throwaway for the first time ever simply for this comment (which I think is relatively benign), so yes, I think this trend will continue to lead to self-censorship.
  - zonidjan 7y ago
    > Sexual assault is an act in which a person intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent Rather than blaming the laws which define sexual assault this way, Stallman chose to blame the people who wrote a perfectly accurate description.
  - zzzeek 7y ago
    I think you should be aware that all non-consensual sex is sexual assault, and all sexual assault is violence. Sexual assaulters have committed violent crime.
    - soulofmischief 7y ago
- _nedR 7y ago
  >but Stallman's behavior quite likely has held back the FSF for some time. He's an ideologue, not a leader. On this last point, We have to agree to disagree. His firm and unwavering stance on many issues is a flag planted in the sand - "This is how things should be" (whether or not its practical). It is a point of reference which countless engineers, designer, entrepreneurs in tech (including in big companies in FAANG, etc.) have been influenced by (whether or not they were able to live upto his ideal) when building their systems and companies. Everyday, living in the dystopian nightmare that the modern world (both real and virtual) is becoming, oftentimes enabled by OSS, 'Stallman was right' is something that keeps coming back. Its not just a glib meme.
  - pseudalopex 7y ago
    His ideals are inspiring. His social interactions not so much.
JaimeThompson 7y ago
It is rather hard to support his statement of his "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."
- bemeurer 7y ago
  For what it's worth he retracted that statement. https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_Septe...
  - benatkin 7y ago
    He does it using his alternative to singular they: "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically." Doesn't really seem sincere when he's grinding another axe at the same time. https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html Another variant of his invented nomenclature besides per is perse which I'd rather not be called. It sounds like a child of purse and hearse.
    - smhost 7y ago
      you must not be very familiar with rms if you think he's not being sincere for "grinding another axe at the same time". stallman has been grinding all of his axes, at all times, without exception. this is the only time to my knowledge that stallman has ever gone back on one of his fundamental positions.
  - MobileVet 7y ago
    ...two days ago after numerous articles came out highlighting his gross views. Damage control at best, hard to give it much weight given the circumstances.
    - 7y ago
jbarciauskas 7y ago
Demanding the same standard of evidence we demand in court and science to disrupt human power structures helps those with power retain it and use it against those who have less power. Also what he said is fully public, so I don't understand what you, or he, is objecting to.
- westoncb 7y ago
  > Demanding the same standard of evidence we demand in court and science to disrupt human power structures helps those with power retain it and use it against those who have less power. Okay sure, but you're talking about loosening a standard for accuracy of conviction... This means that you can decrease failures to convict truly guilty people—but in equal proportion you will also increase convictions of innocent people. This does not sound like a well thought out strategy.
  - jbarciauskas 7y ago
    The standard of evidence is lower in civil cases than criminal ones. Taking away someone's bodily autonomy is different than saying you can't have a prominent role at a prestigious institution. You don't (or shouldn't) have an inalienable right to power. And, again, the facts aren't even in dispute.
    - westoncb 7y ago
      > The standard of evidence is lower in civil cases than criminal ones. That's probably because the standard of accuracy is tied to severity of punishment (they're will to pay more for a higher standard in cases where it's more damaging to be wrong). Are you arguing that someone losing their job or other position of influence is low-enough severity that we don't need a high standard? That seems reckless to me. > Taking away someone's bodily autonomy is different than saying you can't have a prominent role at a prestigious institution. Agreed. Putting someone in jail is more severe than taking someone's job. I don't think this is controversial. > You don't (or shouldn't) have an inalienable right to power. Nobody has claimed this. > And, again, the facts aren't even in dispute. This entire thread is a massive contradiction of that claim.
martinky24 7y ago
I'm sorry, did you read his blog post? It was disgusting. He was trying to argue the subtleties of child rape. There are no subtleties. Minor's cannot consent.
- roenxi 7y ago
  There are subtleties about what constitutes a minor. The age of consent varies from 12 to 21 depending on the country [0]. That appears to include variation even in the US. On the one hand, the law is very clear because there needs to be a clear line in the sand to decide if people get sent to jail or not. On the other hand, there are clearly open cultural questions about what we should get angry about. Pick any standard you like, and the majority of the world currently disagrees. In my country of Australia we seem to be using 16. So in Australia maybe there was no crime at all. I dunno, I havn't looked in to this sort of law very deeply. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent
  - loeg 7y ago
    I mean, the assault in question was non-consensual trafficking in addition to being statutory rape. So like, maybe we don't need to first principle this quite so hard? Don't rape people?
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Wow, wait. I get what your point is, but minors will continue doing it, and it is only with adults who they can’t consent with. Obviously minors can consent in some contexts, otherwise it would be a huge mess morally and legally (if two 14 year olds have sex, do they both go to jail because neither can consent? Also see the mess we’ve got into with kids sexting each other). Let’s not criminalize kids being kids because of some strict morality code.
  - scruple 7y ago
    If one of those 14 year olds sends nude pictures to the other one, is that not distribution of child pornography? I've certainly read that minors have been charged as such, but I'm not capable of verifying the veracity of those charges (I just honestly don't want to Google for this shit).
M2Ys4U 7y ago
>Regardless of what low regard the man might be held as a person, he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. These are all hallmarks of scientific inquiry. Defending the rape of trafficked children is not a "hallmark of scientific inquiry".
- hristov 7y ago
  Was he though? It seems to me that all that Stallman said was lets please figure out exactly what Minsky did.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  When did he do that?
  - azernik 7y ago
    The full e-mail thread is at the bottom of this article, in an awfully-formatted little PDF viewer. I suggest full-screening. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
    - Rebelgecko 7y ago
      I read the full thread, and I didn't see anything that I would consider "defending rape". It seemed pretty clear that he thinks Epstein was a bad person and that what happened to Giuffre is not good. The closest thing to defending rape is him trying to give Minsky the benefit of the doubt (e.g. stating that Minksky may not have known Giuffre's age or situation, and IIRC in her deposition she was careful to avoid saying whether or not she actually had sex with Minsky, only that Epstein wanted her to).
      - azernik 7y ago
        See page 7, where he argues that sex with a minor should not be considered rape.
deleted 7y ago
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mikeash 7y ago
He’s being forced to resign from an advocacy organization for being a shithead who defends child rape. It sets the precedent that you can’t defend reprehensible acts and still be considered a community leader. We are all better off for it.
- Scene_Cast2 7y ago
  But I'm not so sure if we are better off. That precedent creates a stigma when discussing such topics. Let's say that you don't quite understand a particular viewpoint (doesn't have to be this - another good topic is racism & discrimination). Where do you go to learn more about the topic? Especially when you're aspiring to be a leader, this stigma incentivizes holding on to half-baked ideas that you simply can't discuss with anyone. That, in turn, creates a culture of double-speak. So, in other words, good first-order effects, but bad second-order effects.
  - journalctl 7y ago
    Legitimate questions to understand and active defense of a specific viewpoint look remarkably different. It’s possible to write in a way that successfully communicates something like “I want to understand racism more” and not “what if white people were like the dominant race tho?”
  - mikeash 7y ago
    I find this argument to be so bizarre it’s hard to imagine it’s sincere. In what world is writing dumb and offensive rants to a CS mailing list a good way to learn about the legal, psychological, and moral aspects of sex slavery? Where do you go to learn more? Maybe you could go to the library. You could enroll in classes. MIT is famous for technical subjects but I’m sure they have good classes about psychology, law, and ethics too. Or you could find stuff online, I’m sure there are plenty of good resources out there.
geofft 7y ago
For what it's worth, those are also hallmarks of crankery. A creationist will happily express ideas, ask questions, and demand proof of claims until the Second Coming. An anti-vaxxer will argue for more research and more caution and advocate for what they themselves regard as objective standards before letting their children be vaccinated - and all the time be effectively telling people that it's better to be dead than autistic. Supporting them for their apparent scientific interests is merely supporting their message. A homeopath has an entire field of professional associations, licensing, and regulation to point to. What determines whether you're advocating for scientific inquiry is whether you're arguing in good faith for positions that are in genuine need of inquiry, not whether you have the trappings of scientific research.
joe_the_user 7y ago
I too, am a fan of Stallman's accomplishments and I am sad that debate on this topic essentially can't happen. That said, I think Stallman's position really is fundamentally wrong and problematic. Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent. Morally, that stance really is justified in the most common circumstance - when the non-underaged person has more power and experience than the underaged person. In the case under discussion, you have that in spades, double spades. The sad thing is that individuals interested in freedom, who make serious contributions to some things called free, don't notice that the massive imbalances of wealth today have produced a situation where simple "free choice" is made a mockery of. And yeah, the thing about inquisition atmosphere, imo, is that it doesn't reveal the rot behind all the "mere" abuse of power.
- johnny22 7y ago
  " I am sad that debate on this topic essentially can't happen." It could happen if your point about power and consent was taken as a given (at least in the context of this topic).
- thrwayxyz 7y ago
  >That said, I think Stallman's position really is fundamentally wrong and problematic. So you have the default opinion anyone in our society will have. I'm interested in what the heretic has to say why we are wrong. However with what has happened to Stallman I doubt I ever will. A shame because something has gone hugely wrong when half of all children are thinking of suicide.
  - danharaj 7y ago
    You can just go read what he says. No need to be so pompous about it.
  - rexpop 7y ago
    > So you have the default opinion anyone in our society will have. Hardly.
- throwstallman 7y ago
lgessler 7y ago
In its most literal form I don't know if I would say I disagreed with the core of what Stallman was saying in the email (that "sexual assault" should perhaps be revised in its usage), but Stallman was tone-deaf at best to have pontificated on such a comparatively minor (and highly arguable) matter when he did and where he did. Worse, with what he wrote, there is a reading of the email where the subtext is that Stallman was trying to mitigate Minsky's culpability. I won't comment on whether I think that was indeed what he was trying to do, but it's not a good look, regardless of whether that is indeed what he was trying to do. Many people will acknowledge the value of Stallman's stubborn, iconoclastic opinions. I'd count myself among them, and it's a little sad to see Stallman go from his pulpits. But on the other hand, I'm relieved: it might be in Stallman's constitution to be at all times a rational reasoning machine, impervious to emotion and sentiment, but this is not how most people are, and on many occasions Stallman has shown that he either doesn't understand or doesn't care about this. There are times when one should refrain from saying something that is merely correct because of the symbolic meaning it would have, or the emotional responses it would elicit.
- throwaway-1436 7y ago
  What if he's actually incapable of ever knowing or understanding the emotional context you just described?
- roenxi 7y ago
  > In its most literal form I don't know if I would say I disagreed with the core of what Stallman You qualify this, but that is basically the core of what Stallman supporters are looking at. Saying something that is literally true, in an industry which is known to be stuffed with some very literal minded people, should not be grounds for anyone resigning. It should be grounds for doing nothing, apologising or clarifying depending on what was said. It is risky to punish people for what they did not literally say. Particularly if they are the sort of person who is well known for striving to be literally correct.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    > Saying something that is literally true, in an industry which is known to be stuffed with some very literal minded people, should not be grounds for anyone resigning. It should be grounds for doing nothing, apologising or clarifying depending on what was said. If you think this industry still has anywhere near the room for "literal minded people" that it once had, think again. Even proper participation in Scrum ceremonies requires nuance and a capacity to read a room. Stallman's political views have always been a little weird and sometimes gross, but he said what he said because his autism is weapons-grade and with that comes a fixation on "hobgoblin of little minds" tier logical consistency. And with all that sweet, sweet corporate money, the normies, who prioritize the feelings of their peers over logic, have effectively taken over open source and installed normies in key positions, the better not to have to deal with icky nerds who say embarrassing things and don't know how to "play the game". And really, that's part of what this is all about. This is the new guard purging the old guard. It's also why Linus was subjected to a struggle session last year and why he may yet get the axe from the Linux Foundation.
asdf333 7y ago
i agree with you
jakelazaroff 7y ago
Here's a direct quote from one of his recent emails: > “I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.” Is this really a topic that "requires the disinfecting power of sunshine"? Do we really think we've gotten the topic of statutory rape so wrong that we need to rethink it from first principles?
- Cogito 7y ago
  His point, as far as I can tell, is that in different countries legally define rape in different ways, but that shouldn't change what we find morally wrong. To extend on what I think he is saying, he thinks it should be possible to say a thing was morally wrong regardless of which country it happened in. If we're discussing if we think a person did something morally wrong, I'd rather talk about why we think that rather than pointing out there is a law against it (especially when the laws are different in different places).
UncleMeat 7y ago
"Asking questions" that deny people's humanity over and over isn't exactly a positive intellectual exercise. We pretty conclusively decided that race based chattel slavery was wrong a while ago. But why? Can we keep expressing ideas and demanding proof of these claims? Can we do it forever? Can we do it while holding positions of power at institutions that are attended by black students?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > We pretty conclusively decided that race based chattel slavery was wrong a while ago. But why? Can we keep expressing ideas and demanding proof of these claims? Obviously yes? How else would we know that we are right?
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure it's called "Sea-lioning" from this comic strip: http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  > We pretty conclusively decided that race based chattel slavery was wrong a while ago. Unfortunate that you should use this example since slavery was finally abolished precisely because people kept "asking questions" contrary to the prevailing zeitgeist about why slaves did not enjoy the same rights as other humans. Never has then been a clearer demonstration of why the "stop asking questions" stance advocated by progressives is intellectually bankrupt.
- apatters 7y ago
  Absolutely, yes, definitively, unquestionably. Why? Because the abolition of slavery is one of the greatest achievements of our civilization. New generations of humans are constantly being born, and until we teach them, they don't know why this is. They don't know why slavery was such a black mark on our history. They don't understand what it does not just to the people involved, but to a society. They don't know why it proliferated so easily (and this is still very relevant today; when our society turns a blind eye to illegal immigrant labor, it's an echo of the same economics that made slavery easy for past generations to accept). You should be able to sit down with a 9th grader and explain to them, this is what slavery was, this is how common it was for most of history. This is why it was so tempting and these are the benefits people reaped from it. But this is how we realized that the costs outweighed the benefits, and how we created a better world at a great cost to many people. Crucially, it's important to explain to someone how slavery would be bad for them and their community, even if they themselves were not a slave. It's important to teach all of this to the new humans we raise. "It was bad, end of story" is not enough. The best way for them to learn is to reason through the arguments on both sides, explore the history, see how we got to where we are, and draw their own conclusions. Because you can't force a belief on someone. They need to get there themselves. If you ban the discussion they are going to reach their beliefs without guidance. And the isolated, the lonely, the angry will end up with some very dark beliefs. It's happening now as a direct response to censorship culture. I completely understand that slavery is a difficult and very personal topic for a lot of people. These are hard conversations to have. But for the sake of future generations we need to have them. Beliefs are stronger when they're justified. They are strongest when they are challenged, defended, and the challenges are defeated. We should never stop doing that.
gameswithgo 7y ago
He picked a stupid hill to die one. Everyone who picks that hill to die on just dies.
RoutinePlayer 7y ago
I want to agree with you in some aspects of this, but the history of this topic has been so severely lopsided that the current cleansing was due and is helping. As a man, I can only imagine the shit women put up with on a daily basis.
idlewords 7y ago
He's being pushed out for decades of being creepy, and especially so to women. At some point you have to say "enough", and that point is always going to look somewhat arbitrary. It's too bad MIT had to wait so very long to do this.
tempsy 7y ago
It’s actually terrifying this is the top voted comment.
paulcole 7y ago
The it’s-not-pedophilia-it’s-hebephilia take is so atrociously offensive, pointless, and tone deaf it’s almost beyond belief.
- ehaliewicz2 7y ago
  How is it offensive to make sure we are precise in using different words to denote two different things?
  - paulcole 7y ago
    It’s pretty clear to me that the subtext of his “precision” is to make it clear that one is less bad than the other. Just look at literally every other person on twitter/hn/Reddit who has made the same helpful clarification. Also, even if I’m willing to accept that precision is the reason he made that point (and I’m not), it adds nothing and at best serves to show how smart he is. Like I mean honestly what changes once you realize it’s technically hebephilia and not pedophilia?
    - ehaliewicz2 7y ago
      > It’s pretty clear to me that the subtext of his “precision” is to make it clear that one is less bad than the other. Just look at literally every other person on twitter/hn/Reddit who has made the same helpful clarification. True, I'm not sure I really agree with that either. Pedophilia or any other sexual attraction isn't something you can control, as far as I'm aware, so as long as you don't actually act on it, they are not really better or worse than another. > Like I mean honestly what changes once you realize it’s technically hebephilia and not pedophilia? Actually, I had forgotten which term meant what, I was thinking of ephebophilia.
    - mtrower 7y ago
      Are you going to tell me that you view sexual intercourse with a 6 year old as being the same as sexual intercourse with a 16 year old? If so, we can stop here. If not, then here's what changes: if you tell me someone is a pedophile, I'm going to assume that their primary sexual interest is pre-pubescent children. That's the definition of the word, and I tend to generally assume that people mean what they say. It bothers me when you use the wrong word here, because it conveys the wrong impression. It's not about showcasing intelligence. It's about calling things what they are, to facilitate accurate communication. RMS is by all accounts even more pedantic about words than I am, so it's hardly surprising to me that he would make this distinction. But hey, even if you don't believe in a difference in severity, there's still a difference between saying "this guy is sexually interested in pre-pubescent children" and "this guy is sexually interested in teenagers". Even if both are deemed equally offensive they are just flat out different --- and one is mis-information.
oefrha 7y ago
> It sets a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship on a topic that really requires the disinfecting power of sunshine. This incident doesn't change anything since much more chilling precedents have been set so many times before. RMS's position is way too extreme here, 99.9% of people would probably find it despicable. Meanwhile, lives (including at least one Nobel laureate's) have been destroyed for contentious, merely politically incorrect statements (or less). The ship has long sailed, RMS just didn't get the memo, maybe due to the peculiar way he uses the Internet.
- flukus 7y ago
  > This incident doesn't change anything since much more chilling precedents have been set so many times before Your not wrong, but in this case he is 2 degrees of separation away from someone that we know was guilty. It feels like the witch hunting has moved onto those who are guilty by association. > RMS's position is way too extreme here, 99.9% of people would probably find it despicable. Quite a lot of us live in a world where what Minsky did would not be considered statutory rape, so presumably they wouldn't find it despicable (if we ignore potential sex trafficking): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#/media/File:Age_of_Consent_-_Global.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#/media/File:Age...
thaumaturgy 7y ago
Bypassing for now the merits (or not) of his arguments, which will certainly get a deep philosophical treatment on a site where long comment threads are impossible to navigate and are really only active for a day or less anyway... RMS's de facto role in the FSF has been spokesperson and public figure. This isn't the first time he's put his foot in his mouth [1][2][3] (figuratively or literally, according to some accounts). That's simply not a role to which he is suited, and that at least should be an argument most can agree with, if reluctantly. We all make allowances for bad behavior from our favorite people, as long as that bad behavior isn't too repugnant or doesn't undermine the role we appreciate them for. In RMS's case, at the very least his behavior keeps distracting people from the issues that the FSF was formed to address. Let RMS return to roles for which he is better suited, and like Eric S Raymond's frequent bouts of insanity, we can all go back to appreciating that at least he manages to stay out of the news cycle. [1]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/10/1227229/richard-stallmans-dissenting-view-of-steve-jobs https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/10/1227229/richard-sta... [2]: https://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-Stallman-Leadership-and-Sexism.htm https://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-... [3]: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
zonidjan 7y ago
> he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. > The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. Saying that sexual assault isn't assault is scientific inquiry?
- offtheisland 7y ago
  It's also unjust to say that he was accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims, when the only accusations are from people who inferred from "she was sent to Minsky's room" that "he said yes".
jameslk 7y ago
It's funny seeing all the Stallman apologists coming out of the woodwork trying to justify what he said and decry this as a form of censorship. As if having more people dumping their opinions on every subject is a good thing. Sometimes it really is better just to shut up. Otherwise if you're going to air out your thoughts on touchy subjects, be ready to find yourself up against others who disagree in a profound way. Now he can make his career in social political issues instead of technological ones. "So much depends on your reputation. Guard it with your life."
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  This is a terrible response IMO. We should take responsibility for what we say and be sensitive but we should let things like our career prospects affect our freedom of speech. That’s a chilling effect.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jameslk 7y ago
    Your statement is pretty conflicting. I'm not even sure what your point is. Are you saying Stallmam was being sensitive by downplaying rape and sexual assault? That seems pretty insensitive to me. I'd say it's a good reason for others not wanting you to represent an organization anymore.
bitwize 7y ago
It's 2019. Social justice and "cancel culture" are intrinsic values to open source now, at least as much as sharing code and collaboration. The situation with Brendan Eich shows that if you have the wrong political views, you are not considered fit to serve as the leader of any open-source organization or project. especially not one with corporate backing. It's too much of a risk of PR disaster. So be careful. Coraline Ada Ehmke and Sage Sharp are watching you. They will find and expose your crimes. Linus is probably next.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- roguecoder 7y ago
  Thinking about how your actions affect your coworkers and customers isn’t some giant imposition, my dude. It’s a minimum baseline of professional competence. Any barista in the country knows better than to act like that in a professional setting.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    Programmers aren't baristas, broseph, and few if any baristas are as deeply on the spectrum as Stallman is. It's fundamentally ableist to hold everyone to a high standard of social functioning in order for them to be permitted to work. Especially if it's their life's work, at a nonprofit foundation they established. If you were talking about Eich, he should be free as a private citizen to support the political causes he chooses to, even if those causes are disagreeable. He did not interfere with gay members of the Mozilla community, nor make his anti-gay-marriage contributions in a capacity of representing the Mozilla Foundation. He was literally as low-key about it as he could possibly be.
    - roguecoder 7y ago
      Using “autism” as an excuse is insulting to autistic people and ignores the autistic women who were forced to accommodate his behavior over the years. “Autistic” does not mean “asshole”. It must be nice to imagine the rules of society don’t apply to you, but eventually society disagrees. If you are bad at your job, you might be fired from it, and “not making the entire industry a more hostile place” was at last part of the job description of an MIT professor. Also note that there are actual laws about it in the USA, so not only is it part of the job description, it is a legally required part of the job description.
Uhuhreally 7y ago
"harem"
sgentle 7y ago
I'm not cheering. I would much rather live in a universe where Stallman didn't "I'm just saying" himself out of his own organisation. I don't even like him that much, but I think he represented an important voice in software. It's not good that he's out, but I think it is right. I am dumbfounded anew every time I see a smart and analytical person twist themselves around to the point that they become too smart to believe in analysis. Saying Stallman was persecuted for "expressing ideas" is about as sophisticated as "my program crashed because the electrons were in the wrong place". You wouldn't be satisfied with an understanding that shallow in any other circumstance. Meaning. Words have it. Questions have it. Ideas have it. "Etsy for houseplants" is an idea, as is "figuring out your home address from information available online and breaking in to your house tonight while you're sleeping". Why is one of them creepier than the other? I can't believe I'm being persecuted for just having ideas! The meaning of Stallman's argument is that he doesn't think Minsky did anything wrong. Why doesn't he think Minsky did anything wrong? Probably because he was a friend, a good guy, a peer, who knows. Because of these entirely scientific feelings, he makes a series of arguments: 1. She only said she was directed to have sex with Minsky, not that she actually did 2. Even if she did say she had sex with Minsky, she may have been confused and answering the wrong question 3. Even if she did actually have sex with Minsky, she probably made it appear consensual 4. Even if she was not legally capable of consent, that is not morally equivalent to rape 5. Thus, it is "injustice" and "wrong" to say Minsky is accused of sexual assault Is this your science? Is this the altar of rationality you're worried will be torn down by the rabid inquisitors of the new dark age? Because to me it sounds a lot more like The Dragon in My Garage. How far must our credulity stretch to believe that Minsky foresaw most of modern AI, only to fall for "hot willing 17-year-olds in your area"? And how does a man like Stallman look at open source and see politics, look at dynamic linking and see politics, look at javascript and see politics – and look at science and see nothing but science? Like you, I do not believe Stallman is malicious. I believe he is naive. That is a fine quality in a revolutionary, but not in a leader.
- mtrower 7y ago
  RSM did not say 1 or 2. There are other people in that thread besides him... all names have been redacted except his. He did say 3. He did say 4, but (perhaps I misunderstand?) you seem to have colored it. Epstein as a coercer remains a factor; the assertion is that this cannot be morally on Minsky if one assumes he didn't know about it. 4.2 He also argues that, morally speaking, rape is rape, and not-rape is not-rape, irrespective of location and whether a girl was 17 or 18. This is also not part of his primary argument; it was a response to someone else (a student, I've heard?) bringing these exact legal details to the table. 5. The thing is, depending on whether you say that "Minsky is accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims", and "Minsky is accused of having sex with a 17-year old victim of Epstein's sex trafficking", or even some other title besides, people are going to have different reactions. Some people might have the same reaction to both, but other people might envision something different when presented with the former title, than when presented with the latter. RMS argues for a more specific title, arguing that the original is prone to accusation inflation. > How far must our credulity stretch to believe that Minsky foresaw most of modern AI, only to fall for "hot willing 17-year-olds in your area"? Well, I imagine the figurative advertisement was probably more like "hot willing 18-year-olds in your area", possibly coupled with an exchange of money. I'm not saying you don't have any points. I can follow most of your reasoning. But maybe you might adjust your 1-5, then re-evaluate your position from there? Is it possible that you don't arrive at an identical conclusion?
DoreenMichele 7y ago
he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. I don't think it's quite that simple. Most likely, the real issue is he failed to know when to shut up about a sensitive topic after being basically told to shut up. A crux of the issue is that men expect to be deferred to. They expect to have privilege and rights. They expect their views to be respected. They expect to have a right to express themselves. And women generally cannot expect the same. Which is a foundation stone of what gets called "rape culture." There are a lot of subtleties here and I'm sympathetic to some of Stallman's points, but I suspect the thing that people are bristling at is that his failure to shut up is a failure to genuinely respect the feelings and boundaries of women. This is the real problem women face in life. This is the essence of the disregard that culminates in sexual harassment and rape. Without that baseline fundamental respect, women have no choice but to quibble about bullshit details like legal age. Because it's all we've got to say "He shouldn't have done that to me" in a world that seems hell-bent on utterly ignoring baseline respect for women, especially when trying to demand it from a powerful and wealthy man. Good luck with that sister. The exceptions are very few and far between.
mitstallman 7y ago
I concur with your thinking on this. I'm no fan of Stallman, and I think both the FSF and CSAIL are probably better of without him ghosting around, but the way in which this happened is deeply problematic. Stallman's opinion in this case was clearly a bit out of whack, but the tone and style of the message was completely on point for his character. And therein lies the problem here, I'm fairly sure Stallman's points could have been formulated in a way that would not have provoked such a visceral reaction. Stallman tends to be unable to empathize with his interlocutors (or at least unable to express such empathy in writing), turns everything that happens into a case study in moral philosophy, and is a bit terse and snippy in his emails. All that makes him not a pleasant debater for sure, but are we as a society really willing to take somebody's livelihood because of their poor rhetoric style? The next thing that happened was that the news picked it up, but got most of the details wrong, taking the problematic statement out of context, mischaracterizing his relationship with MIT, mischaracterizing what he did exactly, etc and as a result whipping up an angry mob demanding his firing. Now, of course many people have wanted Stallman gone for all sorts of reasons of his general unpleasantness for many years, so this seems to have been as much a convenient excuse to rally those efforts as anything else. Nevertheless, one must ask at what cost - the blade of public outrage is sharp and hard to control. At no point at no point in this process was their any room for fact finding or reasoned debate among the people aggrieved and affected by this. We've let Stallman spam csail-related for many years to the point that it was a common joke for it to be called stallman-related in the lab ("Where'd you find your aparment?" "Oh, I posted on stallman-related - I half expected to get a moral lecture from him about the immorality of private ownership of real estate, but looks like he was busy"). Was it a mistake to let that happen so long on a list that everybody at CSAIL is automatically subscribed to, especially the new incoming students? Probably. Because of aforementioned rhetoric challenges his emails are not the best first impression of the lab community. I think banning Stallman from csail-related could have been a perfectly proportionate response here (as well as making him take down that stupid door tag). This all-or-nothing witch hunt, deeply concerns me.

by aazaa 7y ago

brian-armstrong 7y ago

Er, sorry, no. A public mailing list is not the correct venue for this discussion. Supposing as you do that society currently holds the wrong opinion on "does sex with minors constitute sexual assault?", the right answer is unlikely to be hashed out on a MIT list for CS activities. You also lend Stallman more weight than he deserves. His resignation will go unnoticed by all outside of our specific tech sphere and certainly will not "set a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship" (???). Should we cheer his resignation? It's undoubtedly a sad moment for him and his supporters, but Stallman's behavior quite likely has held back the FSF for some time. He's an ideologue, not a leader.

aazaa 7y ago
> ... Supposing as you do that society currently holds the wrong opinion on "does sex with minors constitute sexual assault?", the right answer is unlikely to be hashed out on a MIT list for CS activities. I expressed no opinion either way on that topic. I don't even consider the topic relevant to my position, which is that once we agree that merely asking some questions will result in harsh punishments, we're hosed as a society. Today, it's the question you hate that gets punished. Tomorrow it will be the question you hold most dear.
- kthejoker2 7y ago
  The punishment is not the result of asking questions. The punishment is for his poor judgement of where to ask those questions - namely a mailing list owned and operated by MIT on which he served as a representative of while posting to that list. So your premise is flawed and thus your position is (ironically) irrelevant to the topic.
  - aazaa 7y ago
    Who decides which are the questions that a representative of the university can ask and which will lead to punishment? As far as I can tell, the discussion was on-topic given that a former professor, Minsky, was being accused of "assault." Stallman's questions and statements revolved around the use of that term and the trouble that its lack of specificity brings. The university is (ideally) full of scholars holding controversial views, asking uncomfortable questions, and being accused of all manner of crimes. If one of them (Minsky) can be tarred and feathered without a trial, any of them could be.
    - loeg 7y ago
      I don't know what kind of world you want to live in, but I enjoyed my university experience where most of my professors were scholars holding more or less banal views and, to the best of my knowledge, not a one being accused of "all manner of crimes." I don't think professors being accused of crimes is either common or beneficial to the spirit of learning and scientific inquiry.
      - kortilla 7y ago
        >but I enjoyed my university experience where most of my professors were scholars holding more or less banal views If their views are banal, then there is likely nothing novel academically coming out of them. That’s literally the opposite point of professorship, tenure, and academic inquiry. I recommend you look up the definition of “banal” because you either used it wrong or you don’t know what the point of tenure is.
  - 7y ago
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
It's crazy to see people taking this stance on a public forum for tech companies. He's talking about Minsky just like you're talking about Stallman. What makes this the correct venue for you but not that for him?
zibeski555 7y ago
1. His post was not an out of context rant on an unrelated school mailing list. He was criticizing the words used by MIT students in connection with a protest at MIT, and that mentioned his ex-colleague. The MIT students posted this in the first instance, and it was a direct response to them. It seems to me like an appropriate forum. 2. Stallman's argument was simply to call a spade a spade, and not a defense of Epstein or Minsky. If you told 10 people (each unaware of any of the facts alleged) that Minsky sexually assaulted a girl, and then asked them to describe what they imagine occurred after hearing he sexually assaulted some, many might assume he violently assaulted someone. The degree of differences in guesses that you might receive makes the word functionally prone to tarnishing someone with a reputation for a different crime than the one they committed. Stallman therefore asked for the incident to be described in unambiguous terms; for example, that Minsky had sex with a sex trafficked 17-year old 50 years his junior on Epstein's island. That does not mean he defends that scenario -- you can still view it as reprehensible, and condemn it, but at least you are not engaging in "accusation inflation", where you are condemning someone for a potentially worse crime than they committed. 3. I agree that Stallman is unnoticed outside this sphere, but this is part of a continued trend of threatening people's reputations and livelihoods for stating an opinion. I created a throwaway for the first time ever simply for this comment (which I think is relatively benign), so yes, I think this trend will continue to lead to self-censorship.
- zonidjan 7y ago
  > Sexual assault is an act in which a person intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent Rather than blaming the laws which define sexual assault this way, Stallman chose to blame the people who wrote a perfectly accurate description.
- zzzeek 7y ago
  I think you should be aware that all non-consensual sex is sexual assault, and all sexual assault is violence. Sexual assaulters have committed violent crime.
  - soulofmischief 7y ago
_nedR 7y ago
>but Stallman's behavior quite likely has held back the FSF for some time. He's an ideologue, not a leader. On this last point, We have to agree to disagree. His firm and unwavering stance on many issues is a flag planted in the sand - "This is how things should be" (whether or not its practical). It is a point of reference which countless engineers, designer, entrepreneurs in tech (including in big companies in FAANG, etc.) have been influenced by (whether or not they were able to live upto his ideal) when building their systems and companies. Everyday, living in the dystopian nightmare that the modern world (both real and virtual) is becoming, oftentimes enabled by OSS, 'Stallman was right' is something that keeps coming back. Its not just a glib meme.
- pseudalopex 7y ago
  His ideals are inspiring. His social interactions not so much.

JaimeThompson 7y ago

It is rather hard to support his statement of his "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."

bemeurer 7y ago
For what it's worth he retracted that statement. https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_Septe...
- benatkin 7y ago
  He does it using his alternative to singular they: "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically." Doesn't really seem sincere when he's grinding another axe at the same time. https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html Another variant of his invented nomenclature besides per is perse which I'd rather not be called. It sounds like a child of purse and hearse.
  - smhost 7y ago
    you must not be very familiar with rms if you think he's not being sincere for "grinding another axe at the same time". stallman has been grinding all of his axes, at all times, without exception. this is the only time to my knowledge that stallman has ever gone back on one of his fundamental positions.
- MobileVet 7y ago
  ...two days ago after numerous articles came out highlighting his gross views. Damage control at best, hard to give it much weight given the circumstances.
  - 7y ago

jbarciauskas 7y ago

Demanding the same standard of evidence we demand in court and science to disrupt human power structures helps those with power retain it and use it against those who have less power. Also what he said is fully public, so I don't understand what you, or he, is objecting to.

westoncb 7y ago
> Demanding the same standard of evidence we demand in court and science to disrupt human power structures helps those with power retain it and use it against those who have less power. Okay sure, but you're talking about loosening a standard for accuracy of conviction... This means that you can decrease failures to convict truly guilty people—but in equal proportion you will also increase convictions of innocent people. This does not sound like a well thought out strategy.
- jbarciauskas 7y ago
  The standard of evidence is lower in civil cases than criminal ones. Taking away someone's bodily autonomy is different than saying you can't have a prominent role at a prestigious institution. You don't (or shouldn't) have an inalienable right to power. And, again, the facts aren't even in dispute.
  - westoncb 7y ago
    > The standard of evidence is lower in civil cases than criminal ones. That's probably because the standard of accuracy is tied to severity of punishment (they're will to pay more for a higher standard in cases where it's more damaging to be wrong). Are you arguing that someone losing their job or other position of influence is low-enough severity that we don't need a high standard? That seems reckless to me. > Taking away someone's bodily autonomy is different than saying you can't have a prominent role at a prestigious institution. Agreed. Putting someone in jail is more severe than taking someone's job. I don't think this is controversial. > You don't (or shouldn't) have an inalienable right to power. Nobody has claimed this. > And, again, the facts aren't even in dispute. This entire thread is a massive contradiction of that claim.

martinky24 7y ago

I'm sorry, did you read his blog post? It was disgusting. He was trying to argue the subtleties of child rape. There are no subtleties. Minor's cannot consent.

roenxi 7y ago
There are subtleties about what constitutes a minor. The age of consent varies from 12 to 21 depending on the country [0]. That appears to include variation even in the US. On the one hand, the law is very clear because there needs to be a clear line in the sand to decide if people get sent to jail or not. On the other hand, there are clearly open cultural questions about what we should get angry about. Pick any standard you like, and the majority of the world currently disagrees. In my country of Australia we seem to be using 16. So in Australia maybe there was no crime at all. I dunno, I havn't looked in to this sort of law very deeply. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent
- loeg 7y ago
  I mean, the assault in question was non-consensual trafficking in addition to being statutory rape. So like, maybe we don't need to first principle this quite so hard? Don't rape people?
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Wow, wait. I get what your point is, but minors will continue doing it, and it is only with adults who they can’t consent with. Obviously minors can consent in some contexts, otherwise it would be a huge mess morally and legally (if two 14 year olds have sex, do they both go to jail because neither can consent? Also see the mess we’ve got into with kids sexting each other). Let’s not criminalize kids being kids because of some strict morality code.
- scruple 7y ago
  If one of those 14 year olds sends nude pictures to the other one, is that not distribution of child pornography? I've certainly read that minors have been charged as such, but I'm not capable of verifying the veracity of those charges (I just honestly don't want to Google for this shit).

M2Ys4U 7y ago

>Regardless of what low regard the man might be held as a person, he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. These are all hallmarks of scientific inquiry. Defending the rape of trafficked children is not a "hallmark of scientific inquiry".

hristov 7y ago
Was he though? It seems to me that all that Stallman said was lets please figure out exactly what Minsky did.
Rebelgecko 7y ago
When did he do that?
- azernik 7y ago
  The full e-mail thread is at the bottom of this article, in an awfully-formatted little PDF viewer. I suggest full-screening. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    I read the full thread, and I didn't see anything that I would consider "defending rape". It seemed pretty clear that he thinks Epstein was a bad person and that what happened to Giuffre is not good. The closest thing to defending rape is him trying to give Minsky the benefit of the doubt (e.g. stating that Minksky may not have known Giuffre's age or situation, and IIRC in her deposition she was careful to avoid saying whether or not she actually had sex with Minsky, only that Epstein wanted her to).
    - azernik 7y ago
      See page 7, where he argues that sex with a minor should not be considered rape.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mikeash 7y ago

He’s being forced to resign from an advocacy organization for being a shithead who defends child rape. It sets the precedent that you can’t defend reprehensible acts and still be considered a community leader. We are all better off for it.

Scene_Cast2 7y ago
But I'm not so sure if we are better off. That precedent creates a stigma when discussing such topics. Let's say that you don't quite understand a particular viewpoint (doesn't have to be this - another good topic is racism & discrimination). Where do you go to learn more about the topic? Especially when you're aspiring to be a leader, this stigma incentivizes holding on to half-baked ideas that you simply can't discuss with anyone. That, in turn, creates a culture of double-speak. So, in other words, good first-order effects, but bad second-order effects.
- journalctl 7y ago
  Legitimate questions to understand and active defense of a specific viewpoint look remarkably different. It’s possible to write in a way that successfully communicates something like “I want to understand racism more” and not “what if white people were like the dominant race tho?”
- mikeash 7y ago
  I find this argument to be so bizarre it’s hard to imagine it’s sincere. In what world is writing dumb and offensive rants to a CS mailing list a good way to learn about the legal, psychological, and moral aspects of sex slavery? Where do you go to learn more? Maybe you could go to the library. You could enroll in classes. MIT is famous for technical subjects but I’m sure they have good classes about psychology, law, and ethics too. Or you could find stuff online, I’m sure there are plenty of good resources out there.

geofft 7y ago

For what it's worth, those are also hallmarks of crankery. A creationist will happily express ideas, ask questions, and demand proof of claims until the Second Coming. An anti-vaxxer will argue for more research and more caution and advocate for what they themselves regard as objective standards before letting their children be vaccinated - and all the time be effectively telling people that it's better to be dead than autistic. Supporting them for their apparent scientific interests is merely supporting their message. A homeopath has an entire field of professional associations, licensing, and regulation to point to. What determines whether you're advocating for scientific inquiry is whether you're arguing in good faith for positions that are in genuine need of inquiry, not whether you have the trappings of scientific research.

joe_the_user 7y ago

I too, am a fan of Stallman's accomplishments and I am sad that debate on this topic essentially can't happen. That said, I think Stallman's position really is fundamentally wrong and problematic. Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent. Morally, that stance really is justified in the most common circumstance - when the non-underaged person has more power and experience than the underaged person. In the case under discussion, you have that in spades, double spades. The sad thing is that individuals interested in freedom, who make serious contributions to some things called free, don't notice that the massive imbalances of wealth today have produced a situation where simple "free choice" is made a mockery of. And yeah, the thing about inquisition atmosphere, imo, is that it doesn't reveal the rot behind all the "mere" abuse of power.

johnny22 7y ago
" I am sad that debate on this topic essentially can't happen." It could happen if your point about power and consent was taken as a given (at least in the context of this topic).
thrwayxyz 7y ago
>That said, I think Stallman's position really is fundamentally wrong and problematic. So you have the default opinion anyone in our society will have. I'm interested in what the heretic has to say why we are wrong. However with what has happened to Stallman I doubt I ever will. A shame because something has gone hugely wrong when half of all children are thinking of suicide.
- danharaj 7y ago
  You can just go read what he says. No need to be so pompous about it.
- rexpop 7y ago
  > So you have the default opinion anyone in our society will have. Hardly.
throwstallman 7y ago

lgessler 7y ago

In its most literal form I don't know if I would say I disagreed with the core of what Stallman was saying in the email (that "sexual assault" should perhaps be revised in its usage), but Stallman was tone-deaf at best to have pontificated on such a comparatively minor (and highly arguable) matter when he did and where he did. Worse, with what he wrote, there is a reading of the email where the subtext is that Stallman was trying to mitigate Minsky's culpability. I won't comment on whether I think that was indeed what he was trying to do, but it's not a good look, regardless of whether that is indeed what he was trying to do. Many people will acknowledge the value of Stallman's stubborn, iconoclastic opinions. I'd count myself among them, and it's a little sad to see Stallman go from his pulpits. But on the other hand, I'm relieved: it might be in Stallman's constitution to be at all times a rational reasoning machine, impervious to emotion and sentiment, but this is not how most people are, and on many occasions Stallman has shown that he either doesn't understand or doesn't care about this. There are times when one should refrain from saying something that is merely correct because of the symbolic meaning it would have, or the emotional responses it would elicit.

throwaway-1436 7y ago
What if he's actually incapable of ever knowing or understanding the emotional context you just described?
roenxi 7y ago
> In its most literal form I don't know if I would say I disagreed with the core of what Stallman You qualify this, but that is basically the core of what Stallman supporters are looking at. Saying something that is literally true, in an industry which is known to be stuffed with some very literal minded people, should not be grounds for anyone resigning. It should be grounds for doing nothing, apologising or clarifying depending on what was said. It is risky to punish people for what they did not literally say. Particularly if they are the sort of person who is well known for striving to be literally correct.
- bitwize 7y ago
  > Saying something that is literally true, in an industry which is known to be stuffed with some very literal minded people, should not be grounds for anyone resigning. It should be grounds for doing nothing, apologising or clarifying depending on what was said. If you think this industry still has anywhere near the room for "literal minded people" that it once had, think again. Even proper participation in Scrum ceremonies requires nuance and a capacity to read a room. Stallman's political views have always been a little weird and sometimes gross, but he said what he said because his autism is weapons-grade and with that comes a fixation on "hobgoblin of little minds" tier logical consistency. And with all that sweet, sweet corporate money, the normies, who prioritize the feelings of their peers over logic, have effectively taken over open source and installed normies in key positions, the better not to have to deal with icky nerds who say embarrassing things and don't know how to "play the game". And really, that's part of what this is all about. This is the new guard purging the old guard. It's also why Linus was subjected to a struggle session last year and why he may yet get the axe from the Linux Foundation.

asdf333 7y ago

i agree with you

jakelazaroff 7y ago

Here's a direct quote from one of his recent emails: > “I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.” Is this really a topic that "requires the disinfecting power of sunshine"? Do we really think we've gotten the topic of statutory rape so wrong that we need to rethink it from first principles?

Cogito 7y ago
His point, as far as I can tell, is that in different countries legally define rape in different ways, but that shouldn't change what we find morally wrong. To extend on what I think he is saying, he thinks it should be possible to say a thing was morally wrong regardless of which country it happened in. If we're discussing if we think a person did something morally wrong, I'd rather talk about why we think that rather than pointing out there is a law against it (especially when the laws are different in different places).

UncleMeat 7y ago

"Asking questions" that deny people's humanity over and over isn't exactly a positive intellectual exercise. We pretty conclusively decided that race based chattel slavery was wrong a while ago. But why? Can we keep expressing ideas and demanding proof of these claims? Can we do it forever? Can we do it while holding positions of power at institutions that are attended by black students?

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
> We pretty conclusively decided that race based chattel slavery was wrong a while ago. But why? Can we keep expressing ideas and demanding proof of these claims? Obviously yes? How else would we know that we are right?
crankylinuxuser 7y ago
I'm pretty sure it's called "Sea-lioning" from this comic strip: http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> We pretty conclusively decided that race based chattel slavery was wrong a while ago. Unfortunate that you should use this example since slavery was finally abolished precisely because people kept "asking questions" contrary to the prevailing zeitgeist about why slaves did not enjoy the same rights as other humans. Never has then been a clearer demonstration of why the "stop asking questions" stance advocated by progressives is intellectually bankrupt.
apatters 7y ago
Absolutely, yes, definitively, unquestionably. Why? Because the abolition of slavery is one of the greatest achievements of our civilization. New generations of humans are constantly being born, and until we teach them, they don't know why this is. They don't know why slavery was such a black mark on our history. They don't understand what it does not just to the people involved, but to a society. They don't know why it proliferated so easily (and this is still very relevant today; when our society turns a blind eye to illegal immigrant labor, it's an echo of the same economics that made slavery easy for past generations to accept). You should be able to sit down with a 9th grader and explain to them, this is what slavery was, this is how common it was for most of history. This is why it was so tempting and these are the benefits people reaped from it. But this is how we realized that the costs outweighed the benefits, and how we created a better world at a great cost to many people. Crucially, it's important to explain to someone how slavery would be bad for them and their community, even if they themselves were not a slave. It's important to teach all of this to the new humans we raise. "It was bad, end of story" is not enough. The best way for them to learn is to reason through the arguments on both sides, explore the history, see how we got to where we are, and draw their own conclusions. Because you can't force a belief on someone. They need to get there themselves. If you ban the discussion they are going to reach their beliefs without guidance. And the isolated, the lonely, the angry will end up with some very dark beliefs. It's happening now as a direct response to censorship culture. I completely understand that slavery is a difficult and very personal topic for a lot of people. These are hard conversations to have. But for the sake of future generations we need to have them. Beliefs are stronger when they're justified. They are strongest when they are challenged, defended, and the challenges are defeated. We should never stop doing that.

gameswithgo 7y ago

He picked a stupid hill to die one. Everyone who picks that hill to die on just dies.

RoutinePlayer 7y ago

I want to agree with you in some aspects of this, but the history of this topic has been so severely lopsided that the current cleansing was due and is helping. As a man, I can only imagine the shit women put up with on a daily basis.

idlewords 7y ago

He's being pushed out for decades of being creepy, and especially so to women. At some point you have to say "enough", and that point is always going to look somewhat arbitrary. It's too bad MIT had to wait so very long to do this.

tempsy 7y ago

It’s actually terrifying this is the top voted comment.

paulcole 7y ago

The it’s-not-pedophilia-it’s-hebephilia take is so atrociously offensive, pointless, and tone deaf it’s almost beyond belief.

ehaliewicz2 7y ago
How is it offensive to make sure we are precise in using different words to denote two different things?
- paulcole 7y ago
  It’s pretty clear to me that the subtext of his “precision” is to make it clear that one is less bad than the other. Just look at literally every other person on twitter/hn/Reddit who has made the same helpful clarification. Also, even if I’m willing to accept that precision is the reason he made that point (and I’m not), it adds nothing and at best serves to show how smart he is. Like I mean honestly what changes once you realize it’s technically hebephilia and not pedophilia?
  - ehaliewicz2 7y ago
    > It’s pretty clear to me that the subtext of his “precision” is to make it clear that one is less bad than the other. Just look at literally every other person on twitter/hn/Reddit who has made the same helpful clarification. True, I'm not sure I really agree with that either. Pedophilia or any other sexual attraction isn't something you can control, as far as I'm aware, so as long as you don't actually act on it, they are not really better or worse than another. > Like I mean honestly what changes once you realize it’s technically hebephilia and not pedophilia? Actually, I had forgotten which term meant what, I was thinking of ephebophilia.
  - mtrower 7y ago
    Are you going to tell me that you view sexual intercourse with a 6 year old as being the same as sexual intercourse with a 16 year old? If so, we can stop here. If not, then here's what changes: if you tell me someone is a pedophile, I'm going to assume that their primary sexual interest is pre-pubescent children. That's the definition of the word, and I tend to generally assume that people mean what they say. It bothers me when you use the wrong word here, because it conveys the wrong impression. It's not about showcasing intelligence. It's about calling things what they are, to facilitate accurate communication. RMS is by all accounts even more pedantic about words than I am, so it's hardly surprising to me that he would make this distinction. But hey, even if you don't believe in a difference in severity, there's still a difference between saying "this guy is sexually interested in pre-pubescent children" and "this guy is sexually interested in teenagers". Even if both are deemed equally offensive they are just flat out different --- and one is mis-information.

oefrha 7y ago

> It sets a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship on a topic that really requires the disinfecting power of sunshine. This incident doesn't change anything since much more chilling precedents have been set so many times before. RMS's position is way too extreme here, 99.9% of people would probably find it despicable. Meanwhile, lives (including at least one Nobel laureate's) have been destroyed for contentious, merely politically incorrect statements (or less). The ship has long sailed, RMS just didn't get the memo, maybe due to the peculiar way he uses the Internet.

flukus 7y ago
> This incident doesn't change anything since much more chilling precedents have been set so many times before Your not wrong, but in this case he is 2 degrees of separation away from someone that we know was guilty. It feels like the witch hunting has moved onto those who are guilty by association. > RMS's position is way too extreme here, 99.9% of people would probably find it despicable. Quite a lot of us live in a world where what Minsky did would not be considered statutory rape, so presumably they wouldn't find it despicable (if we ignore potential sex trafficking): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#/media/File:Age_of_Consent_-_Global.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#/media/File:Age...

thaumaturgy 7y ago

Bypassing for now the merits (or not) of his arguments, which will certainly get a deep philosophical treatment on a site where long comment threads are impossible to navigate and are really only active for a day or less anyway... RMS's de facto role in the FSF has been spokesperson and public figure. This isn't the first time he's put his foot in his mouth [1][2][3] (figuratively or literally, according to some accounts). That's simply not a role to which he is suited, and that at least should be an argument most can agree with, if reluctantly. We all make allowances for bad behavior from our favorite people, as long as that bad behavior isn't too repugnant or doesn't undermine the role we appreciate them for. In RMS's case, at the very least his behavior keeps distracting people from the issues that the FSF was formed to address. Let RMS return to roles for which he is better suited, and like Eric S Raymond's frequent bouts of insanity, we can all go back to appreciating that at least he manages to stay out of the news cycle. [1]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/10/1227229/richard-stallmans-dissenting-view-of-steve-jobs https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/10/1227229/richard-sta... [2]: https://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-Stallman-Leadership-and-Sexism.htm https://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-... [3]: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...

zonidjan 7y ago

> he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. > The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. Saying that sexual assault isn't assault is scientific inquiry?

offtheisland 7y ago
It's also unjust to say that he was accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims, when the only accusations are from people who inferred from "she was sent to Minsky's room" that "he said yes".

jameslk 7y ago

It's funny seeing all the Stallman apologists coming out of the woodwork trying to justify what he said and decry this as a form of censorship. As if having more people dumping their opinions on every subject is a good thing. Sometimes it really is better just to shut up. Otherwise if you're going to air out your thoughts on touchy subjects, be ready to find yourself up against others who disagree in a profound way. Now he can make his career in social political issues instead of technological ones. "So much depends on your reputation. Guard it with your life."

Synaesthesia 7y ago
This is a terrible response IMO. We should take responsibility for what we say and be sensitive but we should let things like our career prospects affect our freedom of speech. That’s a chilling effect.
- deleted 7y ago
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- jameslk 7y ago
  Your statement is pretty conflicting. I'm not even sure what your point is. Are you saying Stallmam was being sensitive by downplaying rape and sexual assault? That seems pretty insensitive to me. I'd say it's a good reason for others not wanting you to represent an organization anymore.

bitwize 7y ago

It's 2019. Social justice and "cancel culture" are intrinsic values to open source now, at least as much as sharing code and collaboration. The situation with Brendan Eich shows that if you have the wrong political views, you are not considered fit to serve as the leader of any open-source organization or project. especially not one with corporate backing. It's too much of a risk of PR disaster. So be careful. Coraline Ada Ehmke and Sage Sharp are watching you. They will find and expose your crimes. Linus is probably next.

deleted 7y ago
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roguecoder 7y ago
Thinking about how your actions affect your coworkers and customers isn’t some giant imposition, my dude. It’s a minimum baseline of professional competence. Any barista in the country knows better than to act like that in a professional setting.
- bitwize 7y ago
  Programmers aren't baristas, broseph, and few if any baristas are as deeply on the spectrum as Stallman is. It's fundamentally ableist to hold everyone to a high standard of social functioning in order for them to be permitted to work. Especially if it's their life's work, at a nonprofit foundation they established. If you were talking about Eich, he should be free as a private citizen to support the political causes he chooses to, even if those causes are disagreeable. He did not interfere with gay members of the Mozilla community, nor make his anti-gay-marriage contributions in a capacity of representing the Mozilla Foundation. He was literally as low-key about it as he could possibly be.
  - roguecoder 7y ago
    Using “autism” as an excuse is insulting to autistic people and ignores the autistic women who were forced to accommodate his behavior over the years. “Autistic” does not mean “asshole”. It must be nice to imagine the rules of society don’t apply to you, but eventually society disagrees. If you are bad at your job, you might be fired from it, and “not making the entire industry a more hostile place” was at last part of the job description of an MIT professor. Also note that there are actual laws about it in the USA, so not only is it part of the job description, it is a legally required part of the job description.

Uhuhreally 7y ago

"harem"

sgentle 7y ago

I'm not cheering. I would much rather live in a universe where Stallman didn't "I'm just saying" himself out of his own organisation. I don't even like him that much, but I think he represented an important voice in software. It's not good that he's out, but I think it is right. I am dumbfounded anew every time I see a smart and analytical person twist themselves around to the point that they become too smart to believe in analysis. Saying Stallman was persecuted for "expressing ideas" is about as sophisticated as "my program crashed because the electrons were in the wrong place". You wouldn't be satisfied with an understanding that shallow in any other circumstance. Meaning. Words have it. Questions have it. Ideas have it. "Etsy for houseplants" is an idea, as is "figuring out your home address from information available online and breaking in to your house tonight while you're sleeping". Why is one of them creepier than the other? I can't believe I'm being persecuted for just having ideas! The meaning of Stallman's argument is that he doesn't think Minsky did anything wrong. Why doesn't he think Minsky did anything wrong? Probably because he was a friend, a good guy, a peer, who knows. Because of these entirely scientific feelings, he makes a series of arguments: 1. She only said she was directed to have sex with Minsky, not that she actually did 2. Even if she did say she had sex with Minsky, she may have been confused and answering the wrong question 3. Even if she did actually have sex with Minsky, she probably made it appear consensual 4. Even if she was not legally capable of consent, that is not morally equivalent to rape 5. Thus, it is "injustice" and "wrong" to say Minsky is accused of sexual assault Is this your science? Is this the altar of rationality you're worried will be torn down by the rabid inquisitors of the new dark age? Because to me it sounds a lot more like The Dragon in My Garage. How far must our credulity stretch to believe that Minsky foresaw most of modern AI, only to fall for "hot willing 17-year-olds in your area"? And how does a man like Stallman look at open source and see politics, look at dynamic linking and see politics, look at javascript and see politics – and look at science and see nothing but science? Like you, I do not believe Stallman is malicious. I believe he is naive. That is a fine quality in a revolutionary, but not in a leader.

mtrower 7y ago
RSM did not say 1 or 2. There are other people in that thread besides him... all names have been redacted except his. He did say 3. He did say 4, but (perhaps I misunderstand?) you seem to have colored it. Epstein as a coercer remains a factor; the assertion is that this cannot be morally on Minsky if one assumes he didn't know about it. 4.2 He also argues that, morally speaking, rape is rape, and not-rape is not-rape, irrespective of location and whether a girl was 17 or 18. This is also not part of his primary argument; it was a response to someone else (a student, I've heard?) bringing these exact legal details to the table. 5. The thing is, depending on whether you say that "Minsky is accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims", and "Minsky is accused of having sex with a 17-year old victim of Epstein's sex trafficking", or even some other title besides, people are going to have different reactions. Some people might have the same reaction to both, but other people might envision something different when presented with the former title, than when presented with the latter. RMS argues for a more specific title, arguing that the original is prone to accusation inflation. > How far must our credulity stretch to believe that Minsky foresaw most of modern AI, only to fall for "hot willing 17-year-olds in your area"? Well, I imagine the figurative advertisement was probably more like "hot willing 18-year-olds in your area", possibly coupled with an exchange of money. I'm not saying you don't have any points. I can follow most of your reasoning. But maybe you might adjust your 1-5, then re-evaluate your position from there? Is it possible that you don't arrive at an identical conclusion?

DoreenMichele 7y ago

he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. I don't think it's quite that simple. Most likely, the real issue is he failed to know when to shut up about a sensitive topic after being basically told to shut up. A crux of the issue is that men expect to be deferred to. They expect to have privilege and rights. They expect their views to be respected. They expect to have a right to express themselves. And women generally cannot expect the same. Which is a foundation stone of what gets called "rape culture." There are a lot of subtleties here and I'm sympathetic to some of Stallman's points, but I suspect the thing that people are bristling at is that his failure to shut up is a failure to genuinely respect the feelings and boundaries of women. This is the real problem women face in life. This is the essence of the disregard that culminates in sexual harassment and rape. Without that baseline fundamental respect, women have no choice but to quibble about bullshit details like legal age. Because it's all we've got to say "He shouldn't have done that to me" in a world that seems hell-bent on utterly ignoring baseline respect for women, especially when trying to demand it from a powerful and wealthy man. Good luck with that sister. The exceptions are very few and far between.

mitstallman 7y ago

I concur with your thinking on this. I'm no fan of Stallman, and I think both the FSF and CSAIL are probably better of without him ghosting around, but the way in which this happened is deeply problematic. Stallman's opinion in this case was clearly a bit out of whack, but the tone and style of the message was completely on point for his character. And therein lies the problem here, I'm fairly sure Stallman's points could have been formulated in a way that would not have provoked such a visceral reaction. Stallman tends to be unable to empathize with his interlocutors (or at least unable to express such empathy in writing), turns everything that happens into a case study in moral philosophy, and is a bit terse and snippy in his emails. All that makes him not a pleasant debater for sure, but are we as a society really willing to take somebody's livelihood because of their poor rhetoric style? The next thing that happened was that the news picked it up, but got most of the details wrong, taking the problematic statement out of context, mischaracterizing his relationship with MIT, mischaracterizing what he did exactly, etc and as a result whipping up an angry mob demanding his firing. Now, of course many people have wanted Stallman gone for all sorts of reasons of his general unpleasantness for many years, so this seems to have been as much a convenient excuse to rally those efforts as anything else. Nevertheless, one must ask at what cost - the blade of public outrage is sharp and hard to control. At no point at no point in this process was their any room for fact finding or reasoned debate among the people aggrieved and affected by this. We've let Stallman spam csail-related for many years to the point that it was a common joke for it to be called stallman-related in the lab ("Where'd you find your aparment?" "Oh, I posted on stallman-related - I half expected to get a moral lecture from him about the immorality of private ownership of real estate, but looks like he was busy"). Was it a mistake to let that happen so long on a list that everybody at CSAIL is automatically subscribed to, especially the new incoming students? Probably. Because of aforementioned rhetoric challenges his emails are not the best first impression of the lab community. I think banning Stallman from csail-related could have been a perfectly proportionate response here (as well as making him take down that stupid door tag). This all-or-nothing witch hunt, deeply concerns me.