6 ms·

Because RMS isn't just another socially awkward engineer. He is a leader and a part of a larger community and is therefore held to a higher standard. The reason

by dlp211 7y ago

Because RMS isn't just another socially awkward engineer. He is a leader and a part of a larger community and is therefore held to a higher standard. The reason for the higher standard is simple, leaders are entrusted with power and need to wield that power better than others. RMS has failed that test today.

robocat 7y ago
> He is a leader and a part of a larger community and is therefore held to a higher standard. I see plenty of political and tech leaders set extremely low moral standards. Why is RMS being used to set an example? Do you think RMS actually hurt any children? His comments are tragically inept - but this seems to boil down to being targeted by breaking headlines such as the New York Post: "MIT scientist says Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was ‘entirely willing’".
- dlp211 7y ago
  They should all be held accountable, sadly I do not wield such power to hold them to account. That said, while the headlines are sensational, the fact is that RMS doesn't seem to understand what willing means or power dynamics.
  - ipince 7y ago
    I think the news (and many others) are misunderstanding what rms said (or they intentionally misrepresented his words). The way I understand what rms said is that the victim would've acted ("presented herself") as willing to Minsky, while being coerced by Epstein. That does not imply she was actually willing in any way shape or form. I think you're misunderstanding it too, based on your statement: "RMS doesn't seem to understand what willing means." The way I see it, what rms did was (strategically) dumb and tactless, but not unethical at all.
    - Tomte 7y ago
      It's funny how so many people try to split hairs regarding the exact wording, but even so: sleeping with an underage girl wouldn't have been fine, it would have been unethical, not to speak of illegal. So RMS' defense of child abusers is stupid, harmful, malignant and yes, unethical.
      - mantas 7y ago
        If child abusers is called out for another crime which he didn't do, is it really unethical, harmful and malignant to defend him against wrong claims?
- thrower123 7y ago
  It's a useful deflection from further examination of the slimy tentacles of Epstein's influence throughout tech and academia. Stallman is not terribly well-liked, and made the mistake of shooting off his mouth and grabbing onto the third rail hard with both hands at an inopportune time. He's a useful scapegoat to sacrifice up to Molloch.
- ajxs 7y ago
  I agree with you here. Stallman's comments on this topic are characteristically appalling, insensitive and pedantic, but I think the headlines printed about him are inaccurate and malicious. These publications have no stake in the matter of Stallman's status at MIT save to entice readers with the promise of scandal. I'm certainly not going to defend Stallman's character, but I think the retaliation against him is disproportionate. One can't help the feeling that when it comes to this kind of scandal there are plenty of bad actors willing to fan the flames for personal gain. I would definitely call into question the motivation of the authors of the articles on this event. Despite this, and despite the fact that I really dislike the modern use of the word 'problematic', I can't think of a better word to describe many of Stallman's statements and positions. For someone to be a community leader of any kind this kind of tone-deafness, even if only to politics, is unacceptable.
  - Y_Y 7y ago
    I wonder if any of what's been published about rms qualifies as libellous. His certainly seen serious damage to his reputation, and I think it's clear too that his words have been materially misrepresented.
  - bigbugbag 7y ago
    the headlines are just parroting what had been written in the call for removal of Stallman published on medium: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
    - kelnos 7y ago
      That's not what happened at all. The headlines are reporting that Stallman said the girl was "willing", while the article you link to explicitly acknowledges what Stallman actually said. It also happens to chronicle a ton of other bad behavior that he's been engaging in for decades.
- bigbugbag 7y ago
  RMS is being used because of cluelessness of the person who called for his removal: "This was not, actually, all that much about Richard Stallman. Stallman was just the last straw. This was really about all the times I have heard about a classmate’s advisor crushing her dreams, about Seth Lloyd mocking female students, the number of women alumni that were too jaded to feel surprised by this revelation, the story I read from a 1987 alumn about the trauma she experienced at the MIT and the world of that era. This was really about everything that has come out before and after the Epstein revelations, before and after Richard Stallman’s emails. Did I even really know who Richard Stallman was before those emails? To be honest, not really — I’m a mechanical engineer who didn’t pay enough attention, apparently." https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
  - kelnos 7y ago
    How is that relevant? Her relative newness to the world of RMS doesn't invalidate the research she did and all the bad behavior she discovered.
    - PavlovsCat 7y ago
      If that's what a "newbie" discovers on a rough first sweep, just dismissing it as the ignorance of ill intent of an "outsider", and wanting to move on, is pretty damning.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  > Why is RMS being used to set an example? Do you think RMS actually hurt any children? That implies that there's some sort of process or council there deciding Stallman gets cancelled. Also this just isn't about his most recent comments about underaged trafficking victims potentially being entirely willing, he's had a long trail of classically sexist "look a girl" moments in speeches and really out there opinions about pedophilia and consent that he only outwardly came out against last weekend _after_ he started getting in hot water about those emails. Often who gets hit and who doesn't isn't 100% about the most recent events and depends a lot on the story catching fire and in this case it caught and there was a whole barn of old dry tender that had largely been brushed aside because of his technical work.
flukus 7y ago
> He is a leader and a part of a larger community and is therefore held to a higher standard A leader doesn't just keep their head down and stick to whatever the prevailing zeitgeist is, that's what followers do.
jkbjotnip 7y ago
And what standard is that—not allowing leaders to discuss cases objectively in public in case they might be misconstrued?
- chroma 7y ago
  I think it's worse than that. IIRC, he discussed it on a private mailing list and someone leaked his emails.
- dlp211 7y ago
  That's not what happened. If RMS had actually argued the case objectively, he would have used reported testimony that cleared his friend. Instead he went off on some hypothetical to excuse the bad behavior (which reportedly didn't even happen) of his friend. It was the wrong forum, the wrong topic, and the wrong argument. It shows a complete and total lack of good judgement. Combined with his history of such a lack of judgement, that is the standard which we should hold people to.
  - flukus 7y ago
    > It was the wrong forum Apparently it was the right forum to be inviting people to protest Minsky and to label him a racist and pedophile. So why not to defend him? Were the people calling him a rapist and pedophile sacked as well?
    - dlp211 7y ago
      2 wrongs don't make a right. And again, there was a non-hypothetical, objective argument that could have been made to defend Minsky. RMS did not make that argument, instead he went off on some hypothetical that may or may not have happened, but there is at least one eyewitness testimony that says it didn't. And this wasn't RMS's first time wading into bad positions on topics that honestly aren't up for debate.
kelnos 7y ago
Not just today. By many accounts, he's been failing that test for decades, and it's about time he's been taken to task for it. It's a shame that this shitstorm started due to blatantly dishonest reporting, but I'm not sad he's gone.

by dlp211 7y ago

robocat 7y ago

> He is a leader and a part of a larger community and is therefore held to a higher standard. I see plenty of political and tech leaders set extremely low moral standards. Why is RMS being used to set an example? Do you think RMS actually hurt any children? His comments are tragically inept - but this seems to boil down to being targeted by breaking headlines such as the New York Post: "MIT scientist says Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was ‘entirely willing’".

dlp211 7y ago
They should all be held accountable, sadly I do not wield such power to hold them to account. That said, while the headlines are sensational, the fact is that RMS doesn't seem to understand what willing means or power dynamics.
- ipince 7y ago
  I think the news (and many others) are misunderstanding what rms said (or they intentionally misrepresented his words). The way I understand what rms said is that the victim would've acted ("presented herself") as willing to Minsky, while being coerced by Epstein. That does not imply she was actually willing in any way shape or form. I think you're misunderstanding it too, based on your statement: "RMS doesn't seem to understand what willing means." The way I see it, what rms did was (strategically) dumb and tactless, but not unethical at all.
  - Tomte 7y ago
    It's funny how so many people try to split hairs regarding the exact wording, but even so: sleeping with an underage girl wouldn't have been fine, it would have been unethical, not to speak of illegal. So RMS' defense of child abusers is stupid, harmful, malignant and yes, unethical.
    - mantas 7y ago
      If child abusers is called out for another crime which he didn't do, is it really unethical, harmful and malignant to defend him against wrong claims?
thrower123 7y ago
It's a useful deflection from further examination of the slimy tentacles of Epstein's influence throughout tech and academia. Stallman is not terribly well-liked, and made the mistake of shooting off his mouth and grabbing onto the third rail hard with both hands at an inopportune time. He's a useful scapegoat to sacrifice up to Molloch.
ajxs 7y ago
I agree with you here. Stallman's comments on this topic are characteristically appalling, insensitive and pedantic, but I think the headlines printed about him are inaccurate and malicious. These publications have no stake in the matter of Stallman's status at MIT save to entice readers with the promise of scandal. I'm certainly not going to defend Stallman's character, but I think the retaliation against him is disproportionate. One can't help the feeling that when it comes to this kind of scandal there are plenty of bad actors willing to fan the flames for personal gain. I would definitely call into question the motivation of the authors of the articles on this event. Despite this, and despite the fact that I really dislike the modern use of the word 'problematic', I can't think of a better word to describe many of Stallman's statements and positions. For someone to be a community leader of any kind this kind of tone-deafness, even if only to politics, is unacceptable.
- Y_Y 7y ago
  I wonder if any of what's been published about rms qualifies as libellous. His certainly seen serious damage to his reputation, and I think it's clear too that his words have been materially misrepresented.
- bigbugbag 7y ago
  the headlines are just parroting what had been written in the call for removal of Stallman published on medium: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
  - kelnos 7y ago
    That's not what happened at all. The headlines are reporting that Stallman said the girl was "willing", while the article you link to explicitly acknowledges what Stallman actually said. It also happens to chronicle a ton of other bad behavior that he's been engaging in for decades.
bigbugbag 7y ago
RMS is being used because of cluelessness of the person who called for his removal: "This was not, actually, all that much about Richard Stallman. Stallman was just the last straw. This was really about all the times I have heard about a classmate’s advisor crushing her dreams, about Seth Lloyd mocking female students, the number of women alumni that were too jaded to feel surprised by this revelation, the story I read from a 1987 alumn about the trauma she experienced at the MIT and the world of that era. This was really about everything that has come out before and after the Epstein revelations, before and after Richard Stallman’s emails. Did I even really know who Richard Stallman was before those emails? To be honest, not really — I’m a mechanical engineer who didn’t pay enough attention, apparently." https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
- kelnos 7y ago
  How is that relevant? Her relative newness to the world of RMS doesn't invalidate the research she did and all the bad behavior she discovered.
  - PavlovsCat 7y ago
    If that's what a "newbie" discovers on a rough first sweep, just dismissing it as the ignorance of ill intent of an "outsider", and wanting to move on, is pretty damning.
rtkwe 7y ago
> Why is RMS being used to set an example? Do you think RMS actually hurt any children? That implies that there's some sort of process or council there deciding Stallman gets cancelled. Also this just isn't about his most recent comments about underaged trafficking victims potentially being entirely willing, he's had a long trail of classically sexist "look a girl" moments in speeches and really out there opinions about pedophilia and consent that he only outwardly came out against last weekend _after_ he started getting in hot water about those emails. Often who gets hit and who doesn't isn't 100% about the most recent events and depends a lot on the story catching fire and in this case it caught and there was a whole barn of old dry tender that had largely been brushed aside because of his technical work.

flukus 7y ago

> He is a leader and a part of a larger community and is therefore held to a higher standard A leader doesn't just keep their head down and stick to whatever the prevailing zeitgeist is, that's what followers do.

jkbjotnip 7y ago

And what standard is that—not allowing leaders to discuss cases objectively in public in case they might be misconstrued?

chroma 7y ago
I think it's worse than that. IIRC, he discussed it on a private mailing list and someone leaked his emails.
dlp211 7y ago
That's not what happened. If RMS had actually argued the case objectively, he would have used reported testimony that cleared his friend. Instead he went off on some hypothetical to excuse the bad behavior (which reportedly didn't even happen) of his friend. It was the wrong forum, the wrong topic, and the wrong argument. It shows a complete and total lack of good judgement. Combined with his history of such a lack of judgement, that is the standard which we should hold people to.
- flukus 7y ago
  > It was the wrong forum Apparently it was the right forum to be inviting people to protest Minsky and to label him a racist and pedophile. So why not to defend him? Were the people calling him a rapist and pedophile sacked as well?
  - dlp211 7y ago
    2 wrongs don't make a right. And again, there was a non-hypothetical, objective argument that could have been made to defend Minsky. RMS did not make that argument, instead he went off on some hypothetical that may or may not have happened, but there is at least one eyewitness testimony that says it didn't. And this wasn't RMS's first time wading into bad positions on topics that honestly aren't up for debate.

kelnos 7y ago

Not just today. By many accounts, he's been failing that test for decades, and it's about time he's been taken to task for it. It's a shame that this shitstorm started due to blatantly dishonest reporting, but I'm not sad he's gone.