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> I welcome anyone to provide a counter-argument. Here's a counter. You're ascribing intent to one's writing, and unless you have a special relationship with M
by mieseratte 7y ago
> I welcome anyone to provide a counter-argument.
Here's a counter. You're ascribing intent to one's writing, and unless you have a special relationship with Mr. Stallman - you don't know anything.
Because of a radical, illiberal mob, Stallman's life's work has been taken from him.
Few years ago I had had a Junior engineer on my team begin telling me how he finds certain speech so intolerable that he feels he has the right to assault someone for saying it. This is the reasoning behind these kinds of mob justices.
So now I see a mob hurting yet another life, not because of real-world conduct, but because of speech. I see real-world destruction wrought because of speech.
What never occurred to this young man was that there exist people who find the suppression of speech to be what is truly intolerable in this world. That this form of group-think is truly destructive, that actions are of consequence, not speech.
Do pray the pendulum never swings in your direction.
- colechristensen 7y agoThe statements I see stand on their own. Supposing intent behind them isn't necessary. What they say is damning regardless of intent. And the intent was pretty obvious.
- yibg 7y agoDivining intent isn’t the right threshold to judge speech. If it were then I can say whatever I want in whatever environment, because how would you prove my intent? I yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s ok it wasn’t my intent to cause panic.
- ng12 7y agoOnly because your words caused actionable harm. If you didn't intend to cause harm and there were no harmful consequences should you still be punished?
- joshuamorton 7y agoShould drunk driving be legal as long as you don't crash?
- ng12 7y agoDrunk driving has a reasonably high likelihood of physical harm, as does yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre. Posting opinions about current events on a message board is not likely to cause physical harm.
- joshuamorton 7y agoWhat Stallman did isn't illegal. So some legal standard of likelyhood of physical harm need not apply. But I dispute your claim that rape apologia by an authority figure is unlikely to cause harm.
- ng12 7y agoIt was the grandparent's example, not mine. Also, I dispute your characterization as "rape apologia". It's a fairly ironic description given RMS's original issue was mischaracterization of the issue in the media.
- chroma 7y ago> I yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s ok it wasn’t my intent to cause panic. The "fire in a crowded theater" analogy was coined by justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Schenck v. United States.[1] Holmes used that analogy to send a Schenck to prison for protesting the draft in WWI. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
- DagAgren 7y agoAs far as I understand, there's plenty of real-world horrible conduct he could have got fired for too, which has gone without consequence. This isn't a one-time thing where he never did a bad thing in his life and now is suddenly attacked by a mob. He has been an awful person for a long, long time, and now he is suddenly facing actual consequences.
- steveeq1 7y agoI'm willing to bet if I went through all your tweets, social media, and personal email, I could find SOMETHING that could have gotten you fired if it ever came to public attention. In fact, I'm sure that's true for just about anybody.
- bandrami 7y agoReally? Because I make a point of remembering that electronic communication has infinite distributibility and infinite duration. Do you not?
- steveeq1 7y agoThat's a straw man. of course it is.
- DagAgren 7y agoWhat you won't find, however, is me harassing and making women uncomfortable in person for decades.
- CodeCube 7y agoIntent is irrelevant ... only the impact. One must always be ready to reckon with the impact of their actions and speech, regardless of what their intent was.
- throw0101a 7y ago> Intent is irrelevant ... only the impact. Generally both are judged. You can have the intent to commit murder, but if you bungle it and the person is still living (i.e., no impact), then you're still in trouble.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoAnd conversely, this is why terms like "homicide" and "manslaughter" exist, because judgements in cases of one person killing another depend on specific circumstances and intent.
- CodeCube 7y agoIt feels like you two are trying to disagree with me, but are only bolstering my argument further. In the context of murder, regardless of what the murderer's intent was, the victim is still dead ... the impact remains unchanged, and the murderer must still reckon with their actions (even if their intent is taken into account in sentencing)
- TeMPOraL 7y agoFair, we went off a tangent. So going back to the point: in this case, the consequences are grossly unproportional to the misdeed that happened.
- prepend 7y agoIf the impact is a bunch of people misinterpreting and feeling upset, that’s not much impact. If impact caused harm then that’s another story. There are laws for libel, slander, harassment, threat. Let’s use those laws and prosecute people.
- xwolfi 7y agoDude, Stallman has been spitting his bullshit to the world and we had no way to stop the vomit, coming out of universities. How many young people have wasted their youth following his ideas, reading his stuff, until they finally realized it was all shit. So, yeah, now it's catching up to him, for something nobody in his right mind every does in a corporate environment: giving his opinion on the moral definition of rape. Fucking come on man, how can you defend this moron, who does that ? You see yourself tomorrow, in charge of the education of students, writing around to your colleagues about what is or is not a rape, for all to record and copy paste to newspapers ? At least do it on skype and add a smiley...
- SkyBelow 7y ago>Few years ago I had had a Junior engineer on my team begin telling me how he finds certain speech so intolerable that he feels he has the right to assault someone for saying it. Most people feel this way. Not with nearly as much speech as your junior did, but there are certain forms of speech we are so against we have written exceptions into law and the Supreme Court even used concepts such as obscenity to empower these laws to ignore even the First Amendment. Is it really surprising a generation or two later people are now seeking to have even more speech fall under such bans?
- braneloop 7y agoThe idea that speech is not "real-world conduct" is, in my considered opinion, not just wrong, but actively corrosive to the fabric of our civilization. Ideas are powerful, speeches can incite revolutions, send millions to their deaths, or be used to fight tyranny and oppression. Should we highly value the idea of free speech? I believe we should. But we should also recognize that there's no such thing as "just speech". What we say matters, particularly if, like Dr. Stallman in this case, we are public figures speaking in what (given the number and types of people involved) is a semi-public forum. There are two well know aphorisms: "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword". But if one recalls the last is derived from a line in the Bible that says in whole: “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." Sometimes, we should put the pen back in its place, lest we kill or die by it in our hubris.