9 ms·

"How is it we value free speech, but there are certain discussions you just cannot have, even in a rational and measured way, without risking making yourself co

by astine 7y ago

"How is it we value free speech, but there are certain discussions you just cannot have, even in a rational and measured way, without risking making yourself completely unemployable. You should be able to have a questionable viewpoint in a discussion, without worrying about the lynch mob ending your career." I agree with this statement. Stallman has been a problematic person for a long time. I'm no fan of his. If after a while the university had said, "Enough is enough, Richard, you need to shape up or get out." I would have understood that. However, that's not what I think happened. What happened was he shared an opinion on a hot-button issue, pedantic and maybe gross, and unfortunately had that go viral and was so hounded out of his position. If Stallman's position is wrong, we should be able to rationally come to that conclusion as a society. He should be allowed to be wrong. If his opinion is so problematic that it makes him a real liability for the university, his removal should come after a period of deliberation, not after a flash of public outrage. I can understand arguments that Stallman's position is a questionable hill to die on regarding the Epstein revelations, that even choosing to weigh in on this makes it seem like his priorities are out of order. I can also understand the argument that the email list he was arguing on was the wrong location to voice his opinions and he was making students uncomfortable. I also understand the idea that he should have been corrected by the university, either for this event or for his past behavior. But what I don't understand, is this idea that firing people in response to media shit-storms is somehow something to be applauded.

letstrynvm 7y ago
"problematic person" eh... He's clearly a freethinker, and we have all gotten a lot of advantages from his courage doing his thing and making his vision for FOSS a reality. Now he's said his thoughts on this too... it's legitimate for him to do so and "problematic" everyone is in a huge panic to punish him in case the mob should get set on them.
- xwolfi 7y ago
  We all have second-hand stories of how, when Stallman came to our cities (in my case Paris) for a conference, he acted like the worst fucking person on earth towards his volunteering hosts. He was a terrible human being, and surely not very aware of how to treat other humans. He had no place in a research institution, or getting paid to pretend to be relevant on free software. Good riddance, whatever reason we can find in his statements (yeah sure, I was 18 when my wife was 17, it wasn't rape, surely... but is that really the point people were making about his nice friend of Epstein ?). People aren't for free speech, at all and anywhere: they are for people having the same opinion as them or follow an official line. He didn't do either, now he pays. For a genius like him, it should have been easy to understand you have to adapt if you want to lead, or you shut up if you see you can't lead.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pja 7y ago
    Yup. Friend hosted him locally & has nothing good to say about Stallman whatsoever. He’s had decades to listen to people telling him that his behaviour was unacceptable. The fact that he hasn’t changed at all is on him.
    - GFischer 7y ago
      My mother hosted him and I didn´t hear anything out of the ordinary for Stallman... I mean, you know he´s going to be monothematic about his beliefs, but I heard nothing besides that.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    I think most people, especially in America, are very much for free speech. But inertia. And that inertia is especially pronounced when the mobs are going after somebody you don't agree with. Like the old poem goes: - First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. - Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. - Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. - Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me. That holds very true to this day in America. I really vehemently disagree with Stallman's views in many ways. So it's easy to not say anything, yet I do believe he has a right to say the things he does without getting depersoned. In any case I'd much rather the people that do abide his views do so publicly rather than in secret. But beyond this, I think he chose a reasonable hill to die on. He undoubtedly knew his comments would spark a mob in the zeitgeist of today, but they really are about as tepid as you could get. He was saying it was a bad idea for terms, even if legally accurate, to be used in general speech when they mislead people as to the nature of a situation. If that's the new standard for moving from words to 'let's get rid of this guy', we may not even have a standard. And I think that's a point that will resonate for more and more people. Even if these people might be afraid to speak out for fear of becoming the mobs' next target, it helps bring about a positive change in society. An analogy I love to consider is Lincoln. Did Lincoln end slavery and direct society accordingly or did society reach a point such that the creation of a Lincoln was, sooner or later, inevitable - even if by another name? And I think things like this bring us ever closer to creating our Lincoln because solving the problems of social media is not something that's going to be done in a clean fashion.
- bandrami 7y ago
  I'm sorry, no. Women at CSAIL cultivated plants in their office because they knew it would keep him out of their offices. He's a train wreck and has needed to go for a while.
amyjess 7y ago
> Stallman has been a problematic person for a long time. I'm no fan of his. If after a while the university had said, "Enough is enough, Richard, you need to shape up or get out." I would have understood that. According to the Register, this is the position of both the SFC and GNOME > On Monday, the Software Freedom Conservancy called for his resignation. "When considered with other reprehensible comments he has published over the years, these incidents form a pattern of behavior that is incompatible with the goals of the free software movement," the group said in a blog post. "We call for Stallman to step down from positions of leadership in our movement." > So did the GNOME Foundation's executive director Neil McGovern, who said Stallman's Minksy defense email was "the straw that broke the camel’s back." https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_interview/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_in...
- astine 7y ago
  That's good to know.
- calvinmorrison 7y ago
  .
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Unfortunately, that reads like them finding historical justifications so a mob-induced disassociation doesn't look like it's mob-induced. They had time anywhere between "over the years" and few days ago to pull the trigger. Or they could wait a few days and do it 'after careful consideration'. Whether they bowed to crowd pressure or just wanted to score virtue points, this diminishes their stance in my view.
  - eropple 7y ago
    I trust that you know GNOME has had beefs with Richard Stallman at least as far back as the way he treated Mono developers (not the Mono project, but individuals). And I recall that, coincidental with that, his "Saint Ignucius" routine delivered in 2009 at Gran Canaria had some gross sexist commentary in it, too, which Lefty Schlesinger--a member of the GNOME Advisory Board at the time--called him out on, too. You're right that this isn't new, but at some point the camel's back breaks and the idea that it's so implausible that what he said happened to, y'know, really upset people when they read it and that they'd had enough--well, it's a pretty cheap charge on your part.
GoblinSlayer 7y ago
It all goes to the conclusion "you don't need free speech, you have nothing to say, google will talk on your behalf".
DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
> If Stallman's position is wrong, we should be able to rationally come to that conclusion as a society. He should be allowed to be wrong. I share this frustration, unfortunately with many HN discussions as well. When someone states a position that the majority finds repugnant, IMHO the most productive (long-term) approach is this: Step 1. Identify where the minority and majority views diverge in terms of logical justification. With majority-repugnant views, this may require going back to very basic assumptions. E.g., rape is morally wrong, it's appropriate public policy to prevent moral wrongs, etc. Step 2. Starting from there, try to understand why the views diverge, and debate which side (if either) has better justification. I think this approach fails at least half the times I try it, though. A few guesses why: - During Step 1, people jump to the assumption that I'm advocating the majority-repugnant position, rather than working within this two-step process. Once my character / motives are impugned, reasoned discussion seems to end. - Many people are unable to engage in logical debate regarding ethics. And in frustration, or to subconsciously avoid having to accept that gaps exist in their ability to logically debate some topics, they are unwilling to engage in proper debate. - Something in my mannerism is off-putting, or I'm in a forum where few people are willing to engage in a debate lasting more than several minutes :(
- rjf72 7y ago
  I've also observed this. It seems to me that politics (which I'll use as a reasonable proxy for controversial views) has increasingly become more like a sport than an exercise in civic responsibility. As I like data I think one way to measure this is split ticket results. In 2016 34 states had senatorial elections. Each and every state voted the exact same way for senate and the presidency. This is hardly surprising in today's world, but this hadn't happened in more than a century. [1] The point of this is that as people start to integrate political views into themselves (as opposed to just a view - something that's subject to change as the evidence does) it makes debate difficult. In many ways we're becoming more akin to religious nations. You're unlikely to find a nice healthy debate about the value, worth, and viability of Islam in most Islamic Nations. It is because such values have been integrated into the individuals themselves instead of being kept at arm's length. And as a tangent one thing I would add is that it obviously was not always this way. During the Islamic Golden Age Islamic nations were world leaders in learning, education, and the collection of wisdom. We still retain fragments of this time in our language today. For instance Algebra, from the title of Ilm al-jabr wa'l-muḳābala by al-Khwarizmi around 800AD. During this time of growth and learning all things were open to question, including Islam itself. And then along came a lovely man by the name of Al-Ghazali [2]. In response to religious skepticism, which Al-Ghazali was unable to effectively combat on direct logical grounds, he chose to develop a new philosophy. And in his new philosophy he preempted skepticism by suggesting that there were no natural laws at all. When a leaf catches fire it is not because it was exposed to a fire or because it reached a certain level of heat but because, and only because, God willed it happen at that exact moment. And so the study of 'natural laws' is nonsensical, as detailed in his work 'The Incoherence of the Philosophers.' And that idea, enabling one to revoke all logic and criticism and simply adopt the dogma without question or concern, was met with resounding praise and endorsement. That was 900 years ago, but this ideology remains a key component of Islam to this day. At the same time this was happening a lust for learning was just starting to take off in Europe... Kind of interesting to imagine that we could be on another precipice of change when 200 years from now e.g. China has become the world leader in education and people ponder the decline of the anglosphere. Or this could be little more than the regular waxing and waning of insanity that in 20 years, perhaps sooner, will feel as distant as parachute pants. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/is-split-ticket-voting-officially-dead/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/is... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali
X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
> If after a while the university had said, "Enough is enough, Richard, you need to shape up or get out." I would have understood that. TBH I wouldn't expect that if they did for it to be public knowledge. In fact I'd assume that has happened.
nikdaheratik 7y ago
> What I don't understand, is this idea that firing people in response to media shit-storms is somehow something to be applauded. 1. RMS wasn't just some random guy in the foundation, he was supposed to be a leader which means he should be held to a higher standard. Firing someone who doesn't meet that standard means your organisation has integrity which is important and should be applauded. 2. The downsides for keeping him around, especially since RMS didn't seem to be all that apologetic, are also important. The goals of the FSF are not advanced by being pushed into this media storm. If FSF didn't do something, they would have been forced to answer alot of questions in the media about how they actually feel about age of consent laws, whether they took any money from Epstein and/or Minsky, how they felt about Epstein and/or Minsky, etc., and would then have had to give a number of awkward statements about this mess. Then they would have also had to answer many of those same questions from their donors. And likely if the controversy gained traction, their largest donors may have then been forced to answer their own set of awkward questions from the media about this whole mess. Especially if those donors also had ties to MIT. At some point, many of them would have also reconsidered whether they wanted to donate money to FSF, which would also be bad for the organisation. All of which is to say that it's not about free speech, it's about protecting the organisation.

by astine 7y ago

letstrynvm 7y ago

"problematic person" eh... He's clearly a freethinker, and we have all gotten a lot of advantages from his courage doing his thing and making his vision for FOSS a reality. Now he's said his thoughts on this too... it's legitimate for him to do so and "problematic" everyone is in a huge panic to punish him in case the mob should get set on them.

xwolfi 7y ago
We all have second-hand stories of how, when Stallman came to our cities (in my case Paris) for a conference, he acted like the worst fucking person on earth towards his volunteering hosts. He was a terrible human being, and surely not very aware of how to treat other humans. He had no place in a research institution, or getting paid to pretend to be relevant on free software. Good riddance, whatever reason we can find in his statements (yeah sure, I was 18 when my wife was 17, it wasn't rape, surely... but is that really the point people were making about his nice friend of Epstein ?). People aren't for free speech, at all and anywhere: they are for people having the same opinion as them or follow an official line. He didn't do either, now he pays. For a genius like him, it should have been easy to understand you have to adapt if you want to lead, or you shut up if you see you can't lead.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pja 7y ago
  Yup. Friend hosted him locally & has nothing good to say about Stallman whatsoever. He’s had decades to listen to people telling him that his behaviour was unacceptable. The fact that he hasn’t changed at all is on him.
  - GFischer 7y ago
    My mother hosted him and I didn´t hear anything out of the ordinary for Stallman... I mean, you know he´s going to be monothematic about his beliefs, but I heard nothing besides that.
- rjf72 7y ago
  I think most people, especially in America, are very much for free speech. But inertia. And that inertia is especially pronounced when the mobs are going after somebody you don't agree with. Like the old poem goes: - First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. - Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. - Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. - Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me. That holds very true to this day in America. I really vehemently disagree with Stallman's views in many ways. So it's easy to not say anything, yet I do believe he has a right to say the things he does without getting depersoned. In any case I'd much rather the people that do abide his views do so publicly rather than in secret. But beyond this, I think he chose a reasonable hill to die on. He undoubtedly knew his comments would spark a mob in the zeitgeist of today, but they really are about as tepid as you could get. He was saying it was a bad idea for terms, even if legally accurate, to be used in general speech when they mislead people as to the nature of a situation. If that's the new standard for moving from words to 'let's get rid of this guy', we may not even have a standard. And I think that's a point that will resonate for more and more people. Even if these people might be afraid to speak out for fear of becoming the mobs' next target, it helps bring about a positive change in society. An analogy I love to consider is Lincoln. Did Lincoln end slavery and direct society accordingly or did society reach a point such that the creation of a Lincoln was, sooner or later, inevitable - even if by another name? And I think things like this bring us ever closer to creating our Lincoln because solving the problems of social media is not something that's going to be done in a clean fashion.
bandrami 7y ago
I'm sorry, no. Women at CSAIL cultivated plants in their office because they knew it would keep him out of their offices. He's a train wreck and has needed to go for a while.

amyjess 7y ago

> Stallman has been a problematic person for a long time. I'm no fan of his. If after a while the university had said, "Enough is enough, Richard, you need to shape up or get out." I would have understood that. According to the Register, this is the position of both the SFC and GNOME > On Monday, the Software Freedom Conservancy called for his resignation. "When considered with other reprehensible comments he has published over the years, these incidents form a pattern of behavior that is incompatible with the goals of the free software movement," the group said in a blog post. "We call for Stallman to step down from positions of leadership in our movement." > So did the GNOME Foundation's executive director Neil McGovern, who said Stallman's Minksy defense email was "the straw that broke the camel’s back." https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_interview/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_in...

astine 7y ago
That's good to know.
calvinmorrison 7y ago
.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Unfortunately, that reads like them finding historical justifications so a mob-induced disassociation doesn't look like it's mob-induced. They had time anywhere between "over the years" and few days ago to pull the trigger. Or they could wait a few days and do it 'after careful consideration'. Whether they bowed to crowd pressure or just wanted to score virtue points, this diminishes their stance in my view.
- eropple 7y ago
  I trust that you know GNOME has had beefs with Richard Stallman at least as far back as the way he treated Mono developers (not the Mono project, but individuals). And I recall that, coincidental with that, his "Saint Ignucius" routine delivered in 2009 at Gran Canaria had some gross sexist commentary in it, too, which Lefty Schlesinger--a member of the GNOME Advisory Board at the time--called him out on, too. You're right that this isn't new, but at some point the camel's back breaks and the idea that it's so implausible that what he said happened to, y'know, really upset people when they read it and that they'd had enough--well, it's a pretty cheap charge on your part.

GoblinSlayer 7y ago

It all goes to the conclusion "you don't need free speech, you have nothing to say, google will talk on your behalf".

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago

> If Stallman's position is wrong, we should be able to rationally come to that conclusion as a society. He should be allowed to be wrong. I share this frustration, unfortunately with many HN discussions as well. When someone states a position that the majority finds repugnant, IMHO the most productive (long-term) approach is this: Step 1. Identify where the minority and majority views diverge in terms of logical justification. With majority-repugnant views, this may require going back to very basic assumptions. E.g., rape is morally wrong, it's appropriate public policy to prevent moral wrongs, etc. Step 2. Starting from there, try to understand why the views diverge, and debate which side (if either) has better justification. I think this approach fails at least half the times I try it, though. A few guesses why: - During Step 1, people jump to the assumption that I'm advocating the majority-repugnant position, rather than working within this two-step process. Once my character / motives are impugned, reasoned discussion seems to end. - Many people are unable to engage in logical debate regarding ethics. And in frustration, or to subconsciously avoid having to accept that gaps exist in their ability to logically debate some topics, they are unwilling to engage in proper debate. - Something in my mannerism is off-putting, or I'm in a forum where few people are willing to engage in a debate lasting more than several minutes :(

rjf72 7y ago
I've also observed this. It seems to me that politics (which I'll use as a reasonable proxy for controversial views) has increasingly become more like a sport than an exercise in civic responsibility. As I like data I think one way to measure this is split ticket results. In 2016 34 states had senatorial elections. Each and every state voted the exact same way for senate and the presidency. This is hardly surprising in today's world, but this hadn't happened in more than a century. [1] The point of this is that as people start to integrate political views into themselves (as opposed to just a view - something that's subject to change as the evidence does) it makes debate difficult. In many ways we're becoming more akin to religious nations. You're unlikely to find a nice healthy debate about the value, worth, and viability of Islam in most Islamic Nations. It is because such values have been integrated into the individuals themselves instead of being kept at arm's length. And as a tangent one thing I would add is that it obviously was not always this way. During the Islamic Golden Age Islamic nations were world leaders in learning, education, and the collection of wisdom. We still retain fragments of this time in our language today. For instance Algebra, from the title of Ilm al-jabr wa'l-muḳābala by al-Khwarizmi around 800AD. During this time of growth and learning all things were open to question, including Islam itself. And then along came a lovely man by the name of Al-Ghazali [2]. In response to religious skepticism, which Al-Ghazali was unable to effectively combat on direct logical grounds, he chose to develop a new philosophy. And in his new philosophy he preempted skepticism by suggesting that there were no natural laws at all. When a leaf catches fire it is not because it was exposed to a fire or because it reached a certain level of heat but because, and only because, God willed it happen at that exact moment. And so the study of 'natural laws' is nonsensical, as detailed in his work 'The Incoherence of the Philosophers.' And that idea, enabling one to revoke all logic and criticism and simply adopt the dogma without question or concern, was met with resounding praise and endorsement. That was 900 years ago, but this ideology remains a key component of Islam to this day. At the same time this was happening a lust for learning was just starting to take off in Europe... Kind of interesting to imagine that we could be on another precipice of change when 200 years from now e.g. China has become the world leader in education and people ponder the decline of the anglosphere. Or this could be little more than the regular waxing and waning of insanity that in 20 years, perhaps sooner, will feel as distant as parachute pants. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/is-split-ticket-voting-officially-dead/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/is... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali

X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago

> If after a while the university had said, "Enough is enough, Richard, you need to shape up or get out." I would have understood that. TBH I wouldn't expect that if they did for it to be public knowledge. In fact I'd assume that has happened.

nikdaheratik 7y ago

> What I don't understand, is this idea that firing people in response to media shit-storms is somehow something to be applauded. 1. RMS wasn't just some random guy in the foundation, he was supposed to be a leader which means he should be held to a higher standard. Firing someone who doesn't meet that standard means your organisation has integrity which is important and should be applauded. 2. The downsides for keeping him around, especially since RMS didn't seem to be all that apologetic, are also important. The goals of the FSF are not advanced by being pushed into this media storm. If FSF didn't do something, they would have been forced to answer alot of questions in the media about how they actually feel about age of consent laws, whether they took any money from Epstein and/or Minsky, how they felt about Epstein and/or Minsky, etc., and would then have had to give a number of awkward statements about this mess. Then they would have also had to answer many of those same questions from their donors. And likely if the controversy gained traction, their largest donors may have then been forced to answer their own set of awkward questions from the media about this whole mess. Especially if those donors also had ties to MIT. At some point, many of them would have also reconsidered whether they wanted to donate money to FSF, which would also be bad for the organisation. All of which is to say that it's not about free speech, it's about protecting the organisation.