8 ms·

He wasn't blacklisted for committing thought crime. The dumb Epstein email triggered a reevaluation of his consistent creepy and inappropriate behavior against

by marijn 7y ago

He wasn't blacklisted for committing thought crime. The dumb Epstein email triggered a reevaluation of his consistent creepy and inappropriate behavior against current community standards, which resulted in a large part of the community deciding they didn't want anything to do with him anymore. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from social consequences.

Smithalicious 7y ago
Amazing how whenever someone does something controversial and gets forced out soon afterwards, it's never the thing they said, but "consistent creepy and inappropriate behavior" based on 10 year old anecdotes that suddenly appear out of nowhere... I'd think that if someone was "consistently" creepy and inappropriate, there would be a pretty good public record for that, but what do I know? EDIT: Let me give a bit more of a nuanced position, because reading my post back, it looks like I'm saying that Stallman never did anything inappropriate before this. Of course, I recognize that Stallman is fucking weird. I'm not saying that parrot-fucking, foot-fungus-eating St. IGNUcius never did anything inappropriate before; we'd be here for a long time if we were to make a list of all the times Stallman failed to read the mood. However, I strongly believe that Stallman is not a creep. He holds some odd views and is pretty autistic, and so he occasionally makes inappropriate advances. Add to that that Stallman has been a very prolific person for decades and you won't relaly have trouble coming up with a list of anecdotes that, when framed a certain way, make him look bad. I've read quite a few of these anecdotes by now. Some of them look fairly innocent to me. Some of them are clear social blunders. None of them look seriously harmful or in bad faith to me. Even taking all of them together, believing that all of them are remembered 100% correctly and played out as portrayed without any additional context, I don't think the appropirate reaction is to remove Stallman from his position(s). What ticks me off so much about all this is the way the media deals with it. Stallman is portrayed as some kind of sexist, some kind of patriarch keeping women out of tech. It's ridiculous; Stallman is quite possibly the most inclusionary person I can think of. Stallman has had an immense, direct contribution to making tech more open for everyone. I can understand the criticism of Stallman. I don't even think he necessarily makes for a good figurehead for Free Software; he has poor social skills, unhelpfully rigid and strong positions, and I feel like he often conflates free software issues with other social issues he cares about. He makes for a better philosopher than a political leader. In this case, he's being thrown under the bus to score social points. People in tech are very itchy to do whatever they can to seem more inclusive, and condemning Epstein and his ilk is a noble goal (that also makes you look good). Stallman's statements that sparked this controversy were naive and he failed to read the mood, but they were not unacceptable things to believe or say. He did not deserve to have his words twisted, get kicked out of his own organisation based on the strawman, and then have people say that he was always bad, anyways.
- atoav 7y ago
  One could also see it the other way round: because of the importance of his figure people were more willing to keep their mouths shut and look the other way. Once the tipping point is reached, they don’t see any reason to do that anymore. This is why medival monarchs had jesters to tell them what is really going on. The right thing to do of course is to speek truth to power openly and before everybody else does it, but this could come with serious consequences for the person speaking up. This is why they’d only do it once they are 100% sure they didn’t misread the situation, the thing that happened was actually big enough and they are willing to carry the consequences this could have for free software. In other words: people in positions like Stallman can get away with much more than any regular guy, which means they should be extra considerate of their role and their environment if they care about the effects their own power and fame has on it. If it everybody steps up now, it means there was clearly a disconnect between his self image and what his environment thought about him.
  - Smithalicious 7y ago
    > If it everybody steps up now, it means there was clearly a disconnect between his self image and what his environment thought about him. Oh, certainly. And I'd say the reason for that is > because of the importance of his figure people were more willing to keep their mouths shut and look the other way I don't necessarily blame people for not spekaing out if they were troubled by his behaviour, but this is really unfair towards Stallman. Decades worth of small issues that Stallman was mostly unaware of are being condensed into one big issue. That's why I think the situation is crooked; in my view, Stallman never did anything particularly bad, nor did he harbor any ill will, yet he's facing the consequences of a major scandal. Also, I don't think that Stallman should be held to the standards of a "medieval monarch". I think you're overstating just how powerful Stallman is (was?); I don't think he was actually in charge of many impactful decisions. Your points are good but perhaps more applicable to someone like Linus Torvalds, who is fully aware of his controversial behaviour and does actually hold a position of substantial power.
    - flatb 7y ago
hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
There is another large part of the community that wants no part in the community as a result of events like this. I guess we will end up with two communities one focused on software the other focused on social justice (wokeware). It looks like the social justice community will get the code and trademarks. Fortunately thanks to RMS the code is available to fork. I guess things aren't organised yet but I and others I have spoken to IRL have already stopped interacting with certain projects. I was wondering if some of the community's thought leaders might jump ship - but I guess they will be purged anyway so that should help! EDIT: Would any downvoters care to comment on why they think this won't happen? Do they think we will continue to participate against our will...
- stelonix 7y ago
  Interesting, I've been thinking about this myself: whether a new foundation or movement will be created around RMS and without the stigmas that allow people to be "cancelled" over their thoughts or opinions. I have to say, the FSF without RMS simply makes no sense. It's one of those institutions where more than 51% of its effectiveness came from a single person. I firmly believe a "fork" for the FSF is coming soon.
  - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
    We are not alone. It takes a brave person to put their head above the parapet in the current climate.
  - lostjohnny 7y ago
    it already happened. As usual, not trying to be prejudicial here, it happened in the U.S. where different 501(c)(3) formed to attract donation capital, but that actually have been an enemy of large part of the FSF community. There can't be one strong FSF they want many small feuds, it's like greenwashing, open washing is happening, which, BTW, "misses the point of free software". Look at what happened to Eben Moglen, a person that nobody can describe as harsh, impolite, unempathetic, creepy or whatever BS they are throwing now at RMS. And still in 2017 he was declared "no longer a friend of the free software community" by mjg59. Why? Because Moglen expressed his lawyer opinion in a way that Garret did not like. Garret works at Google, Moglen still offers pro bono legal representation at the Software Freedom Law Center, which he founded. It's not hard to take parts for me.
michaelmrose 7y ago
By which you mean a bunch of Twitter nobodies and one somebody who happens to speak for the gnome project.
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  or that another nobody who actually worked with him? https://archive.is/https://twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/1174433645110513664 https://archive.is/https://twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/11...
Mikhail_Edoshin 7y ago
> Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from social consequences. I often see this phrase and it looks like a fallacy to me. Does anyone question its validity? Social consequences are a severe thing, in practice they mean losing a job or position, boycotting, etc. In ancient Greece to expel a person was a very strong punishment. Nowadays the associated hardbacks are milder perhaps, but still are pretty severe. If speech is so potent a weapon that to protect against it we have to use extreme social defenses like expulsion, why not to use the same weapon against the perpetrators? Why not to speak in return? Stallman says something, you say something. Take that, Richard Stallman! I would say that the only appropriate social consequence of free speech could be other free speech. Also, a distinct characteristic of a true community is that it's inclusive. It can expel its members, but this has to be a very rare event, only when that person's action are actually destroying the community. "Creepy and inappropriate behavior" that went along for many years is hardly that. It's a mere personality quirk. [Addition] And I'd say that this expulsion endangers the community much more than whatever Stallman was inappropriately doing all these years.
- namarie 7y ago
  > If speech is so potent a weapon that to protect against it we have to use extreme social defenses like expulsion, why not to use the same weapon against the perpetrators? Why not to speak in return? Stallman says something, you say something. Take that, Richard Stallman! Because the power of the speech in question depends upon the power of the speaker. This isn't rocket science. If I as a random human person say something creepy to you on the street you can just go away. If Stallman does it and you are working under him you have to weigh a whole lot of things (academic standing, his prestige, the possibility that a whole lot of people will defend him just because of who he is and accuse you of accusing him of a "thoughtcrime") in your response. It's an assymetrical situation.
  - doubleunplussed 7y ago
    In a world that respects free speech, you would be more empowered to criticise authority, not less. You're basically saying that Stallman’s speech must have consequences otherwise the little guy might face consequences by criticising him. But the pro free speech crowd are advocating for a world where you and stallman criticise each other harshly, but both get to keep your jobs, it being a strong norm that whoever calls for the other to lose their job over speech automatically loses the argument. I can't believe people are so short sighted about free speech. The people who are happy with control of speech will regret advocating for it as soon as it spreads outside of the domains where their allies presently have power.
lostjohnny 7y ago
Funny story: Selam G., who's building weapons for the US department of defence, triggered by something she hadn't read, written by a person she did not know, leaked everything to Vice, founded by Gavin McInnes also founder and head of the Brooklyn-based misogynist libertarian group Proud Boys. To defend women rights. If this wasn't serious, it deserved a giant "LOL! FAIL!" Should we start doubting about her real intentions? Why she has contacts with a magazine founded by a misogynist? What's in for her?
- craigsmansion 7y ago
  Please don't. Salem G. made a mistake in desiring to address a problem that is worth discussing, but did so with a hasty ill-conceived reaction constructed through gossip and hearsay. It shouldn't happen, but it does. The various publications should have checked their facts and performed due diligence, but something, anything MIT related is money in the bank right now. They sold out. Breaking down Salem for her mistake isn't going to help Free Software, rms, or the FSF, but reason and facts, and holding the publications accountable for their disinformation by correcting it, will.
  - lostjohnny 7y ago
    Gavin McInnes is really a misogynist and founder of Vice. She's really building weapons for the US department of defense. I'm not doing anything, just doubting of her qualities as a spoke person of a movement that targeted RMS for no reason other than ignorance (taking for granted that there isn't anything else behind it) If we can doubt Stallman as a leader, we can as well doubt Selam G. And I'm saying it because she put herself there, nobody pressed her to write a hit piece titled "Remove Stallman and every other toxic person", she spoke as a movement leader, a toxic one if you ask me. Remove is not a word I would ever use in regard to other people. > The various publications should have checked their facts That's why I think that she chose Vice for a reason, and not by coincidence. I guess, but I can't prove it, that she was sure they would have listened and published the whole thing without checking, and even if they did, they would have published it anyway as it is. It's too juicy. I'm not trying to break her down, just exposing facts. It is what it is, I haven't invented anything here. People need to have all the informations available to make their own opinions.
concordDance 7y ago
A handful of anecdotes over two decades does not make for "consistent creepy and inappropriate behaviour". I also think those deciding they didn't want anything to do with him are a tiny minority if you exclude those who have never met him (and even then, probably still a small minority).

by marijn 7y ago

Smithalicious 7y ago

Amazing how whenever someone does something controversial and gets forced out soon afterwards, it's never the thing they said, but "consistent creepy and inappropriate behavior" based on 10 year old anecdotes that suddenly appear out of nowhere... I'd think that if someone was "consistently" creepy and inappropriate, there would be a pretty good public record for that, but what do I know? EDIT: Let me give a bit more of a nuanced position, because reading my post back, it looks like I'm saying that Stallman never did anything inappropriate before this. Of course, I recognize that Stallman is fucking weird. I'm not saying that parrot-fucking, foot-fungus-eating St. IGNUcius never did anything inappropriate before; we'd be here for a long time if we were to make a list of all the times Stallman failed to read the mood. However, I strongly believe that Stallman is not a creep. He holds some odd views and is pretty autistic, and so he occasionally makes inappropriate advances. Add to that that Stallman has been a very prolific person for decades and you won't relaly have trouble coming up with a list of anecdotes that, when framed a certain way, make him look bad. I've read quite a few of these anecdotes by now. Some of them look fairly innocent to me. Some of them are clear social blunders. None of them look seriously harmful or in bad faith to me. Even taking all of them together, believing that all of them are remembered 100% correctly and played out as portrayed without any additional context, I don't think the appropirate reaction is to remove Stallman from his position(s). What ticks me off so much about all this is the way the media deals with it. Stallman is portrayed as some kind of sexist, some kind of patriarch keeping women out of tech. It's ridiculous; Stallman is quite possibly the most inclusionary person I can think of. Stallman has had an immense, direct contribution to making tech more open for everyone. I can understand the criticism of Stallman. I don't even think he necessarily makes for a good figurehead for Free Software; he has poor social skills, unhelpfully rigid and strong positions, and I feel like he often conflates free software issues with other social issues he cares about. He makes for a better philosopher than a political leader. In this case, he's being thrown under the bus to score social points. People in tech are very itchy to do whatever they can to seem more inclusive, and condemning Epstein and his ilk is a noble goal (that also makes you look good). Stallman's statements that sparked this controversy were naive and he failed to read the mood, but they were not unacceptable things to believe or say. He did not deserve to have his words twisted, get kicked out of his own organisation based on the strawman, and then have people say that he was always bad, anyways.

atoav 7y ago
One could also see it the other way round: because of the importance of his figure people were more willing to keep their mouths shut and look the other way. Once the tipping point is reached, they don’t see any reason to do that anymore. This is why medival monarchs had jesters to tell them what is really going on. The right thing to do of course is to speek truth to power openly and before everybody else does it, but this could come with serious consequences for the person speaking up. This is why they’d only do it once they are 100% sure they didn’t misread the situation, the thing that happened was actually big enough and they are willing to carry the consequences this could have for free software. In other words: people in positions like Stallman can get away with much more than any regular guy, which means they should be extra considerate of their role and their environment if they care about the effects their own power and fame has on it. If it everybody steps up now, it means there was clearly a disconnect between his self image and what his environment thought about him.
- Smithalicious 7y ago
  > If it everybody steps up now, it means there was clearly a disconnect between his self image and what his environment thought about him. Oh, certainly. And I'd say the reason for that is > because of the importance of his figure people were more willing to keep their mouths shut and look the other way I don't necessarily blame people for not spekaing out if they were troubled by his behaviour, but this is really unfair towards Stallman. Decades worth of small issues that Stallman was mostly unaware of are being condensed into one big issue. That's why I think the situation is crooked; in my view, Stallman never did anything particularly bad, nor did he harbor any ill will, yet he's facing the consequences of a major scandal. Also, I don't think that Stallman should be held to the standards of a "medieval monarch". I think you're overstating just how powerful Stallman is (was?); I don't think he was actually in charge of many impactful decisions. Your points are good but perhaps more applicable to someone like Linus Torvalds, who is fully aware of his controversial behaviour and does actually hold a position of substantial power.
  - flatb 7y ago

hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago

There is another large part of the community that wants no part in the community as a result of events like this. I guess we will end up with two communities one focused on software the other focused on social justice (wokeware). It looks like the social justice community will get the code and trademarks. Fortunately thanks to RMS the code is available to fork. I guess things aren't organised yet but I and others I have spoken to IRL have already stopped interacting with certain projects. I was wondering if some of the community's thought leaders might jump ship - but I guess they will be purged anyway so that should help! EDIT: Would any downvoters care to comment on why they think this won't happen? Do they think we will continue to participate against our will...

stelonix 7y ago
Interesting, I've been thinking about this myself: whether a new foundation or movement will be created around RMS and without the stigmas that allow people to be "cancelled" over their thoughts or opinions. I have to say, the FSF without RMS simply makes no sense. It's one of those institutions where more than 51% of its effectiveness came from a single person. I firmly believe a "fork" for the FSF is coming soon.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  We are not alone. It takes a brave person to put their head above the parapet in the current climate.
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  it already happened. As usual, not trying to be prejudicial here, it happened in the U.S. where different 501(c)(3) formed to attract donation capital, but that actually have been an enemy of large part of the FSF community. There can't be one strong FSF they want many small feuds, it's like greenwashing, open washing is happening, which, BTW, "misses the point of free software". Look at what happened to Eben Moglen, a person that nobody can describe as harsh, impolite, unempathetic, creepy or whatever BS they are throwing now at RMS. And still in 2017 he was declared "no longer a friend of the free software community" by mjg59. Why? Because Moglen expressed his lawyer opinion in a way that Garret did not like. Garret works at Google, Moglen still offers pro bono legal representation at the Software Freedom Law Center, which he founded. It's not hard to take parts for me.

michaelmrose 7y ago

By which you mean a bunch of Twitter nobodies and one somebody who happens to speak for the gnome project.

lostjohnny 7y ago
or that another nobody who actually worked with him? https://archive.is/https://twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/1174433645110513664 https://archive.is/https://twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/11...

Mikhail_Edoshin 7y ago

> Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from social consequences. I often see this phrase and it looks like a fallacy to me. Does anyone question its validity? Social consequences are a severe thing, in practice they mean losing a job or position, boycotting, etc. In ancient Greece to expel a person was a very strong punishment. Nowadays the associated hardbacks are milder perhaps, but still are pretty severe. If speech is so potent a weapon that to protect against it we have to use extreme social defenses like expulsion, why not to use the same weapon against the perpetrators? Why not to speak in return? Stallman says something, you say something. Take that, Richard Stallman! I would say that the only appropriate social consequence of free speech could be other free speech. Also, a distinct characteristic of a true community is that it's inclusive. It can expel its members, but this has to be a very rare event, only when that person's action are actually destroying the community. "Creepy and inappropriate behavior" that went along for many years is hardly that. It's a mere personality quirk. [Addition] And I'd say that this expulsion endangers the community much more than whatever Stallman was inappropriately doing all these years.

namarie 7y ago
> If speech is so potent a weapon that to protect against it we have to use extreme social defenses like expulsion, why not to use the same weapon against the perpetrators? Why not to speak in return? Stallman says something, you say something. Take that, Richard Stallman! Because the power of the speech in question depends upon the power of the speaker. This isn't rocket science. If I as a random human person say something creepy to you on the street you can just go away. If Stallman does it and you are working under him you have to weigh a whole lot of things (academic standing, his prestige, the possibility that a whole lot of people will defend him just because of who he is and accuse you of accusing him of a "thoughtcrime") in your response. It's an assymetrical situation.
- doubleunplussed 7y ago
  In a world that respects free speech, you would be more empowered to criticise authority, not less. You're basically saying that Stallman’s speech must have consequences otherwise the little guy might face consequences by criticising him. But the pro free speech crowd are advocating for a world where you and stallman criticise each other harshly, but both get to keep your jobs, it being a strong norm that whoever calls for the other to lose their job over speech automatically loses the argument. I can't believe people are so short sighted about free speech. The people who are happy with control of speech will regret advocating for it as soon as it spreads outside of the domains where their allies presently have power.

lostjohnny 7y ago

Funny story: Selam G., who's building weapons for the US department of defence, triggered by something she hadn't read, written by a person she did not know, leaked everything to Vice, founded by Gavin McInnes also founder and head of the Brooklyn-based misogynist libertarian group Proud Boys. To defend women rights. If this wasn't serious, it deserved a giant "LOL! FAIL!" Should we start doubting about her real intentions? Why she has contacts with a magazine founded by a misogynist? What's in for her?

craigsmansion 7y ago
Please don't. Salem G. made a mistake in desiring to address a problem that is worth discussing, but did so with a hasty ill-conceived reaction constructed through gossip and hearsay. It shouldn't happen, but it does. The various publications should have checked their facts and performed due diligence, but something, anything MIT related is money in the bank right now. They sold out. Breaking down Salem for her mistake isn't going to help Free Software, rms, or the FSF, but reason and facts, and holding the publications accountable for their disinformation by correcting it, will.
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  Gavin McInnes is really a misogynist and founder of Vice. She's really building weapons for the US department of defense. I'm not doing anything, just doubting of her qualities as a spoke person of a movement that targeted RMS for no reason other than ignorance (taking for granted that there isn't anything else behind it) If we can doubt Stallman as a leader, we can as well doubt Selam G. And I'm saying it because she put herself there, nobody pressed her to write a hit piece titled "Remove Stallman and every other toxic person", she spoke as a movement leader, a toxic one if you ask me. Remove is not a word I would ever use in regard to other people. > The various publications should have checked their facts That's why I think that she chose Vice for a reason, and not by coincidence. I guess, but I can't prove it, that she was sure they would have listened and published the whole thing without checking, and even if they did, they would have published it anyway as it is. It's too juicy. I'm not trying to break her down, just exposing facts. It is what it is, I haven't invented anything here. People need to have all the informations available to make their own opinions.

concordDance 7y ago

A handful of anecdotes over two decades does not make for "consistent creepy and inappropriate behaviour". I also think those deciding they didn't want anything to do with him are a tiny minority if you exclude those who have never met him (and even then, probably still a small minority).