5 ms·
Richard Stallman’s Disgrace
- bsaul 7y agoI’m sorry but people seem to forget what the archetypal geek looked like in the 80s. Fat, smelly, eating burgers in front of his computer all day, awkward and drooling at the sight of any woman. From what gruber is writing, it looks like RMS just happened to be talented enough that people actually let him behave like this and still talk to him and let him have a social life (as opposed to the other ones that simply didn’t leave their room or their desk). Let’s not make every people from that era criminals or jobless. Just let time do its work and just wait until they retire.
- soganess 7y agoThat's not true, it some BS cultural narrative with a couple data points that allows people to other that which they fear to be a part of. It's the tech equivalent to artist are tortured geniuses. More importantly, I would much rather have no power "geeks" pushing toxic sex/race/gender politics out of fear and awkwardness then the structural crap being pushed on mass by big tech companies with huge gold parachutes for bad actors. I grew up loving the ideas of RMS, but for every RMS behaving "nerd", there were 4 Ivan Sutherland, Grace Hooper, Alan Kay, Ajay Bhatt.
- bsaul 7y agoWell, no. There's definitely some kind of truth behind it. Wanting to spend most of your life in front of a computer , barely talking to anyone was considered something very weird until it became common in all kinds of jobs. I remember when i started freelancing 10 years ago, people would say things like "oh, you don't look like a developer. i mean, we can talk to you normally". And that was based on their personal experience with their own IT department. And i know teachers in coding schools that regularly have to make public announcement asking people to take showers every morning. I couldn't believe it when they told me that, but apparently they had to.
- soganess 7y agoI'm sure one could place those first two sentences at the start of any defense of a stereotype. I remember when i started freelancing 10 years ago, people would say things like "oh, you don't look like a developer. i mean, we can talk to you normally". I know so many tech workers with that exact story open. Telling individual they are the special exception is how we maintain stereotypes. "My preconceptions aren't wrong, this is just atypical" is the first rule in the book. And people's interactions with their IT departments are always so strange. People don't like being at fault for productivity lose so they shift blame. I've seen people blame the computer or even the IT guy for issues they do not understand and balk at the explanation as "not normal." Those same people wouldn't accuse a doctor of not speaking normal for using medical jargon. But the stakes and the power dynamics are quite different in medicine. While I care about my hygiene a fair bit, if I was in a coding academy and someone had the audacity to treat a group adults like children and basically tell them they don't understand how to keep their bodies clean... I would demand a refund and tell that individual off for the self-serving infantilization of others. There are a million reasons why someone's odor is more noticeable then what most are accustom too. Simply assuming "nerds don't shower, so I'll give em a little hand" is all kinds of wrong. They can't shower but they can build infrastructure, right?
- bsaul 7y agoStereotypes don’t come from nowhere.. in the case of nerds, i don’t know of any sociology studies performed by researchers on a nationwide scale, so i guess personal experiences is all i can provide. They do mostly confirm the sterotypes.
- emiliobumachar 7y agoBeware of No True Scotsman. Of the people you know personally, who do you consider a nerd, other than those who confirm the stereotype?
- ratsmack 7y agoThis highlights the 'the emperor has no clothes' syndrome where people will just ignore the bad behavior of a person because of their position or stature. Many times people will comment in confidence to close friends, because of the fear they will be vilified with a public response of the issue. It seems to me that this is more modern day anomaly driven by too much hypersensitivity in our social interaction where we self censor to avoid the most minor appearance of being critical or aggressive.
- mrtweetyhack 7y agoFeminism strikes again. Men are creeps only when they are ugly or when they aren't paying.
- fargle 7y agoIs this the case that decades of bad behavior "caught up" with the "clueless geek". Or SJWs picked the time and place to execute him?
- krapp 7y agoIt's the case that the clueless geek's bad behavior in this instance happened to intersect with the Epstein affair via Marvin Minsky. I know people like to imagine "SJWs" have arbitrary power to ruin mens' lives on a whim, but no... there was already plenty of smoking kindling around RMS when he decided to light the match on himself.
- fargle 7y agoThe linked article is a rehash of RMS's bad and gross habits, 3rd party anecdotes about "creepiness". No meat. No sin. If RMS had been a level-2 dipshit, he'd been counseled by HR and not even fired. What I see is, yes agreed timing perfect (Epstein/Minsky), to slander, destroy that which is different, "gross"/"weird", etc. When did it become OK to beat up on the Aspy kids? Oh, right SJW makes it OK...
- krapp 7y agoI don't know what "no meat, no sin" is supposed to mean, but most people with RMS' history of creepy and harassing behavior would have been fired long ago. Hell, the bad hygiene alone would get most people fired.
- fargle 7y agoIt means thank goodness you aren't the HR director. You don't go around harassing people because of hygiene. You don't fire people because of 3rd hand reports of creepiness. You don't slander someones reputation just because you read somewhere about things that purportedly made him look really bad. It simply isn't true; thankfully labor law doesn't make a crime out of bad smelling-ness and unsubstantiated creepiness.
- neonate 7y agoWhat a mean and nasty article, irrespective of Stallman.
- bigiain 7y agoSeriously? That's your takeaway here?