27 ms·

In Defense of Richard Stallman

• daffy 7y ago
  How was he ``forced'' to resign?
• rurban 7y ago
  Thanks
• asutekku 7y ago
  He might’ve been an influential figure, but he’s still a creep. Just because someone made something once doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye towards them.
  • toxicFork 7y ago
    > What’s most disturbing about this is how many of my friends and peers support Stallman’s removal. At first it was because they took the false accusations at face value. When I pointed out that these accusations were lies, they supported Stallman’s removal for other reasons. They focused on his tone deaf communication style and awkward demeanor. They spoke of behavior from decades ago and pointed out the fact that he had a mattress in his office. (Apparently that’s where he often slept.) As far as I can tell, the worst allegations against Stallman involve him being a socially clueless aspie. He held his positions at MIT, GNU, and the FSF for over thirty years, and in that time nobody accused him of coercion, unwanted touching, or verbal harassment. If an occasional social gaffe or failed attempt at humor is all it takes to get thrown out on the street, nobody is safe.
    • sascha_sl 7y ago
      the problem is a combination of being socially clueless but also being entirely unable to change because asking rms to change will escalate into an endless discussion about principles where he was always justified, no matter the topic, so people stopped trying at some point and went for plant defense[1] instead. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Stallman/Archive_8#Stallman's_plant-phobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Stallman/Archive_...
      • toxicFork 7y ago
        I believe the point of the article is that the personality that is resistant to change may be useful when this person believes in an idea (free software, privacy, etc). When they are confronted about the idea they will also not be willing to change. Then the ideas can develop themselves to become reality. Of course when this rigidity comes to social behavior this may be an issue. To go a bit philosophical: I wonder if we can truly be rigid in some aspects and flexible in others. I guess this can be taught.
  • computerex 7y ago
    How is he a creep and what did he do to justify how he was treated? Did you read his comment about his defense of Marvin Lee Minsky? Precisely what was creepy or wrong about it?
    • asutekku 7y ago
      It is not an isolated incident. There are multiple documented cases of him behaving like a creep and spouting "controversial" statements.
      • computerex 7y ago
        1. What's your evidence? Where are these "documented" cases? 2. What incident are you referring to? His comments that led to his removal were about language and preciseness. Did you read his comment? Are you sure you know what the background/context is here?
      • rndgermandude 7y ago
        Name them please? The "creep" incidents, that is.
        • asutekku 7y ago
          Here's a thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1173637138413318144 https://mobile.twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/11736371384133...
          • computerex 7y ago
            Can you please read the thread yourself and point out to specific instances you are referring to? Because there is a lot of false information in this thread, like so: > Last week, on a private MIT mailing list, Richard Stallman argued that a sex trafficking survivor may have "willingly" presented herself, and thus Minksey hadn't really committed sexual assault. That being coerced by Epstein made it not rape. Which is flat out wrong, and something that the article here explicitly demonstrates why it's false. Did you read the "Defense of Richard Stallman" article presented here in this thread?
  • sascha_sl 7y ago
    before someone goes into a defensive rage... rms being a creep and particularly women at MIT going to great lengths to avoid him is well documented these remarks, while slightly distorted by the media, are still part of a pattern of dismissing sexual assault (including the way RMS insists on not using the word assault despite it being well understood that assault does not have to be physical violence) rms is the sort of person who overshoots principled to a point everyone is tired of talking to them and where in-person criticism dies before it is even expressed because why bother with someone who will never seek to be better anyway and that afforded him a lot of leeway, even if i think the means of removing him now have been not entirely clean, it still was overdue
    • goatinaboat 7y ago
      women at MIT going to great lengths to avoid him is well documented Genuine question: where is this documented? I have been using GNU stuff for 25 years and until now have never heard about this. Do you have links to reputable sources?
      • foldr 7y ago
        https://www.reddit.com/r/justneckbeardthings/comments/2vkeze/he_calls_it_his_pleasure_card/ https://www.reddit.com/r/justneckbeardthings/comments/2vkeze...
        • doubleunplussed 7y ago
          So are weird polyamorous people who are into "cuddle puddles" committing sexual assault or something similar by advertising that fact? It seems to me that Stallman advertising that he likes cuddles is automatically considered creepy, beyond the pale, whereas if a properly woke community of appropriately diverse individuals did the same, it would be just considered part of that culture and accepted. What's more, Stallman used to be part of what that community used to be. He is a hippie. I bet people not up to speed on him reading about this incident assume he's an alt-righter who voted for Trump, but he supports Bernie Sanders, says that Australians should vote for the Greens, and advocates for weird gender-neutral pronouns. And he likes cuddles and dared to advertise that fact! I acknowledge that putting that on a business card is out of line in today's culture, but god I wish it wasn't. If you are creeped out by an old man wanting cuddles, but you wouldn't if it were someone else, then you are a bigot. And if you're creeped out any people at all advertising that they like cuddles, then that is stifling and the future is going to be bland and full of lonely people.
  • Frans-Willem 7y ago
    The article also clearly states "As far as I can tell, the worst allegations against Stallman involve him being a socially clueless aspie", which I believe matches your "he's still a creep". I tend to agree, he's not a socially well adjusted person. But did that really interfere with his work for the FSF? From what I can gather, he did a pretty good job at it :-/
    • equalunique 7y ago
      In a sense, the concept of the GPL is evidence of social mastery over mal-adjustment.
  • squarefoot 7y ago
    Many brilliant people developed earlier unusual if not antisocial behaviour as a result of being estranged and often derided by others because of them being smarter. Or should we really dismiss all technical work by Leonardo Da Vinci because it was later revealed that he was a pedophile? Stallman did nothing like that, he just made some comments everyone should avoid in today's new middle ages, yet he is treated like a criminal. He failed to realize there are snipers out there, possibly paid ones, waiting for the six lines that could make an argument for hanging him, and he gave them those six lines: that's his only fault. The FOSS community will have to watch very closely who is going to benefit from his departure.
  • eej2ya1K 7y ago
    Stop lying.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• emilfihlman 7y ago
  100% this post. I'm extremely saddened by the willingness to destroy a man based on nothing.
• haukilup 7y ago
  This pretty much sums up my opinions on the matter. I'm glad someone else took the time to write it up and share it with others.
• DanBC 7y ago
  > blatantly lie about what was said, I've seen this said a few times, and it needs to be cleared up. Stallman defended Minsky by saying it wasn't rape and it was assault. To mount this defence Stallman had to ignore common English definitions for both words, and he had to ignore the legal definitions of both words. People are angry at Stallman for what he actually said, not what you think they think he said. If you want to say that you want necrophiles to fuck your corpse when you die; that you think the harms of incestual abuse can be avoided with condom use; that you think child abuse isn't that harmful; that you think sexual assault isn't assault unless force or violence is used; that having sex with a trafficked coerced child isn't rape; then you shouldn't be surprised when projects want to distance themselves from your views. > You don’t get the free software movement without a person like Richard Stallman We don't get the free software movement we have without Stallman, but what's that actually saying? How popular would gnu be if it had someone who was better at communication involved?
  • bantunes 7y ago
    > We don't get the free software movement we have without Stallman, but what's that actually saying? How popular would gnu be if it had someone who was better at communication involved? Not many people thinking about it in this way, kudos.
  • dpq 7y ago
    > How popular would gnu be if it had someone who was better at communication involved? Also, how popular would gnu be if the US had a copyright reform, or if we lived in a fairy world with unicorns? There is no point to such questions: if there ever was a person who could be a worthy replacement of rms at the helm of FSF, they preferred to remain invisible. So the most plausible scenario is not "someone like rms but better", it's "nobody remotely as good at all".
  • FeepingCreature 7y ago
    > Stallman defended Minsky by saying it wasn't rape and it was assault. To mount this defence Stallman had to ignore common English definitions for both words, and he had to ignore the legal definitions of both words. I disagree on both accounts. Rape, to derive its moral severity, requires either intent or negligence. I realize there's a meme about "she told me she was 18" but that does fall under the negligence angle - the implication is "he should have known". (And Minksy did know, or at least suspected.) But drop into a situation where there was no way for them to know, and at least to my intuition the moral badness disappears. I think there's just a level of ... the sexual event alone creates a certain mass of moral badness, and this mass has to go somewhere, so it's usually pinned on the older partner. However, I'm fully willing to pin it on Epstein in this case if it has to go anywhere. And if that isn't possible - well, maybe it can't be put anywhere. I think this is a social/moral difference; I come from a society where even the law acknowledges that sometimes there's morally bad events that have no guilty party at all. If a mentally disabled person rapes someone because they have no concept of consent, whose moral fault is it? Where do we put the blame? To me, it's obvious that we put it with the people and structures that were supposed to have prevented the event but failed to. If the event was provoked, we put it with the people who provoked it. In this case, that person is unambiguously Epstein, who was the source and cause of all the moral badness in play. This is not always possible, but conveniently in this case it is.
• Barrin92 7y ago
  > They focused on his tone deaf communication style and awkward demeanor. They spoke of behavior from decades ago and pointed out the fact that he had a mattress in his office. It wasn't just awkward demeanor. He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again. > He held his positions at MIT, GNU, and the FSF for over thirty years, and in that time nobody accused him of coercion, unwanted touching, or verbal harassment Yes, because of people like you, Geoff. When people like Stallman behave like they do and say the things they say they don't have to face the consequences because people don't want to speak up, because they're afraid of being called liars or censors. That's how authority figures and popular individuals keep getting away with it. The second paragraph of the post is irrelevant and further proves the point. Stallman's contributions to free software don't excuse his conduct.
  • Aeolun 7y ago
    Then maybe we should have removed him for one of the previous instances of awkwardness, because the message I see here in no way justifies any of the things that subsequently happened. I would not call it anything less than a disgrace for anyone involved.
  • coldtea 7y ago
    I hope people thinking like above, or sad finger-pointers like the ones writing the articles, are removed from the tech industry...
    • lagadu 7y ago
      Yes, I too would like everyone who I disagree with to be removed from my industry. That was sarcasm, because apparently in 2019 that's an acceptable thing to say with a straight face.
      • coldtea 7y ago
        >Yes, I too would like everyone who I disagree with to be removed from my industry So, like those people you seem to applaud did to Stallman? >apparently in 2019 that's an acceptable thing to say with a straight face Oh, the irony...
• pfortuny 7y ago
  Totally right as regards the private mail. However, the fact that he is homeless has nothing to do with the discussion. It just adds some "feeling" to the problem which should not be there. A MacArthur fellow (1990) is supposed to be able to manage his life (or get someone to do so).
  • megous 7y ago
    You're brushing aside the whole social pressure thing. That's something that can make normal people kill themseleves at the worst, or throw them into a pretty bad emotional turmoil with some very real effects on their life. Intelligence has nothing to do with this.
• johnday 7y ago
  It does rather smack of the old police tactic: When someone's known to have done something Bad, but the police cannot prove it, they send them to prison for a minor crime such as tax evasion. I'm not saying that RMS has committed any crimes of course, but there are other reasons that people do not see him as a political figure that they can rally behind in the modern day. A lot of this is entirely about image. People feel uncomfortable having an aging, socially irrepressible person in charge of an organisation which they support. A (seemingly false) allegation is all that it took to bring those qualms to the fore. Also I note that the author tacitly avoids the other comments which RMS has historically made, in particular with regards to abuse of minors, instead focusing on the one which was incorrectly taken out of context.
  • Ensorceled 7y ago
    This is a weird way to think of it. All of these organizations have been putting up with Stallman's problematic behavior for a long time. This incident reopened a dark chapter in MIT history, too soon and Stallman has a history of, at best, minimizing the impact of pedophilia. This was a final straw situation.
    • johnday 7y ago
      I agree with you, that's roughly what I was saying. The events of the last few weeks were the catalyst that allowed people to start externalising those things, small or big, which they had previously been withholding in the name of "getting on".
• high_derivative 7y ago
  The 4 steps of cancel culture, or socially sanctioned sadism: 1. He said/did thing x. He must lose his livelihood and be annihilated. 2. He did not say thing x, but he said y which is basically thing x. 3. He said neither x or y, but he essentially deserves this anyway because of other things he may have done or said. They may have not offended anyone at the time to cause this level of outrage, but clearly combined with what he may have said recently, his time was up anyway. 4. He may not have deserved what happened to him, but maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut about issue x. If me and my friends accused him, then he probably wasn't innocent. (5.) Write medium/Quillette/twitter post: I was part of the mob until it came for me.
• trymnilsen 7y ago
  Am i reading it correctly that the author implies that the end justifies the means (in this case stallmans behaviour) because without it we would not have what we have today. Unless you have a time machine that is just speculation.
  • toxicFork 7y ago
    There was nothing really wrong in Stallman's behavior apart from being "odd", apparently odd enough to make people uncomfortable. "The end justifies the means" makes it sound like he was a Nazi soldier. Tell me what you mean by "the means".
  • jhrmnn 7y ago
    No. The author says that there are no "means" to speak of, there is perhaps a communication issue Stallman has. The author argues that such issues should be tolerated to a reasonable degree, otherwise the society as a whole may end up poorer. I make no claim about the truthfulness of that, but that's what the author says.
• deleted 7y ago
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• sneak 7y ago
  Is it possible for us to have leaders who are driven and excellent, who also manage to be excellent to other people? https://twitter.com/bcrypt/status/1173731697159835648 https://twitter.com/bcrypt/status/1173731697159835648 I don’t think it’s subscribing to or endorsing cancel culture to ask for that. RMS being a rude, insensitive jerk is not because he’s an aspie (claiming such is rude to aspies who manage to not be assholes), but because he is a selfish and self-absorbed person. https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/1174141125902229504 https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/1174141125902229504 We deserve better leadership.
  • roenxi 7y ago
    "We deserve"? Stallman led because he is possibly literally the only person who stood up and tried to lead. It is difficult to imagine he won any sort of leadership contest with anyone (on anything apart from technical merit. Stallman just isn't a political animal). The work he has done is thankless and probably fairly miserable by an objective standard. If you want to do a better job; go do it.
• Insanity 7y ago
  I don't know RMS personally, but from what I've seen and read about him, he's a bit eccentric. There's nothing wrong with that, but people tend to dislike or distrust those whom are different from what society considers 'normal'. I suspect part of the 'witch hunt' was in part fueled by this eccentricity.
  • enriquto 7y ago
    > I suspect part of the 'witch hunt' was in part fueled by this eccentricity. It seems to me that the exact opposite is happening here. He is "hunted" because of his uncompromising stance on freedom for software users. The eccentricity is just an excuse, useful to gather a horde of angry people, but inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
    • klingonopera 7y ago
      Doesn't this imply that proprietary software vendors were pushing for his resignation? I mean, yeah, sure, but in all honesty, I never considered the FSF to be that influential. If anything, I'd almost agree on the fact that RMS made (as ironic as this sounds) selling free software more difficult than if it was any standard corporate drone in his place. He's a great idealist, but he's not really good at selling things...
      • Insanity 7y ago
        Yeah, his appeal to ideals might work for some (it does appeal to me). But surely that's not the best way of selling things to the majority of the population, let alone companies. I'm tempted to agree with you that he might have made it more difficult. It's not just the message you use to sell something, it's also the way in which. If people associate FSF too much with RMS it could be harmful for FSF, because they'll assume it just appeals to the 'eccentric bunch'.
        • klingonopera 7y ago
          Yeah, from the looks of things, the FSF might become more of a threat to proprietary software vendors now, if they have new charismatic leader (at the risk of selling-out on their ideals, though).
• kolektiv 7y ago
  Sigh. No. It's not just about one incidence of some mistakenly pedantic comments, as has been made clear by many, many people. It's a pattern of behaviour over years combined with no interest in listening to other people or accepting that he might be in the wrong. His behaviour towards women in particular has resulted in a lot of people sharing stories of his behaviour which, on their own, should be enough for someone to be considered a problem. This latest incident is just what it took to finally tip things over the edge. This article then goes on to talk about people like Stallman being needed, or essential for something like free software. It doesn't matter, even if it was true, which there is no way of proving, it's pure assertion. Phrases like "required someone who couldn’t take a hint" might sound all perseverance and dedication to this writer, but perhaps going and asking women what comes to mind when they hear about people like this might be an eye opener. Without him students wouldn't have as many free tools? Maybe, but maybe they would have other tools, better tools, built by the people his behaviour, and the behaviour of people like him, have driven from the industry before they got a chance to have the impact that people like him seem to assume is a right.
  • brain5ide 7y ago
    Would you be willing to provide a few links to those stories over the years? I never knew enough about his personal behavior to judge that and have no idea how to search for it.
    • sascha_sl 7y ago
      my last comment is a good jumping off point https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21113873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21113873 I might have to add a bunch of sources since we seem to have a lot of people in denial. The responses to the Medium article are... not nice.
      • brain5ide 7y ago
        Thanks for the link. It's interesting start. But it doesn't show me a predator as I expect at the end of sexual assault accusations. It shows more of a sad lonely guy, that's probably sometimes annoying and is not welcome by people. This date-suicide thing is still abusive, but on very personal and not even ethical level. Not sure if it should involve some organization in any way. It's a bit hard now to figure out what's happening, as I've thought of RMS as a moral person and somewhat aligned my morals to him. It's now dificult to dissect them to figure out what's wrong. And also, it rings a bit like the story of Socrates and what Seneca said about it.
• gosub 7y ago
  I hope RMS is safe, and that someone finds a way to let us all help him, in any meaningful way. The most disgusting thing is that whose who witch-hunted him, from their higher moral ground, will face no consequences at all.
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • lazyjones 7y ago
    > The most disgusting thing is that whose who witch-hunted him, from their higher moral ground, will face no consequences at all. I wouldn't be so sure about that. At the very least, the FSF has lost some annual contributions...
    • Grangar 7y ago
      Are they the ones to blame for this all though?
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
• Traster 7y ago
  There's quite a lot in this. I don't think it's helpful to throw in stuff like "He is now likely homeless" - gossip/rumour I'm sure this author would be decrying if the other side of the argument had brought it up. We don't know anything about RMS's personal life and shouldn't speculate. Now let's address the underlying point: You don't get X good thing without Y bad behaviour. I don't agree with this. It's a weird sort of blackmail "Put up with my bad behaviour because you need me". Firstly, For all we know, if we had been less tolerant of bad treatment of people in the free software movement, it'd be a much more powerful movement today than if we had allowed a small number of toxic individuals to take leadership roles and drive out many potential contributors. I see that as no less likely than the scenario put out in this defense. Secondly, this attitude shifts the responsibility away from the individual for their actions. If someone has a lot to contribute but it never happens because their attitude sucks, that's on them. It's not on us to enable them.
  • klingonopera 7y ago
    > You don't get X good thing without Y bad behaviour. Consider the following: Humans have limited capacity, thus time, money and energy spent limiting Y inhibits resources available to creating X.
    • throw0101a 7y ago
      While life is short, it is long enough that people can learn not to be assholes / jerks IMHO: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule * https://hbr.org/2007/03/why-i-wrote-the-no-asshole-rule https://hbr.org/2007/03/why-i-wrote-the-no-asshole-rule * https://www.td.org/insights/dont-tolerate-brilliant-jerks https://www.td.org/insights/dont-tolerate-brilliant-jerks * https://www.inc.com/jim-schleckser/why-netflix-doesn-t-tolerate-brilliant-jerks.html https://www.inc.com/jim-schleckser/why-netflix-doesn-t-toler...
      • Chris2048 7y ago
        So apsies are just jerks? right. I can't see how packaging insults as a solution improves anything.
• forgot_user1234 7y ago
  this just makes me sad. I believe, everything Stallman said but I could never say it out loud. He did. He was right. "Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism."
  • frollo 7y ago
    And, somewhat ironically, he is being criticized in non specific terms which allow moral vagueness (which is the only reason this specific witch hunt is still going on).
• youdontknowtho 7y ago
  The article says you don't get the free software movement without RMS. What about BSD?
  • latchkey 7y ago
    Free != Open Here is a good explanation of the difference... https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/Free-vs-Open-Source-Software https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/Free-vs-Ope...
    • enriquto 7y ago
      The BSD are certainly Free Software today, for they clearly respect the four freedoms. They did not exist, though, at the beginning of the GNU project.
      • latchkey 7y ago
        ModifiedBSD, yes. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ModifiedBSD https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ModifiedBSD
  • MayeulC 7y ago
    FWIW, I am more on the side of the FSF than BSD on freedom issues, as I value way, way more user freedom than developer freedom. Developer freedom… I guess you could consider that quite elitist, if you think about it (freedom for the ‰ or ‱). More to your point, I have seen a lot less outreach on software freedom from BSD than from rms.
  • ldjb 7y ago
    What _about_ BSD? If my understanding is correct, BSD only started becoming free software in 1989 with the release of Net/1, and even then large chunks of the codebase were not free software. GNU, on the other hand, kicked off some years before, in 1983.
  • equalunique 7y ago
    BSD is open source, but not "free" in the GNU sense. A GNU license keeps the software free. BSD license keeps the distributor & developer "free," but not the software itself.
• blackhaz 7y ago
  Why do we even need to invoke Stallman's achievements as an excuse here? What did the man say - he expressed his opinion that accusations of sexual assault are probably inflated and inaccurate. For fuck's sake!
  • sgt 7y ago
    >he expressed his opinion that accusations of sexual assault are probably inflated and inaccurate. What is wrong with that, if indeed the accusations were inflated and inaccurate? As far as I can see from this case, he is correct. He could have expressed himself better, but we're talking about RMS here.
• anatoly 7y ago
  Thank you so much for this post.
• Maxbunny 7y ago
  While I am also saddened by the dishonest nature of the reporting on the Minsky accident and the cowardly lack of push back against it, one should not go to the other extreme and simply dismiss all the complaints about Stallman's behavior as him merely being "a clueless aspie". A good example is his emacs virgin joke, which he as as I read specifically made about individual female members of the audience. Due to our hysterical politicized environment we are not able to deal with incidents like this : acknowledge that behavior like this is unprofessional but does not make Stallman a horrible monster, especially since he indeed stopped making that joke after some criticism.
• sumedh 7y ago
  > He held his positions at MIT, GNU, and the FSF for over thirty years, and in that time nobody accused him of coercion, unwanted touching, or verbal harassment. The author missed the point of the Me Too movement. Lot of other powerful people were not publicly accused for decades because they were powerful and could easily silence their accusers.
  • enriquto 7y ago
    > because they were powerful and could easily silence their accusers. this is certainly not the case for Stallman, as proven by the continuous stream of angry criticism that he has been receiving from many people through the years. It does not seem that RMS held any real power over anybody (except maybe for the handful of FSF employees). The fact that this criticism, which has already existed openly, has had a real effect on the FSF and MIT is obviously due to pressures from higher-ups, not from twitter pawns.
  • eej2ya1K 7y ago
    Do you think Richard Stallman was "powerful" enough to "easily silence" accusers?
    • fesoliveira 7y ago
      It's not about what we think, but what people in the receiving end of his advances thought at the time that was happening. Stallman IS a powerful figure in the Free Software movement. The mere fact the people are making blog posts or coming to HN in his defense after what he said, both in the MIT e-mail and in his blog over the years, is evidence enough of that. While it is hard to think that Stallman would go after those who accused him of anything, the guy has a huge enough following that people would be intimidated to make accusations due to the possibility of push back from the community.
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• sannee 7y ago
  > There are two possibilities here. Either the author of the Medium post was not capable of correctly parsing the sentence, or she didn’t care about truth and was leveling as many accusations as possible in the hope that one would stick. Either I am vastly overestimating the quality of american top university education, or the first option is highly unlikely. So, who benefits from Stallman getting removed from the picture? Or, given that the original author was also from MIT, maybe it was just some sort of personal grievance?
  • roenxi 7y ago
    The core of the drama is a MIT visiting professor has a poor grasp of social context and an inability to synchronise with other people. It seems totally possible that some graduate mechanical engineer totally misread a text. Mechanical engineers aren't known for being social butterflys.
    • sannee 7y ago
      Being capable to extract precise logical meaning from text is something everyone with STEM education learns in their introductory mathematics courses. It has nothing to do with social ability. > visiting professor has a poor grasp of social context and an inability to synchronise with other people. I am not that interested about the broader political context. I would like to know who (and why) shot Franz Ferdinand so to speak.
      • roenxi 7y ago
        It is unlikely that anyone was acting in bad faith here. Unless there is compelling evidence it is safest to assume that people were hasty and didn't stop to think and try to exercise a little tolerance and reflection.
        • sannee 7y ago
          I think it is safe to assume that the author is super good at reading comprehension. The SAT [1] scores of MIT students seem to be in the top 5% of population [2]. [1] https://www.prepscholar.com/sat/s/colleges/MIT-SAT-scores-GPA https://www.prepscholar.com/sat/s/colleges/MIT-SAT-scores-GP... [2] https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-percentiles-and-score-rankings https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-percentiles-and-score-ranki...
• rvz 7y ago
  Funny enough on how the industry has taken free-software and its 'open-source' derived ideas for granted and they have all originated from the FSF and its founder RMS. But when social media archaeologists revive past 'thought crimes' from 20+ years ago to use against anyone, it is ridiculous to completely silence and exclude them from society, especially someone like Stallman who is very principled in his cause.
• toxik 7y ago
  Humanity is converging on ideological monoculture. There is one correct way to think, and if you're dumb enough to step outside of those bounds, people _will_ come after you, and destroy whatever you have. One comment here even suggested that RMS is a rapist in so many words, really? I submit that you cannot have innovation without inconvenient characters. You must allow a plurality of ideas and ideals to exist, even those that you find dumb or repulsive. I don't personally like RMS very much, he seems like an annoying person, but he should not have had his life ruined for what amounted to an pedantic argument on a mailing list.
  • barry-cotter 7y ago
    Even the US isn’t an ideological monoculture. The woke are ~8% of the US population. No one in China cares. The social strata in India and Pakistan that ape the English speaking world is on the retreat politically. This cultural moment is mostly a US thing, and to a lesser extent an Anglosphere thing, with especially English proficient vassal states like the Dutch or Scandinavians also taking part. If it ever burns out in the US it’ll just disappear everywhere else in short order. RMS life was not ruined for an argument on a mailing list, but because he has no allies because he’s constitutionally incapable of playing politics.
    • toxik 7y ago
      It may be true that "the woke," as they are so disparagingly called, is a small group. Actually, I'd say 8% isn't a very small group at all -- but that is besides the point. The point is that this small group has much more than 8% impact on the outcomes of events like these. They may be 8% of the general population, but they are 99% of the people who care at all.
      • AsyncAwait 7y ago
        I agree, however every time this discussion comes up I feel conflicted about agreeing because it usually devolves into smearing the left, as if it was some monolithic entity. You did not frame it that way, which I really appreciate, because I view myself as a leftist, but find these groups detrimental. I refer to them as sofa activists, whose goal in life is to feel good, without actually doing anything that can't be done from the comfort of their sofa, that is most impactful, worthy changes. In fact RMS himself is a leftist. The woke group is extremely vocal and extremely damaging to the left-wing movements worldwide, but it is still a minority.
• gargalatas 7y ago
  We live in a world that you cant diverge a little bit. You can't have a different personality. You can't just say the truth or be technically corrent because it may also happen to be politically incorrent. You have to go with the flow. But still people expect from you to be a superstar of what you are doing.
• CPLX 7y ago
  Our culture has made a very bright line decision that sex with minors is unacceptable. Expressing doubt about this cultural norm, or especially advocating against it, is considered unacceptable. Of course one can argue with the merits of those two facts, but they are plainly true and fairly widely accepted. The very concept of statutory rape reinforces how clear this judgment is. The reference to "statutory" means that the mere facts of the act taking place mean that the conduct is off limits. Things like "consent" or even a misrepresentation of the person's age are generally considered irrelevant. As a society we've decided that there aren't really exceptions to this. If sex with minors occurs it's not OK, there isn't much need to further investigate why it happened. Stallman, and anyone else commenting here, has really no basis to claim ignorance of this phenomenally clear social norm, which if broken will result in being fired from just about any public facing institution. It's on a pretty short list of such norms, alongside things like displaying your genitals in a board meeting, ones highly principled views on nudism notwithstanding. While I appreciate the efforts to make this into some kind of principled argument, I don't find "first they came for the people advocating for sex with minors" to be particularly compelling. Nobody has suggested he be fined or jailed. His actions just make him unqualified to be a leader. The other people in those organization do get to have a say too you know.
  • spats1990 7y ago
    >Nobody has suggested he be fined or jailed. His actions just make him unqualified to be a leader. The other people in those organization do get to have a say too you know. Exactly. There's no need to pretend, as some other comments in here are doing, that he's being hauled off by some sort of cultural police force.
  • lagadu 7y ago
    > His actions just make him unqualified to be a leader. So you're saying that the only people qualified to be "a leader" are the ones who subscribe to your particular flavour of groupthink and no other? Nice thought policing there.
    • CPLX 7y ago
      Yes, I believe publicly advocating for certain things can severely break cultural norms and make it impossible for you to effectively hold a leadership role in an educational or advocacy setting. Are you arguing that no social norms violation should ever result in being fired? You can go to work and scream at people at the top of your lungs? Tell the receptionist you’re glad she had a miscarriage? Use the sink as a urinal? Assuming we agree that at least one or two things may get you fired from your job, it’s then possible to follow up with some observations: 1) Saying it’s ok for adults to fuck minors is definitely on that list 2) I’m ok with that
• gunibert 7y ago
  As an observer from the outside i have to say, that i am as an "privileged white male" will pay much attention to what i will say in the future. This is my conclusion about what happened here and happened to Linus. The feeling that you have to be super sensitive will close more doors then before - prove me wrong.
  • Insanity 7y ago
    To Linus Torvalds? Wasn't he just temporarily absent for one release due to being 'abusive on pull requests'? Because AFAIK he did not get as much backlash as RMS is getting at the moment, nor did he lose any position somewhere.
    • reitanqild 7y ago
      IIRC rumor I've seen has it he's extremely careful in things like never being alone with certain people etc.
      • Insanity 7y ago
        Didn't hear those rumors before. But, even if that's a rumor that's been going around, it's just a rumor :P
  • magicalhippo 7y ago
    One should indeed be careful about what one says at work. When at work it's very different from when I'm at home with my mates. Me and my coworkers have to share space, and so the dynamics are not the same. If one of my mates gets hurt by my jokes at his expense, he can just decide not meet me. At work, my coworkers don't really have a choice. On a related note, the Mercedes F1 team just fired four employees, apparently for making a poll of when one of their coworkers would break his Ramadan fast. Maybe funny for a group of pals, but not fitting at the workplace. https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/146280/mercedes-dismissed-staff-for-diversity-breach https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/146280/mercedes-dismissed-...
    • 7y ago
• carlo_4002 7y ago
  This article is so wrong in so many ways... " You don’t get the free software movement without a person like Richard Stallman." Well once Stallman pass away, it will be the apocalypsis for the free software movement
• ntzm 7y ago
  This is a bad post
  • EmeraldMoon 7y ago
    Care to explain why?
• moomin 7y ago
  sigh I just wrote a screed ripping this apart but seriously, no-one who liked it will have their minds changed by me. Instead, I’ll make a point that should concern anyone who actually cares about Free Software and not dragging it into the culture war: the article claims Free Software has a bus factor of one (or possibly zero now). That had better not be the case. And if it is the case, now is the time to do something about it.
• preommr 7y ago
  I disagree with a lot in that post. Just because some people made Stallman out to be worse doesn't mean his position wasn't still bad. This issue has been debated ad nauseum so I won't go into details. Instead I think it's more interesting to talk about the author's proposition that the open source movement wouldn't be as successful as it is without Stallman. And with this I strongly disagree. I don't think we ever got the vision of open source stallman wanted. We didn't end up with a thriving open source environment. We ended up with something that hackers contribute to in their spare time, with corporations benefiting immensely and giving back pennies. I know some people feel inspired by Stallman and the things he wrote. But honestly, his main ideas like being wary of walled-gardens are things that someone or another would've mentioned. He was interesting, but I don't think was someone that was crucial for many of the benefits we have today. And I want to emphasize that this isn't a slight against him. I just mean that the stuff he's done isn't enough to excuse his terrible behavior. Like washington founded america so his greatness still burns bright even with his actions on slavery. Columbus on the other hand doesn't deserve the accolades he got especially in light of the horrible things he did even if he did discover the new land.
• pron 7y ago
  > In short: Stallman made some technically-correct-but-utterly-tactless comments No, they were not "technically correct." Neither Stallman nor the author of this post are experts on sexual assault, and neither has the requisite knowledge to even judge whether the statements were technically correct or not. If people are too lazy to learn about an issue in some depth, they should just shut up and listen to the experts. And if they don't want to listen to the experts, they should at least study the issue in some depth. I'm sure neither Stallman nor the author of this post would be as forgiving towards equally clueless, equally stupid comments made about programming by people who have no clear idea of what it is. Also, the problem with making those comments, correct or otherwise, wasn't one of tact. That the author and Stallman don't understand the actual, direct, real harm in an authority figure making such comments in a public workplace forum could be either due to innocent ignorance or willful ignorance, but it is ignorance. And if, in the case of Stallman, he continues to cause this harm after being warned, and doesn't wish to apologize, and this comes after decades of inappropriate workplace behavior, then a sane world would show him the door. In any event, like a lawyer who doesn't know the law, the author doesn't address, nor seem to understand, the issue at the heart of the matter, and puts himself in the same position of ignorance as Stallman. And so the post isn't so much a defense as it is yet another diatribe on how weird, confusing and even unfair certain subjects can seem to people who don't understand them nor really wish to. Thank you, but we know that. Stallman, or anyone for that matter, deserves better than this Rudy Giuliani "defense."
• kome 7y ago
  To add insult to injury, the author of the first libelous article against Stallman works for a US government contractor in company developing drones and other killing machines... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21090851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21090851
• coldtea 7y ago
  Diversity -- but no diversity of opinion... Inclusiveness -- but let's ostracize the non-conforming aspie... Fairness -- but let's fire people or make them resign from unrelated positions for their personal opinions, because obviously all of a person's life should serve as a big PR, and god forbid they don't play the role 24/7. Someone might call them for it on Twitter, and what could their employee/organization do other than fire them? (in the "Land of the free" nonetheless) Not to mention the blatant conformity and blandness -- punishing experimentation, personality, eccentricity, being the devil's advocate, controversiality, and, worse of all, being 'unprofessional' (as if the FSF is something akin to 1970s IBM)... First they came for Patch Adams... The current environment rewards the worst kind of scum: holier-than-thou hypocritical tell-tales and people who enjoy yielding power over others by drawing lynch-mobs. I have wrote against Epstein here in several threads, but I could have lunch with a person who has controversial opinions on the matter like Stallman. People like those who finger-pointed and cheered on the personal consequences on Stallman, I'd prefer to live in another universe from. Are you happy now? Justice for Epstein's victims served? (on someone who never even met Epstein) Speak up now, or don't bother to cry crocodile tears and set up the "black ribbon" when we eventually lose Stallman, and tell stories of how he inspired you, etc...
  • rvz 7y ago
    Spot on. You have just outlined the double-speak of the SV technocracy, which have imposed these hidden codes on those that they disagree with. Mind you that the media has now amplified this and have used all of this to create a new enemy called Richard Stallman. As long as this appalling cancel-culture behaviour stops, he certainly won't be the last one to fall victim to these purity tests. Absolutely hypocritical indeed.
    • smhost 7y ago
      from reading just this comment, i would have assumed that stallman was stripped of all his land and titles and made to starve under a bridge. what really happened was that he went from holding leadership positions in three prominent institutions to just one. it's easy to have strong feelings about these issues, but let's try to keep things in perspective.
• ukj 7y ago
  It seems the damage is done and cannot be reversed. About the only lesson you can learn from this is that if you really cherish Freedom of Speech, then you actually require Fuck-you money to practice that right effectively.
• foobar_ 7y ago
  Every aggressor in all of history always acted out of self-righteous victimhood.
  • FeepingCreature 7y ago
    The Mongols?
    • foobar_ 7y ago
      The neighbouring tribe thinks we are losers ... let's show them?
• EmeraldMoon 7y ago
  Thanks a lot for writing this post, and for sharing it. > By satisfying the mob today, we are sacrificing our future. That’s the real risk. Precisely.
• t0astbread 7y ago
  I wouldn't call the MIT CSAIL list "private communications". Sure, it's not open to the general public but it is public enough to warrant a public discussion. (Additionally it has members around the same age as the abuse victim.)
  • FeepingCreature 7y ago
    By that definition, any discussion that was ever leaked was not private, by virtue of it being leaked.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
• glandium 7y ago
  Do we need another rehash? The only thing new I learned here is that his log showed a resignation from the GNU project leadership (https://archive.is/wHrTo https://archive.is/wHrTo), which has since been removed, and that came only two days after saying he wouldn't, joking about being a nuisance at the same time (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2019-09/msg00008.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2019-09/msg00008...) Edit: as for the "maybe homeless" claim, as far as I know, it's his life style. Relatedly, I've heard many horror stories of people who hosted him. Here's one I saw recently (with more in the replies): https://mobile.twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1173981287037751297 https://mobile.twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/117398128703...
• kome 7y ago
  With all the asshole CEOs, managers, office bullies, in this world - of course we should ruin the life of Richard Stallman. Well done everybody.
• slowhadoken 7y ago
  We’re a nation of rats now.
• Ensorceled 7y ago
  Can we stop these threads? They are not productive, we have all chosen our sides on this particular "metoo" vs. "cancel culture" debate and nobody is having their minds changed.
  • Valmar 7y ago
    These threads raise awareness for more people. Especially people who may not otherwise have known. Silencing, censoring, the discussion only allows it to keep getting worse, instead of potentially less worse.
    • Ensorceled 7y ago
      There have been plenty of threads on this matter on HN, I think most people know by now. I have no power on HN, and thus, no ability to censor.
• zonidjan 7y ago
  > Stallman made some technically-correct-but-utterly-tactless comments No. No, he didn't. He made some technically incorrect comments. Regardless of whether or not what Minsky did should be considered assault, it is considered assault, and (more importantly) it was considered at the time Minsky is alleged to have done it. Stallman did not say that what Minsky did shouldn't be assault. He said that Minsky shouldn't be regarded as having committed assault.
  • Aeolun 7y ago
    I don’t follow. According to your statements having sex with a consenting young female is assault?
• fallingfrog 7y ago
  Of course the real monsters among the rich and powerful, the clintons, the trumps, continue to be untouchable.
• chappi42 7y ago
  Thank you for that article!! It's a shame what a piss-poor narrow-minded society 'the west' has become...
  • DanBC 7y ago
    > narrow-minded society "don't defend the rape of children" isn't narrow minded.
    • chappi42 7y ago
      For me what you write is hyperbole and such a loose application of 'rape of children' belittles a 'real' rape. It also kills discourse: if you risk such a toxic label (and thousand times multiplied by social media) you be quiet in future. There the society goes...
• ykevinator 7y ago
  I'm not sure someone with such bizarre views on consent should be in a leadership position or be a teacher. I usually agree with articles like this but then I read stallmans views and they are probably disqualifying.
  • roenxi 7y ago
    If you did a survey of any corporate or political organisation there would be large numbers of unbelievably competent people who hole weird and objectionable views. If a view isn't relevant to what someone is doing we have to be able to look past it. You are underestimating, radically, the diversity of thought amongst humans. And particularly on the margins of leadership where the people who come up with new ideas are - obviously they aren't guided by social proof because they are working on new ideas. They have to be very experimental, and probably believe all sorts of weird and wonderful things. If Stallman was the sort of person who only held mainstream views he would not be in the FSF. Which was a point addressed in this article. I don't know which views in particular you are talking about, but many of them are much more mainstream than his critics are admitting to. Particularly the 17-or-18 comment; in Australia consent is age 16 so he had a point there.
    • DanBC 7y ago
      > who hole weird and objectionable views And if they publicly talk about those weird views they may find themselves being asked to leave their organisation, especially if those views are that child sexual abuse isn't so bad. > in Australia consent is age 16 so he had a point there. Can you link to the Australian law that shows the age of consent for coerced prostitutes is 16?
      • roenxi 7y ago
        Well, yeah. Stallman didn't talk about this sort of thing publicly. His talks were on software licensing. This latest conversation, for example, was leaked because originally it was private. > Can you link to the Australian law that shows the age of consent for coerced prostitutes is 16? Here you go. http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s66c.html http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/cons...
• fergie 7y ago
  > You don’t get the free software movement without a person like Richard Stallman. Its success depended on a stubborn pedantic ideologue. It required someone who couldn’t take a hint. This is really the crux of the matter. Richard Stallman should absolutely be held accountable for the stupid things that he has said. The problem is that humanity _really_ needs people like Richard Stallman- very few others have made such a practical (Emacs) and political impact on software, and by extension, the world as we know it. There aren't many Richard Stallmans, and if you get rid of all them then _really_ bad things will happen. It is equally important that he is punished, that he repents, and that he continues his work.
  • nql 7y ago
    I agree. Some of the posters say that software would have been better if the people he made uncomfortable weren't made uncomfortable by him and thus continued making software. That is extremely implausible. People who do software because it is something they are passionate about would not be so fragile, and that is necessary to make ground breaking changes. I sometimes hear people say "if tech wasn't stereotyped as a bunch of nerds, there would be more women in it". This ignores the fact that there is a strong causal relationship between being perceived as a nerd and having a serious interested in software. It's like saying "if I didn't hold people who do software in contempt, then I might have done software!".
• NazisAreStupid 7y ago
  Oh god, I'm going to have to reply to this, aren't I, because it's tripped one of my bête noirs. Where do people on the Too Online spectrum get these terrible, horrible, no-good wrong ideas? (1) The idea that email are "private communications" and that the RECIPIENT of the email SHARING that email is somehow violating a sacred trust? YOU HAVE NO RIGHT OF PRIVACY IN AN EMAIL AS TO THE RECIPIENT. The natural end state of this argument is "I send you a bunch of spam, and then complain when you report it to my SMTP provider for VIOLATING my SACRED PRIVACY." It's an incoherent argument. It's wrong. (2) Even worse, here, this silly person tries to upgrade a "private email list" into deserving the same sort of privacy protections deserved by email (WHICH, LET'S BE CLEAR, AS FAR AS THE RECIPIENT IS CONCERNED, IS: NONE AT ALL). So the argument being made here is: RMS wrote something in a more-or-less public forum, but I'm going to complain that other people took it to a different forum. That's a terrible argument and the fact that this is the one he OPENS with makes me want to stop reading immediately. Ugh ugh ugh.
• chippy 7y ago
  In the words of the Artificial Intelligence from War Games "this is all a strange game in which the only winning move is not to play." Let's hope that we can still play chess together.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
  • stelonix 7y ago
    See, what this post represents (and all these upvotes) is that there is a number of people who disagree with you and with "cancel culture". We do not believe in taboos as well: everything can be rationally debated and gut reactions are not only detrimental to the advancement of mankind, but is actually a very powerful "dumbficator" of science and logic. The people who should feel ashamed are those who spread this toxic culture of watching other's online comments in order to ban them from the rest of the "civilized world" (as these people generally put it), effectively hindering diversity; usually in the name of some social or ethnic minority. There is no defense to your shunning attitude and it is the very reason populists are winning governments the world over. Meanwhile, real abusers (eg. MIT staff who let the real abuse happen) were completely forgotten about because of this hysteria you people fomented. You're part of the problem you're trying to solve.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  • nql 7y ago
    You should be ashamed for not understanding the difference between intellect and morals.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
• jdefr89 7y ago
  If I know anything about human behavior than these incidents were a final excuse to get rid of Stallman. I personally don’t care for him, but he has done so much for FOSS. Also I am surprised more people trying to condemn him are not seeing that Stallman is basically autistic. People are essentially being mad over someone with autism acting in some ways autistic.. C’mon people need to start cutting some people a damn break this worlds lost all sanity..
• hu3 7y ago
  I'd like to understand HN's ranking algorithm. At the top of the frontpage: - Mesh Spreadsheet - 66 points, 2 hours ago At the bottom of the frontpage: - In Defense of Richard Stallman - 463 points, 1 hour ago Archive: http://archive.fo/Mc5qV http://archive.fo/Mc5qV
  • doubleunplussed 7y ago
    The algorithm supposedly penalises large numbers of comments rapidly being made. Ostensibly it's a "flamewar detection" mechanism, supposed to discourage threads full of arguing. Whilst this topic is potentially exactly that, I'm not sure how the algorithm prevents flagging false positives - sometimes there is going to be a massive thread for appropriate reasons. I would also like to be allowed to discuss this issue here without knowing the thread is buried, even though it is controversial.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• baran1 7y ago
  > The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex. If someone appears to be having sex with someone that appears to be underage, the older person appears to be sexually assaulting the younger person. This is because a minor cannot legally consent which makes non-consensual sex forceful by definition, hence it is called assault. In other words: rms was wrong, and now rms is gone.
• gnomewascool 7y ago
  AFACT, the strongest argument in favour of the removal of RMS is by Thomas Bushnell[0]. The best counter-argument to that, which I could find, is by Thomas Lord[1][2]. I haven't found any replies to the latter. (There's also the meta-issue that rule-by-lying-journalists-and-misinformed-mob is terrifying and despicable, but it doesn't affect the object-level question of whether RMS significantly contributed and/or contributes towards making MIT and the free-software world unwelcoming to women.) [0] https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84 https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa... [1] https://twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/1174433645110513664 https://twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/1174433645110513664 [2] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1174433645110513664.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1174433645110513664.html
• dewey 7y ago
  > There would be no copyleft, no GNU General Public License, no Free Software Foundation, no GNU userspace (binutils, coreutils, etc), no GNU Compiler Collection, and (of course) no Emacs Like no other decent person would've been able to invent these?
• WatchDog 7y ago
  500+ points in under an hour, yet at the bottom of the front page. Is "flag" just a super downvote?
• Foxboron 7y ago
  >He is now likely homeless and his friends (such as Eric Raymond) have had trouble contacting him. and as esr wrote: >I guess he was sleeping in his office and can’t anymore. But this hasn't been true for years. >Until around 1998, my office at MIT was also my residence. I was even registered to vote from there. Nowadays I have a separate residence in Cambridge not far from MIT. However, I am rarely there, since I am nearly always travelling out of town. https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html
• sprash 7y ago
  Why is hackernews kicking all Stallman threads off the frontpage? ycombinator seems to have an agenda in this too apparently.
• lettergram 7y ago
  I’m glad this is on the front page. My previous posts on the whole RMS “thing” had been removed or disappeared to quickly from the front page to discuss. Honestly, I’d Remove the “flame war” system for the day. I feel Hacker News needs some discourse. The vocal minority is drowning out the masses.
• op00to 7y ago
  Do you think it’s ok for adults to have sex with children?
  • meerita 7y ago
    No, I am not. But what proof do you have Minsky had sex with a minor? I didn't see it. I think Stallman didn't see it.
    • op00to 7y ago
      Who needs proof about Minsky? RMS said he thinks the children couldn’t be sexually assaulted because they wanted it. You’re defending this creep? Do you agree that it’s not kiddie rape if the kids don’t complain?
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • meerita 7y ago
        > Who needs proof… You need proof to accuse someone of a crime. He didn't mention "a child". He said, quotes: "We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.". He never mentions his old friend had sex with minors. He only points out is not clear the only scenario was a) a minor, b) using force.
      • miracle2k 7y ago
        He did not say that.
      • pflenker 7y ago
        Did you read the article? Because it makes clear that this is not what RMS said, providing the quote from the mail in question.
      • Kbelicius 7y ago
        > RMS said he thinks the children couldn’t be sexually assaulted because they wanted it. Why are you lying?
• imgabe 7y ago
  Sadly, a large number of people seem to have decided that their feelings are more important than the truth. That if something makes you feel bad, this means it is bad and must be destroyed. This is like how a dark basement might be scary to a child. A normal adult would explain that the basement is actually harmless, and teach the child to see it for what it really is and learn not be afraid of it. The feelings-first crowd would have us simply destroy all basements. Feelings are important and can help point you in a direction, but they need to be tempered with reason and logic before resulting in action. People who act solely on feelings are also easy to manipulate because talented writers, actors, etc can evoke strong feelings about anything regardless of facts.
  • sipos 7y ago
    IMHO, the modern left has become very harsh in condemning people, showing very little compassion, and engaging in witch-hunts. I think t his is extremely unhelpful. I think this has arisen out of a feeling of righteousness as a result of having been morally right on many things in the past several decades, but it is just indulging the same human tenancy to hate others that perceived as not being part of one's tribe as racism etc, but with a better superficial justification. It is, IMHO, more unhelpful though. People can see racism is bad, but it is quite easy to fall into the trap of thinking that abusing a racist is perfectly fine, and go along with it, but there is a reason we don't use vigilante justice for everything. People become outraged at the treatment of people that they see as unfair, and, IMHO, this is where hatred of political correctness, and unwillingness to engage in attempts to be more progressive come from. IMHO, this hatred by the left, and with-hunt like behaviour, is at least as big an obstacle to progress on many social justice issues as people holding bigoted views that it seeks to break down, because it makes the bigoted people look reasonable. At the beginning of this issue, I saw headlines or twitter comments alleging a lot of things, read what RMS had actually said, and concluded that the headlines and tweets are bullshit, and dismissed them all, resolving to never believe this type of thing without examining the evidence myself again. This would probably have led to me dismissing a lot of complaints about people in positions of power, assuming they they are similarly unreliable. A friend has said that there are other examples of RMS being disrespectful towards women, but I haven't had a chance to look at them yet, and are not prepared to believe them without evidence, because I have seen that much of what is said second-hand is complete crap. People exaggerating what he has said probably did so because they want to see action and create a safer space for victimised groups, especially women, in CS, but the effect has been to make all allegations highly suspect, at least to me, and I suspect many others, thus having the opposite effect. In a world where allegations that aren't true aren't extremely rare, no allegation can believed without a lot of evidence, and most crimes don't leave much. The effect of these social media with-hunts that happen when anyone says anything objectionable has been to make most of the population highly resistant to condemning people I think, making it hard to do so when someone actually says something terrible. I think that a significant part of the reason that there is someone who advocated sexual assault as president of the US is that people have heard wolf-cries about people so much that they just don't care if they hear that someone has advocated sexual assault, because last time they heard that, the person had just said something mildly insensitive or something, and so they have started dismissing all allegations unless they have a lot more evidence behind them. I think that people on the left going overboard in hating their opponents have created more problems for their side than their opponents. I say this as someone who is extremely left wing on most issues. Exaggerating things is never helpful I don't think.
• bariswheel 7y ago
  Amen. Social justice warriors and baseless witch hunt participators are the armpit of humanity, wanting attention by covering up their own incompetence and insecurities. Go do something with your life, and mind your own business.
• dependsontheq 7y ago
  Why is there so much hero worship in technology? Compared to other business areas we have myriads of heroes and fallen angels. If you think about it, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense, yes there are a lot of people that move technology forward by several years... and without those people some developments would have taken longer. But there is nearly no example where I would be willing to say without hero x - y would never have happened. Is this something psychological? Is this about us having a feeling of agency and not just being simple players on the field of Moore’s Law?
  • mLuby 7y ago
    Because powerful software can still be created by an individual. As with authors, artists, and composers, that lends itself to the heroic tale, of a lone genius toiling in secret to reveal a stunning breakthrough to the world. Physical industries require groups of people, so you don't usually see heroes emerge from them. (BTW I agree with you that "without [hero], [advance] wouldn't have happened" is suspect.)
• akabaka777 7y ago
  my friend and i use the N word multiple times in our conversation or in chat. None of us are black. Context matters... Now if one day somebody hacks my phone and says i am a racist by leaking parts of my messages- is that ethical? how far are we from censoring others thoughts?
• dash2 7y ago
  Amid the controversy, I thought this post (indirectly linked from another one below) makes a pretty strong case, with witnesses albeit anonymous ones, that RMS has a history of bad behaviour including sexual harassment: https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi... It also links to this, from 1983 which does not name RMS but is pretty interesting and damning about the culture of computer science at the time: https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~lazowska/mit/?source=post_page-----a7e41e784f88---------------------- https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~lazowska/mit/?source=post_p... Disclaimer: I'm a man, I'm not a feminist, I dislike cancel culture.
• lettergram 7y ago
  @dang Can we please stop removing Stallman discussions from the front page? I understand we want to keep things civil on HN, but the reality is that this dramatically impacts this community and all developers - probably more than we realize on the surface. I Discussing it and essentially letting everyone voice their thoughts is a way to both (a) come to consensus and (b) potentially see view points. As it stands the “media” has a voice, most developers come to Hacker News.
  • oska 7y ago
    I would imagine that it's been automatically removed due to a large number of people flagging it, rather than manually removed by the admins. My understanding is that automatic removals (from flagging) get reviewed and unremoved if the admins don't see a good case for the submission being flag-worthy.
    • TeMPOraL 7y ago
      There's also anti-flamewar system in HN that penalizes stories that accrue too many comments too quickly; I'm betting this is what makes this and similar stories drop from the front page very fast.
      • doubleunplussed 7y ago
        It's kind of a shame. Some issues just create a lot of discussion. This one is controversial, and maybe you could call it a flame war, but I'd prefer it stay up. I'm finding these threads by googling "Hacker News Stallman" every couple of days.
• scarejunba 7y ago
  Funny, the "professionals" took over. I knew it was inevitable when software engineers started arguing for certification, talked about how they were so much better people because they hated writing code outside their jobs, talking about how people learning to code was a conspiracy to ruin software engineer salaries, and began constraining strictly the spaces that people could act in. All that was always a harbinger of IBM-as-life. Of course this is inevitable. When I was young, you just did what you did and tried to find other people who also did what you did. Maybe they liked you, maybe they didn't. If they didn't you found someone else or you made that group of people. It was all about freely associating. The nerds got beaten but that was always going to happen when this thing became big. When Terry Davis (of Losethos fame) said deeply offensive things that were personally offensive to me, we all tried to understand that it came from a troubled mind, that we could admire the work without tolerating the outbursts. With the socially awkward folks, it was even easier. We could gently direct while moderating their extremes. Cancel culture is a mistake. I'm not bold enough to face it under my real name so I'm just going to weather it under the tarps where my people stand with their tenets like lit beacons barely visible in a storm. If you invoke Crocker's Rules, if you can forgive and redirect, and if you can disagree with words without invoking nuclear retribution, you can find the rest of us in our scattered micro-communities. Good luck.
• thanatropism 7y ago
  I think the most interesting part of this gotterdamerung is the claim in “Remove Stallman appendix A” that if the work of a Great Genius hinders The work of some number of talented skilled folk, then society is ultimately at a loss. I’m not certain that this is necessarily true. Or false for that matter. I have an intuition, possibly colored by an overall culture of hero worship, that it is false. This is the rationale: the dynamics large groups of people inevitably approaches that of a committee. Committees are averaging devices that smooth potentially groundbreaking ideas out of serious consideration. Genius on the other hand is not only extraordinarily capable of such groundbreaking ideas but is able to insist on them doggedly. OTOH it means that one true genius (and maybe Stallman isn’t one, but true geniuses have very very often been assholes) is worth almost an infinite number of merely talented folk. The ultimate question: what lifted us from mere animal status 10-15K years ago? A handful of geniuses or a general society awakening? But also; how may “young talented physicists” it takes to change a lightbulb?
• craftoman 7y ago
  Stallman is missing, many fear of social isolation or even suicide. You can't ruin someone's career & life based on an opinion that was "leaked" and consider the fact that Italy's former prime minister was involved in an actual orgy with underage models but no one cared about and this guy is still one of the most respectable persons in Italy.
• benreesman 7y ago
  https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20(Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party) https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%20... Done. You go on record that it’s sometimes ok to fuck children you’re gonna have a bad time. Full stop. Who gives a shit that the Minsky comment got misquoted or whatever, he has worse shit on his website. Why is this a conversation?
  • doubleunplussed 7y ago
    So a while ago people would have said the same about homosexual sex. Luckily, people questioned it anyway, despite being vilified for doing so. How do you know which supposedly unconscionable things are actually bad and which are not, if we are not allowed to question them? Whilst I'm not defending this particular point, on the meta level we need to be able to question things, however settled they might seem, or else we will never again recognise the areas where we are wrong. A friend of mine is fond of telling people who make such absolute, unquestioning claims that they would have made an excellent SS officer.
    • benreesman 7y ago
      My point isn’t about the substance of his remarks (though I’m firmly in the “adults shouldn’t fuck children” camp if my position were somehow relevant). My point is that there are a bunch of people nitpicking that the Minsky remarks aren’t a tacit endorsement of pedophilia, and maybe they’re not. But RMS has a tacit endorsement of pedophilia on his website, so if that’s a bad enough thing to fire someone over then that ship sailed a long time ago. If tacitly endorsing pedophilia is something MIT is cool with, that’s a different conversation. I very much doubt they’re cool with it, but I’m not affiliated with MIT, so you’d have to ask them.
      • doubleunplussed 7y ago
        No. Your comment did not read as "my opponents are nitpicking by denying that he questioned the badness of sex with children", you just stated your belief in the badness of sex with children and how nothing more needs to be said. "Full stop". "Why is this a conversation". And you are now backpedalling. Stop with this crap, I'm sick of the emotional rhetoric and lies in everything. I wish we were in a world where en employee saying something just isn't considered endorsement, tacit or otherwise, by the employer. Then we wouldn't be in this mess. And I can't help but notice that activists who want to punish certain views are the ones encouraging the interpretation of employees' speech as endorsement by the employer in order to be more effectively able to punish speech they don't like. I'm sure they would be less happy if the shoe were on the other foot and authoritarian rightists were in charge, but they are not looking that far ahead apparently.
• yeahthat 7y ago
  The idea that sharing an email sent to you is a "leak" that somehow violates privacy is incoherent. This is doubly so when we are talking about a mailing list.
• mollerhoj 7y ago
  Many of history's most brilliant people have low emotional intelligence to the point where their statements seem/are quite anti social. How far would Linus Torvald have made it in today's political climate? Jonathan Haidt's The Coddling of the American gives some great insights into the issue of feelings vs. truth.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• neoldian 7y ago
  I will leave these two links here. The parallels are striking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Red_Guards_and_the_destruction_of_the_%22Four_Olds%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Red_Guards...
• malcolmgreaves 7y ago
  Stallman has been past his prime for well over a decade. He schmoozed with a well-known child sex trafficker (read: slaver). He made some nice software a long time ago and had a great idea about software licenses. However, he failed to realize that the world isn't nearly partitioned. His personal life decisions bled over and ruined his professional reputation. He'll always be the "free software nerd who sexually discrimated against women and had friends that raped girls" to me. Move along: there'll be a dozen smarter, less slimely bright people to replace him.
• njloof 7y ago
  This thread should be required reading anytime someone asks why there aren’t more women in computing science.
• Chris2048 7y ago
  Perhaps for topics like these we should adopt the rules of https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/ ? Specifically, rules 1, 2, 4, 8.
• iammyIP 7y ago
  RMS is a true Hero, he gives his life to fight for the basic human right for free computing. RMS is a modern historical figure on par with Jesus. His weird opinions on other topics and clumsy social behaviour do not matter a bit in comparision and if at all they need to be adressed with love and care, not cruxification.
• DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Update: According to his website, Stallman has found housing. He also says he will continue to head GNU Glad to see these updates.
• wowtip 7y ago
  RMS should sue the publications for defamation and loss of income. Hopefully someone can help him with this if needed.