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We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity. Aligning yourself with what main stream society thinks is correct is now more important than anything else. Th

We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity. Aligning yourself with what main stream society thinks is correct is now more important than anything else. The response of course is that "bad behavior should never be excused, regardless of ability!" which leads to a losing argument in which we try to say what kind of good excuses what kind of bad. But this presupposes the conformist stance: that fitting in with the norms is the default behavior, and violations of it must be explained. The Hacker culture from which everything we have today in tech arose. Which is the culture that Stallman arguably helped create. The culture which makes this site "Hacker" news, is one in which doing something interesting is more important than anything else. The presupposition from this more iconoclastic view is: why aren't you doing something interesting? Adhering to norms because it's the "safe" thing to do is the true aberrant behavior. It's a shame too since now of all points in human history we need more radical thinkers and people who are willing to question the status quo, which btw is inherently unsustainable. But maybe it's this fear that leads us rushing back to deep moral systems likes religious fantastics when their faith is questioned.

throwawayjava 7y ago
> We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity We have always been in an "age of conformity". For example, Obergefell v. Hodges was decided less than 5 years ago. There are still children who are homeless because they aren't sexually conformant. What is changing is not the degree to which society demands conformity. All that is change is who has to conform, and the standards to which they have to conform. Conformity is not bad. Abstaining from wanton murder and theft is conforming to social norms. What matters is whether the norms are good ones. > The Hacker culture from which everything we have today in tech arose. This is a nice origin fantasy, but it's really not true. The uniforms at DoD and the suits at IBM/Intel/AT&T/Xerox/etc. played a huge role in envisioning, organizing, and bankrolling all that work. Also, that work was done by of hundreds of thousands of white-collar and blue-collar professionals. Many of those engineers and technicians were not self-described "hackers" or "nerds". A lot of them contributed by digging ditches and climbing polls. A lot of them were brilliant engineers who at 5pm turned off the computer screen, went home to their families, and didn't think about work until 9am the next day. > The culture which makes this site "Hacker" news, is one in which doing something interesting is more important than anything else... why aren't you doing something interesting? Because some times boring things are important to help society function or to make money. Examples: Attending city council/school board meetings. Being a middle man. Running warehouses. Selling advertisements. Giving away vaccines and moz nets. And honestly 99% of other work done by companies, nonprofits, and active citizens. Including software companies. Boring, not interesting, and yet to varying degrees important. In fact, some of those things are super interesting (ad auctions, for example, are wonderful fun for math nerds) but not nearly as important as the boring things (passing out vaccines or setting up moz nets or taking minutes at a city council meeting -- seriously, not fun). > But maybe it's this fear that leads us rushing back to deep moral systems likes religious fantastics when their faith is questioned. We all have our convictions and stories in which we find meaning. We're all unreasonable defensive about those stories we tell ourselves. ...In fact, on that note, one more thing to add to the list of boring things that we for some reason feel the need to do: political arguments on a news forum that financially benefits VC by tapping into a fantastical ethos about the origin of modern computing. Now, tell me no one here is going to get unreasonably defensive about that ;-)
aonsager 7y ago
Yes there is a benefit to radical thinking and nonconformity, but "do it without hurting others" is a reasonable line to draw. Stallman was viewed as a toxic individual who caused harm, and this is what our society is trying to weed out. I still believe, perhaps naively, that it's possible to maintain not-normal opinions without causing pain to the people around you. And this is something that everyone needs to do, whether you're in the majority or the minority.
- ng12 7y ago
  Without a doubt Stallman has done several magnitudes of more good for society than harm -- from what I can tell the "harm" is mostly him being just a weird, semi-insufferable dude in a field of weird, semi-insufferable people.
- jamesrcole 7y ago
  Social progress involves making-acceptable things that were previously offensive and outrageous to the majority. Things that were considered harmful to society. Things like equal rights for women, minorities, different sexualities. For progress to be possible, people must be able to say offensive things that others find unpleasant. You might say, but it’s not those kinds of “harmful” views we want to stop, only the genuinely harmful ones. But who gets to decide which views are harmful? On a different note, I think that, for creativity, it’s important to be able to think and express yourself without always needing to second guess yourself. And I think we’re creating a society where everyone has to always second guess everything they think and say in case they accidentally say something that may bring in the outrage mob, either now or at some point anywhere potentially years later.
  - glangdale 7y ago
    I've finding it hard to understand what sort of progress is reached by, say, enabling weird dudes to constantly and inappropriately hit on women. Suppose there is some future society that has decided that weird stinky dudes that make inappropriate remarks, stare at women's tits and compulsively hit on attractive women who are just trying to exist in a professional setting are actually A-OK. Why is that society's alleged values superior to our own? If we are trending towards a direction that makes what we now regard as sexual harassment ok (again) then I would say we're going in the wrong way, and there's no more reason to regard that hypothetical futures' values as better than ours, any more than we regard the 1950s values better now. This doesn't remotely analogize to "gay rights" or racial tolerance, etc. Being enraged/uncomfortable about, say, interracial marriage or consensual gay relationships was always a matter of people becoming involved in things that were none of their damn business (e.g. "I'm angry about what those gays are doing behind closed doors") or denying them to right to participate in society as equals. Not liking stuff like sexual harassment is something we do because of its effect on the person involved (e.g. "it's hard to be taken seriously as a professional and feel that I have dignity when Stallman makes remarks about my virginity and stares at my tits") or others like them. IMO second guessing what you think (?) and say is hardly all that difficult. People could go a long way by (a) being kind and (b) acting (shock horror) professional in a professional context and not trying to use the workplace to get dates or get laid, and (c) shutting the hell up once in a while rather than treating us to their opinions about Every Goddamn Thing. Honestly, the sheer egomania of Stallman deciding the whole world needed to hear his thoughts on underage sex is pretty wild.
JamisonM 7y ago
> The Hacker culture from which everything we have today in tech arose. Which is the culture that Stallman arguably helped create. The culture whic h makes this site "Hacker" news, is one in which doing something interesting is more important than anything else. Doing something interesting has never been more important than doing "anything else" in hacker culture as I have understood it, RMS's own motivation has always been grounded in a moral and ethical roots. One should honour his commitment to freedom above all else.
api 7y ago
I question a fundamental assumption here: that Stallman was let go or pushed to resign because of "SJWs." I don't see much evidence of that. "SJWs" have had problems with him for years and nothing happened... until now. What's different this time? Stallman's comments on Epstein added to the embarrassment of MIT. He waded into a political bonfire and added fuel. The last thing MIT needs is someone affiliated with MIT with a history of (at least sounding like he was) defending pedophilia holding forth on the Epstein saga in any way whatsoever, let alone by apologizing for or at least minimizing his actions. This time he embarrassed and offended much more powerful people.
- emiliobumachar 7y ago
  Stallman did not defend Epstein in any way, shape, or form.
  - api 7y ago
    He minimized it. What he intended to do doesn't matter. That's not my point. What matters is that his words could be interpreted that way and that he was affiliated with MIT.
    - ng12 7y ago
      If there's one place in our society that should welcome discussion of ugly issues it should be our universities, particularly the few as storied as MIT.
      - erik_seaberg 7y ago
        It might be only CSAIL, not all of MIT, that made this call.
        lostjohnny 7y ago
        I thaught that I in CSAIL stood for Intelligence ...
matz1 7y ago
I think this a fundamental issue with humanity, not everyone think alike. What one human think is right is another human wrong. Its all relative. At least I'm hoping in the future virtual reality can somewhat solve this where everyone can live in their own perferabable society.
gok 7y ago
Bull fucking shit. What got RMS in trouble was not questioning the status quo. It was exploiting the status quo.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Sure. The free software guy exploited the status quo. This inquisition reminds me of the people trying to protect women from the Muslim hordes and other instances.
jameslk 7y ago
In other news, Trump seems to be doing fine.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Yeah, but his support involves less constrained mechanisms. And you know, to the extent that the mainstream world notices Stallman's ouster, it will increase support for Trump.
- traderjane 7y ago
  Sending the country through impeachment for a recording about President Trump grabbing women's vaginas is different from organizations evicting Richard Stallman. It is a difference of magnitude.
faissaloo 7y ago
>We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity. Aligning yourself with what main stream society thinks is correct is now more important than anything else. This is why you should develop a second personality, at first it's exhausting but eventually you get the hang of it. >But maybe it's this fear that leads us rushing back to deep moral systems likes religious fantastics when their faith is questioned. Or perhaps it's simply that in the abscence of religious structures the mob decides morality.
- mirimir 7y ago
  > This is why you should develop a second personality ... Why stop at two?
  - faissaloo 7y ago
    No reason, you should definitely have at least one other than your main though.
    - lostjohnny 7y ago
      What if someone can't? What if they are both equally bad?
      - faissaloo 7y ago
        >What if someone can't? Then you're very much screwed and you have my pity. >What if they are both equally bad? It's not about 'badness', your additional personalities are expedient and exist only to get you where you need to be, you will indeed make mistakes cultivating them but as long as you're concentrating on maintaining them you can't let too much slip and those personalities will develop over time.
- noobermin 7y ago
  >Or perhaps it's simply that in the abscence of religious structures the mob decides morality. I'm pretty sure this isn't what Nietzsche had in mind.
scoutt 7y ago
It's the age of auto-censure. Now everybody should go around the office, the school and life wearing nice people masks, avoiding to express anything that's near controversial. The punishment? Public embarrassment and shaming, in the present or the possible future for things said in the past. Who are the winners? Workplace owners. They are tired of dealing with HR issues and project instabilities for the gossip and drama derived from a controversial opinion or act. Of course, there are serious incidents (like physical violence or other) but now the level was brought so low that simply saying a bad word can give you a life sentence. Unfortunately, there is no room for radical thinkers.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mantoto 7y ago
Wut? Not tolerating shitty behavior is now conformity?
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  We tolerate you calling out someone you don't know. Should we not tolerate you for being shitty?
forgottenpass 7y ago
This is what happens when you sell out to advertising. A carefully managed image becomes a key asset. The software development world is going through the growing pains of our largest and most influential organizations making that deal with the devil.
helen___keller 7y ago
> We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity. Aligning yourself with what main stream society thinks is correct is now more important than anything else. I think the opposite conclusion is true. Society is entering a world of nonconformity with a very few exceptions. The problem is those few exceptions will absolutely ruin your life. Any other period in human history you will find drastically more conformity. Just go back a few decades. Tattoos? Facial hair? Casual clothing? Female? Person of color? Openly not heterosexual, or not married and monogamous for that matter? Not a white male landowner? Don't show up to church every Sunday? The further back you go in time, the more and more conformity was expected for those who wanted a good job or a position of power. Today is the least conformist society has been throughout history. With a few exceptions. And those exceptions are ill defined and irrationally punished. And unfortunately for RMS, an email in support of an associate of Epstein was one of those exceptions.
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  > Society is entering a world of nonconformity When nonconformity is the norm, it becomes conformity

throwawayjava 7y ago

> We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity We have always been in an "age of conformity". For example, Obergefell v. Hodges was decided less than 5 years ago. There are still children who are homeless because they aren't sexually conformant. What is changing is not the degree to which society demands conformity. All that is change is who has to conform, and the standards to which they have to conform. Conformity is not bad. Abstaining from wanton murder and theft is conforming to social norms. What matters is whether the norms are good ones. > The Hacker culture from which everything we have today in tech arose. This is a nice origin fantasy, but it's really not true. The uniforms at DoD and the suits at IBM/Intel/AT&T/Xerox/etc. played a huge role in envisioning, organizing, and bankrolling all that work. Also, that work was done by of hundreds of thousands of white-collar and blue-collar professionals. Many of those engineers and technicians were not self-described "hackers" or "nerds". A lot of them contributed by digging ditches and climbing polls. A lot of them were brilliant engineers who at 5pm turned off the computer screen, went home to their families, and didn't think about work until 9am the next day. > The culture which makes this site "Hacker" news, is one in which doing something interesting is more important than anything else... why aren't you doing something interesting? Because some times boring things are important to help society function or to make money. Examples: Attending city council/school board meetings. Being a middle man. Running warehouses. Selling advertisements. Giving away vaccines and moz nets. And honestly 99% of other work done by companies, nonprofits, and active citizens. Including software companies. Boring, not interesting, and yet to varying degrees important. In fact, some of those things are super interesting (ad auctions, for example, are wonderful fun for math nerds) but not nearly as important as the boring things (passing out vaccines or setting up moz nets or taking minutes at a city council meeting -- seriously, not fun). > But maybe it's this fear that leads us rushing back to deep moral systems likes religious fantastics when their faith is questioned. We all have our convictions and stories in which we find meaning. We're all unreasonable defensive about those stories we tell ourselves. ...In fact, on that note, one more thing to add to the list of boring things that we for some reason feel the need to do: political arguments on a news forum that financially benefits VC by tapping into a fantastical ethos about the origin of modern computing. Now, tell me no one here is going to get unreasonably defensive about that ;-)

aonsager 7y ago

Yes there is a benefit to radical thinking and nonconformity, but "do it without hurting others" is a reasonable line to draw. Stallman was viewed as a toxic individual who caused harm, and this is what our society is trying to weed out. I still believe, perhaps naively, that it's possible to maintain not-normal opinions without causing pain to the people around you. And this is something that everyone needs to do, whether you're in the majority or the minority.

ng12 7y ago
Without a doubt Stallman has done several magnitudes of more good for society than harm -- from what I can tell the "harm" is mostly him being just a weird, semi-insufferable dude in a field of weird, semi-insufferable people.
jamesrcole 7y ago
Social progress involves making-acceptable things that were previously offensive and outrageous to the majority. Things that were considered harmful to society. Things like equal rights for women, minorities, different sexualities. For progress to be possible, people must be able to say offensive things that others find unpleasant. You might say, but it’s not those kinds of “harmful” views we want to stop, only the genuinely harmful ones. But who gets to decide which views are harmful? On a different note, I think that, for creativity, it’s important to be able to think and express yourself without always needing to second guess yourself. And I think we’re creating a society where everyone has to always second guess everything they think and say in case they accidentally say something that may bring in the outrage mob, either now or at some point anywhere potentially years later.
- glangdale 7y ago
  I've finding it hard to understand what sort of progress is reached by, say, enabling weird dudes to constantly and inappropriately hit on women. Suppose there is some future society that has decided that weird stinky dudes that make inappropriate remarks, stare at women's tits and compulsively hit on attractive women who are just trying to exist in a professional setting are actually A-OK. Why is that society's alleged values superior to our own? If we are trending towards a direction that makes what we now regard as sexual harassment ok (again) then I would say we're going in the wrong way, and there's no more reason to regard that hypothetical futures' values as better than ours, any more than we regard the 1950s values better now. This doesn't remotely analogize to "gay rights" or racial tolerance, etc. Being enraged/uncomfortable about, say, interracial marriage or consensual gay relationships was always a matter of people becoming involved in things that were none of their damn business (e.g. "I'm angry about what those gays are doing behind closed doors") or denying them to right to participate in society as equals. Not liking stuff like sexual harassment is something we do because of its effect on the person involved (e.g. "it's hard to be taken seriously as a professional and feel that I have dignity when Stallman makes remarks about my virginity and stares at my tits") or others like them. IMO second guessing what you think (?) and say is hardly all that difficult. People could go a long way by (a) being kind and (b) acting (shock horror) professional in a professional context and not trying to use the workplace to get dates or get laid, and (c) shutting the hell up once in a while rather than treating us to their opinions about Every Goddamn Thing. Honestly, the sheer egomania of Stallman deciding the whole world needed to hear his thoughts on underage sex is pretty wild.

JamisonM 7y ago

> The Hacker culture from which everything we have today in tech arose. Which is the culture that Stallman arguably helped create. The culture whic h makes this site "Hacker" news, is one in which doing something interesting is more important than anything else. Doing something interesting has never been more important than doing "anything else" in hacker culture as I have understood it, RMS's own motivation has always been grounded in a moral and ethical roots. One should honour his commitment to freedom above all else.

api 7y ago

I question a fundamental assumption here: that Stallman was let go or pushed to resign because of "SJWs." I don't see much evidence of that. "SJWs" have had problems with him for years and nothing happened... until now. What's different this time? Stallman's comments on Epstein added to the embarrassment of MIT. He waded into a political bonfire and added fuel. The last thing MIT needs is someone affiliated with MIT with a history of (at least sounding like he was) defending pedophilia holding forth on the Epstein saga in any way whatsoever, let alone by apologizing for or at least minimizing his actions. This time he embarrassed and offended much more powerful people.

emiliobumachar 7y ago
Stallman did not defend Epstein in any way, shape, or form.
- api 7y ago
  He minimized it. What he intended to do doesn't matter. That's not my point. What matters is that his words could be interpreted that way and that he was affiliated with MIT.
  - ng12 7y ago
    If there's one place in our society that should welcome discussion of ugly issues it should be our universities, particularly the few as storied as MIT.
    - erik_seaberg 7y ago
      It might be only CSAIL, not all of MIT, that made this call.
      - lostjohnny 7y ago
        I thaught that I in CSAIL stood for Intelligence ...

matz1 7y ago

I think this a fundamental issue with humanity, not everyone think alike. What one human think is right is another human wrong. Its all relative. At least I'm hoping in the future virtual reality can somewhat solve this where everyone can live in their own perferabable society.

gok 7y ago

Bull fucking shit. What got RMS in trouble was not questioning the status quo. It was exploiting the status quo.

raxxorrax 7y ago
Sure. The free software guy exploited the status quo. This inquisition reminds me of the people trying to protect women from the Muslim hordes and other instances.

jameslk 7y ago

In other news, Trump seems to be doing fine.

mirimir 7y ago
Yeah, but his support involves less constrained mechanisms. And you know, to the extent that the mainstream world notices Stallman's ouster, it will increase support for Trump.
traderjane 7y ago
Sending the country through impeachment for a recording about President Trump grabbing women's vaginas is different from organizations evicting Richard Stallman. It is a difference of magnitude.

faissaloo 7y ago

>We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity. Aligning yourself with what main stream society thinks is correct is now more important than anything else. This is why you should develop a second personality, at first it's exhausting but eventually you get the hang of it. >But maybe it's this fear that leads us rushing back to deep moral systems likes religious fantastics when their faith is questioned. Or perhaps it's simply that in the abscence of religious structures the mob decides morality.

mirimir 7y ago
> This is why you should develop a second personality ... Why stop at two?
- faissaloo 7y ago
  No reason, you should definitely have at least one other than your main though.
  - lostjohnny 7y ago
    What if someone can't? What if they are both equally bad?
    - faissaloo 7y ago
      >What if someone can't? Then you're very much screwed and you have my pity. >What if they are both equally bad? It's not about 'badness', your additional personalities are expedient and exist only to get you where you need to be, you will indeed make mistakes cultivating them but as long as you're concentrating on maintaining them you can't let too much slip and those personalities will develop over time.
noobermin 7y ago
>Or perhaps it's simply that in the abscence of religious structures the mob decides morality. I'm pretty sure this isn't what Nietzsche had in mind.

scoutt 7y ago

It's the age of auto-censure. Now everybody should go around the office, the school and life wearing nice people masks, avoiding to express anything that's near controversial. The punishment? Public embarrassment and shaming, in the present or the possible future for things said in the past. Who are the winners? Workplace owners. They are tired of dealing with HR issues and project instabilities for the gossip and drama derived from a controversial opinion or act. Of course, there are serious incidents (like physical violence or other) but now the level was brought so low that simply saying a bad word can give you a life sentence. Unfortunately, there is no room for radical thinkers.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mantoto 7y ago

Wut? Not tolerating shitty behavior is now conformity?

lostjohnny 7y ago
We tolerate you calling out someone you don't know. Should we not tolerate you for being shitty?

forgottenpass 7y ago

This is what happens when you sell out to advertising. A carefully managed image becomes a key asset. The software development world is going through the growing pains of our largest and most influential organizations making that deal with the devil.

helen___keller 7y ago

> We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity. Aligning yourself with what main stream society thinks is correct is now more important than anything else. I think the opposite conclusion is true. Society is entering a world of nonconformity with a very few exceptions. The problem is those few exceptions will absolutely ruin your life. Any other period in human history you will find drastically more conformity. Just go back a few decades. Tattoos? Facial hair? Casual clothing? Female? Person of color? Openly not heterosexual, or not married and monogamous for that matter? Not a white male landowner? Don't show up to church every Sunday? The further back you go in time, the more and more conformity was expected for those who wanted a good job or a position of power. Today is the least conformist society has been throughout history. With a few exceptions. And those exceptions are ill defined and irrationally punished. And unfortunately for RMS, an email in support of an associate of Epstein was one of those exceptions.

lostjohnny 7y ago
> Society is entering a world of nonconformity When nonconformity is the norm, it becomes conformity