4 ms·

This is bull. He had decades to learn not to make women uncomfortable by doing one single thing - calling his business card his "pleasure" card when he handed i

by sp332 7y ago

This is bull. He had decades to learn not to make women uncomfortable by doing one single thing - calling his business card his "pleasure" card when he handed it to a woman - and he still does that. That's not autism. Autism might hypothetically lead to doing that until someone pulled him aside and told him it was creepy and made others uncomfortable. After that it's just being an asshole.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
thanatropism 7y ago
I'm copy-pasting a comment from earlier on because I got late to that discussion and it's doubly relevant when the standard here has gone down from "hindered the work of MIT/FSF" to "made XX-class people uncomfortable". -- 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?
- danbolt 7y ago
  Probably a general society awakening, my gut says to be honest with you. I think quality of life, progress, and stable economies/societies are ones that efficiently organize themselves into groups or orders.
- glangdale 7y ago
  The problem with your argument is that it implies that the people who were chased away from CSAIL, MIT or CS in general by people like Stallman were all planning to pile into a giant ineffective committee with each other and thus can be assumed to be No Great Loss, which is... a rather peculiar leap of logic. There's no reason to suppose this. Even accepting your logic, the people he discouraged from CS might have wound up being highly effective solo contributors or worked in small teams.
  - asjw 7y ago
    > people who were chased away from CSAIL, MIT or CS in general by people like Stallman Stallman never chased away anybody from CSAIL
    - glangdale 7y ago
      I doubt he was the sole cause of someone leaving CSAIL or CS, but I've met plenty of women who were discouraged from CS by constant "weird dudes leering at my chest" or "constantly asking me for dates" etc. Based on the tales of his behavior the balance of probabilities are Not Good that he hasn't been at least partially responsible for some people deciding "well, maybe CS isn't for me".
asveikau 7y ago
> Autism might hypothetically lead to doing that until someone pulled him aside and told him it was creepy and made others uncomfortable. It's not with autism, but I have first hand experience telling a mentally ill person (diagnosis was schizoaffective) that certain behavior is creepy and made women uncomfortable. They didn't listen. They argued it with me very intensely instead. In some cases part of the illness is not realizing there's a problem. It's not always going to work to politely flag a behavior as off putting and they get it right away.
- watwut 7y ago
  Such person is then not suitable for leadership position nor any position where communication matters. The way leaders interact trickle down and creates culture. People mimic leaders more then we care to admit. And when you put such person in position where women have choice between leaving and being undermined by his behavior or being insulted or have to work around potential danger to reputation etc or what it is that he was doing, you are in fact disadvantaging women in that organization. You dont get to claim there is no sexism here nor claim that it is all meritocracy nor fair nor babble about natural self selection. It makes not just women leave, it makes men who dont care about being members of such culture to leave. For the record, a person that mistreats males would be same case.
  - asjw 7y ago
    Right. Blame the autistic. The what? The women will.be next, because they are sometimes conditioned by their hormones. And only white rich,Christian, maybe Nazi male will be the right ones. Already seen, no thanks. Stallman have never harassed single woman. It's all fake.
  - asveikau 7y ago
    I don't think what you've written is in conflict with anything I said. In the case of this person I am referring to, it's been rather self-selecting and he's not in any positions of authority. It's pretty different from Stallman's purported autism-spectrum behavior too. But it's also important to note that with the right medications, people like the case I'm describing can do better. So I'd like to afford that, while we agree that people don't make great leaders, authorities, communicators in that state or condition, they don't necessarily get there by being bad or totally irredeemable people, help is available to them and we should hope that they find it and stay "on the wagon", to use a metaphor from somewhere else.
throwaway877cf9 7y ago
Funny how autism isn't a valid excuse but being transgender is. Because there are plenty of trans "woman" engineers at large companies like Google, Twitter, GitHub etc. that are fucking creepy and spend all day posting nudes and talking about "girl dick" on social media and yet they're immune from criticism or losing their jobs. Why is it okay to call out Stallman for being a disgusting fuck but the moment you call out these other freaks you're considered a bigot? Why is autism not a valid excuse to be a pervert but being trans is?

by sp332 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

thanatropism 7y ago

I'm copy-pasting a comment from earlier on because I got late to that discussion and it's doubly relevant when the standard here has gone down from "hindered the work of MIT/FSF" to "made XX-class people uncomfortable". -- 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?

danbolt 7y ago
Probably a general society awakening, my gut says to be honest with you. I think quality of life, progress, and stable economies/societies are ones that efficiently organize themselves into groups or orders.
glangdale 7y ago
The problem with your argument is that it implies that the people who were chased away from CSAIL, MIT or CS in general by people like Stallman were all planning to pile into a giant ineffective committee with each other and thus can be assumed to be No Great Loss, which is... a rather peculiar leap of logic. There's no reason to suppose this. Even accepting your logic, the people he discouraged from CS might have wound up being highly effective solo contributors or worked in small teams.
- asjw 7y ago
  > people who were chased away from CSAIL, MIT or CS in general by people like Stallman Stallman never chased away anybody from CSAIL
  - glangdale 7y ago
    I doubt he was the sole cause of someone leaving CSAIL or CS, but I've met plenty of women who were discouraged from CS by constant "weird dudes leering at my chest" or "constantly asking me for dates" etc. Based on the tales of his behavior the balance of probabilities are Not Good that he hasn't been at least partially responsible for some people deciding "well, maybe CS isn't for me".

asveikau 7y ago

> Autism might hypothetically lead to doing that until someone pulled him aside and told him it was creepy and made others uncomfortable. It's not with autism, but I have first hand experience telling a mentally ill person (diagnosis was schizoaffective) that certain behavior is creepy and made women uncomfortable. They didn't listen. They argued it with me very intensely instead. In some cases part of the illness is not realizing there's a problem. It's not always going to work to politely flag a behavior as off putting and they get it right away.

watwut 7y ago
Such person is then not suitable for leadership position nor any position where communication matters. The way leaders interact trickle down and creates culture. People mimic leaders more then we care to admit. And when you put such person in position where women have choice between leaving and being undermined by his behavior or being insulted or have to work around potential danger to reputation etc or what it is that he was doing, you are in fact disadvantaging women in that organization. You dont get to claim there is no sexism here nor claim that it is all meritocracy nor fair nor babble about natural self selection. It makes not just women leave, it makes men who dont care about being members of such culture to leave. For the record, a person that mistreats males would be same case.
- asjw 7y ago
  Right. Blame the autistic. The what? The women will.be next, because they are sometimes conditioned by their hormones. And only white rich,Christian, maybe Nazi male will be the right ones. Already seen, no thanks. Stallman have never harassed single woman. It's all fake.
- asveikau 7y ago
  I don't think what you've written is in conflict with anything I said. In the case of this person I am referring to, it's been rather self-selecting and he's not in any positions of authority. It's pretty different from Stallman's purported autism-spectrum behavior too. But it's also important to note that with the right medications, people like the case I'm describing can do better. So I'd like to afford that, while we agree that people don't make great leaders, authorities, communicators in that state or condition, they don't necessarily get there by being bad or totally irredeemable people, help is available to them and we should hope that they find it and stay "on the wagon", to use a metaphor from somewhere else.

throwaway877cf9 7y ago

Funny how autism isn't a valid excuse but being transgender is. Because there are plenty of trans "woman" engineers at large companies like Google, Twitter, GitHub etc. that are fucking creepy and spend all day posting nudes and talking about "girl dick" on social media and yet they're immune from criticism or losing their jobs. Why is it okay to call out Stallman for being a disgusting fuck but the moment you call out these other freaks you're considered a bigot? Why is autism not a valid excuse to be a pervert but being trans is?