5 ms·
Utterly destroying a person's reputation should come with a damn high burden of proof. That article would be laughed out of any courtroom. Reading that has bee
by blub 7y ago
Utterly destroying a person's reputation should come with a damn high burden of proof. That article would be laughed out of any courtroom.
Reading that has been a complete waste of time. To save everyone else some effort:
1. The man has problematic opinions. Welcome to democracy, where people with uncomfortable opinions are free to hold and discuss them. This is healthy.
2. He used a bad pick-up line, saying he'll kill himself if X doesn't go out with him.
3. The MIT report doesn't mention Stallman by name.
3. Had a mattress in his office.
The discourse level in the US has hit rock bottom lately, all I see are online mobs running amok.
- shadowgovt 7y agoYou don't seem to be arguing the facts; you seem to be arguing whether the facts as arrayed should be considered damaging to a person's reputation. To give a bad analogy, you're not criticizing the claim that what he said is what he said, you're just classifying it as "locker room talk."
- tssva 7y ago1. The man has problematic opinions. Welcome to democracy, where people with uncomfortable opinions are free to hold and discuss them. This is healthy. People are free to hold and discuss them but others are just as free to exercise their democratic right of free association by choosing not to associate with you because of them.
- Accujack 7y agoThis last is a major contributing factor to the volume of those asking for his ouster... they are free to walk away and not use GNU or other free software, but they don't want to. They want to have their cake and eat it too, they want to keep free software and get rid of the guy that makes them feel bad about it because he's awkward and poorly socialized... like very many computer savvy people are. These people are arguing for their own desires more than anything. They want an FSF they can feel good about, not this one with a flawed person producing the software they can't give up. If he doesn't sit well on a pedestal, push him over and set someone else there.
- shadowgovt 7y agoThat's arguably what figureheads are for; to be set up and knocked down at the whims of the public. When a person becomes symbolic of an organization, they run the risk the organization will change (or they will) and dissociation will become necessary.
- Accujack 7y agoHe's never really been a figurehead, at least not entirely. At the start, he was one of the most prolific programmers around, and I think he still writes code sometimes.
- blub 7y agoCan you honestly say that the others have merely chosen not to associate with Stallman? No, they are coordinating a character assassination campaign and are pressuring everyone to disavow him. It's disappointing to see people cheering mobs on, just because they seem to attack "bad" people, while forgetting that anyone can be made to look bad.
- shadowgovt 7y ago"anyone can be made to look bad" is an opinion that basically throws the human capacity for discernment under the bus, and if humans can't discern things then why bother with anything? No; rms is gross and creepy because rms is gross and creepy. Not because some conspiracy has worked to make him look like he is.
- blub 7y ago"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged". This is why we have due process and innocent until proven guilty. Even if he were gross and "creepy", that's no reason to oust someone from the organizations they helped create and destroy their reputation with absurd unverifiable anecdotes, like the ones about plants or vi. Or the note hanging on the door, which was likely a prank. Creepy is also a meaningless word, best associated with ghosts and monsters, not people. Nowadays it seems to be used to criticize awkward male courtship attempts, as if trying to romance someone isn't tough enough and those that don't know how to do it have to be ridiculed too.
- shadowgovt 7y agoWe have innocent until proven guilty as a guardrail against depriving people of their freedom. That doesn't even fully describe the entire US court system, which includes civil court (standard of proof is "preponderance of evidence"), and neither of these are the same as the softer standard of when we deprive a person of the privilege of their trusted station (which is what is happening to rms). In that court, "burden of association with tarnished reputation" is plenty. That's why concepts like "the appearance of impropriety is impropriety" exist.