Stallman’s experience with the online outrage mob is rather typical of the way they operate. The authors comments about the witch hunt were very on point. Defen

Stallman’s experience with the online outrage mob is rather typical of the way they operate. The authors comments about the witch hunt were very on point. Defending the target does make you a target yourself. This sort of thing happens to people all the time, the only difference about this case is that RMS has enough supporters out there that some of them will actually speak in his defence. The real problem we have as a society is that this sort of puritanical orthodoxy is becoming more common place. The way this intolerance shuts down a lot of inquiry and honest discussion seems obvious to me, and the way sinners are identified and publicly ruined is just another natural consequence of this system of values. A person is expected to have lived their whole life in perfect conformance to the orthodoxy. Any transgression, past or present, warrants complete exile from society, and any association with or defence of such a sinner warrants the same.