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You can wish for people to remain focused on the ideas, but it is my strong belief that will not happen. People, in general, do not associate with people they d

You can wish for people to remain focused on the ideas, but it is my strong belief that will not happen. People, in general, do not associate with people they dislike (for person or moral reasons). Even if I was willing to work with Stallman, I believe many, many people will not. If Stallman wished for this to be "just about the ideas", he could have never told jokes about "deflowering female virgins" because they have not used Emacs. I assume he told these kinds of jokes because he hoped it would make him, or the FSF, more popular. He was (in my opinion) wrong.

ddingus 6y ago
Then the ideas will die, and we will relearn these lessons again in the future, hopefully. And they will die because it's just not a priority otherwise. Our opponents know that and absolutely will exploit it. Solidarity on things is hard. It does require dealing with people we do not like, and it often also requires we accept our enemies, and "those other people" benefit same as we do. I entertained this chat to see whether similar dynamics are in play on this matter, and they are. I have experience in this from labor politics. Know when they win? They win with high degrees of solidarity rooted in mutual benefit. They always lose when personal judgement is a higher priority than the mutual benefit is. Put simply, even the assholes need to pay rent, feed the kids, spend time with family, see the doctor, etc. If it is more about who is the bigger asshole than it is the ideas, we will be left with a solid understanding of who the bigger asshole is, not a more robust, solid state of software freedom. Now, that said, don't go blaming Stallman for your own choices. I won't blame him for mine. He said very undesirable things. Lots of people do that, and it would be better if they didn't. As painful as all that is, the hard truth of it has nothing to do with software freedom. I think he can be a ripe ass, frankly. Maybe better choices are in his future. I hope so.
ddingus 6y ago
Thanks, by the way. You are a pretty great discussion partner. Frank open and honest. I appreciate that.

ddingus 6y ago

Then the ideas will die, and we will relearn these lessons again in the future, hopefully. And they will die because it's just not a priority otherwise. Our opponents know that and absolutely will exploit it. Solidarity on things is hard. It does require dealing with people we do not like, and it often also requires we accept our enemies, and "those other people" benefit same as we do. I entertained this chat to see whether similar dynamics are in play on this matter, and they are. I have experience in this from labor politics. Know when they win? They win with high degrees of solidarity rooted in mutual benefit. They always lose when personal judgement is a higher priority than the mutual benefit is. Put simply, even the assholes need to pay rent, feed the kids, spend time with family, see the doctor, etc. If it is more about who is the bigger asshole than it is the ideas, we will be left with a solid understanding of who the bigger asshole is, not a more robust, solid state of software freedom. Now, that said, don't go blaming Stallman for your own choices. I won't blame him for mine. He said very undesirable things. Lots of people do that, and it would be better if they didn't. As painful as all that is, the hard truth of it has nothing to do with software freedom. I think he can be a ripe ass, frankly. Maybe better choices are in his future. I hope so.

ddingus 6y ago

Thanks, by the way. You are a pretty great discussion partner. Frank open and honest. I appreciate that.