6 ms·

Here We Go Again

47 points by lastgeniusua 6y ago

commandlinefan 6y ago
If I have to choose between Richard Stallman and Andy Wingo, I choose Stallman.
- lastgeniusua 6y ago
  A way to totally miss the point of the article and the situation and come up with an absurd choice I guess?
  - encryptluks2 6y ago
    What situation is that exactly? Be specific.. the article was light on details and seemed like it was trying too hard to influence opinion based on feelings rather than facts.
    - ip34162 6y ago
      Here's something, not everything: [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21287006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21287006 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20994216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20994216 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26545420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26545420 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789
      - encryptluks2 6y ago
        From what I could tell these are literally political attacks taking things out of context. I saw one saying that Stallman said it was okay for people to pester for sex. Then I went and read what he said and no where did he say that.
      - Chris2048 6y ago
        The problem with attacking Stallman on a lie then saying "Yeah, but there was other legitimate stuff too" is that the initial misrepresentation demonstrates bad faith - which casts doubt on later insinuations. If there is stuff that Stallman legitimately has to answer for, so be it, but in the context of kicking him while down, Gish-gallop style, this is pure justification after the fact.
dls2016 6y ago
Once you kill all your heroes, it's pretty clear that a person (1) can do great things, (2) have completed those things in an environment of exclusion (not to mention Epstein) and (3) might no longer be the best person to lead.
- prussian 6y ago
  >(3) might no longer be the best person to lead. this is the part I think people are having trouble with for some reason. I respect RMS for what he did, but it's clear he's probably not the right person to lead the movement anymore. It's hard to excuse some of his strange and creepy behavior, but after meeting him, twice on the same day, it isn't entirely unsurprising; perhaps it's unfair for me to say, but I'm pretty certain he has some form of neuro-divergence.
- bitwize 6y ago
  To me RMS doesn't lead the Free Software movement, and hasn't for quite some time -- just a traditionalist wing of the movement. I don't have to agree with him, worship him, or not think he's a weird and unpleasant person to respect the good he did -- and does -- for free software. But there are a lot of diverse views and perspectives within open source and even free software, and RMS is no longer the barycenter of the movement the way he was in the 80s and early 90s. But the truth is, we need RMS or someone like him around, warts and all, otherwise the Overton window for open source will get dragged further and further toward corporate interests. There's a LOT of money behind this, and you cannot look into the backgrounds and views of the loudest voices calling for RMS's cancellation and NOT conclude that there is strong corporate influence to get rid of him.
sagichmal 6y ago
Well said.
encryptluks2 6y ago
Let's not forget Bill Gates remaining friends with Epstein while we're at it and giving him the opportunity to be the face of good regarding Coronavirus.
- domano 6y ago
  Do you have a link?
  - encryptluks2 6y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-... First result after typing in "Bill Gates Epstein"
bloaf 6y ago
So many of these nonprofit software orgs seem to be run like small town churches. Board members are selected through some combination of ideological purity, zeal, and nepotism rather than any sensible measure of competence or efficacy. Andy's complaint seems to me to be that they are selecting for the wrong kind of ideological purity (i.e. yesteryear's free software ethos instead of today's gender issues), and I think this criticism misses the forest for a tree.
- lastgeniusua 6y ago
  I am curious as to where did you find Andy mentioning anything about a new kind of ideological purity? Or is this the typical 'SJW' scarecrow to prevent any kind of meaningful change whatsoever? What if, I don't know, we update that free software ethos and acknowledge its dark history of discrimination and abuse?
  - bloaf 6y ago
    > Of course I would rather that the FSF wouldn't allow itself to be seen as an essentially misogynist organization. So clean house, FSF!
    - lastgeniusua 6y ago
      Is not continuing to employ abusers what you are questioning here and trying to portray as the new gender issue ideology? Free software and misogyny aren't the same in the way you might think they are, the former can exist without the latter.
      - bloaf 6y ago
        You asked "where did you find Andy mentioning anything about a new kind of ideological purity?" I answered with a line where he specifically demands the FSF get rid of people "perceived" as misogynist. I.e. apply a modern gender issue ideological purity test. Now you have claimed this is a defense of abusers. That is an equivocation, an intellectually dishonest rhetorical tactic. The discussion up to this point was about perceptions of misogyny, which is not the same thing as abuse.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Chris2048 6y ago
> it was his insinuation that it was somehow OK if his recently-deceased mentor Marvin Minsky ... had sex with a 17-year-old on Jeffrey Epstein's private island. Here we go again indeed.. > Comments are closed. of course they are, they might point out the factual errors in the premise, especially given that no links or quotes of Stallman are provided to suggest what the basis of that premise is. FYI: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ Is there a petition I can sign to support removing (from positions of leadership) people who spread malicious/unsupported misrepresentations of people? EDIT: two people at least have down-voted this, without providing any kind of rebuttal to my claim that this blog post is spreading misinformation. So, is this because they believe it not to be the case (but aren't keen on rebutting it) OR is it that they don't care if it is true, it is simply an inconvenience to their political outlook?
bm3719 6y ago
Here's a suggestion I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: In situations where two camps ostensibly agree on mission but disagree on execution, why don't we just have two organizations? In this case the "show me the code" camp can collectivize their Free Software efforts and the "diversity and inclusion" camp can do the same, both with the internal rules and leadership structure that appeals to them. It seems a segment of the community (possibly a loud minority) here is insisting on a monoculture across not just some but all organizations. Obviously that's not going to serve everyone. Doing this would even let us see objective results about which organizational culture is most effective by various metrics.
- lastgeniusua 6y ago
  The article discusses the issues with this approach in Andy's situation (hosting, rights etc.)
  - ralph84 6y ago
    Hosting is trivial. Copyright less so, but forking a project when you don’t agree with the direction of the copyright holder is a long-established tradition in open source. FSF and GNU will forever be associated with rms. If maintainers don’t like that association they should fork and rebrand.
- tticvs 6y ago
  Because one camp (guess which) won't accept this solution since their actual goal is complete dominance.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > In situations where two camps ostensibly agree on mission but disagree on execution, why don't we just have two organizations? That's usually the eventual result if the disagreement can't be resolved, but usually seen as suboptimal by both sides, since both would prefer one organization pursuing the shared goal by the optimum approach.
  - 6y ago
themgt 6y ago
Can we define what opinions are allowed to be held anymore? Just put up a list somewhere with all the opinions that should be banned from polite society and rightly get you fired, so everyone can understand what they are? Just as an example, the author wrote this a while back (among similar sentiments): "Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." lol so true Personally I'm not a fan of people promoting negative stereotypes of an entire race/gender in this way, but I would not support calls for Wingo's firing/"cancellation" for expressing this opinion. If this sort of charity for differing opinions is no longer reciprocal though, I see no reason for it be offered by anyone. We can all just retreat to ideological silos. https://twitter.com/andywingo/status/778290363635302400 https://twitter.com/andywingo/status/778290363635302400
- lastgeniusua 6y ago
  just throwing this out there, but like, blatant sexism and racism might be those opinions? tolerating these and promoting people holding them isn't cool either.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - stickfigure 6y ago
    > "Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." lol so true > blatant sexism and racism There seems to be a lack of self-awareness here?
    - bitwize 6y ago
      Only if you ignore the all-important "punch up/punch down" rules. Because in current racial orthodoxy whiteness is not a race but a privilege class of the racially unoppressed, disparaging remarks about white people always "punch up" and are therefore acceptable.
- pupppet 6y ago
  >Just put up a list somewhere with all the opinions that should be banned from polite society You betcha, I'll get you started: - Do not advocate for rape
recursivedoubts 6y ago
> Comments are closed. indeed
elpocko 6y ago
> Comments are closed. So the one time you posted something controversial on your blog, you immediately and preventively shut down any kind of discourse. So much for credibility.
1970-01-01 6y ago
It's a much bigger trending problem. We have entered an era where our leader's flaws can (and probably should) be exposed. There is an old idiom: Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. We cannot watch over our leaders like a hawk and dissolve their right to privacy however. The critical problem we now continually face (Here We Go Again and Again) is how do we forgive and re-trust our leaders? Where is the line that eliminates them from leadership?

Here We Go Again

47 points by lastgeniusua 6y ago

commandlinefan 6y ago

If I have to choose between Richard Stallman and Andy Wingo, I choose Stallman.

lastgeniusua 6y ago
A way to totally miss the point of the article and the situation and come up with an absurd choice I guess?
- encryptluks2 6y ago
  What situation is that exactly? Be specific.. the article was light on details and seemed like it was trying too hard to influence opinion based on feelings rather than facts.
  - ip34162 6y ago
    Here's something, not everything: [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21287006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21287006 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20994216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20994216 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26545420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26545420 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789
    - encryptluks2 6y ago
      From what I could tell these are literally political attacks taking things out of context. I saw one saying that Stallman said it was okay for people to pester for sex. Then I went and read what he said and no where did he say that.
    - Chris2048 6y ago
      The problem with attacking Stallman on a lie then saying "Yeah, but there was other legitimate stuff too" is that the initial misrepresentation demonstrates bad faith - which casts doubt on later insinuations. If there is stuff that Stallman legitimately has to answer for, so be it, but in the context of kicking him while down, Gish-gallop style, this is pure justification after the fact.

dls2016 6y ago

Once you kill all your heroes, it's pretty clear that a person (1) can do great things, (2) have completed those things in an environment of exclusion (not to mention Epstein) and (3) might no longer be the best person to lead.

prussian 6y ago
>(3) might no longer be the best person to lead. this is the part I think people are having trouble with for some reason. I respect RMS for what he did, but it's clear he's probably not the right person to lead the movement anymore. It's hard to excuse some of his strange and creepy behavior, but after meeting him, twice on the same day, it isn't entirely unsurprising; perhaps it's unfair for me to say, but I'm pretty certain he has some form of neuro-divergence.
bitwize 6y ago
To me RMS doesn't lead the Free Software movement, and hasn't for quite some time -- just a traditionalist wing of the movement. I don't have to agree with him, worship him, or not think he's a weird and unpleasant person to respect the good he did -- and does -- for free software. But there are a lot of diverse views and perspectives within open source and even free software, and RMS is no longer the barycenter of the movement the way he was in the 80s and early 90s. But the truth is, we need RMS or someone like him around, warts and all, otherwise the Overton window for open source will get dragged further and further toward corporate interests. There's a LOT of money behind this, and you cannot look into the backgrounds and views of the loudest voices calling for RMS's cancellation and NOT conclude that there is strong corporate influence to get rid of him.

sagichmal 6y ago

Well said.

encryptluks2 6y ago

Let's not forget Bill Gates remaining friends with Epstein while we're at it and giving him the opportunity to be the face of good regarding Coronavirus.

domano 6y ago
Do you have a link?
- encryptluks2 6y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-... First result after typing in "Bill Gates Epstein"

bloaf 6y ago

So many of these nonprofit software orgs seem to be run like small town churches. Board members are selected through some combination of ideological purity, zeal, and nepotism rather than any sensible measure of competence or efficacy. Andy's complaint seems to me to be that they are selecting for the wrong kind of ideological purity (i.e. yesteryear's free software ethos instead of today's gender issues), and I think this criticism misses the forest for a tree.

lastgeniusua 6y ago
I am curious as to where did you find Andy mentioning anything about a new kind of ideological purity? Or is this the typical 'SJW' scarecrow to prevent any kind of meaningful change whatsoever? What if, I don't know, we update that free software ethos and acknowledge its dark history of discrimination and abuse?
- bloaf 6y ago
  > Of course I would rather that the FSF wouldn't allow itself to be seen as an essentially misogynist organization. So clean house, FSF!
  - lastgeniusua 6y ago
    Is not continuing to employ abusers what you are questioning here and trying to portray as the new gender issue ideology? Free software and misogyny aren't the same in the way you might think they are, the former can exist without the latter.
    - bloaf 6y ago
      You asked "where did you find Andy mentioning anything about a new kind of ideological purity?" I answered with a line where he specifically demands the FSF get rid of people "perceived" as misogynist. I.e. apply a modern gender issue ideological purity test. Now you have claimed this is a defense of abusers. That is an equivocation, an intellectually dishonest rhetorical tactic. The discussion up to this point was about perceptions of misogyny, which is not the same thing as abuse.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Chris2048 6y ago

> it was his insinuation that it was somehow OK if his recently-deceased mentor Marvin Minsky ... had sex with a 17-year-old on Jeffrey Epstein's private island. Here we go again indeed.. > Comments are closed. of course they are, they might point out the factual errors in the premise, especially given that no links or quotes of Stallman are provided to suggest what the basis of that premise is. FYI: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ Is there a petition I can sign to support removing (from positions of leadership) people who spread malicious/unsupported misrepresentations of people? EDIT: two people at least have down-voted this, without providing any kind of rebuttal to my claim that this blog post is spreading misinformation. So, is this because they believe it not to be the case (but aren't keen on rebutting it) OR is it that they don't care if it is true, it is simply an inconvenience to their political outlook?

bm3719 6y ago

Here's a suggestion I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: In situations where two camps ostensibly agree on mission but disagree on execution, why don't we just have two organizations? In this case the "show me the code" camp can collectivize their Free Software efforts and the "diversity and inclusion" camp can do the same, both with the internal rules and leadership structure that appeals to them. It seems a segment of the community (possibly a loud minority) here is insisting on a monoculture across not just some but all organizations. Obviously that's not going to serve everyone. Doing this would even let us see objective results about which organizational culture is most effective by various metrics.

lastgeniusua 6y ago
The article discusses the issues with this approach in Andy's situation (hosting, rights etc.)
- ralph84 6y ago
  Hosting is trivial. Copyright less so, but forking a project when you don’t agree with the direction of the copyright holder is a long-established tradition in open source. FSF and GNU will forever be associated with rms. If maintainers don’t like that association they should fork and rebrand.
tticvs 6y ago
Because one camp (guess which) won't accept this solution since their actual goal is complete dominance.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> In situations where two camps ostensibly agree on mission but disagree on execution, why don't we just have two organizations? That's usually the eventual result if the disagreement can't be resolved, but usually seen as suboptimal by both sides, since both would prefer one organization pursuing the shared goal by the optimum approach.
- 6y ago

themgt 6y ago

Can we define what opinions are allowed to be held anymore? Just put up a list somewhere with all the opinions that should be banned from polite society and rightly get you fired, so everyone can understand what they are? Just as an example, the author wrote this a while back (among similar sentiments): "Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." lol so true Personally I'm not a fan of people promoting negative stereotypes of an entire race/gender in this way, but I would not support calls for Wingo's firing/"cancellation" for expressing this opinion. If this sort of charity for differing opinions is no longer reciprocal though, I see no reason for it be offered by anyone. We can all just retreat to ideological silos. https://twitter.com/andywingo/status/778290363635302400 https://twitter.com/andywingo/status/778290363635302400

lastgeniusua 6y ago
just throwing this out there, but like, blatant sexism and racism might be those opinions? tolerating these and promoting people holding them isn't cool either.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- stickfigure 6y ago
  > "Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." lol so true > blatant sexism and racism There seems to be a lack of self-awareness here?
  - bitwize 6y ago
    Only if you ignore the all-important "punch up/punch down" rules. Because in current racial orthodoxy whiteness is not a race but a privilege class of the racially unoppressed, disparaging remarks about white people always "punch up" and are therefore acceptable.
pupppet 6y ago
>Just put up a list somewhere with all the opinions that should be banned from polite society You betcha, I'll get you started: - Do not advocate for rape

recursivedoubts 6y ago

> Comments are closed. indeed

elpocko 6y ago

> Comments are closed. So the one time you posted something controversial on your blog, you immediately and preventively shut down any kind of discourse. So much for credibility.

1970-01-01 6y ago

It's a much bigger trending problem. We have entered an era where our leader's flaws can (and probably should) be exposed. There is an old idiom: Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. We cannot watch over our leaders like a hawk and dissolve their right to privacy however. The critical problem we now continually face (Here We Go Again and Again) is how do we forgive and re-trust our leaders? Where is the line that eliminates them from leadership?