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How is a "You can't lead an organisation and be a role model if your views hurt a significant amount of people in the organisation" a non-judicial punishment? I

How is a "You can't lead an organisation and be a role model if your views hurt a significant amount of people in the organisation" a non-judicial punishment? If you can't read or write you would also probably not lead a large organization, and it's not punishment. Can you rejoin if you have learned reading and writing? Yes. Stallman is not a janitor but in top management (I have the highest respect for janitors but they are not required to be a role model of the organization). "Thus, they are bound by the Americans with Disability Act and other applicable law to make accommodations for a handicapped employee." Totally agree, but I won't make a blind person the watchout guy on a ship. There are limits to inclusion. [Edit] HN you made me giggle this morning. This gets quite some downvotes and for a short time was Karma negative - so people try to cancel me with downvotes for my opinion because they think RMS is cancelled for his opinion. Believing two different things at the same time - or believing one thing by doing the opposite is the real turing test. Nice insight, thanks.

riffraff 6y ago
As I understand it, it is non judicial because there is no judiciary system involved. This doesn't imply it's not an irrational action, i.e. you may justifiably avoid a person/thing that is linked with immoral behavior even if there is no sentence (say, avoid bitcoin because of climate issues).
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  I think they were asking about the punishment part.
dkdk8283 6y ago
His views are not relevant. Should focus on his ability to contribute and keep personal beliefs out of the picture.
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  Except he didn’t keep his views to himself. He shared it with a ton of others, in writing.
- jordigh 6y ago
  How are his views not important when the entire mission of the FSF is to spread a very particular point of view? When RMS is advocating for zoophilia and necrophilia (he's finally relented on pedophilia, though, after many years of also defending "consensual" pedophilia), it hurts the advocacy for his other causes. You can't effectively simultaneously champion two such disparate causes without one cause seeping into the other. Edit: Sigh, here it is, let's trot it out again, 2006 is when he was defending pedophilia: > I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%202006%20(Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party) https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...
  - eecc 6y ago
    Please refrain from libelous statements. I’ve never read anything from Stallman that defends any behavior a reasonable person would identify as Paedophilia, rather objections on the extremal formal definitions the US judiciary has for the status of “child”
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      This is a subtle ad hominem. There are many reasonable people who would describe Stallman's particular pedantry around the definitions of "child" to be pedophilia-apology. Describing anyone who disagrees with you, including the person you're replying to, as "not a reasonable person" is unbecoming of hacker news. It's also absolutely not libel, and it's rather silly to throw such terms around.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > I’ve never read anything from Stallman that defends any behavior a reasonable person would identify as Paedophilia Stallman defended legalization of pedophilia by name (and in the context of an overt political effort to eliminate age of consent entirely) and only recanted that support after the controversy over Minsky erupted in 2019 (which, given the somewhat related subject matter, also brought heightened, though not the first, attention to that advocacy.)
- me_again 6y ago
  Can't say that makes much sense to me. Stallman's contribution is inextricable from his views. He's not on the FSF board as a programmer hacking on Emacs - surely it is to advocate and advance the cause of free software. His views on software, copyright, etc are obviously pretty relevant. His views on other matters are relevant at least insofar as they affect his ability to advocate effectively.
- geofft 6y ago
  Stallman is just as free to contribute as you are I are. And he's been contributing over the last few years to the GNU Project. The question at hand is whether he's an appropriate person to place in a leadership position of an activism organization. And frankly, there's no "should" there - there's only the blunt question of whether he's helping the organization achieve its activism goals or not. If his personal beliefs or actions are making the targets of the activism not be interested in listening, then he's undermining the work of his fellow activists, whether or not he intends to. If his affiliation with the organization threatens funding, then he's putting the organization at risk, whether or not we think that ought to be a relevant factor for donors. (And it goes the other way too, of course.) The goal of the free software movement is to convince people that software freedom is important and to produce free software. It is a hard enough task. Changing the goals to be to convince people that, first, they should stop caring about Richard Stallman's views, and then after that, that they should care about software freedom, just makes the task even harder.
- KingOfCoders 6y ago
  As a coder? Yes. As a manager and conference organizer? No.
TeeMassive 6y ago
> How is a "You can't lead an organisation and be a role model if your views hurt a significant amount of people in the organisation" a non-judicial punishment? If you can't read or write you would also probably not lead a large organization, and it's not punishment. Is it a decision? Yes. Is it a decision made in the name of public interest? Yes. Is it a decision that relates to some kind of transgression? Yes. Is it a decision that seriously affects a person's liberty and pursuit of happiness? Yes. Is it a decision made out of a fair trial? No. Just because the labels "justice, diversity, inclusivity, equity" are displayed on a mob that harasses and assaults people doesn't make it less of a mob. Also Stallman didn't "hurt" anyone. This is ridiculous.
skissane 6y ago
> Totally agree, but I won't make a blind person the watchout guy on a ship. There are limits to inclusion. Generally speaking, a blind person can't do anything to improve their vision. A person with a social disability can learn coping strategies to perform better in social situations, in spite of their disability. In the literature on ASD, this process even has a name – "masking". They may never be as good at social stuff as someone without a social disability, they may find social situations draining, etc, but they can improve. People with ASD [0] often have poor social intuition, but they can learn to think consciously about things which other people can identify intuitively. There's no reason why Stallman couldn't do that as well. Sometimes, given enough time, what first had to be learnt consciously can become more automatic, even intuitive. Has Stallman been taking actions to try to improve as a result of this public controversy? No idea. But it is at least possible he has. Maybe he's been seeing a therapist. Maybe he's even shared that fact with the FSF board, and maybe they've taken that into account in their decision to reinstate him, but of course it wouldn't be appropriate for the FSF board to share that kind of private medical information publicly. Of course, we also have to consider the fact that he is 68. Increasing cognitive rigidity is a natural consequence of ageing, and people can find it harder to change ingrained habits at 68 than if they were 20 or 30 or 40 years younger. Even so, I don't think being 68 makes change impossible, just harder. [0] I'm not saying Stallman has ASD, simply that he may. Quite a few years ago he publicly expressed the opinion that he doesn't have ASD/autism/Asperger's, but I don't believe that was based on a professional evaluation, simply a case of "self-undiagnosis". Also, his comments demonstrate he doesn't have a good understanding of ASD, so I don't think his "self-undiagnosis" should be given a lot of weight. He obviously has signs of broad autism phenotype (BAP), but whether it is just BAP or whether it is ASD is something which only a professional can answer. BAP is not a clinical diagnosis, it is a very common subclinical condition. I don't think the BAP-vs-ASD boundary is important for this discussion – people with BAP have many of the same issues that people with ASD do, just to a milder and less disabling degree.
- KingOfCoders 6y ago
  "Maybe he's even shared that fact with the FSF board, and maybe they've taken that into account in their decision to reinstate him" If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release. "Of course, we also have to consider the fact that he is 68. Increasing cognitive rigidity is a natural consequence of ageing, and people can find it harder to change ingrained habits at 68 than if they were 20 or 30 or 40 years younger." So you think someone with cognitive rigidity who can't change his habits is a good fit for a leadership role?
torthrowaway998 6y ago
>if your views hurt a significant amount of people Stallman's views hurt people in the sense that some people got offended that he believed in things that they did not. None of his views could hurt people in any other way, he never posted any racist/sexist/transphobic/etc views. Downvotes are not cancelling. Downvotes won't get you fired. Nobody will bully you for being downvoted (or even having this opinion really). They just show that people find your argument dishonest or disagree with you.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
if you were leading an organization, and had grown it from nothing to being important, then if you are removed from that organization for things you have said that is obviously a punishment, if it is done without a court taking part it is non-judicial punishment. Of course non-judicial punishments exist all over the place and that's just the way the world works, although really for some of the things he's done I think he might open up to judicial (civil court) punishment as well.
- drewcoo 6y ago
  Now imagine that the org has fought corporate-enforced "norms" for decades and suddenly you've been ousted because of corporate-enforced norms. That's edging closer to what happened to RMS.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    different norms than they have been dedicated to fighting, and probably the corporate enforced norms here are not ones that the corporations actually care about enforcing but only do so because they feel threatened by other, non-corporate enforced norms.

riffraff 6y ago

As I understand it, it is non judicial because there is no judiciary system involved. This doesn't imply it's not an irrational action, i.e. you may justifiably avoid a person/thing that is linked with immoral behavior even if there is no sentence (say, avoid bitcoin because of climate issues).

pseudalopex 6y ago
I think they were asking about the punishment part.

dkdk8283 6y ago

His views are not relevant. Should focus on his ability to contribute and keep personal beliefs out of the picture.

enraged_camel 6y ago
Except he didn’t keep his views to himself. He shared it with a ton of others, in writing.
jordigh 6y ago
How are his views not important when the entire mission of the FSF is to spread a very particular point of view? When RMS is advocating for zoophilia and necrophilia (he's finally relented on pedophilia, though, after many years of also defending "consensual" pedophilia), it hurts the advocacy for his other causes. You can't effectively simultaneously champion two such disparate causes without one cause seeping into the other. Edit: Sigh, here it is, let's trot it out again, 2006 is when he was defending pedophilia: > I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%202006%20(Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party) https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...
- eecc 6y ago
  Please refrain from libelous statements. I’ve never read anything from Stallman that defends any behavior a reasonable person would identify as Paedophilia, rather objections on the extremal formal definitions the US judiciary has for the status of “child”
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    This is a subtle ad hominem. There are many reasonable people who would describe Stallman's particular pedantry around the definitions of "child" to be pedophilia-apology. Describing anyone who disagrees with you, including the person you're replying to, as "not a reasonable person" is unbecoming of hacker news. It's also absolutely not libel, and it's rather silly to throw such terms around.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > I’ve never read anything from Stallman that defends any behavior a reasonable person would identify as Paedophilia Stallman defended legalization of pedophilia by name (and in the context of an overt political effort to eliminate age of consent entirely) and only recanted that support after the controversy over Minsky erupted in 2019 (which, given the somewhat related subject matter, also brought heightened, though not the first, attention to that advocacy.)
me_again 6y ago
Can't say that makes much sense to me. Stallman's contribution is inextricable from his views. He's not on the FSF board as a programmer hacking on Emacs - surely it is to advocate and advance the cause of free software. His views on software, copyright, etc are obviously pretty relevant. His views on other matters are relevant at least insofar as they affect his ability to advocate effectively.
geofft 6y ago
Stallman is just as free to contribute as you are I are. And he's been contributing over the last few years to the GNU Project. The question at hand is whether he's an appropriate person to place in a leadership position of an activism organization. And frankly, there's no "should" there - there's only the blunt question of whether he's helping the organization achieve its activism goals or not. If his personal beliefs or actions are making the targets of the activism not be interested in listening, then he's undermining the work of his fellow activists, whether or not he intends to. If his affiliation with the organization threatens funding, then he's putting the organization at risk, whether or not we think that ought to be a relevant factor for donors. (And it goes the other way too, of course.) The goal of the free software movement is to convince people that software freedom is important and to produce free software. It is a hard enough task. Changing the goals to be to convince people that, first, they should stop caring about Richard Stallman's views, and then after that, that they should care about software freedom, just makes the task even harder.
KingOfCoders 6y ago
As a coder? Yes. As a manager and conference organizer? No.

TeeMassive 6y ago

> How is a "You can't lead an organisation and be a role model if your views hurt a significant amount of people in the organisation" a non-judicial punishment? If you can't read or write you would also probably not lead a large organization, and it's not punishment. Is it a decision? Yes. Is it a decision made in the name of public interest? Yes. Is it a decision that relates to some kind of transgression? Yes. Is it a decision that seriously affects a person's liberty and pursuit of happiness? Yes. Is it a decision made out of a fair trial? No. Just because the labels "justice, diversity, inclusivity, equity" are displayed on a mob that harasses and assaults people doesn't make it less of a mob. Also Stallman didn't "hurt" anyone. This is ridiculous.

skissane 6y ago

> Totally agree, but I won't make a blind person the watchout guy on a ship. There are limits to inclusion. Generally speaking, a blind person can't do anything to improve their vision. A person with a social disability can learn coping strategies to perform better in social situations, in spite of their disability. In the literature on ASD, this process even has a name – "masking". They may never be as good at social stuff as someone without a social disability, they may find social situations draining, etc, but they can improve. People with ASD [0] often have poor social intuition, but they can learn to think consciously about things which other people can identify intuitively. There's no reason why Stallman couldn't do that as well. Sometimes, given enough time, what first had to be learnt consciously can become more automatic, even intuitive. Has Stallman been taking actions to try to improve as a result of this public controversy? No idea. But it is at least possible he has. Maybe he's been seeing a therapist. Maybe he's even shared that fact with the FSF board, and maybe they've taken that into account in their decision to reinstate him, but of course it wouldn't be appropriate for the FSF board to share that kind of private medical information publicly. Of course, we also have to consider the fact that he is 68. Increasing cognitive rigidity is a natural consequence of ageing, and people can find it harder to change ingrained habits at 68 than if they were 20 or 30 or 40 years younger. Even so, I don't think being 68 makes change impossible, just harder. [0] I'm not saying Stallman has ASD, simply that he may. Quite a few years ago he publicly expressed the opinion that he doesn't have ASD/autism/Asperger's, but I don't believe that was based on a professional evaluation, simply a case of "self-undiagnosis". Also, his comments demonstrate he doesn't have a good understanding of ASD, so I don't think his "self-undiagnosis" should be given a lot of weight. He obviously has signs of broad autism phenotype (BAP), but whether it is just BAP or whether it is ASD is something which only a professional can answer. BAP is not a clinical diagnosis, it is a very common subclinical condition. I don't think the BAP-vs-ASD boundary is important for this discussion – people with BAP have many of the same issues that people with ASD do, just to a milder and less disabling degree.

KingOfCoders 6y ago
"Maybe he's even shared that fact with the FSF board, and maybe they've taken that into account in their decision to reinstate him" If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release. "Of course, we also have to consider the fact that he is 68. Increasing cognitive rigidity is a natural consequence of ageing, and people can find it harder to change ingrained habits at 68 than if they were 20 or 30 or 40 years younger." So you think someone with cognitive rigidity who can't change his habits is a good fit for a leadership role?

torthrowaway998 6y ago

>if your views hurt a significant amount of people Stallman's views hurt people in the sense that some people got offended that he believed in things that they did not. None of his views could hurt people in any other way, he never posted any racist/sexist/transphobic/etc views. Downvotes are not cancelling. Downvotes won't get you fired. Nobody will bully you for being downvoted (or even having this opinion really). They just show that people find your argument dishonest or disagree with you.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

if you were leading an organization, and had grown it from nothing to being important, then if you are removed from that organization for things you have said that is obviously a punishment, if it is done without a court taking part it is non-judicial punishment. Of course non-judicial punishments exist all over the place and that's just the way the world works, although really for some of the things he's done I think he might open up to judicial (civil court) punishment as well.

drewcoo 6y ago
Now imagine that the org has fought corporate-enforced "norms" for decades and suddenly you've been ousted because of corporate-enforced norms. That's edging closer to what happened to RMS.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  different norms than they have been dedicated to fighting, and probably the corporate enforced norms here are not ones that the corporations actually care about enforcing but only do so because they feel threatened by other, non-corporate enforced norms.