3 ms·
This is really the crux of it. His "apology" boils down to "I'm on the spectrum, I'm not good with people stuff". Which would be fine, except what he did was a
by hnbad 6y ago
This is really the crux of it. His "apology" boils down to "I'm on the spectrum, I'm not good with people stuff". Which would be fine, except what he did was a recurring theme throughout his career and belied sexist and misogynist attitudes. Maybe some people egged him on, but he chose to ignore the people who told him no and those who told him it made them uncomfortable or that it was abusive.
This isn't about not understanding social cues or lacking intuitive empathy, this is about actively choosing to ignore victims telling you what you're doing to them because your position allows you to get away with it.
This isn't the first time I've seen autism (or the implication thereof) being used to reframe gross sexual misconduct as naïve ignorance and it's simply disgusting and insulting towards other autistics who can't read emotions and are socially awkward but understand consent.
What he did went well beyond "locker room" jokes like the Emacs virgins thing or "tonedeaf" postulating about the age of consent. The reason he didn't understand that it was wrong wasn't that he's bad at social cues, it's that he didn't think of women as human beings.
- amazingman 6y ago>The reason he didn't understand that it was wrong wasn't that he's bad at social cues, it's that he didn't think of women as human beings. This is still downstream of his autism. One of the common attributes of people on the spectrum is that they struggle immensely in terms of having a theory of mind of other individuals. Basically all human interaction and interpretation of that interaction is grounded in self-reference. TLDR as a default he (probably) has a hard time thinking of anyone other than himself as "human beings" in the way you mean it. I imagine w/ women it's doubly hard for RMS, because he has no experience as a woman that he could bring to the table.
- rbanffy 6y ago> This is still downstream of his autism I understand it is harder for him than for other people to be nice to others, but he is intelligent enough to work around his own limitations. If he's not, then, again, he will hurt a lot of people and should reconsider his role with the FSF.
- amazingman 6y agoI guess the pathological victimhood complex underlying cancel culture just doesn't apply to the neurodivergent. sigh
- rbanffy 6y agoI think everybody agrees that showing awareness an issue exists and a willingness to change would have gone a long way to prevent the current situation.
- hnbad 6y agoBeing neurodivergent doesn't excuse being actively abusive. I didn't say he had problems with "theory of mind". I said he didn't think of women, in particular, as human beings. He specifically treated women differently from men and he was being abusive towards them especially while also being abrasive in general. You don't have to be allistic to understand consent (and given that many autistics actually are hyperempathetic and just struggle with social cues, I wouldn't be surprised if allistics are more likely to ignore consent than autistics). Pretending autism makes it impossible for someone in his position to not be abusive or not understand that what he did was morally wrong and that he was harming people is not a defense of neurodivergent people, it's belittling them. You're not defending neurodivergence, you're just being patronizing towards autistics. If you're autistic and an abuser, you're an abuser in addition to being autistic.