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In other words he doesn't feel empathy. Smart people tend to flip the bozo bit on the world. Put simply, that's very dangerous because when your principles are
by mentat 15y ago
In other words he doesn't feel empathy. Smart people tend to flip the bozo bit on the world. Put simply, that's very dangerous because when your principles are more important than anything else and when you can't see the pain you cause to others, significant human harm is possible if not likely.
- pork 15y agoActually in a previous HN thread about exactly this (you can pull it out from my comments), someone referenced an interview where stallman mentions that he's slightly autistic. For those who don't know, a lack of empathy is a symptom of autism, so I wouldn't attribute all this to him being malicious or mean.
- mentat 15y agoI wasn't making a judgment about the causes for the lack of empathy but rather what its effects tend to be. Someone who doesn't see people as people is capable of things that others are not. Some of those things are good, other are scary.
- pork 15y agoAs someone who has an autistic person in their life, you have to understand that they think differently, and that can often seem scary to us because we value empathy so much in a society. I just think we should cut him some slack in the light of the fact that he very likely can't see it another way. If he were a sociopath, which IS scary, trust me -- we wouldn't know it.
- ballard 15y agoI know someone that worked directly the person in question for several years that is of the opinion the man's a straight out asshole, pure and simple. There's no slack need cutting because he does so willingly. Furthermore, the more controversy his apparent or manufactured personality disorders can conjure up, the more attention he receives as a reward for bad behavior. So, basically, we're part of the problem. I'm rolling my eyes, and moving on with life.
- jhuni 15y agoThis applies to everyone, not just Stallman. You can't expect people to feel empathy for everyone in a world as connected as ours, it would be overwhelming.
- mentat 15y agoThe empathy necessary to imagine the state of mind of someone who has just lost someone that they looked up to is not really that deep. You're laying out a straw man here. I'm not saying that people are required to have empathy with everyone. Nonetheless it's not unrealistic to expect some for a relatively common situation (death).
- meric 15y agoDid you mean Steve Jobs, with "bozo" decisions like "no floppies for iMac", "Only phones with only one button"?
- mentat 15y agoActually I'd say Steve Jobs was very empathetic in terms of his ability to see what regular people would want to use and what would be confusing to them. From what I read he chose not to use those skills with coworkers, employees, etc. Nonetheless I think he clearly had them. Whether that makes him "worse" than RMS is a highly subjective question.
- gujk 15y agoJobs had empathy but not sympathy.