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> The guy is walking hyperbole, I will never understand why so many people idolize him. People admire those who put their morals before personal gain, which is

by tharne 4y ago

> The guy is walking hyperbole, I will never understand why so many people idolize him. People admire those who put their morals before personal gain, which is exactly what RMS has done. With his intelligence and academic pedigree, he easily could have made gobs of money doing things he considered unethical, but instead he's devoted his life to protecting what he sees as an important aspect of human freedom. Even if you don't like him or agree with his views, the commitment he has to human human is admirable.

rodgerd 4y ago
> People admire those who put their morals before personal gain, which is exactly what RMS has done. He's a millionaire who has people provide him with travel and personal assistants. I am not sure what you think he's given up.
- tsuujin 4y ago
  I’m always glad to see someone else look at RMS objectively.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  Where did you get the idea that he's a millionaire? Citations, please?
  - rodgerd 4y ago
    He won a million dollar McArthur grant and promptly purchased properly in Massachusetts with a chunk of it, and was been the owner of record for many years. It has escalated in value as you'd expect. It's not terribly hard to find the details, but dropping them directly on HN seems rather counter to the general stance on doxxing people with things like "the address of a house they own".
    - DonHopkins 4y ago
      He's been living off of it, and presumably paying taxes. How do you know it's been escalating in value? Citations, or retraction.
tsuujin 4y ago
I don’t find anything admirable about RMS. He is caustic to people in mailing lists, defended a colleague accused of participating in sex trafficking by stating that the victim must have presented as “entirely willing”, has referred to child sexual abuse as “voluntary pedophilia”, and has a long, long history of accusations of sexual harassment against him. All of which makes arguments about his superior morality pretty dubious to me.
- blep_ 4y ago
  Sigh, this again. I expect better from HN than getting mad at things based on blind keyword matching. > must have presented as “entirely willing” Everyone insists on interpreting this as "Stallman thinks she was entirely willing", which is obviously not what he said in at least two ways: First, he said it was possible, not that she "must have", and advocated for not drawing conclusions without full information. Second, "presented herself as entirely willing" is different from "actually was entirely willing", considering we're talking about a woman who was being coerced into things. Nobody's seriously claiming the latter, but the former is a different statement, one that leaves open the possibility for Minsky to simply not have thought of the alternative at the time. > has referred to child sexual abuse as “voluntary pedophilia” That one was less defensible, but he did later change his mind: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-sep-dec.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-sep-dec.html#14_September... I read it as an "I, personally, would not be bothered by this, and it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would be traumatized by it" thing, which would be consistent with his obviously-some-kind-of-neurodivergent mind.
  - tsuujin 4y ago
    > First, he said it was possible, not that she "must have", and advocated for not drawing conclusions without full information. He didn’t say that it was “possible”, he said it was the “most plausible explanation”. Those statements are not the same because one implies a certainty of truth. He defended this heavily in a 20-something page long email thread. > I read it as an "I, personally, would not be bothered by this, and it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would be traumatized by it" thing, which would be consistent with his obviously-some-kind-of-neurodivergent mind. You’re right, he eventually relented and said we probably shouldn’t be doing this. If this were the only questionable thing he had done and he later said “you know what, I was wrong” then I would be much more willing to give him some leeway here. However, that just isn’t the case. His entire academic career has been riddled with inappropriate behavior and misguided statements. Stallman tried to defend his accused-rapist colleague by asserting that we need to be “scientific” and look at facts. I agree, and the fact is that RMS has a long-standing pattern of behavior that trends towards immoral, misogynistic, and hateful. Scientifically, you can’t cherry pick the one time he doubled back and admitted he was wrong and ignore the overall trend. If you personally choose to ignore all of this and worship at the cult of personality here, that’s fine. You do you, I’m obviously not going to convince you that zealotry is wrong. But asserting that he’s some paragon of virtue for his humanitarian fight for the freedoms of software is just laughable.

by tharne 4y ago

rodgerd 4y ago

> People admire those who put their morals before personal gain, which is exactly what RMS has done. He's a millionaire who has people provide him with travel and personal assistants. I am not sure what you think he's given up.

tsuujin 4y ago
I’m always glad to see someone else look at RMS objectively.
DonHopkins 4y ago
Where did you get the idea that he's a millionaire? Citations, please?
- rodgerd 4y ago
  He won a million dollar McArthur grant and promptly purchased properly in Massachusetts with a chunk of it, and was been the owner of record for many years. It has escalated in value as you'd expect. It's not terribly hard to find the details, but dropping them directly on HN seems rather counter to the general stance on doxxing people with things like "the address of a house they own".
  - DonHopkins 4y ago
    He's been living off of it, and presumably paying taxes. How do you know it's been escalating in value? Citations, or retraction.

tsuujin 4y ago

I don’t find anything admirable about RMS. He is caustic to people in mailing lists, defended a colleague accused of participating in sex trafficking by stating that the victim must have presented as “entirely willing”, has referred to child sexual abuse as “voluntary pedophilia”, and has a long, long history of accusations of sexual harassment against him. All of which makes arguments about his superior morality pretty dubious to me.

blep_ 4y ago
Sigh, this again. I expect better from HN than getting mad at things based on blind keyword matching. > must have presented as “entirely willing” Everyone insists on interpreting this as "Stallman thinks she was entirely willing", which is obviously not what he said in at least two ways: First, he said it was possible, not that she "must have", and advocated for not drawing conclusions without full information. Second, "presented herself as entirely willing" is different from "actually was entirely willing", considering we're talking about a woman who was being coerced into things. Nobody's seriously claiming the latter, but the former is a different statement, one that leaves open the possibility for Minsky to simply not have thought of the alternative at the time. > has referred to child sexual abuse as “voluntary pedophilia” That one was less defensible, but he did later change his mind: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-sep-dec.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-sep-dec.html#14_September... I read it as an "I, personally, would not be bothered by this, and it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would be traumatized by it" thing, which would be consistent with his obviously-some-kind-of-neurodivergent mind.
- tsuujin 4y ago
  > First, he said it was possible, not that she "must have", and advocated for not drawing conclusions without full information. He didn’t say that it was “possible”, he said it was the “most plausible explanation”. Those statements are not the same because one implies a certainty of truth. He defended this heavily in a 20-something page long email thread. > I read it as an "I, personally, would not be bothered by this, and it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would be traumatized by it" thing, which would be consistent with his obviously-some-kind-of-neurodivergent mind. You’re right, he eventually relented and said we probably shouldn’t be doing this. If this were the only questionable thing he had done and he later said “you know what, I was wrong” then I would be much more willing to give him some leeway here. However, that just isn’t the case. His entire academic career has been riddled with inappropriate behavior and misguided statements. Stallman tried to defend his accused-rapist colleague by asserting that we need to be “scientific” and look at facts. I agree, and the fact is that RMS has a long-standing pattern of behavior that trends towards immoral, misogynistic, and hateful. Scientifically, you can’t cherry pick the one time he doubled back and admitted he was wrong and ignore the overall trend. If you personally choose to ignore all of this and worship at the cult of personality here, that’s fine. You do you, I’m obviously not going to convince you that zealotry is wrong. But asserting that he’s some paragon of virtue for his humanitarian fight for the freedoms of software is just laughable.