6 ms·

Anyone have a background summary? Last I heard he kept a mattress in his office and asked people to lay on it, and he had a stupid neutral pronoun idea he was v

Anyone have a background summary? Last I heard he kept a mattress in his office and asked people to lay on it, and he had a stupid neutral pronoun idea he was very insistent on using. Has something stranger come up?

richardwhiuk 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies probably covers it I'm guessing.
- snvzz 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    There are many factually accurate statements that are, nevertheless, inappropriate to wildly inappropriate under the circumstances. I have personally interacted with rms decades ago and have a generally positive impression of his entire body of contributions to computing. Nevertheless, reading the controversies section on the wikipedia page induces a combination of cringing and face-palming. Someone researching the science of attraction in humans could very well be justified in saying "it is normal for adults to be physically attracted to adolescents". Someone commenting in apparent defense of a convicted sex offender should not make that exact same claim, whether factually correct or not.
    - VagueMag 3y ago
      This is a classic motte and bailey: "it's normal for adults to be attracted to adolescents" used to defend "it was reasonable for a fat CS prof in his 70s to believe a young minor on Epstein's island wanted to have sex with him absent any coercion going on (or for Stallman to advance this idea)."
      - microtherion 3y ago
        For all we know, she may have been coerced to tell Minsky that reading The Society of Mind was such a turn on for her that she had to ravish the author there & then…
    - snvzz 3y ago
      >Someone commenting in apparent defense of a convicted sex offender should not make that exact same claim, whether factually correct or not. RMS simply kept faith on someone he knew and respected personally (not Epstein!), in the face of accusations he did not believe to be true[0]. 0. https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-stallman.html https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai...
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        I don't know if rms knew Cody Wilson personally and respected him or not, but he doesn't make that claim in his text: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson) https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_Septe...
        snvzz 3y ago
        The person I was referring to is Marvin Minsky, who is dead and thus cannot defend himself.
        sokoloff 3y ago
        That is not the person about whom rms made the post with the text in question. (Minksy is not a convicted sex offender.)
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - h2odragon 3y ago
    [flagged]
Fordec 3y ago
The main one, amoung many smaller things, were his comments around Jeffrey Epstein in 2019.
- guilhas 3y ago
  The amount of celebrities and politicians connected to Epstein you might as well cancel holywood and the government
kweingar 3y ago
He objected to the word "assault" being used to describe Marvin Minsky (allegedly) having sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's underage victims.
- uconnectlol 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    Could you please stick to the rules when posting here? You've been breaking them badly and we have to ban that sort of account. I don't want to ban you, so it would be good if you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of the site more to heart.
- neilv 3y ago
  What I suspect happened is that RMS had a theory in his head about something incidental to the topic of conversation, and he immediately derailed the conversation to mention his theory. Unlike in most RMS-derailed conversations, this time it sounds like it might've confused the grave allegation in the original conversation, at the same time it compounded outrage. I'm glad RMS now understands that his ideas around this were mistaken, but I think most people aren't wired quite like he is. He might be thinking some kind of "Oh, it turned out that theory seems incorrect, thank you for correcting me with this information I did not have before". But a lot of people were/are upset, and going to respond in various different ways. I think RMS's intentions remain principled, and I hope RMS now has advisors to help him function best towards those intentions, including helping him understand how different people will perceive and think about things.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

richardwhiuk 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies probably covers it I'm guessing.

snvzz 3y ago
[flagged]
- sokoloff 3y ago
  There are many factually accurate statements that are, nevertheless, inappropriate to wildly inappropriate under the circumstances. I have personally interacted with rms decades ago and have a generally positive impression of his entire body of contributions to computing. Nevertheless, reading the controversies section on the wikipedia page induces a combination of cringing and face-palming. Someone researching the science of attraction in humans could very well be justified in saying "it is normal for adults to be physically attracted to adolescents". Someone commenting in apparent defense of a convicted sex offender should not make that exact same claim, whether factually correct or not.
  - VagueMag 3y ago
    This is a classic motte and bailey: "it's normal for adults to be attracted to adolescents" used to defend "it was reasonable for a fat CS prof in his 70s to believe a young minor on Epstein's island wanted to have sex with him absent any coercion going on (or for Stallman to advance this idea)."
    - microtherion 3y ago
      For all we know, she may have been coerced to tell Minsky that reading The Society of Mind was such a turn on for her that she had to ravish the author there & then…
  - snvzz 3y ago
    >Someone commenting in apparent defense of a convicted sex offender should not make that exact same claim, whether factually correct or not. RMS simply kept faith on someone he knew and respected personally (not Epstein!), in the face of accusations he did not believe to be true[0]. 0. https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-stallman.html https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai...
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      I don't know if rms knew Cody Wilson personally and respected him or not, but he doesn't make that claim in his text: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson) https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_Septe...
      - snvzz 3y ago
        The person I was referring to is Marvin Minsky, who is dead and thus cannot defend himself.
        sokoloff 3y ago
        That is not the person about whom rms made the post with the text in question. (Minksy is not a convicted sex offender.)
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- h2odragon 3y ago
  [flagged]

Fordec 3y ago

The main one, amoung many smaller things, were his comments around Jeffrey Epstein in 2019.

guilhas 3y ago
The amount of celebrities and politicians connected to Epstein you might as well cancel holywood and the government

kweingar 3y ago

He objected to the word "assault" being used to describe Marvin Minsky (allegedly) having sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's underage victims.

uconnectlol 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stick to the rules when posting here? You've been breaking them badly and we have to ban that sort of account. I don't want to ban you, so it would be good if you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of the site more to heart.
neilv 3y ago
What I suspect happened is that RMS had a theory in his head about something incidental to the topic of conversation, and he immediately derailed the conversation to mention his theory. Unlike in most RMS-derailed conversations, this time it sounds like it might've confused the grave allegation in the original conversation, at the same time it compounded outrage. I'm glad RMS now understands that his ideas around this were mistaken, but I think most people aren't wired quite like he is. He might be thinking some kind of "Oh, it turned out that theory seems incorrect, thank you for correcting me with this information I did not have before". But a lot of people were/are upset, and going to respond in various different ways. I think RMS's intentions remain principled, and I hope RMS now has advisors to help him function best towards those intentions, including helping him understand how different people will perceive and think about things.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]