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> Correct move. Holding an opinion that is unethical, immoral and destructive to society is unacceptable. And nobody wants to be associated with that. I wish th

> Correct move. Holding an opinion that is unethical, immoral and destructive to society is unacceptable. And nobody wants to be associated with that. I wish this was not up for debate, but unfortunately, we seem to want to debate the same things repeatedly no matter how many times we know that certain things are problematic. Who gets to decide what opinions are correct and therefore allowed? Sounds very thought-police to me. There are many viewpoints that are commonly held by practitioners of the "woke" religion that I find to be unethical, immoral, and destructive, but I would never want to silence them. A debate enriches us all. If an idea holds no merit or substance it will fall apart in a fair debate, particularly if it can be supported by evidence. I am deeply suspicious of those who would silence debate and suspect their opinions lack substance. > For what it's worth for the HN crowd: A lot of us are in various points of our careers. Some starting, some in the middle, some at the end. You can spend decades establishing yourself. But it only takes 1 second to destroy it all. Think before you speak, think before you act. Is this right though? Should a decades long career be destroyed completely by 1 second of indiscretion? I personally find this viewpoint unethical, immoral, and destructive to society.

amiga386 3y ago
> Should a decades long career be destroyed completely by 1 second of indiscretion? It really depends on what happened during that 1 second. The answer could certainly be "yes" depending on how heinous it was. Your rhetorical question bears an unfortunate resemblance to the father of rapist Brock Turner arguing his son shouldn't go to prison for "20 minutes of action". In Stallman's case, his crime appears to have been white knighting for his dead friend on a mailing list, and during the ongoing discussion, Stallman was his usual Socratic self. He wasn't entirely "cancelled", but there was a huge fallout because he didn't consider his audience properly. There's nothing wrong with having a debate on the age of consent, it's clearly an arbitrary dividing line that varies between jurisdictions and cultures, there is no right answer other than "at some point near the end of adolescence" but the absolutely worst place you could have that debate is during a discussion of whether a 80-something man had sex with a 16-year old girl being coerced by a child sex trafficker. Pathos is as important as logos.
- nearmuse 3y ago
  > Pathos is as important as logos. As far as Stallman's choices of what to debate, and how, and where are concerned. The problem that is being raised here is with the ethics of those who smear an individual's reputation while refusing to admit they were wrong and knowing full well that it is impossible to undo the damage even if they did, and of those who end up supporting the former by shunning that individual.
thraway3837 3y ago
Like I said, there's no reason to debate certain things anymore. You mentioned the exact point that I preemptively stated. We don't debate that racism is bad, there's no debate to be had about it. We don't debate climate change, it's a fact. We don't debate women's rights, its been decided a thousand times over and the effects have been proven several million times over. Asking to debate these things is unproductive and doesn't serve any other purpose than a dishonest discussion of ideas and topics that have already been concluded as problematic. That's how it gets decided. We decided as a collective that murder, rape, abortion, climate change, evolution, gender pronouns, and all the other stuff was the right direction. It's about as ridiculous as wanting to debate that 2+2 = 4.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  > Like I said, there's no reason to debate certain things anymore. That's your opinion. > We don't debate that racism is bad The Supreme Court is about to decide on a case regarding Affirmative Action, which is the practice of making decisions based upon someone's race (AKA racism). https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/05/04/presidents-say-their-colleges-will-sustain-diversity-commitments-regardless-of-supreme-court-affirmative-action-ruling/?sh=432cd029fc0a https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/05/04/presiden... > We decided as a collective that murder, rape, abortion, climate change, evolution, gender pronouns, and all the other stuff was the right direction. There have been debates about whether murder is justifiable in certain situations, such as self defense under the castle doctrine. We're literally discussing Stallman's opinion about whether some girls were raped. Abortion is INCREDIBLY controversial. It is far from a decided issue with concensus. Same with climate change, not even the entire scientific community is certain to the degree of man-made influence on our climate. Darwinian style evolution remains officially a theory. Gender pronouns, yeah again, hardly a consensus there. Biologically, there are X and Y chromosomes, and that's where known and agreed upon science ends. It's just very disingenuous to pretend that people having gender pronouns that differ from their biological sex is some universally agreed upon truth.
  - kevviiinn 3y ago
    >Same with climate change, not even the entire scientific community is certain to the degree of man-made influence on our climate. This is false, the scientific community that studies climate is in agreement of the impact of humans. It's absurd to call the three scientists that fox news has on to deny climate change anything more than less than 1% of scientists involved in the matter. 99%+ of climate scientists along with the current state of research definitely agrees that humans have had an incredible impact on the current changes we see in the climate It's like that stat that says 9/10 dentists agree that brushing your teeth is good or whatever. Are you going to side with the one dentist that doesn't? That's what you're doing here
deleted 3y ago
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amiga386 3y ago

> Should a decades long career be destroyed completely by 1 second of indiscretion? It really depends on what happened during that 1 second. The answer could certainly be "yes" depending on how heinous it was. Your rhetorical question bears an unfortunate resemblance to the father of rapist Brock Turner arguing his son shouldn't go to prison for "20 minutes of action". In Stallman's case, his crime appears to have been white knighting for his dead friend on a mailing list, and during the ongoing discussion, Stallman was his usual Socratic self. He wasn't entirely "cancelled", but there was a huge fallout because he didn't consider his audience properly. There's nothing wrong with having a debate on the age of consent, it's clearly an arbitrary dividing line that varies between jurisdictions and cultures, there is no right answer other than "at some point near the end of adolescence" but the absolutely worst place you could have that debate is during a discussion of whether a 80-something man had sex with a 16-year old girl being coerced by a child sex trafficker. Pathos is as important as logos.

nearmuse 3y ago
> Pathos is as important as logos. As far as Stallman's choices of what to debate, and how, and where are concerned. The problem that is being raised here is with the ethics of those who smear an individual's reputation while refusing to admit they were wrong and knowing full well that it is impossible to undo the damage even if they did, and of those who end up supporting the former by shunning that individual.

thraway3837 3y ago

Like I said, there's no reason to debate certain things anymore. You mentioned the exact point that I preemptively stated. We don't debate that racism is bad, there's no debate to be had about it. We don't debate climate change, it's a fact. We don't debate women's rights, its been decided a thousand times over and the effects have been proven several million times over. Asking to debate these things is unproductive and doesn't serve any other purpose than a dishonest discussion of ideas and topics that have already been concluded as problematic. That's how it gets decided. We decided as a collective that murder, rape, abortion, climate change, evolution, gender pronouns, and all the other stuff was the right direction. It's about as ridiculous as wanting to debate that 2+2 = 4.

lockhouse 3y ago
> Like I said, there's no reason to debate certain things anymore. That's your opinion. > We don't debate that racism is bad The Supreme Court is about to decide on a case regarding Affirmative Action, which is the practice of making decisions based upon someone's race (AKA racism). https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/05/04/presidents-say-their-colleges-will-sustain-diversity-commitments-regardless-of-supreme-court-affirmative-action-ruling/?sh=432cd029fc0a https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/05/04/presiden... > We decided as a collective that murder, rape, abortion, climate change, evolution, gender pronouns, and all the other stuff was the right direction. There have been debates about whether murder is justifiable in certain situations, such as self defense under the castle doctrine. We're literally discussing Stallman's opinion about whether some girls were raped. Abortion is INCREDIBLY controversial. It is far from a decided issue with concensus. Same with climate change, not even the entire scientific community is certain to the degree of man-made influence on our climate. Darwinian style evolution remains officially a theory. Gender pronouns, yeah again, hardly a consensus there. Biologically, there are X and Y chromosomes, and that's where known and agreed upon science ends. It's just very disingenuous to pretend that people having gender pronouns that differ from their biological sex is some universally agreed upon truth.
- kevviiinn 3y ago
  >Same with climate change, not even the entire scientific community is certain to the degree of man-made influence on our climate. This is false, the scientific community that studies climate is in agreement of the impact of humans. It's absurd to call the three scientists that fox news has on to deny climate change anything more than less than 1% of scientists involved in the matter. 99%+ of climate scientists along with the current state of research definitely agrees that humans have had an incredible impact on the current changes we see in the climate It's like that stat that says 9/10 dentists agree that brushing your teeth is good or whatever. Are you going to side with the one dentist that doesn't? That's what you're doing here

deleted 3y ago

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