4 ms·

For those of you brave souls who downvote me. I'm wondering which part of my statement you disagree with. - You think homosexual are pedophiles? - It's not im

by pothibo 12y ago

For those of you brave souls who downvote me. I'm wondering which part of my statement you disagree with. - You think homosexual are pedophiles? - It's not important what he thinks about homosexuals. You're going to support him by using his software. If he had held the same hate speech about women in 2014, everyone would be here talking how imbecile this guy is.

dubfan 12y ago
Maybe people are downvoting you because you're showing an incapability to distinguish between someone's expressed beliefs and their personal character?
- astrodust 12y ago
  Aren't those two a little intermingled? "Apart from the fact that he hates Jews, he's a really nice guy!"
edwintorok 12y ago
People can have different political, religious, etc. views than you, but why should that influence whether you use his software or not? Do you check the political views of all authors of each software before you decide to use it? What if those views (or your own) change over time and you disagree with them?
- icebraining 12y ago
  (ESR aside) Why not? If I believe that someone's exposed views are harmful, doesn't it make sense to avoid increasing his/her overall influence? I mean, the fact that we're discussing ESR's views on pedophilia shows that his influence in an unrelated area (software) increases the exposure of those views. If he was just a nobody like me, would we be discussing his blog post on Catholic priests? Not likely. Do you check the political views of all authors of each software before you decide to use it? I sure don't, but why does that mean one should actively ignore gained knowledge?
  - edwintorok 12y ago
    First of all it would take too much time to find out all the authors of all the software that I routinely use, and then keep up with what their current views are on various topics. But I think the main reason is that most software has more than one author, and it would be unfair to judge the usefulness of that software based on the (non-technical) views of just one of its authors. Your reasoning would apply only for single-author software, and TBH I would consider those pet-projects anyway, and I don't think the original author would care much whether you use it or not. Edit: about gained knowledge: I think you could apply this if you compare multiple competing solutions, one deciding factor could be the author's thoughts on various topics. Just like how a company's attitude towards various topics might be influencing your purchasing decision: for example Nvidia doesn't support open-source drivers, hence I don't buy Nvidia when choosing a graphics card. But again for me those are all technical reasons, I wouldn't factor an author's/company's political views into that decision, unless it was something really horrible.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Your reasoning would apply only for single-author software But doesn't that fit SRC itself? But again for me those are all technical reasons, I wouldn't factor an author's/company's political views into that decision, unless it was something really horrible. Ah! But then you're not arguing whether it makes sense to factor the political views in the decision - what you're actually arguing is that ESR's views are not really horrible. But since pothibo supposedly considers them really horrible, it makes sense that (s)he would factor in those views, no?
      - edwintorok 12y ago
        Maybe, although I don't think I made technical decisions based on unrelated events. The closest that comes to mind is as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602582 I did use ReiserFS in the past, and I did switch to something else but the reason was purely technical: XFS became quite good on a HDD, an ext4 very nice on an SSD, and also there didn't seem to be much development done upstream once the original author was gone.
- sampo 12y ago
  > People can have different political, religious, etc. views than you, but why should that influence whether you use his software or not? It would be difficult to use software written by a person who openly had a political view that supports owning slaves.
- pothibo 12y ago
  This is not some mundane left wing vs right wing discussion. It's a guy who believes that homosexuals should be taken on the same level as pedophiles. The line between saying this and saying homosexuals should go to prison is thin at best.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wolfgke 12y ago
> For those of you brave souls who downvote me. I'm wondering which part of my statement you disagree with. This part: > I want to have absolutely nothing to do with such a degenerate.
- gonzo 12y ago
  ESF is degenerate. That you choose to support him says more about you than esr, or OP.
fetbaffe 12y ago
You know, the world does not consists of two opposing positions, like republicans or democrats. There could actually be other positions than those two you pointed out. One for example that this is Hacker News and not Huffington Post. Your comment about "support him by using his software" is just silly. Lots of creators in this world have had less than flattering opinions in different topics, but does not take away what they produced. I can still enjoy Wagner regardless of his views on the jews. I don't have to reformat all my ReiserFS based hard drives after Reiser murdered his wife. And The Pianist by Roman Polanski is an absolute masterpiece, even though Polanski raped that poor girl. So I evaluate SRC based on merits, not the creators.
- icebraining 12y ago
  In general, I agree. The question is whether you're helping promote the "bad parts" by promoting the good ones. I mean, why are we reading and discussing ERS's views on Catholic priests if not because many people like his software? I don't think it's fair to dismiss it as silly.
  - fetbaffe 12y ago
    But by your definition you are already promoting other peoples opinions by using their stuff. It is unavoidable. The only difference is that you don't care about those opinions because either you don't know about them or you don't think it is important. But they still exist.
sampo 12y ago
> If he had held the same hate speech about women in 2014 The same hate speech about gays in 2014, in Western Europe, would also be widely condemned.

by pothibo 12y ago

dubfan 12y ago

Maybe people are downvoting you because you're showing an incapability to distinguish between someone's expressed beliefs and their personal character?

astrodust 12y ago
Aren't those two a little intermingled? "Apart from the fact that he hates Jews, he's a really nice guy!"

edwintorok 12y ago

People can have different political, religious, etc. views than you, but why should that influence whether you use his software or not? Do you check the political views of all authors of each software before you decide to use it? What if those views (or your own) change over time and you disagree with them?

icebraining 12y ago
(ESR aside) Why not? If I believe that someone's exposed views are harmful, doesn't it make sense to avoid increasing his/her overall influence? I mean, the fact that we're discussing ESR's views on pedophilia shows that his influence in an unrelated area (software) increases the exposure of those views. If he was just a nobody like me, would we be discussing his blog post on Catholic priests? Not likely. Do you check the political views of all authors of each software before you decide to use it? I sure don't, but why does that mean one should actively ignore gained knowledge?
- edwintorok 12y ago
  First of all it would take too much time to find out all the authors of all the software that I routinely use, and then keep up with what their current views are on various topics. But I think the main reason is that most software has more than one author, and it would be unfair to judge the usefulness of that software based on the (non-technical) views of just one of its authors. Your reasoning would apply only for single-author software, and TBH I would consider those pet-projects anyway, and I don't think the original author would care much whether you use it or not. Edit: about gained knowledge: I think you could apply this if you compare multiple competing solutions, one deciding factor could be the author's thoughts on various topics. Just like how a company's attitude towards various topics might be influencing your purchasing decision: for example Nvidia doesn't support open-source drivers, hence I don't buy Nvidia when choosing a graphics card. But again for me those are all technical reasons, I wouldn't factor an author's/company's political views into that decision, unless it was something really horrible.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Your reasoning would apply only for single-author software But doesn't that fit SRC itself? But again for me those are all technical reasons, I wouldn't factor an author's/company's political views into that decision, unless it was something really horrible. Ah! But then you're not arguing whether it makes sense to factor the political views in the decision - what you're actually arguing is that ESR's views are not really horrible. But since pothibo supposedly considers them really horrible, it makes sense that (s)he would factor in those views, no?
    - edwintorok 12y ago
      Maybe, although I don't think I made technical decisions based on unrelated events. The closest that comes to mind is as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602582 I did use ReiserFS in the past, and I did switch to something else but the reason was purely technical: XFS became quite good on a HDD, an ext4 very nice on an SSD, and also there didn't seem to be much development done upstream once the original author was gone.
sampo 12y ago
> People can have different political, religious, etc. views than you, but why should that influence whether you use his software or not? It would be difficult to use software written by a person who openly had a political view that supports owning slaves.
pothibo 12y ago
This is not some mundane left wing vs right wing discussion. It's a guy who believes that homosexuals should be taken on the same level as pedophiles. The line between saying this and saying homosexuals should go to prison is thin at best.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

wolfgke 12y ago

> For those of you brave souls who downvote me. I'm wondering which part of my statement you disagree with. This part: > I want to have absolutely nothing to do with such a degenerate.

gonzo 12y ago
ESF is degenerate. That you choose to support him says more about you than esr, or OP.

fetbaffe 12y ago

You know, the world does not consists of two opposing positions, like republicans or democrats. There could actually be other positions than those two you pointed out. One for example that this is Hacker News and not Huffington Post. Your comment about "support him by using his software" is just silly. Lots of creators in this world have had less than flattering opinions in different topics, but does not take away what they produced. I can still enjoy Wagner regardless of his views on the jews. I don't have to reformat all my ReiserFS based hard drives after Reiser murdered his wife. And The Pianist by Roman Polanski is an absolute masterpiece, even though Polanski raped that poor girl. So I evaluate SRC based on merits, not the creators.

icebraining 12y ago
In general, I agree. The question is whether you're helping promote the "bad parts" by promoting the good ones. I mean, why are we reading and discussing ERS's views on Catholic priests if not because many people like his software? I don't think it's fair to dismiss it as silly.
- fetbaffe 12y ago
  But by your definition you are already promoting other peoples opinions by using their stuff. It is unavoidable. The only difference is that you don't care about those opinions because either you don't know about them or you don't think it is important. But they still exist.

sampo 12y ago

> If he had held the same hate speech about women in 2014 The same hate speech about gays in 2014, in Western Europe, would also be widely condemned.