I’m not a friend of RMS, although we have argued over email.
RMS has a unique super power I propose you admire: he is deeply committed to his convictions, and willing to construct his life around them.
He has autism so he finds himself in situations that you are politely calling tone deaf a lot; he has said in public that he can find the responses hurtful. But he still keeps on with his values, at times at great personal cost.
I think of him as a sort of national treasure; if we had 10 of him in the last twenty years the world would be a much better place.
I agree somewhat; having had dinner with him once with our local Linux organization when he was in our part of the world over 20 years ago, I think I learned a lot in that short time.
What I came away with was that SOMEONE needs to hold the points of view that he holds, at least as far as they pertain to software development and licensing, since almost nobody else does.
Whether he presents as well as he could is a different matter. The recently reported on comments he has made could and will be perceived as quite distasteful.
I greatly admire many if his achievements. My comment is that I'm surprised that he was able to be so successful while many times taking a position so at odds with a sentiment held by most of society. My opinion is that "picking your battles" seems to be a more successful strategy in general. I'm also not commenting on the ethics of being flexible about your convictions and how you express them.
> But he still keeps on with his values, at times at great personal cost.
Until it's too inconvenient. He's said previously that he doesn't own a mobile (cell) phone - but will use someone else's.
He's the tech equivalent of a fucking anti-vaxxer. Doesn't want to deal with the realities and compromises of having convenient communications, but happy to ride on someone else's compromise for his own benefit.
> I think of him as a sort of national treasure
A man who wants pedophilia, child porn, bestiality and necrophilia legalised, is "a national treasure"?
I don't even want to know what nation you think should treasure people like that.
I looked up a definition of "tone deaf" to see if I misunderstood in my interpretation of the term and how I used it above.
>having or showing an obtuse insensitivity or lack of perception particularly in matters of public sentiment, opinion, or taste
Having read that I stand by what I said. In my opinion he has shown "an obtuse insensitivity or lack of perception of public sentiment" on more than one occasion. The Minsky message being a very good example. Whether you agree with the sentiment or not is seperate from clearly being obtusely insensitive about the public sentiment I think.
No one is questioning his book smarts or ability to perceive auditory sounds. But, like, learn how to read the room, man.
He waded into the crazy internet morass that is sexual assault and Epstein, and didn't realize that quotes like the one below might trigger a response. That is either hopelessly naive, or absolutely "tone deaf" -- these have been over-the-top, hyper-sensitive topics for weeks.
Maybe he's just so used to staking odd or controversial positions and didn't see this as any different, I don't know. But the optics are terrible.
> "The most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing," Stallman wrote in his post last Wednesday. "Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates. I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term 'sexual assault' in an accusation."
And yet, people are concluding from that quote that he "loves rape", which is so wildly different from what he is actually saying that I have to wonder if people even read his words.
It seems to me the problem isn't that he's tone deaf but that other people have terrible reading comprehension.
RMS has a unique super power I propose you admire: he is deeply committed to his convictions, and willing to construct his life around them.
He has autism so he finds himself in situations that you are politely calling tone deaf a lot; he has said in public that he can find the responses hurtful. But he still keeps on with his values, at times at great personal cost.
I think of him as a sort of national treasure; if we had 10 of him in the last twenty years the world would be a much better place.