[4bpp]

In general, yes. Murder is a very peculiar case that is hardly suitable to be the benchmark for building our intuitions about trading off harm in general: human lives are not fungible, murder is not reversible, the victims do not generally get a meaningful way of influencing how the murder impacts them etc., all properties that do not apply in the case of being put off a pursuit like FOSS. (Even then, we're sometimes okay accepting murder to save more lives: e.g. the Allies' actions in WWII are considered a heroic even with nearly a century of historical distance) Arguably, the progressive argument for {affirmative action, inverted burden of proof in Title IX, ...} also amounts to "accept some harm if the net impact is positive"; few people claim that these policies will not result in some people being rejected from positions they deserve or punished for crimes they did not commit.

Some countries are more explicit about this and actually constitutionally single out matters of life and death as being prohibited from being traded off against each other (e.g. Germany), i.e. the state is not allowed to play in trolley problems. The corollary is that the state, and most everyone, finds it okay to trade off other harms: you can for instance choose to build an airport that will drive down the value of some people's homes and expose them to considerable noise in order to give convenience and good business to a large number of people. I think discouraging some women from participating in FOSS is much closer in quality of harm to "your home is now worth half as much and you have to put up with the noise of planes flying overhead everyday" than "you die a painful and untimely death".

[mav3rick]

Also notice how it is almost always okay for "women" to be discouraged and counted as collateral damage. The fact that you do that tells me a lot.

[DarkWiiPlayer]

> Also notice how it is almost always okay for "women" to be discouraged and counted as collateral damage.

Quote one person in this thread who said that it wouldn't be ok if it affected men instead. Or just one person implying that.

You're assuming a lot here. If anything, I think it's likely less people would care if a bunch of men were alienated, since there's already so many of them in the field in the first palce.

[lostjohnny]

> "women" to be discouraged and counted as collateral damage

this never happened though.

According not to me, but to Thomas Lord (if you don't know who he is, go and check)

> One remarkable thing about the FSF at that time, when we worked out of dinky spare offices on the campus of MIT, was the degree of participation by women. In the tiny society that was then the FSF, women were more prominent than I had seen in Silicon Valley, or acadamia prior.

https://archive.is/7qepC

And it says a lot about the amount of fabrication going around.

[mav3rick]

Wow I've seen everything on HN to protect RMS. The Allies action was to counter gratuitous aggression and persecution of large swathes of people. Are you telling me RMS has had the same experiences in his life to warrant his egregious behavior ?

[4bpp]

I don't think my leap from murder to war was greater than your leap from some gauche remarks during a talk in the '90s and a handful of emails lawyering about word choice that might have put some people off working in the speaker's discipline to murder. Other than that, what exactly is your point? At no point did I imply that rms's life history should be compared to the Allied intervention in Europe; I merely brought it up as as an example that proves there is no such thing as a universally accepted rule against trading off murders and people saved.

("Wow, I've seen everything on HN to attack RMS. (...)")

[mav3rick]

If any other person did this, especially someone from FAANG etc. you'll be out with your pitchforks. The double standard is so real.

[DarkWiiPlayer]

Let's accuse strangers of double standards based on our assumption of how they'd act. That seems like a constructive way to have a discussion!

[GoblinSlayer]

I do want FAANG to threaten me that they will kill themselves if I don't go on a date with them.