[risky_opinions]

I'm creating a throwaway that I hope won't irk dang. If this breaks the rules, I'm sorry and I'll stop.

Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement, and he's the reason we all have jobs. Google and Facebook might not have been possible in a world where you couldn't spin up a server for free and compile code without paying a license.

Richard Stallman has said some sexist and edgy things. He also has Asperger's, which poses challenges many of us do not face. He hasn't, as far as I know, committed any crimes.

Do we destroy the pillar we've built our entire livelihoods upon to satisfy a mob?

Have all of us been truly without blame? Who hasn't said something they shouldn't have? Or done something that marginalized someone at some point in time (even if it wasn't on the basis of sex, gender, race, etc.)?

I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds.

I don't want to live in a world where we can't be forgiven.

I was reading comments in another HN thread, and one poster suggested that this might arise from raising kids without bullying. Like the immune system, if we don't develop a central tolerance, perhaps we start attacking everything we find unpleasant? No basis in behavioral science, of course.

And then there's the engagement-driven social media monster. Twitter, in particular. It's destroying careers.

We're badgering the members of the FSF. We're denying Richard Stallman any chances.

This isn't good. It's horrific.

What do we do about this?

[aboringusername]

> I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds.

I take issue with this. I'm not hugely adept at history but from my understanding there has never been a time where you can just blurt out a communication and have it be "accepted" by society - this seems to me very American and appears very detached from reality and real world experience.

Yes, you are accountable for the communications you make, whether via keybord, orally, or any other way.

Yes, you can be killed for the communications you make - this is not new, neither shocking and has been a staple of humanity from the beginning.

Yes, you will be cancelled if your joke is taken out of context, or if some journalist finds a tweet and somebody is on an airplane and at the center of a multi-national storm [0].

Textareas like the one you typed in to make your comment give you a lot of freedom, but also a lot of power, and humans are learning with great power wields responsibility. People will take offense at your crass jokes and delete you for it, perhaps it's best to step away and not click "reply" afterall. Your conversation with a friend may be recorded or overheard, perhaps somebody is stalking you and waiting for a golden opportunity to "get" you, perhaps it's possible to form a narrative the media can use that's pieced together just to convince a group then let it spread like wildfire.

None of these things are new to humanity, and sometimes there's just nothing within your power you can do to stop it if somebody is motivated enough to want to inflict harm upon you.

That's what the world has taught us lately, more people would be wise to learn and take notes.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI

[incrudible]

> Yes, you are accountable for the communications you make, whether via keybord, orally, or any other way.

I agree that you are accountable for the things you say. Unfortunately, people are attempting to hold RMS accountable for things he did not say. This situation is the result of willful misinterpretation and dishonest and sensationalist media reporting.

The principle of charity must be applied, particularly with people on the Autism spectrum, who aren't necessarily tuned to the sensibilities of society around them.

[Roark66]

> Yes, you are accountable for the communications you make, whether via keybord, orally, or any other way. I agree that you are accountable for the things you say. Unfortunately, people are attempting to hold RMS accountable for things he did not say. This situation is the result of willful misinterpretation and dishonest and sensationalist media reporting.

Hold on here for a moment. We're in our collective two minutes of hate. You have to hate or you WILL be the next object of hate. Truth has nothing to do with it.

It really saddens me deeply that our civilisation regressed so much in last few dacades. There are really important topics we should be able to discuss and make better that we can't because of it.

[risky_opinions]

> perhaps it's best to step away and not click "reply" afterall.

This is censorship. It's why I'm posting anonymously for the first time in a long time.

> there has never been a time where you can just blurt out a communication and have it be "accepted" by society

We're in a new era where algorithms amplify rage and "mobs" are a composite of real people, anonymous users, and bots. You can't fight against it, and there's no due process or forgiveness.

[aboringusername]

If you think there's been a period of history where you can say what you want, when you want, how you want and not end up dead in a ditch then I'd kindly ask you to reconsider that belief. There are many examples of people who have said things only to end up in a bad way as a result.

People have always been targeted for their words, or their beliefs, and sure, we have new ways of amplifying the narrative these days via social media and algorithms/AI, but I wanted to stress this is not new to humanity.

All it takes is one motivated human and they can wreck havoc on your life - it may be because you said something they took offense to or simply because they decided they no longer like you.

There's a lesson in all of this, think before you speak, and before you tweet. As many examples have taught us it will come back to haunt you.

If you want to be a public figure that comes with the job I'm afraid.

[silasdavis]

I don't think anyone in this thread was alluding to a period of history. I think they were making a normative statement.

[Trixter]

> This is censorship. It's why I'm posting anonymously for the first time in a long time.

I think you're confusing censorship with accountability.

[jfengel]

The difference is pretty easy to tell. Censorship is what happens to me. Accountability is what happens to you.

[soco]

"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence": can you please indicate the particular age when it was tolerated to speak your mind freely? Or at least more free than today.

[azangru]

> Yes, you are accountable for the communications you make...

> Yes, you can be killed for the communications you make...

> Yes, you will be cancelled if your joke is taken out of context...

I guess the question here is whether anything can be done to change this. After all, the society has progressed to the point where it has proclaimed freedom of thought / conscience to be an important value, and, ostensibly, has stopped discriminating on religious grounds. There's no significant difference, in my opinion, between writing something in a textarea and collectively praying to a god or proselytizing on the streets.

[moistbar]

> the society has progressed to the point where it has proclaimed freedom of thought / conscience to be an important value

And then regressed over the course of about 10 years until people started screaming from the rooftops that freedom of speech is a cancer and needs to be outlawed.

[Shish2k]

> None of these things are new to humanity

The speed and the scale at which “a random throwaway comment to a friend” can be taken out of context and used to ruin a person’s life are pretty new

[frereubu]

Jon Ronson is particularly good on this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07hj3ky

[illustriousbear]

There is a big difference between fair accountability and the internet mobs that want to wipe out your whole reputation/career.

We don't let internet mobs run courts yet we allow them to ruin people's lives for some reason.

[yorwba]

> People will take offense at your crass jokes and delete you for it, perhaps it's best to step away and not click "reply" afterall.

Or do click "reply", because there are billions of people out there and some may take offense, but who cares? Billions of people don't. You can delete them right back, and billions of people will keep not caring.

That textarea only gives you a tiny bit of power and it gives everyone else the same tiny bit of power, so why should you fear their power more than they should fear yours?

[Daho0n]

Most of those billions are not known or public figures. They don't get canceled out of their job.

[astorgard]

> Yes, you are accountable for the communications you make, whether via keybord, orally, or any other way.

Just for the purpose of debating let me bring up my (very unpopular) point of view.

I have always thought that anyone should be able to say anything and not have legal consequences (ex: go to prison, pay a fine).

Notice that this statement covers all scenarios as long as the person involved "only speaks" (or publishes). In other words, the moment he does something illegal, then he should (in my opinion) be judged according to the rules of the society he lives in.

Now... I have never in my live encountered one single person that agrees 100% with me in that regard. They always come up with exceptions, such as these ones:

1) An author writes a book about having sex with minors.

2) A general tells one of his soldiers to shoot a prisoner.

3) My neighbor starts publishing ads on the local newspaper falsely accusing me of being a drug dealer.

These are my responses:

1) As long as we don't catch him having sex with minors, that's ok with me. We should encourage all types of debates, even those (specially those!) we are not comfortable with. In the worst case, each one will walk home thinking the other side is wrong; in the best case, maybe we will learn something from each other (maybe we can better understand how the brain of that author works and how we can help him). Simply banning a taboo topic won't make it disappear from society... openly discussing the topic will (in my opinion) be a better long term solution for all.

2) In this case the general is not just "saying" something. Due to the chain of command, the soldier can end up imprisoned or dead if he doesn't comply. I would still defend the right for some random person to publicly state that "we should kill all xxx", not because I agree with him, but because we should be able to discuss the reasons and try to convince him to do otherwise.

3) This is the most tricky one. I still think my neighbor should be able to do that because I expect others who read the newspaper ad to fact check his claims instead of blindly believe them. No one I have ever met agrees with me on this one... and I think that is because people always consider others to be "dumber" than themselves and thus need to be protected from non curated news in case they end up believing them. I really think this is not the case: I never believe anything I read on the newspaper (or online) until I get confirmation from several places and I know most people do the same, no matter how others like to "look down" at "average Joe".

I enjoy discussing the limits of "freedom of speech/ideas". Let me know what you (or any other) think :)

[buisi]

While your idea has some merit, there is a distinction to be made between writing a book about completely fictional scenarios involving sex with minors, and advocating sex with minors (telling people that it is fine in a piece of advocacy like on a blog).

People sometimes get these two confused, but they're not the same thing.

Someone can easily construct a fantasy world where doing that might be fine / unharmful (or in scenarios where it is harmful, it is clear to the reader that it is bad to act on), yet believe it is harmful in reality.

Between the covers of a book is another universe. In a way, imagine someone is transported to another planet which resembles your own.

There is also indeed the distinction between advocating for something and doing it. To pick a less charged example, I advocate for the legalization of most drugs (although, it doesn't mean I would support irresponsible use, much like how I wouldn't support drink driving). This doesn't necessarily mean I am secretly consuming cocaine, heroin, LSD, and all manner of other illicit drugs.

Another thing is that there is a difference between someone giving their opinions on the matter, and actively inciting someone to do it. If someone specifically instructs the reader to go out and do it, that is clearly very bad. But, I've never heard of such a thing happening, and if it did, it is more likely to be an internet troll. It is too damaging of an act.

I am of the opinion that text + anything which is digitally created is fine. Nothing which goes back to a specific abuse, although there are occasions where the victim of child abuse will chronicle their abuse in text, and I think they should be free to do so. There is also the case in Canada where someone did a retelling of an old story (IIRC Hansel and Gretel) which was more faithful to the original.

In practice, I imagine it would be quite ruinous to publish books which cover such themes under your own name, and it would be advised to use some sort of pen name.

[ofrzeta]

I think the limits will certainly come down to the consequences the "words" bring with them. Without them the discussion is quite theoretical. You can safely say "everything is allowed" and then defer to another ontological realm where you cleanly separate the actions from the words.

However if someone in reality would start to smear you and especially other people like your wife or daughter with some verbal shit so they would have to suffer from it the limits of freedom of speech would look different.

[sofixa]

> would still defend the right for some random person to publicly state that "we should kill all xxx", not because I agree with him, but because we should be able to discuss the reasons and try to convince him to do otherwise

I think that's incredibly naive and doesn't actually work in the world we live in. Take a look at any of the genocides of the last century, with people on one side saying "we should kill all X", people saying "no, X are fine people", and sometimes the first type of people winning and going full genocide.

FFS it happened as recently as last year in Myanmar about mass misinformation against Rohingyas, which escalated to a genocide.

What then? When the "explaining" doesn't work, do you wait for the actions to start ( taking in mind that usually when a mass amount of people start genociding another people, you can't just easily stop it)? Then, in a way, aren't you complicit in that genocide because you could have acted before but chose to just talk? That's what the Germans settled on post-WWII, that they were all complicit for allowing the Nazis to get so far ( and talking obviously got them nowhere).

[astorgard]

Saying (as I do) that everyone should be able to express their ideas (no matter how atrocious) publicly without facing administrative punishment does *not* mean that other actions (such as keeping a close eye on them) should not be taken.

I doubt that preventing the Nazis from discussing their ideas would have stopped them. Having their ideas not suppressed from public forums at least gave the chance to others to understand what was going on in order to try to stop it (which, in this case, failed miserably).

When "explaining doesn't work" it's time to take action. But not while the only proof you have against someone is what he said (instead of what he did).

The "brain washing" power that continuous propaganda has is not under question, but still I like to hold accountable those who do, and not those who say (I know this is a very unpopular opinion, that's why I like to discuss about it!).

[sofixa]

If i may respond with two quotes from the Nazi Propaganda minister:

"To attract people, to win over people to that which I have realised as being true, that is called propaganda. In the beginning there is the understanding, this understanding uses propaganda as a tool to find those men, that shall turn understanding into politics. Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things from what I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. Those are found in other circumstances, I find them when thinking at my desk, but not in the meeting hall. Speech on 9 January 1928 to an audience of party members at the "Hochschule für Politik", a series of training talks for Nazi party members in Berlin

We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem... We are coming neither as friends or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we. Why Do We Want to Join the Reichstag? Der Angriff, 30 April 1928"

He seems to have been of the opinion that giving them a platform to voice their hatred even louder was beneficial for them.

Is saying things not an action? Especially when the things being said are of the genocidal-wannabe kind?

[astorgard]

Thinking that "people are easy to manipulate, thus we must prevent lies from spreading to protect society" is too paternalist and (in my limited experience) does not reflect reality.

You are right in that propaganda is a very powerful weapon (I openly admitted that on my previous comment) but, then again, we are all adults that should be able to navigate the ocean of misinformation to find out what is true in order to form our own opinions.

Having all the Nazi propaganda available today is an invaluable tool to prevent it from happening in the future... while not having allowed it in the first place would probably not have prevented WW2 (or maybe it would, we don't know for sure).

As you say (and this might be a bit far fetched, but bear with me) in this instance, voicing their hatred was beneficial *for them*, *at that time*, but not for "genocides in general", as now (thanks to how public their whole ideology became) we have data to fight it, were something similar to happen in the future.

[buisi]

https://theintercept.com/2020/10/20/is-the-traditional-aclu-...

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/14/the-aclu-would-not-...

> Indeed, Weimar Germany had on statute what we would today call hate-speech laws, and Nazi propagandists like Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher were prosecuted for their vicious libels of Jews. In turn, they used the attention to promote their cause and pose as martyrs.

I recommend reading these articles on free speech.

[david38]

This is why fiction / fantasy writings of any kind should be allowed.

[YarickR2]

I agree with you on all points. Freedom of speech is the same as freedom of thought. Actions should be punishable, words shouldn't

[astorgard]

You are literally the first person I find who agrees with me. Hi there! :)

Just for the shake of discussion, let me put on the table some other extreme examples people bring up:

A) Apology of "something bad" (for example, "apology of terrorism"). Is it OK for someone to appear on TV and say that he is happy about all the people killed in 11-S and that others should repeat the attack?

B) Targeted attack. Back to the neighbor example: would it be OK if he not only published a newspaper ad against me every day but also appeared on TV shows, sent propaganda to other neighbors, hired a plane to draw my name on the sky, etc...?

C) Dangerous information. Example: someone discovers that by mixing two very easy to find (and accessible to everyone) chemicals, the whole atmosphere of the earth would be modified in hours in a way that all people from ethnicity X would immediately die. Is it OK for him to publish this information?

I still think all these cases are covered... but I would like to know how others reason about them :)

[shaan7]

> You are literally the first person I find who agrees with me. Hi there! :)

And I'd like to say the same to both of you! I wonder why the idea is not more popular though :(

[ikerdanzel]

Fully agreed. Unfortunately, being snowflakes and snowflaking because their feelings are hurt blindsided them to what matters. They are a lot of them.

[kosinus]

> American freedom of speech

This specifically is such a weird expression.

Other than that, just because Stallman did a good thing once, doesn’t excuse him from other mistakes. And making mistakes is not itself a problem, you can always own up to them and learn. But what I gather from the discussion is that there is a _pattern_ of bad behaviour.

[tspiteri]

> did a good thing once

Discounting something as "a good thing once" sounds weird to me: many things require a huge amount of work to carry off, so "once" here can encompass dedicating someone's life work for decades, just for that one thing. (Sorry for going off topic, as I'm not commenting either way on your point, just on this phrase.)

[read_if_gay_]

It’s completely flipped. Reality’s more like he did a bad thing once and now that’s supposed to invalidate all of the good he’s done.

[kosinus]

I wouldn't say it's off topic. I've been thinking about this, because I do agree with you that I likely underestimate his contributions. I wasn't following the movement back then, and only know of his reputation. (I was probably too young.)

But I also don't feel like this moves me at all, and I think that's because his past contributions aren't being erased here. What matters is the person he is now, how that doesn't fit this role they're assigning to him, and how it doesn't align with what the free software movement has become (pushing diversification).

[bartread]

> Other than that, just because Stallman did a good thing once...

Come on: this is a massive trivialisation of RMS's achievements. I have often disagreed with him but his contributions to OSS, and to the wider foundations of modern software and software development, are huge and are the product of decades of devotion - of consistent, motivated effort - from him.

Like it or not, all of us who work in software - even those of us who aren't necessarily strong advocates of free software - benefit from RMS's work.

I've also got bad news for you: we all exhibit _patterns_ of bad behaviour. Fortunately, we are all equipped with the capacity to change even long ingrained habits and patterns.

(To be clear: I am in no way defending any bad behaviour from RMS towards other people, or suggesting that he shouldn't change that behaviour.)

[noirscape]

What did he do in the past 15 years outside of starting petty feuds that nobody cares about (the Linux name debacle) and being a horrible public speaker (there's heaps of stories of him being a dickhead to convention organizers, other convention guests and in general not really keeping any check on what he's even getting hired for)?

Like, I recognize that what he did back in the 80s matters, but somewhere around the turn of the millenium, he seems to have done very little of actual note and in the past 3 years or so seems to have become an active liability since the main things that got him attention were:

- Using his rights as GNU lead to veto the removal of a bad, outdated, US-centric, abortion joke from the glibc manual. This is after all other project maintainers agreed to remove it.

- Made appalling comments about the Epstein case (yes the media spun the story badly, that doesn't change that what Stallman said was horrible).

Even outside of that, there's also literal years of the following:

- Many examples of Stallman being a creep to women and an insensitive dickhead in general is something that existed before but really came to a head.

- The FSF maintaining a very egocentric approach to FOSS (thinking it's the sole relevant authority on advancing thoughts and ideas behind FOSS, as well as getting very cranky when projects don't want to join the GNU), something which seems near universally pushed by Stallman since every case of this somehow ended up involving him.

- Consistently vetoing plugin framework support for GCC out of an ideological fear that seems to consistently be cited as the main cause for it being superseded by clang/llvm.

> Fortunately, we are all equipped with the capacity to change even long ingrained habits and patterns.

It does come at the prerequisite that the person in question actually wants to change. Stallman is notoriously stubborn and it took him literally getting fired from the FSF to even admit that the most outstanding problem with his views (his stance on pedophilia) was wrong and he's never even bothered to address any of the others.

[Roark66]

>What did he do in the past 15 years outside of starting petty feuds that nobody cares about (the Linux name debacle) and being a horrible public speaker (there's heaps of stories of him being a dickhead to convention organizers, other convention guests and in general not really keeping any check on what he's even getting hired for)?

For one he managed to keep the whole GNU project true to its values by being someone people listen on the subject. How many other people do you know you can guarantee not to "monetize" and sell out such a huge project to a highest bidder in the meantime?

>Like, I recognize that what he did back in the 80s matters, but somewhere around the turn of the millenium, he seems to have done very little of actual note and in the past 3 years or so seems to have become an active liability

You do realise that his role is not so much being a coder nor even a manager, but being what in business is sometimes called "a visionary". Thankfully there are enough coders and managers involved to have GNU and Foss going. The value of Stallman in the 80s and earlier was not just in the code he wrote but the ideas he managed to implement in our collective consciousness by doing that. Now more than ever we need someone we can count on to offer advice and leadership that has no agenda other than the original values.

>Made appalling comments about the Epstein case (yes the media spun the story badly, that doesn't change that what Stallman said was horrible).

What is it that he actually said that was so "horrible"? Are you sure you are actually talking about what he said or have your opinions been formed by lies? Read this and tell me what is so horrible in his actual stance on the subject: https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-Web

>Stallman is notoriously stubborn and it took him literally getting fired from the FSF to even admit that the most outstanding problem with his views (his stance on pedophilia)

Please do enlighten me on what Stallman's stance on pedophilia is? But please use actual text written by him (not ripped out of context) rather than he said she said.

I believe this lie that Stallman justifies pedophilia came from an opinion the previously linked article describes like this "(his point) is mainly that we overuse and distort the term child pornography to refer to any depiction of any minor in any context that is even vaguely sexual." Is that untrue? Have you not heard about cases where actual 17 year old people were prosecuted for pedophilia because they had their own photo on their phone that was deemed sexual in nature by some judge?

[pseudalopex]

Stallman's skill was as a visionary. His role wasn't limited to that unfortunately. Multiple FSF employees say they unionized because of Stallman's management.[1][2] And people have pointed out several examples of him overriding GNU project maintainers.

Stallman said several times adults having sex with children was fine if the children consented.[3][4][5] He changed his mind in 2018 or 2019 apparently.[4][6]

[1] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986

[2] https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505

[3] https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%20...

[4] https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%20...

[5] https://stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#04_January_2...

[6] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

[Roark66]

Ok, I wasn't aware of this. I agree his point of view was narrow minded. I can't defend it. He did change it as he says (in 6th link) based on conversations with someone who explained to him the harm caused.

People learn all their life. I'm glad he did. Should having that view before and understanding own error disqualify him from FSF? I don't know. At least we're talking about it based on fact not hearsay.

[noirscape]

> For one he managed to keep the whole GNU project true to its values by being someone people listen on the subject. How many other people do you know you can guarantee not to "monetize" and sell out such a huge project to a highest bidder in the meantime?

Quite a lot of them actually. In a sense, that is the big advantage that free software (but really the copyleft, since let's be honest that's Stallmans most meaningful contribution to the current ecosystem that everyone who does use FOSS uses) offers.

If someone ends up being a malicious, self-serving actor who sells out their project to the highest bidder, the copyleft is there to ensure that even if the copyright is signed away using an CAA (which if you want to argue about that, I would recommend you don't do it in a thread involving the GNU/FSF since they have notoriously bad and outdated CAA systems from what I heard), you can still keep that project going.

From projects such as Emby getting forked to Jellyfin, from Owncloud to Nextcloud, from the long history of adblockers getting sold to big corporations and then other maintainers stepping in to fork them back; THAT is the big strength of FOSS and copyleft. The idea that a sufficiently big and developed project can never truly "die", even when it changes hands. Sure the road is rocky sometimes (ffmpeg vs avconv was a case of maintainer drama that led to forks and eventually withered away), but that is what makes it worth it in the end.

None of that really falls back on Stallman's seemingly singular attempt to claim ownership on the entirety of FOSS. It does on the countless developers, project maintainers and the like who don't sell out and in the event that one does, that their damage is limited.

> You do realise that his role is not so much being a coder nor even a manager, but being what in business is sometimes called "a visionary". Thankfully there are enough coders and managers involved to have GNU and Foss going. The value of Stallman in the 80s and earlier was not just in the code he wrote but the ideas he managed to implement in our collective consciousness by doing that. Now more than ever we need someone we can count on to offer advice and leadership that has no agenda other than the original values.

Except he's also pretty much *the* public speaker for the FSF and their main PR person. And at that role he is just an objective failure. There is a constant stream of PR disasters. I am by no means a PR person, but you don't have to be an expert at something to note when someone is doing something really wrong.

We don't need Stallman anymore. There's plenty of great voices and developers in Free Software. Stallman is what, 68? He's past retirement age in my country. He won't be around forever. If anything, we should be looking to successors for him. Both on the PR and the visionary end. Stallman should have been put on a backseat by the FSF years ago. Instead, the organization has turned itself into a bloated singularity around the opinions of one man, backed up by a not insignificant amount of Free Software projects to give it weight.

> What is it that he actually said that was so "horrible"? Are you sure you are actually talking about what he said or have your opinions been formed by lies? Read this and tell me what is so horrible in his actual stance on the subject: https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-Web

Redefining sexual assault in a way that would exclude many victims of sexual assault, reiterating his own stance that he thinks the age of consent is meaningless. Just about the only thing the media got wrong was because Vice (which yeah, is a shitty outlet) went for a cheap headline that most news sites copied. I have linked below for you the original email exchanges if you want to check them.[1]

> Please do enlighten me on what Stallman's stance on pedophilia is? But please use actual text written by him (not ripped out of context) rather than he said she said.

He's since walked these back as stated before, but here's the two biggest ones: [2][3]

[1]: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-0913201914205...

[2]: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...

[3]: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_Janua...

[Roark66]

I'm not arguing to put him in charge of FSF nor that he is the right person to do PR. I'm arguing against "cancelling" him altogether because of few stupid opinions he held and few others that got blown out of proportion. Let me refer to them one by one.

On pedophilia- his original opinion is not defensible. He eventually understood and admitted his error. Personally I believe the change is genuine. Can one blame someone for holding a wrong opinion based on genuine lack of knowledge of the subject specially when that person changes that opinion when presented with facts contradicting it? I don't think so.

On sexual assault - you said he is/was redefining the definition to exclude many victims. I assume this stems from his email in defense of Marvin Minsky in which he wrote:

"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X... The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing... We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates…"

It is not the kindest way to discuss situations of abuse, but factually I see no attempt to redefine sexual assault as a term. Just an objection to its use in one very particular situation. A situation in which the victim herself didn't know if the alleged perpetrator is aware she is being coerced. Additionally, "sexual assault" is already a very imprecise term. It means different things in different places. My opinion of Epstein is based on a Netflix documentary. I assume the information given there is truthful. Based on that it is unknown if "visitors" on the island were aware of the coercion. Recently I heard in the local news a gang of criminals was caught by police. Those criminals forced prostitutes to pay them "protection", forced unwilling (often trafficked) women into prostitution, and attacked independent prostitutes that didn't pay them. Did men that unknowingly used services of trafficked/coerced women abuse them? They definitely did, but is the term sexual assault adequate to describe both what they did and an encounter where unsuspecting victim is violently attacked? Hell no. Am I now guilty of redefining the term in a way that excludes many victims?

Age of consent-I think this has to be linked with his opinion on pedophilia which I already did comment on.

Coming back to Foss. >We don't need Stallman anymore. There's plenty of great voices and developers in Free Software. Stallman is what, 68? He's past retirement age in my country. He won't be around forever. If anything, we should be looking to successors for him.

As mentioned before I don't want him in the driving seat of FSF, but at the same time I don't think he should be cancelled from the Internet.

I do think this whole current vendetta against the guy was created by one "activist" as a tool to make her famous/or to make her feel good.

[twic]

Stallman is completely useless, but then the FSF is also completely useless, so it seems quite unfair that he wouldn't be allowed to work there.

[Roark66]

>But what I gather from the discussion is that there is a _pattern_ of bad behaviour.

This is such bullshit. There is no pattern of bad behaviour. There are some opinions that are considered controversial by mere fact of containing his actual thoughts on sensitive subjects rather than phrases repeated verbatim from the "currently allowed viewpoints" book. His views are not even contrary, they are just phrased in a way that allows dialogue of the subject. This is enough for the pure evil villains like Sarah Mei to build up her online persona by misattribution, lying and fabricating information crafted in a way that directs a mindless mob to online-lynch the man that in his life has done more for the freedom of that mob's members than anyone else alive. It is despicable. If anything deserves to be "cancelled" it is Sarah Mei's opinions on the subject.

The collective stupidity of the mob in question is completely beside the point as well as the actual content of Stallman's opinions which seem not to matter to anyone. This story really has one villain only and that person is not Richard Stallman.

[zecg]

> what I gather from the discussion is that there is a _pattern_ of bad behaviour.

I disagree, it's all very much overblown.

[2pEXgD0fZ5cF]

I can't comment on most of the accusations, I have never met rms in person. But what really shocked me was that the authors of the anti rms letter label him as "transphobe", as a source for that claim they link to his GNU Kind Communications Guidelines [1], which to me spell the exact opposite. Why put such a claim in there?

I find it really disturbing that so many people willingly accept that it's ok to mix legitimate criticism (assuming it is) with what is basically lies. "Might as well call him a few other bad names while we're at it for maximum impact"?. Why?

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html

[pjc50]

It's the footnote. Call people by their pronouns, not some random one "per" you made up for them.

[orra]

The footnote of that policy allows you to persistently call a trans man "they", even if his preferred pronoun is he. That is, the policy endorses you misgendering.

Calling a he/him person a "they" is a way of saying that you don't think they're a real man. It's really not much better than calling a trans man "her".

Finally, the previous version of the said guidelines used to reject singular they. Singular they is a great way to refer to somebody whose pronouns you don't know. Moreover, it's the preferred pronoun for many non-binary people.

[prepend]

They explicitly call out ways to respect and accommodate all pronouns. This footnote describes methods of using pronouns so that they don’t conflict in situations where a pronoun may not be known or understood.

The previous item says that gender identity should be respected and so purposely using the wrong pronoun would be in conflict here.

Interpreting this footnote that seems to provide more detail on how to work with diverse pronouned people as a transphobic issue is not a good piece of evidence to label RMS as a transphobe.

Especially since it seems to be pro trans and pro inclusivity.

[orra]

> Interpreting this footnote [...]

No, the footnote itself is very clear that it's OK to call a trans man "they" and never "he", if you reject his identity and would prefer to call him "she".

We cannot excuse the footnote just because the main text is better.

> Especially since it seems to be pro trans and pro inclusivity.

Moreover, the context is this document used to reject calling non-binary they people "they".

So the context is this document used to be outright transphobic. Thus skepticism is warranted. Has the document improved? Substantially. Is it still problematic? Very much so.

[2pEXgD0fZ5cF]

Then what about the following part from the guidelines:

> Honoring people's preferences about gender identity includes not referring to them in ways that conflict with that identity. For instance, not to use pronouns for them that conflict with it.

[orra]

The guideline argues "they" is gender neutral, so it does not conflict with anybody's gender identity. This misses the point.

"they" is indeed gender neutral. But when we talk about specific individuals, we almost always use gendered pronouns.

Hence, as I said, persistently using "they" for a binary trans person is a veiled insult. Again, it's like saying 'You're not a real man, but I am not allowed to call you she, so I will call you they'.

[ardfard]

> The footnote of that policy allows you to persistently call a trans man "they", even if his preferred pronoun is he. That is, the policy endorses you misgendering.

This one of example here is why I think RMS debacle is a bit overblown. This really just stretching it to make his statement seems offensive. It even put him in a stance in which he never had.

I cannot in my best intention to read "Honoring people's preferences about gender identity includes not referring to them in ways that conflict with that identity." as endorsing misgendering.

[orra]

The old version of the document was worse, and Stallman's personal website to this day rejects the use of singular they. That's the context. It's why there's little doubt to give the benefit of.

[bitwize]

It's the bit about singular "they". RMS for some reason doesn't like singular "they", despite the fact that it predates singular "you" in common English usage. Singular "they" also happens to be, by far, the preferred pronoun of nonbinary people. By telling people not to use singular "they", RMS is harming, offending, and driving away nonbinary people from participation in GNU projects.

[toyg]

> By telling people not to use singular "they", RMS is harming, offending, and driving away nonbinary people

Are we really at a point where a pronoun is persecuting people...?

This sort of attitude is seriously disrespectful to people who are actually being harmed, offended, and physically chased away from real spaces.

[daveoc64]

> Are we really at a point where a pronoun is persecuting people...?

If you're intentionally going out of your way to use a pronoun that someone doesn't feel represents them, then yes - that is persecuting them.

If someone asks you to stop, and you keep doing it - that's persecuting them.

[DanBC]

> Are we really at a point where a pronoun is persecuting people

Chosing to reject someone's identity is persecuting them, yes. Luckily in England the courts agree and transphobes who refuse to use people's correct pronouns often lose their employment tribunal cases.

[2pEXgD0fZ5cF]

In the linked guidelines it says the following:

> Honoring people's preferences about gender identity includes not referring to them in ways that conflict with that identity. For instance, not to use pronouns for them that conflict with it.

> There are several ways to avoid that; one way is to use gender-neutral pronouns, since they don't conflict with any possible gender identity.

> One choice is singular use of “they,” “them” and “their.”

> Another choice uses the gender-neutral singular pronouns, “person,” “per” and “pers,” which are used in Information for Maintainers of GNU Software.

> Other gender-neutral pronouns have also been used in English.

I'm genuinely trying to understand this. That does not spell a strong opposition to the supposedly preferred use of "they". But even then, does that really warrant the label "transphobe"?

Is that all it takes to qualify as a transphobe person, despite all the other points?

[DanBC]

I feel like you're stuck on the reference to the guidelines. People are combing the guidelines with other things RMS has said about the word "they".

RMS has spent several years railing against "them"/"they", based on his flawed understanding of English.

> Is that all it takes to qualify as a transphobe person, despite all the other points?

If you know my pronouns are he/him but you decide that you can't use those and insist on using they/them instead then yes, you have an irrational dislike of trans people and you're a transphobe, unless you can show that you only use gender neutral pronouns for everyone.

[orra]

> There are several ways to avoid that; one way is to use gender-neutral pronouns, since they don't conflict with any possible gender identity.

I have explained elsewhere in this thread why it's problematic to call a he/him trans man "they" and never "him"

> That does not spell a strong opposition to the supposedly preferred use of "they".

A previous version of the guidelines banned singular they. It has single been updated, even though Stallman on his personal site continues his disapproval.

> Is that all it takes to qualify as a transphobe person, despite all the other points

Rejecting gender identities is core to being a transphobe.

[Shish2k]

TBH even as a nonbinary person who goes by singular “they”, even I think that singular-they is ambiguous and I wish that some other non-ambiguous singular-gender-neutral pronoun had taken off instead…

(I’m still going by “they” because a bad standard beats an incompatible hodgepodge of non-standards)

[orra]

That policy has since been updated to allow singular they, despite Stallman's objection to singular they.

But now the footnote of the policy would allow you to call a trans woman "they" and never "her". That's not something transphobes (or anybody else) would ever do to a cis woman.

[ben_w]

FWIW, I tried to get in the habit of using singular-“they” for everyone, even where I know their gender and they are cis, to reduce any subconscious gender bias. This has had two effects: learning that some trans people really don’t like that, and everyone assuming my partner is a dude. (He is, but I’m bi and therefore this is mere coincidence).

[buisi]

Has he objected? If he is voicing his opinion on his blog, but the policy for GNU (which he runs) is otherwise progressive, then it feels like he is separating his personal opinions from how he operates a professional venue.

[beaconstudios]

what did he actually do that you would consider "bad behaviour"? I know he's widely regarded as a blunt/offensive speaker, willing to speak his mind on topics most sensible people just keep quiet on, but has he actually harmed anybody? Committed any crimes?

[edit] this is a genuine question. I've seen him write edgy things but am not aware of any harm he's done to others.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

“It’s only bad if there’s a law against it.” We used to be able to buy LSD on sugar cubes at record stores, because there was no specific law against it. Most folks just became really annoying for a few hours, but a number ended up in hospitals for the remainder of their lives.

There’s a strong argument that all drugs should be legal, as it will allow natural selection to work, but tell that to the families of drug overdose victims; many of whom OD on their first go.

As a former manager, and as someone that holds a fairly senior position in an organization that has very little to do with what we talk about here, I can tell you that words have consequences. They can be tremendously good, or tremendously bad. They can manifest into true criminal behavior, and that’s one reason why cult leaders and other instigators are prosecuted; even though they, themselves, didn’t get their hands dirty. Anyone remember Charlie Manson? Some of the worst criminals, during the Rwandan genocide, were radio DJs, who whipped people into a frenzy, and reported on the locations of Tutsi families.

That said, I am also someone “on the spectrum,” as they say, nowadays, and have spent my entire life, being held to account for my blunt comments and lack of empathy. I learned to compensate, and am now in a position to do real damage, if I’m not careful about what I say.

A bricklayer can spout off a bunch of nonsense with few ramifications, but the owner of the construction company needs to be careful what they say.

[beaconstudios]

> “It’s only bad if there’s a law against it.”

From my question:

> but has he actually harmed anybody? Committed any crimes?

So I'm not sure who your argument there was aimed against, but it wasn't me. I suspect any resemblance between the law and the morality of harm-reduction is merely coincidence.

> As a former manager, and as someone that holds a fairly senior position in an organization that has very little to do with what we talk about here, I can tell you that words have consequences.

Obviously yes, saying dumb things will get you criticised and people may think you're a dick. But there's a difference between saying "RMS is socially indiscrete and thus should not hold a political position within our advocacy organisation" and "RMS is a bad person and even suggesting that he hold such a position is a resignation-worthy offence". FWIW I agree that RMS seems to be socially incompetent enough to not be a political leader, but that doesn't account for the feeding frenzy around the prospect of his re-appointment.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Well, since this was honestly asked, as opposed to "Why don't we swan dive into the cesspool," I'm happy to relate my experience, and the opinions derived, thereof.

First of all, I don't have an axe to grind, re: RMS. I'm grateful for his contributions, and find some of what he says a bit annoying (but not something I lose sleep over). I honestly don't care whether or not he sits on the FSF board. It has almost nothing to do with the day-to-day work I do.

> but has he actually harmed anybody? Committed any crimes?

Well, the actual question was "Committed any crimes?", verbatim, so answering, by referring to the law of the land (or lack, thereof), is quite understandable. We live in a time, where "If it's legal, it's gold." seems to be the modus operandi of the business world. I find that we spend precious little time, considering such trivialities as Honor, Integrity or Honesty, when looking only at the legal code.

As to "harming someone," I suspect that we may not be the best judge of that. I deal with highly traumatized people, several days a week, and am quite aware of the grievous harm that can be done by folks, not intending to do harm. Often, the most damage is done by simple words (or lack of words), from those in a perceived position of authority (like parents or bosses).

> Obviously yes, saying dumb things will get you criticised and people may think you're a dick.

When people in positions of authority (and RMS is definitely an authority, whether or not he sits on a board) say stuff, it has a lot of impact. In my extracurricular world, I also spend a lot of time, running around with baby wipes, and a pooper-scooper, cleaning up emotional and physical damage, caused by the careless words of folks with authority that refuse to take Responsibility for their positions of influence. I have been one of those people, and have caused damage, by careless words.

I get rather peeved at people that have achieved some position of influence, then disregard the considerable Responsibility that comes with the trappings of power. Like I said, a bricklayer can spout off a bunch of guff, but their bosses are morally (and sometimes, ethically, and even legally) Responsible to watch what the heck they say. Today's hyper-connected world makes this even more imperative. Jerome Powell can crash the stock market by taking off his glasses to rub his eyes.

I really wish that society did a better job of teaching simple ethics, courtesy and logic. As someone who actually has a somewhat diminished capacity for this, I have had to learn it from scratch; often the hard way. I have caused a lot of hurt and embarrassment, over the years, been held to account, and have had to apply a great deal of self-discipline to mitigate my natural inclinations. It has not been fun. It's difficult for me to be sympathetic to folks that should have it come natural, and I know, for a fact, that there is a better way.

[beaconstudios]

> Well, the actual question was "Committed any crimes?", verbatim

Perhaps my grammar was too ambiguous, but the question was intended as an either/or, not a continuation clause. I listed real harm first as a higher priority too. Committing a crime was if anything, a secondary concern - if someone had claimed he was guilty of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family I wouldn't be up in arms against him.

> I find that we spend precious little time, considering such trivialities as Honor, Integrity or Honesty, when looking only at the legal code.

True enough - codification is treated as a very Holy concept under modernism. If the letter of the law doesn't explicitly state so, then it's OK. I consider that one of many of modernism's failings.

> As to "harming someone," I suspect that we may not be the best judge of that. I deal with highly traumatized people, several days a week, and am quite aware of the grievous harm that can be done by folks, not intending to do harm.

This is not a useful measure because people can claim harm for nearly anything. The best thing that can be done for highly traumatised people is to help them get over their trauma and successfully begin navigating society again. Wrapping victimised people up in cotton wool does nothing to help anybody, especially if doing so requires that wider society constrict itself. I say that as someone with complex PTSD myself.

> In my extracurricular world, I also spend a lot of time, running around with baby wipes, and a pooper-scooper, cleaning up emotional and physical damage, caused by the careless words of folks with authority that refuse to take Responsibility for their positions of influence.

Emotional and physical damage are not equivalent. If I say something in innocuous innocence and you take offense or it triggers an unreasonable response from you, it's not on me to navigate your issues. If I do physical harm to you, I should be in prison. Of course there's a line between being accidentally and intentionally hurtful, and the line is intent.

> I get rather peeved at people that have achieved some position of influence, then disregard the considerable Responsibility that comes with the trappings of power. Like I said, a bricklayer can spout off a bunch of guff, but their bosses are morally (and sometimes, ethically, and even legally) Responsible to watch what the heck they say.

Of course that is true, and why I don't believe RMS should steward the FSF: he's just not socially capable of the position, too abrasive. But that doesn't make him a toxic person or worthy of cancellation or whatever - it's just not his wheelhouse. This entire thread is about me asking if he's actually done anything bad, besides being socially inept.

> I really wish that society did a better job of teaching simple ethics, courtesy and logic.

That's what parents, personal experience and community are for. Unfortunately, community is dead in the city, so parents and personal experience it is.

Most people in my experience get stupider as they become more logical. HN is a perfect example of this.

[Jochim]

> There’s a strong argument that all drugs should be legal, as it will allow natural selection to work, but tell that to the families of drug overdose victims; many of whom OD on their first go.

I've never seen legalisation argued for from this point of view, usually people in favour of legalisation argue that it allows the government treat addicts in order to reduce the chance of them dying from an overdose and also operate programs to get people clean. Legalisation enables this by redirecting budgets that previously went to enforcement action as well as the taxation that the less harmful options bring in.

[platonq]

So words "have consequences", and you asscociate Stallman's gaffes with:

- Dangers of LSD.

- Words of actual cult leaders, who are universally charismatic and manipulative. Stallman is the exact opposite and has zero influence outside the free software topic. Stallman is incapable of being manipulative.

- Mass murderers.

- Charismatic DJs in the Rwandan genocide.

I'm speechless that in this supposedly rational forum people employ the same dirty tactics as on Twitter.

[DanBC]

> I know he's widely regarded as a blunt/offensive speaker,

I find it genuinely odd that people can say this, and recognise that he's in a position that requires skill in communication, and not feel that there's a mismatch between the man and the job.

He has, for years, been poor at one of the core requirements of the position.

And then people say "but people make mistakes, he should be allowed to learn and grow" and I totally agree. But he shows no insight. He almost never accepts what he said was wrong, he almost always pushes that onto what other people understood.

[beaconstudios]

Sure, he's probably not the best person to be in a political position, but that's totally separate from the outrage he appears to be generating from the outrage crowd.

[FpUser]

>"...just because Stallman did a good thing once..."

This is one glaring trivialization. RMS had "once" spent decades of hard work from which we all benefit greatly.

[iagovar]

I'm not American and I 100% understand what he means.

[minitech]

> I was reading comments in another HN thread, and one poster suggested that this might arise from raising kids without bullying. Like the immune system, if we don't develop a central tolerance, perhaps we start attacking everything we find unpleasant? No basis in behavioral science, of course.

Forget basis in behavioral science, this has no basis in anything, and you’re deluded if you think kids aren’t still bullied today. What a trash take.

[the-dude]

The environment is profoundly different today than say, 40 years ago. Being different is much easier today.

I was seduced by my parents to join a Judo club so I could stand up to myself ( this works wonders ).

Last year, I confronted a new millenial neighbour of mine repeatedly on her behaviour of biking on the sidewalk. The biggest problem was she was doing blind corners as well. There are small children here playing, we have elderly with walking aids. It was dangerous.

She called the police on me.

[minitech]

Setting aside the issue of whether inconsiderate use of vehicles is a newly millennial phenomenon for the moment and considering what this is in reply to: are you saying that the situation could have been avoided if your neighbour had been bullied enough as a child?

[the-dude]

No, I am saying it seems like some millenials seem unaware of the possible consequences of their behaviour to others and to themselves.

And if there is a confrontation, they'll report you to their teacher ( police ).

While when I grew up, when I misbehaved in traffic, say concerning a taxi(cab), the driver would stop, make his opinion loudly heard, perhaps accompanied by a threat of violence ( this actually happened ).

But now we are in a situation where neighbours can not confront each other anymore, and the preferred course of action is a mediator ( teacher / police ).

[ganafagol]

So instead of calling a mediator you would have preferred if she had taken matters in her own hands and tried to beat you up? Upon which you'd have hit back in self defense?

Of course that's not what you mean. I suppose you mean that instead of crying for help from the teacher she should have just swallowed it up and obeyed you.

But it goes both ways. Imagine you had a teenage daughter and she'd be accused of something, in her mind unrightfully, by some asshole neighbor. Would you like her to just swallow it up and do what he says? Or fight back, risking injury? Or call a mediator? That's the point of view of your neighbor.

If anything growing up with bullies teaches is that in the long run, only standing up to them works. But that's not what you'd actually how you'd have liked your millenial neighbor to react to you.

(I'm not saying you are the bully here. I'm totally with you on calling her out. But your "growing up with bullies" analogy is way off here and you need to consider all sides before drawing broad conclusions.)

[the-dude]

I appreciate your response. What I find puzzling about most responses is that it is not fully acknowledged that she is already behaving violently by threatening injury to others by using her vehicle as a weapon basically. If you hit an elderly full-front with a bicycle, I wouldn't be surprised if they died of the consequences.

And you are correct I am not promoting bullying, that would be insane. But total non-violence has its negative consequences too.

[gjulianm]

I think everyone here is better off by not drawing broad conclusions about behavior based on anecdotes. I am sure that a lot of people born in the 50s and 60s would have called the police in the same situation you describe.

> No, I am saying it seems like some millenials seem unaware of the possible consequences of their behaviour to others and to themselves.

Yes, this happens with every generation. Now what does that have to do with the idea that "bullying made society better"? I mean, you know that quite a lot of people have serious psychological consequences from bullying, some people have even killed themselves, right? It's not something to joke about, and if (and that's a big if) the price to pay to stop bullying is having someone call the police on a discussion, I would gladly pay it a hundred times over.

[hutzlibu]

So with your martial arts training you confronted your neighbour - and she called the police?

Well, maybe you should try talking calmly next time, then maybe others feel not threatened enough to call the police.

Otherwise you have the right to call the police if she insists on being a threat to the children around.

[Daho0n]

A confrontation with "martial arts training" is being mindful and resting in yourself. You try to make it sound like it is behaving aggressively and ready for violence. That's the opposite of what you learn and the risk of someone behaving like this is way higher in those without martial arts training.

Besides, I bet you are fully aware that the point GP was making was that his training made him dare say something where he before wouldn't.

[hutzlibu]

I train martial arts since being a small boy and no one ever called the police because of me. So I am not sure about that:

"Besides, I bet you are fully aware that the point GP was making was that his training made him dare say something where he before wouldn't. "

And I know a lot of people, bolstering their martial arts skills to impress and supress people. Once or twice I had to restrain some.

Still - repeatedly engaged talking to someone who don't wants to be talked with - can be defined as harrasment either way. And close to self justice in this case.

I know the urge for it sometimes. But .. that just means trouble.

(side note: Judo is not very effective as self defence)

[tcbawo]

When the police came, what happened?

[the-dude]

If you don't have an appointment, I don't answer the door. I was not called into the bureau.

[AYBABTME]

> What a trash take.

You can disagree without coming down to this.

[sparkling]

Prime example right here of ignoring everything he said due to one bad (but well intended) analogy. This is exactly the problem he is talking about.

[clappski]

> I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds.

Freedom of speech isn't the freedom to not be publicly judged about what you say.

[birracerveza]

>Freedom of speech isn't the freedom to not be publicly judged about what you say.

This is not just about being judged, it's about being judged and executed for your opinions. The judges and the juries have already handed out their verdict and will personally hand out the punishment, and if you dare question it you'll likely be next on the list. For example, I've seen that those who sided against RMS create a script to block those who signed the petition in his support. It's infuriating, it's a childish behavior that doesn't help anyone, it serves only to further polarize and radicalize the two sides, and further reduces the room for discussion. If there even was room left, that is. [1]

This is not an ecosystem where people are able to express their ideas. There is either black or white. You are either with us or against us. And if you express moderate opinions you risk angering both sides, and good luck with that.

You have to carefully weight every single word, because all it takes is for a single person to take issue with your comment enough to signal it to the cancel culture mob on Twitter to mobilize a horde of vocal complainers with plenty of spare time that will do everything they can to make you regret ever typing it out, either now or in the future. It's outright barbaric behavior from both sides that has been seen time and time again in the last years.

Do you honestly consider this "freedom of speech"?

---

[1] As another commenter points out, this kind of stuff comes from both sides. The given example was just fresh in my mind.

[krapp]

>For example, I've seen that those who sided against RMS created a script to block those who signed the petition that supported him.

And people who support RMS want to have Molly Le Blanc arrested for starting the petition to remove him[0].

[0]https://debian.community/molly-de-blanc-arrest-and-prosecuti...

[birracerveza]

Sorry, I feel like I should have pointed out that this behavior comes from both sides. I touched up the comment to account for it.

Thanks for making me notice.

[toomim]

Freedom of speech is about the freedom to make political opinions while retaining your place in society as a citizen.

None of the public judgements about RMS are about anything technical, anything about free software, or anything that touch on him running the FSF. He voiced an unfashionable opinion on sex and the laws about sex.

This is a political act to blacklist a man for his political opinions from work in a profession that he is qualified for.

[Denvercoder9]

> Freedom of speech is about the freedom to make political opinions while retaining your place in society as a citizen.

No, freedom of speech is about not being censored for expressing your opinions. It is not a right to be facilitated in expressing your opinions, or freedom of consequences for your opinions.

[illustriousbear]

Go tell that to all the minorities around the world who have state granted "freedom of speech" but are suppressed/controlled by mobs in other countries.

It's counter to freedom of speech and it isn't acceptable.

[Denvercoder9]

I'd argue that's more a problem with rule of law than anything freedom of speech related.

[toomim]

Freedom of speech is about law. The first ammendment says:

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

[DanBC]

> or anything that touch on him running the FSF.

Can't you see that a position that requires public speaking requires someone who is good at public speaking? Someone who doesn't continually cause misunderstanding because they're so poor at communicating?

[toomim]

He's pretty good at communicating. The problem is just that people don't like what he says.

[b215826]

Exactly, if you've listened to RMS's speeches, you'll realize that he's a very good communicator. He is usually well prepared and gets his points across well. But most people find his opinions (even his nonpolitical technical ones) extreme and therefore conclude that he isn't a good speaker.

[lifeisstillgood]

>>> Freedom of speech isn't the freedom to not be publicly judged about what you say.

Thank you for putting it so clearly.

[Guthur]

The problem is who's deciding what is and isn't acceptable, RMS has been saying clearly derogatory statements about religion, the basis of most of our shared morality, for decades without a single peep from the virtue crowd. He says a few edgy this about something else and then the pitch forks are out.

The problem is that I'm not sure we have much of a shared morality any more.

[lifeisstillgood]

Perhaps we should see it a different way.

Software development forces us to be more precise about what our process is. Sales wants to automate their pipeline - oh but what do you mean I have to tell you who to call next? Just call the important ones. We can no longer 'fudge' things.

Agile methodology is causing this problem in many companies. Asking senior management to stack rank their projects is an intensly political issue. Saying the project timelines will vary based on team velocity takes away simplicity of project management.

As software eats the world then more of the world must be upfront and precise about what it means. This is going to lead to a lot of soul searching. The most obvious example is the Trolley problem in autonomous cars - do you program a car to swerve to avoid the child, killing the driver, or save the driver, kill the kid.

This sort of devils own choice will become more rampant as more of the world becomes automatable.

Online speech is just one of these. Now that every pub conversation can be spread to millions of listeners, we need to find ways to agree on what is and is not acceptable.

The problem people are finding is that what was tolerated by people in the 19th hole in Alabama is not acceptable by people listening in Delhi.

The human species is going to have to find ways to get along together. I think that will (eventually) be a good thing.

[pjc50]

I'm not sure we ever did - or, to the extent that "we" did, it came down very hard on queer people and others.

[Guthur]

And now it's unfortunately nearly impossible for us to have a discussion about what various religions did or did not say about topics like homosexuality.

[illustriousbear]

It's really not a cool way to think about this.

People all around the world have state sanctioned freedom of speech but are oppressed by the majority in their country.

This infantile view of freedom of speech is simply a way to pretend you care about freedom of speech while sanctioning other ways to silence/punish people. Even when that punishment is completely disproportionate too.

[lifeisstillgood]

So, whilst I was thinking of some old white guy from the UK I saw last night complaining about 'cry-baby safe spaces', and felt that I could happily not listen and judge him, you are more sensibly thinking of ... a gay rape crisis centre that wants to publicise and support victims, but they find themselves in Russia or Turkey.

So its not enough to have freedom of speech, one also needs freedom from persecution and the other rights listed below:

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

Yes.

I agree.

[daveoc64]

I'm not sure how you can solve the "problem" you describe.

Freedom of speech means just that - you are free to say what you want/think.

Others don't have to agree with you. They might leave the room/not be your friend/unfollow you/fire you/stop buying your products.

If your opinion is against the majority in any situation, you're going to have a hard time - whether it's about something important, or just whether you think pineapple should go on a pizza.

[smolder]

True, and I'm judging the public on their flimsy judgement and groupthink. 90% of the outrage and even half the argument on subjects like this comes from people joining in without having had an independent thought or any first hand experience with the source material (RMS and his behavior)

[illustriousbear]

This is the same idiotic phrase as "Freedom of Speech is not Freedom from Consequences".

You know who else thinks this way? Many repressive countries such as those who control how women / minorities / etc behave in public. It's essentially mob pressure and destroys genuine freedom of speech.

You're basically expressing a threat that will be used against people who openly do not agree with the majority.

[Doctor_Fegg]

> Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement

The "Free Software" movement (cap F, cap S), yes.

> and he's the reason we all have jobs

No.

There was a sizeable movement for public domain software before Stallman. Stallman brought along a particular ideology and one which resonated with a lot of people, as well as coding a bunch of software himself. But it is an incredible reach to say that, without Stallman, there wouldn't have been the option to "spin up a server for free and compile code without paying a license". How do you know that?

I ran a "public domain library" back in the 8-bit days, as did many others. It was code you could distribute freely, and where you could play around and build upon the source. You could argue that Stallman's Free Software was another descendant of the early '80s public domain software culture, but you cannot presume that public domain software would have withered and died without Stallman. I think it's vanishingly unlikely, in fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_and_open-sourc... is worth reading.

[Taniwha]

Yup, long before I ever heard of Stallman we were passing around mag tapes full of software to share - people brought stuff to conferences and conference tapes were a thing

[sam_lowry_]

This is called pirating, now. I think Stallman contributed a lot to keep the sharing economy legal.

[Taniwha]

No it's not, sharing the source code of stuff you create yourself with others is not 'pirating', it basn't then and it isn't now (we're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_track_tape here)

[ganafagol]

Creating and advocating for a legal framework elevates this to a different level. There is a difference between passing floppy discs to your buddies and software that whole industries are based on. It needs a solid legal foundation. And a philosophocal framework too, i it's supposed to survive.

And that's what we should credit rms for.

[zvr]

You are correct if you're only talking about software created by _yourself_. However, most of the software I got on 9-track tapes were collective works, with the usual case being that the copyright owner was the employer of the people who actually wrote the software.

[zvr]

It might be the case that Open Source would have been created without RMS.

However, you can't deny that Copyleft (the legal hack that guarantees that source code will stay open) was his invention. I am not aware of anyone else thinking this way in the timeframe he first put his idea in public.

[p_l]

One can even say that open source organizations started 30 years before RMS started FSF in wake of losing a copyright trial. SHARE is, after all, from 1955, 16 years before a certain first year Harvard physics student took a job at MIT AI Lab and was told to work on text editor, because that's what they are paying him for.

[twic]

This is true, but irrelevant. There is plenty of non-copyleft software that is thriving. FreeBSD, PostgreSQL, X, Rails, you name it. None of them have succumbed to the fates against which GPL proponents advertise their license as the only defence.

[matthewmacleod]

I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds.

But this is a fantasy you made up. We've never lived in a society where you are free to say whatever you want and are isolated from all consequences of that.

In fact, you will almost certainly have some lines yourself. There are things that Stallman could have said, or actions that he could have taken, that you personally would agree made it untenable for him to keep his position. I'm unsure why you feel that your position is the only reasonable one to hold, and that anybody who has a different level of tolerance constitutes a "mob".

It feels like we're in the midst of a moral panic, but I don't think it's coming from who you seem to think it is.

[iagovar]

> In fact, you will almost certainly have some lines yourself. There are things that Stallman could have said, or actions that he could have taken, that you personally would agree made it untenable for him to keep his position

Why so much speculation? He's actually saying the opposite.

[prepend]

> But this is a fantasy you made up

This is an ideal held by many that we should strive toward. We may never achieve it in our lifetimes, but it’s still healthy to have a common goal we all work toward.

It’s disheartening if I just say “fuck it, we’re hosed, so what’s the point.”

[Scuds]

So what? Though he's an philosophical founder, the FSF has stagnated under his leadership over the decades.

It's like you're more in love with the Idea of the FSF than the FSF as it stands today, reflexively self-protecting its old guard and completely inhibited by the my-way-or-the-high-way attitude of RMS.

[incrudible]

That's a fair point, but a smear campaign is not the right tool to achieve change to that end.

If we accept this process as valid just because we agree with the outcome, it is going to blow up right in our face.

[prepend]

> stagnated under his leadership over the decades.

I disagree. I think FSF is/was until recently the strongest ever.

Free Software has advanced greatly in the past 20 years, that’s not entirely due to FSF, but in part. I don’t think RMS is the singular force behind FSF but I don’t think it’s correct to say that FSF sucks or that it’s sucked because of RMS.

[p_l]

The big advances in last decade all seemed to me to be in spite of RMS, not because. But then I look from pretty afar.

[smt88]

"Tolerance" doesn't mean someone can have any prominent position they want.

I completely support Stallman's right to say that he believes children can consent to sex. It's not sexist or edgy -- it's repulsive and sounds like the stuff Epstein used to say. But he still deserves to have friends and rights.

What he doesn't deserve is coworkers or teammates who are forced to pretend he didn't say that stuff. He said it and there are consequences.

Could any of the rest of us tweet about our theoretical support for statutory rape and still have jobs?

And the things he said that denigrated parents who raise children with Down's syndrome is arguably worse.

Twitter is not destroying careers. People are destroying their own careers.

[buisi]

I think some people have a very naive view of consenting to sex.

The idea is they ask someone whether they want to do it, they say yes, and they do it. And they don't really see the harm there. Everyone's happy, right?

But, children lack the knowledge to understand what it is they are asking. Children might also agree to things they shouldn't because they want attention, even if it is bad for them, and hurts them.

Teenagers might be better off but they're hormone propelled and may make mistakes they really shouldn't. There are power imbalances too where someone feels they should do something they really don't want to do.

To be clear, I'm not for criminalizing sex where a small age gap is involved. Throwing teenagers in prison for having sex with each other is counter-productive and harmful. There are better ways to tackle that. The same applies to sexting.

But, the burden which would have to be met for an adult to be involved is so high, so risky, and so convoluted that it isn't worth it in practice. Can a judge really make the right call all the time there? Is it worth it?

By the way, he has never tweeted his theoretical support for statutory rape. I don't think he even has a twitter account. He made some comments on an obscure personal blog over a couple of decades. Someone went out of their way to dig it out after he appeared in the news.

[smt88]

> By the way, he has never tweeted...

I know. I was just using a common, public method of communication as an example that's more relatable for us.

[Daho0n]

The consequence was that he talked to people about it, changed his mind and apologized. That this gets brought up after the fact is not a consequence of his current opinion and everyone knows this. This is a consequence of a mistake he were big enough to public apologize for (unlike most people online) and then later used against him.

Besides much of what RMS is saying and doing that makes him stick out and he gets harassed over is because of him being neuroatypical.

[pseudalopex]

He didn't apologize for his comments about sex between adults and children.[1] And he didn't say he changed his mind until after he came under pressure to resign. It was his current opinion as far as anyone knew. And that's just 1 of the examples they gave.

Neuroatypical people I know are pretty angry about mostly neurotypical people using their condition to rationalize Stallman's bad behavior.

[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

[thefz]

> I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds.

While I agree with most of your points on RMS: Freedom of speech exists and is enforced in other countries. Its dawn can be traced back to ancient Greece passing through renaissance and the French revolution. And ironically, the SJW cancel-culture is a US phenomenon only, it's nonexistent in the EU at least. Don't want to rub anyone the wrong way, but from an external standpoint, I would not want American freedom of speech right now, if this is what gets you.

[oytis]

Still freedom of speech is understood much more literally and with fewer exceptions in U.S. than elsewhere.

In Germany for one, there is no such thing as freedom of speech, but rather "freedom of opinion". Practically that means that if you want to say something that someone else is not going to like, you have to a) take care not to bring up any facts (e.g. say that someone touched you inappropriately), because as soon as you do that you have to either provide a proof or face slander suit b) still not to cross the line when your opinion can be considered offensive. This doesn't leave a lot of space for free speech. This is not to mention a list of forbidden opinions and symbols for which you will face repercussions from the state itself.

Don't want to argue which is the right way, I just mean that "American freedom of speech" is a real thing.

[thefz]

Sorry but that is plain wrong. Freedom of speech in Italy is more or less the same of what you state to be "American freedom of speech", i.e. the right not to be persecuted for your ideas, with some eexceptions being hate speech or incitement to violence. This right includes other forms of communication such as writing and artistic expression.

If you have time to translate this, the Italian form is even a bit less strict in definition : https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert%C3%A0_di_manifestazione...

[oytis]

> with some eexceptions being hate speech or incitement to violence

These are important exceptions though. Absence of hate speech laws is one thing that makes "American freedom of speech" a pretty unique thing.

[thefz]

That's a step backward, not forward.

[oytis]

I don't think there is such thing as "backward" and "forward" here. They probably contribute to social peace, but put limits to the freedom of speech, which do not exist in the U.S.

[quonn]

> a) take care not to bring up any facts (e.g. say that someone touched you inappropriately), because as soon as you do that you have to either provide a proof or face slander suit

Surely you would face slander suits in the US as well if you lie about being touched?

[oytis]

There is a huge difference in who takes the burden of proof. In the U.S. if you accuse someone of slander, you have to prove that what they say is false and malicious. In Germany it's the other way round: the one who is accused is also the one who should prove that what they say is true.

Which leaves e.g. little space for #metoo in Germany - either you have proofs and then you go to police/court - or you don't, and then you have to stay silent.

[Stratoscope]

> Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement, and he's the reason we all have jobs.

WTF? I had a job long before RMS came on the scene, and I still have one. Whatever my feelings about Stallman, he doesn't get credit for that.

And I was giving away source code way before FSF existed. We didn't have fancy names or licenses back in those days, we just called it "public domain".

[bjourne]

I agree with you, but it would behoove you to note that most career destructions haven't been the work of mobs - they have been the work of white elites and old boys' networks. Dozens of academics have had their careers ruined because they espoused views the elites found uncomfortable. For each public career destruction, you have chilling effects that are orders of magnitudes larger; academics have to choose between saying what they think and having a job and many choose the latter.

By all means, defend Stallman's right to say thoughtless and sexist things, but also spend some time defending those who have been fired for trying to unionize their workplace, those who can't get a job because they have publicly campaigned for a political party, and for victims of workplace sexual harassment who can't speak up about it because they would be effectively blacklisted.

[mhh__]

> Richard Stallman has said some sexist and edgy things.

done some sexist and edgy things. On stage, spoken directly at women.

Also, Stallman is a totally incompetent leader - the project is sufficiently niche that I won't name it, but the maintainer mentioned to me that he entered rms's bad book merely by virtue of having children.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

It is nice how you prove your point about Stallman being totally incompetent leader by providing a very specific and verifiable allegation.

Also, now we know that rms has 'bad book' where he puts people with children.

[mhh__]

I would give more detail but the exact project is a reasonably major but narrow piece of GNU with not many maintainers, which I should also add they nearly missed out on for other rms related reasons.

[mhh__]

C+P of a compelling list from the gcc mailing list I read:

1. 'skeptical that voluntarily pedophilia harms children.’ stallman's own archives 2006-mar-jun I note that children are incapable of consenting. That’s what the age of consent means.

2. 'end censorship of “child pornography”’. Stallman's archives 2012-jul-oct.html Notice use of “quotes” to down play what is actually being requested.

3. 'gentle expressions of attraction’ Stallman's archives 2012-jul-oct.html Condoning a variant of the wolf-whistle. Unless one’s talking to one’s lover, ‘gentle invitations for sex’ by a stranger is grooming (be it child or of-age).

4. Defends someone charged with ‘"sexual assault" on a "child" after a session with a sex worker of age 16.’ stallman's archives 2018-jul-oct Notice the quoting here, implying the child is not a child. ‘The article refers to the sex worker as a "child", but that is not so. Elsewhere it has been published that she is 16 years old. That is late adolescence, not childhood.’ No, they are a child, that’s what the ages of majority and consent mean.

5. The ‘St Ignatius’ ‘EMACS virgins’ non-joke. ‘The commenter writes about seeing the routine when she was only 15, and how RMS singled her out several times during that performance: He actually pointed to me in the back and proclaimed, into the mic, "A GIRL!" causing the audience to turn and look. Mortifying. Then he proceeded to gesture toward me every time he referred to "EMACS Virgins." (I cannot believe that he is still doing the same talk 10+ years later.)’ No wonder women want nothing to do with him.

6. A business card that is completely repelling image on oreilly

7. He knows those cards are inappropriate. He broke the code of conduct he helped author. wiredferret's twitter feed.

8. I understand he’s tried to circumvent such codes of conduct by asking women to meet him outside of the conference venue. _sagesharp_'s twitter feed.

9. He doesn’t acknowledge the few women he has worked with ‘I don’t have any experience working with women in programming projects; I don’t think that any volunteered to work on Emacs or GCC.’ Completely ignoring Sandra Loosemore, who is a coauthor, with him, of the Glibc manual. Sandra was involved with LISP standardization, so I would be surprised if he was unaware of her involvement there. As you well know, she has worked significantly on GCC, GCC has several other women contributors, but too few for complacency.

10. ‘My first interaction with RMS was at a hacker con at 19. He asked my name, I gave it, whether I went to MIT (I had an MIT shirt on), and after confirmation I did, asked me on a date. I said no. That was our entire conversation.’ corbett's twitter feed. This is but one of many reports of utterly inappropriate social interactions.

[incrudible]

The question of whether children are capable of consenting to sex with adults is something that's been widely debated in the time and space RMS grew up in. Several important people on the leftist/queer side came out in favor of it:

https://uncommongroundmedia.com/derrick-jensen-queer-theory-...

RMS may simply not have gotten the memo that this is a completely unacceptable opinion in the 2000s. Sensibilities change.

> Defends someone charged with ‘"sexual assault" on a "child"

This is just not true, it's the same misrepresentation that RMS attempted to defend Marvin Minsky against.

Marvin Minsky was never charged with anything, on account of being dead and unable to defend himself. Marvin Minsky also has never been accused of sexual assault by the victim herself. The victim accused Ghislaine Maxwell of directing her to have sex with Marvin Minsky.

There's a huge difference between "Marvin Minsky sexually assaulted a child" and "Marvin Minsky had sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old that was forced into prostitution by a third party". Not just in terms of labels, we're talking about years of prison time.

Even if we supposed that the latter was legally considered "sexual assault" (which it is not), it should be acceptable to argue that the name doesn't fit the crime.

[pseudalopex]

Since when has Stallman cared about what other people consider acceptable?

[psychiatrist24]

Obviously the age of consent can be discussed, it even varies from country to country.

I don't understand the EMACS virgin joke?

I don't think asking women on dates is automatically "inappropriate behavior". How are men and women supposed to get together? Even in a "professional setting", because the feminist claim that it is demeaning to women if somebody is attracted to them is simply wrong.

I can't claim RMS is "ok", but I'd like to see better evidence against him. Some women disliking him is not enough, either.

[mhh__]

> I don't understand the EMACS virgin joke?

The "joke" is that they are virgins and thus have to have said honour taken away from them. Bad taste aside, the issue is really that he specifically singles out women when reciting it. More detail: https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/EMACS_virgins_joke

> I don't think asking women on dates is automatically "inappropriate behavior".

There's a time and a place. Ultimately it's highly dependent on context, but if women are made uncomfortable by it in this case I don't think it's unreasonable to try and stop. Also just to spell it out, the implication here is that he was only talking to her to get into her pants.

FWIW I don't believe Stallman is a deeply rooted sexist, but rather than he has certain extremely unhelful patterns in his behaviour which he is wilfully blind to. When he says he believes women deserve free software too, I do believe him, but that isn't good enough i.e. sometimes words have no meaning.

[psychiatrist24]

"The "joke" is that they are virgins and thus have to have said honour taken away from them. "

According to the article, the "virginity" of never having used EMACS before. I dunno - doesn't really move my "hate RMS" meter, tbh. Not that I think it is a joke that is necessary to be made, but not the end of the world, either.

"Ultimately it's highly dependent on context, but if women are made uncomfortable by it in this case I don't think it's unreasonable to try and stop."

According to the story, he asked her for a date, and that was it. So he did stop?

It is a nice thought to avoid things that make women uncomfortable, but it is not actually a practical rule. Sometimes you can not know beforehand what makes them uncomfortable. It also seems unfair to simply demand unattractive men should never attempt to get dates. And you should not simply give a group of people to rule over other people at their whim - if you establish that rule, women can just control everything, because anything else would make them uncomfortable. For sure they can control who gets to be made the boss of companies or organisations.

[ulisesrmzroche]

Why do you keep avoiding the details? It's public knowledge that women have been avoid Stallman's office for decades.

[bartread]

> I don't think asking women on dates is automatically "inappropriate behavior".

In general I agree with you but in this specific instance RMS would have been about 50 years old at the time (please see my other comment in direct response to GP). 50 year old men asking out 19 year old women is very much inappropriate behaviour.

[psychiatrist24]

Serious question, why is it inappropriate? It is against the "Bro Code" from "How I met your mother", but other than that? Sure, we are trained to feel uneasy about it, but if you really think about it, why exactly? Because you consider 50 year old men disgusting? Shouldn't you leave that to the women to decide? Many people also feel a bit disgusted about gay sex, yet they are supposed to tolerate and even celebrate it.

My other thought would be it seems like a bad "investment", as the older guy will most likely die before the young woman. But these days, single parenting is the norm rather than the exception. So is it really so much worse if the partner dies than if you divorce them and exclude them from your life? Yet again, single parenting is now almost being pushed as the model to aim for. And also "rainbow families" - if your partner dies, simply find a new one, it doesn't matter if they also already have kids. It is all possible and normal these days.

[bartread]

I consider it inappropriate because whenever I've seen it happen the female on the receiving end of the older man's attention is at best extremely uncomfortable about it. I've seen it happen first hand in an organisation I was a member of on multiple occasions. Men were asked to leave over it. Left unaddressed it becomes a barrier to female involvement.

Does that mean relationships with significant age gaps are wrong? No. And I didn't say that.

But do I think it's a bit off when a much older guy meets a girl young enough to be his daughter and the first thing he does is hit on her. I make no apology for that, because I'd bet nine times out of ten the girl's going to be really uncomfortable about it.

[bloodorange]

> But these days, single parenting is the norm rather than the exception.

This is a rather unusual observation I have to say. How did you come to this conclusion, might I ask?

[buisi]

It's been a while, but the "child porn" post links to Rick's blog post. Rick made a blog post calling to legalize child porn, and it went over about as well as you'd expect.

He later explained why he called for that. The law is being used against things it shouldn't be. Like historical war photos, cartoons, a mother recording her child's unusual behavior (a sign of abuse) to submit as evidence to the police and getting charged for it, teenagers sexting, and so on.

The argument was never that child porn was good, but that we're going down a really dark path of censorship, and that we'd be better off doing away with that law, if this is what it means doing.

It isn't that child porn is good, but that censorship is worse, and dangerous to the fabric of society. If a former politician like Rick can be misunderstood and taken out of context like that, I can imagine it being even more hazardous for RMS.

[bartread]

> 10. ‘My first interaction with RMS was at a hacker con at 19. He asked my name, I gave it, whether I went to MIT (I had an MIT shirt on), and after confirmation I did, asked me on a date. I said no. That was our entire conversation.’ corbett's twitter feed. This is but one of many reports of utterly inappropriate social interactions.

Just in case anybody else picks up on this and wonders what's so wrong with asking a girl out on a date, based on when @corbett attended MIT, RMS would have been about 50 at the time. A ~50 year old man immediately asking out a 19 year old girl the first time he meets her, even if it were intended as a (bad) joke, registers as pretty damn creepy.

The other points, assuming true at face value, all seem well made.

[c0l0]

When my parents met and fell in love, my father was 48 years old, and my mother was 21. I was born four years later.

My father died two years ago, at the age of 86. My mother lovingly cared for him during these last and toughest months of his.

I'm not even sure why I am sharing this here... I guess it just upset me that you, effectively, called him a creep. Maybe try not to judge people who seek (and sometimes even manage to find) love in ways you are not willing to try or to understand.

[bartread]

Oh, come on. I don't know anything about the context in which your parents met, how they got to know eachother, or how they got together.

But I do know that on this specific occasion RMS met somebody who was young enough to be his daughter and then some, and the first thing he did is hit on her. I'd bet that nine times out of ten the girl on the receiving end of that kind of attention will feel extremely uncomfortable. I make that bet both regretfully and confidently because I was a member of an organisation where this happened on multiple occasions and I saw exactly this play out. Girls were made to feel very uncomfortable and creeped out to the point that they were reluctant to be involved. Men were asked to leave because of it.

I understand where you're coming from, and I understand why you might be upset, but I wasn't attacking you or your parents, and I do not apologise for my point of view because the vast majority of the time the behaviour I've outlined is going to come off as creepy to the girl on the receiving end of it.

[antientropic]

> I note that children are incapable of consenting. That’s what the age of consent means.

Completing 18 orbits around the sun does not magically imbue a person with free will and the ability to consent. Of course the law has to draw a line somewhere (and many jurisdictions draw the line differently), but that doesn't mean that people under 18 are categorically incapable of consenting.

[gimboland]

> I don't want to live in a world where we can't be forgiven.

Forgiveness requires accountability and commitment to change, neither of which have been forthcoming.

[CodeGlitch]

Have you seen his blog? He's admitted failings and mistakes in the past.

[gimboland]

I have not, and would be interested to see a link to that (the posting(s) in question, not the whole blog), particularly if it addresses the many accusations of sexual harassment, as my understanding was that this had not happened. Prompted by your comment, I had a look on his site, but nothing seemed to be fit the bill, either in the "Political Articles" section or the "Non-political Articles" section — but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places? Please, enlighten me.

[CodeGlitch]

Sorry I don't have time to dig through his blog right now, but on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Resignation_f...

[orasis]

Forgiveness technically does NOT require those things. That’s the point. It’s fore-give-ness.

[GTP]

But if you forget for a moment your semantic argument, you find that is actually very hard to forgive somebody that doesn't admit to have done something wrong.

[gimboland]

Yup — that basically requires extremely high levels of compassion and unconditional love, something we can all aspire to, but in reality and in general forgiveness tends to be conditional.

[orasis]

That is the entire point of the Christian practice of forgiveness. It is unconditional.

It is a practice, something you do in spite of it being challenging.

The practice itself is mostly for the forgiver, not the forgiven. Try it and watch your heart soften and open.

[mandmandam]

Stallman lost his job for years, and apologised - what are you talking about?

And this is over - and I can't BELIEVE this still has to be said even here - his words being twisted COMPLETELY out of context.

Smh at this community for tolerating comments like yours.

[gimboland]

Oh, has he apologised for the years-long pattern of sexual harassment as testified to by multiple women? I must have missed that, sorry.

[Jonnax]

Stallman has stated that he does not have Aspergers or Autism.

But for some reason people online can't stop themselves from diagnosing him with it.

[incrudible]

He may not have sought a clinical diagnosis, or if he does he may not want to disclose it, which is within his rights.

Nevertheless, he clearly and obviously displays so many symptoms from that spectrum that it would only be charitable to treat his communications under the assumptions that there's something there.

[user-the-name]

Even if he does, it in no way whatsoever excuses his awful behaviour, abuse and harassment. And it is cowardly and incredibly insulting to those who do suffer from it to claim it is.

[incrudible]

It's not a carte blanche, but acting socially inappropriately is a hallmark of Autism-Spectrum disorders. I do believe that does excuse or at least re-frame certain behaviors that might be otherwise construed as "awful" or "abusive". Intent matters.

[user-the-name]

It really, really does not. I think you should try to first go find out what the behaviours actually are. It's not just having awkward opinions or butting into conversations.

Like, https://twitter.com/grok_/status/1375049417926053894

[incrudible]

He also ate ”something” from his own foot, in public. I’m not saying his behavior is not highly inappropriate for an adult man. I simply refuse to attribute malice. He probably thought it was hilarious to lick the arm of someone he just met.

[skissane]

As I've said before, RMS obviously has a flawed understanding of ASD and so his "self-undiagnosis" of it shouldn't be given a lot of weight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537802

And I agree that nobody other than a professional personally evaluating him should diagnose him with ASD (or anything), but he displays obvious traits of BAP (broad autism phenotype, subclinical ASD) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537443 – and that's not a "diagnosis" because BAP is by definition not a diagnosis.

[user-the-name]

Also, even if he did, implying that it is ok to be abusive or a sexual harasser because of it is not just absolutely wrong, but a massive, massive insult to all people with autism.

[orra]

This is spot on, even though predictably and depressingly you've been downvoted to hell.

Autism does not excuse sexual harassment. Pretending it does is a complete ableist trope. As you say, it's a disservice to everybody with disabilities who have learnt, as necessary, to not sexually harass others.

[incrudible]

If I crack a bad joke due to my social ineptness, you may call that sexual harassment. However, due to my social ineptness, I will simply reject your definition of sexual harassment and insist that I was just making a harmless joke.

Perhaps some people with different expressions of that "disability" have the capacity to "learn" that they're "wrong". I don't. To suggest that I should have that capacity because others do is... ableist, I guess?

[user-the-name]

That is not a thing.

[incrudible]

It is a thing.

QED

[quonn]

It‘s not okay to say they are abusive. You wouldn‘t call a child abusive if it shouts out some words that it doesn‘t understand.

[krapp]

>You wouldn‘t call a child abusive if it shouts out some words that it doesn‘t understand.

Are you implying that Richard Stallman is so cognitively impaired that he literally cannot comprehend the meaning of the language he uses, or control his behavior? That he has the mind of a child?

If that's the case, he should be assigned a legal guardian, not given a position of leadership and role as spokesman for the FSF.

[krapp]

>But for some reason people online can't stop themselves from diagnosing him with it.

Doing so makes it easier to excuse Stallman's behavior and demonize his critics by implying their only motivation is hatred of conventionally unattractive and neurodivergent people - an argument designed to strongly resonate emotionally with the tech community and serve as a thought terminating cliche.

It's ironically exactly the sort of bad faith strategy they constantly accuse "the SJWs" of partaking in.

[arpinum]

RMS does not have the skillset needed for a leadership position today. If you care about the movement, it needs a leader people want to follow. Just because RMS is not at the top doesn't mean he is being denied chances and isn't forgiven. I'm sure he can continue writing code. He just isn't good enough as a leader of a broad movement. That isn't a slight, most of us couldn't do it.

[lifthrasiir]

I think many people, especially those in this and related threads, don't really understand a difference between a visionary and a decision maker. RMS is indeed a great visionary: his vision of software freedom was basically correct and even more so today. That doesn't automatically make him a great decision maker. There might even possibly be a weak negative correlation.

By all accounts, especially for recent decades, RMS had been a not-so-much-great decision maker and his resignation from FSF should have marked the end of the era no matter how you feel about that. Instead FSF chose to bring him back. Seriously, if out of the free software movement there were no decision maker better than RMS, then it is basically doomed by now. I don't feel so.

[Daho0n]

I couldn't disagree more. To replace RMS is one thing but to replace him because of woke cancel culture is another. I'd vote for knowledge and skills, not speaking skills and a history of never having said something the woke crowed gets pissy over.

[mandmandam]

It's astounding people aren't grasping this point, even now.

[tjpnz]

>RMS does not have the skillset needed for a leadership position today.

Care to define what that skillset is? Leadership requires all sorts of skills and some of the most effective leaders I've seen share very little in common.

[arpinum]

#1 - People want to follow you.

[mandmandam]

What you are describing is actually a popularity contest, not leadership.

I can see why you would be mistaken for confusing the two these days - it seems to be an insanely common misconception - but they are NOT the same thing and never will be.

[liaukovv]

Being a pleasant inoffensive(to corporate sponsors) mommy is just one of many possible ways to lead people.

Another way is to lead by example with unrelenting commitment and drive.

[danpalmer]

We can't weigh the positive impact a person has had against the unrealised potential for positive impact from all those they forced out of the community. We just don't know if Stallman is a net-positive because we'll never get to see the alternative case.

Given this, we can't use an "end justify the means" argument, which means we have to hold people accountable in isolation from any positive impact they may have had.

[hutzlibu]

"What do we do about this? "

I would start with having debates based in reality and not ideology, like this:

"Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement, and he's the reason we all have jobs. "

[pjmlp]

Sorry, while I appreciate what he has done and this seems a bit like witch hunt to me, I was already working in IT before GNU happened and most of my work is unrelated to GNU/Linux.

Without it, I would still be using Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, Aix, BSD, ....

[andrewaylett]

Stallman has shown that he's a man of his principles, and willing to stick by them even at great personal cost.

Obviously he's most famous for his dedication to Free Software. But in recent years, he's made it very clear that Free Software isn't actually the most important principle in his life: his freedom to act abusively is more important.

When Stallman was asked to choose between Free Software and abusive behaviour, he chose abusive behaviour. And what we're seeing now is the fallout from the decision he made. It's cost him a lot, yes, but that's his choice. Would that it were less costly for those who have suffered at his hands.

[vmception]

> I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds.

You've always lived in this world and this is the America you grew up in. You were lied to.

The government has stayed very professional in this, and by that I mean complete absence, which is American freedom of speech.

[haskal]

> What do we do about this?

Step 1 would be to groom people to leadership positions. How is it that an organization of 35+ years doesn't have a good rank next generation who will take the baton from the old guard? I bet you can't name another member of the FSF. For Linux kernel, I can think of GHK, for Ruby I know quite a few people, but for FSF, the bus factor seems to be 1.

Even without all the accusations, FSF should have a leadership they can fallback to. I feared for FSF after Stallman (before the controversy), now I fear for FSF, full stop.

[AndrewDucker]

Has Richard apologied? Has he asked for forgiveness?

Because if he keeps saying upsetting things and never apologises or tries to learn then he's driving people away. And that makes him a bad fit for a leadership position.

[detaro]

Stallman is not the pillar things are build on. Yes, he's had a monumental impact on the software world, but it's a mistake to bind the concept of Free Software to him and pretend it needs him personally to be involved. It doesn't, and hasn't for a long time. Today, it's likely better off without him involved at high level, if the past decade of the FSF is anything to go by.

And it's not that we "live in a world where we can't be forgiven", but there is little to suggest that there is any meaningful commitment to change, instead RMS is just back somehow for some reason, without warning (i.e. nobody at LibrePlanet apparently knew that was coming, including the organizers and participants that had explicitly requested to not be involved with him). Not surprising that doesn't satisfy people.

[buisi]

To be fair, he was only re-appointed for a short while before he was cancelled. We don't even know what his plans are.

[GTP]

>I was reading comments in another HN thread, and one poster

>suggested that this might arise from raising kids without

>bullying. Like the immune system, if we don't develop a

>central tolerance, perhaps we start attacking everything we

>find unpleasant? No basis in behavioral science, of course.

I'm not sure I understood what are you trying to say here, are you suggesting that a "small dose" of bullying is beneficial to a child's development?

[meribold]

The fact that parent created a "risky_opinions" throwaway for sharing their rather moderate take on this controversy should tell all of us that something is going wrong.

[bryanrasmussen]

>one poster suggested that this might arise from raising kids without bullying.

bullying is being exposed to the mob, not exposing kids to mobs creates mobs seems somehow counterintuitive.

[op03]

We dont do anything about it, in the same sense second graders dont have to do anything about tenth grade problems.

Social Media, HN included, does a fine job of presenting tenth grade problems to second graders everyday.

As if that isnt misguided enough (no org or edu system ever does that and produces good outcomes), it creates a rallying point for all the second graders in world to show up and discuss the tenth grade problem on the board.

Its a waste of time. Thats all it is. There are second graders who understand that, and there are second graders who will get carried away by the numbers at the rallying point and go storm the capitol or whatever bullshit a second grade herd can come up with.

Any time anyone starts getting anxious over problems the internet happily plants in their head, thats a clear signal they are dealing with problems above their paygrade.

There is only one valid move to make, shrug it off and head back to the second grade classroom. There is no evidence social media or hn debates have ever contributed to solutions to anything extremely complex. And there is enough evidence they just increase the complexity of the problem.

[psychiatrist24]

I would like to know what John Sullivan is thinking, if his resignation is even related to the RSM issue. Does he want to appease the mob? Is he personally disgusted by RSM? Or does he want to be on the right side, and the disgust stems from that (I mean he is disgusted that the "right" people don't get what they want)?

I tried to google a bit and since no immediately damning statements by RSM came up, he doesn't bother me with regard to that. Yes, he wrote about paedophilia, but afaik he didn't demand it should be legaized, he just pointed out that it has created some absurd issues, like teens sexting each other being criminalized (afaik - I only googled a bit, and couldn't find damning quotes, so I assume they don't exist).

I am more concerned about the anecdotes of his icky behavior (read someone claiming he licked a womans arm, another that he picked flakes from his feet during a lecture). But I have no way to verify if they are true, so I am also holding back judgement.

[533474]

good article that deals quite well with the controversial topics [1]

[1] https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web

[marcus_holmes]

really good read. thanks

[Ar-Curunir]

You’re deluded if you think RMS hasn’t had enough chances at this point.

[kitsune_]

I think that we do not know whether he is on the autism spectrum. There are articles where RMS states a suspicion but he never underwent an evaluation afaik.

[raverbashing]

> Do we destroy the pillar we've built our entire livelihoods upon to satisfy a mob?

Who says we are? Is Free Software being thrown out of the bus with this? No

The question here is RMS re-joining the FSF board. That's it. People are questioning him rejoining a privileged position.

It's not a prison sentence. He's not being prevented to earn a living.

Yes, nobody is free of blame, everybody has controversial opinions. But at the same time, it's not the right job for him.

[KoftaBob]

"I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds."

American freedom of speech in the 1st Amendment states that the US Government can't restrict what you're able to say.

It does not state that you're entitled to say what you want without real world consequences.

[jamienicol]

Stallman and the FSF are destroying what they built.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.

We forgive those who show remorse and make amends. Not those who continue their bad behaviour.

[tester34]

>I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds.

reading weekly cancel of somebody because they said something in the past doesn't convince me about this "freedom of speech" stuff

[user-the-name]

He has not just "said some sexist and edgy thing".

He is abusive against everyone around him. He has sexually harassed numerous women near him, to the point that people lock themselves in their offices when he visits.

He is incredibly, incredibly toxic. He has had a huge crowd of people trying, again and again, to tell him to stop acting like this, and to be a decent human being. He refuses.

He is a massive burden on any institution he is part of. Kicking him out is the correct decision in every case, no matter what he has achieved in the past.

[mustafa_pasi]

> He is abusive against everyone around him. He has sexually harassed numerous women near him, to the point that people lock themselves in their offices when he visits.

Then why didn't these women report him to the whoever competent authorities at MIT? Or to the police if the crime is serious enough? Why are they signing an open letter on the internet instead?

Please don't parrot unfounded heresy.

[p_l]

Knowledge on RMS' behaviour tended to move slowly, probably heavily in part due to hero worship before one met him.

And I'm not talking about the horrific behaviour towards opposite sex, or other unprivileged groups. Tales of "I idolized RMS and thought he was at worst a bit hippy in behaviour then I met him and now I never want to again" tended to move word of mouth, sometimes with background feeling of "do not want to rock the boat, I want Free Software to flourish".

[pjc50]

> why didn't these women report him to the whoever competent authorities at MIT? Or to the police if the crime is serious enough?

For the same reason that Epstein, Weinstein, or Cosby had a huge number of victims that didn't report anything: each victim individually calculated that reporting it was far more likely to wreck their career than achieve anything positive.

[Taniwha]

heresy?

[user-the-name]

Are you saying all the people, from many different backgrounds, organisations, and genders, are all lying when they talk about RMS's abusive and harassing behaviour?

[mustafa_pasi]

Most of those people have never been in the same room with RMS.

[user-the-name]

I am talking specifically, and only, about the people who have been in the same room with RMS.

[enriquto]

> What do we do about this?

There's not much we can do about that; the world is a horrible, unfair place. If Socrates was born again, we would kill him again.

[js8]

I disagree. People can do things about cancel culture, in particular, give a thought about whether something that people are saying about somebody is really true and whether to participate in an online boycott (of an individual) based on a 2nd hand experience. Especially if you're in a position of power, consider if you should give in to the mob, which might not even relate to you.

[marcus_holmes]

Or just delete your Twitter account. Then it all magically goes away.

[ben_w]

I know someone who deleted their Twitter account and still gets harassed by people that want to get him fired over a year later. Not going to give details for hopefully obvious reasons.

[Synaesthesia]

Of course there's something we can do. We get to make choices.

[enriquto]

> We get to make choices.

I'm quite disillusioned at that point, I'm not sure that our choices can be good after all... There's lots of well-intentioned people doing horrible things, and at the same time I find myself systematically in the losing team when I try to take what it seems to be the correct stance.

[pitay]

Chin up.

The world may be a far more horrible place than is commonly known but you can help your friends and loved ones. You can support the people you like and you can do nice things for yourself; such as a nice walk, have some great food, get a very decent sleep.

Yeah, seeing what is happening can be very very depressing, dealing with people who don't care about their own hypocrisy and double standards, who have no problem in damning a person for very minor things.

But there are other things in life and more people support your stance than you think, they're just unwilling to say it with how things are. Hope things go well for you.

[QuesnayJr]

Your last sentence perfectly captures something I think all the time, but could never articulate pithily.

[QuesnayJr]

I know that you're not "supposed" to comment on voting here, but I feel the need to call out the fundamentally broken culture here around voting. I said something mildly nice about some else's writing, and I've gotten 3 downvotes? Really?

I think the people running the site really needs to consider consequences for excessive downvoting. Having a discussion here is really unpleasant, because of the random drive-by voting. It's easier to have a discussion on Reddit, and Reddit is terrible.

[enriquto]

Don't worry too much about the upvotes and downvotes, it's not a big deal :) Some of the best comments on this site are completely greyed out!