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by emily37
4801 days ago
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So why should the deaths of those in Boston be more prolific to me than those that died in Texas? I don't think prolific is the word you mean, but I'll assume you meant "meaningful" or "emotional." No one is telling you how much you should care about Boston versus Texas. The point is that for those of us who are personally affected by the Boston incident, we resent being told that we should care more about the Texas incident, because it is natural that we would be more upset about the incident that personally affected us. You can't change the words he used to misrepresent his argument because you didn't appreciate his bluntness. The change of wording wasn't relevant to my point, I was simply trying to summarize his view. Insert "let's make an effort not to get... as an excuse for tyranny" (his actual quote) for the paraphrased quote that I used, and the point still stands: the government's supposed tendency towards tyranny should cause us to resist tyranny, not to temper our emotional reactions to the deaths of community members. |
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Look, if you know someone that was killed or injured, then it obviously affects you more personally than it would other people, and there's nothing in RMS's statement that says otherwise. And if you were effected, you obviously weren't the intended audience (he was replying to a message to stay inside during Boston's pseudo-curfew). However, if your only connection to the event is your geographical proximity, then that does not grant you some sort of higher-level of emotional standing that the rest of us could not make. Every death of an innocent person is a sad, tragic thing; we don't need to be in Boston to understand that.
"The change of wording wasn't relevant to my point, I was simply trying to summarize his view. Insert "let's make an effort not to get... as an excuse for tyranny" (his actual quote) for the paraphrased quote that I used, and the point still stands: the government's supposed tendency towards tyranny should cause us to resist tyranny, not to temper our emotional reactions to the deaths of community members."
No, you're still taking what he said out of context. And your summarization of this comments is not correct. He did not say "temper", that's your word. He said "[...]let these few upset us disproportionally more than the others." Keyword is 'disproportionally'.
I'm, statistically speaking, more likely to die in a car accident than a terrorist attack. I could die in a car accident tomorrow. My family would be very sad and traumatized. However, I doubt they would stop using cars to get around. In fact, I'd bet they would take a car to the hospital to come get my body. With the Boston attack though, the authorities said everyone should stay inside in the entire city, because of the violence that happened in a few public places. That's the disproportionality that RMS was trying to point out in his statement.
In that you took that he was said you should 'temper' your emotions is no fault of Stallman. You're attempting to parse out an argument that just isn't there.