Dude is so strange. I mean seriously, who knows that much about that many kinds of esoteric music? It's like he wants to be contrary to the rest of the population on purpose.
A lot of people have unusual hobbies, and they end up knowing a lot about some odd topic -- medieval history, say, or some genres of music. Most of these people escape criticism, though, because they aren't RMS.
It only seems esoteric because it isn't what you're into. Spend some time hanging out with metalheads[1] sometime, and see how quickly their discussions descend into esoterica (from the perspective of anybody who isn't into metal)...
"Dude, check out this awesome new Death Metal band I found!"
"Dude, that's not Death, that's lame melo-death."
"Nah dude, this is ambient drone death!"
"There's no such thing as ambient drone death."
"There totally is, haven't you heard of $FOO?" (where $FOO is some random Finnish band that recorded one EP in a shack in some guy's backyard, using gear that nobody has ever heard of, musicians that nobody has ever heard of, a producer nobody has ever heard of, and only release the album as ogg vorbis files transferred onto 8-track tapes)
(Some other guy comes along) "Oh, that band... no, they're not ambient drone death, they're avant garde post-moral melo-death-core"
(Yet another guy comes along) "That's not avant garde post-moral melo-death-core, it's avant garde drone viking noise metal."
(everybody sane) "Aaargggghhhhh"
("that guy") "Yeah, they're totally tr00 kvlt, dudes. Let's go sacrifice a goat."
I'm sure devout fans of Trance, Country, Jazz, Classical and all sorts of other kinds of music likewise get into some pretty esoteric knowledge, when viewed from outside their sphere.
Edit: Fuck you HN. RMS is an extremist. I should hope that most of you have the critical thinking skills to realize that his extremism is just as dangerous as Timothy McVeigh's.
Edit 2: Honest question, how can I delete my account on HN? I've come to realize (sadly) how many hours I've wasted on this bullshit. PG, please ban this account.
Yeah, because body count is the only comparator that matters. Extremism is extremism. RMS is an extremist. I want nothing to do with someone who is incapable of empathizing with the other side.
> Edit 2: Honest question, how can I delete my account on HN?
In your profile settings, you will find two boxes marked "maxvisit" and "minaway". If you set those to a small value (like 1) and a large value (like say 602430), and then ALSO set "noprocrast" to "yes", you'll basically be unable to use your account.
The vital different between Stallman and McVeigh is that Stallman has never killed anyone (as far as we know). His "free software" ideology is not militant. Yes, some of his views can be called radical and extreme but that does not automatically mean he is dangerous.
> Honest question, how can I delete my account on HN?
You can't. You'll probably get hellbanned though. Personally, I don't think two wrongs make a right, and you should be able to delete your account if you want. Maybe just close the tab and never come back. That always works.