Re:Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook
by pdonis on Sunday June 26, 2016 @10:42PM
(#11983903)
> If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point
Part of Stallman's point is that the "ordinary" language that most people use to describe things is already warped. For example, Facebook describes itself as a "social network", when what it actually is is a network for harvesting data on people. The socializing people do on Facebook is a side effect, not the network's primary purpose.
Sometimes the only way to fight warped language is by warping it back in the other direction.
> it is literally his primary rhetorical device in nearly everything he's written over the last 3 decades
Yes, because he genuinely thinks that so much of the world and our language is already warped that he doesn't think ordinary discourse, using ordinary language, will have any effect. You might not agree with his viewpoint in toto; but his behavior is IMO understandable for someone who genuinely has that viewpoint.
Part of Stallman's point is that the "ordinary" language that most people use to describe things is already warped. For example, Facebook describes itself as a "social network", when what it actually is is a network for harvesting data on people. The socializing people do on Facebook is a side effect, not the network's primary purpose.
Sometimes the only way to fight warped language is by warping it back in the other direction.
> it is literally his primary rhetorical device in nearly everything he's written over the last 3 decades
Yes, because he genuinely thinks that so much of the world and our language is already warped that he doesn't think ordinary discourse, using ordinary language, will have any effect. You might not agree with his viewpoint in toto; but his behavior is IMO understandable for someone who genuinely has that viewpoint.