The consequences here are out of line. You can be reprimanded to take your discussions to a non company venue, in a situation like this, but fired is over the top.
Stallman said “it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
It's pretty clear with the age difference being what it is, this is exactly what statutory rape laws are for. But it is also incongruous that somehow if she was a year older it would be ok. It's also fucked up that if Minsky were 19, the consequences would be the same. Maybe there's a better law to be had here, but how would we ever know if you can't even have the discussion?
I'm appalled by how free speech is under attack lately by the outrage machine.
I agree with this statement.
Stallman has been a problematic person for a long time. I'm no fan of his. If after a while the university had said, "Enough is enough, Richard, you need to shape up or get out." I would have understood that.
However, that's not what I think happened. What happened was he shared an opinion on a hot-button issue, pedantic and maybe gross, and unfortunately had that go viral and was so hounded out of his position.
If Stallman's position is wrong, we should be able to rationally come to that conclusion as a society. He should be allowed to be wrong. If his opinion is so problematic that it makes him a real liability for the university, his removal should come after a period of deliberation, not after a flash of public outrage.
I can understand arguments that Stallman's position is a questionable hill to die on regarding the Epstein revelations, that even choosing to weigh in on this makes it seem like his priorities are out of order. I can also understand the argument that the email list he was arguing on was the wrong location to voice his opinions and he was making students uncomfortable. I also understand the idea that he should have been corrected by the university, either for this event or for his past behavior.
But what I don't understand, is this idea that firing people in response to media shit-storms is somehow something to be applauded.
I share this frustration, unfortunately with many HN discussions as well.
When someone states a position that the majority finds repugnant, IMHO the most productive (long-term) approach is this:
Step 1. Identify where the minority and majority views diverge in terms of logical justification. With majority-repugnant views, this may require going back to very basic assumptions. E.g., rape is morally wrong, it's appropriate public policy to prevent moral wrongs, etc.
Step 2. Starting from there, try to understand why the views diverge, and debate which side (if either) has better justification.
I think this approach fails at least half the times I try it, though. A few guesses why:
- During Step 1, people jump to the assumption that I'm advocating the majority-repugnant position, rather than working within this two-step process. Once my character / motives are impugned, reasoned discussion seems to end.
- Many people are unable to engage in logical debate regarding ethics. And in frustration, or to subconsciously avoid having to accept that gaps exist in their ability to logically debate some topics, they are unwilling to engage in proper debate.
- Something in my mannerism is off-putting, or I'm in a forum where few people are willing to engage in a debate lasting more than several minutes :(
The point of this is that as people start to integrate political views into themselves (as opposed to just a view - something that's subject to change as the evidence does) it makes debate difficult. In many ways we're becoming more akin to religious nations. You're unlikely to find a nice healthy debate about the value, worth, and viability of Islam in most Islamic Nations. It is because such values have been integrated into the individuals themselves instead of being kept at arm's length.
And as a tangent one thing I would add is that it obviously was not always this way. During the Islamic Golden Age Islamic nations were world leaders in learning, education, and the collection of wisdom. We still retain fragments of this time in our language today. For instance Algebra, from the title of Ilm al-jabr wa'l-muḳābala by al-Khwarizmi around 800AD. During this time of growth and learning all things were open to question, including Islam itself. And then along came a lovely man by the name of Al-Ghazali [2].
In response to religious skepticism, which Al-Ghazali was unable to effectively combat on direct logical grounds, he chose to develop a new philosophy. And in his new philosophy he preempted skepticism by suggesting that there were no natural laws at all. When a leaf catches fire it is not because it was exposed to a fire or because it reached a certain level of heat but because, and only because, God willed it happen at that exact moment. And so the study of 'natural laws' is nonsensical, as detailed in his work 'The Incoherence of the Philosophers.'
And that idea, enabling one to revoke all logic and criticism and simply adopt the dogma without question or concern, was met with resounding praise and endorsement. That was 900 years ago, but this ideology remains a key component of Islam to this day. At the same time this was happening a lust for learning was just starting to take off in Europe... Kind of interesting to imagine that we could be on another precipice of change when 200 years from now e.g. China has become the world leader in education and people ponder the decline of the anglosphere.
Or this could be little more than the regular waxing and waning of insanity that in 20 years, perhaps sooner, will feel as distant as parachute pants.
[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/is...
He's clearly a freethinker, and we have all gotten a lot of advantages from his courage doing his thing and making his vision for FOSS a reality.
Now he's said his thoughts on this too... it's legitimate for him to do so and "problematic" everyone is in a huge panic to punish him in case the mob should get set on them.
He was a terrible human being, and surely not very aware of how to treat other humans. He had no place in a research institution, or getting paid to pretend to be relevant on free software.
Good riddance, whatever reason we can find in his statements (yeah sure, I was 18 when my wife was 17, it wasn't rape, surely... but is that really the point people were making about his nice friend of Epstein ?).
People aren't for free speech, at all and anywhere: they are for people having the same opinion as them or follow an official line. He didn't do either, now he pays. For a genius like him, it should have been easy to understand you have to adapt if you want to lead, or you shut up if you see you can't lead.
Firing someone is not taking their life from them.
Also, firing someone is taking their livelihood from them. rms might be more comfortable than the average worker, but part of the reason there are special rules around work is in society today people need to work to survive. rms might be wealthy and have a cushion, I have no idea and so this might not apply to him. On the other hand however, free software has been his life's work, and he is being forced out of the organizations he started in order to further that cause. He probably will be hampered from ever contributing to free software moving forward. It might not be on the level of a walmart worker living paycheck to paycheck (which sure is a larger problem) but it is a wrong, at some level, to him if he is not offered a better deal or a chance to change.
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
You may not like the source, but they link to actual examples.
It's the leader's responsibility to create an environment that others feel safe joining.
He did a shit job at that.
I'm in a group he had been fine towards, but I've never found him someone I'd like to follow.
His bad behavior is not new, it's been going on for a very long time, why does he need more time to change? His statement on why he left makes it pretty clear he feels like he didn't say anything problematic.
In America at least, we have an entire social safety net intended to avoid that scenario. Doesn't always work as intended, but there are too many counter examples to that simple description to accepted it at face value.
What people often do need work for is self-actualization, money for non-essentials, or to feel like they're making meaningful contributions to society. I don't see anything about RMS stepping down from the FSF that precludes him from submitting patches to whatever open source project he would like, or precludes him from publishing his own thoughts and research on his own website.
He’s had decades to listen to people telling him that his behaviour was unacceptable. The fact that he hasn’t changed at all is on him.
I mean, you know he´s going to be monothematic about his beliefs, but I heard nothing besides that.
This just isn't true. Sure I want every one to respect my opinion but I don't want them to be a slave to it. I mean think about it if every one thought the same life would be boring as fuck.
No we don't. Your vague unspecified second-hand stories aren't any kind of evidence or argument. Come with specifics or this is just slander.
Whether or not specifics are provided is irrelevant as to whether or not it's slander.
Specifics may be relevant to whether you personally believe it, but that's also not relevant to whether it is factually slander.
> a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically one made without proof.
I'm not defending what he said but this is a really backwards way to look at things. There are plenty of manipulative CEOs and public figures who are very careful with their speech while doing harm in their actions. Stallman turned down money for decades to do something good for the sake of public interest. There really aren't many people like that, in this industry or even on this site. It sucks he conflated his movement like this, but jumping to that conclusion based on something so shallow seems just as stupid.
In order to ward off his advances, women faculty at MIT have taken to taking advantage of his phobia of plants. They decorate their offices with as many plants as they can and have even taken to wearing plants just to keep him from hitting on them.
This is not and should never be acceptable behavior.
Taking in mind that there are dozens, maybe thousands of photos of him on internet smiling near flowers, pots, pots over tables, cut flowers, taking photos of wild flowers, or posing relaxed on several jungles and forests, my congratulations to Mr Stallman for having overcomed his botagnuphobia so well.
This is not what you would expect from a real phobic person IMHO, so I wouldn't discard still that is just another stupid rumour (or perhaps some female students are overreacting badly to a rumour?).
Did anyone ever report this behavior to law enforcement? Did anyone try to obtain a restraining order against him?
It is not illegal to invite (adult) people to have sex with you, orally or in writing, so there is nothing for law enforcement to do.
> Did anyone try to obtain a restraining order against him?
Offering sex to other adults isn't illegal, so there would be no basis for a restraining order.
A while back some friends and I came up with his super-villain name. Batman had The Riddler, but Epstein would be... drum roll... The Diddler! Now roll that into one of those old campy Batman episodes from the 60s and you'd have a hell of a skit.
All I can do is laugh at this stuff sometimes. The alternative is to get depressed about the lack of judgement that seems to be routinely shown by otherwise very bright people who should know better. People seem to be such suckers for these charismatic psychopath types and their "energy."
I hope he never has the occurence to disguise as Poison Lenny in the next halloween, My poor heart couldn't afford more jump-scares.
> They decorate their offices with as many plants as they can and have even taken to wearing plants just to keep him from hitting on them.
I used to live and work around MIT and I'm trying to decide if this equals or exceeds the ludicrous batshit insane ass clowning that I witnessed. I'm not sure.
My stories don't involve Stallman, but... well... I'll just say "tech weenie weenie" and anyone around MIT who knows will know.
Mahketing mahketing! (maniacal clap)
In any case I'm not at all surprised that someone like Epstein would be sleazing around MIT.
I need to shut up now.
- First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
- Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
- Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
- Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me.
That holds very true to this day in America. I really vehemently disagree with Stallman's views in many ways. So it's easy to not say anything, yet I do believe he has a right to say the things he does without getting depersoned. In any case I'd much rather the people that do abide his views do so publicly rather than in secret.
But beyond this, I think he chose a reasonable hill to die on. He undoubtedly knew his comments would spark a mob in the zeitgeist of today, but they really are about as tepid as you could get. He was saying it was a bad idea for terms, even if legally accurate, to be used in general speech when they mislead people as to the nature of a situation. If that's the new standard for moving from words to 'let's get rid of this guy', we may not even have a standard. And I think that's a point that will resonate for more and more people. Even if these people might be afraid to speak out for fear of becoming the mobs' next target, it helps bring about a positive change in society.
An analogy I love to consider is Lincoln. Did Lincoln end slavery and direct society accordingly or did society reach a point such that the creation of a Lincoln was, sooner or later, inevitable - even if by another name? And I think things like this bring us ever closer to creating our Lincoln because solving the problems of social media is not something that's going to be done in a clean fashion.
According to the Register, this is the position of both the SFC and GNOME
> On Monday, the Software Freedom Conservancy called for his resignation. "When considered with other reprehensible comments he has published over the years, these incidents form a pattern of behavior that is incompatible with the goals of the free software movement," the group said in a blog post. "We call for Stallman to step down from positions of leadership in our movement."
> So did the GNOME Foundation's executive director Neil McGovern, who said Stallman's Minksy defense email was "the straw that broke the camel’s back."
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_in...
You're right that this isn't new, but at some point the camel's back breaks and the idea that it's so implausible that what he said happened to, y'know, really upset people when they read it and that they'd had enough--well, it's a pretty cheap charge on your part.
I didn't know that GNOME has had issues with Stallman before, though I do believe it now and can certainly imagine it; I learned a few new, bad things about his behavior that I didn't know prior to today. Still, my point is - if they wanted to get rid of him for a list of valid reasons, they could've done it earlier, or they could've waited for the current storm to blow over and do it then. They picked this moment, and unless I'm grossly misunderstanding the timeline, they must've known it'll get carried by the media. So for better or worse, out of all possible opportunities, they picked the one where RMS is a subject of borderline-libelous and utterly nonsense shitstorm. Sure, people got upset when the news broke, but that's the thing with Internet witch hunts - people get upset over lies, and react without thinking, further fueling the avalanche.
While it was known to not be isolated beforehand, it's pretty clear to me that a number of people have felt safe to tell their own stories in the couple days since this broke. I live near MIT but did not attend, and so I am not in any particularly privileged circles; despite that, this incident prompted a lot of people to speak up about RMS's consistent bad personal behavior as well as his bad public behavior. These sorts of things have a way of providing courage to people who have felt suppressed--someone is brave enough to kick one rock and dozens more come with. I would submit that if a nobody like me is hearing that stuff it is a near-certainty that people with hire-and-fire authority at MIT, and in decision-making roles at the FSF and GNOME, are hearing it and likely more.
This is what makes most of the protestations in this thread (not, I stress, the ones that you're laying out) so disheartening. On one hand you've got people adjusting their pince-nez and going "well, really, don't we need to have a conversation about statutory rape?" (we don't), while you've got another contingent who are all about clapping for pedophiles to "own the libs". It's just...really gross, and it's not about "free thinking" or "free speech" at all. (And it never really is.)
I might be biased otherwise (RMS lost a lot in my eyes due to new information I learned in this thread), and my initial introduction was the Medium post that started the media storm, but reading RMS's writing, I saw him explicitly not absolving Minsky from wrongdoing, but getting pedantic about the language, in an attempt to ensure the accusations being flung around are as close to what (he believed) could be made with available information. I immediately thought, "man, this is about the worst time to be pedantic, people will eat you for this alive", but honestly, trying to make the accusations wielded against a deceased friend accurate is laudable.
Much like I'm disgusted by some of the things I've learned today, I still feel that the original Medium post and the latter media reporting based on it are essentially character assassination performed to push a cause and (in the case of the media reporting) push ads. That's why I called it utterly nonsense.
I agree that things come in waves once you open the floodgates; RMS being criticized for one instance of bad behavior gives a reason to air other (perhaps less known) stories from the past. From my point of view, given that I consider this particular outrage over this particular misbehavior grossly overblown and based on mischaracterization, I'm just disappointed the camel broke its back immediately, legitimizing the current outrage. Even if getting rid of him for all the past transgressions, I would feel much better if they waited a few days.
TBH I wouldn't expect that if they did for it to be public knowledge. In fact I'd assume that has happened.
1. RMS wasn't just some random guy in the foundation, he was supposed to be a leader which means he should be held to a higher standard. Firing someone who doesn't meet that standard means your organisation has integrity which is important and should be applauded.
2. The downsides for keeping him around, especially since RMS didn't seem to be all that apologetic, are also important. The goals of the FSF are not advanced by being pushed into this media storm.
If FSF didn't do something, they would have been forced to answer alot of questions in the media about how they actually feel about age of consent laws, whether they took any money from Epstein and/or Minsky, how they felt about Epstein and/or Minsky, etc., and would then have had to give a number of awkward statements about this mess. Then they would have also had to answer many of those same questions from their donors. And likely if the controversy gained traction, their largest donors may have then been forced to answer their own set of awkward questions from the media about this whole mess. Especially if those donors also had ties to MIT. At some point, many of them would have also reconsidered whether they wanted to donate money to FSF, which would also be bad for the organisation.
All of which is to say that it's not about free speech, it's about protecting the organisation.
Your conflation that free speech is under attack is disappointing - That's not what is happening here.
This has also been said before, but free speech specifically includes the right of others to dissociate from you because of your speech, as a central aspect of their freedom of speech, and in fact such dissociation is a central part of the concept of the marketplace of ideas supported by free speech.
> the idea that someone's livelihood is under threat due to their speech can be just as coercive as threatening a fine or jail for their speech
Yes, the fact that our society doesn't provide a minimal non-market guarantee of livelihood makes free interaction coercive economically coercive for many people. The problem is not with free interaction, however.
If people don't want to associate with a person who says awful things, it's not a violation of their freedom of speech to disassociate with them.
Time will come there will be regulations aiming to fix that, because slander laws apparently aren't enough. And then people will come out and talk about freedom of speech, but the only answer will be, "you had it, and you misused it, and almost ripped the society apart".
Your freedom of speech doesn't trump anyone else's freedom of speech. If someone is knowingly or recklessly spreading harmful lies, you have recourse for that, but freedom of speech includes freedom of angry speech, and outside of harmful knowing and reckless lies, it included the freedom to be wrong in your speech.
[1] - This event was started by somebody sending a copy of a discussion on a private mailing list to a third party. This third party then took social media and shared it. It fell flat, except for a handful of 'Twitter activists'. They then started spamming it off to their followers and media outlet they could find. Some of the clickiest baitiest institutions took it up along with some completely unrelated Twitter personalities. It all spun what were relatively innocuous comments into limited context outrage bait and that then caught the outrage train spot on.
McCarthyism was a direct violation of the first amendment. This does not compare.
In case anyone missed my general point there, it was:
One can be worried about the chilling effects on speech, regardless of who is doing it; dismissing such concerns "because it didn't violate a law"[1] is confused, and a kind of category error.
[1] edit: or, in your case, relying on a court for all relevant judgments about this matter
Neither MIT or FSF should be required to continue to associate with RMS if his views are repugnant to their organizational core.
I don't think the distinction between government and private institutions is that meaningful though. When a constitution is preventing the government from infringing upon a right it's usually a good idea if that right is protected against other people as well. In fact freedom of speech is covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly wasn't intended to only protect people against their own governments.
Consider this: were you to come to GP's office and show GP's boss a printout of them saying controversial things on HN, demanding GP's termination, GP would most likely keep their job and there would be a good chance you'd get kicked out by security. In order to get a company to fire someone, there needs to be a public mess, and those rarely happen organically. In this case, and other similar firings for wrongspeak that I can think of, a public storm was created intentionally.
Can't see it as anything else than a weaker, non-lethal form of swatting.
I'm not sure how "private conversation" should be defined. If someone wrote something on HN, is it really private? In the case of RMS, I don't know enough about this mailing list to know whether it was private or not.
I'm also not sure whether "private conversation" matters a lot. For instance, a governor of Puerto Rico was apparently sending homophobic and misogynistic messages around in a private messages. Is it less bad for being in a private conversation?
To your hypothetical: If I was so upset with someone that I felt the need to go to their employer and complain about them, that seems like my right to free speech and expression. If, after security kicked me out, I took the matter to the local newspaper and it caused an uproar, that also seems like my right.
I'm not sure either. HN, or CSAIL mailing list, are community chatrooms that sometimes spill out into the world at large, but their day-to-day activity concerns their respective communities. You do not expect to see what you wrote there aired in mainstream news.
> I'm also not sure whether "private conversation" matters a lot.
I suppose it doesn't in the case of publicly recognizable people or public officials; this sort of comes with the territory. But what private (or semi-private) conversations introduce in this picture is a "kill chain" - a chain of people or organizations involved in taking a private message and turning it into a mob forcing one's employer's hand. I think it's worth to take a closer look at that chain - especially in this case, where you can clearly witness an increasing level of misrepresentation happening. The original post, for instance, stayed just a bit shy of making accusations that could be subject of a libel lawsuit, implying but not stating a lot of things. And then the media coverage did its usual misrepresentation amplification.
To be clear, I'm not arguing for shooting the messenger - just that there should be some pressure in the society which ensures messengers are communicating their messages accurately. Ironically, the subject of this outrage is that pressure - RMS attempting to correct inaccuracies.
> If I was so upset with someone that I felt the need to go to their employer and complain about them, that seems like my right to free speech and expression. If, after security kicked me out, I took the matter to the local newspaper and it caused an uproar, that also seems like my right.
Depends on the reason for you being upset, I would hope that the paper would either pick it up and air it, or laugh you out of the room too. But you're right, it's technically your right to try. But still, I think there's something wrong with trying to end someone's career - thus causing significant, real, material harm to them - just because you personally found their speech offensive. It's like a lightweight form of swatting someone because you got angry.
> Depends on the reason for you being upset, I would hope that the paper would either pick it up and air it, or laugh you out of the room too.
Yes, absolutely.
In an ideal world, if there isn't a deeply troubling reason to be upset, a respectable media outlet should (in an ideal world) push back. And an employer should want to defend its employees against trumped up nonsense.
In this world, I fully appreciate that many media outlets love controversy and clicks, and it may be easier for a company to just fire someone than stand up for them and deal with said shit-storm.
> I think there's something wrong with trying to end someone's career - thus causing significant, real, material harm to them - just because you personally found their speech offensive. It's like a lightweight form of swatting someone because you got angry.
I agree completely that trying to end someone's career is very extreme. I take no position regarding the specific case of whether or not RMS should have resigned.
I would, though, push back against drawing an equivalence between swatting and trying to end someone's career.
I can easily imagine cases where I would try to end someone's career. For instance, if I had evidence that someone in law enforcement had a deep hatred of {women, men, gays, straights, Blacks, Whites, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, ...}, that would be deeply problematic. If I then saw them unfairly {arrest, harass, ...} someone in the hated group, it would seem very reasonable to object strongly to them continuing in their career.
I'm not standing 100% by this analogy, but the similarity is that in both cases someone, out of anger or spite, abuses a huge lever the society has to punish misbehavior just to ruin someone's day, but the lever has a good chance of ruining someone's life. This works for both "SWAT team" and "virality on social networks" as values of "lever".
> I can easily imagine cases where I would try to end someone's career.
In your example, it would be reasonable to object strongly - given that you had evidence that someone in law enforcement had a deep hatred, like if you "saw them unfairly {arrest, harass, ...} someone in the hated group". I'd still hope you'd try the proper channels first, but if they fail, this is a matter of public importance. But the kind of thing we saw here - in this RMS story and other public outrage stories - doesn't meet the standard of evidence you described.
(Also, law enforcement is a somewhat special case, because it's a position of privilege and power, when one acts with authority of the state. You definitely want to police people wielding this power aggressively, but you shouldn't apply the same aggressiveness to random folks doing regular jobs, like scientists or plumbers or programmers. Former is preventing abuse of power; latter is just destroying someone's livelihood through vigilante mob justice.)
So what I'm saying isn't "don't ever go after one's career", just don't do it if your reasons are that you are offended by something you read. Ruining someone's livelihood like this is one of the most extreme form of damage you can legally do to another human being; it's thoroughly aggressive act, and it should only be done in circumstances justifying it. Words alone almost never are.
If grouping up people does cause them to lose that right, perhaps that characteristics of rights kicks into effect when dealing with sufficiently large institutions, especially ones who have significant tie in with government far beyond some small mom and pop employer.
Whether it's good or bad for society is a complex topic, but spending your time riling up a digital mob every time someone says something controversial can't be a personally healthy way to live.
It’s an old saying that a lie will travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. Now it’s more like, 10 times around the world, and nobody even gives a damn what the truth ever was.
Or to put it another way, wrong-think statements can be weaponized against the speaker more effectively than ever.
Or did you, again, mean correcting language so that allegations made were accurate, allegations that later turned out to be discredited by witness statement?
EDIT: Turns out the realization and retraction statement was published 3 days ago, so in all honesty you could argue this was a reaction to mounting public pressure - but there isn't much evidence that he's lying here either.
So either he has very belatedly received enlightenment, or thought "uh oh, this one is about to bite me very thoroughly in the ass".
There are a lot of incendiary political topics de jour where it's obvious that important voices are being silenced. See, for example, the pseudoaddiction post from SSC yesterday. Popular uprisings are often based on kernels of truth, but the conversation becomes distorted when experts or just laypeople with diverse viewpoints decide, fuck it, it's just not worth the liability of weighing in.
A couple weeks ago there was a story about a minor girl in high school charged by a prosecutor and found guilty by a judge of distributing child pornography--upheld on appeal--for texting her friends a video of herself. [1] But if it's political suicide to even try to have a conversation about how the laws on child pornography could be harming children, then it will never be fixed.
So at some point it should be acceptable for someone to stick their head out and say, "This term 'sexual assault' it doesn't really mean what most people think it means a lot of the times. It would make for much healthier discussion if we could be more specific!" Or, "These arbitrary age barriers (which change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) can catch innocent people engaging in consensual intimate acts." And it's also OK for someone else to say, "That's just not what happened in this case, because <reasons>... and you're blinded in this case by your relationship with the accused." But at the end of it, for everyone to agree that there was a conversation in good faith and everyone can decide for themselves who's right, wrong, or an imbecile trying to cover for a friend, without demanding a head on a platter.
You can take a look at what Lessig wrote about Ito [2] and likewise come away from it entirely incensed and calling for Lessig to resign, or pondering whether the story is more complex than the headline. Where in that case, the NYT took a complex issue that Lessig tangled with, and turned it into;
“It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying.”
[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/mds-top-co...
[2] - https://medium.com/@lessig/on-joi-and-mit-3cb422fe5ae7
Stallman had said more than enough to merit his termination IMO, but he still deserved due process before such judgment was passed.
That said, I have a nagging worry from watching some videos of his behavior that he is mentally ill and there might be a backlash from that.
But why we can't allow a process like that to transpire before passing judgment is beyond me. Why wishing such an impartial judgment upon him is downvote worthy is really worrisome to me. That's not what western democracies are about as I understood them up to now.
I Just do not believe we should make career-ending decisions like this based on the rage of a mob on social media, that's literally a Black Mirror episode (and a really bad episode of The Orville as well). I believe their role is to raise awareness of situations like to the point where the above should transpire. Does holding that viewpoint now make me subject to "cancellation" as well?
No. But I do think you're not really looking at this situation objectively. Here's what you've said:
1. It's clear that an objective board should have fired RMS
2. We shouldn't make these decisions based on mobs
Additionally, we know he was fired. With that information, you can't make any conclusions. How and why are you so certain that some board didn't weigh the evidence and pass objective judgement? The problem with this fear of "cancel culture" (which as others have mentioned is really just "holding powerful people accountable when they do bad things culture"), is that so far I haven't seen any evidence that the bad things people fear have happened. RMS did a bad thing. He faced consequences for a thing that even you agree was a bad thing. Your only concern is that it is possible, not even certain, that the method by which he faced consequences for an action that we both agree was bad and deserved consequences might have not have been up to a standard that few employees anywhere get.
I want to stress that last bit: very few employees are afforded the privilege of an impartial committee to decide whether or not they should be fired in any circumstances. You're arguing that RMS should get a stronger protection than your average employee (either that or that workers should, in general, have much, much stronger protections than we currently give them).
tl;dr:
> I believe their role is to raise awareness of situations like to the point where the above should transpire.
To me, this looks like exactly what happened. Why are you complaining?
Even when they're caught, they get put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which is shorthand for giving them 60 days to find a new job or to turn their life around internally. Usually, it leads to the former, sometimes the latter. I've seen both.
It's an imperfect and biased process. But the attempt is usually made because HR fears unjustified termination lawsuits despite the "at will" employee status of just about everyone.
Unless they've tried to hack the company's servers for private data, I've never seen anyone fired on the spot without the above process unfolding. Maybe your experience differs?
PS I also think Charles Manson and The Unabomber were unambiguously guilty. That doesn't change my opinion that they deserved the trial they got.
PPS If as amyjess seemingly suggests that female professors at MIT repeatedly filed complaints against him and nothing happened, well then carry on Twitter mob, good job, seriously.
RMS isn't an employee of the Tech industry. He's a university something (visiting professor, I think, but not a tenured or official faculty position). Members of the tech industry are also unusually privileged in this regard. Ask a line cook or an employee at a department store if they're given a PIP if they are underperforming. And again, by all accounts, it is possible, and even likely, that there was such a process spurred on by the twitter mob. So its not clear to me what your complaint is. To address it, let me be more explicit: What would you like MIT to have done differently in this situation?
As I see it, they have a few options. They could of course not fire stallman. We agree this is unacceptable. Objectively he deserves to be fired. They could have already fired him, this is perhaps the best solution but requires time travel or foresight MIT lacks. I guess this suggests MIT hasn't yet developed that technology or skill. They could wait to fire him, which costs them PR, and potentially causes others to resign, for no gain (they're going to fire him). Or they could do what they did: fire him now. Again I wonder: what are you complaining about?
> PS I also think Charles Manson and The Unabomber were unambiguously guilty. That doesn't change my opinion that they deserved the trial they got.
You're conflating being fired from a job and being imprisoned, or in Manson's case, sentenced to die. Those two things aren't remotely comparable.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/04/former-photog...
Stallman OTOH didn't even have tenure. The bigger story for me is if repeated complaints of sexual harassment (leg grabbing etc) went nowhere until now. That's unacceptable and I suddenly side with the Twitter mob in that case because if so he's had his due process already. And in that case, not only is he an ass, but he probably drove a lot of women out of the field and that can't be undone.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
No. They say, "Ralph, pack your stuff. You're gone." Hell, I've been laid off via a Jabber message.
That's, perhaps unintentional, misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what people worried about it mean by it. The problem with "cancel culture" is the propensity to "shoot first, ask questions later", the doling out of punishment grossly unproportional to the crime. Like in this case - ruining one's entire career for the crime of being pedantic and tactless on a semi-public mailing list[0]. Or, in another, overhearing a joke in a private conversation between two people and making a social media mess that resulted in termination of the joker.
The problem with "cancel culture" isn't the part where it aims to hold people accountable for their behavior. The problem is with the mechanism, which involves setting off a chain reaction. There's the wronged or felt-offended party and initial outrage, which gets amplified as the stories get reshared and republished, usually accruing misrepresentations and outright lies in the process, until the reaction fizzles out in a day or three, and punishment happens. You'll note here that the final impact is not correlated with the scale of the initial wrongdoing, but with how many people get outraged how fast, and how far they reshare, all of which is moderated by how misleading can the story be made and by what else is currently on the news.
I think it isn't fair to dismiss concerns of people worried that "holding people into account" - not just powerful ones, but regular ones too - increasingly often involves attempts at setting off a social equivalent of an ad-hoc, hastly-made fission bomb.
--
[0] - Yes, there's apparently patterns of worse behavior going back many years. But pulling the trigger in the middle of one of the bigger scandals in our industry, that's awfully convenient and points towards the actual reason not being related to past behavior.
The person I was discussing with agrees that Stallman's actions and history, combined, merited his resignation or removal. Yet they used the phrase "cancel culture" anyway.
Please don't blame anyone but Stallman for ruining his career. His history of pedophilia-apology, his history of acting badly, possibly to the level of harassment, around women at MIT, and recently his need to "well-acktually" statutory rape ruined his career.
> You'll note here that the final impact is not correlated with the scale of the initial wrongdoing, but with how many people get outraged how fast, and how far they reshare, all of which is moderated by how misleading can the story be made and by what else is currently on the news.
No, I don't note that. Pressure was put on MIT leadership by women at MIT, women who had historically been ignored when they raised similar issues about the same person in the past. As MIT said, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
> that's awfully convenient and points towards the actual reason not being related to past behavior.
No it doesn't. It points to the trigger not being past behavior, with which I fully agree. It says nothing about the scale of the reaction by MIT or the FSF. Those were without a doubt informed by a pattern of behavior.
Perhaps because his resignation/removal didn't happen as a direct result of the combined history of transgressions, but only after someone took a fresh, minor offense and blew it out of proportion, so that it ended up in mass media. There's a difference between resigning (or being forced to) because of a pattern of bad behavior, and that plus having your name in the Forbes under a headline that contains a lie.
> Those were without a doubt informed by a pattern of behavior.
If this issue didn't blow up across the whole Internet, do you think they'd terminate him now?
> If as amyjess seemingly suggests that female professors at MIT repeatedly filed complaints against him and nothing happened, well then carry on Twitter mob, good job, seriously.
And add that it doesn't matter. If it takes a twitter mob to force MIT to finally act ethically and remove a person with a history of bad behavior, good thing twitter mob. The solution to your concern is simple: institutions should be more proactive about self policing. If RMS had been fired 10 years ago, this mob would have no reason to exist.
Oh my God, no. Stallman has been a problem for years. Shooting first and asking questions later is the exact opposite of the problem.
TLDR: the accusation of harassment is 100% determined by the accuser. The determination of whether harassment occurred OTOH is decided by HR after judging the merits (or lack thereof) of the case.
I see no reason why MIT shouldn't have proceeded similarly. And while you might argue that's not 100% impartial, that's a lot better than a Twitter mob (to me at least).
Given the piles of video and text of Stallman being Stallman, and the "Hot Ladies" bit on his office door, do you really think they would have high-fived his conduct and told him to carry on? I'm cynical, but I'm not that cynical.
Or let's put this another way. The Unabomber and Charles Manson got their due process. Are you saying Stallman is worse than both of them? So I'm guessing you guys downvoting me no longer believe in our legal system? That'll end well I'm sure.
https://twitter.com/corbett/status/994012399656042496
https://twitter.com/starsandrobots/status/994267277460619265
https://twitter.com/wiredferret/status/1173042834179534849
https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/d5dxf3/stal...
https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/d5dxf3/stal...
https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/d5dxf3/stal...
When it's this widely known that he likes to creep on women, the only thing that makes sense is that HR has had plugs in their ears the whole time.
PS The Kelsey Merkley talk is fantastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y0FuH5FNCo
As a business owner, if I felt that an employees continued employment was a net negative for my profitability, I'd be forced to let them go. Perhaps I could keep them for a while, but that's the case.
Yes, I think powerful people facing consequences for doing and saying absolutely abysmal things is a net good for society. Going from no, to some, in egregious cases, accountability is great. RMS shouldn't get a pass for this. Especially not since he's done the same thing before. Especially since now it's concrete and deals with real people and not just abstract ideas.
The threat of an abstract "you could get fired too for saying a truly terrible thing" falls flat because, well, I don't make a habit of doing that. You'd have better luck claiming that I benefit from people making statements that could get them mobbed. But that too is unconvincing: people who I benefit from sharing their views are pushed out anyway via structural dynamics, often due to the things powerful people who don't face consequences do and say.
And then of course, it's not like my life, or his would be ruined. Damore is, as I understand it, gainfully employed and mostly out of the public eye.
I'll ask my questions again since you didn't answer: what due process does one deserve before being fired? What of that did Stallman not receive?
That's fair. However in this case, his "eccentric" views were widely known for years in the FS/OS community. It took a media shitstorm to turn that into a firing offence, which tells you it's not about the content of the views.
> As a business owner, if I felt that an employees continued employment was a net negative for my profitability, I'd be forced to let them go.
That's fair too, and similar argument can be made for a non-profit. At best all I could accuse the various organizations that disassociated with RMS is that they lack backbone and yield to pressure, or try to capitalize on the outrage, but that's not a problem.
Market entities do what they do. But they wouldn't have to, if the story wasn't spun. It's not the e-mails themselves that ended his career, it's how they were fed to the media and then blew up there - especially as this story shows how the reporting doesn't even have to be truthful; lying in a headline and not linking to primary source is standard journalism nowadays.
> The threat of an abstract "you could get fired too for saying a truly terrible thing" falls flat because, well, I don't make a habit of doing that. You'd have better luck claiming that I benefit from people making statements that could get them mobbed. But that too is unconvincing: people who I benefit from sharing their views are pushed out anyway via structural dynamics, often due to the things powerful people who don't face consequences do and say.
Today me, tomorrow you. Each of us has said something that could be misconstrued into a fireable offence, and the problem is that structural dynamics and mob sentiments change; if you accept people being labeled as undesirable for just expressing an atypical opinion and attempts at removing such undesirables from the society, don't be surprised if five years from now it happens to someone you like.
> And then of course, it's not like my life, or his would be ruined. Damore is, as I understand it, gainfully employed and mostly out of the public eye.
Damore is young, and its firing was on such weak grounds that there was a lot of people who wouldn't mind him on board once publicity died down. (At least that was just after the firing; I haven't followed his life since, but I hear that he ended up radicalizing; wonder if the mob ended up being the cause.) RMS is AFAIK 66, and haven't worked in software in 40 years. His job was essentially being an icon of the movement, and now that this was destroyed, he's essentially unemployable. At best, he'll retire.
> I'll ask my questions again since you didn't answer: what due process does one deserve before being fired? What of that did Stallman not receive?
I purposefully didn't use the words "due process". Anyway, I'll answer with a counterquestion: what protections do people deserve from being killed in a flood or an avalanche? Floods and avalanches kill people, that's what they do. And yet protections are instituted so that innocent people don't find themselves unexpectedly in harm's way. Similarly, companies fire people who become a net loss to them, but in recent years, there's been an uptick of cases where someone's private or semi-public conversations have been misconstrued and blogged or Tweeted about with the express purpose of causing a public outrage and ruin the career of that someone. Maybe we need to talk about protections from such events, and even focus on the people who push others under the train because they find their opinions offensive.
To continue with military analogies, social media storms are like gas weapons. They're effective if launched at a distant enemy (though if you're not careful, the wind may carry it back towards you), and not something a force would use around itself when engaged in combat.
Do you really find murder to be equivalent to this?
I went to see a Stallman lecture when I was at university too. They had booked the biggest lecture theatre and it was packed. But why? If my friend comes to me and says "Hey, I'm staying late today to see a talk by random spokesperson John Doe advocating free software. Wanna join?", my reaction is going to be: "Meh." You can have that any day of the week at any university that's seen as a desirable forum for public policy debate. But: "Wanna see the guy who created emacs and a billion other bits of software every one of us uses every single day? Wanna stick around afterwards for conference food and exchange a few sentences of smalltalk so that, for the rest of your life, you can tell people you ACTUALLY MET HIM?" Then "Hell yeah, count me in!"
So if you take everything a man has in life - everything he anchors his identity to - and destroy it, and leave little to no chance of regaining it, what do you think happens? Personally, I am worried.
If RMS commits suicide because his life was ruined after someone lied and spun his linguistic pedanticism as support for sexual crimes, if that happens, will you come back and say that "this is what consequences for shitty behavior look like"?
Also, his wrong is again his language pedanticism - comparing it to actual assault like you did just now is disingenuous and precisely what the crowd did to RMS.
> The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.
and
> The broadcast of pornography should be allowed on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening, according to the party. Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves.
That's why it's called the court of public opinion.
There is a group of people on-line who like to point to the "paradox of intolerance" as a justification for Internet lynch mobs. But this paradox works both ways. What it says is that society needs to combat people who label others as undesirables, intending to remove them from said society. But if someone fighting the intolerants ends up labeling tangential people as undesirable and unleashing pitchforks on them, that person is an intolerant too, and needs to be stopped as well.
There's a difference between information being available to the general public, and putting a spotlight on that information.
If Mr.Stallman were to be in Epstein's Island well that is whole level of any issue.
Committing Rape and Questioning the logic behind defining the "act" of rape are not the same.
Basically, looks like this situation was a long time coming.
https://stallman.org/cgi-bin/showpage.cgi?path=/archives/200...
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...
But to be clear, that's still a bed of his own making.
Source: http://wordsideasandthings.blogspot.com/2012/03/instrumental...
The first amendment is really of no use if expressing opinions outside the norm causes you to be fired by social convention. In that case, only being independently wealthy affords one any freedom.
In this case, even founding his own organization based on his own values did not protect him from being fired.
Does a person or institution have to be literally owned lock, stock and barrel by the public to act in a public capacity?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or 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."
In that vein, I would see the government limiting the ability for someone to speak out against anything as a violation of their Free Speech/First Amendment rights.
A university is not a merely public place, but rather one which enjoys a charter from the state -- and numerous benefits as far as funding, taxation, access to information and research opportunities -- as an educational institution.
An example of the concept being applied to quasi-public entities, with enough generality for the legal realm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...
I don't take "free speech" to mean anyone can say anything without consequence. The government has a whole lot of power and it comes with limits like free speech.
That doesn't mean that people in my employ can say awful things and I should just ignore it.
Free speech doesn't extend to being protected from consequences for how you express yourself.
It's atrocious that our academic institutions, which used to be a bulwark of free-speech are leading the charge here.
Stallman made questionable, but reasoned statements. He perhaps should not have made them in a work forum, but the consequences here are way out of proportion to the "crime".
You've been throwing a lot of stones here, but I'm sure you've held or expressed viewpoints just as questionable at some time in your life. I know I have. Should you now be denied the right to make a living if they come to light?
But at this moment in time, they've intersected with the real-world activities of organizations that he has considerable influence over. He seems to have prioritized theoretical point-making over the organizational necessity of addressing people's concerns.
Running things and debating things are two different activities, and for Stallman those things are currently in conflict. Maybe he's tempermentally incapable of dealing with conflicting imperatives; in any case he seems to have taken the absolute route to resignation.
I don't want to pretend he had no choice in the decision, but to pretend he did if of his own free volition is false.
He reasons that because it would have been in the best interest of Epstein not to disclose the harm that's being done to the girl, she would have been convinced to present herself to Minsky as willing. Thus it is argued that Minsky might have had a sexual encounter without having realized that the girl is being forced to do this. In such a scenario, it is proper to accuse Epstein of harm, but wrongful to accuse Minsky of sexual assault.
All participants of the discussion should refer to the original MIT email thread and not base their opinions on secondary information. There is also a quote from a scientist who names himself as an eyewitness and clears Minsky of wrongdoing. He was not listed by the girl as present during the event and it may be too early to accept his words as the truth. However, if the girl's account corroborates his, then even the harshest critic should be obliged to exonerate Stallman's statement. It reminds me of the role of the lead in "Twelve Angry Men".
There was no sex, no rape, no violation of age of consent, just a lot of slanderous allegations by folks who had no idea about the background, and didn't read about it.
On the other hand the students allegations on their Facebook event had a proper basis, against MIT management. But this had nothing to do with RMS defense of Minsky.
What exactly is it that we're trying to "express ourselves" about here? what "progress" are we trying to make on old men having sex with young girls?
If there's change to be made, then someone is going to have to weather the cultural storm that speaking out about it brings in order to bring change. If it's not worth weathering that storm, then maybe it's not worth having that discussion in the first place.
There is a real conversion to be had about our statutory rape laws. They're absurd in some aspects. That's beside the point.
Do you think an advocate for paedophilia and child pornography should be able to pick up a job in a childcare centre or primary school?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d59r46/richard...
You might be right that widowlark's comment was in reference to the Minsky defense specifically - I didn't read the exchange that led up to the comment that closely, and took its opening line about minority opinions as a reference to pedophilia apologia in general.
This was not just a "work forum", it was a mailing list containing thousands of people in the MIT computer science community, including professors, researchers, administrative assistants, graduate students, and hundreds of undergraduates.
This isn't just a matter of his comments being inappropriate, it's also about him arguing them in an effectively public forum.
I have no idea if that sort of political email is common in the mailing list, but if it is appropriate to share/advocate the protest, surely it should also appropriate to discuss the topic?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...
I think people are missing the context of the level of shitshow that’s going on at MIT CSAIL right now with Epstein, Ito, Minsky, and now Stallman.
When the original story blew up over Media Lab and the Administration lied that they didn’t know anything about donations to Epstein, I can only imagine the chaos.
Look, that's the reason he's gone. So you said it yourself. That was his decision.
It's a pretty sad state of affairs. Warn him to take the discussion elsewhere and then wait for the outrage storm to blow over. People have such short attention spans in these social media days anyway.
They were. A casual look at Stallman's history will show you that his views (and behaviors), as well as his discussion of them in a public forum, are not by any means new or unknown within the community. They _have_ been ignored for a very long time by the university, the FSF, etc, right until he chose to take this particular moment in time to repeat his views, specifically in connection with a recent scandal.
I think that this _is_ sad in the sense that had folks been stricter with him earlier on, perhaps he would have understood why it was not a good idea to continue doing that, and avoided making these specific public comments at this specific time. It's really hard for me to believe that no one has ever _tried_ to tell him to (essentially) "take the discussion elsewhere" about this stuff, so I have to assume that people did, but he did not think that he had to follow their advice: he relied on being able to say what he liked, wherever he liked, with no real consequences.
And until now, he was correct. But today, people no longer believe that it's ok to be heralded as a pillar of the community (which as both the president of the FSF and the holder of an honorary position at MIT, he is) and be able to say whatever you'd like in a public forum. And enough people believe this today to make these institutions be unable to just ignore his behavior indefinitely.
Yes, and that's basically why there is a "CSAIL minus RMS" mailing list.
Firing people for political views, especially expressed in coherent not aggressive way is certainly violation of free speech and thought. It's also currently legal in US.
Depends. Had they repeatedly harassed women in work contexts over the preceding several decades?
Not all opinions are the same.
Advocating for open borders and basic income are fairly straightforward political opinions. So is being a member of the republican or democratic party, or saying you support lower taxes, or even that you voted for Trump. Had Stallman resigned over reactions to calmly expressing these type of opinions, the fallout would be very different, and I suspect most people would say something similar to what you've said, and side with him.
But if a person repeatedly says, in public, that our definition of pedophilia as a necessarily-bad thing isn't right, and that people are being too hard on the billionaires who recently got in trouble for this -- even if they do so calmly and coherently -- they are espousing views that many people believe would lead to actual harm to actual human beings. The same would be true for someone who openly supports fascism, or calls for the deportation of Hispanic-looking citizens (I want to avoid a straw-man here, so to be clear I am absolutely not saying Stallman supports these views; they're just examples).
In that case, don't other people have a right to react negatively to that?
As for the consequences of that reaction, that is somewhat proportional to the person's position. If that person was a gas station clerk who, outside of work hours, had posted something on a forum, then we'd again be having a different discussion. But the positions of President of the FSF and Visiting Scientist at MIT carry a lot more weight. Putting someone in these positions who not only holds but eagerly volunteers these types of views is seen as an implicit endorsement of these views by the FSF/MIT -- _especially_ when he chooses to broadcast these views directly to his work community, directly in defense of someone at the center of a recent scandal.
> Firing people for [their] views ... is certainly violation of free speech and thought
Stallman is free to _think_ what he wants. He's even free to _say_ what he wants -- he was never censured afaik. What he is no longer free to do is to continue doing so from the position of President of the FSF or a Visiting Scientist at MIT. Should an institution (such as MIT or the FSF) be forced to protect its personnel from all consequences for individually sharing _any_ opinion in any public forum? I don't think they should.
The line between fairly straightforward political opinion and what some people consider extreme is fairly thin in today climate. This is the case with Stallman's recent posting as well. It's hard to imagine (for me!) that the expressed opinion about the usage of the word assault or questioning sensibility of age of consent laws goes beyond reasonable discourse.
You have a point about pedophilia but that's from very long time ago. He also publicity stated he was wrong and thanked people who helped him understand that. He expressed that views in the distant past as well. He wasn't as prominent by then and he did it from what I understand on his private website. One way or another having sex with 17 years olds is not pedophilia by any stretch of imagination. I consider his comments which he retracted long time ago irrelevant to current situation unless of course we consider it acceptable to dig out every controversial comment from the past to help with character assassination today.
I do think institutions schould take care to not fire people over outrage especially caused by expressing political/philosophical opinions. It's illegal in some countries and treated as common sense there. It is currently legal in US but it doesn't mean it doesn't have grave consequences for public discourse.
These problematic statements were made in the context of someone who has a long, long history of upsetting, angering and offending people with bad behaviour. People in CSAIL kept plants around them because Stallman hates plants and it functioned like garlic to a vampire.
Firing him may be disproportionate to the moment, but it's overdue given the history. The guy who fired him literally said "straw that broke the camel's back."
In so far as Stallman was discussing the law, he was genuinely engaging in political dialogue; in so far as he was speculating about Minsky or the situation in question he was not.
To say that we can exercise speech but must face the “consequences” is just begging the question — what “consequences” are compatible with a free society? If my boss says it would be a great thing if California secedes from the Union, and I say I doubt that would go well, we rely so much on other states for water, &c, &c ... I may definitely offend him. How acceptable is it that a person be fired in that situation?
In my country it's illegal to fire people for their political views even if the employer finds them immoral and incompatible with the culture they want to foster. It's part of legal and social framework to protect freedom of expression. Freedom of expression neither starts nor end with what The Constitution says about it.
There are clearly mob reactions to things, but there are also clearly inappropriate speech that should have consequences.
What he said here wasn’t in isolation as some idle musing. context matters. He wasn’t talking about the theoretical of a 19 year old. He was talking about this in context of Minsky being a 74 year old man with a 17 year old girl. Maybe he wasn’t aware of the impact of his words, but that shouldn’t get him a free pass.
That's what Joe McCarthy and the House Committee for Un-American Activities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism) said to leftists, union organizers, communists, and others in the 1950s. Is that the kind of company progressives prefer to keep, intellectually speaking?
Apparently the only difference between progressives and conservatives is which sacred cows that they're willing to mob you for for insulting. Fellow liberals, I beg of you, take heed; progressives are not our friends.
I don't like using the word "emergence", but there is a phenomenon here that's much more than a sum of its parts, and maybe should be considered differently. There's also the element of intent.
"Take action", my, my, what a genteel phrase to describe ruining people's careers and personal lives. Very civilized of you. One wonders whether those crowds who stoned unbelievers in an earlier era would have simply described themselves as "taking action" as well?
The answer to bad speech is good speech, period.
First, "lynch mob" is inappropriate and irrelevant. Given Stallman's statements, in the forum in which they were made, many reasonable employers would have fired him, with or without some "lynch mob."
Second, Stallman didn't express his views in private conversation, but rather in a forum where those views would have made it very hard for colleagues to continue working with him. If I'm X and you tell me or to Y in private conversation, "X is an idiot" or something of the sort, then that's one thing. If you say so in a forum where others can read it, then you're showing public disrespect towards colleagues, which is a fireable offense.
Here's what he could have said instead: "Have we seen evidence that Minsky himself engaged in illegal activity?" That's it. It would have expressed his point just as well, and would not have shown disrespect toward colleagues.
Media are trash. Cancel culture steamrolls everything, there is no way to avoid being their target other than complete submission. You can word what you say as carefully as you like, but if they perceive that you're a good target, it won't matter one bit.
It's not about what is said, this is simply a war.
But I agree it's a war. It's a war that's been waged for centuries and even millennia between the hegemony and the margins, and it's a war we'll win, because we always have (well, it's complicated, but if you want to speak in those terms, that's fine by me).
> about a mob is sure to place me among the pitchfork bearers
Who is the we and the them?
Since it was the “alt-right” Cernovich who took down Epstein and the “alt-right” who has been making noise about him for the better part of a decade I’m guessing you are “alt-right”? But what faction does that make doubleunplussed?
In my center-left country (by European standards - so “far-left” by American standards) a normal worker couldn’t be fired for making the comments Stallman made but a spokesman of the organisation probably could be?
> between the hegemony and the margins, and it's a war we'll win
Which side do you support? From an outsiders perspective it seems like Richard Stallman is in the margin of the margins?
So is Stallman's speech in question here odious? At first glance, not really. But when you put it in context:
The entire brouhaha starts with a sexual predator whose actions are known to but ignored by associates because money (or equivalently, power). Stallman is defending an associate of his who is tainted by association with Epstein. In the kinder light, this defense is essentially pedantry (just rape, not sexual assault). In the harsher light, this defense is "there's nothing inherently wrong with the entire situation here."
In this situation, I think the harsher light is closer to RMS's intent. He has made statements in the past saying that he believes there is nothing inherently wrong with having sex with children (although he has now walked back those statements). In addition, he appears to have acquired a reputation as a sexual harasser among women at MIT over the past few decades.
With that context, it does look like Stallman shares a lot of attributes with "prominent people whose sexual harassment has been ignored because they're powerful people, and who is not sorry about it." And pushing him out of leadership positions because of those views is acceptable consequences in my opinion. More so because it appears to me that he doesn't appreciate how power differential may affect the ability of people to give consent, he is in a position of power, and he appears to desire consent that may be unwilling.
I bet everyone here has one opinion that can definitely and very quickly destroy their lives. Let people be wrong, let them speak, let them think ... We can then convince and converge into a common good. Cancelling the guy that gave his life for the cause is appalling and is showing how evil social media is.
Where and by whom is appropriateness and timeliness determined?
It probably wouldn't be okay. She was coerced and trafficked, and many laws exist to make having sex with those people illegal.
In some places it's illegal even if you don't know they were coerced or trafficked.
I'm not saying I agree with Eich - far from it. Seeing as an awful lot of people on this very thread were outraged by his behaviour, it strikes me as being contrary to be more understanding towards RMS for what is arguably far more heinous simply because they admire him more. Both Gates and Jobs are/were relentlessly and repeatedly pilloried for their "immoral" approach to business and freedom, but to question what constitutes rape or a suggestion that paedophilia is harmless is forgiven readily, because the individual "likes" the perpetrator is abhorrent.
I can't speak for everyone, but while I strongly disagree with his (implicit) views on gay marriage (I even protested against Prop 8 leading up to it passing, though I unfortunately wasn't quite old enough to vote against it at the time), I also was - and still am - pretty harshly critical of him being pressured to resign from the organization he co-founded solely because of his political leanings. He was the right leader for Mozilla, despite his politics; while it's possible that maybe he was some raging egotist bringing down Mozilla and running counter to its mission, I've yet to see a whole lot of evidence for that.
Meanwhile, Stallman is well-documented to be abrasive, uncooperative, and egotistical even to the people who supported him, and while this specific incident was rather benign, I can understand it as a "straw that broke the camel's back" situation. His dogmatic views - while sometimes absolutely spot-on - were also often at the detriment of the free software movement (e.g. the hard stance against OpenBSD's "blobs", and the hard-line stances against non-FOSS programs on FOSS operating systems despite multiple GNU subprojects releasing supported builds for Windows).
Stallman, in other words, was to the FSF as Ballmer was to Microsoft in the sense of being both passionate about their organizations and also being the reasons why their organizations were hemorrhaging influence. Ballmer's departure allowed Microsoft to regain its footing, shake off some of its more toxic dogmas, and become actually decent(-ish; shoving ads down the throats of paying Windows users is pretty scummy, but other parts of Microsoft have actually started to be better members of the broader tech ecosystem). Hopefully Stallman's departure will have a similar effect for the FSF.
https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...
However, as a university it still seems like dangerous territory. I think communists are just as sickening, in light of the horrors of the twentieth century. Should I fire them if I'm making those decisions at MIT. Like if a professor said the gulags are a worthwhile evil on the road to socialist utopia? Is it really necessary to end a person's career when you disagree with them on matters unrelated to their work?
It looks like it was just an ignorant thought from a decade ago that had long since been corrected. Not a strongly-held viewpoint.
It looks like it was just an ignorant thought from a decade ago that had long since been corrected. Not a strongly-held viewpoint.
But it wasn't outside of his work. It was on an email list whose recipients included 17- and 18-year old undergraduates.
Brendan Eich is a shill controlled by Google and US goverment agencies. The social media mob attack on him was actually a planned marketing campaign with aim to create an image of an independent, anti-establishment and alternative leader.
His actual goal is to create a "controlled opposition" for Google Chrome and a replacement for Tor Browser. Brave project is needed by Google in order to avoid antitrust charges from the EU when Chrome reaches ~90% market share. It will be still selling user data to Google and it will contain TOR backdoors known only to the US agencies (which will be easier to hide in proprietary browser).
The “selling user data” line betrays ignorance of how data is valued. Google doesn’t sell bulk data to advertisers, it gives API access to ad exchange operations that leak data but not the whole user profile, especially not the valuable correlations, brand loyalties, and shopping searches that run for weeks in case of cars or other major purchases.
Brave builds client only alternatives for anonymous donations and private ads that pay the user 70% of gross. We are making this verifiable on chain in the next stage of our BAT roadmap. If we defected and stole money or data, we would thus be caught and roasted into the ground by our lead users. This is by design.
Last thing: I am hardly an anti establishment leader. I am too busy running a startup, trying to get revenue to cross over based on flat and small/standard fees that leave the big fee to the user.
If you want to find controlled opposition, ask to see the terms of Google’s search deals with other browsers, especially the ones that have been slow and weak on tracking protection that is on by default. A Microsoft contact last year said he suspected those terms include proscription of tracking protection that is on by default, or at least that impairs Google search ads confirmation.
I'm sorry if this sounded like a disrespectful accusation. It was just my attempt to rationalize and make sense of the apparently irrational things that happened around your person. When identity politics and large capital are involved, I'm always suspecting machiavellian and cynical motives.
I wish you prove me wrong and Brave will become a real competitor for Chrome with strong focus on user privacy and security.
Now if he was a pedophile, he should be in jail. But he is not, he is exersizing free speech, no matter how disgusting it is, he is entitled to it. Should Nabokov have been made unemployable too for writing Lolita?
You are free to say what you like, but the rest of us are free to take actions in response to that so long as those actions don't violate your constitutional rights.
There's no constitutional right to a job or a board membership.
The way I look at this is through responsibility. It's like what we learned in Spiderman, "With great power, comes great responsibility."
So it's not that Stallman can't have this conversation anywhere. It's that when he has it so publicly, it makes people question whether he is wielding his power well.
Sometimes responsibility means not saying anything at all. Presumably, Stallman is at MIT for computer science and free software. Why is he speaking off topic to MIT students and alum? Presumably he could develop non-MIT relationships and have whatever crazy conversations he wanted.
More often, I think the responsibility is just to do a lot more work. If you're famous and you speak off the cuff on topics that you haven't researched, then your comments get a reach that's undeserved. It's a misapplication of your fame.
I thought that about PGs most recent luggage comments. This is something that had an answer that he could look up and share with people. Or if that's too hard, he could have gotten a thorough answer privately. Seeing him be so willfully and publicly ignorant made me question whether he deserved the power that comes with fame. Laziness like that is diminishing and eventually it gets to the point where people are so diminished that they should lose their jobs and/or positions of authority.
In that context, fired is more than fair. His image being linked with pedophilia (on top of the other issues he has) makes him a really bad choice for the public face of a movement/foundation.
If he was, say, a lead engineer whose work was not tied to his image, we could have an argument - but that's quite clearly not the case.
Can you provide some examples of people who have been made "completely unemployable" by the twitter lynch mob?
The FSF is even worse because he's supposed to be in a position of leadership there and represents the organisation. And they shouldn't be put in a position where they have to decide whether to support some controversial statement about age of consent laws just because one of their leaders decided to stick up for one of his friends. It's just not worth it.
Just ask James Damore and his memo on a certain ideological echo chamber. I read his document, and found his view point to be sadly misinformed; yet his right to speech wasn't protected. He was fired.
That was the moment I realized free speech isn't really a thing any more if it touched certain topics. Yes constitutionally we still do, but we can easily lose everything that matters to us even if we win the court battle.
There's a hundred years of history explaining why the balance point between freedom of speech and freedom from fear has been calibrated thusly.
The man has no understanding of the concept of consent, and why a child is unable to grant it. He can have whatever opinions he wants, but as a spokesperson for the FSF, he sure as shit shouldn't be broadcasting that one.
This isn't some rando who works for an organization being punished for airing their opinion. This is someone whose job is public speaking, speaking in a way that actively harms any organization he is associated with.
I generally don't see the hacker community jump to the defense of someone who has so colossally mucked up at his one job, but here we are, turning ourselves in knots in the defense of the right of a public speaker to remain employed when his speech is actively harming his employer.
It should also be noted, without the faintest shred of irony that the man consented to resign. I don't see why everyone is making such a big deal out of it...
Which until a few years ago was completely legal in for example Switzerland. As long of course as no one is coerced into anything. Playing the Advocatus Diaboli, why should i view this outcry as anything different then the Saudis stance on sex before marriage? Fundamentalist puritans being opposed to self determination shaming others into conformism? Its not like the US where you cant drink until you are 21, but get to join the army with 18, where sex ed is often reduced to abstinence only, where the government does its best to infringe into womens right to get abortions, where you can be prosecuted for sexting as a minor and lets not forgett where sex workers are almost across the country criminalized has any moral high ground on the topic what so ever.
But thats besides the point. First the MIT donation and now this stuff over 3 corners. How about we focus on what actually is the problem here? How many people from both parties had connections to not a brothel owner but someone involved in human trafficking and coercing minors into sexwork? How he got away with this this despite being brought infront of a judge for it? Or why they were on that island in the first place and why Eppstein apparently invited so many people. The word compromat comes to mind. But these politicians arent so easy targets, people like Stallman or the guy at MIT are. The mob wants blood and it doesnt seem to matter whos. I would recommend checking your moral compass if you are at threat of being sued for slander after the discussion here.
It is extremely doubtful that a young woman would find herself in that situation in any other way than a long path of abuse and desperation.
Taking advantage of that young woman is immoral.
That isn't some puritanical, anti-sex philosophy that hates fun.
That is empathy to the all too common situation of young vulnerable women being used for pleasure.
In the end its weighing off protecting people from a presumed risk against infringing on their self determination. The question is clear cut when it comes to kids as we as a society accepted that their self determination isnt that great and infringing on it is fine most of the time. They have to brush their teeth, they dont get to drink alcohol and they cant work in a brothel.
The question here is does the same rule for a 8 year old apply for a 17 year old. Most European societies see a huge difference when it comes to age and that the ways in which the self determination of a 17 year old can be restricted are a lot more limited. In the end infringing on someones self determination is just too grave of a violation to do it unless its absolutely necessary.
What is instead illegal is not the action of the person presumed to be needing protection but make sure that exploiting that person is illegal. The Switzerland example still had it illegal to encourage or coerce girls to work in a brothel, which in practice means there was no one willing to risk running such a brothel.
And again, this discussion misses the point. Its not why did Eppstein run a brothel on an island but how come he was able to engage in sex trafficking, coercing of minors and all of that under the nose of quite a lot of politicians.
This idea is counter-intuitive to me. When I was 17 my religious convictions prevented me from having sex with anyone, but I imagine that without those beliefs I would have at least put _some_ dollar figure on the price for me having sex with a 74 year old woman, and I certainly didn't have any history of abuse or desperation.
Anyone who can read my comment above can see clearly that you are putting words in my mouth.
> The law, precedent, and public opinion all disagree with you.
Except for all the places where law, precedent, and public opinion agree with an age of consent of 17?
The whole point is that there is not one single hard and fast rule that defines the boundaries of ethics in prostitution. So many of the comments here (including yours) portray a complicated situation as clearly black and white. Of course it doesn't help that in this particular case many folks are talking past each other because we're all intermingling various interrelated topics:
* Stallman's remarks and forced resignation
* The age of consent
* The specific case of Epstein's island
* Prostitution
I suspect that if we were to explicitly comment specifically on one point or the other that we'd all find we agree much more that we appear to.
It's really fucking creepy.
children*
>sugar daddies
abusers
Definitely morally dubious, especially in his case. It's not clear if the girl did it for money, or was more or less nudged into this by her life circumstances.
I don't imagine there are any 17 year old girls having sex with 74 year old men who see a distinction between those two things.
How about, if the old person would be mick jagger? I could imagine, he still has his charms to some. Also I have seen young attractive women aproaching old yoga gurus for example ..
But yeah, the old guy wasn't mick jagger, nor a yoga master and at best he did assume the girl was a 18+ old prostitue doing it willingly for money and power.
It's so hard to imagine the origins of the Playboy-era now. But it was dominant among the educated classes through the 80s or 90s. The change is mostly for the better. I suppose the pendulum will swing again some day, but likely not in my lifetime.
The only issue here is the age of the girl involved.
In what insane hypothetical does a 17 year old girl have consensual sex with a 74 year old man on a billionaire's island? At best it's prostitution, c'mon.
I'm with you on prostitution in general, but Epstein was a sleazebag and we know exactly what sort of girls he was grooming. There is no moral avenue that leads to sex with a 17 year old prostitute.
I am also not talking about justifications for Epstein, i mentioned how unrelated Stallman is to the real problem here namely Epstein and his visitors.
I for myself think i will run less of a risk of being a staunch supporter of ethnic cleansings without knowing it if I instead stick to the rule that as long as you arent hurting anyone else, you are good to go. And no, hurt feelings from arguments dont count, or we rob our self of ever evolving our compass further. Without free speech and open discussions we are cementing the status quo. So if he wants, Stallman can be as socially incompetent and offensive as he wants. He has to live with being seen as a weirdo, but i dont think he has a problem with that.
But then again, I know that I dont know much on the topic.
This is highly contestable
There's something beyond slavery and prostitution, there's willing exploitation of the old guy for money, beyond the sexual service. If it was a young stud with an old lady, you'd think twice before saying the old lady is a dirty pervert, right :D
But that's never been the point: the point is you and me can debate to no end about bullshit like that with half information and no legal culture, but Stallman, as a member of faculty, has 0 legitimacy doing it on faculty mail.
Are you saying that this kind of legal and cultural discussion should not take place in academia?
More to the point of this thread: since I'm arguing that there's no effective difference between a 17yo and an 18yo prostitute (much like Stallman), should my professional life be ruined as well?
This was just the straw that broke the camel's back. RMS has done a lot of great things, but he's also done a lot of bone headed things and some of his colleagues understandably don't want to be associated with him anymore.
Still my argument is that he should not be excised from society from having what the hivemind decided was the wrong kind of opinion. It's ok to discuss things and I'd even argue that all discussions should be had.
I just don't want to live in a place where expressing my opinion on some controversial issue, entirely lawfully, might have me excluded from society.
I don't either, but that doesn't mean we need to have an absolutist position on speech. I don't view defending pedophilia or making apologies for the rape of a sex trafficking victim to be merely "controversial."
That said, I don't think it's reasonable to have this discussion about RMS in a bubble, pretending as if he's never done anything else to contribute to what happened.
Yes, it was rape and trafficking - that's terrible enough as it is, no need to make it look worse than it is. This is essentially diluting the most terrible crime of abusing young children.
A lot of the Epstein drama seems to be driven by two pieces, political connections to Trump and Clinton (so it touches "both" sides if you will) and the reaction of this changing definition of childhood to the exploitation of these teens at the hand of Epstein and the perspectives of people either older or from countries with different ideas of the propriety of the sexuality of teenagers. The changing range of who is a child is why what rms said so digusting, because it is considered in kind with say, rape of a toddler or a preteen in the popular mind as the social definitions are shifting.
The problem of course is this is very US centric, and there are of course people just living in different cultures and attitudes elsewhere. I have friends abroad were actually confused about the Epstein drama when they first read about it because to them, it was salacious but not as creepy as Americans think it is.
I assume that's the whole point of the law in many US states and countries - it recognizes the biological reality that teens will have sex.
I've also seen that some EU countries allow teens to sext with each-other (boyfriend/girlfriend exception) without having them fall afoul of the otherwise clear laws against child pornography. This is unlike the US and also seems sensible.
My point is that social mores in the US are moving faster than current laws. I'm also not really sure whether teenage sexuality is a hard biological reality as, well, social pressures have an ability to change minds. Years ago, 13 year olds were expected to take up work on the farm. Today, 13 year olds are children most definitely. Perhaps there are limits to how much social conditions can condition individuals but at the very least, the whole changing definitions of childhood (or what was called "adolescence" for teens being pushed into the early 20's) is happening and whether it's conditioning or not.
That's about 20 years out of date. Teen pregnancies are less common than 20 years ago, and age of first sexual activity has been going up.
That is: it's hard to have a meaningful discussion about whether or not someone is old enough to give informed consent if there's no actually consistent definition of what "old enough" actually means.
I personally consider 20 to be that age (with some lenience for situations where both parties were/are underage at the start of the intimate relationship), but that's based more on the typical "half plus 7" rule than anything particularly concrete.
You are free to disagree with the law as it’s written. You are even free to break the laws if you disagree strongly enough. But you should not expect to be free from the consequences.
No one does. its not about not prosecuting anyone for what happened on that Island. Its about Stallmans response to the allegations against someone else. Did you respond to the wrong comment by any chance?
I also dont see where you made the jump to the legal/illegal argument. Since we are talking about Stallmans speech, we are clearly not discussing illegal behavior but free speech. Or is what Stallman said illegal by now?
What is this trying to say?
OP mentioned after the part that I quoted that
>This is a man who said something wildly inappropriate in an MIT forum and got fired. He deserved it.
I think you could make the argument that what he said wasnt that "inappropriate", but only in the frame of reference of a rather puritanical American society. Hence the reference to a more far out frame of reference in form of Saudi Arabia.
His original quote is
>The word ‘assaulting’ presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex. 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.
That might not make him a great person, but you can make that argument. That the equivalence of assault and prostitution is a rather American one and not universally. And that the distinction in the form of the age of consent of a 17 year old isnt universally either.
Here's a counter. You're ascribing intent to one's writing, and unless you have a special relationship with Mr. Stallman - you don't know anything.
Because of a radical, illiberal mob, Stallman's life's work has been taken from him.
Few years ago I had had a Junior engineer on my team begin telling me how he finds certain speech so intolerable that he feels he has the right to assault someone for saying it. This is the reasoning behind these kinds of mob justices.
So now I see a mob hurting yet another life, not because of real-world conduct, but because of speech. I see real-world destruction wrought because of speech.
What never occurred to this young man was that there exist people who find the suppression of speech to be what is truly intolerable in this world. That this form of group-think is truly destructive, that actions are of consequence, not speech.
Do pray the pendulum never swings in your direction.
This isn't a one-time thing where he never did a bad thing in his life and now is suddenly attacked by a mob. He has been an awful person for a long, long time, and now he is suddenly facing actual consequences.
The fact that you think you can makes me wonder about what you consider normal.
This 100% doesn't make any SENSE, and I read it five times. Can you please clarify?
Eventually the body of evidence is so huge people can't avoid taking action any longer.
We see this with Crosby, we see it with Epstein, we see it with Weinstein. Those people were monsters yet it took years for anything to happen.
RMS is clearly nothing at all like those men, but the denial of his abusive behaviours is the same.
Jesus Christ it's like a parody of tech's cluelessness here.
I prefer to think that Stallman finds this utterly hilarious and encourages the behavior.
A simple google search shows how dubious this is: https://www.google.com/search?q=richard+stallman+plants&safe... . Here's one where he's up a tree: https://www.lepoint.fr/technologie/richard-stallman-les-anon...
The whole plant thing seems obviously false so I wouldn't put too much faith in the other claims.
Women have been complaining. For a long time. He is a big problem. He has been a big problem for a long time.
Most people feel this way. Not with nearly as much speech as your junior did, but there are certain forms of speech we are so against we have written exceptions into law and the Supreme Court even used concepts such as obscenity to empower these laws to ignore even the First Amendment.
Is it really surprising a generation or two later people are now seeking to have even more speech fall under such bans?
I yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s ok it wasn’t my intent to cause panic.
Posting opinions about current events on a message board is not likely to cause physical harm.
The "fire in a crowded theater" analogy was coined by justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Schenck v. United States.[1] Holmes used that analogy to send a Schenck to prison for protesting the draft in WWI.
Should we highly value the idea of free speech? I believe we should. But we should also recognize that there's no such thing as "just speech". What we say matters, particularly if, like Dr. Stallman in this case, we are public figures speaking in what (given the number and types of people involved) is a semi-public forum.
There are two well know aphorisms: "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword". But if one recalls the last is derived from a line in the Bible that says in whole: “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."
Sometimes, we should put the pen back in its place, lest we kill or die by it in our hubris.
Generally both are judged.
You can have the intent to commit murder, but if you bungle it and the person is still living (i.e., no impact), then you're still in trouble.
If impact caused harm then that’s another story.
There are laws for libel, slander, harassment, threat. Let’s use those laws and prosecute people.
Fortunately there are legal thresholds for workplace harassment that are designed to protect people. They aren’t perfect by a long stretch, but it’s one way to differentiate between harm and perceived harm.
No workplace should be a hostile environment and it’s messed up if women feel unwelcome. The challenge is in differentiating from harmful behaviors and behaviors that are interpreted as harmful. I have no idea how to do that and one of the reasons why I think HR is a really hard job.
But there’s lots of scenarios where someone may feel unwelcome that doesn’t result from any ill will or poor action on the part of another. For example, I had an employee who was really hurt because a staff member didn’t prebrief her on meetings she was invited to. She was really upset and it hurt her. She though her coworker was withholding information from her and wanted her to do poorly at work. Eventually I had to confront the other and the other was surprised and had no idea. The other wasn’t withholding info but my staffer was requesting to attend as an optional on the meeting at the last minute and the other agreed but didn’t spend any time describing the meeting. The other assumed my staffer would read the agenda and material and review the participants. The resolution was my staffer understanding no ill will.
There’s many situations where I get upset about something that is me interpreting things and not a flaw in others that should be changed. Hostile work environments need to have the actual problems addressed and the individual perceived problems resolved efficiently, I think.
Supposing intent behind them isn't necessary.
What they say is damning regardless of intent.
And the intent was pretty obvious.
So, yeah, now it's catching up to him, for something nobody in his right mind every does in a corporate environment: giving his opinion on the moral definition of rape. Fucking come on man, how can you defend this moron, who does that ?
You see yourself tomorrow, in charge of the education of students, writing around to your colleagues about what is or is not a rape, for all to record and copy paste to newspapers ? At least do it on skype and add a smiley...
You're justifying the actions a lynch mob. Why does anyone need to provide a counter point? The onus is on you to explain why you think a mob taking justice into their own hands is okay. The only justification I can find is that he said something inappropriate. Who are you to decide what's appropriate? Are you the arbiter of morality for the entire world?
>This is a man who said something wildly inappropriate in an MIT forum and got fired. He deserved it. Defending him by pointing towards people who overreact to things is a bit terrible.
Completely missing the point of the outrage.
It's the chilling effect of people silencing views they don't like that really freaks people out, pisses them off and makes them mad. The actual views in play are irrelevant - the issue is that some person was uncomfortable at something some other person said, so they silenced the man's ability to say it. Not just that, they took away his vitality and ability to support himself. Anyone with any kind of functional critical reasoning facilities can instantly understand why this is scary.
It sets a precedent that completely removes the ability to have non mainstream opinions. If you think the wrong way, the progressive mob will make you seem unemployable. Because you had the audacity to say something "inappropriate," (oh also the mob determines what's appropriate and inappropriate on the fly).
No I'm not. I also don't think the outcome had anything to do with the mob. There were plenty of people even before the mob knew anything, who took strong exception to what RMS was saying.
> Who are you to decide what's appropriate? Are you the arbiter of morality for the entire world?
I'm not. MIT decided what was appropriate for their organization and the moral behavior of its employee and associate.
I am making what I think is a pretty universal moral statement in that old men taking advantage of young women for sexual pleasure is very wrong.
> It sets a precedent that completely removes the ability to have non mainstream opinions.
These aren't just "non-mainstream opinions" he was defending actions which most western societies consider rape. This isn't some slippery slope where people can't say anything nonconformist, this is a situation where people don't want to be associated with you when you publicly defend taking advantage of vulnerable, abused young women.
> This is a man who said something wildly inappropriate in an MIT forum and got fired.
This is a man who said something mildly inappropriate in a forum, as is his wont.
> He deserved it.
A completely appropriate and reasonable verdict, no doubt. Doubts are for unreasonable people, of which one you are not.
> I welcome anyone to provide a counter-argument.
Somehow I doubt that.
But, he wasn't?
1. "Minsky has been accused of assault"
2. RMS: "you shouldn't call it assault - might give people the wrong idea"
3. "It would have been literally rape in the relevant territory, 'assault' is a fine word for it"
4. RMS: "ok, even if it's legally rape, it shouldn't morally be considered rape, so don't call it assault if it was 'just' statutory rape."
What inaccuracies did he point out? I see that he expressed his opinion that 'assault' is too strong a word for some cases of rape, but what inaccuracy was there in the original statement regarding the allegations about minsky?
>When this email chain inevitably finds its way into the press, the seeming insensitivity of some will reflect poorly on the entire CSAIL community. Regardless of intent, this thread reads as "grasping at straws to defend our friends" around potential involvement with Epstein, and that isn't a reputation I would like attached to my CSAIL affiliation.
What do you think as an administrator if you see a comment like that about one of your prominent employees?
Seriously, what is it with all those people discussing in corporate and public function their stupid opinion of the moral definition of rape. Let justice speak, and you, speak privately. For someone lauded as a genius of some sort, he could have maybe understood what you can say where.
It's the accused that is the problem with this. He isn't defending the proven actions of a pervert, he is defending the memory of a dead friend, suggesting that his friend was incapable of the crime of which he is accused. If defending an accused friend is now itself punishable by excision from society, then the effect of an accusation alone becomes immediate isolation. The presumption of innocence, not only in court, but in public discourse, is a vital component of a genuinely free society. I will not support people who reject it.
There are good reasons that our legal systems favor the accused -- ones that I _fully_ support -- but it is an unreasonably high epistemic standard for us to operate under in our daily lives.
If I don't want to associate with someone because they're an asshole, I'm under no obligation to prove so beyond a reasonable doubt. My freedom of association is more fundamental.
He was defending statutory rape and taking advantage of vulnerable young women - it does not matter whether the actual event happened or not. RMS was defending rape in a very public forum and got fired.
He took a position in a discussion you disagree with, so you're OK with him being removed from his organizations and his name dragged through the mud. Your argument stands for a world where people deserve to be stripped of their position because they expressed an opinion you disagree with.
Even if you're completely 100% right, how do 'indefensible opinions' get challenged if they cannot be expressed? How do any of us learn or improve?
Has anyone taken a moment to think, what comes next now that he's gone? I hope for your sake and mine that the accomplishments of the GNU and FSF will be enough to keep us free.
Plenty of criminals take objection to their crimes being described as crimes, but “men should be allowed to have sex with underaged girls” is a particularly self-serving and gross position for a man in a position of power over young women to take.
That "and" is pretty disingenuous here, turning the sentence from accurate to grossly misleading. RMS took objection to the act being characterized as assault. Not as crime. And the truth is, it does matter what crime was committed, not only that a crime was (allegedly, as it turns out). It would matter to you if your deceased friend was accused posthumously that their record is at least kept accurate, if it isn't straight.
He can hold an opinion about the moral definition of rape, sure, but why express it so widely in a corporate environment, it blows my mind.
It’s not the same as a rapist saying “it wasn’t rape, she didn’t say no” especially since he wasn’t the implicated party.
In fact I don’t see him not stating it’s not a crime or not morally bankrupt by itself either.
Assaulted does carry a particular connotation does it not? Assaulted meaning, in the biblical sense: attacked.
Thank you for reminding us of this. The man was a noted stickler for language. In fact many ppl only know him via the GNU/Linux interject meme.
Some(?) European countries do legally differentiate between children and teens and that seems reasonable bases on what we know about biological and developmental differences.
I also regrettably used "child sex abuse" inaccurately before when referring to Epstein. This reflects the legal status in the US I believe, but paints the wrong picture of actual children instead of teens being harmed. It pays to be accurate, because discussions around this topic are completely hysterical as it is.
Not defending it, but characterizing his words correctly in context.
There is no age of consent in France. (However there are aggravating thresholds if there was a crime: under 18 if committed by someone with authority over the victim, under 15 for other cases.)
There is another aspect of his emails - he also wrote that she presented herself as willing and that was entirely misquoted as 'she was willing', which was unfair. Stallman's point was that it is a bit misleading to characterise the act as 'assault' if it was she who sought out Minsky and he was not aware of the fact that she was coerced by Epstein. This is a bit insensitive splitting hair - but the misquoting was really mean.
Now, most people would mount a defense along the lines of "I don't believe Minsky would have sex with trafficked girls". RMS, always with the innovative methods, decided "Maybe it's not so bad to have sex with trafficked underage girls".
But, like it or not, he was clearly capable of making that defense. So I don't know where "can't defend" is coming from.
"RMS was defending his friend who, at the age of 74, is accused of having sex with a 17 year old girl on a billionaire's private island.
There is not a defense for what RMS was writing or how he was trying to defend Minsky. ... The firing was appropriate and reasonable, not a response to extremists, zealots, or some other kind of witch."
As if it was enough to defend someone accused of some crime to be guilty as well. This is clearly absurd - so I am trying to get the author to explain what he really meant.
RMS can (could) make his defense, nobody stopped him, sreened or censored the posts, his opinions are legal.
RMS can't (couldn't) make some of the statements he made and keep his prominent positions.
The issue at hand is not that he was defending his deceased friend. Indeed I think it is very possible that the actual situation was that Minsky was there and declined the sexual advances. That is a story which is out there, I'm not here to judge if it's true or not.
It was the way RMS was defending. Those specific statements are things you "can't" do and - qualifying here - keep a prominent public position, especially when you are making them in a prominent forum in that institution.
RMS shouldn't be charged with a crime, but he did make a whole lot of people not want to work with or be associated with him.
Many people, including you, have lost their grasp for the concept of different moral attitudes. The above is just your opinion, not mine. I do not agree with it and find it irritating that you consider your moral judgement an argument that requires to be countered.
In my opinion, you are conflating inappropriate statements with statements to which you disagree.
The university campus is where minds should go to get challenged by different and somewhat uncomfortable opinions. RMS presents different and uncomfortable opinions in spades. But he does not present them in an inappropriate way. The thread RMS was responding to was explicitly political and opinion based. It was absolutely fair game for his response.
As an example, when I attended university, I took a class (Anthro 2A) where the material presented pedophilia as normal behavior in the context of certain cultural customs. I personally disagree with that research, but I didn't call for the instructor to be fired. Cultural relativism is an important concept that should be thought about even if one disagrees.
But the actual Stallman/MIT kerfluffle is actually not that big a deal IMO.
The bigger deal is the mob acting on deceptive reporting by Vice & DailyBeast. It's one thing to say that Stallman's factual statements on Minsky were inappropriate. It's another to conflate them with statements on Epstein. The vast majority of the outrage is based on the reporting that makes Stallman appear sympathetic to Epstein which is a complete fabrication. It is literally 'fake news'.
So what? Lawyers do this all the time. Is it really important that the person accused was Stallman's friend?
Also, what's exactly wrong with an argument that one should not conflate "having sex with Bob" with "sexually assaulting Bob"?
Everyone is allowed to believe anything they damn well please. They are even allowed to state it. There should not be a viewpoint holding which makes one unemployable. because as soon as that exists, there is no freedom of speech, only a caricature of it.
freedom of speech is not about saying things that everyone agrees with. It is about saying things everyone disagrees with. and yes, speech comes with consequences. But those should be doled out logically, not by an angry mob forcing an institution's hand.
The common argument that I hear is that free speech does not come free of consequences. Fine. But those should be clear and well defined. Not decided by a mob at any given moment. If you want to clearly state that you will not employ anyone who holds the following views, that is okay with me. But firing somebody because the mob demanded it, is against the very idea of freedom of speech
The issue is not voicing an opinion in private -- it's voicing it on an institutional mailing list in his capacity as a member of that institution.
Deciding post-facto smells of favoritism and can never be proven to be fair. It also creates a chilling effect since nobody ever knows what is and is not ok to say, since at any point in time AFTER the fact you might decide it is not ok.
I'm almost certain MIT has an employee handbook that reasonably covers situations like this. If anything, it's a demonstration of favoritism that he wasn't fired in the past.
The beauty of REAL freedom of speech (like we had in 1977 [1]) is that the answer to that is: none
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...
Because if i can lose my job over a statement and a mob reaction, the mob makes me unemployable since they scare other employers, i lose my livelihood, and thus my life. If I have no protection from that (enshrined in a law, like california actually has), in what way is speech free? It becomes more of: "speech only as authorized by the mob-du-jour".
That they feel they cannot take on the burden of RMS's stupid comments in addition to their existing scandelous items is not surprising, and should not surprise anyone.
RMS may well have gotten away with making the comments he did, had he been posting on the UCB mailing list.
Yes, this bashing is totally unreasonable, he expressed an opinion that the charge against Minsky is not valid. One party makes an accusation, it's a perfectly acceptable thing to do for the other party to counter it. Accusation is not the same thing as proof. There is a category of accusations these days that are just the same as a jury sentence, if you're labeled, then you're done. No evidence, witness saying this didn't happen ? Still guilty.
> Headlines say that I defended Epstein. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've called him a "serial rapist", and said he deserved to be imprisoned.
https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
I do not think this changes everything, but if this is indeed his honest opinion, then I do feel that he might have simply communicated his opinions very poorly.
I got your back: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
It's the PDF of the email thread (sigh) at the end of the article.
(Not gonna make any comments because of the mob roaming around.)
> "The most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing," Stallman wrote in his post last Wednesday. "Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates. I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term 'sexual assault' in an accusation."
Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_in...
[and in my opinion: it's the last sentence that made his statement wildly inappropriate. It's one thing if he wanted to raise the possibility that Minsky was deceived, and while incorrect it would be excusable, but his last sentence is a belligerent assumption of bad faith, and it is highly inappropriate for him to use such absolute language in denying sexual assault]
It's not plausible that an 17 year old would be propositioning old men without any external influence in this situation. I think he's strongly implying this and that's part of what got the strong reaction.
I'd suggest due to that, the statement is dodgy even before you get to the bit you highlight.
I don’t think what he said was wildly inappropriate for the forum. It’s an open discussion forum. People not understanding and being offended is not something that RMS or a reasonable poster could predict or prevent.
I read through the entire thread and it’s not as bad as people are interpreting. I think people are inferring intent and meaning that just isn’t there.
I’m pretty disappointed in FSF.
In a country where the current president was elected on a platform of "grab them by the pussy"? Ha.
Here's a radical supposition: it's actually good when speech has consequences in society.
How about a rational debate concerning factual things? I have allmost no background information, knew RMS only as the weird FSF guru .. and it is very hard for me to find facts. Most of the debate is about other stuff, than what actually happened.
edit: so apparently all of it started with this:
https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
A rant by a female MIT student, offended by something she rad of RMS she did not know before. She writes very emotional, but much better, in terms of facts, than what vice etc. made out of it
Yes, RMS seems to be a sexist, unsensible at least, maybe not fit to lead such a position, but the media coverage about it is disgusting and misleading. But so is also some of the criticism of the women who started it. She seemed to be really upset about it and not just a "attention whore". Because there still is lots of sexism in the IT nerd world and being a man I can only try to understand what it means, when you try to show good computer work, but get sexually responses instead. So she reacts different, when she sees the sign on his door: " knights for justice (also hot ladies)" to which I would think, stupid maybe, but not to be taken too serious. But I am not a women. I do not have to avoid his office to not fear sexual mollesting, which apparently quite some students experienced.
its getting increasingly boring to have to engage with people who don't see the irony in a belief that they can be an objective observer of what is "factual" and "rational" in their lives.
> Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked. Stallman goes on to argue about the definition of “sexual assault,” “rape,” and whether they apply to Minsky and Giuffre’s deposition statement that she was forced to have sex with him.
> In response to a student pointing out that Giuffre was 17 when she was forced to have sex with Minsky in the Virgin Islands, Stallman said “it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
These are totally reasonable things normal people say!
Vice is taking a quote of only two words out of context. Stallman was saying that Epstein was coercing his victims to present to Minsky that they were "entirely willing". Basically what pimps do. Stallman's argument was that Minsky was a victim of Epstein's pimping.
I don't agree at all with Stallman's conclusions or way of thinking (and from all the other independent reports of his behavior, he should have been reprimanded for his approaches decades ago), but Vice is just peddling pure yellow journalism, you can't trust their reporting.
Because, to that sentence:
“it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
I would agree. I simply define "rape" as sex that was enforced, usually with physical violence or threat of it. Or maybe existential threats of other kind. Mixing that term with consensual sex with a 17 year old is not helpful to actual victims of rape, I believe. Consider a couple of both 17 ... all ok. Now one of them turns 18 and now their relationship is rape? That does not make sense. Now there is surely a difference between 17 with 18 and 17 with 70, but I really believe it is not the same category as "rape". Exploitive maybe, depending on the situation. And if in the concrete situation it was actually not consensual, than it also actually might have been rape. I simply don't know that situation and trying to make sense of it. But that small sentence from RMS alone does not justify any witch hunt.
And to those claim:
"Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked."
I would like a actual quote from RMS, that he actually said that.
(Maybe this will end up with a second organization for Free software funded by a hefty settlement from Vice Media et al. One can hope!)
Let's consider the logical conclusions of "society" being able to inflict consequences upon someone if they speak an unpopular opinion.
If you're an individual human being, it's likely that you have at least one opinion about something that isn't inline with the overarching culture. The particular issue of Epstein or Stallman or whomever is irrelevant; while you may agree with the mob in this case, next week or next month you might not. Under your proposition, that leaves you with three options:
1. Keep your opinion to yourself and refrain from telling anyone for fear of reprisal. In other words, self-censorship.
2. Changing your opinion to match society's, out of fear of being ostracized.
3. Expressing your opinion and then having your personal or professional life ruined, or at the very least, affected to the point where you suffer financially, mentally, emotionally, or socially.
Which of those three options sounds beneficial to you?
Further, all of your "options" sound amazing if what the person is doing is calling human trafficking victims "willing." It turns out that there is a difference between good and bad things. AND it's actually possible to determine which is which!
This notion that a social technology such as public opinion can be used in a negative way is not some sort of revelation. Weapons only have the morality of those that deploy them. Just as we must decry immoral use we must also celebrate moral use, otherwise we'll be living in a society where people can claim that victims of sexual violence were "willing."
Please stop spreading this misinformation. As explained in this thread countless times, Stallman never called the victim "willing" -- he just said she might have been threatened into looking like she is.
But.
I think its really important for people making this sort of argument to deal with the fact that public people who make public statements do not get to control how those things are taken. In much the same way that your production as an artist isn't entirely yours when you release it to the public, RMS' actions have consequences outside of what he may have meant. I for one dont think for a moment that he means to justify human trafficking. But what he did do what make a statement that can be taken as victim blaming. This is very, very dangerous and there should be consequences.
> 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's pretty clear to me that he acknowledges the victim to be a victim, who has to deal with threats and coercion __in addition to__ sexual assault. He just argued that Minsky might not have known what was going on, which has nothing to do with what the victim actually felt.
The only people who interpreted this as victim-blaming are the media outlets who straight up lie in their headlines. Here's Vice:
> Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing'
Stallman does have a responsibility to ensure he cannot be reasonably misinterpreted, but this headline is a blatant lie.
In a world where wilful misinterpretation was not somehow weaponised I would agree with you, but that is not this world. This norm would leave every PR person completely at the mercy of any enemies they are unlucky enough to make.
1) there are material consequences for "expressing an unpopular opinion." some of which aren't up to the person expressing them. 2) those determining the consequences, such as the organizations that let RMS go, are and should be allowed the freedom to self-govern in this way. they are well within their right to refuse to be associated with people who say these things.
But that isn't what is happening. There is no reasonable discussion. There isn't even any attempt to understand the complexity and nuance of a situation. It's simply: you're gone. It's mob politics 101 and anyone familiar with political history has seen it time and time again.
The main consequence of this mentality will be that organizations like MIT will be filled with yes-men/women and those that toe the intellectual line. And subsequently the real losers will be society and MIT.
I sure know better than to redefine the moral value of rape in a corporate mailing list, but heh, who would want to horribly self censor their every brain farts, surely not heroic stallman, defender of free speech and provider of no value.
That's totally bogus, and I think you should consider the consequences that your speech is already having on the people around you.
Personally I love the guy and his weird contributions to the field. But how can you look at this and not think "wow thats not ok to say" no matter what we can consider he may have meant after the fact?
I read what he wrote, and i DO think it's okay to say. Further more i think it's RIGHT to have said it, publicly, especially by a person of his standing.
It took an incredible amount of courage and determination for rms to have the impact that he's had on the world.
And now, he's been cancelled.
This is a bad sign.
Comparison with lynching seems fair to me.
All of this got me thinking about creating, you know, accepting tech community where everyone is free to express their own opinions. I'm personally fine with my code being called shit and me being called dumbass for a good measure, just tell me what you really think and we'll sort things out faster instead sugar-coating stuff to not hurt my ego.
No one dislikes Stallman on the basis of the color of his skin, and no one is murdering him. The use is a grossly inappropriate metaphor that diminishes the real meaning of the word.
To punish (a person) without legal process or authority, especially by hanging, for a perceived offense or as an act of bigotry.
(Law) (tr) (of a mob) to punish (a person) for some supposed offence by hanging without a trial.
Nothing about racism here. The only thing that doesn't apply to Stallman is that he has not been hanged. That's quite important one. Though words are sometimes used not in their literary meaning (like "I'm killing it" -- well hopefully not).
BTW from what I've gathered this entire thing happened because Stallman was pedantic and has written something along "let's be precise with words, I think what happened was not rape, but statuatory rape because of such and such".
Who owned the island is not relevant, how much money they make is not relevant, and whether they're Stallman's friend is not relevant to either the morality or legality of the matter. Being wealthy or old is not a crime.
Stallman's controversial comment was:
> “it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
Whether you agree or disagree that is a reasonable statement to make.
That said, I don't really see how this is grounds for termination. Again, I am not defending the guy or his utterly bizarre opinion on the matter. He had a disagreeable personal opinion and wrote it out load... so what? He wasn't advocating for harm of any person, persons, or group.
People are way too sensitive and we are giving away far too much to save face among people who aren't worth the effort. If I were king for a day and ran some kind of public facing organization here is how I would manage these things:
1. Anybody who communicates or advocates harm to any person, persons, or group gets a naughty warning. On the second offense they are permanently banned, terminated, or what ever.
2. Anybody who communicates offense or defensive language (cry babies) gets their post flagged (suppressed and locked). Sad people feed trolls. They are not hostile, but they are still part of the problem. I am sure they have all kinds of wonderful justifications, but I don't care.
This would allow people to disagree within bounds of acceptable behavior while also preventing mass hysteria and echo chamber insanity.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RadioVcs/status/11714435848069939...
That's not what happened.
Minsky was accused, and those are the details.
It doesn't matter if it didn't happen, RMS was defending Minsky in the situation that it did by saying the girl who was less than a quarter of his age would have appeared willing.
That gets you fired. Even if it is entirely hypothetical.
And surely to defend a rapist, even an accused one, is nearly as bad as being a rapist? Why, perhaps we should skip the courts all together and simply tar and feather them in the public. That's worked out well historically...
He was asked to resign because it's a good play for MIT, you don't have to defend against a wrongful termination suit if the person in question willingly resigns.
If he wanted to defend himself, he would have stayed and fought, let himself get fired, file a lawsuit.
But he resigned, willingly.
Or possibly, because both the SFC [1] and the head of the GNOME foundation [2] said that they would find it unacceptable to work with the FSF as long as Stallman was still the leader, he realized there was no way staying on would be possible.
[1] https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-spea... [2] https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation-relations...
Clearly, as the angry Twitter mob of virtue signalers clearly has no desire or respect for objective arguments and accusations based on facts, let alone what the law actually says.
This smear campaign targeted at Stallman only ceased to be about the law once the self-righteous Twitter mob of virtue signallers was forced to admit that Stallman was in fact absolutely right to point out that the accusations correspond to statutory rape instead of sexual assault.
Unfortunately instead of doing the honest thing and admit they were wrong, they started moving the goal post and resort to Cardinal Richelieu tactics to try to come up with anything to keep up with the harassment and persecution.
Although it looks like you really believe that's what happened, it is not what happened.
And no amount of repetitions can change the fact that he did not "defend his friend from rape accusations".
> It doesn't matter if it didn't happen
It kinda matters though...
> That gets you fired. Even if it is entirely hypothetical.
And that's absurd.
We always arrive at the same conclusion.
EDIT:
can I ask you why all these comments look the same?
it kinda looks like a pattern to me...
He just expresses on honest opinion on the matter.
Like he always did all of his life.
> That's not how argument works.
To prove you wrong I don't have to prove an alternative scenario.
You are wrong, that's enough.
It's just what it is, he wasn't defending his friend, which, BTW, is not even accused of raping anybody.
> The comment was inappropriate
Like this is new for RMS...
I never said he is not weird, I've said he never supported or praised or defended rapists.
That's enough to prove who said it wrong.
It's all in the transcripts, it's all there, word by word.
> Those are the rules of the game (public relations),
But he's not a PR.
He has never been.
Right, and this time he has finally paid the price. I admire RMS; he's a genius, and he's done a lot with FSF. But I'm tired of his jackassery. If he, in his high profile position, wants to make arguments nitpicking what is rape and what is the age of consent with what is obviously a sensitive subject, then sure. Just don't do a surprised Pikachu when people hate him and want him gone.
For what?
For stating the obvious?
This time he didn't do anything wrong, other than pointing out what everybody in their right mind think: a dead person who cannot defend himself anymore was being falsely accused of child rape but the evidence just proved that he did no such thing and that, anyway, admitting there was sex involved, it wasn't pedophilia.
> I'm tired of his jackassery.
Who cares what you are tired of?
I'm tired of this constant wining, just because you're alive it doesn't mean your feelings are _so_ important.
But I don't want you to be fired because of it.
> is the age of consent with what is obviously a sensitive subject
so we should not talk about what you think is a sensitive subjects?
It isn't for me, I live in Europe, age of consent in my country is 16.
Are you so self entitled?
Who do you think you are?
> Just don't do a surprised Pikachu when people hate him and want him gone.
People are stupid.
I don't care what people think.
Nothing has been proven. It hasn't even entered a court of law yet. Yet here you are willing to accept any and all internet rumors. Aren't you a smart individual.
> But I don't want you to be fired because of it.
I absolutely would lose my job if I was holding a high leadership, PR position at my company for making idiotic statements. You would too.
> I don't care what people think.
There you go. No one cares about your sentiment. Literally I don't care about what it is you have to say at all. Why should anyone care about what YOU, some no-name internet user has to say. The fact of the matter is that people care about what high profile individuals think whether you agree with this or not (once again no one cares about your silly opinions). And someone spoke with their foot in their mouth. Is it technically wrong to state that more people die from medical errors than mass shootings as Neil Degrasse Tyson so eloquently put it? No it's not wrong. You and RMS are so insistent on being right that you can't even understand what context means. You guys are the type of people to get mad at the world and can't understand why you're hated by everyone. So by all means live this way. But no one else does. And don't whine because you're not liked.
And just for the record,
> But he's not a PR. He has never been.
is actually completely wrong. RMS by his own account hasn't written actual code in decades now. What does he actually do with his time on FSF besides go around and do talks? Nothing. What is that? Oh wait... it's literally PR for FSF's values. He does do some things now that I think about it. He writes his silly opinions on CSAIL mailing lists when many thought he wasn't even a part of CSAIL anymore. So he had that going for him as well.
Do you know the presumption of innocence principle?
> I absolutely would lose my job if I was holding a high leadership, PR position at my company for making idiotic statements. You would too.
I dare you try and lose at this game.
I can't lose my job, I live in a country where workers freedoms are protected.
Especially when expressing opinions as private citizens and not while doing their job.
You probably should learn a few things about what RMS stood for, even for a low standard country like the US.
> Why should anyone care about what YOU
For no reason.
In fact I'm ok with it.
You are crying that are tired.
> You guys are the type of people to get mad at the world and can't understand why you're hated by everyone
I really don't care.
I'm loved by the people I love, you, believe me, are less than dog shit to me.
And I'm quite sure it's reciprocal, and that's ok.
It is very saddening though to watch "you guys" still using this pathetic tactics...
This are things people use to say when they are kids, to try get under other people's skin and make them angry.
They don't work with functioning adults.
Are you sure you aren't the one everybody hates?
Looks like it's very important for you to be loved, you;re obsessed with it.
Have you talked with someone about it?
> RMS by his own account hasn't written actual code in decades
And Bosso hasn't played any music in ages, and Schumacher hasn't driven a race car in years.
Guess what? they can't anymore!
So what?
> So he had that going for him as well.
What makes you so sure you're not gonna be next?
> Oh wait... it's literally PR for FSF's values
He was founder and president of the FSF foundation.
He stood up for FSF values, because FSF values are HIS values.
He made them. they didn't exist before him.
He wasn't a PR, he was himself.
A PR is someone who works in public relations, he never did that.
So innocent until proven guilty? Oh wow aren't you the legal expert. You're taking Greg Benford's words at face value. Everything is still "he said, she said" and you don't know any more than I do. Yet you're willing to assume that someone simply cannot be guilty of any wrong doing based on pure speculation while calling it evidence. You're not some neutral balanced individual, so stop pretending.
> I can't lose my job, I live in a country where workers freedoms are protected.
This isn't a matter of freedom of speech being violated. Many Americans strongly support free speech compared to many European countries. But your speech obviously has consequences. If you're dumb enough to write things that can get you fired on an email to a large mailing list, then don't blame the world when people don't like it. And RMS didn't break the law. He won't be arrested or fined by the government. But yes employers or organizations can want him gone. Why don't you read what freedom of speech actually means.
> I really don't care.
I already wrote that I don't care about your opinions. So I'm just gonna not read the worthless part here. Congratulations on responding to me not caring about you with you not caring about what I care about. I applaud you.
> And Bosso hasn't played any music in ages, and Schumacher hasn't driven a race car in years.
I'm saying that RMS's previous contributions don't matter. Read between the lines.
> What makes you so sure you're not gonna be next?
You clearly don't understand what I am saying. Literally read what I write if you want to respond sensibly.
> He was founder and president of the FSF foundation.
Yes, and he was asked to resign and the FSF (it's not actually FSF Foundation so learn how acronyms work) will have a chance to live on. It's hilarious how you equate FSF with RMS. Yet the person who is apparently so important to the cause just got himself fired because he couldn't act more sensibly. I anticipate the FSF actually doing something meaningful now.
> He wasn't a PR, he was himself.
You're just saying semantics at this point. RMS had the most comfortable in the world. He went around the world on FSF dime from donations. He lived in a house that MIT provided for him because his old professor Gerald Sussman asked for it. He hasn't written actual software in decades. All he literally did was travel to give talks. If that's not PR, then what is it. I'm glad that fanboys like you exist all the way in Europe. Go start a GoFundMe for Richard Stallman. I anticipate he's not showering again.
It does matter that RMS, in a hypothetical defended the supposed actions in the way that he did.
And yes, I repeated myself many times to several people saying similar things with the intention of facing all of the threads with a similar challenge. So what?
Like... he wrote about it?
Many others did, nobody lost the job.
It must be horryfying to read someone else's opinion in 2019 America...
You're talking like Stallman is some kind of new Ted Bundy...
> And yes, I repeated myself many times to several people saying similar things with the intention of facing all of the threads with a similar challenge. So what?
are you sure you're not simply obsessed with it?
The thing with him is that people were just so frigging fed up and didn't know what to find to get rid of his ass. One day, he decided to write about the moral definition of rape, the next day he was out :D No need to be a Stallman-level genius to see what happened, he could finally be fired without all the frigging free software extremists yelling censorship... Stallman is now the SJW devil incarnate ahah
And I'm Italian, my grandfather was a partisan, I know what I'm talking about.
BTW, I am yelling, because what he said is perfectly reasonable, given the context.
Why would he be concerned with such details if not for defending Minsky? He is weird, and pendatic. But that we knew for a long time.
Some people do software, like Linus Torvalds, other linger for decades doing nothing and discuss the value of rape. Hope we'll hear less of his nonsense in the future.
So RMS is defending his deceased friend as though he was accused, it would have been more effective to question the accusation rather than to defend as though it had happened.
He said: The girl was most likely willing, and it's morally imprecise to call this a rape, at worst it would be a statutory rape.
Who gets respect, who gets fired ? :D
He very clearly did not say that, he said the girl was most likely presented to him as willing.
How is it you've made half a dozen posts in a thread about this without even bothering to read what you're commenting about?
Par for the course, ditto everybody else that did not bother to read the court transcript. It's 200+ pages but doublespaced, you can go over the whole thing in an hour or two, it makes you wonder how Epstein ever managed to avoid being jailed for a long time.
I'll bet that before this whole thing is over there will be many more 'names' that end up disgraced or worse.
Why do you feel compelled to paraphrase (and in the process lie)?
The discussion is between free speech and appropriate speech. Which is both sides have tribes supporting them Libertarian vs SJW. You might not see the divide but every one else does and you can see that.
> The prevalence of comments trying to turn this against "SJW"s or whatever "other"
You might not agree with or recognise the tribes but they exist.
> This is a man who said something wildly inappropriate in an MIT forum and got fired.
MIT is a university its a public place where adults go to seek truth, if this is an inappropriate place for adults to discuss adult subjects then where is?
I get the argument it's not "public" because the land is privately owned but it is a place where the public gather. While I frequently see this argument it is never accompanied with what would be an appropriate public venue for adults to discuss inappropriate things.
There is not a defense for what RMS was writing or how he was trying to defend Minsky.
The prevalence of comments trying to turn this against "SJW"s or whatever "other" they can because they're a fan of RMS is disturbing.
This isn't us vs. them.
This is a man who said something wildly inappropriate in an MIT forum and got fired. He deserved it. Defending him by pointing towards people who overreact to things is a bit terrible.
The firing was appropriate and reasonable, not a response to extremists, zealots, or some other kind of witch.
I welcome anyone to provide a counter-argument.