That seems reasonable and fair.
> I agree that we need to turn around acceptance of "brilliant jerks" but the Law of Unintended Consequence here in many cases seems way worse than the original problem we were trying to solve.
Which is... what exactly? You're appealing to a slippery slope but from my perspective we climbed UP said slope to get to holding RMS to account for years of bad behavior, and even now reprehensible folks are using awful excuses like, "They're just on the spectrum" as ammo in the "Yes but he's a powerful man" argument they've been winning for a long time.
But ultimately RMS's positon was one of political, not technical, leadership. With no more supporters, the FSF rejected him. Without the FSF, what purpose could he serve at his job?
That doesn't imply any institution of higher learning or software advocacy organization needs to grant him their imprimatur to do it.
Isn’t he basically a speaker and advocate nowadays? That career is unlikely to be very successful now that all major organizations dumped him and he has fake news headlines saying he defended Epstein following him everywhere (backed up by apparently two decades of known antisocial personal behavior).
He doesn’t exactly sound like the kind of person you’d hire to work as a normal developer nor would that comport with his strange ethics of refusing to use any non-Free software.
He could try to rebuild his career, but he is 66 so unlikely he will try.
We don’t need to worry about his entire life. That’s his job. We can say “this person clearly should not be leading an advocacy group” without figuring out a whole future career path for him.
They certainly _shouldn't_ be in a leadership position... (where that "inexcusable behavior" becomes a barrier to participation for various groups)
are you even thinking about what you're writing? it seems like you're just attacking for the sake of it.
you've spammed this conversation with your input... what, 20 different times?
I hate this morality police sweeping in saying that he simply can’t talk about this because it is forbidden, wrong, etc. The majority should not decide what is ok speech or thought, we should judge him by what he has actually done, and challenge his thoughts directly with reasoned argument rather than immediately dismiss and denounce anything that isn’t in the moral majority.
Freedom of association is just as important at freedom of speech.
All acts of pedophilia would be statutory rape, but not all statutory rape would be acts of pedophilia. If the minor isn't a pre-pubescent child, it really isn't pedophilia.
Is my dad a rapist?
All i'm seeing is people pointing out that statutes are different around the globe, and that it was rms' point that the variety of these rules is the exact reason not to refer to minsky's behavior (whatever it was) as "assault".
He was in two roles that were largely about PR and put him in positions of power over young women. I certainly am willing to condemn people to no longer holding positions of power they have demonstrated they will abuse, and if your job is as a figurehead a big part of that job is not being so gross people avoid the institution. He got fired because a significant part of his job was ensuring the fsf could raise funds and he was being bad at his job.
1st, you're assuming his relative power based on claims in an article by a young woman who didn't know about him, and still hasn't met him.
2nd, the least old of these claims was written 13 years ago.
3rd, for god's sake... he wasn't defending pedophilia. there's no reason to say that! why on earth do people keep repeating it? it's clearly inaccurate.
He made a choice to say some words and based on those words people felt they would be better off without him in their workplace. Seems fair to me, people have been fired for much less.
Suppose you're an employer. Would you want to hire a neo-Nazi who has visible swastika and Hitler tattoos? Would you put this guy in front of your customers? Probably not; your business wouldn't do too well. So when you decline to hire such a person, you're exercising your freedom of association, but also helping to condemn the neo-Nazi to homelessness and poverty. In some countries, he might be able to get some social assistance so he doesn't turn to crime, but it'll probably still be poverty-level.
Societies aren't just a bunch of people all doing and saying whatever the heck they want. There's consequences to your actions and your speech. If people like you more, you get better jobs and do better socially. If people don't like you, then you become an outcast. This can be good or bad: if the overall attitude is something awful, such as the idea that some people should be enslaved, then you get a society where lots of people are horribly oppressed. If the overall attitude however is that oppression is bad, then people who promote oppression (like neo-Nazis) are punished by being ostracized, and ideas like that are made unpopular and kept from spreading too much.
This Guardian article makes me think that he has been unfairly treated. Even though I think that he is completely wrong to assume that an elderly man could reasonably expect that a very young person is having sex with them for any reason other than either direct coercion (violence, mental-abuse/gaslighting) or the indirect violence of capitalism (need to support self or family [1]).
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/17/mit-scient...
I think it is quite clear that he was explicitly NOT claiming that the accusor was willing, but that she was coerced into appearing willing. I think it is quite clear that he also calls for more care and clarity in the language around this and the post on Medium gets it completely wrong, as does your last phrase.
1. This can include drug dependency, can also include the need to pay for "luxuries" like going to college: it's pretty much all the same to me -- these things are withheld due to force in our society. The picture is even clearer in the extreme case of "voluntary" sex work by people in developing countries.
There are a lot of similarly coerced situations in our capitalist societies. You want to eat? Go down the mine.
Thanks for putting it so succintly
I get that the concept of assumption of innocence is something long-forgotten on the Internet, but can we at least discern between correcting the language to ensure that mob accusations are accurate, and wholesale defense of a (presumed) act?
Is your problem with the person who had the sex, or the person defending them? The former I agree is a huge problem, the latter seems highly dangerous and I very much disagree with you. It would be impossible to get any sort of due process or fair trial if even defending you makes you toxic, unemployable, and evil. What if you are innocent? Imagine trying to find a lawyer...
What about me? I'm not defending RMS' behavior, but I could see how someone would think I was. Do I deserve to be able to work? Do my kids deserve a home and food on the table?
In whose mind does this comment even start to make any sense? Are people supposed to only point out facts that contradict what a righteous Twitter mob is inventing if they are in the presence of a judge?
This is because court procedures are complicated and idiosyncratic and most people would not be expected to have the skills to defend themselves. The state is trying to take away a person's freedom so part of the social contract is that it has an obligation to provide them with independent help to navigate the process.
As far as I'm aware, Minsky had no legal case to answer and Stallman was not his defence lawyer. So while Stallman certainly has the right to defend him, in doing so he was risking his own reputation in a way that a criminal defence advocate (even when their client is found guilty of the most heinous crime imaginable) does not.
Some people like Greg Benford claimed the sex didn't happen. I think that's a better way to go about it. Say you were present at the time and provide counter-claim.
Now, there doesn't seem to be proof either way.
Then why attack him now and try to force him out of the organisation that he founded over something people misunderstood? They could just call to fire him over actual abusive behaviour instead.
You're happy to benefit from the freedoms he fought for, the free GNU, built by GCC, and GPL licensed software that runs on your computer, your car, your phone, and your TV, and all the platforms you use on the internet (including this one). But you won't accept any Brilliant Jerks! I'm sure you'll put your money where your mouth is, and boycott all of these.
And while you're at it, why don't you list your numerous noteworthy accomplishments in life, and pinky-swear that you've never said anything in public that you regretted.
That's blowing it way out of proportion. You mention one remark 13 years ago, and refer to it as decades.
Comments here seem to mostly equate this situation to a Cancel Culture outcry over an isolated remark. That's not what happened here. rms has had decades of inexcusable behavior for any individual, much less someone affiliated with MIT and heading something as large as FSF. He had to answer for this eventually.
I sincerely appreciate his contributions to this world. But I also sincerely feel that we can't give people free passes for their behavior (see: courtesy cards at conferences) just because they've done well in other respects. We need to end the acceptance of Brilliant Jerks.