As far as I understand, there's plenty of real-world horrible conduct he could have got fired for too, which has gone without consequence.

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.

I'm willing to bet if I went through all your tweets, social media, and personal email, I could find SOMETHING that could have gotten you fired if it ever came to public attention. In fact, I'm sure that's true for just about anybody.

Really? Because I make a point of remembering that electronic communication has infinite distributibility and infinite duration. Do you not?

That's a straw man. of course it is.

What you won't find, however, is me harassing and making women uncomfortable in person for decades.

But my point is, I'm sure I can find something if I looked hard enough. Probably even worse as what Richard Stallman did isn't THAT bad.

Well, no. You can't.

The fact that you think you can makes me wonder about what you consider normal.

RMS is an "awful person"? I would say that, he's a hero to a lot of people, including me. He might be "social unskilled", but an AWFUL person? I would say that is untrue in any common sense way.

Yes, actively awful. Hostile-working-environment awful. Women cultivating plants in their offices because they know he hates plants and won't creep on them awful.

> Women cultivating plants in their offices because they know he hates plants and won't creep on them awful.

This 100% doesn't make any SENSE, and I read it five times. Can you please clarify?

When you have a hostile creep in the workplace the women in that workplace will have techniques they use to avoid the creep. This is because men do not believe those women when they say "this guy is a creep" and so no action gets taken against the creep. Or men do believe those women, but they decide not to do anything anyway.

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.

Yes, clearly it's multiple women over decades who have somehow managed to independently exaggerate nearly identical stories.

Jesus Christ it's like a parody of tech's cluelessness here.

Confirmation bias. If the "multiple women" spans decades, you're probably actively looking for the hits and not looking at the misses. He's socially awkward so probably a lot of the "hits" are probably misinterpreting him.

There are other comments talking about how he has a phobia to plants so women grow them in their offices or wear clothing with plant imagery. This may or may not be true.

I prefer to think that Stallman finds this utterly hilarious and encourages the behavior.

> There are other comments talking about how he has a phobia to plants so women grow them in their offices or wear clothing with plant imagery.

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.

This sounds exaggerated to me. He's socially awkward so it's more likely women are taking his actions the wrong way. Richard Stallman holds ethics in high regard.

How about you just trust the word of women who have actually had to deal with him in person rather than try to imagine what you think he SHOULD be like?

Women have been complaining. For a long time. He is a big problem. He has been a big problem for a long time.

Because I know women who have dealt with him and they said he's fine.

Or maybe they know how you'd react if they told you the truth, so they don't?

Or maybe they're just playing the victim.

Thanks for demonstrating my point.

They brought no proof, so no. Show something on a cell phone video or whatever. And make it obvious, not something that can be interpreted in other ways. Then I'll believe it. But until that day comes, the burden of proof lies with the woman.

Really doubling down on demonstrating my point huh.

>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.

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?

Divining intent isn’t the right threshold to judge speech. If it were then I can say whatever I want in whatever environment, because how would you prove my intent?

I yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s ok it wasn’t my intent to cause panic.

Only because your words caused actionable harm. If you didn't intend to cause harm and there were no harmful consequences should you still be punished?

Should drunk driving be legal as long as you don't crash?

Drunk driving has a reasonably high likelihood of physical harm, as does yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre.

Posting opinions about current events on a message board is not likely to cause physical harm.

What Stallman did isn't illegal. So some legal standard of likelyhood of physical harm need not apply. But I dispute your claim that rape apologia by an authority figure is unlikely to cause harm.

It was the grandparent's example, not mine. Also, I dispute your characterization as "rape apologia". It's a fairly ironic description given RMS's original issue was mischaracterization of the issue in the media.

> I yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s ok it wasn’t my intent to cause panic.

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.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

The idea that speech is not "real-world conduct" is, in my considered opinion, not just wrong, but actively corrosive to the fabric of our civilization. Ideas are powerful, speeches can incite revolutions, send millions to their deaths, or be used to fight tyranny and oppression.

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.

Intent is irrelevant ... only the impact. One must always be ready to reckon with the impact of their actions and speech, regardless of what their intent was.

> Intent is irrelevant ... only the impact.

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.

And conversely, this is why terms like "homicide" and "manslaughter" exist, because judgements in cases of one person killing another depend on specific circumstances and intent.

It feels like you two are trying to disagree with me, but are only bolstering my argument further. In the context of murder, regardless of what the murderer's intent was, the victim is still dead ... the impact remains unchanged, and the murderer must still reckon with their actions (even if their intent is taken into account in sentencing)

Fair, we went off a tangent. So going back to the point: in this case, the consequences are grossly unproportional to the misdeed that happened.

If the impact is a bunch of people misinterpreting and feeling upset, that’s not much impact.

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.

Who says harm hasn't been caused? I've never been to MIT, but there's plenty of stories floating around from alumni who suggest he may have contributed to a hostile environment that has likely made women feel unwelcome (for one example of harm caused).

It’s important to measure harm done and react when it is significant (or hopefully before it reaches that threshold).

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.

The statements I see stand on their own.

Supposing intent behind them isn't necessary.

What they say is damning regardless of intent.

And the intent was pretty obvious.

Dude, Stallman has been spitting his bullshit to the world and we had no way to stop the vomit, coming out of universities. How many young people have wasted their youth following his ideas, reading his stuff, until they finally realized it was all shit.

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...