> In a blink of an eye, this incident made an old person not employable and apparently (according to the TFA) homeless.
He already entered his retirement age. (Unless I miscalculated) He's a clever man - if he's got no retirement fund, or stable accommodation by now, that's a different issue and only brought forwards faster, not created now.
I mean, if the accommodation was provided entirely unofficially by MIT this whole time and was yanked away without warning, I really sympathise. But I find that idea unlikely without some good confirmation.
Honestly, they got him because they could. There's plenty of politicians, including state heads, regularly making offensive and sexist comments. I haven't seen anyone attempting or even proposing a coup because of that. It usually gets a day or two on the news, and then is remembered only in jokes.
> That doesn't remove anything from their achievements and abilities to contribute or to spread new ideas.
Of course it does, because being a leader is the ability "to contribute or to spread new ideas". Moreover, in this particular case, we're hearing plenty of voices trying to retroactively deny RMS's achievements.
> entirely omitting the space occupied by almost all of us: between homelessness and being a leader of a global movement/organisation.
In this particular case, it was a jump over that space occupied by almost all of us. In a blink of an eye, this incident made an old person not employable and apparently (according to the TFA) homeless. Maybe a different, more emotionally and intellectually balanced person could handle this and resume a fulfilling but low-profile life. But such people don't generally end up with achievements or roles as RMS did. It takes a pretty unbalanced person to persist in pushing views that go against the commercial zeitgeist so long, so successfully, and without compromise.