News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Kno... by asveikau on Monday September 30, 2019 @11:56PM (#21121900)
> Autism might hypothetically lead to doing that until someone pulled him aside and told him it was creepy and made others uncomfortable.

It's not with autism, but I have first hand experience telling a mentally ill person (diagnosis was schizoaffective) that certain behavior is creepy and made women uncomfortable. They didn't listen. They argued it with me very intensely instead. In some cases part of the illness is not realizing there's a problem. It's not always going to work to politely flag a behavior as off putting and they get it right away.

Re:Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Kno... by watwut on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:37AM (#21122591)
Such person is then not suitable for leadership position nor any position where communication matters. The way leaders interact trickle down and creates culture. People mimic leaders more then we care to admit.

And when you put such person in position where women have choice between leaving and being undermined by his behavior or being insulted or have to work around potential danger to reputation etc or what it is that he was doing, you are in fact disadvantaging women in that organization. You dont get to claim there is no sexism here nor claim that it is all meritocracy nor fair nor babble about natural self selection.

It makes not just women leave, it makes men who dont care about being members of such culture to leave.

For the record, a person that mistreats males would be same case.

Re:Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Kno... by asveikau on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @12:27PM (#21127310)
I don't think what you've written is in conflict with anything I said.

In the case of this person I am referring to, it's been rather self-selecting and he's not in any positions of authority. It's pretty different from Stallman's purported autism-spectrum behavior too.

But it's also important to note that with the right medications, people like the case I'm describing can do better. So I'd like to afford that, while we agree that people don't make great leaders, authorities, communicators in that state or condition, they don't necessarily get there by being bad or totally irredeemable people, help is available to them and we should hope that they find it and stay "on the wagon", to use a metaphor from somewhere else.

Re:Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Kno... by watwut on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @04:39PM (#21130342)
> they don't necessarily get there by being bad or totally irredeemable people, help is available to them and we should hope that they find it and stay "on the wagon", to use a metaphor from somewhere else.

I agree with that and I did worked with people who are on the spectrum.

My pet peeve in these discussion is the argument that boils down to "he is autistic therefore everyone else should bend over and take whatever abuse that person unleashes on them and be understanding back". This argument is present up thread.

That does not work and just makes situation worst for everyone.

Re:Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Kno... by sp332 on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @10:13AM (#21125510)
Was the argument about whether the behavior made people uncomfortable? Because I'm thinking that after 10, 20, 50 people told him that it did, it might sink in.
Re:Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Kno... by asveikau on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @12:21PM (#21127221)
Well, with this topic I am getting far from Stallman, who if we assume is on the autistic spectrum is quite a bit different from my experiences with delusional people or psychotic disorders.

But if you've ever argued with a delusional person, they don't give up their beliefs easily. Frequently what happens is they'll turn it on you. So if I say, "you're making those women uncomfortable", he'll argue and say there is a problem with me, that I am too prudish or jealous of his romantic success. And they get very angry and obsessive about being confronted.

I don't know what it'd be like for 20 or 50 people to question these beliefs, but 10 definitely won't convince him. And with the nature of this complaint, a lot of time people are either too polite or too scared to tell him. It seems to me though, the best way to get it to sink in for him is an atypical antipsychotic.