In an ideal world, intent shouldn't really matter (it does matter in our world, for pragmatic reasons, but it shouldn't). If the results of one's actions cause harm, one should be dissuaded from continuing / repeating those actions, regardless of intent.

You do rightly point out the reason intent does tend to matter in reality: it's that the response to RMS' actions are punitive ("you deserve bad back"). And ideally people shouldn't be punished for unintended mistakes; they should instead be helped (sorry if that comes across condescending to the offender, but it's true).

Focusing on intent instead of outcomes is still regressive or reductive in either case though.

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Aside: this is somewhat off-topic and probably a debate for a separate comment/thread here, but I do want to note I use the term "harm" above very intentionally; I don't believe "offensive" is the correct term here at all. Being offended is not harmful. I think a lot of aspects of PC/cancel-culture focus on protecting those who are "offended", which is nonsense. If you're not offending people in this world, you're not living. But doing actual harm goes beyond that, and should be addressed. And I do believe RMS' actions were harmful.

Intention matters when the charge consists of someone imparting intent and meaning beyond that which was said.

It’s not the case that all people need to be aware of and sensitive to every possible person’s misinterpretation of their message. The inverse is closer to true, and the only viable option.

How do you expect someone to know what they don’t know?

> you say something bad, you deserve bad back

But he didn't, he was falsely accused.

So maybe the people that accused him deserve something bad back too.

Yeah thats me, I don't care about 'intent' as much as 'outcome'

All the well meaning in the world doesn't mean shit if you're creating hostility or demeaning others (that is not commentary on RMS, just in general)

  "I don't care about 'intent' as much as 'outcome'"

Accidentaly killing someone with your car is very different to negligent driving which causes death which is also very different to intentionally killing someone with your car.

Clearly intent and context matters a lot.

These are all different things, but the end result is that someone has been hit with a car. If your goal is to avoid people being hit with cars and someone keeps accidentally hitting people with their car, then you probably want to considering whether that person should be allowed to drive.

The causes are of different classification and require different responses.

When a cause is systemic it maybe with some natural variance and within what realistically deem acceptable, depending on where we set the bounds. While others maybe special cases and require detailed study to understand.

Blindly setting outcome goals without understanding the system is folly.

Sure! The response to someone who is deliberately offensive and someone who habitually offends people by accident should be different, and I don't think anyone denies that. But that's not an argument for doing nothing in response to someone who habitually offends people by accident.

  "But that's not an argument for doing nothing in response to someone who habitually offends people by accident."

Well that really depends. Offense is sometimes a strategy employed by cynical actors to gain a political advantage.

If I say that your posts are constantly offending me, what do you propose we do about that?

There isn't a universally applicable rule here.

This is also where the driving analogy breaks down. It's an easy trade-off to revoke someone's license if it means we can prevent death. But taking action to prevent subjective offense enters into a much more tenuous and debatable cost-benefit trade-off. What makes sense would come down to the details of the case.

You might also want to consider whether the people that have habitual contact with that accident prone person, should in fact be allowed to have contact with that person.

They don't call them "on purposes". Intent and context do matter.

On the other hand, if a driver consistently has accidents and people end up dead, it could be that they are a bad driver and shouldn't be in a position to, you know, drive.

> Clearly intent and context matters a lot.

The parent comment was short, said "as much as", and yet people downvote it, misinterpret it.

Not so different to the deceased, though.

You're extending the analogy beyond its usefulness.

In the case of subjective offense, it should be and usually is different.

If you're called a racial slur by someone who just started learning English and genuinely doesn't know the true meaning of the word, you should take less offense to it than if you were called the slur by someone with obvious malicious intent.

Intent and context matters both in terms of how the "accused" should be viewed as well as how the "victim" should feel.

I have never in my life seen so much hostility generated by good intentions as we are seeing now during this woke revolution. I repeat - never! And I lived through collapses of two failed states.

There's nothing new about wokeness. It's just what American Protestantism looks like; Americans have always been this way.

Even used to be called the same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Awakes

Interesting, but woke beliefs are based on European deconstructionism and the goals and methods look more like post-marxist/maoist

Nothing "post" about it. Wokeism's forced public self-abasement via Twitter is the classic Communist struggle session put online.

They may have good intentions, but they lack respect for established norms, and spend little time thinking about the function and purpose of those norms. They kick over Chesterton's fence and assume it was there because Chesterton was some sort -ist: https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/

That is what revolutions are about, no?

Only some revolutions involve unfocused rage at existing norms, and they’re usually bad ones (like the French Revolution).

>> I have never in my life seen so much hostility generated by good intentions as we are seeing now during this woke revolution.

The "woke" don't actually have good intentions. There are several motivations, but good intent just seems to be an excuse for the hostility you mention.

The vast majority of people you would write off as ""woke"" do have good intentions. There's just a very loud minority just as there are in any political movement.

I actually can see where the person you are replying to is coming from. That loud minority can be viewed as leadership, and they seem to fall into three categories- grifters, bullies, and burn the world types

That's a strong statement about a whole lot of people.

Maybe you should limit that to "The 'woke' people I know."