No "mob justice" happened here. No women came forward and said RMS "hit on them" or whatever. RMS faced criticism for comments which justified rape and were close to victim blaming, and willingly resigned from his position at the FSF because of it. A position I personally believe he could have kept had he decided not to resign (and the fact that he is able to return to it so soon after leaving suggests I am correct).
Edit: I think that several people are placing too much importance on the "willingly resigned" part of my comment downthread. If you believe that RMS was forced out and he had no choice in the matter (i.e. it was "resign or get fired"), then feel free to replace the words "willingly resigned" with "was fired" in my comment (and ignore the last sentence in that paragraph), the point being made still stands.
It's a shame that his words are being twisted once again after everything he went through.
MIT gets outed as having numerous researchers who took money from and traveled with a convicted pedophile sex abuser, sex trafficker, and likely financial criminal, and Stallman writes an e-mail that sounds very much as if he's obliquely defending Epstein.
I imagine someone at MIT's communications office having a heart attack. "Oh fuck shut this idiot up NOW!" someone probably shouted.
This wasn't #metoo. This was Stallman embarrassing MIT and numerous powerful people.
I feel sort of sorry for Stallman because it's clear that he's "on the spectrum" or at least is the sort of person who thinks ultra-logically and doesn't understand the irrational power machinations of politics. He felt like he was writing something logical, and he was, but he stepped in a gigantic bear trap that would have been obvious to anyone with any social understanding.
Pro tip: if your institution is enmeshed in scandal, keep your mouth shut unless you are coordinating with your communications department or whomever is in charge of such things. If you do check, 99% of the time they will tell you to keep your mouth shut. If you do open your mouth, even with good intentions, polish up your CV first.
It amuses me that this entire 500+ post thread is about "cancel culture" when that's not what happened at all in this case.
Complete misinterpretation of what RMS has written about. He defended Minsky, not Epstein.
Hell CEOs can be fired for such things... unless they have Elon Musk or Steve Jobs levels of reality distortion fields and cult followings.
It's amazing what defenders of the Critical Theory / Twitter driven cancel culture will defend. Really, victim blaming an autistic person for not having social skills, literally one of the things affected most by their disorder? This is a new low to sink to for you lot.
What's next, you gonna blame an amputee for not running out of the way of a moving truck?
I don't think willingly is the best way to put it. It was more along the lines that he was told there would be consequences and he could avoid them if he resigned.
However, even if I'm wrong, and he really was forced to resign, I don't think it detracts that much from my point that GP is arguing against strawmen like "fired for hitting on a women and being rejected" that are completely unrelated to RMS's case.
He could say "I previous thought the word sexual assault meant the word assault added a qualifier that required the application of force or violence, but I now know that the word assault in this case mean a legal definition that also includes negligent to seek consent and absent of intent to cause harm.". Would that change the media perception?
(only thing would be, that his "voluntary resign" was obviously done with a lot of pressure)
you are going to need to cite that. the only accusations of 'sexual harassment' i have seen are asking women at conferences on dates.
And if it is harassment, I'd probably say it's sexual harassment since it relates to unwanted seeking of romantic or sexual relationships in a professional environment.
And why women feel uncomfortable around such a men? And why it therefore might be a bad idea to have such a person in a leadership position?
I have not seen the sign in person, but been told by people that it was indeed there.
It's in the last paragraph.
And I lack the sources, but I recall people saying that the sign was there for quite a while, even if he did not wrote that by himself. And I actually would like a quote from him, to confirm that he did not write it. All that is in that source is someone saying it was not put up by him.
If it was really put up by someone else, it would be the question if it was a joke. Making fun of RMS well known attitude - and he left it as in agreeing, at least for a while - or if it was ammo for a smear campaign. Then it would make sense to investigate that and put it right.
But I actually suspect the former.
As a result, the new forms of dating are that in order to move forward your risk for "making a move" (be it small or large) is not only rejection but also, apparently, potentially career ending for many (especially public figures).
I'm glad I'm happily settled and far removed from the dating scene. Perhaps my principles are too crass for many but I feel in today's romantic relationships, you almost need to have an attorney with you on a date and notary that can sign off that both parties are going to consent to physical contact before making physical contact or much beyond verbally flirting in the most uninteresting ways leaving both parties wondering if the other is at all interested in them romantically.
I'm not condoning rape or flat out sexual assault, there is certainly a line that should never be crossed, but I think we've been moving that line too far for reasonably acceptable human behavior. Heaven forbid you take the chance of misreading the situation and attempt to kiss someone before also having that notarized by your attorney present.
I can't believe anyone seriously thinks this.
It's bad if you're in a position of power and you hit on someone under your influence - doesn't matter if they would reciprocate or not.
We maybe did. But we are also far from the dystopian scenario you described. I can tell you, in the real world dating still just works fine.
But yes, some behaviours like slapping on some ass, are more frowned upon and called out. Rightfully so.
The times where a woman had to marry her rapist, (this is actually from the bible) are gladly mostly over. But those times were the reason, now it got pushed back too much.
Because there is some unresolved anger left. And being aware of it - can help understand some rections better.
Like the original blog post that started all this. Which many here waved away as a sneaky smear campaign to create attention. Well no, it was a very emotional, honest expressed post. Maybe not really fair in all points, because - emotions. But authentic.
When you are a leader in an idealistic movement and you are incapable of sensing other peoples feelings - before you wave accusations of rape just away - then you are just wrong in that position.
Statistically, you are 3x as likely to meet your future spouse in the workplace than a bar/club.[1]
Let's take a look at the stereotypical man in STEM:
* Looks: Below 80 %ile --> Failure at Tinder[2]
* Socially: Below average --> No romantically successful friends groups to set them up
* Early life: Never cool in school / male dominant peer group --> Still single by the time they graduate
This massively raises the stakes of a workplace romantic encounter, because every other avenue has already been shut in their face.
At this point, "it's only harassment if you are undesirable" is a well known anecdote. So, uncharismatic + unattractive men are basically doomed. The alternative is to fully acknowledge the brutally objectifying nature of it all, objectify yourself and go for obnoxious outward displays of desirability. Ie. "look expensive" and target demographics that value your ability to be gainfully employed and accumulate moderate wealth.
The harder alternative is to hit the gym, learn social skills and actually learn how to be charismatic. This is way harder, especially when society actively ostracizes you. Like trying to make a fish climb a tree.
[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/110/25/10135
[2] https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-g...
And can you maybe see, how this makes women uncomfortable? And wanting to avoid such a person? And all together .. avoiding the whole group he has a leadership position?
Oh right. I probably confused parent posters words for .. I don't know. Isn't he or she (less likely) exactly saying this? That RMS was targeted because he is white and male and not because of what he did and said? How is that not thinking along the lines of conspiracy? Exaggerated, yes. But strawman? Where exactly?
When the Stallman thing was still fresh, I saw people online argue that it _didn't really matter_ whether Minsky actually did anything wrong, or whether it was inappropriate for Stallman to defend him. There are too many old white guys in prominent positions in tech, and reducing their numbers is a good thing. Sure it'll mess up Stallman's life, but whatever, that's a small price to pay for progress. In other words, explicitly: it's okay to target him, even if the accusations aren't correct, because he's an old white guy.
I think that's something people really believe. I also think it's unfair, and shouldn't be tolerated. And yet...I don't believe anything _close_ to the argument you put in OP's mouth (and by extension, mine). No, white guys aren't even close to the most persecuted people on the planet--and yet, that doesn't make them immune from persecution in all forms, either.
So: you attempted to rebut an argument by reducing it to a ridiculous caricature of itself. That's called a strawman.
But they usually don't have much power or influence.
Implying that he was targeted because he was white and male, implies that those crazy people have a lot of power and influence - which means conspiracy. Now sure, conspiracies can be true, but you maybe know how they say, extra ordinary claims, require extra ordinary evidence.
1: https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman...
2: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/09/17/richa...
3: https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/16/computer-scientist-richard...
4: https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbm74x/computer-scientist-ri...
5: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/09/17/computer...
6: https://www.cnet.com/news/computer-scientist-richard-stallma...
"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X... The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing... We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates…"
If pontificating as to the actual perpetrator of a crime is somehow being complicit in that crime, then I think we may need to overhaul our system of policing and justice for yet another reason.
The concept of statutory rape recognises the difference between informed and uninformed consent. Children can be coerced or persuaded to consent to things they don't understand, and that are not in their best interests; that's why such laws exist.
In the public mind (even if not in reality) when someone "resigns" because of "past comments", they have either been given an ultimatum - "Jump or be pushed" - or they are experiencing intrusions into their personal life (or there is behaviour from the community that makes this person believe these intrusions are imminent)
My understanding at the time was that it was the former - there were murmurings of possible action against him, and whether it was to avoid harm to the FSF or risk the public damage to his reputation I have no idea, but he decided to gracefully step aside.
So yes, officially you may be correct - but especially with someone like RMS, it is highly unlikely that he just chose to resign because he previously made comments that people didn't like. RMS is very used to making controversial statements and weathering the storm, I find it unlikely (though not impossible) that this was just one storm he couldn't weather - and much more likely that he chose the path of least damage, to himself or his cause or his legacy.
For example ministers of most gov "resign" when they are told to do so, and yes they do resign, even when this is not from their own initiative, and even if they absolutely would not have done it if not told to. For other structures, you can have various kind of pressure playing a role.
We will probably never know the exact degree of pressure and the comprehensive list of who did it, the alliances, maybe the threats etc, and technically it absolutely was a resignation, but given RMS further actions in the GNU Project (that is: not resigning despite additional attempts to leverage his departure from the FSF to make him do likewise here too), I can only say I have my doubt on the total amount of practical freedom he had concerning the FSF part; and it is now probably not just him phoning back and saying: "oh by the way I changed my mind I want to come back", but more likely other "political" and/or alliances changes at the top letting that be even possible.
Voluntary suicides are in your pipeline as well, no? Dictatorship sure doesn’t innovate.
If you are a superior to the person in question, I don't agree that it's normal behavior. In that case you put that person in a very tough position. Same for teacher/student.
That's also why a lot of companies have a policy against that. Notice how I didn't specify the genders, since it doesn't really matter.
I consider prisoners and children/mentally unfit taboo. The rest is human and not per se bad or to be forbidden. Obviously some setups carry more risk.
But I still see a problem with making a move onto a subordinate, which can put that person in a very awkward position. Same way as you don't hit on your friend's partner. Some people are just off limits. If they want something, it's up to them to make the first move.
Richard Stallman attempt to defend Marvin Minsky's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein was offensive. CNet[1] has a recap of the email thread (I believe Motherboard first reported it[2]) if you are interested in the details. The part highlighted by CNet was this:
>Stallman's resignation comes just days after Motherboard published an email thread in which Stallman suggests that "most plausible scenario" is that one of Epstein's underage victims "presented herself to [former colleague Marvin Minsky] as entirely willing."
>When someone else on the thread points out that Virginia Giuffre was 17 when she was forced to have sex with Minsky, a pioneer in artificial intelligence and founder of the Media Lab, Stallman argued that "it is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17."
In my opinion, this is very different from someone claiming that Stallman "made them feel uncomfortable".
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
[1]: https://www.cnet.com/news/computer-scientist-richard-stallma...
[2]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scient...
That is to say, if a 16yo had sex with an adult in Niagara Falls, ON where the age of consent is 16, then no moral crime had been committed, but if the two crossed over to New York where the law states 17, then the elder of the two is a rapist in your eyes? I believe that's the point Stallman was trying to make, and I'm curious to hear if you dsiagree.
It seems like you're offended by his opinions to the point that you think he should be removed from his career - which also has nothing to do with the subject of the comments he made.
I'm also glad you posted his specific comments so that people can see what all this drama is about - instead of the vague name-calling.
On the surface, his two comments seem at least rational - even if I don't agree with them. Is it "moral" to define the same act as "rape" depending upon which country it occurs? That's a pretty reasonable question. Is it plausible than the victim in the case above "presented herself" as willing? I don't know - that's plausible I suppose, isn't it?
What's so heinous about these comments that you think he should have his career destroyed?
2) At least two eyewitnesses, including Minsky's widow, claimed that Minsky turned down Epstein's girl. He only took money from Epstein back before it was widely known that Epstein was a perv. At what point do we say "let's not drag Minsky's name any further through the mud"? Should we disbelieve these accounts because #BelieveAllWomen? Should we assume that Minsky did in fact have sex with Epstein's girl because of a "context" in which Minsky's friends and associates are known, or thought, or assumed, to have done likewise? Should we adopt a Wikipedia-like standard of evidence wherein the abridged, quoted out of context, sometimes heavily distorted press accounts are considered more authoritative than reports from people who were there?
https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...
And we say that's "decades of poor behavior"!
80% of the population says random stuff that is a 100x worse at parties.
It this article is not an impersonation, it is pretty sad that such self-righteous and intransigent statements come from a Gregorian friar:
The only reason their brain lobes are still attached together is because they know that they're being deceptive and it's part of an agenda.
It's not possible for a rational, cohesive mind to believe that a person who dedicated his whole life to free software is a bad person just because he once said something without thinking through it.
It's not possible for a rational, cohesive mind to
believe that a person who dedicated his whole life
to free software is a bad person just because he once
said something without thinking through it.
1. Few if any are claiming RMS is "a bad person" in totality. While I realize the internet is no place for nuance, please understand the question is about whether somebody who's said these things is fit to lead or represent an institution. You can disagree or disagree with that. But please understand that is the question, not "is Richard Stallman a bad person." I certainly don't think he is.
2. "once said something without thinking through it" -- unfortunately this displays a spectacular misunderstanding. These are multiple things said over multiple years on mailing lists, his site, and so forth. Additionally, RMS's communiques are... well, they are not off-the-cuff. I've read reams of his statements over the years. They are the writings of somebody speaking very very deliberately about things he has reasoned through in very deliberate ways according to his beliefs.
I used the word 'believe' for a reason, it's people's beliefs who drove him out in the first place. Besides, the term 'stawman argument' makes no sense when discussing ethics or human behavior. This is not math or engineering. These kinds of statements are necessarily axiomatic; either you understand it or you don't. Either it neatly fits into your logical understanding of the world or it doesn't.
I wouldn't write off someone who has done such great things for so many decades when I know for a fact that most people in positions of power today are hypocritical monsters (only difference is that they have good PR teams to manage their public images); you need to put it in perspective.
Just because one system is broken, doesn't mean that we have to replace it with another broken one.
In a deposition, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims said Epstein he instructed her to have sex with with the late Marvin Minsky of MIT.
RMS jumped to Minsky's defence, nitpicking about whether whether this could really be “sexual assault,” since the young woman, he reasoned, would have seemed to be presenting herself to Minsky willingly.
Whether or not, you think Stallman deserved the level of aprobium that hit him, it's nothing to do with accusations against RMS himself that he made anyone feel uncomfortable. Or "he once hit on me and I had to reject him"
And then you have the temerity to include, in this masterpiece of misdirection, the question: "Why are women always presumed to be innocent and men always presumed to be guilty?".
Anyway, I'm glad we have strong, independent voices in the world, and that not everyone has been brainwashed by sensitivity training.
I challenge this assertion. I think mob justice would still exist even if we had omniscient judges who could administer perfect justice in every scenario.
Mob justice is intoxicating. Mob justice is exhilarating. Mob justice can make you feel "a part of something" or "making history". Cancel culture extends far beyond sexual harassment. Mob justice is not about justice for most of the people in the mob. It's about wielding power over your peers. It's about squashing your ideological opponents from a position of faux righteousness.
https://mobile.twitter.com/starsandrobots/status/99426727746...
>I remember being walked around campus by an upperclassman getting advice during my freshman year at MIT. "Look at all the plants in her office," referring to a professor. "All the women CSAIL professors keep massive amounts of foliage" s/he said. "Stallman really hates plants."
Star is correct: RMS really hates plants, and is afraid of trees.
Among other examples:
“When I was a teen freshman, I went to a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Central Square with a graduate student friend and others from the AI lab. I don’t know if he and I were the last two left, but at a table with only the two of us, Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him. I felt bad for him and also uncomfortable and manipulated. I did not like being put in that position — suddenly responsible for an “important” man. What had I done to get into this situation? I decided I could not be responsible for his living or dying, and would have to accept him killing himself. I declined further contact. He was not a man of his word or he’d be long dead.” —Betsy S., Bachelor’s in Management Science, ’85
His social cluelessness is legendary--no one really disputes it. Why it wouldn't be true toward women as well, I have no idea.
I'm sure you will find a way to dismiss this, but there are plenty of stories out there if you look.
"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X... The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing... We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates…"
Not politically clever to say, but hardly an endorsement of sexual assault.
[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2551458/asperger-s-oxy...
So did Stallman.
> Stallman said he isn't autistic
His justification is basically that has no trouble with rhythms so he self-diagnosed himself as not having asperger's.
I would suggest reading this subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535390 and more specifically this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26538554
They don't see it that way.
> His justification is basically that has no trouble with rhythms so he self-diagnosed himself as not having asperger's.
Stallman said he didn't have most of the characteristics of Asperger's. Rhythm was just an example.
> I would suggest reading this subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535390 and more specifically this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26538554
BAP doesn't change the issue of unqualified people diagnosing someone they don't know. Or using it as an excuse.
They're guilty of association not of doing anything wrong. It doesn't concern me that Stallman said stupid/insensitive things. He has a history of that.
I have no idea how you went from OP's message to this. Can you explain?
Does anything intellectually honest ever come after this start of phrase?
> We went from "he grabbed me by the pussy" and "he jerked off in front of me" to .... "he once hit on me and I had to reject him".
we went from <obviously bad thing> and <2nd obviously bad thing> to <normal thing, irrelevant to rms>. Why even add the 2nd one? Only way it would make sense if it's a slippery slope: we went from <obviously bad thing> and <less bad thing> to <normal thing>
I hate having to write this. But this is one of the biggest examples of fakenews out there that “our side” is ok with because we want to be lied to.
As awful as he was, not a single woman ever actually accused Trump of this. His statements were off record to in discussion about how women react when you are famous.
We didn’t even go from “he grabbed me by the pussy”. We went from the actual quote ”and when you a star, they let you do it, you can do anything... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”. [0]
If we’re going to call out fake things and being intellectually honest about accusations and “canceling”, let’s start close to home first.
Also, frankly, there is a point at which, certain behaviour might make you feel uncomfortable, but that does not mean it is grounds for firing that person. At some point you have to just fend for yourself and tell the person to fuck off. We cannot just fire anyone who has some harmless quirk that you don't appreciate. I myself have to work with loads of people with nasty behaviours, but I don't presume to demand they all get fired just because of that.
I mean, this has gotten ridiculous. We went from "he grabbed me by the pussy" and "he jerked off in front of me" to .... "he once hit on me and I had to reject him". The latter is perfectly normal behavior unless you propose we criminalize being a man.