EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

Re:EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation reg... by howinteresting on Monday May 15, 2023 @07:07PM (#35955753)

What is derisively referred to as "guilt by association" is generally a pretty good way to evaluate moral character.

Here's where "guilt by association" is bad:

1. You're a vegetarian.

2. Hitler is also a vegetarian.

3. Therefore, you're evil.

Here's where making inferences about moral character using personal associations is good:

1. Bill Gates started his relationship with Epstein, after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.

2. There is no reasonable way Gates couldn't know this about Epstein.

3. Therefore, Gates is in the wrong for having a relationship with Epstein.

There are many factors that go into evaluating such claims, such as whether it is reasonable to know the facts about the person you are associating with, and what sort of power dynamic exists between the two. For example, MIT Media Lab received a lot of funding from Epstein, and yet I don't think the students there need to be tarred by association. The professors, I'm more suspicious of. The leadership like Joi Ito are despicable, given that Epstein was convicted of "procuring a child for prostitution" in 2008!

Simply dismissing all of these claims as "guilt by association" means that you aren't evaluating their respective strengths independently.

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Re:EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation reg... by daneel_w on Thursday May 18, 2023 @06:25AM (#35986111)

I don't understand why you can't contain yourself from being condescending and patronizing by posing your own preferred reasoning against such an absurdly childish example. The same could be said about your reasoning: you haven't evaluated the different characters and traits of people like Gates and, say, Donald Trump or a certain member of the British royal family. These are very different people. Unlike yourself I just don't assume the most damning scenario to be the likeliest when it comes to Bill Gates.

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Re:EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation reg... by howinteresting on Friday May 19, 2023 @06:16PM (#36007406)

I presented a couple of clear-cut cases in the beginning (Gates/Epstein is as open-and-shut as Hitler/vegetarian imho) and elaborated at length about what I consider to be more borderline cases afterwards. I feel like I did a pretty good job communicating what I think. I'm sorry you felt it was condescending.

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