I think that's a bit unfair to your fellow commenters. Especially as they (we) have remained mostly neutral in tone, while your comment relied on emotional language and name calling.
I really hoped we'd have a better discussion about this issue than the "other Internet spaces" have had.
I think that's a bit unfair to your fellow commenters. Especially as they (we) have remained mostly neutral in tone, while your comment relied on emotional language and name calling.
We all take different things from what we read online. I appreciate your view, but I found their comment mostly served to add fuel to the fire, and this thread became more heated as a result of that.
We all take different things from what we read online. I appreciate your view, but I found their comment mostly served to add fuel to the fire, and this thread became more heated as a result of that.
You're right, we should all sit back and dispassionately discuss whether or not calling "having sex with an underaged girl as part of a harem" is more or less inflammatory than calling it "sexual...
but I found their comment mostly served to add fuel to the fire, and this thread became more heated as a result of that.
You're right, we should all sit back and dispassionately discuss whether or not calling "having sex with an underaged girl as part of a harem" is more or less inflammatory than calling it "sexual assault". Clearly that's the issue at hand here, and not Stallman jumping into a thread he wasn't even remotely involved in to pull an "ackshually, based on a very narrow definition of sexual assault, I don't believe it was that extreme", in order to defend a dead pedophile.
We should also completely divorce the conversation from his long history of making arguments about legalizing child porn, as well as a buttload of other issues he's had in the past.
Thanks for being open to what was (hopefully) constructive criticism. I think your point shines through much more clearly in that comment, and certainly does add to the discussion.
Thanks for being open to what was (hopefully) constructive criticism. I think your point shines through much more clearly in that comment, and certainly does add to the discussion.
I sincerely wonder why that has to be true and how the event at hand (RMS' nitpick around Minsky's BS) relates to women in STEM. The wiki page on him doesn't include anything about misoginy, and a...
The "point of the article" being that Richard Stallman and his behavior, seniority, fame, and influence are a problem for the inclusion of women in STEM
I sincerely wonder why that has to be true and how the event at hand (RMS' nitpick around Minsky's BS) relates to women in STEM. The wiki page on him doesn't include anything about misoginy, and a search for "richard stallman misoginy" only returns this blog post and idiotic news stories it prompted. This page has a few negative things but nothing really serious apart from what has been noted here.
Please illuminate me as to why one of the most important persons in the history of computing and technology needs to be "taken behind the curtains" or removed, when there simply isn't a reason except possibly taking the wrong stance in a couple points in history. If I'm really missing something concrete that renders all this hate somehow just, I really want to learn that.
That's incorrect and I refuse that accusation. All I'm talking about is the post cited in the OP, I was unaware of the rest of the facts about him. As I said before, his interpretation is...
Inadvertently, you (and others in this thread, on lobste.rs, and on HN) are contributing to these systems as well by defending RMS in the way you have.
That's incorrect and I refuse that accusation. All I'm talking about is the post cited in the OP, I was unaware of the rest of the facts about him. As I said before, his interpretation is "possible but improbable".
The other thing I did was to ask for proof as to why Stallman should be removed, because I don't think this e-mail alone requires that. Almost an hour and a half before your comment I've finally found good evidence in @hungariantoast's comment, and declared that thereafter I changed my mind and now support him leaving the leadership positions he's in.
Extending all that, or the said e-mail itself into all this is irrational. Sorry, but your comment does not really reply mine. The Appendix A that hungariantoast linked does. The entire body of text that you wrote is devoid of any concrete fact that convince someone with scarce knowledge of the situation for the removal of rms, whereas a sum of the GeekFeminism wiki page plus the OP's Appendix A is good enough.
It is really sad that you can so blatantly accuse people here of something they never did, inadvertendly or not. Behaviour like yours, or @anowlcalledjosh's, or @FZeroRacer's, i.e. accusing fellow Tildes users of bad faith or participating in systems like you describe is unjustified and unfair. Especially given the majority of most prominent users here (nor I) are not part of the priviledged groups you mention.
The first few posts in this thread that you made consisted of Claims that the author was merely looking for something to be mad about and hoping that RMS would sue the people involved Calling out...
The first few posts in this thread that you made consisted of
Claims that the author was merely looking for something to be mad about and hoping that RMS would sue the people involved
Calling out Toast at the top level, claiming his comment was indicative of reddit-esque behavior and demanding instances of his behavior (both of which could've been found in the article or through a very, very brief cursory search)
I called you out for engaging in bad faith because from the beginning it seemed like you weren't actually willing to engage here and when people did engage you, you shrugged them off. And frequently when I see men accused of such behavior (with a history of said behavior!) I've seen arguments and demands for 'evidence' in a way that honestly becomes really fuckin' obnoxious. Especially when the article in question directly had evidence of what occurred.
And I'm sorry, but I don't think it's 'unjustified' or 'unfair'. It's an argument. If multiple people here are telling you something stinks, maybe it has something to do with the tone and the way you set the stage.
Thing is, I didn't know things, and people refused to tell me those when I asked what info I lacked. Basically, I looked at the OP, and that was the mere source of my information. I did not...
Thing is, I didn't know things, and people refused to tell me those when I asked what info I lacked. Basically, I looked at the OP, and that was the mere source of my information. I did not believe the other claims initially, and asked for sources. I did not know the rap sheet of rms, and I was saddened by the initial tone of hungariantoast (like calling someone a motherfucker, regardless of whom, and it's not like they've they haven't admitted they don't like that tone either). W.r.t. author's tone, well, I'm not really at a different position: it's unnecessarily inflammatory, enough to be off-putting, especially if you don't know the list of rms' bad conduct.
FWIW, I had read the entire article, and the info that made me change my mind wasn't in that, but in the Appendix A that was added after I read the entire thing.
This is my last comment in this thread, given I am no longer holding the initial perspective I did, and a discussion of good faith or bad faith or my comments in and of themselves (cc @vivaria) is off topic.
Please illuminate me as to why Stallman should have any right to insert himself in a discussion about a dead pedophile, or how his credentials in computing somehow make him untouchable when...
Please illuminate me as to why one of the most important persons in the history of computing and technology needs to be "taken behind the curtains" or removed, when there simply isn't a reason except possibly taking the wrong stance in a couple points in history.
Please illuminate me as to why Stallman should have any right to insert himself in a discussion about a dead pedophile, or how his credentials in computing somehow make him untouchable when considering his long history of wrong stances.
This comment is no different from the article, sorry. Please tell us the ignorant folks why he is an asshole, and what an asshole is in this context. With actual instances of him being so, please....
This comment is no different from the article, sorry. Please tell us the ignorant folks why he is an asshole, and what an asshole is in this context. With actual instances of him being so, please.
And please explain to me why some tone deafness or a mistake in interpreting some event should have a bearing on his status as a leader of Free Software movement, to which he gave all his life, to which he contributed with software that enabled today.
Fuck this purism. People are flawed. I don't see malice in his post. I don't get why a mistake in one field should have a bearing on a totally different part of your life.
And, while at it, please explain to us who this Minsky is and what he had actually done. Because I really don't know.
Thanks a lot! He didn't say that about the Minsky case. What you link is indeed tasteless, tho. It's hard to discern if it's about sex between adults and children or between adolescents of similar...
Thanks a lot!
"What if the child consents tho" isn't something you want your organization's president to say, most definitely not publicly.
He didn't say that about the Minsky case. What you link is indeed tasteless, tho. It's hard to discern if it's about sex between adults and children or between adolescents of similar age.
I'm not a fan of the "optics" argument. If a person is guilty of something, okay. But saying "remove RMS" just because what boils down to "I don't like him" is hugely disproportionate.
W.r.t. Minsky, well, he's deceased, so we'll probably won't know if he was aware that the girl was a minor or that she was coerced into what she did. IDK, but if I was to guess, I'd say he most probably was well aware of both, but RMS' interpretation is not impossible either (tho rather improbable).
The huge, glaring, big issue here is that the reaction is very disproportionate when you consider the action neutrally, but the reaction is not purely a reaction to what RMS said, but loaded with a particular hatred against the guy and a collection of hatred against certain stereotypes. If RMS is indeed propagating sexism and abuse of minors, they go ahead and depose him. But up until this point I'm yet to see where and when that's the case.
Or, you know, just a basic knowledge of his long history of harmful and downright terrible actions/behavior? https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
The huge, glaring, big issue here is that the reaction is very disproportionate when you consider the action neutrally, but the reaction is not purely a reaction to what RMS said, but loaded with a particular hatred against the guy and a collection of hatred against certain stereotypes.
Or, you know, just a basic knowledge of his long history of harmful and downright terrible actions/behavior?
Question: why do we have to find these things? Why are you incapable of Googling "richard stallman asshole", or going to the Wikipedia page for Marvin Minsky and looking under the heading "Child...
Question: why do we have to find these things? Why are you incapable of Googling "richard stallman asshole", or going to the Wikipedia page for Marvin Minsky and looking under the heading "Child sex trafficking and abuse allegations"?
Because I'm not the one making the accusations about and insulting RMS. I'm asking the commenter to substantiate their claims, that's not my responsibility. But if we can throw shit at someone...
Because I'm not the one making the accusations about and insulting RMS. I'm asking the commenter to substantiate their claims, that's not my responsibility.
But if we can throw shit at someone like RMS w/o substantiating it at all, both in the OP and in the top-level comment; if @hungariantoast's comment is really exemplary of Tildes, why are we here anyways, let's all go to Reddit.
This is verging on off-topic, and I don't want to accuse you of acting in bad faith, but I want to explain why I asked: your original comment sounds like sealioning. The OP substantiates their...
This is verging on off-topic, and I don't want to accuse you of acting in bad faith, but I want to explain why I asked: your original comment sounds like sealioning. The OP substantiates their claims with direct quotations from emails sent by RMS, and @hungariantoast's comment is essentially a shorter, more expletive-heavy rewording of the OP, and I don't understand what information they could provide that would further answer your questions.
Sure, accusations should be backed up by evidence, but equally, there's no necessity for that evidence to be bundled up into a nice, easy-to-digest parcel with accompanying explanatory notes and context. Requiring a bare minimum of effort on the part of the reader (for example: going to Marvin Minsky's Wikipedia page instead of asking an easily-answerable question) is not a problem.
I asked for evidence once, to a certain person. And what the OP cites does not substantiate their arguments, which is why I asked for further substantiation. It surely is, but I will not enter...
Sealioning (also spelled sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment which consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility.
I asked for evidence once, to a certain person. And what the OP cites does not substantiate their arguments, which is why I asked for further substantiation.
Requiring a bare minimum of effort on the part of the reader (for example: going to Marvin Minsky's Wikipedia page instead of asking an easily-answerable question) is not a problem.
It surely is, but I will not enter that debate here.
How so? The quotes fully encapsulates the issue here. And once it was substantiated, you continued to deny it. I'm beginning to think there isn't any level of evidence that could be provided to...
And what the OP cites does not substantiate their arguments,
How so? The quotes fully encapsulates the issue here. And once it was substantiated, you continued to deny it. I'm beginning to think there isn't any level of evidence that could be provided to you that would "substantiate the argument" from your perspective.
It surely is, but I will not enter that debate here.
It's literally included in the article above. Did you not even read that article?
I'm going to go the full distance here and accuse you of arguing in bad faith. Posters have more than substantiated their claims against Stallman and even a little bit of cursory searches can tell...
I'm going to go the full distance here and accuse you of arguing in bad faith.
Posters have more than substantiated their claims against Stallman and even a little bit of cursory searches can tell you that he has this pattern of behavior. As someone in the software industry I've heard my fair share about him.
Your post if anything reminds me of the Reddit-style of argumentation where you immediately sweep away all claims against Stallman while demanding evidence that'll never actually convince you. As another poster says, it seems a lot like sealioning. Especially when there's multiple types of evidence here, ranging from testimonials to actual chat logs and screenshots. In fact there's even been an update with even more details.
Personally, I have little patience for RMS nowadays. He's allowed extreme amounts of leniency on the basis of purely his name, because it's not like he actually does much at all nowadays. I'm not...
Personally, I have little patience for RMS nowadays. He's allowed extreme amounts of leniency on the basis of purely his name, because it's not like he actually does much at all nowadays.
I'm not a fan of that woman's approach either, and I actually agree with his followup classifying this as a "witch hunt", but it's not like he doesn't bring this shit upon himself.
I don't have much to contribute to the discussion, I've just been bewildered for a long time at why people worship this fucking guy. You can agree with his philosophy about free software without seeing him as a faultless god.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have sex with an underage girl who is thus not legally capable of giving consent, isn't that rape? Isn't calling it sexual assault a bit of an...understatement...
Minsky, having sex with a sex-trafficked, underage girl is sexual assault.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have sex with an underage girl who is thus not legally capable of giving consent, isn't that rape? Isn't calling it sexual assault a bit of an...understatement actually?
I think this is the heart of the problem - it's both an umbrella term, and (in some jurisdictions) a crime with a specific definition. If I steal something, the specific crime I get charged with...
My understanding is that sexual assault is a sort of 'umbrella term' that includes many things, rape being one of them.
I think this is the heart of the problem - it's both an umbrella term, and (in some jurisdictions) a crime with a specific definition.
If I steal something, the specific crime I get charged with might be robbery, burglary, larceny, embezzlement, and so on, each of which has a specific definition. And yet "stealing" or "theft" are umbrella terms that are accepted for describing all those specific crimes.
If there's a news story about me stealing a car, no one's going to play "actually, it's grand theft auto..." games.
The closest umbrella term we have that I'm aware of (and that doesn't overlap with any existing definitions of specific crimes) is sexual "misbehavior" or "impropriety". The problem with those is that they can easily be interpreted as diminishing the severity by lumping major crimes such as rape into "misbehavior".
Why does that make it a problem? It's still having sex with an underaged girl as part of a harem. No amount of "umbrella terms" can make that sound any better. The fact that Stallman jumped on the...
I think this is the heart of the problem - it's both an umbrella term, and (in some jurisdictions) a crime with a specific definition.
Why does that make it a problem? It's still having sex with an underaged girl as part of a harem. No amount of "umbrella terms" can make that sound any better. The fact that Stallman jumped on the "well I don't think it's really that bad, because ackshually" train kinda reveals his motivations here, especially when combined with his long list of defending and rationalizing pedophilia.
Yeah, fair enough. I just find it revealing that Stallman tried to argue that the true acts that occurred were somehow made more extreme by calling it "sexual assault" than by not calling it...
Yeah, fair enough. I just find it revealing that Stallman tried to argue that the true acts that occurred were somehow made more extreme by calling it "sexual assault" than by not calling it sexual assault.
Wait, I do not understand your sentence, but I feel that there's a quality point being made. So, this medium article is an example supporting the view that the world is lending itself to idiocy?...
Wait, I do not understand your sentence, but I feel that there's a quality point being made.
So, this medium article is an example supporting the view that the world is lending itself to idiocy?
Also see the /r/programming comments on same, and discussions in other subreddits. Hacker News comments are a bit more level-headed as usual. I think a lot of the reactions to this are strong...
I think a lot of the reactions to this are strong examples of the "guys who love logic" phenomenon posted and discussed here on Tildes about two weeks ago.
The current top comment on HN is the only one that seems to hold a decent, nuanced view. This is two people coming at this event from two completely different worlds. Stallman as an awkward...
The current top comment on HN is the only one that seems to hold a decent, nuanced view.
This is two people coming at this event from two completely different worlds. Stallman as an awkward pedant, focusing on the language and being extremely precise. The article author instead lives in - let's call it "the real world", had no idea who RMS was prior to this, and perceived his pedantry as endorsement.
I don't find myself taking either side here. I've never cared much for RMS, but as a person with pedantic-tendencies I think I can understand where he was coming from. His comments were dumb and tone deaf, but I don't read malice in them.
Like the HN commenter, I agree that it may be time for RMS to step back from the limelight, but not to be forced out.
I think Stallman is factually incorrect in his own pedantry. Sexual assault is an act in which a person intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or...
Either way, complaining that the name of a man credibly accused of raping a child is getting dragged through the mud is not a good look. It doesn't matter if Minsky beat the victim in the process, because nobody has actually suggested that.
I think he was trying to say that Epstein did the coercing and Minsky was unaware. It seems obvious (to me at least) that Minsky had to be aware or chose to ignore the element of coercion in his...
I think he was trying to say that Epstein did the coercing and Minsky was unaware. It seems obvious (to me at least) that Minsky had to be aware or chose to ignore the element of coercion in his acts, but Stallman was trying to raise the point of who committed the crime if one person does the coercing and one person does the sexual act.
True, but coercion in a conventional sense isn't required to fulfill the definition of the crime since we are talking about minors. When the incident occurred in 2001, Giuffre was 16 and Minsky...
True, but coercion in a conventional sense isn't required to fulfill the definition of the crime since we are talking about minors. When the incident occurred in 2001, Giuffre was 16 and Minsky was 73. I don't think anyone in their right mind is going to buy the claim that Minsky didn't know exactly what he was doing.
Stallman is splitting hairs to sympathize with a dead pedophile, and that leaves a sour taste in my mouth regardless of whether or not he is technically correct.
It's also leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth from everyone defending Stallman's "technically [in]correct" classification. It's not even remotely correct. It's blatantly defending a pedophile.
It's also leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth from everyone defending Stallman's "technically [in]correct" classification.
It's not even remotely correct. It's blatantly defending a pedophile.
Agreed, I just felt that in discussions online people either misread or mischaracterized what he was saying. What he was saying was shitty enough on its own, people didn’t need to change it to...
Agreed, I just felt that in discussions online people either misread or mischaracterized what he was saying. What he was saying was shitty enough on its own, people didn’t need to change it to something even shittier, that just leaves wiggle room for intolerant people to yell “he didn’t say that” and ignore what was actually said.
For those that didn’t see, he posted a follow up on his political notes section titled Statements About Epstein. In his own eccentric way, I believe he was trying to argue that word choices are...
For those that didn’t see, he posted a follow up on his political notes section titled Statements About Epstein.
In his own eccentric way, I believe he was trying to argue that word choices are important (is the word assault a requisite term in the definition of rape? should age play a factor in the definition of rape?) and that accusing someone who has already passed away of having committed a serious crime is perhaps unfair. But this is such a controversial topic that any insensitivity - perceived or real - is going to spark often-uncivil discussion.
I don’t think large groups can talk about topics like this civilly.
I commented on this then removed, because I was sure the discussion would be based on the heavily biased and misrepresentative interpretation of RMS' words by the author (luckily I was wrong)....
I commented on this then removed, because I was sure the discussion would be based on the heavily biased and misrepresentative interpretation of RMS' words by the author (luckily I was wrong). Apparently the author was in search of something to be mad at, and is dishonest enough to mention RMS among Epstein and Kalanick. If this is sincere, then it is sad that you can graduate from MIT when you lack basic reading skills.
Edit: also, the Vice article the post links to is even more malicious. I hope RMS sues these people.
I read RMS' email without reading the posted article. I think it would be fair to characterize his words as insensitive. He's splitting hairs over the definition of sexual assault, all to...
I read RMS' email without reading the posted article. I think it would be fair to characterize his words as insensitive. He's splitting hairs over the definition of sexual assault, all to sympathize with a dead pedophile. His own definition of the term contradicts that of Wikipedia, especially considering the fact that minors can't give consent to adults. Stallman's assertion relies on Minsky not being aware of the age of the victim, which seems unlikely but not technically impossible.
Obviously he didn't say anything to defend Epstein, and was merely commenting on the newly revealed allegations against Minsky in his own eccentric way. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Wasn't even on the email thread, not involved in the original conversation and is writing an article about it and trying to report this moral outrage to reporters? Definitely sounds like it. I'm...
trying to get the full email thread (I wasn’t on the mailing list). I even started emailing reporters — local and national, news sites, newspapers, radio stations.
Wasn't even on the email thread, not involved in the original conversation and is writing an article about it and trying to report this moral outrage to reporters?
Apparently the author was in search of something to be mad at
Okay. By any definition of sexual assault, this qualifies. By any definition of statutory rape, this qualifies. His claim that "technically" he believes that other words should be used does not in...
In his own eccentric way, I believe he was trying to argue that word choices are important
Okay. By any definition of sexual assault, this qualifies. By any definition of statutory rape, this qualifies. His claim that "technically" he believes that other words should be used does not in any way change the fact that the guy was accused of having sex with an underage girl as part of a harem.
How exactly is "sexual assault" any more extreme than "having sex with an underage girl in a harem"?
It’s not, and I tried to be careful about stating what I thought he did, versus what I felt about what he did. For someone who calls Trump “the scapegoater”, “the bully”, and many other names,...
It’s not, and I tried to be careful about stating what I thought he did, versus what I felt about what he did. For someone who calls Trump “the scapegoater”, “the bully”, and many other names, jumping into an argument over pedantic semantics seems one-sided at best in this case. He was arguing the technicalities of the accusations against someone he respects to lessen the magnitude of the allegations.
But Stallman has also in the past written about his thoughts on sex between an adult and a child (and stated he saw no harm if both parties consented), although he walked that back seemingly as a result of these discussions. It seems he is trying to protect his reputation.
Yes, and it's absolutely disgusting. Agreed. He's been a consistent shitbag. An innovate shitbag, but a shitbag nonetheless.
He was arguing the technicalities of the accusations against someone he respects to lessen the magnitude of the allegations.
Yes, and it's absolutely disgusting.
But Stallman has also in the past written about his thoughts on sex between an adult and a child (and stated he saw no harm if both parties consented), although he walked that back seemingly as a result of these discussions. It seems he is trying to protect his reputation.
Agreed. He's been a consistent shitbag. An innovate shitbag, but a shitbag nonetheless.
The Software Freedom Conservancy, an organization offering infrastructure and legal resources to several major FLOSS projects, just published a statement titled "Richard Stallman Does Not and...
Thanks for these links! Especially that Appendix A, when combined with some stuff in the GeekFeminism wiki page I linked in another comment, paints a very different picture of Stallman, and in...
Thanks for these links! Especially that Appendix A, when combined with some stuff in the GeekFeminism wiki page I linked in another comment, paints a very different picture of Stallman, and in that light it looks like he better step down. What with scarce knowledge seems to be a couple mistakes or idiosyncratic traits become evidence of a really problematic / abusive personality.
FWIW, I still don't agree the original article in the way that I stated before (rms is making a valid but unlikely point, i.e. something that's possible, but almost totally improbable, which is that Minsky ignored either or both the coercion the girl was victim of and her age).
It's sad when you discover this sort of realities behind people you look up to. Stallman has done immense good to the society, both to the tech community and to the entire world; he's kickstarted a great beautiful thing, the Free Software movement, the GNU GPL, the GNU programs. When you look at a person so good and virtuous in one way like this, you expect them to be similarly good and virtuous in other parts of their life. But well, I'm deluded.
Yep, sounds about right. A classic "I'm sorry you're so easily offended" type of apology. "A series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations" puts the entire blame for the situation on other...
I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations.
Yep, sounds about right. A classic "I'm sorry you're so easily offended" type of apology.
"A series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations" puts the entire blame for the situation on other people. RMS seems determined to not learn anything, admit he was wrong in any way, or change anything. The entire situation was caused by other people misunderstanding and mischaracterizing what he said (which of course, was nothing more than a statement of "facts and logic").
I think that's a bit unfair to your fellow commenters. Especially as they (we) have remained mostly neutral in tone, while your comment relied on emotional language and name calling.
We all take different things from what we read online. I appreciate your view, but I found their comment mostly served to add fuel to the fire, and this thread became more heated as a result of that.
You're right, we should all sit back and dispassionately discuss whether or not calling "having sex with an underaged girl as part of a harem" is more or less inflammatory than calling it "sexual assault". Clearly that's the issue at hand here, and not Stallman jumping into a thread he wasn't even remotely involved in to pull an "ackshually, based on a very narrow definition of sexual assault, I don't believe it was that extreme", in order to defend a dead pedophile.
We should also completely divorce the conversation from his long history of making arguments about legalizing child porn, as well as a buttload of other issues he's had in the past.
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
Thanks for being open to what was (hopefully) constructive criticism. I think your point shines through much more clearly in that comment, and certainly does add to the discussion.
I sincerely wonder why that has to be true and how the event at hand (RMS' nitpick around Minsky's BS) relates to women in STEM. The wiki page on him doesn't include anything about misoginy, and a search for "richard stallman misoginy" only returns this blog post and idiotic news stories it prompted. This page has a few negative things but nothing really serious apart from what has been noted here.
Please illuminate me as to why one of the most important persons in the history of computing and technology needs to be "taken behind the curtains" or removed, when there simply isn't a reason except possibly taking the wrong stance in a couple points in history. If I'm really missing something concrete that renders all this hate somehow just, I really want to learn that.
That's incorrect and I refuse that accusation. All I'm talking about is the post cited in the OP, I was unaware of the rest of the facts about him. As I said before, his interpretation is "possible but improbable".
The other thing I did was to ask for proof as to why Stallman should be removed, because I don't think this e-mail alone requires that. Almost an hour and a half before your comment I've finally found good evidence in @hungariantoast's comment, and declared that thereafter I changed my mind and now support him leaving the leadership positions he's in.
Extending all that, or the said e-mail itself into all this is irrational. Sorry, but your comment does not really reply mine. The Appendix A that hungariantoast linked does. The entire body of text that you wrote is devoid of any concrete fact that convince someone with scarce knowledge of the situation for the removal of rms, whereas a sum of the GeekFeminism wiki page plus the OP's Appendix A is good enough.
It is really sad that you can so blatantly accuse people here of something they never did, inadvertendly or not. Behaviour like yours, or @anowlcalledjosh's, or @FZeroRacer's, i.e. accusing fellow Tildes users of bad faith or participating in systems like you describe is unjustified and unfair. Especially given the majority of most prominent users here (nor I) are not part of the priviledged groups you mention.
The snark in your last sentence is sad.
The first few posts in this thread that you made consisted of
I called you out for engaging in bad faith because from the beginning it seemed like you weren't actually willing to engage here and when people did engage you, you shrugged them off. And frequently when I see men accused of such behavior (with a history of said behavior!) I've seen arguments and demands for 'evidence' in a way that honestly becomes really fuckin' obnoxious. Especially when the article in question directly had evidence of what occurred.
And I'm sorry, but I don't think it's 'unjustified' or 'unfair'. It's an argument. If multiple people here are telling you something stinks, maybe it has something to do with the tone and the way you set the stage.
Thing is, I didn't know things, and people refused to tell me those when I asked what info I lacked. Basically, I looked at the OP, and that was the mere source of my information. I did not believe the other claims initially, and asked for sources. I did not know the rap sheet of rms, and I was saddened by the initial tone of hungariantoast (like calling someone a motherfucker, regardless of whom, and it's not like
they'vethey haven't admitted they don't like that tone either). W.r.t. author's tone, well, I'm not really at a different position: it's unnecessarily inflammatory, enough to be off-putting, especially if you don't know the list of rms' bad conduct.FWIW, I had read the entire article, and the info that made me change my mind wasn't in that, but in the Appendix A that was added after I read the entire thing.
This is my last comment in this thread, given I am no longer holding the initial perspective I did, and a discussion of good faith or bad faith or my comments in and of themselves (cc @vivaria) is off topic.
Please illuminate me as to why Stallman should have any right to insert himself in a discussion about a dead pedophile, or how his credentials in computing somehow make him untouchable when considering his long history of wrong stances.
https://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-Stallman-Leadership-and-Sexism.htm
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
Please note his repeated postings of legalizing child pornography. This stuff doesn't exist in a vacuum.
This comment is no different from the article, sorry. Please tell us the ignorant folks why he is an asshole, and what an asshole is in this context. With actual instances of him being so, please.
And please explain to me why some tone deafness or a mistake in interpreting some event should have a bearing on his status as a leader of Free Software movement, to which he gave all his life, to which he contributed with software that enabled today.
Fuck this purism. People are flawed. I don't see malice in his post. I don't get why a mistake in one field should have a bearing on a totally different part of your life.
And, while at it, please explain to us who this Minsky is and what he had actually done. Because I really don't know.
Thanks a lot!
He didn't say that about the Minsky case. What you link is indeed tasteless, tho. It's hard to discern if it's about sex between adults and children or between adolescents of similar age.
I'm not a fan of the "optics" argument. If a person is guilty of something, okay. But saying "remove RMS" just because what boils down to "I don't like him" is hugely disproportionate.
W.r.t. Minsky, well, he's deceased, so we'll probably won't know if he was aware that the girl was a minor or that she was coerced into what she did. IDK, but if I was to guess, I'd say he most probably was well aware of both, but RMS' interpretation is not impossible either (tho rather improbable).
The huge, glaring, big issue here is that the reaction is very disproportionate when you consider the action neutrally, but the reaction is not purely a reaction to what RMS said, but loaded with a particular hatred against the guy and a collection of hatred against certain stereotypes. If RMS is indeed propagating sexism and abuse of minors, they go ahead and depose him. But up until this point I'm yet to see where and when that's the case.
Or, you know, just a basic knowledge of his long history of harmful and downright terrible actions/behavior?
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
Question: why do we have to find these things? Why are you incapable of Googling "richard stallman asshole", or going to the Wikipedia page for Marvin Minsky and looking under the heading "Child sex trafficking and abuse allegations"?
Because I'm not the one making the accusations about and insulting RMS. I'm asking the commenter to substantiate their claims, that's not my responsibility.
But if we can throw shit at someone like RMS w/o substantiating it at all, both in the OP and in the top-level comment; if @hungariantoast's comment is really exemplary of Tildes, why are we here anyways, let's all go to Reddit.
This is verging on off-topic, and I don't want to accuse you of acting in bad faith, but I want to explain why I asked: your original comment sounds like sealioning. The OP substantiates their claims with direct quotations from emails sent by RMS, and @hungariantoast's comment is essentially a shorter, more expletive-heavy rewording of the OP, and I don't understand what information they could provide that would further answer your questions.
Sure, accusations should be backed up by evidence, but equally, there's no necessity for that evidence to be bundled up into a nice, easy-to-digest parcel with accompanying explanatory notes and context. Requiring a bare minimum of effort on the part of the reader (for example: going to Marvin Minsky's Wikipedia page instead of asking an easily-answerable question) is not a problem.
I asked for evidence once, to a certain person. And what the OP cites does not substantiate their arguments, which is why I asked for further substantiation.
It surely is, but I will not enter that debate here.
How so? The quotes fully encapsulates the issue here. And once it was substantiated, you continued to deny it. I'm beginning to think there isn't any level of evidence that could be provided to you that would "substantiate the argument" from your perspective.
It's literally included in the article above. Did you not even read that article?
I'm going to go the full distance here and accuse you of arguing in bad faith.
Posters have more than substantiated their claims against Stallman and even a little bit of cursory searches can tell you that he has this pattern of behavior. As someone in the software industry I've heard my fair share about him.
Your post if anything reminds me of the Reddit-style of argumentation where you immediately sweep away all claims against Stallman while demanding evidence that'll never actually convince you. As another poster says, it seems a lot like sealioning. Especially when there's multiple types of evidence here, ranging from testimonials to actual chat logs and screenshots. In fact there's even been an update with even more details.
Well, I will refuse that and leave it at that.
It's a mix of JAQing off and sealioning, and the fact that this kind of nonsense has infiltrated Tildes is deeply depressing.
Personally, I have little patience for RMS nowadays. He's allowed extreme amounts of leniency on the basis of purely his name, because it's not like he actually does much at all nowadays.
I'm not a fan of that woman's approach either, and I actually agree with his followup classifying this as a "witch hunt", but it's not like he doesn't bring this shit upon himself.
I don't have much to contribute to the discussion, I've just been bewildered for a long time at why people worship this fucking guy. You can agree with his philosophy about free software without seeing him as a faultless god.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have sex with an underage girl who is thus not legally capable of giving consent, isn't that rape? Isn't calling it sexual assault a bit of an...understatement actually?
I think this is the heart of the problem - it's both an umbrella term, and (in some jurisdictions) a crime with a specific definition.
If I steal something, the specific crime I get charged with might be robbery, burglary, larceny, embezzlement, and so on, each of which has a specific definition. And yet "stealing" or "theft" are umbrella terms that are accepted for describing all those specific crimes.
If there's a news story about me stealing a car, no one's going to play "actually, it's grand theft auto..." games.
The closest umbrella term we have that I'm aware of (and that doesn't overlap with any existing definitions of specific crimes) is sexual "misbehavior" or "impropriety". The problem with those is that they can easily be interpreted as diminishing the severity by lumping major crimes such as rape into "misbehavior".
Why does that make it a problem? It's still having sex with an underaged girl as part of a harem. No amount of "umbrella terms" can make that sound any better. The fact that Stallman jumped on the "well I don't think it's really that bad, because ackshually" train kinda reveals his motivations here, especially when combined with his long list of defending and rationalizing pedophilia.
Yeah, fair enough. I just find it revealing that Stallman tried to argue that the true acts that occurred were somehow made more extreme by calling it "sexual assault" than by not calling it sexual assault.
If nothing else, this is at least an example of RMS' stiff approach to understanding the world lending itself to idiocy.
Wait, I do not understand your sentence, but I feel that there's a quality point being made.
So, this medium article is an example supporting the view that the world is lending itself to idiocy?
If so, I agree.
No, I'm saying that RMS is being an idiot.
Also see the /r/programming comments on same, and discussions in other subreddits. Hacker News comments are a bit more level-headed as usual.
I think a lot of the reactions to this are strong examples of the "guys who love logic" phenomenon posted and discussed here on Tildes about two weeks ago.
The current top comment on HN is the only one that seems to hold a decent, nuanced view.
This is two people coming at this event from two completely different worlds. Stallman as an awkward pedant, focusing on the language and being extremely precise. The article author instead lives in - let's call it "the real world", had no idea who RMS was prior to this, and perceived his pedantry as endorsement.
I don't find myself taking either side here. I've never cared much for RMS, but as a person with pedantic-tendencies I think I can understand where he was coming from. His comments were dumb and tone deaf, but I don't read malice in them.
Like the HN commenter, I agree that it may be time for RMS to step back from the limelight, but not to be forced out.
I think Stallman is factually incorrect in his own pedantry. Sexual assault is an act in which a person intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. Physical violence is not required to meet this definition, as he seems to suggest.
Either way, complaining that the name of a man credibly accused of raping a child is getting dragged through the mud is not a good look. It doesn't matter if Minsky beat the victim in the process, because nobody has actually suggested that.
I think he was trying to say that Epstein did the coercing and Minsky was unaware. It seems obvious (to me at least) that Minsky had to be aware or chose to ignore the element of coercion in his acts, but Stallman was trying to raise the point of who committed the crime if one person does the coercing and one person does the sexual act.
True, but coercion in a conventional sense isn't required to fulfill the definition of the crime since we are talking about minors. When the incident occurred in 2001, Giuffre was 16 and Minsky was 73. I don't think anyone in their right mind is going to buy the claim that Minsky didn't know exactly what he was doing.
Stallman is splitting hairs to sympathize with a dead pedophile, and that leaves a sour taste in my mouth regardless of whether or not he is technically correct.
It's also leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth from everyone defending Stallman's "technically [in]correct" classification.
It's not even remotely correct. It's blatantly defending a pedophile.
Irrelevant. The girl could not consent, therefore it was at the very least sexual assault. That's not "too extreme" of a classification.
Agreed, I just felt that in discussions online people either misread or mischaracterized what he was saying. What he was saying was shitty enough on its own, people didn’t need to change it to something even shittier, that just leaves wiggle room for intolerant people to yell “he didn’t say that” and ignore what was actually said.
What did you feel they were mischaracterizing? How were they making it worse than what it was?
For those that didn’t see, he posted a follow up on his political notes section titled Statements About Epstein.
In his own eccentric way, I believe he was trying to argue that word choices are important (is the word assault a requisite term in the definition of rape? should age play a factor in the definition of rape?) and that accusing someone who has already passed away of having committed a serious crime is perhaps unfair. But this is such a controversial topic that any insensitivity - perceived or real - is going to spark often-uncivil discussion.
I don’t think large groups can talk about topics like this civilly.
I commented on this then removed, because I was sure the discussion would be based on the heavily biased and misrepresentative interpretation of RMS' words by the author (luckily I was wrong). Apparently the author was in search of something to be mad at, and is dishonest enough to mention RMS among Epstein and Kalanick. If this is sincere, then it is sad that you can graduate from MIT when you lack basic reading skills.
Edit: also, the Vice article the post links to is even more malicious. I hope RMS sues these people.
I read RMS' email without reading the posted article. I think it would be fair to characterize his words as insensitive. He's splitting hairs over the definition of sexual assault, all to sympathize with a dead pedophile. His own definition of the term contradicts that of Wikipedia, especially considering the fact that minors can't give consent to adults. Stallman's assertion relies on Minsky not being aware of the age of the victim, which seems unlikely but not technically impossible.
Obviously he didn't say anything to defend Epstein, and was merely commenting on the newly revealed allegations against Minsky in his own eccentric way. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Wikipedia is not wrong?
He hasn't provided any definition that would make the classification incorrect.
Wasn't even on the email thread, not involved in the original conversation and is writing an article about it and trying to report this moral outrage to reporters?
Definitely sounds like it.
I'm reminded of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse
Oh my good lord is this an unfair representation of what's happening.
How so? I was agreeing with an opinion and pointing out a small portion of the OP's article?
Someone who heard about and saw portions of an injustice being performed is somehow in the wrong for wanting to report it to a broader audience?
Okay. By any definition of sexual assault, this qualifies. By any definition of statutory rape, this qualifies. His claim that "technically" he believes that other words should be used does not in any way change the fact that the guy was accused of having sex with an underage girl as part of a harem.
How exactly is "sexual assault" any more extreme than "having sex with an underage girl in a harem"?
It’s not, and I tried to be careful about stating what I thought he did, versus what I felt about what he did. For someone who calls Trump “the scapegoater”, “the bully”, and many other names, jumping into an argument over pedantic semantics seems one-sided at best in this case. He was arguing the technicalities of the accusations against someone he respects to lessen the magnitude of the allegations.
But Stallman has also in the past written about his thoughts on sex between an adult and a child (and stated he saw no harm if both parties consented), although he walked that back seemingly as a result of these discussions. It seems he is trying to protect his reputation.
Yes, and it's absolutely disgusting.
Agreed. He's been a consistent shitbag. An innovate shitbag, but a shitbag nonetheless.
The Software Freedom Conservancy, an organization offering infrastructure and legal resources to several major FLOSS projects, just published a statement titled "Richard Stallman Does Not and Cannot Speak for the Free Software Movement", calling for him to step down from positions of leadership.
Thanks for these links! Especially that Appendix A, when combined with some stuff in the GeekFeminism wiki page I linked in another comment, paints a very different picture of Stallman, and in that light it looks like he better step down. What with scarce knowledge seems to be a couple mistakes or idiosyncratic traits become evidence of a really problematic / abusive personality.
FWIW, I still don't agree the original article in the way that I stated before (rms is making a valid but unlikely point, i.e. something that's possible, but almost totally improbable, which is that Minsky ignored either or both the coercion the girl was victim of and her age).
It's sad when you discover this sort of realities behind people you look up to. Stallman has done immense good to the society, both to the tech community and to the entire world; he's kickstarted a great beautiful thing, the Free Software movement, the GNU GPL, the GNU programs. When you look at a person so good and virtuous in one way like this, you expect them to be similarly good and virtuous in other parts of their life. But well, I'm deluded.
Yep, sounds about right. A classic "I'm sorry you're so easily offended" type of apology.
"A series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations" puts the entire blame for the situation on other people. RMS seems determined to not learn anything, admit he was wrong in any way, or change anything. The entire situation was caused by other people misunderstanding and mischaracterizing what he said (which of course, was nothing more than a statement of "facts and logic").