Richard Stallman has resigned from the Free Software Foundation and MIT

Actually he was not defending Epstein (he called him rapist), but declaring his opinion against laws against consented paedophilia, which is somewhat much more controversial.

You seem to have information differing from mine.

I read that he found the "most plausible scenario" that the girls have been "entirely willing".

Read again. A cursory search didn't turn up RMS's actual post, but my understanding of the quoted line is a little different than what you make it to be.

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.

But even that lacks the context of the whole, without the original source, so take it with a grain of salt.


Personally, I really wonder though how people can hang Stallman for his words, while nobody so much raises an eyebrow at the way Epstein's case was handled by the legal system. Makes me think priorities aren't what they ought to be these days.

QED. This is a hallmark of cancel culture, there is no discussion, simply personal attacks, sometimes quite vicious ones. Some subjects cannot be discussed. Some opinions cannot be uttered. This is the new, more radical form of making something taboo. It has grave personal consequences.

You proved the opposite. You did "utter" what you wanted to. And there wasn't any personal consequence whatsoever.

The following is not targeted at you, because I cannot judge the usage of "cancel culture", but it is important in general:

https://xkcd.com/1357/

Yay another witch hunt!
Why do I always have to wonder if the hunters really feel themselves morally driven to burn people at the stake or if they just use this tool of public assassination to further their own immoral agendas?
There does not seem to be much evolution in that department from the earliest stages of recorded history. does there?

Anyway,
I would like to express some sincere gratitude to Dr. Stallman for the work he has done and wish him the best for the future.

Yay another witch hunt!
Why do I always have to wonder if the hunters really feel themselves morally driven to burn people at the stake or if they just use this tool of public assassination to further their own immoral agendas?
There does not seem to be much evolution in that department from the earliest stages of recorded history. does there?

Well, one obvious difference is that nobody has been actually set on fire and died.

I also wonder which "immoral agendas" you're talking about.

Yay another witch hunt!
Why do I always have to wonder if the hunters really feel themselves morally driven to burn people at the stake or if they just use this tool of public assassination to further their own immoral agendas?
There does not seem to be much evolution in that department from the earliest stages of recorded history. does there?

Well, one obvious difference is that nobody has been actually set on fire and died.

Of course he is exactly that.

Even if this is his own (very controversial) opinion, he can't write such a bullshit on official MIT mailing lists. Now imagine what Epstein's victims are thinking of that opinion...

Given the MIT's involvement with Epstein (taking blood money, give investment possibilities,...) I wouldn't have thought that I would ever do that but I think we can easily quote Trump: "Drain the swamp"

Being "canceled" means being too offensive to work with, associate with or even to be spoken positively about at the worst.

Are some things so offensive as to make it necessary to remove someone from the public sphere, sometimes permanently? (banning, firing, refusing to associate with, maybe even being fined or arrested depending on where you live, etc.)

I don't know where the boundary on offense should be because I can't predict the future, times change, laws and policies also change in a waxing and waning of liberal to conservative and back again (in a general sense, no political parties implied). If this kind of de-personing is going to be the default, we're isolating a lot of people. There's a dark path to be gone down when we start thinking people are permanently irredeemable, even if they sincerely apologize. Or even if they are accepted again, can we say they're sincerely accepted, or is there a permanent, invisible "scarlet letter" of sorts that will hang over their heads indefinitely?

It feels good to be a part of a group that's "better" than the "bad" one(s), it's a rush that's probably chemically addictive. That's why I can't see "cancel culture" stopping anytime soon, it just feels too good to be more "right" than the person or group being accused.

If there's no road to forgiveness, can any of us honestly say that we're above reproach when it comes to our words or actions? Whether or not we think what Stallman's done or said is acceptable doesn't matter, but what we do with people judged to be offensive does matter, because we'd want a chance at forgiveness if we were in Stallman's shoes.

EDIT: some clarification on the last sentence.


Last edited by namiko on 23 Sep 2019 at 3:55 pm UTC

https://xkcd.com/1357/

(to paraphrase Bob Dylan):

How many doors must someone go through
until they are let back inside?

boy do i have an opinion on this,this dude is sick...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kezsNA9t348&feature=youtu.be

Are you serious?
Couldn't watch any further, tbh.

"He is quilty of something. he is definitely guilty of something. You don't just resign from somewhere, there must have something going on."

It's because of this malign and twisted argumentation why innocent people sometimes get burned for the rest of their life.


Last edited by sub on 17 Sep 2019 at 11:45 am UTC

Yay another witch hunt!
Why do I always have to wonder if the hunters really feel themselves morally driven to burn people at the stake or if they just use this tool of public assassination to further their own immoral agendas?
There does not seem to be much evolution in that department from the earliest stages of recorded history. does there?

Well, one obvious difference is that nobody has been actually set on fire and died.

Of course he is exactly that.

Why are you writing obvious nonsense?

You are aware of the difference of life and death, right?


Last edited by Eike on 17 Sep 2019 at 11:51 am UTC

I am coming at this from a fairly isolated position as I do not dip my toes into social politics. All I know is that a figure which I respect has come under attack for what appear to be opinions and feelings.

So we have the head of a computer movement stepping down because... commentary on the latest headline case? Which also has nothing to do with computers.

Don't be surprised if in the next few days, articles are published detailing: John Smith, CEO/PR Rep/Analyst/whatever of Microsoft has graciously assumed the role of president of the FSF.

Maybe I am a nihilist for seeing a coordinated takedown in all of this but it's not like that kind of thing hasn't happened before.


Last edited by GustyGhost on 17 Sep 2019 at 11:53 am UTC

I personally don't like rms at all. He is very vocal with his political opinions and I disagree with many of them. Everybody else would have been fired years ago for what he said about necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, incest and pedophilia.
However I do think you should be able to voice your thoughts without losing your job. On the other hand he is a spokesperson and the fsf can choose who they want to be represented by.

I personally don't like rms at all. He is very vocal with his political opinions and I disagree with many of them. Everybody else would have been fired years ago for what he said about necrophilia

Seriously?!? :O

So all because of a smear article claiming that stallman said things he didn't actually say, now cancel culture has come after Stallman. I'm not a stlamman fanboy nor a fan of the free software ccult, but come on. He shouldn't be kicked off from his creation over a fucking smear article.

Actually he was not defending Epstein (he called him rapist), but declaring his opinion against laws against consented paedophilia, which is somewhat much more controversial.

You seem to have information differing from mine.

I read that he found the "most plausible scenario" that the girls have been "entirely willing".

Does anybody find it appropriate to do such talk about possible severe crimes without any knowledge of what actually has happened?

You fell into the misinformation trap laid by some SJW.

What RMS said :

We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.

What Selam Jie Gano concluded :

he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.

What Vice wrote :

Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked.

What the headlines are

Computer scientist Richard Stallman, who defended Jeffrey Epstein, resigns from MIT

This is absolute bullshit. RMS is very clear on the gullibility of Epstein in his emails (calls him a rapist). He barely defended the use of the appropriate wording when speaking about Minsky affair. Which is that from his (Minksy) POV, the girl was consenting, even if she was in fact coerced by Epstein.

Actually he was not defending Epstein (he called him rapist), but declaring his opinion against laws against consented paedophilia, which is somewhat much more controversial.

You seem to have information differing from mine.

I read that he found the "most plausible scenario" that the girls have been "entirely willing".

Does anybody find it appropriate to do such talk about possible severe crimes without any knowledge of what actually has happened?

You fell into the misinformation trap laid by some SJW.

What RMS said :

We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.

What Selam Jie Gano concluded :

he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.

What Vice wrote :

Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked.

What the headlines are

Computer scientist Richard Stallman, who defended Jeffrey Epstein, resigns from MIT

This is absolute bullshit. RMS is very clear on the gullibility of Epstein in his emails (calls him a rapist). He barely defended the use of the appropriate wording when speaking about Minsky affair. Which is that from his (Minksy) POV, the girl was consenting, even if she was in fact coerced by Epstein.

Thank you!

Btw, you should avoid the word SJW even if you have to force yourself. ;)

Headline:
Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing'

What Stallman actually wrote:

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.

Exactly this discrepancy has been bothering me since yesterday -- on THIS SPECIFIC POINT there does indeed seem to be a mischaracterization.

I am very thankful for Mr. Stallmans ideas about proprietary and free software! I think there is at least some truth in his "You cannot trust proprietary software". As a gamer and Steam user I'd say it differently obviously, but I do think it's a good idea to make sure to use as much free software in the base software of your computers as possible and to sandbox proprietary software whenever possible.
I find it incredible to see how much something Mr. Stallman saw in the 70s is applicable today on software from Google, Facebook, Microsoft...
So all I can say is: Thank you for your contribution to GNU/Linux Mr. Stallman!

PS)
What make me nervous is the AI systems of the near future. We will give more and more control over our lives to them. The underlying software they are build with, is in part open source, but the AIs reasoning is not. In fact it's not even closed source. It's self learned neural networks, and their parameters are controled by non public organizations. They can do and will do good things with AIs, but it's also possible these systems get abused (by someone we empowered to do so now or at some time in the future) to manipulate crowds, and they will be very effective doing that, because they know more about humans than we tend to do ourself..

Another victim of cancel culture...

Nobody who uses the phrase "cancel culture" with a straight face can be taken seriously. Off to the kids table with you.

QED. This is a hallmark of cancel culture, there is no discussion, simply personal attacks, sometimes quite vicious ones. Some subjects cannot be discussed. Some opinions cannot be uttered. This is the new, more radical form of making something taboo. It has grave personal consequences.

No, holding people accountable for their actions, and then having a horde of apologists hop on board by dismissing it as "cancel culture" as if this is somehow a valid argument.

It's just a simple case of "someone did a bad and got rapped on the knuckles". There's no greater conspiracy or oppression of free speech or whatever the heck else.

Seriously?!? :O

This is generally interesting to read.