Cancel We The Web? (2020)

That's very succinctly summed up something I often struggle to articulate.

Deep insight. Seriously. Happening across society.

Would you agree then that participating in the 'anti-anti' mobs is also a possible form of feigned 'empathy'?

Haha, wow. I totally forgot I wrote that one.

When I wrote that I was unaware of some of the Sort Of Creepy stuff. I recognize that some of the allegedly creepy stuff is sorta misquoted. I think that matters. But I don't think it changes my overall conclusions, which is that RMS was acting in a way that he could reasonably predict would hurt or distress people, and he didn't think it was important to change this.

But I also note that, completely unaware of any of the allegations now being discussed, I thought he was bad for the development of free and open source software because he was bad at treating people in ways conducive to positive outcomes, and I knew many people who worked on free or open source software, or worked with the FSF or on FSF projects, who also felt that way. I believe quite a few of them had told him of these concerns.

I wrote about the specific more-recent RMS stuff last year: https://www.seebs.net/log/post/2019/09/21/rms-minsky-and-the...

Thomas Bushnell wrote about this, too, and honestly his post was much better: https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...

It is perhaps worth noting that, maybe thirty years ago, I had some run-ins with Thomas Bushnell, and I thought he was sort of a jerk at the time, but when I called him out on an example of that, he acknowledged it and apologized and said he'd try to do better. Nothing external to RMS was preventing RMS from doing that if people said his behavior hurt or distressed them.

The idea that we couldn't try to do better because we were being threatened by Microsoft is honestly sort of condescending and insulting in and of itself.

Is seebs someone that's particularly famous? The parent comment seems to imply they were part of the "Stallman, Linus, ESR, et. al."

And their profile just says "that seebs".

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

--George Bernard Shaw

https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...

>I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.”

>Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him.

There's also his office door at one point: https://miro.medium.com/max/1050/1*lDSkAjF1958TpEafxuJsLg.jp... (source: https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...)

Even before his indefensible statements about Epstein, RMS was toxic and there's no denying it.

There is a big difference between what's reasonable and acceptable in random people and what's reasonable and acceptable in people who are established or establishing themselves as Community Leaders. We expect leaders to model good behavior and take additional steps to avoid modeling harmful behaviors, because other people will emulate them.

He's been accused of things that are at the very least Somewhat Creepy. "Abusive" is a pretty high standard to reach, but I also think it's irrelevant. The way he treated people, coming from a person with power or authority, was likely to make people feel unsafe, and he was unwilling to recognize that the desire to have that position of social authority implied an obligation to mitigate such behaviors.

I think the community would be richer and better (and probably noticably more diverse in a number of ways) if either he'd changed his behavior and recognized the importance of these effects, or he'd been considered a non-leader of the community and merely an active contributor with strong opinions.

It's easy for people not familiar with these dynamics to massively underweight how much implied social pressure comes with being hit on by a person in a position of power within an organization. My usual assumption for someone with as much implied social authority as he had at MIT would be that it would basically be generally inappropriate for them to be hitting on anyone who wanted to be in or work in the lab or department they were affiliated with, because even if this specific person genuinely wouldn't abuse their power, many other people in comparable situations would and it's not really reasonable to expect people not to react to the possibility when it's such a widespread problem. (And yeah, that can sorta suck if you're lonely but in a position that makes it hard for you to hit on people without making them uncomfortable or afraid. One alternative is not to pursue or remain in such a position if it's a problem for you.)

How is there any controversy to judging people for what they believe? This seems so normal! At every level of society we judge people for what they think, for their sort of moral philosophy. That's morality on some level (or some sort of meta-morality).

Though I think the added point here is that people who believe something _and_ have some power over other people can effectively apply these beliefs. If I say "I don't think that hiring women is a good idea cuz they might go on maternity leave" and I'm also the managing director of some non-profit, well... I feel like suspicion about my capabilities in that role are judstified!

> So expressing sincerely held beliefs in a personal forum like his own website is in and of itself "toxic"?

That's a loaded question... it looks like you're making some wild assumptions about whether I think Stallman is toxic, and the reasoning for that.

> Many of RMS's beliefs are indeed well outside the mainstream, but as far as I'm aware nobody has ever accused him actually doing anything abusive to anybody.

So, I'll share a couple articles.

https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...

> RMS’s loss of MIT privileges and leadership of the FSF are the appropriate responses to a pattern of decades of poor behavior.

Speaking of the FSF / GNU project leadership itself... I think it's clear that the GNU project needs a code of conduct, and if the leader is opposed to the idea as much as Stallman is, then it's correct to replace him. He has a vision for software freedom, but he's to averse to good community management (which is what the GNU project needs).

Strongly disagree. While people do misuse the word, it has meaning and can be figured out from context.

In my experience, people who have technical discussions are often blind to their own emotions and the effect that their words have on the people around them. In good this can be solved. In bad cases, people talk about "discussing technical issues" and "directness" as a shield for their poor behavior.

An example from real life: A student, Y, was having a problem with her CS lab assignment, and talked to her professor, Prof. Z. She described what she had done and he said, "Well, that was stupid." In his mind this was just something that you say about bad code you've written. However, he was a professor, and he was saying this about a student's code, and he didn't think of the incredible negative impact that his statement made on his student.

In real life, this interaction took the "good path". They had a conversation, he apologized, and he changed how he spoke to students.

The "bad path" (which didn't happen) is where he justified/defended what he said or minimized/ignored the student's feeling.

Everyone comes to these decision points over and over again in their lives. It's inevitable. We all hurt other people. If we always defend our actions as being in the interest of "technical discussions" or state other reasons why our behavior is correct, is it likely that we are simply good people who never say bad things? Or is it likely that we are ignoring/justifying our poor behavior, and failing to learn and grow?

I know there was a concerted FUD effort and much dirty playing, including all the stuff you are pointing out. What I specifically didn't see is usage of mental illness as a weapon against OSS.

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>often part of dirty movie titles.

As always, one wonders how she knows this.

No, she called porn dirty. Movies about human sexuality that aren't porn exist, but aren't likely to have DDD in their titles.

(Not that I am endorsing anything she says.)

Fuck me, does she know about automatated teller machines?

It's also amazingly stupid because a lot of Benjamin Mako Hill's work is in maintaining communities. He used to post about them: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/

And how laughable, given wikipedia's heavy progressive bias. These people seek out and peddle victimhood as currency. Truly McArthy-esque, to see villains (in our times "oppressors") behind every shadow...

Even manufactured self righteousness must be addictive.

Nope, she is the character that needs to be ignored. That's the proper way to deal with trolls - not feeding them, not fighting them but starving them of attention they so desperately crave.

I just took a look at her recent Tweets and TBH she doesn't seem much different from Stallman. Confrontational and set in her ways -- her mission just appears to be different from Stallman's mission and they crossed paths in an unfortunate manner. Both have great missions, and she shouldn't be "cancelled" either. (Stupid word, surely there had to be a better one)

Well, as a private matter I am certainly going to ignore their claims that my identity somehow automatically makes my opinions invalid. The sad truth, however, is that they have much more clout currently in many of our society's institutions - like the academia, the education, the press, the administrative state - that people, who, like myself and many other, smarter and more prominent people in the past, thought that identity is not what defines right or wrong. Now, in many cases, it does, at least when the political and institutional power is concerned.

> Why should I take her seriously?

You and I may not. But people who distribute grants, academic positions, book deals, who compose curricula and who make political decisions - would. That's the problem. And until the cultural norm is forged to make this not happen, the problem will continue.

*Alleged past transgressions.

He wasn't punished, he was fired.

You're allowed to revoke consent to an interaction or business relationship at any time. It's not a punishment to anyone else to say "this situation (employing rms) isn't for me and I don't want to be in it any longer".

Firing isn't punitive.

This argument doesn't seem applicable to Stallman, since his problematic arguments had nothing to do with his work, and since many people were willing to collaborate with him. The argument against him seemed to be that it's wrong, "exclusionary", to have a community figure who anyone finds too offensive to collaborate with, even if the community members are largely okay with him.

The point Nadine is making is that society and liberals, in particular, have become hypocritical and extreme in their willingness to "unperson" anyone with an unacceptable viewpoint. Even as they make the argument that criminals should be re-integrated into society over time, they simultaneously will dredge up old tweets or decades old comments and use them to get someone fired from a job. Even in the case of contemporary statements, modern liberals have become almost puritanical or inquisitional in their approach to root out people with unacceptable viewpoints and to shame them until they're forced off a platform, a job, an organization, or sufficiently scarlet lettered to satisfy their bloodlust for all non-compliant thinkers. It is opposite of the classical tradition of liberalism, as Nadine pointed out, and it really doesn't make sense.

Neither of your examples are good ones. Society has become too sensitive and exerts too much energy, counterproductive at this point, into rooting out the impure among us and not allowing colorful personalities like Stallman to 'just be'. Unless Stallman has willful intent to harm someone in particular, and not just that someone has chosen to take offense to his statements, it's a disproportionate response. It's also an impossible slippery slope to satisfy. It's becoming increasingly draconian and regressive and making the world a much more miserable place than just sometimes accepting that some people in the world are going to think differently than you, and that it's generally ok, and you can still get along if you try and if both parties are willing (generally true!).

That's the true meaning of tolerance.

Yes, this is entirely permissible by society and people who know them. Violence undertaken by the state to enforce the law is a different matter, where the maxim of the law is "innocent until proven guilty".

The topic of this thread is not law enforcement by the state, however.

There are people I know who have been credibly accused of crimes. No trial occurred. I still treat them as if they were guilty of the crime: I assiduously avoid them.

Such is my right.

Thank you. That pretty much said it, better than I did.

Don't shoot me, just trying to make sense of what the other guy wrote.

I believe that he's arguing that even if he said that, he shouldn't be punished. Only doing bad things is relevant.