https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g...
Specifically battlefront #8. He calls it consequential because the the neurodivergent/PC conflict highlights an inherent paradox in the PC worldview. Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one. When applied to autistic or neurodivergent individuals, however, PC norms work to disadvantage an already disadvantaged minority against groups that are both larger and often more economically and culturally free.
It's absolutely maddening when the rules suddenly change for no discernible reason, often with little warning and grave consequences with no second chances for screwing it up.
I see people clamoring for a safe spaces and I wonder where I can find such a thing? (To an extent I can find one at sci-fi, anime and furry conventions are mostly safe spaces for people like me, it's just jarring when I need to leave)
Transitioning did something to my brain chemistry and let me read social cues nearly overnight, but I got friends by delving into the LGBT community. Maybe furry cons is a good approach?
That is incredibly fascinating. I'm not even sure how to classify that... pragmatic psychological function (oookay that's probably not a thing), neurobiology, or what else.
IMO this is a gigantic breadcrumb for Something™. The question is what the axis point was, and what got fixed as a result. Cooool.
I am very curious what else shifted that you'd be happy to share.
This definitely does not happen to every aspie trans woman, but I've heard of it happening to one or two others.
I was worried about losing my intelligence, since I attributed a lot of that to ASD, but actually all my major breakthroughs came after transitioning. My first algorithm that got me noticed was like, 6 months in.
The only real downside was that switching to estrogen unmasked my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and I've become physically disabled. I'm still able to work and think and feel so it's a good trade for me!
I'm not gonna say I'd like to be normal, because I have no real construct of what normal would be like - but ASD also gives me one more insight, normality is an illusion foisted on people by society - all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way.
Ehlers-Danlos may have shown up anyhow, so that doesnt strike me as a downside even, if that makes sense, if anything you got a benefit by finding it sooner.
I know many social progressives would argue this is due to socialization...but the effect seems too strong at too early an age to blame solely on socialization to me.
On a related note, I recently read an article about trans men where one noted that they seemed to have become more conversationally impatient, and blamed it on the different hormones: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/07/20/feat...
> "The hormones made me more impatient. I had lots of female friends and one of the qualities they loved about me was that I was a great listener. After being on testosterone, they informed me that my listening skills weren’t what they used to be. Here’s an example: I’m driving with one of my best friends, Beth, and I ask her “Is your sister meeting us for dinner?” Ten minutes later she’s still talking and I still have no idea if her sister is coming. So finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I snapped and said, “IS SHE COMING OR NOT?” And Beth was like, “You know, you used to like hearing all the backstory and how I’d get around to the answer. A lot of us have noticed you’ve become very impatient lately and we think it’s that damn testosterone!” It’s definitely true that some male behavior is governed by hormones. Instead of listening to a woman’s problem and being empathetic and nodding along, I would do the stereotypical guy thing — interrupt and provide a solution to cut the conversation short and move on. I’m trying to be better about this."
I was mostly considering the fact that the female hormone, uh, configuration is naturally pro-social, and that dumping that set of hormone balances on the brain promptly elicits the associated responses - ie, that the response (or rather the tendency for those responses to function properly) becomes a partial function of hormone state.
But those sort of general factors (including elevated mood) would definitely be a part of the end result.
Men and Women experience socialization in fundamentally different ways, because of this I suspect the changing hormonal balance reawakens pathways not used normally, basically. In addition, you basically have a chance while transitioning to relearn socialization from scratch basically, with those new pathways awakened.
In my own experience I've found as that as a majority of my own marbles have figured out "OH, that's which way is up", my own pragmatic learning capacity has transformed from "transmutation ray that turns everything into indecipherable, unmovable rubble" and... what almost feels like a happy grid of FPGAs that bustle about classifying and organizing without me really having to make much effort. After leaving ideas and subjects for long enough (10+ years in some cases) that old broken memories/associations have just about completely died out, yeah, I definitely can look at things with new eyes.
Discovering that HRT can trigger or you might even say accelerate this process is very fascinating, because it sort of maybe points in the direction of the root causes that break everything in the first place.
To be honest, nobody knows for sure. I call these "Seinfeld moments", as in you could make an entire Seinfeld episode out of talking about it: should I have waived? If yes, I did waive, why didn't the other person waive back? Was it because he/she didn't see me? Was it because he/she did in fact see me but didn't like me? etc.
But maybe Seinfeld could have made an episode about your version too.
So for instance, your house is a safe space if you own it and decide who comes and goes, or if your parents are on your side and kick out people that cross your lines.
As an example, some swearwords might really violent to hear for some people, but disallowing their use will be quite hard for those who lived in an environment where it was important part of communication. And it's often use as a distinction between rich and poor people (at least in France).
Things changed -- or at least I changed. I don't use furries as a punchline anymore, and none of my friends do, and I'm like "c'mon please don't do that" if anyone does.
Sure, it makes it harder to tell jokes sometimes, but who cares about that?
Did you mean something else?
But the reason there was a bit of extra hesitancy there is that I straddle the line on socialization to the extent that while half my brain would probably love going to a con, the other half would basically be cognitive-dissonance-BSODing the entire time. And I'm not sure if repeating "surrealism is art, surrealism is art" would be enough to get me through; I'd probably end up deciding those three specific people over there were safe and hiding behind them the entire time, while simultaneously responding mostly neurotypically to all the social-cue whooshes as I watched them happen. (The missed cues would be what I was hiding from.)
however, this is an imperfect world that needs a lot of change, and it's not going to stop changing, so you're going to have to figure this out. I assume you're a technologist, you are already dealing with constant change? How is this any different?
Think about it this way: Would you hire an SDE who told you they coded down to Java 1.4 standards because that's where their comfort zone is? Java 1.4 is not where the world is in 2021, just like being creepy to your colleagues is not where 2021 is.
Is it a safe space when what you say can be video taped and then used against you by all the other areas of life?
Some years ago there was a case where a woman in Melbourne called out a man for harassing her on public transport. Turns out he was autistic and was outgoing to everyone. His friend had to post on Facebook to stop people sharing a video of the autistic man.
Helen Pluckrose also posted on Twitter a similar story. A man she would help checkin on because he was autistic would get complaints from women for harassment. It was a suggestion from his therapist to help him socialise.
Turned out he had a lazy eye and is daughter had to step up to defend him. Quick to judge and make a scene unfortunately.
I dispute the idea that PC is mostly defensive in nature; rather it seems to be overwhelmingly offensive, targeting people who frequently aren’t even in advantaged groups themselves. I would also suggest that Jews are treated pretty badly by the PC folks, as are Asians (although #StopAsianHate in the wake of what appears to be a non-hate-crime has been a convenient bludgeon).
For example, take the DSM5 criteria for ASD, one type of neurodivergence. Here's just a single factor:
Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication. (From https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html)
A formal diagnosis of ASD would involve a number of these factors. As you might imagine, if you stack enough things like that on a person, it'll tend to be noticed, even when they're trying to hide it.
In the context of being mean, upon being told that they were being a jerk, a person with ASD might think "ah shit, not again" or maybe "wait what, no I wasn't, it doesn't make sense that they'd be offended by that" or something along those lines. The nuances of the behavior and the motivations behind it will tend to be a little different than in a 'neurotypical' perceived as being a jerk.
Many people (including myself) have difficulty with certain social cues and expectations. Many of us can be offputting or come off as overly direct or disrespectful. Where we diverge is when and how we address that fact. Do we (only) lash out and expect the world to accommodate our conclusions, or do we (ever or readily) reflect on that conflict and try to live in some kind of shared world?
Obviously what I’m describing is a spectrum, not an absolute. But if you’re trying to understand whether someone on the spectrum is a jerk, your answer is “how much do they use their social faculties to navigate sharing a world?”
Which is pretty much the same measure as anyone not on the spectrum.
It isn't "oh, I don't know how to read a room." Even granting high function, I feel people use autism in the same way as they do OCD; it's not something you use "neurodivergent" with seriously.
Like generally there's a lot of disability chic or identity these days; but moderate autism makes it incredibly hard to act in daily life in the same way moderate OCD does. If it's significant enough, it's not just someone being brisk or unempathetic in the same way OCD doesn't mean being a neat freak.
People who claim to have "moderate OCD" are just people who like things being tidy, and describe it as OCD because they have no understanding of the real, debilitating condition. Describing yourself as "moderately obsessive" makes no sense, and being able to live with the untidiness means you are not compulsively tidying.
A huge part of the problem with mental health problems is people using the terminology as some sort of 'badge of honor', as if it's something cool and trendy to have rather than an illness that can ruin your life. People really need to stop saying they have OCD unless they've been diagnosed by a professional.
It's hard to live with moderate asperger syndrome, because you typically look and act normal, but are actually positioned in uncanny valley of behaviour. You try to act normally, but your responses are off enough to be mistranslated by others. You are expected to behave normally but you are missing those expectations. People who are visibly disadvantaged have lower expectations on them from the start.
>it's not something you use "neurodivergent" with seriously.
what do you use neurodivergent with seriously. I would think not being able to read a room is a big problem?
>Like generally there's a lot of disability chic or identity these days; but moderate autism makes it incredibly hard to act in daily life in the same way moderate OCD does.
is it incredibly hard to act in daily life with moderate autism, or is having moderate autism and complaining about its difficulties an example of disability chic or identity? It seems like you want to say it is the latter, but phrasing like 'incredibly hard' make it seem like you couldn't possible mean that.
That said, while I’m not an expert on the topic, some of the way you responded is right in line with what I’ve seen people with diagnoses express as harmful. I’m sure you mean well, but ASD presents in a lot of ways. Many which are not nearly so debilitating as what you describe, or more to the point, not debilitating in the same ways. The fact that it’s such a common misconception that it is so debilitating across the board is stigmatic.
I haven’t experienced this disability chic, what I’ve seen is the opposite: people afraid to find out because it may be socially limiting beyond their natural limits.
It’s possible that what you see here is a reflection of high incidence of what you call “high function” but nevertheless also a high incidence of ASD in tech communities.
I hope you’ll consider the possibility. I hope you’ll also consider that it took me a full day to work up the nerve to address your response, and honestly it’s such a sensitive subject that I’m probably going to have to stop looking at my phone for the night because I can’t bear whatever potential negative reaction might be coming. But I couldn’t bear leaving it unanswered even more.
I've spent a lifetime learning a rulebook by trial and error that everyone else just seems to know.
It's absolutely maddening then the rules suddenly change for no discernible reason, often with little warning and grave consequences with no second chances for screwing it up.
"A bit. If your goal is to look thinner I'd try that other thing instead."
Is this a neurotypical person being a butt, or an autistic person trying to be helpful?
Answer: yes.
So even if we suppose that cancel culture somehow has 0 false positives (which I highly doubt), it's likely that many more neurodivergent assholes will be "caught" than neurotypical ones. Which feels functionally very similar to profiling IMO, and practically means we are probably not catching the more "dangerous" assholes. Because it's a lot easier to ignore an asshole view if you're aware of it.
I'm sure you also know of times - I know I do for myself - of times you've knowingly and purposively been an arse.
There's the biggest difference.
Sometimes people think I'm being awkward or uncomfortable, but mostly I'm tripping over myself trying (and failing) to find the right things to say. People expect that you can read them, and read the situation in real time. I can't (although usually I can gather how it's all gone wrong once the moment has passed -- a double-edged sword.)
A lot of "non-autistic assholes" may have other diagnosable conditions, for example narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Are NPD or ASPD "neurodiverse" or "neurodivergent"? They are probably partially genetic, just as ASD is probably partially genetic.
What makes those diagnoses "neurodivergent" and the others not? Why aren't other diagnoses "neurodivergent" too? How exactly do we define "neurodivergent"? (And why is that the right definition to use?)
> They don’t have much overlap with personality disorders (which do have a lot of overlap among that category).
There is a lot of overlap between the disruptive behaviour disorders (DBDs) – oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD) – and ADHD; so much so that ADHD is sometimes considered a DBD along with ODD and CD. And there is a clear connection between CD in children and adolescents and ASPD in adults – indeed, a child or adolescent with CD can follow one of two trajectories, either their conduct problems resolve with maturity and they become law-abiding pro-social adults, or else the child/adolescent diagnosis of CD evolves into the adult diagnosis of ASPD. So there is definitely a connection between ASPD and ADHD. A child with ADHD (even without comorbid CD) has an increased risk of developing ASPD as an adult – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24284138/
Some researchers consider ASPD to be a neurodevelopmental disorder – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29401045/ – which is the same category that ASD and ADHD (and sometimes also OCD) are put in.
There is also a lot of overlap between ADHD and BPD (Borderline personality disorder) – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4739390/
There's also overlap between ASD and BPD – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5590952/
Intent is the easier one to understand. Neurodivergent often don't act with the same intent that someone being an asshole does. Two people tell you that you shouldn't be eating that cookie. One is intending to be mean an to hurt you. The other cares about you and means the message in the best interest of your health, not realizing it will hurt.
With time and some prompting they can be led to understand how the message would be interpreted and realize it is hurt and stop, but it happens much slower and is often too little too late.
Justification is the harder to understand or empathize with possibility. Due to the previous issue impacting every area of life, often resulting in a significant decrease in quality of life and a significant increase in emotional pain, some will lower the extent they empathize with others. It is harder to explain because people think of their own times being hurt by others and think how they had the option to just do better than was done to them and rise above, not conceptualizing what qualitative differences occur when a pain goes from a short term event to a life long occurrence.
One further problem is that justification is only sometimes deemed appropriate by society. The differences in what are deemed appropriate differ strongly enough I'm hesitant to list examples because many will consider just making the comparison as a very asshole move. I am not at all clear if this consideration is in good faith or not.
I have found the difference to be willingness to reflect or to what extent they are trying.
A lot of my socially clueless friends (can't speak for if they lie on the spectrum) are delighted when I offer them a new set of rules that were previously invisible, instead of insulting them for not 'getting it'. They love being told what the lines between mean&blunt or curt&concise are. They can work around context well too, as long as it is explicitly laid out to them.
Mean people (adults) are usually one of:
1. Neuro-diverse people who don't know they are mean
2. People with insecurities they are trying to work on
3. People with insecurities they refuse to acknowledge
#3 is not worth it. #2 can seek help using traditional means. #1 needs some training wheels and personalized instruction to work their way up to socially well adjusted. Think of it as a person with a learning disability.
This is precisely what people with autism tend to be like because of the difficulty people with autism have empathizing with others and seeing things from other people's points of view.
The asshole is thoughtless because they believe others to be less important than themselves. The person with autism is (may be) thoughtless because their brain isn't wired to be thoughtful. Or they actually are thoughtful, but don't know how to express it in a way that others can understand.
The idea that autistic people are assholes is an artifact of every other gamer on the internet self diagnosing themselves with aspergers in the 00s and then using that as an excuse to be un-introspectively cruel to each other.
If I appear scrupulously kind to you, it is because I am compensating. If I appear emotionally intelligent to you, it is because I had to learn what is literally instinct to most people. At least for me, I am able to compensate effectively and pass in most social situations, but it is exhausting.
When I read RMS's writing that lead to the conflict in question, it struck me as an entirely reasonable piece. When I read the responses to it, the message I got, loud and clear, was "my thought patterns are not welcome here"
It's not a special preoperty of spectrum people that they have to learn what neuro-whatsit folks know "instinctively"; we all have to learn these things. Socialisation is learned, not instinctive. You don't have to have a disorder to have poor social skills.
It could be that your poor social skills are the result of inadequate experience or training; it might be that you don't care much (not because you don't care about others, but just because the approval of others doesn't matter much to you, and expending energy on gaining that approval is wasted energy).
Not needing the approval of others isn't a disease; it's a mark of psychological health.
For example, airlines don't employ pilots with extremely poor vision or flight attendants who are too large to fit through the cabin. Someone who relies on a wheelchair may have difficulty becoming a firefighter or a first responder and someone with Tourette's syndrome might have difficulty getting a job as a spokesperson or announcer.
My understanding is that the above constraints are not illegal discrimination (in the US) because the disability/attribute impacts that person's ability to successfully perform key job functions. Maybe extreme PC-warriors take issue with that, but I think most people would agree that these are reasonable constraints.
With respect to neurodivergence it seems dependent on whether it impacts someone's ability to perform their core job functions. As per above we should ask employers should be as accommodating as possible, so I believe an errant joke or comment shouldn't result in anyone being "canceled". But if someone is chronically incapable of processing social cues and/or has trouble interacting with coworkers or customers without triggering HR complaints then they may need to find a different role that doesn't require as much interpersonal interaction. That's unfortunate for the person in question but it doesn't seem any more discriminatory than an airline reassigning a pilot whose vision is failing.
are you saying that the undergrads that Stallman harassed at MIT are more economically and culturally free than he is? Are you saying that we should give a pass to bad bosses who turn their subordinates lives' into a tower defense game?
Harsh truth, but an easy rule for NDs to follow. Anything you say in public will be judged for its potential. If someone can get points for making it sound bad, they will.
Venkatesh Rao is generally contentless and writes long winded tracts that don't actually make any kind of coherent argument for what they're saying.
Do you really think Stallman's long history of sexual harassment is because he was too gosh-darned oblivious to realize he shouldn't be doing that? This isn't exactly "Oh he maintained eye-contact for half a second too long and the thought police are after him" territory jfc.
Gamers aren't a coherent group or right wing in general (think of the ages...) but "their side" (the side trampling on them) is anti-left, so the gamers were lumped together and drawn on the right. The 'Autism Spectrum' is the most "centrist" I've ever seen, but because the left uses them to launch its attacks from they're drawn as 'left territory'.
Specifically, the Neuro-divergent group isn't an active group, kind of by its nature. ND people on the map are more of a victim pool who just get picked on because they're easy to maneuver into mistakes. Like the whole Damore incident was Google saying "Does our HR policy look fat" and only James was tricked into engaging. He was more a convenient scapegoat to hurt to consolidate their power than he was an ideological enemy.
Certain groups have all-or-nothing ideological traps laying around everywhere and I think it's that these groups, like armies using landmines in areas with children, are especially harmful to societal non-combatants.
The social justice advocate's response to that is intersectionality: a defense mechanism of not engaging in advocacy that would benefit one oppressed group at the expense of another. They're not always great at this - some social conflicts are just difficult to actually make judgments on (e.g. Israel/Palestine). The thing is, though - I doubt "drop the autistics" is going to pick up steam in social justice circles. Autism, and neurodivergence in general, tracks very well with queer sexual orientations and gender identities. Social mores intended to enforce rigid gender roles and heteronormativity simply don't work on people who can't parse them. (The contrapositive of this is why there's a huge push for non-gendered children's toys.) Ergo, it's very unlikely that you'd see the social justice left tear itself apart like this, and more likely that you'd see people arguing that "drop the autistics" is bullshit.
I'm also going to point out that, as an autistic person myself, the stricter speech rules of the social justice left aren't terribly difficult to parse. The prior eras of social mores were far stricter because we didn't see them as coercive and thus didn't question their power, and it's somewhat troubling that people don't view it as an improvement from what we had before. It's sort of like how people coming from proprietary software sometimes argue that the GPL is non-free because it has some restrictions that don't conform to the unstated mores of proprietary licensing. Much of the reaction people have to these speech rules comes from two different places:
1. The people reacting to these rules are neurotypical, and used to invisible speech rules enforced by people with a common cultural heritage such that they wouldn't disagree on their unstated rules.
2. Many people in the social justice community are autistic (see above) and also had a hand in writing the rules. Of course, if people who can't parse social cues write the rules of a society, those rules are going to be explicitly stated rather than inferred.
In other words, the problem isn't that the social justice left is going to throw out neurodivergent people, it's that the social justice left is autistic, in cultural control, and writing the new rules of society in a way neurotypicals don't understand.
(Side note: #9 is a conflict that's been brewing in the back of my head for a while now. I love P2P tech but think the entirety of cryptocurrency has been a dead-end full of scams.)
How do you know that everyone who disagrees with the "speech rules" of the "social justice left" is "neurotypical"?
I think "aneurotypical" people (whether ADHD or ASD or whatever) are just as capable of having a wide variety of different political views as "neurotypical" people are. Take any current political or social question, you are going to have a wide diversity of opinion about it, and I don't see why people with ASD/ADHD/etc would have any less viewpoint diversity than society as a whole does. (If anything, people with ASD might have more viewpoint diversity than average, due to putting less value on social conformity leading to a greater willingness to consider and even espouse unpopular opinions.)
> it's that the social justice left is autistic
I really doubt that. Possibly, people with ASD are over-represented on the "social justice left". (I've heard the same claim made about the "alt-right" – although the two claims are not mutually exclusive). But I think the clear majority people on the "social justice left" don't have ASD, and conversely a lot of people with ASD don't identify with the "social justice left".
I'm pretty sure China cares little about American political correctness wars.
> As thoughtless teenagers, we made crude SC/ST jokes. Here’s one: at a urinal in a government recruitment center, there is a line marked on the wall with the note, “if you can pee above this line, you get the job.”
This was unnecessary considering the dalits commiting sucide after joining IIT or other elite colleges due to harrasment from the Brahmins community students. Even if you give the benefit of doubt on this one simply as telling a story, look for the next quote.
> .. but I am enough of a free-speecher to acknowledge that it has a right to
This... This is the mindset of the upper caste Brahmins. They don't want the reservations based on caste but at the same time they don't want it to go away, simply because it provides birth entitlement at the cost of the other castes.
It does not matter he is an atheist. Even the founder of Hindutva philosophy is an atheist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar whom these modern educated caste supporting intellectuals admire.
That blog post is quite long, If you read the entire post you get the impression that after all caste system is not bad, just the implementation had gone wrong. In fact any one who says caste is not that bad especially in USA, it is very likely they are from upper caste brahmin community.
I've listened to him be rude to former co-workers (one seemingly on the basis that she was a woman in a technical role) and an absolute one man clown rodeo at various trade show events.
His philosophical brilliance has always impressed me, his personal presence is like rotting offal in the sun. He doesn't get the benefit of being remembered for the former when he puts in so much effort to broadcast the latter.
This is the thing for me. Being neuroatypical and unable to follow typical social cues, or having trouble expressing thoughtfulness or care is just a fact of life. But not being thoughtful and not caring is a choice.
Not if you’re neurodivergent. I think the challenge is knowing who has different brain chemistry and who has regular chemistry and is choosing.
https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...
It feels wrong to me to squeeze this tiny little "a" in between the words 'neuro' and 'typical' that flips the combined word's meaning around. The "a" usually goes at the front of a word so that you can tell immediately that it is being negated. I know that "a" is at the front of 'typical' but that's precisely the rub since it is actually in hiding instead of at the front of the combined word.
I do. How the hell do you think I figured it out for RMS? That same critical filtering can happen not just across time, but across various axes of context.
I didn't say that he's "irredeemable" but that the constant hagiographic/endless forgiveness for his chronic boorishness by his acolytes is annoying and serves no benefit.
Most relevant is that it deprives him of useful feedback neurodivergent people can actually use to better communicate with neurotypical colleagues.
This is illegible and does not seem to follow from the rest of this thread. I'm missing where the GP made a statement about a person's "philosophical brilliance." Did I miss something, or is this meant to infer something else?
>His philosophical brilliance has always impressed me, his personal presence is like rotting offal in the sun. He doesn't get the benefit of being remembered for the former when he puts in so much effort to broadcast the latter.
Sounds a bit like Diogenes the Cynic.
Stallman seems to be in a similar vein as many of the 'great philosophers'. In that his ideas are challenging and difficult, much like himself. Making the man not one that you like all that much. The phenomenon reminds me of an often misinterpreted Edmond de Goncourt quote:
"Almost no one loves the genius until he or she is dead. But then we do, because now life is better."
The quote is not talking about how the genius made our lives better through their work/effort. Rather, how they were so insufferable.
As to Stallman, only time will tell if he will join the Great Conversation as a loud voice or not.
Care to back that accusation up with anything?
I also observed him trying to dress people down ad nauseum for a litany of inanities: telling me and several other staff from VA when it changed from VA Research to VA Linus that it should be "VA GNU/Linux" while the rest of us were trying to have a conversation with other people. Or the time he could barely control his irritation at an awards event when Linus Torvalds' toddler daughter upstaged him at an awards presentation. Or when he seemed clueless and/or ambivalent about any number of things that other people felt.
Yes, I have a strong negative opinion about RMS. No, it is not based on tertiary opinions, but direct or near-line observations.
One of the responsibilities of anyone in power is to avoid emboldening sexual predators and silencing victims. Anyone in power who does that should be called out; and anyone who continues to do it after being called out should be asked to step down.
Let me start by saying that Stallman's words defending Minsky have absolutely been misinterpreted. He did not say that Guiffre was "entirely willing". And given that the age of consent in most of Europe is 16 or below [1], I think it's hypocritical for so many people to be outraged about Stallman saying maybe 17 isn't so bad.
Nonetheless, his defense of Minsky is still problematic. Why? Because in the hypothetical situation he described, Minsky had sex with Guiffre even though he should have seen red flags. (Don't get distracted here by arguing that Minsky did see red flags and didn't actually sleep with Guiffre. That's not the point: Stallman still defended Minsky as though he had.) By defending Minsky, he was indicating to all future sexual predators, "I will try to find excuses to defend your bad behavior"; and to all future sexual victims, "There is no point in coming forward; I will try to excuse the person who did this to you."
Now maybe Stallman didn't realize that's what he was doing; and maybe the reason he didn't realize it was because his brain is wired differently, which makes it difficult for him somehow. If so, we can cut him some slack personally; but it doesn't change the fact that it's harmful to have him in leadership.
It is absolutely fine for young people to consent to having sex with other young people. A minimum age makes little sense there. Very young kids do stupid things all the time, including touching each other's genitals. By some definitions, if two toddlers "play doctor", the older one is somehow a criminal. That seems insane. I remember being 14 and doing sexual things with my 15 year old girlfriend. At that point we were both falling foul of the law. But once she turned 16, she was suddenly a pedophile and a stutory rapist because I was only 15? Again, that seems insane.
Then there's the issue of older people having sexual relations with younger people. This is where things become a lot more complex. It's pretty clear that it's inappropriate when authority figures are involved (e.g. teacher and underaged student). But then that can be inappropriate regardless of age. I can't imagine 14 year old me having been sexually interested in anyone over the age of 30, but that seems entirely arbitrary and subject to taste. I can certainly imagine 14 year old me thinking that my sex life wasn't anyone else's business. Some 14 year olds are more mature than some 18 year olds. Yet the former somehow can't consent to anything, but the latter can consent to sex with anyone aged 16-120+?
Age is a pretty good proxy for maturity on a population scale, but it's a really lousy proxy on an individual level. Perhaps we, as a society, would do well to remember that individual differences can be huge, and that consent is more important than merely the age.
After some high-profile cases (usually involving minorities and disapproving parents), some states in the US have corrected this via "Romeo and Juliet Laws".
(Had to look into this due to having a bit younger girlfriend right around that age)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_rape#Romeo_and_Julie...
Right, and I carefully worded what I said about it to try to avoid expressing any opinion on the subject. :-)
Yes, exactly.
Pointing out extenuating circumstances of someone's (alleged) bad behavior is necessary and useful. But it should always come second to determining what the person should have done instead, and holding them accountable to push society towards a place where everybody has the responsible behavior by default.
The attitude of "if there's any plausible reason person X might have thought they weren't doing anything wrong, we shouldn't punish them" gives the exact wrong incentives.
I admit, the circumstantial evidence is, uhh, indicative, but I don't see it being a matter of public record. Then again, I only did six and a half minutes of internet research, though, and I could be wrong, thus the question mark.
If you understand the concept of the broad autism phenotype (BAP), it is hard not to see it in his behaviour. He obviously has autistic traits.
Now, is it BAP (sub-clinical ASD) or is it clinical ASD? Nobody can answer that unless they are actually a qualified diagnostician (psychiatrist/psychologist/etc) personally evaluating him.
But I'm not sure how much that matters. The boundary between BAP and ASD is vague, it varies from clinician to clinician and is changing over time.
If you choose to view things dimensionally [0] rather than categorically, you have "super-neurotypical" people at one extreme, you have "severe ASD" at the other [1]. And somewhere in between the two, you draw a line (the diagnostic cutoff), and say people on one side of the line have "mild ASD" and people on the other side of the line don't have ASD. And the people who are on the "neurotypical" side of the line, but still close to it rather than far away, that's BAP.
And I think the point is that RMS obviously is somewhere near that line, whichever side of it he may belong on. (And as I said, the line doesn't have a single fixed location anyway, he might be on one side given some clinicians' ways of drawing it and on the other given others'.)
[0] I've drawn an oversimplified one-dimensional model here. In reality ASD is a multidimensional construct. But, treating it one-dimensionally is a simplification which aids in explanation
[1] I know some people don't like phrases like "mild ASD" or "severe ASD" (or their close relatives "low functioning" and "high functioning"), but how else do you explain the difference between someone diagnosed with "ASD Level 1 / Level 1 without intellectual or language impairment" and someone else who is diagnosed with "ASD Level 3 / Level 3 with intellectual impairment and language impairment"?
But it's okay to treat autistic people as less than human because they are not a politically powerful group. You learn a lot about people from how they treat politically disadvantaged, and we have learned a lot about you.
There are, at any given time, few people who walk this world rating so highly on these scales.
A few final statements did bring him down, but he had been chipping at the foundation for years.
I also don't really know all that much about Richard Stallman I just don't like the idea that if you accept someone for themselves all the difficulties of social cohesion magically disappear because it's untrue.
'boys will be boys' doesn't assert that 'boys' get away with whatever they want because they are neuro-divergent, it asserts that gender allows for additional privilege.
>Just because somebody is different doesn't mean they can be a creep
For the sake of argument : what if that person has neurological quirks which disallow 'non-creep' , to use your parlance, behavior?
To take the example even further , it's illegal with fine attached to say curse words on certain beaches in the United States. Is it reasonable to fine an individual with Tourette Syndrome when they scream expletives on such a beach?
In my experience, the same sort of people who crusade against the Richard Stallmans of the world are the creepiest and by far most unpleasant to work with, yet they themselves are constantly being celebrated, uplifted, and raised into positions of real power and real harm.
Unfortunately, when someone is in a position of power, often the only recourse is the sword of Damocles. This is especially difficult for people who become relevant by leading a movement rather than rising through the ranks. But that means that there is a natural tension between social mobility and a culture of accountability, which is likely the source of a lot of dissatisfaction in society.
Do I now suddenly get to punish you? Do I get to go to your boss and try to get him to fire you?
See the problem?
If you personally are in a position to punish someone who you believe is a jerk, then yeah, you'll probably punish them, because that's just how social interaction works.
We should just stop using our prejudice to misinterpret statements, and we should stop putting words in other people's mouths.
Autistic people (who usually talk in a very literal way) would be benefited by this change as a byproduct, but this principle should apply to everyone, not only to neurodivergent people.
Is what the person said technically correct? Yes or no. That's all that matters.
It also seems like this is a largely solved problem in candid one-on-one conversations and interviews: if the other party thinks you're implying something, they can follow-up and ask whether you are indeed intending to. Without two-way discourse, taking someone's statements in good faith seems like the lesser of two evils.
If the mafia boss says "I think he is going to get a visit tonight", the person in question is probably not long for this world. Did the mafia boss order the killing of said person?
I agree that every little sentence, in isolation, shouldn't be scrutinized, and meaning inferred in a vacuum. However, surely patterns of behavior and the larger context of the words being said should play a role in our interpretation of the words said?
Otherwise you end up with things that, read hyper-literally, are innocuous while being completely heinous in context. "Exterminate the Vermin" said by an exterminator is very different to it being said by a German in 1944.
Weasel words are always going to dog whistle, but if you think that someone is implying something, the best scenario is to get them to explicitly agree or disagree with that statement.
Definitely not applicable in all cases, but if a person explicitly says "I did not mean to imply X, and I disagree with X", then it seems a good rule of thumb to believe that they do in fact disagree with X.
The age of consent is so named because it is widely accepted that no minor is able to present themselves to an adult as "willing" to engage in sex. After much debate over hundreds of years and with inputs from researchers in child psychology, people below the age of consent are judged by society to not have the emotional maturity to make those decisions, irresepective of their physical maturity.
Now, a contrarian might argue that the age is wrong - and indeed, it does vary country by country, and often when the couple are very close in age it is accepted there was not a typical case of sexual exploitation by the elder party - but in the case RMS was referring to, Minsky was likely aware of the age of consent and the reason for its existence AND that his own behaviour was extremely likely to be exploitative and abusive no matter what the child said, so RMS's argument is logically absurd.
Minsky's behaviour can not be explained as "acceptable", because the law is not widely considered unjust in this situation other than by pedophiles. RMS' argument can logically be judged as being advocative of a pedophile's behaviour.
Therefore RMS' arguments are technically - i.e. logically - incorrect, as well as being deeply offensive to a large number of people.
He has since accepted this himself. He does not dispute it.
Stallman is good at many different things and he doesn't seem like e bad bloke overall. But he is not good at being a leader. At all. It's just not where his aptitudes lie. As a leader he is not only ineffective, but even counter-productive and harmful.
I feel the entire conversation about the statements surrounding Minsky are a bit of a distraction; what we should really be talking about is something like "is Stallman the best person to represent us as a community?" I'd argue he's not, and has never really been.
If someone lacks enough empathy and social skills to be able to put his words into appropriate context, then maybe they should refrain from interpreting those words (and yet they say that those are qualities that autistic people lack...)
Well, yes, but everyone is talking about this, including your comment.
Was Stallman treated unfairly? Sure. It is what it is; the world is an unfair place. I can't change that either. It's been a few years: let's move on and talk about effective leadership for the movement instead.
Let's move on and welcome Stallman back, because we need him more than those that slandered him.
Let's also talk about what should change so it won't happen again, to anybody else.
Not everyone is a gentle giant like Stallman is.
Do you remember what happened to poor Aaron Swarz when he was falsely accused and prosecuted for things he hadn't done?
I, speaking for myself, don't want an FSF were people can get thrown out by an internet mob.
I want an FSF that defends its members and judge facts, not opinions.
I think Stallman is one of those persons, but I very much welcome other candidates.
Don't 35 years leading the FSF say otherwise?
Judging from the reactions in the FSF community to his coming back, people were missing him.
- A major fracture in the movement (arguably two, if you count GPL2/3).
- Actively turning people off (Keith Packard, for example, described why they didn't license X under the GPL: "we had met Richard, and found him a challenging individual"; he later admitted that Stallman was right and that he should have listened).
- Sidetracking of pointless issues ("GNU/Linux", "you should not be using hacker", etc.)
- Alienating of many people who are generally keen on most of the Free Software principles.
- Insisting on absolute freedom to the detriment of more freedom than the status quo.
And so forth.
> Alienating of many people who are generally keen on most of the Free Software principles
Did donations went up or down during his leadership?
And what happened when he "left"?
How many people found out that Stallman was right in retrospect?
> Insisting on absolute freedom to the detriment of more freedom than the status quo.
That's the core mission of the FSF.
Our Core Work
The FSF sponsors the GNU Project—the ongoing effort to provide a complete operating system licensed as free software. We also fund and promote important free software development and provide development systems for GNU software maintainers, including full email and shell services and mailing lists. We are committed to furthering the development of the GNU Operating System and enabling volunteers to easily contribute to that work, including sponsoring Savannah the source code repository and center for free software development.
If you want FSF to be some sort of "by hackers, for hackers" thing: sure, go for it. If you want anything more: lolno. The FSF is Free Software's worst enemy.
Packard did, but you're still blaming Stallman for Packard being wrong?!?
> - Sidetracking of pointless issues ("GNU/Linux", "you should not be using hacker", etc.)
And here you are, posting on Hacker News. Are you sure you could do that, without becoming a pariah among your peers if it came out, without Stallman's "sidetracking"?
I think this is spot on, because people stopped caring about someone's intention before judging them. Maybe people got so good at lying about their intention, that we don't believe them when they say "it wasn't my intention" when someone says something bad. The end result is the same, it doesn't matter what your intention was, you say something bad, you deserve bad back.
You do rightly point out the reason intent does tend to matter in reality: it's that the response to RMS' actions are punitive ("you deserve bad back"). And ideally people shouldn't be punished for unintended mistakes; they should instead be helped (sorry if that comes across condescending to the offender, but it's true).
Focusing on intent instead of outcomes is still regressive or reductive in either case though.
---
Aside: this is somewhat off-topic and probably a debate for a separate comment/thread here, but I do want to note I use the term "harm" above very intentionally; I don't believe "offensive" is the correct term here at all. Being offended is not harmful. I think a lot of aspects of PC/cancel-culture focus on protecting those who are "offended", which is nonsense. If you're not offending people in this world, you're not living. But doing actual harm goes beyond that, and should be addressed. And I do believe RMS' actions were harmful.
It’s not the case that all people need to be aware of and sensitive to every possible person’s misinterpretation of their message. The inverse is closer to true, and the only viable option.
How do you expect someone to know what they don’t know?
But he didn't, he was falsely accused.
So maybe the people that accused him deserve something bad back too.
All the well meaning in the world doesn't mean shit if you're creating hostility or demeaning others (that is not commentary on RMS, just in general)
"I don't care about 'intent' as much as 'outcome'"
Clearly intent and context matters a lot.
“There is no single person that is so deserving of praise their comments deprecating others should be allowed to slide. Particularly when those comments are excuses about rape, assault, and child sex trafficking.”
https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...
The auther (Thomas Bushnell) goes on to say the decision (to remove RMS) was the right one but for the totality of RMSs behavior over the years, not the incidents highlighted by the media.
Who used it like that? Stallman's comments happened outside the organization, the tweet was from someone I think unrelated to the project. I can understand keeping other ideals out of the project, but in context you're telling people not to express other ideals.
Seems fine for unrelated Twitter randos to say whatever they want about RMS, but would be distracting and counterproductive for GNU/FSF to permanently ban RMS in support of Twitter randos' unrelated ideals. I never said or implied anything about stopping Twitter randos from expressing or doing whatever they want.
And RMS's "pleasure cards" listing his office address and organizational email certainly indicate that his private activities are the organizations activities.
Would Stallman work on implementing a DRM?
And not in this case, but what about someone denying the other’s existence? Actively supporting groups that work on restricting someone’s basic rights? (Mozilla with Eich)
It is a big difference working on A with people i disagree about B, and actively working against one's values. I can work with non-vegetarians on software, but i would not work in slaughterhouse.
> And not in this case, but what about someone denying the other’s existence?
As an LGBT person (and pro same-sex marriage), i think that mixing up 'being against same-sex marriage' and 'denying the other’s existence' is just horrible rhetorical device, fear-mongering about opponent's position.
[1] Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists (Ellen Spertus, 1991)
https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7040
[2] How to Encourage Women in Linux (Val Henson, 2002)
https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/
[3] What Happens to Us Does Not Happen to Most of You (Kathryn S. McKinley, 2018)
https://www.sigarch.org/what-happens-to-us-does-not-happen-t...
[4] Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing (Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, 2001)
https://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-P...
Computing can possibly be considered a 'safe space' for people like the above but that has now been dismantled to suit other people. Who owns the safe spaces?
I'm not condoning people being assholes, BTW.
If having to criticize something do it on technical grounds: "This part here is wrong because it's possible to go past the end of the buffer in this case".
I know that some people sometimes post colorful rants on there, but I don't think it adds anything good to the atmosphere, and any time spent on coming up with florid prose could be spent on code that actually does something useful instead.
In consequence, if RMS is truly on the autism spectrum (I have no idea whether he is), never setting clear boundaries for him may have left him genuinely confused as to what constitutes appropriate behavior, and ultimately did neither him nor his cause any favors.
Was that a fault of his, or a fault of his neuroatypical brain? I don't know enough about him or his situation to know. But does it matter? I do think that intent and context matters, but often the bad outcome is the same regardless of intent. The consequences should be different between intentional and unintentional harm, but there still should be consequences either way.
autistic people are not uniquely malevolent, and it is not offensive to suggest autistic people are not uniquely malevolent.
the premise at the root of the thread was that autistic people can't tell bad ideas from good ideas, and should thus go forever uncriticized. both in that it's wrong, and in that it casts autistic people as corruptible and dangerous, when we know very well most "normal" allistic people are perfectly capable of great evils.
advocating that it should be acceptable for autistic people to cause harm is not helpful. it promotes the stereotype that autistic people are harmful, resulting in further social rejection and discrimination, and allows abusive people to hide behind the label.
It should be acceptable to empathize and forgive. People who exhibit “atypical” personality traits need this the most of all. Judging all people through the lens of a neurotypical morality construct is inherently harmful.
They can tell that. Sometimes maybe even better than others.
What they can't do well is navigate across social clues that others pick up instinctively. That aren't explicitly spoken.
It's not about considering them harmful or not, it's not whether they should be forgiven or not. It's about understanding. An autistic person behaves in a way that you interpret as "being an asshole" not because they can't tell whether they're being an asshole - it's because they think in a different way and their reasoning makes perfect sense for them and doesn't make them seem like an asshole. You lack that reasoning, so you misinterpret their intentions.
The point is to understand why someone may act in the way they do, instead of assuming that they would act in the same way you would.
For instance, something that you would say just out of politeness can be interpreted by an autistic person very literally. When you ask "would you like to make me a tea?", expect "no" to be a totally polite and honest answer. That's literally what you asked about.
Aren't you basically doing the same thing as the parent is accused of doing, though? Painting all autistic people with the same brush?
Just like non-autistic people, autistic people can also be assholes. Some recognize that they can't pick up on social cues, but just don't care. Many do! But some don't. RMS may be one of the uncaring kind, and it seems a lot of what people have said about him may support that. And do we really want someone like that running advocacy for Free Software?
I figured that it goes without saying, since that case doesn't need additional explanations ;]
No, to assume that forgiveness or empathy to one autistic individual denigrates an entire spectrum of autistic individuals is the same as assuming that from the actions of one we can confer some sort of collective responsibility. This assumption is the root of all prejudice.
If you believe that some autistic people can be decent, though, it's no longer an excuse for Stallman that he's autistic. I'm on the spectrum myself, it's not a free pass for being offensive.
This is not clear to me. Many people are assholes but that’s by choice, not because they’re incapable of not being assholes.
Also, a lot of the people who are upset with RMS and think he should stop being the figurehead of the movement are, themselves, neurodivergent! If we're going to assume that autistic people are fundamentally incapable of communicating with mainstream norms, what do we do for autistic people who are harmed by RMS's actions but aren't able to express it in a way the mainstream can hear?
I've also been vocally against RMS's particular brand of outreach as being incredibly alienating of the people whose opinions he actually needs to address. Admittedly, if he does have autism there's a ton of things that start to make sense, speaking from my own experiences with and around it, but I can't actually find a reference to any confirmed diagnosis from him. He's said he "suspects" as such, and I might as well, but it doesn't really help as neither of us are trained professionals. That being said, from my experience with autistic folks and what I know about him, it's not super surprising that he wouldn't get himself actually diagnosed or checked.
[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2551458/asperger-s-oxy...
> publicly sharing that private medical information
Are we gonna side-step the fact that he's publicly stated in several interviews that he suspects that he's on the spectrum, or nah?
> make you start treating him as an actual human being
In what way have I not?
Publicly speculating about medical diagnoses, for one thing.
Example: it doesn’t make sense to punish a cat that eats your parrot, because that’s what cats do. It does make sense to lock the door between the cat and the parrot.
Could this be an opportunity for your focused effort? Exclusion is dramatically unkind.
They also say: "Yet, we must also acknowledge that Stallman’s behavior over the years has undermined a core value of the GNU project: the empowerment of all computer users."
Andy also wrote: "I can hear you saying it. RMS started GNU so RMS decides what it is and what it can be. GNU has long outgrown any individual contributor. I don't think RMS has the legitimacy to tell this group of largely volunteers what we should build or how we should organize ourselves. Or rather, he can say what he thinks, but he has no dominion over GNU; he does not have majority sweat equity in the project. But I don't accept that. GNU is about practical software freedom, not about RMS. [...] I simply state that I, personally, do not serve RMS."
Your comment is the one attributing to others malicious intent:
"Unfortunately, there are activists within the GNU movement, like Andy Wingo, that have done everything they can to have RMS removed from everything he has built."
I don't know why, maybe when you get older (as I do), you start being afraid of being put out of work by younger people (I don't), or maybe you are yourself neurodivergent and weird with people (I do). It is logical, then, to feel empathy for rms. But, factually, rms is not being confronted for his "quircks" or his age.
The way public figures behave, publicly and in their relationship with others as part of their work, has an impact on the culture it encourages. The fact that people express discomfort, fear, etc. when they want to contribute to free software is worrying. I feel bad for them. I see nothing unfortunate here in having people confront someone in power for his behaviour.
I mean, it is 2021, do I need to quote the Peter Parker principle?
---
https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and...
https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/heidilynnekurter/2019/12/23/4-s...
https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and...
He says:
"The result, sadly, is that a significant proportion of those that have stuck with GNU don't see any problems with RMS."
Yes, isn't it sad that so many don't see any problems with RMS. What can we do about that? How can we make people see problems with RMS? This is despicable activism.
However it does not, or at least should not, extend to excusing/permitting behaviors that hurt others.
Much human anguish and suffering could be alleviated if we had a greater understanding of one simple truth: "your rights end where mine begin."
On balance, I think RMS is ultimately a person who has greatly benefited the world. However, the stories of people made uncomfortable by his actions and statements are legion and in a more practical sense are detrimental to his cause. How can folks with with/under him when he's behaving in some of these ways? Why does the leader of the FSF even need to be broadcasting his beliefs that Minsky did nothing wrong when he had sex with a 17 year-old provided to him by a child trafficker?
As somebody who (like most folks on HN, probably) is not exactly "neurotypical", I realize that it's part of my responsibility to moderate my own words and actions if I want to take part in society.
You can have a robust and diverse culture in which there's broad agreement that a few things are bad - murder, slavery, sex with minors, etc.
RMS defended Minsky's sex with a minor and perhaps more relevantly if we read the linked articles, it's part of a longstanding trend with him. And he feels the need to push these views on others in a workplace/academic setting, via mailing lists.
His personal blog is presumably a place which you would peruse, if you wanted to know what his personal views on things are, and it was so obscure that seemingly no one knew of it until someone really went digging.
Not only that, but he didn't even make these views with any particular frequency. One was made in 2006. Another six years later. So, a couple of comments he casually tossed out over decades, in a place where he would have expected few to ever see it.
To be clear, I don't agree with many of his opinions (some suggest he might have worded his opinions really, really badly, and might mean something else), although I agree with one original blog post he referenced, where child porn laws have become so stretched they're being applied in places they were never originally intended to be.
Like someone recording evidence to provide to the police of their children behaving in an overtly sexual manner which could be an indicator of abuse, arresting someone for a drawing which is a serious waste of police resources, the risk that someone can't reference historical images like the one from Vietnam, and so on.
On the mailing list, he responded in a literal fashion taking the premise that Minsky had been misled. Unfortunately, it was poorly worded. If he had simply said that, rather than going on about her "presenting herself", or the other utterances, then it wouldn't even be a story.
Even given this generous interpretation, RMS' poorly chosen words are still rather egregious.
Specifically he misses the forest for the trees. A fundamental duty of adults is to make sure that our sex partners are (a) of legal age (b) truly freely consenting without coercion.
One can think of various circumstances in which one might reasonably make such a mistake in good faith. However, somebody's private... child sex island is not one of those places.
Even more importantly, RMS neglects even some sort of token recognition of the actual victims of Epstein's trafficking. Hint: Minsky is not one of them!
I'm not sure how to make that call.
And I am not talking about avoiding consequences. Those are ever present as they should be.
However it all plays out, if we do shut that door, what inventive is there for people to improve?
Secondly, how do they actually present having done it, or even begin the attempt when those doors are slammed shut?
It should not be easy, but should also be possible.
With the right diagnostic criteria just about everybody who is an asshole could be diagnosed with some mental disorder or another and that is more or less the present state of psychology, that kind of reasoning is asking for a consequence free society.
The kind of person RMS has shown himself to be, regardless of diagnosis, disqualifies him from being a public figure and leader.
Sure it was a very risky and emotionally charged email thread but RMS still very much seems like a decent person.
No, it went much further than that:
https://www.wired.com/story/richard-stallman-and-the-fall-of...
There goes half of Congress, half of Hollywood, many historic figures, and a fair share of executives. How can someone be “disqualified” from being a “public figure” anyway!???!
I mean, yeah.
Once these are the standards, literally everyone is guilty, and who gets thrown under the bus is a matter of attention rather than guilt.
Fortunately, there's this review of the facts[0].
But I stopped reading your link once the author did exactly what he railed on everyone else for doing: misquoting and taking quotes out of context to support their view.
The author tries to defend RMS's views on pedophilia by pointing out that the Dutch article that RMS links to only talks about reducing the age of consent from 16 to 12, and that wouldn't constitute pedophilia. (A conclusion I'm not sure I agree with, but let's pretend I do.) But, nope, shoulda kept on quoting, because two sentences later there's: "The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether." Nope, not ok.
Your linked article also repeatedly says things like, "All those questionable quotes seem very reasonable when put in context." Well, I disagree. After reading the full quotes, I still find most of them unreasonable.
A lot of people can't do their jobs if they can't be leaders, depending on how you define it. I think that jobs that don't involve interacting with other people are being automated faster on average than jobs that do. So I think it's better not to be quick to disqualify someone from it.
Well, to be honest the 'imaleader' bar is pretty low at this moment. New leaders should try to distance themselves from most previous leader's behavior. Expectations about public figures are really far from reality.
A decent person is a flawed, inherently subjective target. Obviously, from the fact that you're disagreeing with GP's sentiment demonstrates the two of you have different criteria for that.
>...The kind of person RMS has shown himself to be, regardless of diagnosis, disqualifies him from being a public figure and leader.
That's kind of funny. RMS has stayed honest to his principles; remained a consistent advocate for the fundamental freedoms of software and computer users; he's taken being made the butt of fantastically, even when i the midst of a highly controversial media circus, advocated for calm, encouraged waiting for the facts to roll in, and stayed true to the tenant of U.S. jurisprudence that someone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That's pretty decent in my book.
He has odd proclivities. He clashes. He's weird, he doesn't exactly have a mental pole vault down, but he has the courage to challenge what no one else will, and the presence of mind when confronted with new information to change his views, and preserve his earlier errors for posterity. That's also decency.
Frankly, your post strikes me as able-ist. You quite literally made a low-key assertion that the neurodivergent, by virtue of their divergence, don't deserve or should be disqualified from leadership.
As a functioning neurodivergent in a leadership position myself, I find that patently offensive.
Do you understand just how challenging it can be to just different enough where you see a problem that needs to be stood against when no-one else does? How hard it can be to comprehend and keep up a facade that doesn't come to you naturally? To be successful by everyone else's measure, when objectively speaking you're not just excelling in your field or endeavor, but also doing it without everything everyone else takes for granted, difficulty even recognizing encouragement, no guarantee that any normal gesture of endearment or inclusion amongst normal people will find it's mark, or the pain that comes from having to be 100% up front with people, that you may end up saying something they'll take poorly, and knowing you may not even get a good or fair chance to make amends? That when things do hit the fan, you have to work 140% harder to navigate a world completely unnatural and unituitive to you?
I get your message. I reject your assertion, however, that you can measure someone with a disability without taking it into account. I've lived that life. I constantly have to just let things go because "ya just won't get it til you live it." I've fought hard to thrive in a normal world, and with an internal locus of control accepted that more often than not, I'll end up having to be the one to take the high road to maintain the peace. I've had to survive the nights of loved ones being hurt because I just didn't have the energy to take that high road. I've made sacrifices in my personal life to be deemed "appropriate" in everyone else's eyes, and suffered the existential price and inauthenticity, and self-loathing that comes people's poor response to me at my most vulnerable.
Which is why your post strikes such a chord.
I shouldn't have to. Neither should he.
RMS asks. He'll actually ask people whether he can stay, Whether they are comfortable, and when those people say yes, and get exposed to the realities of a neurodivergent unmasked, suddenly change their tune. You can argue he doesn't ask often enough, or that he makes folks uncomfortable by the level of directness required, but that he stays authentic tohimself makes him more worthy of being a leader than even I. He's at least up front about it, and doesn't hide the crazy to the point of being destructive like some tend to. He also doesn't judge others for simply being difficult to understand.
So congratulations. Ya got a rise out of me.
You can embrace acceptance that people are different and realize that differences make some people better and worse for certain things.
I find it astonishing that blatant abelism like yours is acceptable in polite society.
>You can embrace acceptance that genders are different and realize that differences make some genders better and worse for certain things.
>You can embrace acceptance that races are different and realize that differences make some races better and worse for certain things.
[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2551458/asperger-s-oxy...
What's even worse was none of these "WOKE" were even concerned with "the victims of sexual assault" or any other noble cause. This was organized for ideological reasons and their goal was and is to replace everyone in a relevant position with ideologically aligned people. They are the kind of people that believe that any speech or freedoms that run counter to their agenda should be regulated to fit their definition of a common good.
He did nothing wrong. He is a brilliant person.
He basically just said "Minsky may not have known because Epstein most likely forced the girl into acting as if her was willing" (paraphrased from memory) and it got turned into "RMS said the girl was willing".
And, further, there is no evidence that Minsky took any further action relative to her. Quite the contrary - he seemed bemused by the situation.
Some of the discussion in these threads strongly implies that Minsky had a sexual interaction and that Stallman was defending him. This is wrong, in both cases.
>The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.
>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.
We'll set aside for a moment that he's trying to argue the only way that sexual assault can occur is if the attacker literally assaults the victim. It wasn't really the time or the place to try defending a friend by arguing semantics given the accusations.
I guess if some billionaire flew me to a private island in the Carribean where young attractive girls started throwing themselves at me, and I was the age and... attractiveness of Minsky, giant alarm bells would have been blaring in my head and I think that of pretty much every sane American male. To not take the entirety of the situation into account and try to paint it as an innocent "I met a girl at the bar who lied about how old she was" is more than a bit disingenuous
As you may or may not know, some women will voluntarily have sex with men in exchange for money, no coercion or assault required. If a billionaire flew you to a private island with attractive woman offering to have sex with you, then the presumption that those women are paid prostitutes is not that far-fetched.
So was it figurative assault or do words not have literal meaning anymore?
He also had a very good point about making the distinction between "sexual relations with a minor" and "sexual assault"/"rape" - again, I agree that both should be illegal and punushed harshly, but is having consentual sex with a 17yo really AS BAD as forcing yourself upon a person of any age?
As for his last point about the absurdity of the exact same thing being rape if done today, but perfectly normal if done mere days later: isn't it kinda absurd? Like, yes, there needs to be a boundary, but isn't it insane that there are only two categories: <18 is one of the worst crimes possible and >18 is perfectly legal. I don't know a better system and wouldn't even attempt to propose a better one, but surely this isn't the best we can do?
To be clear: I don't particularly like Stallman and gladly point out his sexist and generally rude remarks and behavior when people glorify him, but this all just seems like a person only looking at the logical side of the story and ending up sounding extremely insensitive. The term "neurodivergent" would usually get thrown in here, although I'm reluctant to use it since it's far too broad and I don't have any specific information about RMS.
Inappropriate and insensitive? Yes! Defending rape, as some media outlets framed it? Not even close!
Many cases could be taken to court, even in the USA with its relaxed defamation laws.
Successful authoritarian movements have a clear set of rules that make you safe as a member, and only turn to internal purges once they destroyed any external opposition.
How dare you.
Just because you're autistic doesn't mean you're not responsible for the things you do or say.
rms has repeatedly said he does not suffer from autism.
Even if he did, there is nothing about autism that compels you to try and legitimize child sexual offenders.
Where, exactly, did RMS do so? This isn't a troll or a "gotcha" either.
All the claims about RMS doing so are from now public statements by RMS. Please provide (with appropriate context) evidence for the assertion that RMS tried to "legitimize child sexual offenders."
If you perform that exercise in good faith, you'll find that there is no evidence that RMS did (or attempted) any such thing.
I don't know RMS, nor am I associated with any organization with which he is or ever was associated. In fact, I was quite angry when I read the accusations against him.
But rather than take the word of others, I read his statements, in context, and came to the conclusion that those accusations were both false and sensationalized.
I have my suspicions as to why those false and sensationalized accusations were made, but I won't do what those who sought to portray Stallman as an advocate for pedophilia, rape and assault did.
I'll let others make up their own minds as to the motivations of the folks who sought to amplify such claims.
Edit: Clarified the reasons for not airing my suspicions in this comment.
Having sex with a child is an offense in most countries.[4] Offender means someone who commits an offense.
[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%20...()
[2] https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...
[3] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#25_April_201...
And so I can only assume you're not posting in good faith. That's sad, as it's something I really like about HN.
I had responded in detail to each of the claims you made and expounded on the fact that age of consent is wildly different in all those countries you mention. Sadly, it was all lost with a <ctrl>-w[1] in Firefox.
In fact, in 20 US states, there is no lower limit on the age of marriage[0], which explicitly allows sexual activity.
I don't expect anything from you. I'm just disappointed in the (I can only assume deliberate) way you omitted and distorted Stallman's statements to suit your point of view. That's sad.
[0] https://www.equalitynow.org/learn_more_child_marriage_us
I'm not sure how you can claim to know his intent 18 months after the fact. Do you have an interview or personal relationship to back that claim up? A whole lot of people he directly worked with definitely don't agree with your assessment of his intent.
I don't believe in the time since that he has acknowledged the comments or suggested he didn't mean to offend or that he understands why it was probably a pretty horrible thing to say in light of all the things we know about Epstein.
Accepting someone for their differences: sure. But to imply Stallman is incapable of acknowledging wrongdoing because of autism while simultaneously being qualified to represent the FSF feels like a reach to me.
As someone who actually has schizophrenia and struggles with it in the workplace and in society: it honestly makes me sick to see people defend Stallman’s reprehensible behavior with some bullshit about “neurodiversity.”
You are throwing an entire population of people under the bus because you’re too immature to accept that RMS is a bad person. It’s pathetic.
You want him to get onstage with his therapist or something?
Look, I'm not exactly Stallman's biggest fan, but everything I read about his firing made it seem like the FSF had a knee-jerk reaction to bad publicity instead of hearing his side of the story and conducting a fair investigation. His reinstatement to the board seems to support the idea that the people there really did want him there but were scared of the mob.
I also never suggested that if he did have autism that somehow I would be any more sympathetic. What I am frustrated with is ignorant commenters on Hacker News deciding it’s psychologically easier for them to invent lies and insult people with autism than it is to have an honest reckoning with a hero’s ugly legacy.
[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2551458/asperger-s-oxy...
> "During a 2000 profile for the Toronto Star, Stallman described himself to an interviewer as 'borderline autistic,' a description that goes a long way toward explaining a lifelong tendency toward social and emotional isolation and the equally lifelong effort to overcome it," Williams wrote.
> When I cited that excerpt from the book during the interview, Stallman said that assessment was "exaggerated."
> "I wonder about it, but that's as far as it goes," he said. "Now, it's clear I do not have [Asperger's] -- I don't have most of the characteristics of that. For instance, one of those characteristics is having trouble with rhythm. I love the most complicated, fascinating rhythms." But Stallman did acknowledge that he has "a few of the characteristics" and that he "might have what some people call a 'shadow' version of it."
One can have no "trouble with rhythm" and yet meet the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for ASD; one can have immense "trouble with rhythm" and yet not meet those criteria – that's because "trouble with rhythm" is not part of the diagnostic criteria, indeed if you read the DSM-5 section on ASD it never even discusses that topic, "trouble with rhythm" simply isn't part of the DSM-5 definition of ASD. At best, it might be seen as an "associated non-diagnostic symptom", something which may occur in some people with ASD (possibly even at a higher rate than in people without ASD); but it is simply a mistake to reason "person X doesn't have symptom Y hence X cannot have ASD" when Y is not a diagnostic symptom.
I don't know whether Stallman has ASD or not, but his conclusion that he doesn't seems to be based on incorrect information. Given that, I don't think we should put much weight on it.
Somehow I can't shake the feeling that his example supporting his confident self-diagnosis paradoxically undercuts it instead.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/richard-stallman...
(Posting the amp link because haha)
I think we should thank Stallman for all the work he’s done in advocating for free software but then let him go and be the crazy old man yelling at the clouds and fade into irrelevancy.