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Comment by cq | Hacker News Reader

If you considered him a nutcase, you might want to reassess the methods which you use to determine if someone is a nutcase.

I'm not really surprised by this. The FBI is a horrible organization, just like most wings of the US government.

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Complete abstention from modern methods of communications because "zOMG GOVERNMENT" puts one squarely into nutcase territory.

And I'm not even going to get into his behavior and demands at talks. RMS is a well-intentioned nutcase, but a nutcase nonetheless.

That's my point, though. He is not a nutcase, and his warnings were spot on. Since 9/11 this nation has descended into an oligarchical police state, wherein all federal policies serve either national security, which more often than not means "protect the wealthy from the middle- or lower classes."

This is not crazy talk. It might have been 30 years ago, but it is no longer. RMS is NOT a nutcase. He's spot-on.

It can be both.

Only a very few people are willing to adhere as tightly to a set of ideals as RMS, despite the severe personal hassle and time/energy expenditure. Perhaps 'nutcase' is unnecessarily pejorative but his behavior places him well outside the bell curve under which the vast bulk of humanity falls. Regardless of whether those ideals are correct/justifiable/etc.

You're saying someone whom you refer to by his email username completely abstains from modern methods of communication?

I think too often "nutcase" is just a less well-reasoned way of saying, "decision weighting algorithm has different priors from mine," or, "doesn't conform to societal norms," rather than the "makes decisions with no rational basis" that the word seems to imply.

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