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Comment by elemeno | Hacker News Reader

As much as I appreciate all that Stallman's done over the years (though I don't always agree with him), that just strikes me as a remarkably dickish comment to make.

To my mind, 20 minutes is hardly an unreasonable delay when you're not an emergency. To make a snide remark about it when you're a guest in the country and getting the advantages of their free health services is just poor taste and bad manners.

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It's also considered polite to cut people waiting for an ambulance to arrive to take them to the hospital a little slack.

Yep, nobody ever is rational when they feel they might die.

It was obviously a joke and I seriously doubt anyone would be offended by that. I know I'm not and I'm relatively understanding about the austerity measures.

Actually, if you know anything about Richard Stallman, he was probably dead serious.

I've been following Stallman since forever. Even in the article it states that it was said in jest.

You'd have to point me at something that would suggest it was said in jest then, since I don't see anything that would support that assertion.

Frankly, there's a reason why I used the word 'appreciate' rather than 'respect' and that's because while RMS has done much good for the world, he's also an extremist and a fundamentalist who's publicly held convictions in some areas indirectly damage the cause he's fighting for.

Actually, the OP's original article in Spanish states that he said it ironically and that everyone in the room laughed. See the before-last paragraph.

Spanish speaker here. That's a joke, like, 100% a joke, I can imagine the situation, everyone worried and complaining about the ambulance delay. He wanted to calm everyone down.

To be honest, I think it's a joke on us spaniards. I mean Stallman could have said it jokingly, but the damned cuts are actually killing people.

Jeez, calm down. It was a joke.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Stallman well-regarded for his incredibly tactless, dickish and knuckleheaded assertions?

His comments on Steve Jobs spring to mind.

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