There was an "intervention" where a group of long-time colleagues and senior kernel contributors took Linus off and told him their dissatisfaction in person.
Meanwhile, some angry woman publicly calls for Stallman's removal and it seems we've gone with that. And are acting like the outcome here is entirely due to Stallman being an asshole.
I don't think she's the first person to object to his behaviour. I've seen a few more people posting their stories of objectionable behaviour, but I'm reluctant to point HN at them.
Edit: I wish you wouldn't do something that you feel puts other people at risk just to back up your point. Especially since you seem to think you have the moral high ground.
You are happy to throw other people under a bus to win an internet argument. Some angry woman who admits her screed wasn't really about RMS per se threw him under a bus. And you're fine with it. Because you seem to think that's morally acceptable if you have some kind of justification.
Social outcomes aren't about the actions of a single person. They are about the cumulative consequences of the actions of many people.
How people choose to respond to problematic behavior is part of that -- and often not in a good way.
If those are to be counted as "throwing someone under a bus", then what about the person allegedly assaulted by Minsky? Isn't RMS also "throwing her under a bus" to win an internet argument?
> How people choose to respond to problematic behavior is part of that -- and often not in a good way.
Well, yes. There don't seem to be any good answers here. Handling it privately is not at all reliable and may result in the complainer getting privately blacklisted. Going public can be effective, but only if you make a major storm - the outcomes of which can no longer be controlled.
We don't know if people have tried to get RMS to get his act together. But this doesn't seem to be a first complaint out of nowhere.
It's pretty irrelevant whether or not she knew who RMS was before all this. She found out about him, did her research, and uncovered some pretty messed up stuff.
"Some angry woman" also listed several examples of bad behavior reported to her by multiple sources, dating back decades. While a lot of it was new to me, it's nearly impossible that this wasn't known by people at MIT and/or the FSF who could have acted in the past, but didn't.
IMO this was a long time coming, not some brand-new thing.
Examples that came as an afterthought after admitting this was not about Stallman and misrepresenting his words.
She did not correct her misrepresentation but instead went on to publish in an appendix what had been dugged and nitpicked to paint RMS in a way that fit her narrative.
the appendix is easy to debunk:
1 can be summarized as RMS has opinions, his personal opinions not being the same as the majority means they are problematic (use a reversal of burden of proof fallacy in the process). Goes on to says that institutions/companies that do not remove people with personal opinions different from the majority should be removed from the institutions otherwise it should be interpreted that the institutions themselves support those opinions.
Of course totally overlooks the fact if instead of public shaming, calling for witch hunt and not talking with the person, having a fact-based conversation with the person about his/her opinion could be enough to change this opinion as had happened here: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
2 is a collection of applying today standard to 40 years old society, expectation of normal behaviour to someone in the autistic spectrum and leaving the reader to fill the holes when the reason for having a mattress in his office and being proud of it is long documented and unrelated to the sexual framing attempt.
Then she presents a 1983 report pointing how it was for women is CS at MIT at the time which makes no mention of RMS in any way but is nevertheless add as charge to him.
3. Goes on to put RMS in the same bag with Epstein, and mentions #metoo as if RMS had been mentioned in it with no explanation and no evidence. Rants about MIT and calls for other institutions to go on witch hunts on threat of chaos such as the one she just caused.
4. is about her personal life and how she felt in social context trying to diminish her efforts and accomplishment, how she is desensitized and prepared for escalation from Stallman but disappointed that he did not and instead went on to apologize. Unhappy with the apology and impervious to the fact that she is responsible and the cause for the misunderstanding and the media coverage, she uses this apology as a call to other people to take her action as a model and fight the powerful people.
So as a whole this appendix is really not more evidence that the original author missed the point and further attacked a wrongly perceived threat and as a result polarized further against RMS and her.
1 -- No one is saying that if you don't have the same views as the majority, you're problematic. But some non-majority views, like the one you link to -- his last-minute recant of his belief that "voluntary pedophilia" was a thing and didn't harm children -- are nevertheless beyond the pale.
2 -- Stop using "because autism" as an excuse. It's an insult to the many people on the spectrum who don't do and say shitty things. Also, has RMS been diagnosed? Are you a psychologist? If not, I don't think you're qualified to make that statement. I'm not sure you're even reading the same thing I am; she specifically calls out incidents and people who claim RMS specifically harassed them. If you look a bit on Twitter, there are more women coming out who have been similarly harassed. I agree that standards change over time, but when the behavior of 40 has remained consistent over the next 40 years, that's a huge problem.
3 -- It is entirely possible that a single piece can be about and triggered by the actions of one person, but then expand to be more general. Not sure why you can't see that.
4 -- So what? I mean... sure, she has flaws, but so do we all, and that has nothing to do why RMS does shitty things. Also, she _posted the verbatim contents of the emails_ (including the most relevant part, right there, a couple paragraphs into her post). It's on Vice (etc.) for not, y'know, actually reading them and reporting things factually.
I'm just not really sure why you feel the need to latch onto this single post so tightly. It was a catalyst, to be sure, and several media outlets did some incredibly irresponsible, dishonest reporting. But that doesn't change the fact that RMS has been engaging in reprehensible behavior for decades. It's feeling like you're looking at a list of 10 bad things and are saying, "wait, everything is ok because one of these things on the list was wrong!" This might be a shitty straw to break the camel's back, but the camel's back was overdue in breaking.
> I've spent a lot of time working with [RMS] to help him understand why various positions he holds are harmful. I've reached the conclusion that it's not that he's unable to understand, he's just unwilling to change his mind.
So wait, based on what I'm reading in this post, a saner opinion is getting into a debate about the definition of the words sexual assault on a mailing list? I understand people thinking there is a right way and a wrong way to express disillusionment with a particular person, however, what you're doing here is misleading at best.
I'm not really sure why you're expressing derision towards people that don't want sexual assault trivialized.
I dunno, I feel like reading these types of posts, which are prevalent in this thread, that I have less and less in common with people on Hacker News. Also it's not a bad thing to want social justice, no matter how many times you type SJW.
It tells me that HN has more people who fear being accused of sexual assault than people who are afraid of suffering sexual assault.
Somehow the former group has trouble imagining the fear of the latter group is more likely, within its demographic, to happen, and its outcome more deeply damaging, because its damage is somehow related to emotions. No emotions allowed. We're working with capital-R Reason.
—
Next time I hear about "the pipeline" on HN, I'm going to imagine something like the fish tube.[0] If only we had such a tube to pipe potential hackers into engineering and computer science, we would have a more diverse industry.
It tells me that HN has more people who fear being accused of sexual assault than people who are afraid of suffering sexual assault.
I don't know what your point is, but smearing all of HN based on the fact that it is a predominantly male environment isn't some kind of constructive path forward.
If you are seeing an "overwhelming amount of defending pedophilia" I suggest you are reading a lot into what isn't there.
I don't see any comments defending pedophilia in the comments here.
Whatever else the young woman was - trafficked, coerced, abuse - she was reportedly 17 years old.
The moral view will be understandably quite varied, especially because Epstein himself did abuse younger girls, and the 17 year old may not have been free in her decisions.
But lawmakers around the world and throughout the USA have set a standard to work with if we are talking about age.
Within that standard, 17 is fully legal, above the age of consent, to consent to sex with another adult with no upper age limit on the other adult, in most countries and in 74% of the states of the USA (37 out of 50). Indeed, 16 is also fully legal in the majority of the US.
So when people imply we should all be outraged that someone may have had sex with a 17 year old on the specific grounds of statutory rape, that is highly location-dependent.
Calling it pedophilia is something else again. The young lady in question was significantly older than the age where it's appropriate to call something pedophilia, under any official classification of pedophilia.
As Wikipedia puts it: "Pedophilia (alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13."
So far as I can tell, nobody is defending or promoting pedophilia in these comments.
> How do we find a constructive path forward with a group that is unwilling to condemn pedophilia and child abuse or those who advocate and defend it.
It's hard to imagine a constructive path forward with that kind of argument.
Whatever else it was, it simply was not pedophilia, not even a little bit.
In my view, if you are genuine with your stated intent not to troll, you failed with this one.
I imagine you probably think I'm a pedophilia apologist as well now. Which is why I've posted under a throwaway handle, like a lot of people. It's really striking how many people in this HN thread appear to be afraid of having their actual name associated with their comments, including well reasoned and fact based comments. I think that it is not because they are embarrassed, rather it is because they see how angry and inconsiderate people are, being happy to throw out heinous false accusations that ruin lives, so it's smarter to stay anonymous on this topic.
I would like to rewrite it into something less abrasive, but this was not intended to highlight the gender split. In some circumstances a group of men can be more empathetic towards a woman than a group of women would be.
I believe the default state is to be moved by what you can perceive as a more immediate danger. This doesn't stem from some underhanded camaraderie, one's mind is just more attuned to what can directly affect it.
Here, the gender split already makes HN more likely, when all comments are summed into a chaotic generalized opinion, to defend RMS by default. He's a man, he's a hacker, he's at the root of many things we take for granted.
The gender split is just some context (and not even the most important piece of context — if I had time to discuss this at length, I would posit that if HN or tech in general were evenly split, it would have the same lack of empathy, just manifested differently.) for the next paragraph, which is the real problem: pretending feelings, emotions and perceptions can be discarded. Which is what makes me resent HN sometimes, as the parent says:
> I'm not really sure why you're expressing derision towards people that don't want sexual assault trivialized. I dunno, I feel like reading these types of posts, which are prevalent in this thread, that I have less and less in common with people on Hacker News
Once emotions are discarded, you can justify even genocide as long as you can convene an outcome that is favorable to a majority.
> I'm not really sure why you're expressing derision towards people that don't want sexual assault trivialized.
I have no issues at all with people who disagree with RMS or myself or anyone else, and express their opinions. I have issues with people who believe that their opinions and the sensationalist claims media distort them into justify a mob crusade trying to destroy organizations, careers, friendships and so on.
> Also it's not a bad thing to want social justice,
Social justice will never arise from people who organize lynch mobs.
you seem to assume there was assault from Minsky on Giufre, and I wonder where you get that idea.
I'm part of the people who do not want sexual assault trivialized and for that to happen not making inconsiderate use of the term is important to not strip it of its meaning.
After having read the court documentation, I have yet to see any evidence that Minsky assaulted Giufre, heck there's not even any indication he did have sex with her, only that she was directed to by Ms. Maxwell.
It is a bad thing to want social justice because it undermines our legal framework. It ruins peoples lives before they've had a chance to defend themselves. You only want it because you're on the side shouting down throats. Wait until it's your turn
RMS tried to do opposite of trivialising - to get facts straight and put proper blame on each person involved.
Everyone includes justice. Including bad actors who shouldn't be blamed for what they didn't do. Judging everyone for they actually did is the true social justice.
No, he did not. He tried to give the word "assault" a weird meaning, ignoring both the everyday English meaning of the word and the legal meaning of the word in a discussion about having sex with a coerced child arranged by a convicted sex offender.
AFAIK Epstein was not a convicted sex offender back when the original story happened.
Is it truly an assault if Minsky didn't know what and how someone was sent to him? If someone forces a non-obviously underage girl to come to you at a bar and seduce you, should you be tried for sexual assault?
You are responsible for your own actions. In this case your own negligence led to you committing a crime. Just as if your actions negligently lead you to kill someone that is a crime.
If you have sex with someone that hasn’t or can’t give consent then yes you should be at the very least charged with a crime. If someone else coerced that result then they should be charged with a crime as well. That someone else is also responsible does not absolve you of the crime.
The bottom line is that you don’t have to have sex with someone.
And killing-by-negligence is persecuted entirely differently than killing-by-intent.
If someone gives you a consent because they were forced by someone else to give you a consent, who is to blame? How deep do you have to go to ensure that the consent is true consent?
Note I said charged. I suspect if you can honestly make the case that you thought there was genuine consent that fact would be taken into account in the decision to prosecute and in sentencing.
If you are concerned about whether consent has been given genuinely or not I’d recommend slowing right down and doing more to establish that there is legitimate consent or not have sex with that person at all. There is no requirement to have sex.
Like if you’re in the situation as a gone to seed old guy who is approached by a teenager at a party it’s not rocket science to maybe think twice about having sex with them.
Not only charged. There's quite a bit of difference in public perception and how you're treated. E.g. if you hunted someone down and killed in called blood or someone happened to die because of your neglect. E.g. as engineer or doctor who did a mistake.
Yes, this i would love to know. Is it? And what if you card her (knowing that if she’s in the bar in the US, she must be 21, otherwise she’s acting illegally), and she shows you a convincing fake id?
This is an era where you can only have extreme opinions. If you are not all-out against statutory rape, you are seen as pro-rape. One is not like the other.
You don't magically get the mental tools for informed consent for sex the day you turn 18. You may get over the threshold for informed consent before, you may do so much later, and some people may not get there at all.
Classifying his opinions as fundamentally wrong is a childish view of the world. He does not advocate non-consensual sex, nor does he argue for pedophilia. He holds a much more nuanced view, which may be wrong for the current US moral compass but is not fundamentally/laws-of-nature wrong as is being painted by SJWs.
Neither of them seems hugely socially savvy. Perhaps someone/something helped Linus get there and RMS hasn't had a similar experience.