[Discuss] RMS

[MBR]

I think Thomas Lord's rebuttal of Thomas Bushnell's article is well 
worth reading. (See 
https://twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/1174433645110513664). From Lord's 
comments:

        "One remarkable thing about the FSF at that time, when we worked
        out of dinky spare offices on the campus of MIT, was the degree
        of participation by women.   In the tiny society that was then
        the FSF, women were more prominent than I had seen in Silicon
        Valley, or acadamia prior." -- Thomas Lord

        "The general culture of inclusiveness and tolerance that RMS
        fostered meant that, at least when I was there alongside
        Bushnell, that social circle in and around the organization was
        feminized and all the stronger for it." -- Thomas Lord

        "This does not mean, of course, that RMS (or any of us) never
        gave offense or acted stupidly.   But Bushnell's portrait
        showing a depraved sexist coddled by this or that MIT prof. is
        simply bullshit, and Bushnell probably knows or should know that
        in his heart." -- Thomas Lord

            Mark Rosenthal

On 9/23/19 1:34 PM, Shirley Márquez Dúlcey wrote:
> Thomas Bushnell has written a thoughtful piece about RMS on Medium:
> https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84
> People who have been following this thread might want to read it.
>
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 12:58 PM Derek Martin <invalid at pizzashack.org>
> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 11:23:26AM -0500, Derek Martin wrote:
>>>      Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a
>>>      specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the
>>>      criticism.
>>>
>>> I can not see how, unless you suck at reading English, you can
>>> interpret this any way other than that he takes issue with the term
>>> "sexual assault" PRECISELY because it is NOT "clearly defined."
>> So I lied, I do see a way:  If you choose to read in the worst
>> possible unstated intentions of the person making the statements.
>> This is unfortunately a tactic that has become commonplace in recent
>> years.  Then you get the interpretation that you have taken.
>>
>>>> Now substitute Epstein for Minsky in RMS' rhetoric and see what you
>> get.
>>
>> Actully what rms expressly called for--being explicit about that which you
>> are accusing someone--would work just fine if you substituted Epstein
>> for Minsky.
>>
>> --
>> Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
>> -=-=-=-=-
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