[HN Gopher] Reasons Not to Use Google
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       Reasons Not to Use Google
        
       Author : mdwalters
       Score  : 43 points
       Date   : 2023-03-21 21:22 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (stallman.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (stallman.org)
        
       | ftxbro wrote:
       | I'm not defending Stallman, or Google for that matter, but it was
       | last updated 2019.
        
       | Soykaf wrote:
       | Good ol' RMS
        
       | alex_lav wrote:
       | Surprised to find Stallman's content still showing up on this
       | site. Surprised in a negative way.
        
         | vlunkr wrote:
         | It's pretty lame to assume that everyone has the exact same
         | moral views as you. Most people would probably agree that he's
         | said some highly questionable things, but what about the age-
         | old question of separating the art from the artist? It seems
         | that your position is to entirely cancel rms from history, but
         | not everyone is going to agree. He's one of the most important
         | figures in computing history, should we really just throw it
         | all away regardless of any context?
        
           | alex_lav wrote:
           | > It's pretty lame to assume that everyone has the exact same
           | moral views as you.
           | 
           | What can I say, I categorically reject pedophilia and those
           | that approve of it. A controversial opinion on this site,
           | apparently. Which is, again, unfortunate.
        
         | ergonaught wrote:
         | Why be surprised?
         | 
         | He had a point and a bunch of kneejerkers emoted everywhere.
         | You appear interested in doing that, and so do the commenters,
         | but that's hardly the only thing that happens on HN.
         | 
         | Obviously.
         | 
         | There are areas where his opinions probably come close to
         | qualifying as facts, and he's relevant, so he'll continue to
         | show up.
         | 
         | If that's "problematic", I assure you that RMS is not the
         | actual problem.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | regularjack wrote:
         | Why? Stallman has been an influential figure in open source
         | software for decades, and this post seems to discuss topics
         | many HNers care about.
        
           | alex_lav wrote:
           | Supports pedophilia.
        
             | ergonaught wrote:
             | Prove that RMS supports sexual intercourse with
             | prepubescent children or stop breaking the law slandering
             | the man.
        
               | alex_lav wrote:
               | 1. https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-
               | aug.html#05%20June%20...
               | 
               | 2. Slander doesn't apply to directly citing a person's
               | own content.
        
               | margalabargala wrote:
               | What you linked to:
               | 
               | > Many years after posting this note, I had conversations
               | with people who had been sexually abused as children and
               | had suffered harmful effects. These conversations
               | eventually convinced me that the practice is harmful and
               | adults should not do it.
               | 
               | The position you claim he holds, is the opposite of the
               | opinion he holds.
               | 
               | Do you believe that people should be judged based on the
               | worst opinion they have ever held in their past, or based
               | on the opinions they hold now?
        
           | Toutouxc wrote:
           | You can find some 100 % Stallmanesque, extremely pedantic and
           | tone-deaf quotes from him on pedophilia and rape. Some people
           | are understanding, some are not.
        
             | alex_lav wrote:
             | To be extremely pedantic would be to point out that he was
             | condoning pedophilia, which is (again pedantically) defined
             | as a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. So, to be
             | direct, assuming he was being pedantic is actually worse.
        
             | unity1001 wrote:
             | Therefore, his contributions in the field of Open Source
             | and software freedom are null and void, is it. Because,
             | everyone has to be a prophet who we can take as a 'role
             | model'.
             | 
             | ...
             | 
             | This obsession with making Jesuses out of everyone to
             | follow as 'role models' in the US is really alien to those
             | of us who live elsewhere in the world.
             | 
             | Its amazing how you people did not 'cancel' literally
             | every. single. prominent figure in near and distant
             | history. All of them had something that would require
             | canceling at this very moment - Washington had dentures
             | made of slaves' teeth, Edison stole inventions and
             | electrocuted elephants, Schweitzer believed that black
             | people were inferior and so on.
             | 
             | ...
             | 
             | In this particular topic, what is defined as 'pedophilia'
             | isnt even clear: Is it prepubescent children? Or is it an
             | 16 year old sleeping with a 18 year old? Even as 16 is a
             | legal age for marrying and joining the military and dying
             | in almost everywhere around the world, including various
             | European countries? Or are 25 year olds still 'children'
             | like how some lunatics are trying to popularize?
        
           | dangwhy wrote:
           | i think he was cancelled at some point. don't remember any
           | details though.
        
             | 908B64B197 wrote:
             | Someone published some anonymous blog post to get him
             | cancelled.
        
               | alex_lav wrote:
               | Or you can simply consult his actual words, which condone
               | pedophilia.
        
           | ftxbro wrote:
           | He said some bad stuff and got cancelled on twitter and fired
           | from his own company.
        
       | simonebrunozzi wrote:
       | I am not a defender of Stallman, but I think it's useful to link
       | to this subsequent 2019 article about his supposed "changing of
       | mind" about Epstein and pedophilia [0].
       | 
       | [0]: https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-scientist-stallman-
       | pedophi...
        
         | dima55 wrote:
         | It's not useful. The article was about google.
        
       | enriquto wrote:
       | This is an interesting list of reasons. Even if it is long, I'd
       | say it's still somewhat incomplete...
       | 
       | I was motivated by this list to stop depending so much on google.
       | But it's harder than it seems. For example, if you purchase a
       | fastmail account, you still need a google account to install the
       | app in your non-google phone, because fastmail only provides the
       | apk files via the google play store. There's so many such
       | "roadblocks" in de-googlification that you inevitably give up at
       | some point.
        
         | smnrg wrote:
         | You can use the Aurora store and no account.
        
           | enriquto wrote:
           | Thanks! I'm going to try it! But how can you be sure that you
           | are getting the real thing? Fastmail does not publish
           | checksums of their apks. I asked their user support (which is
           | otherwise excellent) if they could publish apks or at least
           | the checksums, and they basically said "thanks for your
           | suggestion".
        
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