[HN Gopher] EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing "the situatio...
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EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing "the situation regarding"
his persona
Author : eps
Score : 58 points
Date : 2023-05-15 20:52 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (clic.epfl.ch)
(TXT) w3m dump (clic.epfl.ch)
| [deleted]
| jdkee wrote:
| Literally canceled. Perhaps having an eternal memory of
| everything bad human beings ever do in their entire lives to be
| summoned up to destroy people is not such a good idea.
| splitrocket wrote:
| It's only Cancel Culture if it comes from the Cancel region of
| France.
|
| Otherwise it's just sparkling consequences.
| grapesurgeon wrote:
| if this is referring to his past controversies, i fail to see
| how this is 'cancel culture'. if he says controversial shit
| that other organizations dont want to be associated with, its
| up to him to deal with the consequences of that. he has the
| right to express his views just like anyone else has the right
| to not want to be associated with him and those views.
| proaralyst wrote:
| I think the intent of folks in this situation is not to look
| for targets for career destruction, but help prevent new people
| from being exposed to harm. In that context, a more accessible
| record of public figures' harmful acts seems like a net
| positive
| e40 wrote:
| We live in a new age, where we can know a lot more about the
| personal lives of famous people. Decades ago, the problematic
| personalities of famous people were hidden by the gate keepers.
| JKF benefited from this. It would be nice if there was a more
| uniform way to handle situations like this. RMS isn't alone, in
| being accused of unsavory things. Should we shun Bill Gates
| because of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? It's a thorny
| issue, because it's so hard to know much about the details of
| these problematic relationships.
| kweingar wrote:
| > Should we shun Bill Gates because of his relationship with
| Jeffrey Epstein?
|
| In my opinion, yes, absolutely.
| VagueMag wrote:
| Not just shun, but regard with the utmost suspicion!
| daneel_w wrote:
| Have you or anyone else been able to confirm the relationship
| was what you imply it was, or are you advocating guilt by
| association?
| kweingar wrote:
| I'm not sure what you think I'm implying about their
| relationship.
|
| It is well-known that Gates continued to associate with
| Epstein after the latter was convicted of procuring a child
| for prostitution. There doesn't really need to be anything
| else to the story in my opinion.
|
| (Editing to be clearer: I don't think he is guilty of
| Epstein's crimes by association. I think he is guilty of
| associating with Epstein while being aware of some of his
| horrible crimes. I'm not saying he needs to be locked up
| over this, just that I don't trust him, and I question the
| judgment of people who do.)
| alex_lav wrote:
| > advocating guilt by association?
|
| You using the word "guilt" suggests you're venturing into
| the strawman of "innocent until proven guilty", or that
| public opinion must follow the same rules as the judicial
| system.
|
| Even if he didn't do anything illegal, Jeffrey Epstein is
| gross and awful. It's totally fine for society to not want
| people "guilty" of associating frequently and voluntarily
| to be powerful and influential.
|
| Public opinion is not a court.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| I mean, as far as we know, that's what his wife did, right?
| Or is that just Internet wisdom?
| e40 wrote:
| I think the latter. To my knowledge, she never said why she
| left him. It certainly crossed my mind!
| johnea wrote:
| We should shun bilionaire bill because of the irreparable
| damage he's done to computing...
| seydor wrote:
| We ll never know what "the situation" is and whatever "statements
| that do not correspond to any of our values" are.
|
| Good job smearing mud without saying anything i guess. Did
| stallman say something since he was invited that was particularly
| noticeable? if not then these organizers don't know what they 're
| doing and this reflects bad on them
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I mean, his statements regarding pedophilia are enough. It's
| not exactly a hidden secret. Saying stuff like
|
| >I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms
| children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on
| cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by
| parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is
| maturing.
|
| Is very controversial, even if he backpedalled (only after it
| resurfaced and created a lot of controversy). I totally get why
| it wouldn't fit the values of a university
| lostmsu wrote:
| > controversial
|
| Is that an issue now? No one is allowed to have controversial
| opinions?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| There's a difference between a controversial opinion and
| one of the strongest taboos in American culture.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Pedophilia isn't exactly an American only issue. I'm not
| American but if thinking that pedophilia harms children
| is an American "taboo"... Then consider me thoroughly
| americanized lol.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| It's far from exclusive, but I don't know enough about
| other cultures to definitively say universally strong in
| all existing ones. (It hasn't been historically.)
| [deleted]
| bjornasm wrote:
| Where does it say that no one is allowed to have
| controversial opinions?
| maxbond wrote:
| Nowhere. Where does it say RMS is entitled to give this
| talk?
| [deleted]
| brookst wrote:
| Straw man. Nobody is saying he's not allowed to have that
| opinion.
|
| What people _are_ saying is that organizations have a right
| to choose whether to associate, or not, with people based
| on their opinions.
|
| It would be a grim world if we took freedom of thought to
| the extreme of mandating that people who disagree must not
| object.
| Retric wrote:
| I don't see what's so controversial about that statement.
|
| I don't know if it's unhealthy, but teachers really do find
| prepubescents experimenting with each other. Puberty isn't an
| instantaneous biological process. Some kids who can't
| physically reproduce seek out such contact with people of
| their age range or older teens. Is that going to cause long
| term problems? I have no idea, presumably there is actual
| research on this topic.
|
| That said, I think such things are a warning sign of abuse,
| hormonal issues, or various mental problems.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand your point. Obviously children
| experimenting with each other is very different from
| children having sex with adults. He didn't even mention
| older teens, he straight up implied that he
|
| 1) thinks that voluntary pedophilia is a thing
|
| 2) children can consent to sex with adults (again, broad
| statement that he didn't even limit to older teens)
|
| That's very different from children experimenting together.
| Stallman implies that not wanting some adult creep to prey
| on your kid is just some sort of moral panic, which is... a
| pretty horrible take and one that is often repeated by
| predators. A teen having sex with another teen is normal
| and part of the process of maturing, but with an adult it
| has a completely different power dynamic.
|
| Plus, being attracted to prepubescent or pubescent teens as
| an adult is inherently awful and problematic. It has
| nothing to do with a teen being attracted to another peer.
| Retric wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding the definition of what
| that word means.
|
| 1) A 12/13 year old and a 16 year old experimenting is
| likely pedophilia depending on the biology of the 12/13
| year old.
|
| 2) consent is a circular argument. The assumption that
| they can't give consent arises from the assumption of
| harm and therefore cannot be used to justify harm.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Is he talking about pre or post puberty? The term pedophilia
| sometimes lumps both together. Pre seems quite unnatural, or
| at least there is no obvious natural mechanism that would
| make it normal or beneficial. Post is a cultural matter,
| since age of marriage has fluctuated a lot over time.
| Discussing post seems reasonably defensible, discussing pre
| immensely less so.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > We ll never know what "the situation" is and whatever
| "statements that do not correspond to any of our values" are.
|
| All we know is that someone was paid by the Swiss tax-payers to
| write that.
|
| > Did stallman say something since he was invited that was
| particularly noticeable?
|
| Maybe they found another anonymous blog post to cancel him? Who
| knows.
| [deleted]
| marcodiego wrote:
| https://stallmansupport.org/richard-stallman-commitment-to-s...
| camdenlock wrote:
| This looked pretty good until it devolved into an appeal to the
| masters of the social justice cult. "L-Look! RMS is a true
| b-believer! Don't punish him, please..."
|
| Beyond pathetic.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Bizarre turn of events. Who cares about his persona, people can
| decide for themselves if they want to hear him speak.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| My read of the French is TLDR:
|
| [starts out by mentioning some people are complaining about RMS
| being schedule to talk], then:
|
| "We have considered the decisions of certain organizations that
| serve as examples for us and have made certain choices in the
| past" ("avons considere les decisions de certaines organisations
| qui nous servent d'exemple et qui ont fait certains choix avant
| nous").
|
| then they go on to say they've decided to cancel the talk.
|
| So - sounds like they're getting blowback and don't want to deal
| with all the politics / bad press around it? But also don't way
| to say they're just ducking out, and so have phrased it really
| weirdly.
| tivert wrote:
| Did Stallman do anything new that offended certain political
| persuasions, or is this cancellation only due to previous
| controversies/peculiarities?
|
| Edit: the level of downvotes/flag-kills of comments just asking
| "why" and "what happened" is pretty depressing.
| VagueMag wrote:
| Stallman made some remarks defending Marvin Minsky (very
| poorly) from victims' allegations that he abused young girls on
| Epstein's island.
|
| Meanwhile, Reid Hoffman is now known to have _visited_ the
| island and has not seen any firestorm of cancellations, as far
| as I 'm aware.
| tivert wrote:
| > Stallman made some remarks defending Marvin Minsky from
| victims' allegations that he abused young girls on Epstein's
| Island.
|
| Recently, or years ago? Because I'm pretty sure those remarks
| happened years ago.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| > Stallman made some remarks defending Marvin Minsky (very
| poorly) from victims' allegations that he abused young girls
| on Epstein's island.
|
| He basically said that the victims were harmed, that they
| were forced to have sex, but that probably Epstein also
| forced them to make sure it's not known, otherwise who would
| agree to such a relationship, that would be basically rape?
| Taking into account how easy is to accuse people and that
| Minsky had died 3 years earlier, Stallman just said what he
| thought of the situation and witch-hunting. Not to mention
| that the victim just said that Epstein asked her to have sex
| with Minsky but there is no mention that it actually happened
| - at least his wife denies this happened.
|
| But this was misrepresented in the media and even in
| headlines of major papers so I don't think the harm can be
| ever repaired.
| alex_lav wrote:
| HN is pretty divided about Stallman. Bringing up the things he
| actually at one time said, even if later he said something
| different, results in a lot of downvoting and toxicity. You
| can't talk about him without it devolving into binary thinking
| and binary debates. Same as everything else in 2023 I guess.
|
| _edit_ Even this comment, which is just listing a series of
| objective facts, is getting wildly upvoted /downvoted
| busterarm wrote:
| > You can't talk about him without it devolving into binary
| thinking and binary debates. Same as everything else in 2023
| I guess.
|
| Hopefully when they finish killing/unpersoning each other
| it'll just be sane people with measured opinions left.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > the level of downvotes/flag-kills of comments just asking
| "why" and "what happened" is pretty depressing
|
| People I imagine were suspicious that you were not simply
| asking "why" with the somewhat loaded "offended certain
| political persuasions" bit.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| For anyone denying that the "cancel culture" (a big misnomer btw)
| actually exists - this is a perfect example. At least they could
| say what the reason is, then this could be addressed somehow -
| but as it is now it's just mud-smearing.
| dandellion wrote:
| Giving reasons has fallen out of vogue, we're in the era of
| post-rationality.
| wmf wrote:
| Without a time machine there's no way for RMS to un-say things
| that he said. He probably wouldn't apologize either.
| explaininjs wrote:
| To those asking, last I heard from Stallman were his comments in
| the MIT CSAIL mailing list after the Epstein fallout basically of
| the theme: "some of them surely liked it".
|
| As far as I'm aware he was ousted from MIT soon after, though the
| folks who actually signed the checks to/from Epstein faced no
| such consequences. This is America.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman...
| snvzz wrote:
| The arguments in the character assassination campaign were
| found baseless[0][1][2].
|
| But the cancelation crowd's witch hunt continues even today.
|
| [0] https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-
| agai...
|
| [1] https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/09/30/in-defense-of-richard-
| stal...
|
| [2] https://itsfoss.com/richard-stallman-controversy/
| kweingar wrote:
| I know the things he said, the context he said them in, and
| the reasons he might have said them, and I still find it
| appalling. There were some headlines that took some of the
| quotes out of context, but that doesn't mean that what he
| said was ok.
| [deleted]
| kernal wrote:
| >We've seen your feedback on Richard Stallman's conference. We
| are very sorry to be so late in realizing the extent of the
| implications of organizing this event.
|
| I personally don't like the guy, but to take away his views for
| the people that were genuinely interested was cowardly.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Bill Gates had bonds with Epstein. His multi decade marriage fell
| after the fact became public. He didn't get 1% the flak that
| Stallman had for commenting about a word to describe Marvin
| Minsky.
| VagueMag wrote:
| Went on to become a Hero of the Pandemic, even!
| tivert wrote:
| This is in reply to the GP, which was inappropriately flag-
| killed.
|
| The difference is probably that Stallman has no money or
| power, so he's an easy, safe target to attack.
| thefz wrote:
| TBH in Europe "canceling" a meeting is quite common in French and
| Italian, while the social media inclined "woke" version is almost
| never used. The title is in French and I think it reflects the
| most common usage of the verb here, to void a meeting.
| thraway3837 wrote:
| Correct move. Holding an opinion that is unethical, immoral and
| destructive to society is unacceptable. And nobody wants to be
| associated with that. I wish this was not up for debate, but
| unfortunately, we seem to want to debate the same things
| repeatedly no matter how many times we know that certain things
| are problematic.
|
| For what it's worth for the HN crowd: A lot of us are in various
| points of our careers. Some starting, some in the middle, some at
| the end. You can spend decades establishing yourself. But it only
| takes 1 second to destroy it all. Think before you speak, think
| before you act.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| [flagged]
| born2discover wrote:
| Yes, sadly the woke has arrived to Switzerland...
| splitrocket wrote:
| It's only Cancel Culture if it comes from the Cancel region
| of France.
|
| Otherwise it's just sparkling consequences.
| kabdib wrote:
| As someone who was verbally abused and publicly insulted by
| RMS, I'm okay with this.
| Minor49er wrote:
| What happened?
| eps wrote:
| Was really looking forward it :-/
|
| The wording of the cancellation is just ... wierd. Just as if
| they have to say something, but don't really want to say anything
| at the same time. Such a wishy-washy bs.
| grapesurgeon wrote:
| could someone fill me in on what situation they are referring to?
| post-it wrote:
| Anyone have a background summary? Last I heard he kept a mattress
| in his office and asked people to lay on it, and he had a stupid
| neutral pronoun idea he was very insistent on using. Has
| something stranger come up?
| richardwhiuk wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies
| probably covers it I'm guessing.
| snvzz wrote:
| >"However, it is normal for adults to be physically attracted
| to adolescents,"
|
| Accurate statement. It matches the research.
|
| But today, pointing to facts is offensive.
|
| However unpleasant, this is concerning.
| h2odragon wrote:
| [flagged]
| sokoloff wrote:
| There are many factually accurate statements that are,
| nevertheless, inappropriate to wildly inappropriate under
| the circumstances. I have personally interacted with rms
| decades ago and have a generally positive impression of his
| entire body of contributions to computing. Nevertheless,
| reading the controversies section on the wikipedia page
| induces a combination of cringing and face-palming.
|
| Someone researching the science of attraction in humans
| could very well be justified in saying "it is normal for
| adults to be physically attracted to adolescents".
|
| Someone commenting in apparent defense of a convicted sex
| offender should not make that exact same claim, whether
| factually correct or not.
| snvzz wrote:
| >Someone commenting in apparent defense of a convicted
| sex offender should not make that exact same claim,
| whether factually correct or not.
|
| RMS simply kept faith on someone he knew and respected
| personally (not Epstein!), in the face of accusations he
| did not believe to be true[0].
|
| 0. https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-
| accusations-agai...
| [deleted]
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't know if rms knew Cody Wilson personally and
| respected him or not, but he doesn't make that claim in
| his text: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-
| oct.html#23_Septe...
| snvzz wrote:
| The person I was referring to is Marvin Minsky, who is
| dead and thus cannot defend himself.
| VagueMag wrote:
| This is a classic motte and bailey: "it's normal for
| adults to be attracted to adolescents" used to defend "it
| was reasonable for a fat CS prof in his 70s to believe a
| young minor on Epstein's island wanted to have sex with
| him absent any coercion going on (or for Stallman to
| advance this idea)."
| Fordec wrote:
| The main one, amoung many smaller things, were his comments
| around Jeffrey Epstein in 2019.
| kweingar wrote:
| He objected to the word "assault" being used to describe Marvin
| Minsky (allegedly) having sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's
| underage victims.
| neilv wrote:
| What I suspect happened is that RMS had a theory in his head
| about something incidental to the topic of conversation, and
| he immediately derailed the conversation to mention his
| theory.
|
| Unlike in most RMS-derailed conversations, this time it
| sounds like it might've confused the grave allegation in the
| original conversation, at the same time it compounded
| outrage.
|
| I'm glad RMS now understands that his ideas around this were
| mistaken, but I think most people aren't wired quite like he
| is. He might be thinking some kind of "Oh, it turned out that
| theory seems incorrect, thank you for correcting me with this
| information I did not have before". But a lot of people
| were/are upset, and going to respond in various different
| ways.
|
| I think RMS's _intentions_ remain principled, and I hope RMS
| now has advisors to help him function best towards those
| intentions, including helping him understand how different
| people will perceive and think about things.
| willcipriano wrote:
| That would be Marvin Minsky's and Jeffrey Epstein's victims.
| Jeff may have provided the access but the men who found
| themselves at his island are responsible for the rapes they
| committed. This is not a circumstance you find yourself in
| accidently.
| uconnectlol wrote:
| [flagged]
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