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Stallman
March 26th, 2021
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Richard Stallman is back on the board of directors at the Free
Software Foundation (FSF) after having resigned eighteen months
ago under mounting public pressure for him to be removed for his
controversial comments about consent in reference to Jeffrey
Epstein sex-trafficking charges.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre was a 17 year old victim of Epstein who
in her deposition stated that she was directed to have sex with
Marvin Minsky, a member of the MIT faculty. In response to an MIT
CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory)
email thread planning a protest at MIT over the institution's
relationship with Epstein, Stallman raised issues with the term
"assaulting", stating, "The word 'assaulting' presumes that he
applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the
article itself did say no such thing. Only that they had sex."
In addition to the immediate backlash, statements from Stallman's
blog added fuel to the flames. I am skeptical of the claim that
voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children." (Stallman, 2006)
In 2019 he later amended, "Through personal conversations in
recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can
harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter:
I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the
conversations that enabled me to understand why."
Though often accused of defending Epstein, Stallman has made it
clear that he sees the man as a serial-rapist and condemns his
acts. It is instead these statements surrounding the ideas of
consent and sexual violence that have sparked the majority of the
outrage.
Many people feel it is appropriate to separate Stallman from the
FSF and other libre software movements as these personal
statements and views reflects negatively on that community and
their efforts. Others see in him a champion unmatched in calling
for libre software engagement and adoption. Many groups in the
field have been forced to make a public stance in favor or against
his involvement, such as Mozilla and the Tor Project [0].
[0] Mozilla and Tor join calls to oust ...
- - -
So what do I think? I think the man is a mixture of good ideas and
bad. I think he's naturally brusque and his elevated position in
his narrow community has fed his ego dangerously, as any power is
wont to do.
I am also guilty of having been wrong in the past. I'm thankful
that most of my wrongness isn't in permanent written form and
I don't have enemies who seek out my own poor behavior in the past
to drag it into the light today. It's hard enough to change your
mind without being anchored to those past decisions through
constant reminder.
Stallman has lived his life in a tech world with tech solutions,
logic, and a type of pseudo-logical rhetoric that can make his
statements seem detached or disingenuous. It's something I see
commonly in communities dominated by autistic people, though it's
not limited to those or necessarily present among all autistics.
Whatever the case, it doesn't mesh well with the highly emotional
topics such as sexual predation. The tone itself harms, which is
something I suspect Stallman is both unaware of and incapable of
addressing. Coming from a white man in position of power adds to
the harm and further alienates those who hear what he says. All
this harm comes separate from and in addition to the comments
themselves. He was rightfully argued against in that email list
and I think the escalation of the issue into a public forum was
necessary to balance the scales of power. Unfortunately in an
institution like MIT and in a group like CSAIL the opinions of
Richard Stallman are not in balance with the others speaking.
We do not currently have a mechanism in our society to address
these public social grievances of powerful people beyond seeking
punishment through their employment, platform, sponsorship, and
other mechanisms that enable their power. Our public speech is
unbalanced in power in favor of the rich and powerful, and so some
measures will necessarily be taken to counter it.
Is it right? Is it just? It is literally our only recourse. It's
hard to make an ethical judgement without alternatives. I would
love a world where there were other means of public censor.
History doesn't provide us many options without blood to model
after, though. Perhaps getting someone removed from a board of
directors isn't such a bad course.
And now that he has returned, just 18 months after the incident of
note and without much change in public opinion, what are we to
think? Is his short statement on his blog about learning that
pedophilia is wrong sufficient to let him off the hook for his
statements minimizing sexual abuse? No, I don't think so. That may
address his 2006 statements, but not those regarding Virginia
Roberts Giuffre.
- - -
But what of the FSF and libre software in general? Without
Stallman at the helm will that effort fail?
Here first I will make an ethical statement that libre software is
not important when juxtaposed by the physical safety of a human
being. It is not important when juxtaposed with the safety of
minors, of women, or in relation to sexual abuse. If Richard
Stallman was the one and only human being who could make libre
software succeed or fail it is still not worth giving the man
power if it leads toward the increase in actual harm to actual
human beings.
Thankfully Stallman isn't that important. He has done quite a bit
of work in the field. That is unarguable.
In political theory there is the idea of the Overton window [1].
There is a spectrum of political discourse from far extreme to
moderate to far extreme in the other direction. The Overton window
represents the scope along this spectrum of politically acceptable
policies. Notably, though, is the need for actors that exceed the
boundaries of this window to widen it in their given direction.
For instance, an extreme leftist view allows for a more moderate
leftist view to be politically acceptable. Without that extremist
view the window will shift to the right and the moderate practice
will seem extreme.
[1] Overton window
I think this idea is applicable to more than politics, or perhaps
more than traditional politics. The politics of technology and
thir place in the world has extremists and Richard Stallman is
one. The idea that all software and hardware on a user's system
must fit his libre definition is one such view. It enables us to
have more reasonable discussions about the importance of the open
source community, of public access to code, and intellectual
property in general.
For this reason I appreciate the Stallmans in the world, but not
enough to give him a pass on other behavior. Thankfully we still
have plenty more assholes expanding our Overton window. We don't
need Stallman for that anymore.
In some cases it is difficult to separate art from artist when the
artist does something heinous. This is most often if the art
represents a substantial and important cultural work, or if, as is
more often the case, it is not an individual work but the work of
many people. Take the Cosby Show as an example here. Do we
write-off that television series because of the acts of Bill
Cosby? That unjustly punishes all of the other actors, staff, and
production crews that put their work into a very good program to
spite one man. This is a difficult ethical choice. In the case of
Richard Stallman it was fairly simple to punish the man and ignore
the FSF itself 18 months ago. The choice of the board to reinstate
him, however, now stains the rest of them with the conscious
choice to value him over the harm his statements cause.
So that's my extremely long-winded way of saying I agree with
Mozilla and the Tor Project. We must censor Stallman and the FSF
board of directors. The means of doing so is their removal from
that position. Let it be done and done peacefully. Let them learn
from it as Stallman learned that his 2006 statements were
dangerous and damaging. Maybe by removing them from power others
will learn as well. These ideas they're arguing are widening an
Overton window around sexual consent that doesn't need widening.
Lets quiet the extremists and bring that window to a healthier
place.
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