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Comment by algesten | Hacker News Reader

Vague?!

Let's not dwell on the irony of how you are sort of saying "dangerous" without not actually saying it. Instead let me be clear.

You don't have to research Stallman for long to encounter a whole bunch of people (women) who feel the misgonistic air around him actively drove them away from engaging in fsf style open source.

As someone who experienced very similar things in other (typically white straight male dominated) areas, be it the locker room or upper echelons of power, I used a slightly generalized word "context". Was that the problem? One level of abstraction?

And no. That doesn't define all such contexts and no, that doesn't define all white straight males. We're arguing one single statement here – that why can't we let the "genius" Stallman just be the genius and only judge him for his work. Which is exactly what I was arguing. No one exists in a vacuum. The total sum of output of a person matters.

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> Was that the problem? One level of abstraction?

No, that's not the problem.

Take this sentence from your last comment, for example:

> You don't have to research Stallman for long to encounter a whole bunch of people (women) who feel the misgonistic air around him actively drove them away from engaging in fsf style open source.

You're being deliberately vague.

You don't say "Stallman is a misogynist" or "Stallman drove women away from contributing to fsf..."

Instead, you say there are people who "feel" that a misogynistic "air around him" drove them away.

Do you not see how that's a problem?

What if I were to claim that people "feel" a "misogynistic air" around you is driving people away from Hacker News?

That could be true, it could be false. Difficult to disprove.

But more importantly, it might not be your fault.

What you're doing is being deliberately vague to get away with blaming/accusing someone of something you wouldn't be able to get away with accusing them of directly.

It's the equivalent of asking "why was that young girl out alone so late at night anyway?" when discussing a sexual assault case.

Stallman may be a very bad man. Maybe he is a misogynist. Maybe he drove women away from working on FSF.

If so, accuse him of it. Don't hide behind waffle and doublespeak.

I have personally spoken with three women who have stated that they will not attend conferences where rms is also attending, or speaking, specifically because he won't leave them alone (by which I mean "keeps coming onto them"), and won't listen to them when they ask him to leave them alone, which they have done repeatedly, and unambiguously.

Is that a direct enough statement of facts for you, or would you like their phone numbers or emails or whatever, so you can fact-check for yourself?

I'm sure you have, and there's no doubt in my mind he deserves the backlash he's getting.

Did you disagree with the point I made in some way, or was this just the most convenient outlet for some keyboard banging?

> It's the equivalent of asking "why was that young girl out alone so late at night anyway?" when discussing a sexual assault case.

No. That's actually very different, I struggle to see any parallel.

> What you're doing is being deliberately vague to get away with blaming/accusing someone of something you wouldn't be able to get away with accusing them of directly.

Of course not. I'm deliberately using words that leave wiggle room, but not for the reasons you think. I believe in processes, not essences, I might sloppily say "Stallman is a misogynist", but I mean "Stallman's actions are misogynistic".

In a similar way, when trying to describe someone else's perspective I would not use absolute language. I can't presume to completely understand another person's experience. In order to be inclusive, I relay my general understanding with language that deliberately doesn't make hard borders for inclusion or exclusion.

Specifically, you suggest fixes to my language that change my meaning:

>> ...encounter a whole bunch of people (women) who feel the misogynistic air around him actively drove them away from engaging in fsf style open source.

> You don't say "Stallman is a misogynist" or "Stallman drove women away from contributing to fsf…"

I specifically didn't mean Stallman exactly, but him in the center of actions/reactions and whoever supports his ways (in mailing lists, meetups etc), hence "misogynistic air around…" (as earlier stated, I don't believe anyone IS anything). I also didn't mean contributing to the FSF only, but that this air around him has affected GNU and related software.

I try to use precise language, but you seem to argue I should reduce my views down to absolutes, which is not how I think about anything.

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