Hacker News Reader

Comment by passwordreset | Hacker News Reader

I didn't know this fact until you exposed this article to me: that the person who posted their opinion about RMS threatened to "burn it [MIT] to the ground."

RMS uttered some awful opinion, and this person threatened to burn MIT to the ground as a result. If true, this person, who is identified as "Salem, Robotics student who started Remove Stallman campaign" needs to be removed from MIT immediately for making this threat. Is that something that we can all agree on?

Shouldn't we be making phone calls to the Robotics department at MIT about this threat? Why has this received no media attention? "MIT student threatens to burn MIT to the ground" is certainly a headline that would capture attention.

View on HN

* This person is a graduate of MIT.

* I have no immediate reason to think they are at MIT, so I don't think it's likely that they can be removed.

* "Burn it to the ground" is obviously metaphorical language, which means (as the person themselves said), that anyone and everyone at MIT who stands in the way of firing Stallman should be fired too. (Note that they didn't "threaten" to burn it to the ground, as you say, because then it wouldn't make sense as a metaphor.)

Note that I'm not defending the language or the expressed wish, so don't attack me over that. I'm only clarifying the circumstances in which that statement was made for you.

Burn it to the ground" is obviously metaphorical language

In that case everything RMS is alleged to have said was obviously metaphorical too.

Words ... have ... meanings. You can't just say something was a metaphor because you want it to be.

You literally just did do that! My point is that either everything is or nothing is. You can’t say your friends controversial statements are metaphorical while damning your enemies for the same things.

> My point is that either everything is or nothing is.

Come on, you can't seriously believe that either everything is metaphorical or nothing is. You have to be trolling me.

And these people aren't my friends.

For the record, "burn it to the ground" is a very common figure of speech on the left. For example, look at this editorial from only a month ago: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/24/austra... It's right in the subtitle!

Do you think this person wants to literally go get a torch and burn "the gender binary" to the ground? It doesn't even make sense. There's also no way you can interpret RMS as using a metaphor. He gave a defense of Minsky. How are metaphors even relevant? Are you trying to say he was joking?

For the record, "burn it to the ground" is a very common figure of speech on the left

But if a right winger says exactly the same words they are to be taken literally? Are centrists allowed to say it?

There is no reason not to take it as a threat of arson, or hate speech if you prefer. Words have meanings. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, that’s another very common figure of speech.

> But if a right winger says exactly the same words they are to be taken literally?

No. Everyone is allowed to say it, unless it's clear from the context that they are literally threatening violence. In this case, quite the opposite is true. The author of that statement says in the next paragraph that they want the powerful people at MIT turned out if necessary to get rid of Stallman.

> Remove everyone, if we must, and let something much better be built from the ashes.

I mean, come on, the person who said this was a real threat against MIT wasn't serious. Surely you can admit that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com