Cancel culture at its worst: A satire of the RMS Open Letter | Hacker News Reader

Cancel culture at its worst: A satire of the RMS Open Letter

medium.com

12 pointscrazypython8 comments

Thank you for posting this.

Everyone should be able to see the attacks on RMS and FSF for what they are: a campaign of bad-faith bullshit backed by corporate haters.

Or you know, maybe trying to destroy a creepy serial sexual harasser and pedo apologist and any organization that enables that behavior. It's about time we hold our leaders to a baseline of moral behavior. Taking out people who victimize women in stem for decades is a great start in my book.

In 1993 he had a slightly different definition of what is pedophilia. He gave a public apology and retracted his opinion. He doesn't apologize on behalf of pedophiles, he apologized for his previous opinion.

Fair point, we all grow and learn. The creepy sexual harassment of women? That's still enough in my book.

The open letter linked to a post documenting his "sexual harassment." It said he hit on women, with the newest accusation from 2004. He seems to have an unacceptable way of asking women out on dates. He can be taught a better way to ask women out. There are no accusations of groping or sexual assault– ever.

Cancel culture? Or insisting on a basic levels of humanity in our leaders? RMS sexually harassed women for decades. FSF is enabling that. Both are written off in my book.

These are the two allegations linked to by the original open letter:

- He had a mattress in his office which he slept on. This made some women avoid RMS because they considered it abnormal and creepy.

- He once told a woman he'd kill himself if he didn't date her. Note that they are not more specific about the words he used: it may have been a lighthearted "I couldn't imagine life without you" to a more serious "Life isn't worth living without you.

There was a false claim about the "Knight of Hot Women." Stallman did not write that, a vandal did and took a picture. He erased it soon after

None of us here want to enable sexual harassment.

There are many others if you care to search online.

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