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Comment by mplewis | Hacker News Reader

"Stallman's comprehensive personal philosophy on social matters can make people uncomfortable."

Could you include a bit on the site that discusses RMS' "pleasure cards" and how he continued to hand them to women even after he was asked to stop because it made people uncomfortable? https://twitter.com/wiredferret/status/1173042834179534849

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It is a joke on "business or pleasure" and he gave it to both men and women https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26574720

This is the first time that I read that "he was asked to stop".

Devils advocate: is there any proof that these aren't just business cards using poor taste humor, like Zuck's "I'm CEO, Bitch." card?

Who exactly coined the "pleasure card" moniker?

You also noted he continued to hand them out after being asked to stop, but the link doesn't seem to corroborate that (and is a random Twitter accusation at that).

It seems like the users of this site would rather downvote this than actually take the time to think of a response.

You have to admit that the open letter paints him as something much worse than that though. Quite the vicious and hotheaded campaign that naturally ended up being divisive. At least they did not call him racist.

I remember “tender hugs” being quite the thing in the last quarter of the 20th century.

What else is notable about his card?

I'm really trying to understand the issue with the card itself, but the tweet has no further context. Did he only give these out to women? Were they given with other social cues that would indicate he was handing them out as a way to hit on or make a sexual advance towards women? If either of those things are true then I'd understand. But the cards alone look like a business card from a person with a slightly odd sense of humor.

He made people uncomfortable. He was asked to stop. He was reported. He kept doing it.

So it's not a "slightly odd sense of humor." It's not humor if no one laughs. If someone tells me something makes them uncomfortable, I stop it.

Making people uncomfortable is essentially free speech. wtf should he be ostracized for doing that?

Now, if the Org he's giving a speech for and giving these out at, doesn't like him doing it and asks him not to but he still does it. then THEY are within their right to eject him.

But no flash outrage social media push has any right to "cancel" the guy because he creeps them out a little.

Just dont take the card. request he leave you alone. He'll either get the message or he wont... if he doesn't then that is harassments. (albeit a very minor sort) but enough to request security/police to step in and communicate more directly to his hind-brain.

Beginning to see some of the arguments that the "right" make about cancel culture... and I a lefty.

Where's the proof of that? Because it's not in the random Twitter allegation.

Who asked him to stop? What specifically was said? When was he reported? When did he keep doing it?

I've heard this allegation multiple times, and have yet to see any proof.

How many people were made uncomfortable? How many times was he asked to stop? Is it documented anywhere, other than this persons tweet? And why are they being called "pleasure cards"? It makes it sound like these were handed out in order to solicit sex from women.

Do none of these details matter? Am I going crazy? Why are so many people so incurious about factual information once there is any mention of the word "uncomfortable" or "unsafe"?

I think it’s called a “pleasure card” because it’s supposed to be the opposite of a “business card” (like the idiom “business or pleasure”.)

Ever seen clowns? Some of them make quite a business out of making people uncomfortable

"comfort the disturbed -- disturb the comfortable"

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