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Comment by rantwasp | Hacker News Reader

one thing that bothers me in the context of cancel culture is that it seems people put the equal sign between the work/art someone produces and their ideas outside of that area.

Having wrong or plain stupid ideas does not mean you should die and all the [brilliant] work you are doing should go to waste.

the bigger the target you attack, the better. right? what is your contribution to this world?

they are not even close to the same thing. look, RMS is a weirdo - everyone understands this. But most people are not even close to his level. This exceptionality has it’s drawbacks and its cost. Do you really think the FSF wants to deal with all this? What is the thought process behind reinstating RMS?

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> one thing that bothers me in the context of cancel culture is that it seems people put the equal sign between the work/art someone produces and their ideas outside of that area.

It often depends on what that outside work is; if RMS was a bad soundcloud rapper, I couldn't care less, it's inconsequential. If he was a known puppy puncher (which he isn't), I'd care a lot more, because that matters so much to me that I don't want to even remotely support anyone like that.

But in this case the complaints aren't "outside of that area", they're directly related to his role as a leader of the free software movement. His harassment of people directly hurts other people in the movement and people who potentially could join and help out. His musings on pedophilia are not simply unacceptable, they directly lead to people dismissing the movement because they fear joining a movement that abides such opinions. That they are both is part of what makes him unfit.

> all the [brilliant] work you are doing should go to waste

I believe that the opportunity cost of keeping someone like RMS in a leadership position is higher than the accomplishments he achieves by that position. It's not simply a "cancellation" for some abstract moral reason, it's that he is _not worth it_ compared to what could have been achieved with the people he pushed away.

The argument isn't that he contributed nothing or that his contributions are worthless. Few people are advocating for burning everything he built to the ground simply to exorcise his lingering influence once he is gone or whatever and even fewer are doing so in good faith.

The argument is that by retaining his position he is actively alienating people. Do you think he is such a phenomenal genius that keeping him is worth ten good people quitting or not joining in the first place? A hundred? A thousand? Where is the break-even point where it becomes more beneficial to keep a "genius" than being welcoming to new people who feel deeply uncomfortable around his behavior. And are you measuring him by what he has created in the past, or are you really considering his present value and likelihood of future contributions?

What if he's not so brilliant after all and you're allowing one "genius" to cost you equivalent or even superior "geniuses" with less abrasive personalities?

We like to tell stories about individual heroes, but if there is one recurring pattern in history it's that we're always standing on the shoulders of giants -- and even that imagery is misleading as it is not really just a handful of giants but armies of them, mutually supporting each other as they carry your weight.

>Do you think he is such a phenomenal genius that keeping him is worth ten good people quitting or not joining in the first place? A hundred? A thousand?

Unless the people at the FSF calling for his ousting are privately acknowledging that this is only because of the 'bottom line' (I don't think that's the case), then it becomes necessary to judge the actual reasoning of those hundred/thousands of people's decision to avoid RMS. Put simply, when is it okay to just implement a blind appeal to popularity?

When I say "worth it", I'm not simply talking about finances.

He's a drain on the organization's reputation. People don't join the FSF because of the great working hours and phenomenal pay, they mostly join it for ideological reasons. We're not talking about retiring a beloved mascot because people don't like it anymore, we're talking about removing an individual holding a position of power who's actively keeping people away by being a sex pest.

But agnostic to this specific situation, you would acknowledge that there could be a situation in which the people kept away are morally confused to the point in which it's actually better to do without them from a moral (and long-term business) perspective.

"Having a CEO in favor of Data Privacy/Product Safety/Responsible Bank Lending will lead to thousands of potential employees avoiding our company!"

I'm sure you'll disagree with the particulars on the FSF case, but I'm just saying popularity is not the slam-dunk you're implying.

> Do you think he is such a phenomenal genius that keeping him is worth ten good people quitting or not joining in the first place?

There are no numbers here, so this is literally impossible to debate. You can say X, I can say Y, and it's all completely subjective.

I personally don't think that he's driving away people like people claim. RMS is involved with the gnu project, fsf, and free software (now renamed open source), but those projects are each far bigger than he is.

> What if he's not so brilliant after all and you're allowing one "genius" to cost you equivalent or even superior "geniuses" with less abrasive personalities?

Again, this is impossible to debate in good faith. There are infinite hypothetical alternate realities, what good does it do for any of us to muse over them? Maybe a "super genius" exists and is being held back by RMS' continued existence. Maybe not.

RMS made these comments on work communication channels. You don't need to separate his ideas from his work because he himself put his ideas into his work environment and is now, correctly, paying the price for that.

I don't think CSAIL mailing list qualifies as "work" for rms, if "work" is FSF. Maybe "professional", but it's a university, so that sort of inquiry is 100% appropriate and should be protected.

For a lot of people on that list it was work. And as for whether it was an appropriate for that discussion, the university in question has since unambiguously communicated that it wasn't.

Yeah, we're unfortunately entering a time of repression. I wonder how bad it will get.

The duty to resist it rests on our collective shoulders.

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