Did you just compare Stallman and the FSF to the Abolitionist movement, and paid software to slavery?
Two things don't have to be exactly as bad as each other to be analogous circumstances.
You are supposed to apply to same chain of logical reasoning to the two situations.
Just expressing faux outrage with a "How dare you compare these two things" isn't actually defeating the argument in any way.
Using extreme ethical examples to justify a statement is how Godwin’s Law came about, way back in the 90s. It’s a well known tactic to make one’s own position sound reasonable, by implying that anyone is still arguing with you may as well be saying the Nazis weren’t so bad.
It’s a good rule of thumb that rather than making a logical argument, you are in fact bringing a rational discussion to an end by invoking slavery, Hitler, or other incontrovertible evil. They are not in any meaningful sense useful analogies for most discussions.
The guy wasn’t bringing up anything like slavery. Therefore Stallman’s response is quite likely unexpected to most people.
This misunderstanding tends to be caused by (1) treating the rhetorical device literally rather than as an (intentionally exaggerated) analogy, and (2) - as in this case - by assuming that the argument being made is trying to draw some moral equivalence between the analogy and the original example. It isn't.
I wasn't making any point about whether Stallman is right or wrong on that, I was just pointing out that people are attacking the wrong part of his argument. If you disagree with him you should attack his base belief that proprietary software is unethical.
> Unless you have a low opinion of Stallman, why would you expect him to be so dismissive of the day-to-day concerns of someone who wants to support a family?
When have you ever seen Stallman be pragmatic instead of idealist about anything regarding proprietary software?
> When have you ever seen Stallman be pragmatic instead of idealist
Pragmatism vs idealism isn’t the point. My question was why would you expect someone you haven’t met to be an asshole, if you didn’t already think they were an asshole?
I would expect the same if I asked any particularly idealistic vegan how to eat meat with less impact. The idealistic vegan will just tell me to not eat any meat.
Also, in no way is any of what I said contingent on Stallman being an asshole, but it also surprises me that someone thinks finding Stallman to be an asshole at all surprising. He is a man of strong convictions that won't budge, and it's easy to find many anecdotes where people paint him as assholish.
I’ve been to events supporting a cause. They are full of people who, in support of their passionate convictions, try to help and persuade people to join them without reducing personal dilemmas to simplistic answers.
It makes me wonder: if strong convictions don’t cause or correlate to how you treat people, is there another explanation for why it’s so easy to find such anecdotes?
Wow. There is a continuum from good behaviour to unethical behaviour to evil.
To conflate and compare and equivalate unethical behaviours like theft with true evils like slavery or murder is beyond unhelpful.
I don't see how proprietary has even been established as unethical let alone a evil equivalent to slavery.
Please stop making this argument on Stallman's behalf.
I'm not saying those behaviors are all equally bad. I'm saying they are all bad, with an unspecified amount of evilness. I wouldn't help anyone do any of them. I won't help someone steal, even if I think murder is more wrong than it, because stealing is already wrong.
For Stallman, nonfree software is also wrong. You can argue with that, but you can't expect him to help someone write nonfree software and still hold that view.