I'm not being literal! Their are flavors of personal ethics. You can be a non-conformist and have ideals about behavior that don't extend to other people. Really that's the core of my annoyance with his point of view.
It's just annoyance. Richard Stallman is a person of influence, but only in a narrow community. So I don't think he is dangerous. He's a person of great accomplishment, and has contributed a huge amount to the world. The idea of open source and free software does cut against the grain of the dominant corporate-state power structure in the US and that's great.
I am personally concerned with the abuses of power that happen (by the powerful, all over the world). But it's not black and white. The unlawful surveillance of US citizens by our Gov't is disturbing. It's not as disturbing as launching unfounded wars on the other side of the world, but still disturbing. To the extent that Richard Stallman is fighting against the use of technology to increase the illegal use of Gov't power, then I get it.
Somehow though, and I can't put my finger on it, I don't think it's the technology per se that is at the root of this type of activity. Modern computing technology is certainly being co-opted to this use. But the tensions that underly the behavior are more fundamental to the issues of power and state. At the highest levels of power, it is just damn hard to enforce any kind of law, as their is no enforcement mechanism. The gov't is just not going to let people do whatever they want in regards to technology and how it is used. We have to accept this, and fight to keep that power from being abused. An absolute stance along the lines of a super strong right to privacy obscures what is at stake. The line will never be drawn to that extreme, so I wish for a more nuanced discussion. FWIW:)
He advocates his views loudly, but he's not trying to impose anything to anyone.
He's judgmental towards those who don't share them, though. Maybe that's what you mean when you say he's conformist?
Technology is not all there is to oppression, for sure, but he's doing his part as a programmer to prevent it.
The creation of the GNU movement, and subsequently of the FSF stems from a personal grief: the demise of the MIT AI lab during the Lisp machines wars. You can read more about it here:
Thanks for the link, it does give more context for where Stallman is coming from. It's a poignant story.
It's a tricky question about personal ethics and judgement. Is it possible for someone to have personal ethics that don't implicitly include the concept that everyone should share them? I'm not sure.
Anyhow, yes I am referring to the RMS's judgmentalness in my (what I meant to be ironic) reference to "conformist."
My understanding of the meaning of "conformism" is that it refers to the use of emotional, social, and behavioral methods that a dominant group use to coerce others who think, act differently than they want them to. RMS's ideas of morality are very much addressed towards the behavior of others and how he thinks people "should" act. The irony is that if many people adopted the ethics of RMS, I am positing that this would create a very conformist society (at least in regards to the proper use of technology).
The MIT Labs story is illustrative. The other protagonists in the story did not act how Stallman wanted them to, and hurt him (and others too). If others act in ways that hurt you or others, I can see how you can choose to define their behavior unethical. But you could also say they just behaved in ways that you didn't like, and hurt you.
Everyone has their own idea of ethics, and where various lines are drawn about moral/amoral/immoral.
It's interesting to see the down votes I am getting. I was starting to feel upset, but I guess it's just part of the method of discussion here? A short of shorthand to disagree? It's true I am a newbie to the Hacker News site, so if I am out of bounds on the discussion I apologize.
