More like "Do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like, without regards for consequences, including lethal harm to bystanders." The latter lost him more than a few friends/acquaintances.
Which biography would you be referring to?
Sorry, I don't mean to dismiss your observation that he is difficult. But I see it as more complicated than "he is just difficult."
My oldest son is genuinely difficult, but I get along well with him. One of the reasons I get along well with him is that I recognize that his IQ is higher than mine, so unless I have a specific objection, I have a tendency to go along with what he wants because it tends to get better results, even though my default personality is risk averse and his default personality is risk seeking, so he really makes me crazy at times. I have long experience with dealing with difficult people and doing so in a manner that makes them easier to deal with rather than making them more intractable. Most of the time, difficult people are dealt with in a manner that causes them to dig in their heels.
So while I don't doubt that Stallman can be genuinely difficult, I also don't doubt that the degree to which he has been given crap while being repeatedly proven correct most likely only makes his bad habits intractable when they didn't necessarily have to become so. My son gets real respect from me on things where he is more knowledgeable than I am and he gives me real respect and defers to me on subjects where my knowledge is superior. If I just crapped on him all the time, there would not be a two way street of respect.
It gets really difficult to put a stop to a negative social dynamic once it gets going. At this point, it is probably impossible to break rms of his bad habits because, from his perspective, it probably never seems to matter if he is right, if he is polite, etc. It does bad things to someone's personality to be consistently right and get no respect because people do not like what you are saying. I have had a taste of that, so I have sympathy for his side.
I'm sorry that probably makes no sense to you.
Your eldest son may be a risk taker, but does that go so far as (truly futilely) hitting on a gangster's moll while eating with a group of innocents who didn't sign up for that level of danger when they went for a normally routine run to the favorite late night Cantonese restaurant?
As for his "intractable" "bad habits", they were set in stone long before GNU/FSF, and as for respect ... hmmm, I don't know, he's weird about that. But not very flexible (I'm not the best person judge all that, seeing as how you grant me a degree of respect or else, and he did that).
My son probably qualifies as ASD, though he has no formal diagnosis.
I am sure I wouldn't want to be within 30 feet of Stallman. I did not watch the video of him eating something off his foot, but I have a compromised immune system. For me, cleanliness is extremely important and I will end relationships over people being unable to abide by my (necessary) standards of cleanliness.
There is probably little point in me trying to convince you of my view of how social dynamics work. Perhaps we should leave this for now.
:-)
You can safely assume it's accepted and that I'd be happy to, e.g., share a meal with you at a restaurant with high levels of cleanliness (assuming they even exist, or do you e.g. depend on cuisines where they do a good enough job of killing the food dead?).
