story
That said, I have a nagging worry from watching some videos of his behavior that he is mentally ill and there might be a backlash from that.
But why we can't allow a process like that to transpire before passing judgment is beyond me. Why wishing such an impartial judgment upon him is downvote worthy is really worrisome to me. That's not what western democracies are about as I understood them up to now.
I Just do not believe we should make career-ending decisions like this based on the rage of a mob on social media, that's literally a Black Mirror episode (and a really bad episode of The Orville as well). I believe their role is to raise awareness of situations like to the point where the above should transpire. Does holding that viewpoint now make me subject to "cancellation" as well?
No. But I do think you're not really looking at this situation objectively. Here's what you've said:
1. It's clear that an objective board should have fired RMS
2. We shouldn't make these decisions based on mobs
Additionally, we know he was fired. With that information, you can't make any conclusions. How and why are you so certain that some board didn't weigh the evidence and pass objective judgement? The problem with this fear of "cancel culture" (which as others have mentioned is really just "holding powerful people accountable when they do bad things culture"), is that so far I haven't seen any evidence that the bad things people fear have happened. RMS did a bad thing. He faced consequences for a thing that even you agree was a bad thing. Your only concern is that it is possible, not even certain, that the method by which he faced consequences for an action that we both agree was bad and deserved consequences might have not have been up to a standard that few employees anywhere get.
I want to stress that last bit: very few employees are afforded the privilege of an impartial committee to decide whether or not they should be fired in any circumstances. You're arguing that RMS should get a stronger protection than your average employee (either that or that workers should, in general, have much, much stronger protections than we currently give them).
tl;dr:
> I believe their role is to raise awareness of situations like to the point where the above should transpire.
To me, this looks like exactly what happened. Why are you complaining?
Even when they're caught, they get put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which is shorthand for giving them 60 days to find a new job or to turn their life around internally. Usually, it leads to the former, sometimes the latter. I've seen both.
It's an imperfect and biased process. But the attempt is usually made because HR fears unjustified termination lawsuits despite the "at will" employee status of just about everyone.
Unless they've tried to hack the company's servers for private data, I've never seen anyone fired on the spot without the above process unfolding. Maybe your experience differs?
PS I also think Charles Manson and The Unabomber were unambiguously guilty. That doesn't change my opinion that they deserved the trial they got.
PPS If as amyjess seemingly suggests that female professors at MIT repeatedly filed complaints against him and nothing happened, well then carry on Twitter mob, good job, seriously.
RMS isn't an employee of the Tech industry. He's a university something (visiting professor, I think, but not a tenured or official faculty position). Members of the tech industry are also unusually privileged in this regard. Ask a line cook or an employee at a department store if they're given a PIP if they are underperforming. And again, by all accounts, it is possible, and even likely, that there was such a process spurred on by the twitter mob. So its not clear to me what your complaint is. To address it, let me be more explicit: What would you like MIT to have done differently in this situation?
As I see it, they have a few options. They could of course not fire stallman. We agree this is unacceptable. Objectively he deserves to be fired. They could have already fired him, this is perhaps the best solution but requires time travel or foresight MIT lacks. I guess this suggests MIT hasn't yet developed that technology or skill. They could wait to fire him, which costs them PR, and potentially causes others to resign, for no gain (they're going to fire him). Or they could do what they did: fire him now. Again I wonder: what are you complaining about?
> PS I also think Charles Manson and The Unabomber were unambiguously guilty. That doesn't change my opinion that they deserved the trial they got.
You're conflating being fired from a job and being imprisoned, or in Manson's case, sentenced to die. Those two things aren't remotely comparable.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
No. They say, "Ralph, pack your stuff. You're gone." Hell, I've been laid off via a Jabber message.
That's, perhaps unintentional, misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what people worried about it mean by it. The problem with "cancel culture" is the propensity to "shoot first, ask questions later", the doling out of punishment grossly unproportional to the crime. Like in this case - ruining one's entire career for the crime of being pedantic and tactless on a semi-public mailing list[0]. Or, in another, overhearing a joke in a private conversation between two people and making a social media mess that resulted in termination of the joker.
The problem with "cancel culture" isn't the part where it aims to hold people accountable for their behavior. The problem is with the mechanism, which involves setting off a chain reaction. There's the wronged or felt-offended party and initial outrage, which gets amplified as the stories get reshared and republished, usually accruing misrepresentations and outright lies in the process, until the reaction fizzles out in a day or three, and punishment happens. You'll note here that the final impact is not correlated with the scale of the initial wrongdoing, but with how many people get outraged how fast, and how far they reshare, all of which is moderated by how misleading can the story be made and by what else is currently on the news.
I think it isn't fair to dismiss concerns of people worried that "holding people into account" - not just powerful ones, but regular ones too - increasingly often involves attempts at setting off a social equivalent of an ad-hoc, hastly-made fission bomb.
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[0] - Yes, there's apparently patterns of worse behavior going back many years. But pulling the trigger in the middle of one of the bigger scandals in our industry, that's awfully convenient and points towards the actual reason not being related to past behavior.
The person I was discussing with agrees that Stallman's actions and history, combined, merited his resignation or removal. Yet they used the phrase "cancel culture" anyway.
Please don't blame anyone but Stallman for ruining his career. His history of pedophilia-apology, his history of acting badly, possibly to the level of harassment, around women at MIT, and recently his need to "well-acktually" statutory rape ruined his career.
> You'll note here that the final impact is not correlated with the scale of the initial wrongdoing, but with how many people get outraged how fast, and how far they reshare, all of which is moderated by how misleading can the story be made and by what else is currently on the news.
No, I don't note that. Pressure was put on MIT leadership by women at MIT, women who had historically been ignored when they raised similar issues about the same person in the past. As MIT said, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
> that's awfully convenient and points towards the actual reason not being related to past behavior.
No it doesn't. It points to the trigger not being past behavior, with which I fully agree. It says nothing about the scale of the reaction by MIT or the FSF. Those were without a doubt informed by a pattern of behavior.
Oh my God, no. Stallman has been a problem for years. Shooting first and asking questions later is the exact opposite of the problem.
TLDR: the accusation of harassment is 100% determined by the accuser. The determination of whether harassment occurred OTOH is decided by HR after judging the merits (or lack thereof) of the case.
I see no reason why MIT shouldn't have proceeded similarly. And while you might argue that's not 100% impartial, that's a lot better than a Twitter mob (to me at least).
Given the piles of video and text of Stallman being Stallman, and the "Hot Ladies" bit on his office door, do you really think they would have high-fived his conduct and told him to carry on? I'm cynical, but I'm not that cynical.
Or let's put this another way. The Unabomber and Charles Manson got their due process. Are you saying Stallman is worse than both of them? So I'm guessing you guys downvoting me no longer believe in our legal system? That'll end well I'm sure.
https://twitter.com/corbett/status/994012399656042496
https://twitter.com/starsandrobots/status/994267277460619265
https://twitter.com/wiredferret/status/1173042834179534849
https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/d5dxf3/stal...
https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/d5dxf3/stal...
https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/d5dxf3/stal...
When it's this widely known that he likes to creep on women, the only thing that makes sense is that HR has had plugs in their ears the whole time.
