And honestly? I mostly agree with them? Like this:
ABC ordered to pay Antoinette Lattouf another $150,000 for unlawful termination over Gaza Instagram post.
But a company faced with enormous threats wielded by fascist officials who demand that certain views be suppressed will treat such penalties as the normal cost of sucking up.
The [Israeli] army says that HAMAS is using apartment buildings for “surveillance”, and has bombed some of those buildings to destroy them. Based on this logic, the army might bomb every tall building in Gaza City with the large bombs that the US is providing
He has some questionable beliefs as well, though for unusual reasons. He accepts non-binary people but refuses to use they/them pronouns because he doesn’t like the ambiguity of singular/plural pronouns. So he has invented the neopronouns per/pers to refer to singular non-binary persons. I genuinely think no other person on this planet could hold this opinion.
Hasn’t he admitted to changing his opinion after learning about the effects on children?
He did. The argument against him was half based on misquotes and incomplete sentences, but the other half was indeed once his opinion - he argued that age of consent was a dumb concept and that instead it should be based on what the child wants to do and any harm they were subjected to.
He later on said he regretted this view because it was explained to him that there’s no ability to consent and this always causes harm to the child. His original arguments were, in typical Stallman fashion, quite obsessed with definitions themselves, almost as if the subject at hand didn’t really matter he was just bothered about how the definition had some flaws.
But even with that in mind… I can’t feel comfortable knowing he defended this point of view, and it does significantly harm my opinion about him.
Everything you said there is pretty typical with high functioning ASD, up to and including others being uncomfortable with past behavior and statements.
I can’t say I disagree with him - in an ideal world. Now all we need is a world where it’s easy enough to tell if someone is mature enough to make those kinds of decisions, no one uses power imbalances to allow them to achieve their desires, kids are fully aware of the impact their decisions will have on them decades in the future, and on and on. That’s clearly not the world we live in, and I expect it will never be, and so we err on the side of caution, and don’t condone children engaging in certain activities until they’re older, and even then only with people of a similar age until such a time where trying to stop them from engaging in potentially reckless behavior is more harmful than allowing them to do so.
I genuinely think no other person on this planet could hold this opinion.
Eh, I’m pretty close to this opinion.
A family member came out as non-binary, and I don’t like to use they/them (for the same reason as Stallman), but I also think creating my own pronouns is more offensive, so I just use their first name, unless I can’t easily avoid it (like this sentence). I’m not trying to be offensive, I just don’t like they/them as angular pronouns. I also don’t like “you” as both singular and plural, but I’m also not ready to use “y’all”, so I refer to second person groups without the pronoun (if feasible).
On a related note, I also think gender is a social construct and not actually “real.” Sex exists because it’s a biological thing, but it shouldn’t be directly tied to your role in society. To change my mind, I need empirical evidence that there’s some unique difference between men and women (brain wave patterns?) that aligns groups of non-binary people or aligns trans people with people of the opposite sex. I personally don’t think this exists, and gender fluidity is more a symptom of a culture that isn’t well equipped to handle people who don’t nicely fit into a bucket. I think gender is a useful metaphor for what’s going on, and I absolutely support people fighting for using it to get the recognition they need, but I don’t think it’s an actual, scientifically proven thing.
The only real difference is that I use first names to refer to non-binary people’s first names more frequently than to binary people. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone, I just really don’t like using the same pronoun for both singular and plural.
I criticized singular they/them for increasing language ambiguity and suggested replacing it with something new like xe/xer multiple times. The reply is usually a shitstorm and downvote tornado. I’ve given up on that front.
Doesn’t feel like you want to have an honest argument when you ask how far we should go back on a proposal about going forward and don’t address the single motivator ambiguity.
Correct, because there is no argument to be had. Intentionally refusing to use someone’s pronouns is unacceptable, every time, with 0 exceptions. If there’s a dire need to be explicitly clear you’re talking about a single person, you could just use their name in that instance.
You don’t get to decide how other people refer to you. I’m sorry but you don’t have that authority. You can dislike people using the “wrong” pronouns, but you cannot compel the usage of the ones you want to be called because of your beliefs. If I say my pronouns are “your majesty” it’s not unacceptable if you don’t use them.
I always found this argument funny because how would you use pronouns for someone whose gender you do not know? They. It’s they. E.g. you are given the sentence: Jordan went to the store to buy apples. And you want to ask a followup question regarding how many, you reply: How many apples did they buy? It’s not that complicated. They has been used for gender ambiguity in everyone’s lives since grammar school. People just have an inherent bias towards trans folks and it’s incredibly depressing and sad.
I always found this argument funny because how would you use pronouns for someone whose gender you do not know? They. It’s they. E.g. you are given the sentence: Jordan went to the store to buy apples. And you want to ask a followup question regarding how many, you reply: How many apples did they buy?
And that’s not how English was taught to me or 99℅ of the population (including English as a second or third language) 20+ years ago. Singular they was only used for situations where the gender (read as superficially visible sex) was factually unknown. You see a forgotten umbrella and never saw who forgot it: “Somebody forgot their umbrella.” As soon as you only got a glimpse on the person forgetting it you would make a guess about he/she.
They has been used for gender ambiguity in everyone’s lives since grammar school.
If you’re younger than ~30 and from Great Britain, maybe. GB were the first to formalize and teach it like that less than 2 decades ago (if I recall correctly).
People just have an inherent bias towards trans folks and it’s incredibly depressing and sad.
That’s bullshit projection.
I, a non-native speaker, complain about increased ambiguity of the language because of singular they as a personal pronoun and make a proposal about new pronouns for the purpose.
You: Ah, must be transphobe. Let’s ignore everything he said (which doesn’t relate to transphobia at all).
It’s so frustrating not to be able to have a discussion about stuff making a language harder than it needs to be without people invoking transphobia, like, instantly.
But hey, I called it: can’t have a discussion about it and I’ve given up on it.
edit: tiny add-on. I was still taught gender-neutral he and only heard about they later while being discouraged to use it in writing.
It hasn’t been used for “gender” ambiguity, but sex ambiguity, because the separation of sex and gender is only a recent thing and it’s not even unanimously accepted.
Oh my gosh, you’re being pedantic. It has been used for “gender” ambiguity for quite some time. If you choose to be ignorant, then that’s your dill, pickle. At the end of the day, you get to choose whether you make someone happy, or sad. Why is that difficult? Why can’t you comprehend the concept of providing joy to someone? Why can’t you just be nice? That’s what this whole thing is about, right? You can either choose to be nice, or not. And I’m so tired of arguing with people to be nicer. Why can’t people get it through their thick skulls, that people just want to live and be considerate of each other. That’s what we all want, right?
Is calling an extremely underweight anorexic person healthy, a good weight, and encouraging them to keep losing weight the right thing to do? Is that good because it’s providing joy to someone?
Unless he’s championing paedophilia and bestiality, which he has done on a number of occasions. Or being an absolute creep with women, which he’s also done.
Have we ever lived in a more stallmanwasright.jpg time?
Ah. Well. About software. Stallman was right about software
that’s what we generally mean. he has some ideas about things other than software we are best not to give too much attention.
I never wanted him to be wrong more than right now. Except for tomorrow, it’s probably going to bé worse, tomorrow
Stallman has never been and never will be wrong.
Except when it comes to women and girls, he’s absolutely wrong
Don’t forget about his views on sex with animals!
Or his views on seemingly eating toe nails right off of his feet in public.
I sometimes like to read his political posts:
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2025-jul-oct.html
And honestly? I mostly agree with them? Like this:
He has some questionable beliefs as well, though for unusual reasons. He accepts non-binary people but refuses to use they/them pronouns because he doesn’t like the ambiguity of singular/plural pronouns. So he has invented the neopronouns per/pers to refer to singular non-binary persons. I genuinely think no other person on this planet could hold this opinion.
Okay that’s all cool or cool-and-stubbornly-autistic. But he has some other opinions that are not, about consent and age.
So the blanket ‘fuck yeah, stallman!’ Doesn’t really fly anymore.
Hasn’t he admitted to changing his opinion after learning about the effects on children? I’m not in the loop about this.
But yeah, you definitely shouldn’t treat his words as gospel. A lot of questionable-at-best stuff in there.
He did. The argument against him was half based on misquotes and incomplete sentences, but the other half was indeed once his opinion - he argued that age of consent was a dumb concept and that instead it should be based on what the child wants to do and any harm they were subjected to.
He later on said he regretted this view because it was explained to him that there’s no ability to consent and this always causes harm to the child. His original arguments were, in typical Stallman fashion, quite obsessed with definitions themselves, almost as if the subject at hand didn’t really matter he was just bothered about how the definition had some flaws.
But even with that in mind… I can’t feel comfortable knowing he defended this point of view, and it does significantly harm my opinion about him.
Everything you said there is pretty typical with high functioning ASD, up to and including others being uncomfortable with past behavior and statements.
I can’t say I disagree with him - in an ideal world. Now all we need is a world where it’s easy enough to tell if someone is mature enough to make those kinds of decisions, no one uses power imbalances to allow them to achieve their desires, kids are fully aware of the impact their decisions will have on them decades in the future, and on and on. That’s clearly not the world we live in, and I expect it will never be, and so we err on the side of caution, and don’t condone children engaging in certain activities until they’re older, and even then only with people of a similar age until such a time where trying to stop them from engaging in potentially reckless behavior is more harmful than allowing them to do so.
Ok, let’s say he’s right only when he talks about software.
That should do it. I hope.
EDIT: well and hardware too I guess.
EDIT2: oh and paid public toilets.
Eh, I’m pretty close to this opinion.
A family member came out as non-binary, and I don’t like to use they/them (for the same reason as Stallman), but I also think creating my own pronouns is more offensive, so I just use their first name, unless I can’t easily avoid it (like this sentence). I’m not trying to be offensive, I just don’t like they/them as angular pronouns. I also don’t like “you” as both singular and plural, but I’m also not ready to use “y’all”, so I refer to second person groups without the pronoun (if feasible).
On a related note, I also think gender is a social construct and not actually “real.” Sex exists because it’s a biological thing, but it shouldn’t be directly tied to your role in society. To change my mind, I need empirical evidence that there’s some unique difference between men and women (brain wave patterns?) that aligns groups of non-binary people or aligns trans people with people of the opposite sex. I personally don’t think this exists, and gender fluidity is more a symptom of a culture that isn’t well equipped to handle people who don’t nicely fit into a bucket. I think gender is a useful metaphor for what’s going on, and I absolutely support people fighting for using it to get the recognition they need, but I don’t think it’s an actual, scientifically proven thing.
The only real difference is that I use first names to refer to non-binary people’s first names more frequently than to binary people. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone, I just really don’t like using the same pronoun for both singular and plural.
I criticized singular they/them for increasing language ambiguity and suggested replacing it with something new like xe/xer multiple times. The reply is usually a shitstorm and downvote tornado. I’ve given up on that front.
Probably because singular “they” predates singular “you” grammatically. Should we go back to using thou and thee instead of the singular you as well?
Doesn’t feel like you want to have an honest argument when you ask how far we should go back on a proposal about going forward and don’t address the single motivator ambiguity.
Correct, because there is no argument to be had. Intentionally refusing to use someone’s pronouns is unacceptable, every time, with 0 exceptions. If there’s a dire need to be explicitly clear you’re talking about a single person, you could just use their name in that instance.
You don’t get to decide how other people refer to you. I’m sorry but you don’t have that authority. You can dislike people using the “wrong” pronouns, but you cannot compel the usage of the ones you want to be called because of your beliefs. If I say my pronouns are “your majesty” it’s not unacceptable if you don’t use them.
I always found this argument funny because how would you use pronouns for someone whose gender you do not know? They. It’s they. E.g. you are given the sentence: Jordan went to the store to buy apples. And you want to ask a followup question regarding how many, you reply: How many apples did they buy? It’s not that complicated. They has been used for gender ambiguity in everyone’s lives since grammar school. People just have an inherent bias towards trans folks and it’s incredibly depressing and sad.
And that’s not how English was taught to me or 99℅ of the population (including English as a second or third language) 20+ years ago. Singular they was only used for situations where the gender (read as superficially visible sex) was factually unknown. You see a forgotten umbrella and never saw who forgot it: “Somebody forgot their umbrella.” As soon as you only got a glimpse on the person forgetting it you would make a guess about he/she.
If you’re younger than ~30 and from Great Britain, maybe. GB were the first to formalize and teach it like that less than 2 decades ago (if I recall correctly).
That’s bullshit projection.
I, a non-native speaker, complain about increased ambiguity of the language because of singular they as a personal pronoun and make a proposal about new pronouns for the purpose.
You: Ah, must be transphobe. Let’s ignore everything he said (which doesn’t relate to transphobia at all).
It’s so frustrating not to be able to have a discussion about stuff making a language harder than it needs to be without people invoking transphobia, like, instantly.
But hey, I called it: can’t have a discussion about it and I’ve given up on it.
edit: tiny add-on. I was still taught gender-neutral he and only heard about they later while being discouraged to use it in writing.
It hasn’t been used for “gender” ambiguity, but sex ambiguity, because the separation of sex and gender is only a recent thing and it’s not even unanimously accepted.
Oh my gosh, you’re being pedantic. It has been used for “gender” ambiguity for quite some time. If you choose to be ignorant, then that’s your dill, pickle. At the end of the day, you get to choose whether you make someone happy, or sad. Why is that difficult? Why can’t you comprehend the concept of providing joy to someone? Why can’t you just be nice? That’s what this whole thing is about, right? You can either choose to be nice, or not. And I’m so tired of arguing with people to be nicer. Why can’t people get it through their thick skulls, that people just want to live and be considerate of each other. That’s what we all want, right?
Is calling an extremely underweight anorexic person healthy, a good weight, and encouraging them to keep losing weight the right thing to do? Is that good because it’s providing joy to someone?
Unless he’s championing paedophilia and bestiality, which he has done on a number of occasions. Or being an absolute creep with women, which he’s also done.
🪴
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