Yeah, I unsubscribed from his blog "Armed and Dangerous." He thinks he thinks he is smarter and more knowledgable about general topics than he really is.
It should be named "Just Enough Knowledge to be Dangerous."
Logic only gets you so far when your base of knowledge is very limited in a subject.
There's nothing un-nice about that article. It's a reasoned argument. You may disagree with its conclusion, and you can write your own refutation of it. But it has nothing to do with ESR's niceness.
This is the Internet in 2014. We don't refute controversial arguments, we scream "wow, just wow, hate speech, what a bigot", publicly shame and defame their character and derail their careers. We're enlightened now.
The comments section provides some very decent counterarguments which ESR seems to skip over. I have to say, I'm a bit surprised. I'd read his writings on open source and I thought they were always interesting if not fully convincing, but I never knew this side of him and I'm not too impressed.
I agree with the sentiment, but I think that attempting to refute an argument and being personally disgusted by people who make a particular argument, not doing business with them, and advising others not to do business with them are not mutually exclusive choices.
You don't want to tip into the "people hating me because of something I said is an abridgement of my god-given right to free-speech" crowd. You have to be responsible for both what you say, and also for how people interpret what you say in order to be an effective communicator.
After reading, I'm not sure what to think. I do not have the subject matter familiarity necessary to take a position on his claims, nor does he cite anything other than personal experience and his own research.
If his historical claims with regard to homosexuality are correct, then I can say with great certainty that his other claim as to how these facts will be interpreted in the modern climate is distressingly right.
Worth noting that he takes no position on the rights of homosexual couples. The only value judgement made therein is that (assuming the information used to reach this conclusion is correct) that historically, homosexuality been associated with some pretty ugly and downright evil things.
If they're not correct, then this amounts to a very, very disgusting and ugly smear piece worthy of groups like the infamous Westboro church.
So now I wonder.. which is it?
If it weren't for the Eich/Mozilla thing from a few months ago, I'd have looked at these claims a lot less skeptically coming from a technologist who's intimately familiar with logic, and who would necessarily place facts above all else when it comes to arguing a point. That's not a thing I can do anymore, especially considering the tendency of actual bigots to couch their own personal prejudices in superficially-correct-sounding scientific language.
The only analysis I'll give for it is that I was also disturbed by the idea of Eich being forced out, but would never donate a penny to organizations fighting marriage equality; two wrongs can't make a right.
OK I give up.
I find his thoughts on race to be alarming, too.
It's hard for me to reconcile the idea that ESR's beliefs are germane and troubling with the principle of tolerance for other people's beliefs. But: I think there's something substantively and intrinsically disturbing about the specific things ESR says. I don't think I'd have trouble being friends with someone who opposed marriage equality. But I do have trouble with what ESR says about LGBT people. It might be the whole package of positions that ESR takes, not just about LGBT issues but about race, politics, &c.
I have friends with very conservative beliefs (though none, to my knowledge, have ever argued that homosexuality is inextricably bound with pederasty). But none of them have a cohesive worldview in which their own attributes just happen to define the ideal human, compared against which all nonconformant humans are inferior. ESR, on the other hand...
ESR's general observation that the ancients often saw homosexual as being about dominance is probably correct. However, the framing makes it sound like this is specific to homosexual relationships. In fact ancient cultures often saw ALL male sexual relationships as being about dominance. Of course they didn't really need to spend a lot of time discussing who was being dominated in a heterosexual relationship: it was always the woman in pretty much all pre-modern civilizations.
This makes his second point about a supposed biological predisposition towards domination sex really apply to all men. If gay men are struggling with this "biological headwind" then so are straight men.
> The only value judgement made therein is that (assuming the information used to reach this conclusion is correct) that historically, homosexuality been associated with some pretty ugly and downright evil things.
> If they're not correct, then this amounts to a very, very disgusting and ugly smear piece worthy of groups like the infamous Westboro church.
> So now I wonder.. which is it?
Well, that's tricky. Most of the historical associations he makes are roughly correct as stated, but what is misleading is the implicit claim that underlines the whole piece -- that equivalent historical associations don't exist to each of those for heterosexuality, which they do -- romantic heterosexuality only became a cultural norm (rather than something portrayed as exceptional, often dangerous, and very frequently as a source of deviance from cultural norms relating to the family) in the Western world only fairly recently historically. The "massive reinvention" of (male) homosexuality that ESR refers to is real, but its part and parcel of a broader reinvention of sexuality in general from a very similar starting point and in a very similar direction.
Because (and here I make the first and only value claim in this essay) whatever one’s opinion of homophilic homosexuals might be, the behaviors associated with the pederastic/dominating classical style are entangled with abuse and degradation in a way that can only be described as evil. Modern homosexuals deserve praise for their attempt to get shut of them.
If you disagree with the reasoning prior to that or that his facts are wrong (which is entirely possible), then yeah, he's full of shit. That said, he does compliment "modern homosexuals" in contrast to what he claims came before.
It's uncomfortable reading, but I don't exactly see him advocating dragging anyone behind a truck.
What you're quoting is a trope whose malignancy might be more obvious in a racial context: "The good black people deserve praise for their attempt to get shut of them".
Not only does he compare them, he contrasts that societal relationship over time. Doing so doesn't make him a degenerate. A windbag, sure, or a liar, but degenerate is a particular term.
Do you disagree with his premises or his facts, or just his conclusions?
For example, I think he's wrong because he doesn't cite sources for his assertions about the demographics of various types of porn or sources for his claims of historical homosexuality/pedophilia. But that's a straight matter of "Where did you get this idea from?".
You know, the world does not consists of two opposing positions, like republicans or democrats. There could actually be other positions than those two you pointed out. One for example that this is Hacker News and not Huffington Post.
Your comment about "support him by using his software" is just silly.
Lots of creators in this world have had less than flattering opinions in different topics, but does not take away what they produced.
I can still enjoy Wagner regardless of his views on the jews. I don't have to reformat all my ReiserFS based hard drives after Reiser murdered his wife. And The Pianist by Roman Polanski is an absolute masterpiece, even though Polanski raped that poor girl.
So I evaluate SRC based on merits, not the creators.
In general, I agree. The question is whether you're helping promote the "bad parts" by promoting the good ones. I mean, why are we reading and discussing ERS's views on Catholic priests if not because many people like his software?
But by your definition you are already promoting other peoples opinions by using their stuff. It is unavoidable.
The only difference is that you don't care about those opinions because either you don't know about them or you don't think it is important. But they still exist.
People can have different political, religious, etc. views than you, but why should that influence whether you use his software or not?
Do you check the political views of all authors of each software before you decide to use it?
What if those views (or your own) change over time and you disagree with them?
(ESR aside) Why not? If I believe that someone's exposed views are harmful, doesn't it make sense to avoid increasing his/her overall influence?
I mean, the fact that we're discussing ESR's views on pedophilia shows that his influence in an unrelated area (software) increases the exposure of those views. If he was just a nobody like me, would we be discussing his blog post on Catholic priests? Not likely.
Do you check the political views of all authors of each software before you decide to use it?
I sure don't, but why does that mean one should actively ignore gained knowledge?
Maybe we respond more to the milieu of a comment more than its actual content. Personally I like conspiracy theories about topical things. I never believe them but they make me chuckle to see the world from a weird point of view. But some people are going to find such theories to be horribly offensive (like Buzz Aldrin about moon fakery). We all have the capacity to wrongly analyse something we don't understand and have no stake in. A lot of people don't know what it is like to be attracted to their own gender and come out with things that are not just offensive but blatantly silly. The rest of us no better.
First of all it would take too much time to find out all the authors of all the software that I routinely use, and then keep up with what their current views are on various topics.
But I think the main reason is that most software has more than one author, and it would be unfair to judge the usefulness of that software based on the (non-technical) views of just one of its authors.
Your reasoning would apply only for single-author software, and TBH I would consider those pet-projects anyway, and I don't think the original author would care much whether you use it or not.
Edit: about gained knowledge:
I think you could apply this if you compare multiple competing solutions, one deciding factor could be the author's thoughts on various topics.
Just like how a company's attitude towards various topics might be influencing your purchasing decision: for example
Nvidia doesn't support open-source drivers, hence I don't buy Nvidia when choosing a graphics card.
But again for me those are all technical reasons, I wouldn't factor an author's/company's political views into that decision, unless it was something really horrible.
Your reasoning would apply only for single-author software
But doesn't that fit SRC itself?
But again for me those are all technical reasons, I wouldn't factor an author's/company's political views into that decision, unless it was something really horrible.
Ah! But then you're not arguing whether it makes sense to factor the political views in the decision - what you're actually arguing is that ESR's views are not really horrible.
But since pothibo supposedly considers them really horrible, it makes sense that (s)he would factor in those views, no?
Maybe, although I don't think I made technical decisions based on unrelated events.
The closest that comes to mind is as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602582
I did use ReiserFS in the past, and I did switch to something else but the reason was purely technical: XFS became quite good on a HDD, an ext4 very nice on an SSD, and also there didn't seem to be much development done upstream once the original author was gone.
Why not respond to bigotry with love, instead of hating back? This is not some zero-sum game. If anyone needs a little bit of success in life, it's a bigot.
This is not some mundane left wing vs right wing discussion. It's a guy who believes that homosexuals should be taken on the same level as pedophiles. The line between saying this and saying homosexuals should go to prison is thin at best.
Maybe people are downvoting you because you're showing an incapability to distinguish between someone's expressed beliefs and their personal character?
Eric Raymond, everybody:
"Nor is it any good thing that “youths” now behave as though they think they’re operating with a kind of immunity. We saw this in Ferguson, when Michael Brown apparently believed he could could beat up a Pakistani shopkeeper and then assault a cop without fearing consequences. (“What are you going to do, shoot me?” he sneered, just before he was shot) As he found out, eventually that shit’ll get you killed; it would have been much better for everybody if he hadn’t been encouraged to believe that his skin color gave him a free pass."
"
It’s not clear to me that this kind of indulgence is any better – even for blacks themselves – than the old racist arrangement in which blacks “knew their place” and were systematically cowed into submission to the law. After all – if it needs pointing out again – the victims of black crime and trash culture are mainly other blacks. Press silence is empowering thugs."
My sister is a psychiatrist and has the same opinion on the subject.
There's nothing wrong with postulating and analysing it, even if the views are perhaps unpopular. Nothing should be beyond discussion even if it's uncomfortable for some people. Without making a judgement (I have no opinion on this myself), all arguments need contrast.
My sister is a domestic violence legal clinic attorney and doesn't. I guess we're at an impasse.
We are of course in the weeds here. The question was, "does Raymond still think the way he did in that post from 2002?" The evidence seems dispositive: yes.
"So, why do we not treat self-reported transsexuals as insane and in need of treatment for a delusional disorder? I can anticipate a lot of possible replies; the trouble is that all of them apply just as well (or just as poorly) to the case of BIID or delusional paranoia."
ESR is a blowhard conservative, but he does tend to at least have nuance in his position, which you seem to be ignoring.
This is a hostile environment, nobody can have a rational conversation about this without burning a lot karma (of which you have more to spare).
Nobody here except those that have those experiences has anything useful to say about non-cis gender identity. Possibly also psychiatrists/psychologists not married to a particular ideology on the topic. From my admittedly few conversations with transgendered people, it's complicated and there are no easy answers to what precisely it is.
Part of the problem is you're using "delusional" stigmatically, which damns you and poisons the conversation.
Let's assume you mean "fair" in the sense of "reasonable", not "equitable here".
Let's assume you mean "delusional" to mean "maintaining beliefs not supported by evidence and refusing to change said beliefs once presented with evidence". I'm going to leave off a stronger clause that would include non-falsifiable beliefs, because that way lies all manner of distraction.
Let's also assume that you mean "gender identity issues" to comprise a spectrum, ranging from "I am trapped in a body which feels wrong, I must take drastic action" all the way to "I tend to think more similarly to members of the opposite sex." Note that this range is supplied only by way of example: human gender and sexuality, as well as subjective experience of same, is wide and varied and I will not claim authority on what is and is not a valid experience there (as coolsunglasses has rightly pointed out).
With that understanding in place:
Is it fair to consider everyone with gender identity issues as delusional? Hell no--such issues may manifest with a completely normal and sane person, no delusions required.
Is it fair to consider everyone with gender identity issues as perhaps being delusional? Yes, but only insofar as they may exist in the subset of (delusional && GII) instead of merely (GII). It's the "perhaps" or "may" that turns it into a logically reasonable statement. Whether it's a likely membership is something else entirely, and I suspect that that likelihood is quite low--I don't think that possessing GII correlates strongly with delusional thinking.
Your statement of the question made it very easy to answer in a way that looks bad unless a lot of specific context is brought in--context which you did not supply.
~
At any rate, ESR's statement there was not posing the same question you were: he was asking first "Why do we not treat these as mental health issues?" (a stronger statement than your "might simply be delusional") and "Why do the (predicted) explanations for why we do not also hold up for, say, paranoid delusions?".
For the record, he screwed up by not enumerating the expected explanations. He also screwed up by not explaining how he might consider the application of one of the explanations to paranoid delusions.
I disagree that we ought treat the transgendered as insane, but he didn't make that claim: he simply asked a question. If you read it rhetorically, then I can see your grievance; that said, I think it was meant in earnest.
You're applying a lot of charity to what Raymond wrote, which is a good thing; unfortunately having a full context for all of ESRs positions on a variety of issues has burned away most of the charity I could apply to him.
Like I said: there's a pattern to Raymond's public policy writing: people who look and act and think the way Raymond does are valorized, and people who don't are stigmatized. In isolation any of his beliefs might be defensible (as you're trying to do with this particular one), but taken as a whole, it's hard to believe that the problem is "everyone besides Raymond", rather than just Raymond.
> ESR, is, if nothing else, the champion of his own relevance
What an apt description. I never have had much confidence in the coding that ESR has done. Just look at fetchmail and how that one has lost uncountable mails because of poor design.
Although he seems to think highly of his coding skills but I always had the impression that he's one of those hackers that really just hack together solutions. If a problem comes up there's always a fix to be committed. I wouldn't want such a programmer on my team.
But he's always been good with words and as an OSS lobbyist he was a well needed figure that put the software first and not politics as RMS did.
But he's just another OSS hacker. Bruce Perens has accomplished far more with far less controversy and self-fluffing.