[Ipg-smz] On Stallman

[Andy Patrizio]

Sounds like the difference between him and Steve Jobs is 100 pounds and a
shower. Ok 200 pounds.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ipg-smz <ipg-smz-bounces at netpress.org> On Behalf Of Tom Henderson via
Ipg-smz
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2019 8:24 AM
To: ipg-smz at netpress.org
Cc: Tom Henderson <thenderson at extremelabs.com>
Subject: [Ipg-smz] On Stallman

Fellow Guilders,

I go way back in Linux. Long ago, the Linux Business Expo was part of
COMDEX, and I was one of many functionaries in the greater spheres of COMDEX
program development. Lots of interesting characters evolved Linux for a
variety of motivations.

Stallman was the anti-Microsoft. The pillar of free. I'm not a licensed
medical/health/psych practitioner in any jurisdiction, but Stallman had
brains, perhaps some autisim, and thought things through. He cared not one
whit about his personal appearance or scent. Clue #1.

He had boundaries in the philosophy of Free. They were well-developed and
thought through. Much of his hard work in finishing the utilities that make
the operating system we know as Linux were at his hands, or one step-away.

His lip flatulence was notorious, as is/was/were many in the early free/open
source movement. Many of them had a gripe with the sheer mendacity of
Microsoft and its minions. SJV-N believes Microsoft has changed. I'm not
sure if I share that believe, but as an researcher, I continue to observe.

Stallman is a member of a wider body of men that think within their own
context. It's difficult to shift outside of that personal context for them.
I'm not excusing their behavior, just observing it.

Nor am I forgiving it, and history shouldn't, either. The object that we'll
look backwards upon 100yrs from now, should have that stain mentioned, not
just the bullet-point of: founder of "free" as a construction and
architectural concept. He was also: a dick.

Can he help being a dick? I'll leave that to others. Too many men follow
their hormones rather than something evolved in the pre-frontal cortex. 
Is being a dick part of autism? Does it being autism make it forgivable? 
No, is my answer-- it's a quality that doesn't offset the fetid scent.

Every day I deal with my autistic brother's shenanigans. He is built, how
he's built.; in the 1960s it was rare to even get a diagnosis and few knew
what to do with autistim diagnoses. He's trainable. Graduated high school.
But moving outside of his own context is nigh impossible. 
Change comes after daunting repetition. Only then. Trust me: only then. 
My late mother had him queued in a very Pavlovian way, and was successful,
but my brother doesn't live with me. I've developed a support network for
him. At a family event, he will blurt the most insane stuff, not
understanding how a poop joke might not go over well with his aging aunt.
Clueless. There are many clueless in the world. 
Their population doesn't forgive the cluelessness, just makes us work harder
at inculcating manners. Like most of us, he wants to be loved.

And so, atop the object that we might describe about others, their
incredible accomplishments but their amazing lip flatulence and even more
morbid felonies: some were built to not recognize the emotive response of
other humans. It's just the way things are.

There are many "Aspie" and autistic people somehow in my immediate circle of
people, or perhaps, one step away. Here in the university town where I live,
it's like the aforementioned Mensa meeting, where people came to study, and
unable to live in the real world, became academics, or failing that, became
"townies" with IQs in excess of 145 joining their peers. They never succeed
in any recognizable way, but they fit into a rag-tag bunch of intellectual
misfits which in turn, becomes a subculture of snorters. Nothing inherently
wrong with snorters. And a common denominator of humanity is: Misfit, if of
differing cultures and acumen.

To address therefore Dana's "everyone is eventually forgiven" comment, my
answer is no, that's not quite correct. Like most things, it's more
complicated than that. Some will want to understand the complexity, while
others just want to ascribe to The Winning Team or soundbite.

Tom


--
Tom Henderson
ExtremeLabs, Inc.
+1 317 250 4646
Twitter: @extremelabs
Skype: extremelabsinc


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