Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
4 hours ago:
Over the years I met Dr. Stallman in person several times. He was nice to me. It felt like he respected me even more than a decade ago. Stallman acted 'weird' by societal standards, not just English standards. I saw how he spoke to other people, including taxi drivers and girlfriends of other people. It's not that he made any "advances"; his manners or his attitude in general was OK, but some might perceive that as rude because of the nuance, body language etc. For instance, I remember that when I recorded an interview with him at the accommodation of someone in Oxford his girlfriend offered something to eat and Stallman's response was less than conventional. It wasn't rude or anything like that, but some might consider it a tad off-putting (it's hard to explain, maybe due to the tone of the voice of the words chosen). I'm sure Stallman did not do this intentionally. He probably wasn't even aware of it. 4 years ago he candidly wrote: "Some have described me as being "tone-deaf," and that is fair. With my difficulty in understanding social cues, that tends to happen. For instance, I defended Professor Minsky on an M.I.T. mailing list after someone leaped to the conclusion that he was just as guilty as Jeffrey Epstein. To my surprise, some thought my message defended Epstein. As I had stated previously, Epstein is a serial rapist, and rapists should be punished. I wish for his victims and those harmed by him to receive justice."
They say that "nerds" are geeks with weaker social skills. That does not mean nerds are sinister or anything. They can be really brilliant people. Some of the most accomplished people in history had awkward behaviour and some of the most "powerful" people were shorter or smaller than my wife (Putin and Napoleon are very weak as human beings, they would simply rely on the system around them for power). So appearances or external factors can be very misleading. They say, "don't judge a book by its cover" (typically in reference to humans, not objects or literally a bunch books, which are a good and simple-to-follow parable/metaphor).
In the above-mentioned example, the host in Oxford had a disability and his girlfriend had not. She did not have an issue with it. She accepted him as he was. He was smart, he was nice to me, and he respected Stallman despite his unconventional attitude. Society is better off when it can accept and work around the flaws or weaknesses of other people. On average, everyone was happy and the girlfriend was probably already accustomed to involuntarily interaction perils.
In the case of Stallman, he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider - as since childhood he has been on the "outside" - then express criticism of things that he observes (like people who keep bringing up buzzwords, such as "cloud computing" or "hey hi"). George Carlin, the excellent comedian from a family of "word people" (not limited to his parents), had a keen interest and sharp criticism of words and their misuse. He did many successful skits about "bullshit" that people kept saying, both as words or combinations thereof (concepts). To me, Stallman and Carlin are sort of similar; neither has (had) stage fright, but Carlin can (could) say the rudest things (people would just laugh!), whereas Stallman would get slandered for merely uttering a word like "virgin". The context need not even matter. Heck, Linux Torvalds can say the F word many times (not freedom but f---) and the audience does not react in shock but more like "haha, YOU SO FUNNY!!"
I still think that a lot of the criticism that Stallman receives - and must somehow endure - is due to his beliefs on software and due to his accomplishments, which cause closeted envy. Unlike Carlin, Stallman was a coder and he's still active near his mid 70s. Even cancer didn't stop him.
When Garrett started harassing and defaming me around 2012 [1, 2] (and later did the same to Stallman) I had to accept it was due to my position on Microsoft and on 'secure' boot in particular. Unlike Stallman, Garrett accomplished nothing in his life (created no project, either); after a decade of lynch-mobbing genuinely successful people Garrett is reduced to talking about "cum" in public, even saying that he carries sex toys or sex stuff in his suitcase. He's a truly despicable person, unlike Stallman.
When the violent Serial Strangler from Microsoft started begging me and sending me threats at the same time I came to the conclusion that all I did wrong was that I defended women from monsters/scam bros (online mobsters) like him.
To me, Stallman is a victim of his own success and influence, which they try to retroactively take away while burning down everything he created (the FSF, the GPL, even GNU, which they try to replace with Microsoft GitHub and a bunch of CoC* lovers).
Regarding the reasons he had (and still has) good insights, let's face it... he has been like an "outsider" since the 80s if not earlier. He refused to accept software patents. He still refuses to. He believes that the authorities will deprive computer users rather than become more lenient. That's a safe bet given the political trajectory since the 2000 election in the US and the financial collapse of 2007/8.
To get a rough idea or a "zeitgeist" of the future listen to Stallman. Not what people falsely say about him but what he himself says**. He's a very smart person. That's why he won so many awards. He didn't need to buy (or pay for) them.
"He's a very smart person," an associate adds, and "that's why he's been show to be correct time and again." █
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* The problems with CoC could be explained in a sentence or two, I'm told. "People might not get what CoC (Code of Conduct) is [or what CoCs are in practice] and how they are abused." I typically call these Code of Censorship, where the criteria for censorship are decided upon by billionaires and mega-corporations (to shield themselves from critics/criticism). We saw many examples of how that works in practice. The SELF interview might be best for that. That was 7 years ago.
** Please listen to what he himself says, not what people try to tell you about him (and selectively quote, or show some footage from decades ago, though just a few embarrassing seconds from hours-long talks).