I’m with you. I have a lot of friends with Aspergers and other ASDs (one of the joys of a life in tech - lots of interesting and intelligent friends). Stallman’s post following his return to the board of FSF and his unnecessary public comments and debate around Epstein, his guests, and child abuse strongly reminded me of some of the troubles my ASD friends have gotten themselves into by not quite groking social cues, “reading the room”, or knowing which topics and situations welcome debate and which ones don’t or will likely get emotional responses from other participants rather than rational.
The kind of life he’s led has not given him the types of socially safe situations in which to learn the things that you shouldn’t say. I think it’s fair to say that the same influences that might have moderated his public statements would also have moderated his public work and he would not have accomplished what he has.
When I listen to him talk I hear a type of clarity of thought and direction of speech i’ve never heard from someone who isn’t autistic, like I am myself. I think with him it’s a case of you taking the good with the bad, and recognizing that when he says something it’s not necessarily coming from the same place as it would be from someone else with a similarly wide public exposure.
I’ve not heard that he’s done anything horrible to anyone, and if memory serves his worst statements still recognized the importance of consent, while totally missing the definitional limits of being able to provide it. What i’m getting at is that he doesn’t seem to be a horrible person. He seems to be a tone deaf person with very little context for understanding how other people’s brains work, and perhaps no idea how different his really is.
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I’m with you. I have a lot of friends with Aspergers and other ASDs (one of the joys of a life in tech - lots of interesting and intelligent friends). Stallman’s post following his return to the board of FSF and his unnecessary public comments and debate around Epstein, his guests, and child abuse strongly reminded me of some of the troubles my ASD friends have gotten themselves into by not quite groking social cues, “reading the room”, or knowing which topics and situations welcome debate and which ones don’t or will likely get emotional responses from other participants rather than rational.
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The kind of life he’s led has not given him the types of socially safe situations in which to learn the things that you shouldn’t say. I think it’s fair to say that the same influences that might have moderated his public statements would also have moderated his public work and he would not have accomplished what he has.
When I listen to him talk I hear a type of clarity of thought and direction of speech i’ve never heard from someone who isn’t autistic, like I am myself. I think with him it’s a case of you taking the good with the bad, and recognizing that when he says something it’s not necessarily coming from the same place as it would be from someone else with a similarly wide public exposure.
I’ve not heard that he’s done anything horrible to anyone, and if memory serves his worst statements still recognized the importance of consent, while totally missing the definitional limits of being able to provide it. What i’m getting at is that he doesn’t seem to be a horrible person. He seems to be a tone deaf person with very little context for understanding how other people’s brains work, and perhaps no idea how different his really is.