Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

by magic5227 • 13 years ago

158 248 13 years ago

This is what Stallman wrote right after the suspect was caught.

My personal response is:

There will always be a situation that is worse or where more people died, but that doesn't mean this isn't a very emotional and trying time for many, where the police and people of Boston were desperate to catch a person throwing explosives and shooting magazines of bullets in their city. Telling people to stay home for a few hours does not seem unreasonable in this situation.

Have some decency and respect for the lives lost, and save your opinions for a more appropriate time.

sergiotapia• 13 years ago

>4 people killed in a week is not a lot compared with the background level of deaths in the US. It's not as many as in the Texas explosion. Car accidents in the US kill around 100 people a day, and surely grievously injure hundreds more.

============================

Difference being of course, one was a deliberate attack on human life, and the other a very _very_ unfortunate accident.

Stupid comparison to make for the sake of pushing his agenda of "free software". I expected more from someone so smart.

bung• 13 years ago

woosh

john_whelan2• 13 years ago

+ one of those four people was a police officer

tolmasky• 13 years ago

Is killing a police officer worse than killing a "normal" person?

HarryHirsch2• 13 years ago

I hate to say it, but Stallman has a good point. Plant safety cuts into profits, left to itself management will not encourage safe working practice - there must be meaningful oversight by an outside agency.

Thanks to regulatory capture oversight is weak, and this is not an accident but an intended outcome of the political system.

mindcrime9• 13 years ago

Plant safety cuts into profits, left to itself management will not encourage safe working practice - there must be meaningful oversight by an outside agency.

Yes, because it's obviously good for business to have your plant blow sky high, destroying the entire surrounding neighborhood and killing most of your employees. If I were a plant manager, I'd make sure to put doing all that right at the top of my TODO list.

Or, maybe, just maybe, not everybody who owns/runs a business in a capitalist system is a greedy, evil, soul-sucking bastard, and maybe, just maybe, accidents happen, some of which are damn near unpredictable and unavoidable. And maybe we can't regulate our way to a society where nothing bad ever happens to anybody, ever?

emily377• 13 years ago

I really don't see what this has to do with the Boston bombing or people's reactions to the events of today. I took a different argument to the Holocaust extreme in another comment and it applies just as well here: why should we be "bent out of shape" today about plant safety when genocide kills millions times more people?

ivanca• 13 years ago

I would downvote you if I could because the comparison is certainly not stupid; just because you fear more the will of the others over accidents does not make it stupid.

If for example cars were allowed (mechanically and legally) to only accelerate to maximum 50mph many of those accidents would never happen, but people are not willing to loose their freedom to drive at crazy speeds but somehow they are willing to loose other freedoms for extremely rare events such as terrorism attacks just for the emotional effect it haves over them because it is an attack (and not an accident) with nothing rational backing it up.

gvb• 13 years ago

They should be restricted to 4mph and be preceded by a man with a red flag. That would be much more effective than limiting them to 50mph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Act#The_Locomotive_A...

bane14• 13 years ago

I have to drive to work, lunch and home every single day, I have to deal with an ongoing terrorist attack almost never.

homosaur12• 13 years ago

If you expected anything from Stallman other than to say something socially tone deaf and head slapping, well... you don't know much about RMS.

ck23• 13 years ago

It took hundreds of police and probably millions of dollars to catch a teenager who didn't even bother to leave the area or go into hiding - and even TWEETED after the event.

If we were attacked by real, organized terrorists, we are screwed.

I really do not get all the celebration and back-patting, it's disturbing.

Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks for guns, the most basic bill failed.

But several senators were quick to voice their desire for no miranda rights.

ryanhuff• 13 years ago

How about celebration for the simple matter that a couple of murderers are off the street, and people can stop hiding in their houses?

cdash3• 13 years ago

Why was it necessary for so many people to be hiding in their houses? I certainly have never seen an entire city shut down and hiding at home because a couple of murders were out there.

lurker142• 13 years ago

What's the maximum reasonable spend to catch a bomber, for an efficient force? $1M? $100k?

A large part of the expense was due to the successful effort to apprehend him without killing him or bystanders.

Tweets aren't precisely geolocated, so that's not really relevant.

fnordfnordfnord7• 13 years ago

I am interested in knowing what extra expenses were taken to ensure the safety of bystanders. Please share. I did see a few reports of peoples' homes and property being shot up in a similar style as LAPD a-la Christopher Dorner.

cjbprime5• 13 years ago

> What's the maximum reasonable spend to catch a bomber, for an efficient force? $1M? $100k?

The US has a "value of a statistical life"[1] of around $7M, and they had already killed 4 people and injured over a hundred more, so $50M seems like it would be very easily justified.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

subsystem• 13 years ago

They were actually about to abort the "bruteforce" operation before they got a call that someone had found the suspect in their boat, outside the perimeter. I really hope they evalute the operation properly. A good outcome doesn't necessarily validate the process.

emily377• 13 years ago

I thought it was really odd that they told people they could go about their business after completing the Watertown search without finding him. It seemed to me at that point the probability of us being injured had just gone up. However, lifting the stay-indoors request turned out to be crucial, because a man spotted the blood on the boat only after going outside for the first time all day.

On the other hand, if they had simply expanded the search area block by block without lifting the stay-indoors request, then they probably would have found him quickly with less risk to Watertown residents. In any case, I agree that it's important for the governments involved to evaluate what could have been done better.

CurtMonash3• 13 years ago

If they had a helicopter that could detect infrared, which indeed sufficed to find him under the boat, why wasn't that already deployed to look into shed, boats, etc. around the neighborhood? (Including outside the main perimeter.)

I doubt the reason was 4th Amendment scruples.

tkahn64• 13 years ago

Is it really surprising or disappointing it took 'so long'?

I think your understanding of how easy it is to locate people is influenced by fiction and dramatization.

One man is tiny compared to an entire city. What can you realistically do if that man decides to hide in a covered boat in someone's yard?

kanda• 13 years ago

Pretty much what they did. Overwhelming force. That's how the justice system is supposed to work.

The problem is that these kids were "organized" after a fashion. They were muslims, discontent, and grabbed up by some radical muslim and told that massacring random americans is the way to heaven. They're very unlikely to be the only ones that believe so.

And what choice is there but to move against whatever persons and/or organizations that radicalized their "interpretation of islam". They pointed out that the muslim prophet was a mass-murdering genocidal raider, which is correct, so it's hard to argue against this point. And of course these 2 boys chose to join their prophet's ways, as opposed to denying them. It's an ingenious way for an ideology to create terror, really. You center the ideology around a figure that's described as "perfect"(/holy/enlightened/...), but in reality that figure is a mass-murdering lying cheating bastard. Then of course the vast majority of people will choose to deny that fact (because 90% of people even in the most radicalized islamic country know perfectly well there's nothing good about massacres, and if "the prophet" committed genocide, that means he and his islam is evil), leading to a society that's workable, even if periodic sudden mass-outbursts of violence are unavoidable if you expect people to live in cognitive dissonance, with the associated risk that such an outburst wins over any government in place, destroying everything .

But any preacher can of course trivially use this to get recruits for terror acts against anyone he pleases (anyone he can realistically paint as an enemy of the ideology, which is to say anyone, if the preacher is any good). Now the vast majority of people will choose to maintain their cognitive dissonance and just add this preacher to the list of things they flat-out deny about the world, so the preacher that has just advocated genocide for 30 minutes can easily share dinner with anyone who just listened (When I first saw someone deny in his mind that a door existed to the point that he had to be restrained because he would keep "walking through it". He was hurting himself to the point that restraint + sedation was the only solution. I left that institution still firmly convinced that such people didn't exist, but after a few nights I seem to have come to terms with it).

However some people will chose to end their dissonance, usually under stress, and crucially, at this point they'll have been in the ideology for years and years, with everybody they know telling them that islam is good and great and can't be criticized. Then this "great insight" comes, that they've known about for decades too : islam works by ambushes and genocide, that's how the prophet did it, that's how muslims should do it. And at that point they will be extremely vulnerable to "suggestions" from said preacher, and of course they'll be looking to imitate what their prophet did, and they'll be looking for exactly the kind of mission that the preacher is likely to give them : ambush and kill innocents who are part of a group that "opposes" islam (and the prophet massacred muslims that he accused of allying with an enemy just the same, so no need to worry about killing a few traitor muslims).

No amount of policies can prevent psychological stress, nor by the way, would you want to do that. Stress may be the way to insanity, but it's also the way to improving yourself. Aside from that, of course you can't "end" psychological stress (though of course you can massively reduce it by providing basic needs services). But you'll never minimize it to the point the supply of terrorists dries up. And of course there's going to be points where the economy of the country is stressed, and there's an explosion in the number of candidate terrorists.

As a bonus, any society with this ideology can of course not allow "free" preachers, or any form of freedom of ideology. That would lead to mass acts of terrorism in short order (what we're about to see in Europe and America). So any society where this ideology takes root either becomes a complete monoculture or destroys the "invading" ideology, at great cost.

I bet this is how a lot of the terror ideologies work, not just islam. This seems like it's roughly the same concept as the stalinism and leninism concepts of communism (and of course the lesser ones too, with Castro, Guevara* and Chavez), or things like the Japanese ideology before WWII, and of course nazism, any such person cultus with anything less than a perfect being like Buddha or Jesus, that no rational being can really criticize any actions of (which means that Christian and Buddhist "terrorists" exist, except they do what Jesus and Buddha did, probably leading to self-sacrifice for a noble cause, because these are ideologies where people's cognitive dissonance has to deny the fact that they themselves are not as moral as their ideology). I bet this is what a "meme" virus looks like, like Hitches professed exist.

Of course negative ideologies (where the ideology is morally worse than most human minds that partake in it) like islam would be fundamentally unstable, and will destroy themselves if they don't have (realistic) enemies, or insufficient access to their enemies. But small pockets will survive even then, ready to start again, in slightly different forms. So preventing terror is the exact same thing as eradicating islam itself, problem is that of course you're never going to be able to do that without attacking individuals.

* Guevara is a perfect example. He's a hero of commusnism, but it is well documented he randomly killed people for fun when they can't defend themselves. And that's not all he's reputed to do either.

mindcrime9• 13 years ago

Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks or database for guns.

Background checks are already required for almost all gun sales, including ones at gun-shows. This whole discussion is a red-herring. And what the f%!# good do you think a "database for guns" is going to do? You think the terrorists buy their guns over the counter, with legit IDs and happily register them with the authorities? You expect the terrorists to register their pressure cookers? Maybe we should have background checks for buying those?

And then what? Background checks for buying nichrome wire, because it can be used as a bridgewire in a detonator? A database of Arduinos, since they can be used as timers for bombs?

Or how about a national database of people who guy gasoline, Drano, nails, ball-bearings, lithium-ion batteries, soldering irons, solder...

Better still, let's implement a Great Firewall of America to keep people from accessing subversive content like Inspire magazine, the Unabomber manifesto, the writings of Timothy McVeigh, the Koran, Cryptome, Wikileaks, Paladin Press, Justin Bieber songs, Anarchist's cookbook, Poor Man's James Bond or the Federalist Papers...

ck23• 13 years ago

Why do we bother to have laws at all if people are going to break them?

I mean look at all the silencers people have to get away with murder - oh wait, they don't - because they are illegal and highly regulated.

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

People talk about the "90%" or whatever support that universal background checks had among the voting public. However, ignoring the problems of legislating based on shallow polls, nobody seems to be talking about the 90+% of sherrifs and police officers who believed that neither universal background checks nor a so-called "assault weapons ban" would have any beneficial effect on gun crime.

lotyrin2• 13 years ago

But it's worth sacrificing our freedoms in exchange for (only theoretically improved) safety (from causes of death that we are already extremely safe from - statistically speaking).

reader50009• 13 years ago

You appear to be angry and marginally psychotic. Willing to bet you have numerous high powered assault rifles. God bless America.

temphn2• 13 years ago

Surprising to resist one kind of massive state power and then support another. If the US government really didn't want mentally ill people to get guns then the homeless would be off the streets and in prisons or asylums. Instead there was an attempt to criminalize transactions by law abiding people, purely as an expression of media animus against gun owners and with zero concern for false positive rates.

As for popularity, I'd bet "90%" of people would support virtually anything after being subject to four months of wall to wall propaganda by the corporate media and government. It is amazing to me how erstwhile supporters of minority rights now champion the most literal majoritarianism when convenient.

And how do you see the kind of extraordinary show of force we just saw in Boston and conclude that the citizenry should be even more helpless, more disempowered? Life is a Rorschach test, I guess.

reader50009• 13 years ago

I'd bet 90% of gun owners would support virtually anything after being subjected to four months of corporate gun industry propaganda. You know, bullshit like how owning a gun "empowers" you.

arcatek• 13 years ago

To be fair, real, organized terrorists would probably be catch up before the bombing, since they would surely be under the radar of some intelligence agencies.

On the other hand, "lone wolfs" cannot be tracked by agencies, and their actions are hardly predictables.

Spooky232• 13 years ago

I guess that it is easy to opine from afar when you have no skin in the game. The government has an obligation to protect public safety, and madmen on the loose shooting policemen and tossing bombs out car windows certainly qualifies as a public safety event.

I suppose if Mr. Stallman's home or office were to catch fire, we shouldn't paralyze the immediate area with noisy fire trucks.

The background check issue is a completely separate, legislative one. Democracy is a messy thing -- the democrats killed the bills so they could come back and fight another day.

Thrymr2• 13 years ago

Afar? The MIT police officer was killed outside Stallman's building.

grinich• 13 years ago

> I really do not get all the celebration and back-patting, it's disturbing.

This is way less about a real accomplishment, and more about what people need to feel. After the bombings, people felt vulnerable and scared. And for the police, I'm sure also embarrassed and angry. Catching this kid is the vindication they all needed emotionally. I'm just glad they didn't get overzealous and kill him, as most manhunts end.

Cops were sending around a photo of the first suspect after he died, saying that seeing it was "cathartic." Apparently another is circulating of the second captured suspect, with the caption "WE GOT HIM." It's like a locker room after winning a football game.

It's true there was danger and violence here, and the death of innocent good people. But the response today was largely about ego and fear of vulnerability. There were literally thousands of SWAT units in Watertown today, going from door to door, publicly demonstrating America's reaction to terrorist attacks. It was about sending a message to the citizens and police of Boston, as well as the rest of the country.

ihsw• 13 years ago

I think it's an odd coincidence this happens immediately following my comment six days ago:

> Law enforcement agencies are being lambasted time and again (whether it's valid criticism or not is irrelevant), and they continue to ignore claims of how ineffectual they are. Someone needs to stand up and say "We are here for you and we support you" otherwise it stands to reason that there are dangerous undertones forming.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5544924

It's exactly what that younger gentleman demonstrated -- the police will go above and beyond for you, even to the point of actively impeding normal functions of society.

zobzu3• 13 years ago

I'm also a little surprised at the "WE GOT HIM" and the "its the suspect". Pretty obviously everyone behave with this as 'hes guilty', so he's not a suspect anymore.

While he very well may be, everyone is supposed to be innocent til proved otherwise by trial and judgement. That goes for everyone. Murderers, thieves, rapists, politicians and rich dudes alike. Oh, and you and I. Hopefully.

Jach• 13 years ago

Perhaps most people might support more background checks in principle, but it's not really close to what people really care about right now: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/gallup-only-4-americans-thin... Personally I don't support the latest gun legislation because it's not about guns or violence and if it were passed all it would lead to is a round of undeserved self-satisfied back-patting. If people want to get serious on curbing gun violence, maybe they should try their methods in say Chicago first before forcing the whole country to play along. (I know one method that could likely work but it's politically infeasible given the nature of the US's power structure. Are there any methods that can work with the current power structure?)

lambdaphage• 13 years ago

The Miranda issue was puzzling to me. Apparently (http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforceme...) the public safety exception to the Miranda warning was created in a ruling that clarified that statements obtained from an un-Mirandized suspected in response to questions asked by police in the heat of the moment (e.g. "Where's the gun?") were admissible. The spirit of the exception was that the threat of suppressed evidence shouldn't prevent police from asking a question that any reasonable person would ask in order to ensure their safety in the heat of the moment.

Clearly, if you can plan not to Mirandize a suspect, then the public safety exception cannot apply in the first place, so calling for the public safety exception merely makes a mockery of the law. The concluding sentences of the FBI's explanation of the public safety exception are worth quoting in full:

"When police officers are confronted by a concern for public safety, Miranda warnings need not be provided prior to asking questions directed at neutralizing an imminent threat, and voluntary statements made in response to such narrowly tailored questions can be admitted at trial. Once the questions turn from those designed to resolve the concern for safety to questions designed solely to elicit incriminating statements, the questioning falls outside the scope of the exception and within the traditional rules of Miranda."

homosaur12• 13 years ago

You cannot call for public safety exemption when there is no threat to public safety and the police already stated that there was none.

But let's not kid ourselves, Eric Holder and co give zero fucks about the law or our rights. Fast and Furious anyone?

The problem with this exemption, from what I understand (please correct me if wrong) is that any testimony in this questioning WOULD be admissible in court over some nonsense post 9/11 legalese in some crazy ass bill somewhere.

moioci• 13 years ago

Surely it's overly reductive to imply -- as he does -- that it's simply the number of deaths, or even the number of deaths and serious injuries combined that should drive our response to these events. The social significance of a truly terrorist act directed at one of the biggest annual events in the Boston area warrants some degree of extraordinary effort, not to mention the public danger of literal bomb-throwers on the loose.

emily377• 13 years ago

Not to mention inconsistent with his own reactions. I don't think rms spent all day today mourning the Holocaust or the fallen soldiers of the Civil War.

mikegreen• 13 years ago

Never confuse actual security with the theater of security.

It is the latter than our country wants, or at least our politicians say we want.

lurker142• 13 years ago

Today's effort was actual security.

magic52273• 13 years ago

This is what Stallman wrote right after the suspect was caught. My personal response is: There will always be a situation that is worse or where more people died, but that doesn't mean this isn't a very emotional and trying time for many, where the police and people of Boston were desperate to catch a person throwing explosives and shooting magazines of bullets in their city. Telling people to stay home for a few hours does not seem unreasonable in this situation. Have some decency and respect for the lives lost, and save your opinions for a more appropriate time.

deweerdt• 13 years ago

> but that doesn't mean this isn't a very emotional and trying time for many,

I think you're right, it is a very emotional time for many. I think he's trying to put that in a more rational perspective so that we, collectively, don't forget about the big picture.

mpyne2• 13 years ago

The big picture being that Bostoners should just ignore the marathon bombers so they can convene an emergency city council meeting to discuss the threat chemical plants?

I thought I was pretty jaded, but it turns out I have a long way to go still. After the events of this week I was worried about the hundreds of maimed victims, "Uncle Ruslan", the families of those 4 persons killed and the possible backdrop on geopolitics. But judging from Dr. Stallman's comments I should be most concerned about how the TSA might benefit from what happened.

wyager4• 13 years ago

>but that doesn't mean this isn't a very emotional and trying time for many

Right, because we should totally let the emotionality of a situation determine whether or not we completely overreact to the situation.

>and save your opinions for a more appropriate time.

RMS (and anyone else) is perfectly within his rights to say whatever he wants, whenever he wants. There is no "more appropriate time."

bane14• 13 years ago

You're right, RMS is perfectly within his rights to say whatever damn fool thing he wants, I'm also within my rights to call him a damn fool when he does.

jstrate• 13 years ago

I didn't really hear about any responses to law enforcement entering homes. If they were sweeping the area did anyone refuse entry?

Also really looking forward to the knee-jerk anti 2nd ammendment lobby using another tragedy as a prop.

homosaur12• 13 years ago

Nooo, they wouldn't do that would they?

emily377• 13 years ago

I heard/read that for homes with inhabitants present, the inhabitants were asked if they would like their homes searched.

I'm not sure if they searched empty homes, but if they did, then they probably believed it to be exigent circumstances.

asciimo2• 13 years ago

Wow. I agree with RMS 100% on this point. (Should I be worried?) For all of our wonderful attributes, humans are irrational.

bane14• 13 years ago

No, look at the logic from the other angle, by RMSs idiotic logic, because the flu kills more people, the correct response to the attack should have been Bostonians gone about their merry business, but in Hazmat suits to avoid infection.

thedufer• 13 years ago

I honestly don't think any sane person could, in good faith, come to that conclusion after reading this. His point is that we don't do things like walk around in Hazmat suits to avoid diseases because that would be completely absurd, so why isn't it more absurd to shut down an entire major city for hours over a threat that is orders of magnitude less dangerous?

u23284• 13 years ago

Should I be worried?

Depends; you'll probably not want to share this point with strangers. Since we've been repeatedly traumatized as a nation over the fears of 'terrorism' by war-hawks and sensationalist media outlets, many Americans expect a similar level of emotional reactionism from their compatriots. And when they don't get it from you, they turn on you quickly. I don't think it's healthy, but I guess it's understandable from all the mental abuse we've received as a nation since 9/11.

RMS is out there on a lot of things, and he's very blunt with his opinions, but his emotional detachment does serve him well sometimes. The first step of healing from that mental disease we have now is step back a bit and realize the problem. We are addicted to fear.

asciimo2• 13 years ago

Ha, thanks for the advice! (Maybe that's why Facebook friend count is plummeting...) In retrospect, the worry stemmed from the possibility of contracting RMS's personality traits. Irrational, indeed.

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

Stupid and tone deaf.

These guys filled hospitals with people who had their limbs blown off. And they shot cops willy nilly. The fact that only a few people are dead is small comfort. These were some of the most dangerous people in the entire country, comparing their danger to the danger of industry or automobile transit is just silly. Those are very different problems with very different solutions.

bane14• 13 years ago

Right, intention is what's important, a guy who's gun accidentally goes off and hurts a few people is not the same as a guy who's actively shooting into a crowd.

rayiner• 13 years ago

But try to tell a bunch of tone-deaf nerds that, if you can get a word in edge-wise between their ranting about how many people are killed by automobiles each year.

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

It's about mitigation too. It's a classic problem. Let's say you have a guy like Ted Bundy, hypothetically, and you have this huge manhunt and you catch him a few days after his first attack. OK, now you look at the cold, hard numbers and you see that you've spent an enormous amount of effort catching a guy who's only killed a few people. On paper that might look crazy. But in the case of the real Ted Bundy he killed over 30 people across 7 states in 4 years. And if he had never been caught he hypothetically could have killed hundreds.

This is why naive numbers comparisons are just stupid.

Edit: Here's another example I came up with. To date only about 120,000 people have been killed by nuclear weapons. Which is a tiny fraction of the people killed by conventional weapons, or even heart disease. By naive logic we shouldn't worry about nuclear weapons, we should worry far more about heart disease, and strategic arms limitation talks should concentrate on the far more lethal conventional weapons.

zipfle• 13 years ago

rms is rms.

this is not a bad thing.

CurtMonash3• 13 years ago

And how do you suppose this broad-brush lockdown could have been avoided? The first ideas that come to my mind involve better surveillance and other privacy intrusions.

In fact, it's pretty unavoidable and perhaps even desirable that government have access to a fine level of information which could be used for utter tyranny. So the energies spent worrying about or averting such threats had best be focused on controlling what government will actually do with the information it has.

http://www.dbms2.com/2010/04/04/privacy-liberty-continued/ on the subject is 3 years old, but I think it still holds up pretty well.

mbell• 13 years ago

He seems to make the mistake of comparing damage done to response instead of potential damage done to response.

The two suspects, after settings off anti-personnel bombs in a civilian area, executed a police officer, then got into a firefight with automatic weapons, grenades, and more anti-personnel bombs.

They demonstrated the means and the lack of conscience to do a LOT of damage in an urban area. A lot more than the average day in greater Boston's automotive death toll and as such were met with a massive response to prevent that possible outcome.

ra2• 13 years ago

Absolutely agree. He'd been seen with another IED, home made hand grenades and automatic weapons in a metropolitan area.

What the fuck else could the police do?

This isn't 'fear of shadows', as Stallman puts it.

acabal2• 13 years ago

As unfeeling as his statement might sound, he's entirely correct. I told a family member today that the saddest thing about this whole Boston incident isn't the (still very sad and senseless) loss of life and limb, but that it's undoubtedly going to be used as an excuse to further degrade civil rights nationwide in the coming years, to continue to justify state-sponsored human suffering like Guantanamo, and to further enforce money-wasting, civil-rights-violating theater like the TSA... all while real threats to life like car accidents and disease get left behind.

magic52273• 13 years ago

except we havent seen this, so let's focus on the loss and talk about this when we see a disproportionate response

magic52273• 13 years ago

if anything, people seemed to critique that they called off letting people outside too early. its never good enough it seems

acabal2• 13 years ago

I don't know, haven't we? An entire city shut down, militarized police systematically searching wide swaths of civilian homes, all to look for a guy who caused fewer deaths than a botched bank robbery, a highway pileup, or a hospital MRSA outbreak? Focusing on the loss is fine and appropriate but it's precisely when we focus elsewhere that we lose sight of how utterly over-the-top some of our societal reactions are and will continue to be.

I've been in Colombia when some government buildings were destroyed by FARC bombs. People died, each one was a tragedy, but cities weren't shut down and society didn't let itself be overcome with fear. That's not to say they accepted that violence as OK; but the response was (and continues to be, as the FARC are still sometimes active here) very different.

bane14• 13 years ago

going to be used as an excuse to further degrade civil rights nationwide in the coming years

I don't necessarily disagree, but I look forward to RMS's anti-terrorism proposal.

tedks2• 13 years ago

You can read his political notes and get a pretty good grasp.

But to use a metaphor, it's possible to find a bug without knowing what the patch is.

tlrobinson3• 13 years ago

Is terrorism actually a problem in the US though?

platz4• 13 years ago

You're wrong. The saddest thing is the loss of life and limb.

anon808• 13 years ago

The whole point of those rights is to avoid massive loss of life and limb in the long run.

I think there's a reason the us has been relatively stable over a long period of time, and it has everything to do with civil rights that serve as another check to the power of the government. As the balance is tipped in the favor of government power over civil power, the chances for large scale loss of life and limb (civil wars, internal power grabs etc.) increases.

History provides good examples of ever powerful governments, spectacularly collapsing, and crushing way more people than are killed from individuals abusing 'lax' civil rights.

PetrolMan• 13 years ago

I'm torn. I absolutely understand what you are saying and I agree but the problem is that this whole sequence of events cannot be separated from the larger cultural and historical sequence. The saddest thing is absolutely the loss of life but there is a huge part of me that is almost as greatly saddened by the fact that as advanced as we are as a species that we still act like complete and utter idiots when we get together in large enough groups.

wyager4• 13 years ago

People die every day. About 150,000 of them. That's nothing special. What is really going to matter in the long run is how we treat the people who are going to keep living into the future.

I'm much more concerned for the living than I am for the dead.

tlrobinson3• 13 years ago

Not if the resulting erosion of civil liberties eventually leads to more than ~4 innocents' deaths.

fnordfnordfnord7• 13 years ago

Boston authorities grossly over-reacted when they were attacked by the Cartoon Network too. So I'm not surprised to see how they handled a real terrorism event. I'm just relieved that they haven't managed to kill any bystanders. I hope people apply some scrutiny to what's happened here. Two amateur terrorist/griefers shut Boston down for days, caused the police to impose a de-facto martial law type curfew. If there are any "professional" terrorists, they are paying attention and taking notes. They will leverage this kind of buffoonery and it will not be funny if they succeed.

Anechoic• 13 years ago

Boston authorities grossly over-reacted when they were attacked by the Cartoon Network too

Prosecuting the marketing guys for a "hoax" device? Yeah, that was an overreaction. The actual police response response? They shut down the roadway, removed the devices, and reopened the roads. That was an entirely appropriate response. And no, that wasn't a "9/11 changed everything response" - in my occupation (acoustical consulting) we often leave equipment in the field for long-term data collection. I've heard stories going back to the 1980's about consultants going back to retrieve their equipment only to find the bomb squad had been called. As such, it's always been good practice to a) get permission/inform the property owner about what you're doing, and b) leave contact information on the equipment so someone with questions can call/email you. The ATHF marketers did neither, and I'm not surprised authorities freaked.

I'm just relieved that they haven't managed to kill any bystanders.

The "stay home" suggestion (it wasn't mandatory, folks I know in Boston/Boston-area who had reason to be out had no problems being out) probably helped a lot here.

shut Boston down for days

I have no idea what you're talking about. Bolyston St on Monday after the bombing was shut down, but that was pretty much going to happen anyway because of the giant marathon that was happening there. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were normal days. Because of the events that occurred late Thursday night/Friday morning, most of Boston was shut down for much of Friday, but normal operations started up around 6pm (before the manhunt was over). Given that the suspects were engaging in gun fights and had a propensity for using explosives, asking folks to stay in for 12 hours (we're not talking martial law here) is not an undue burden.

fnordfnordfnord7• 13 years ago

The actual police response response? They shut down the roadway, removed the devices, and reopened the roads. That was an entirely appropriate response. And no, that wasn't a "9/11 changed everything response" - in my occupation (acoustical consulting) we often leave equipment in the field for long-term data collection. I've heard stories going back to the 1980's about consultants going back to retrieve their equipment only to find the bomb squad had been called. As such, it's always been good practice to a) get permission/inform the property owner about what you're doing, and b) leave contact information on the equipment so someone with questions can call/email you. The ATHF marketers did neither, and I'm not surprised authorities freaked.

Even after it was obvious that the Mooninite devices were harmless, they persisted in the charade with all the melodrama they could muster. I'm sure they wanted the devices removed, it would have been a potent embarrassment for them. As for asking permission and leaving contact information, yeah, bad form on their part, but still no reason for hamming it up the way they did.

Fair enough, I'm far from Boston. The news coverage has been getting a lot of mileage out of the "lockdown" as they call it. I did hear one interview of a person being held at gunpoint for some time who was merely trying to return home.

ewbuoi• 13 years ago

I wish I knew more people (AFK) who thought like this...

bane14• 13 years ago

What an unmitigated asshole...seriously RMS, go fuck yourself.

(I had something more pithy to write but I think this captures the essence better)

chj2• 13 years ago

Seriously... You are just too weak to hear some honest opinions.

tkahn64• 13 years ago

> 4 people killed in a week is not a lot compared with the background level of deaths in the US

It's not every day that people have their legs blown off while enjoying a public social event.

There's an expectation of danger while driving a car. There is no expectation of danger while spectating at the Boston Marathon.

It's not complicated.

marknutter7• 13 years ago

> There is no expectation of danger while spectating at the Boston Marathon.

There also is no expectation of getting struck by lightning while spectating at the Boston Marathon, yet that is much more likely to happen than getting hit by a terrorist's bomb.

tkahn64• 13 years ago

That is a true statement, but what is your point?

kevincennis• 13 years ago

There might be some level of expectation of getting hit by lightning during a lightning storm at the Boston Marathon.

potatolicious2• 13 years ago

Yes, which is why we don't hold large public events in the middle of a thunderstorm. And when a thunderstorm rolls into major public events, we do evacuate them.

Unless you're trying to say that the odds of being struct by lightning while spectating the Boston Marathon, on a clear sunny day, is high.

sk5t2• 13 years ago

It doesn't matter. People can go indoors if thunderclouds form. Terrorist attacks freak people out because such attacks make people feel powerless to control the risk.

ra2• 13 years ago

> There also is no expectation of getting struck by lightning while spectating at the Boston Marathon, yet that is much more likely to happen than getting hit by a terrorist's bomb.

Not sure where you're getting your data from.

zanny4• 13 years ago

> There is no expectation of danger while spectating at the Boston Marathon.

You are in the presence of many other human beings. You are always in a present state of danger around everyone, ever. It is naive to think you can predict the actions of others.

I'm not saying be paranoid, I'm saying treat people like people and not faces in a crowd. You don't know their intentions with rare exception to those you actually know.

wavesounds2• 13 years ago

Carmen Ortiz (Same DA who prosecuted Aaron Swartz) said that because of some public safety exemption loophole they didn't read him his maranda rights.

danielweber• 13 years ago

This doesn't make sense. Cops don't have to read Miranda to you when they arrest you. It's just that anything you say following arrest and prior to Miranda is not admissible in a court of law.

wavesounds2• 13 years ago

They will be questioning him without reading him his Miranda rights and via a loophole it will be admissible is what I've gathered. I think a lot of people are afraid that this an example of us giving up our freedoms out of fear.

27182818284• 13 years ago

It less of a "manhunt" and more what I can only describe as dress up. Most of the cops I saw on TV weren't doing anything. I watched a group stand around in the middle of the street. I watched another different group stand around. I watched a group dressed in full Batman-looking-black body armor hang onto the side of the civilian version of an APC and ride it around town. It honestly looked like dress up. They could have quadrupled the number of boots on the ground and it wouldn't have found him faster for that reason—most of the people weren't contributing.

GHFigs3• 13 years ago

I would hesitate to generalize from what you saw on TV. What you see on TV has a lot to do with where the TV crews are set up and where they're allowed to go, which has to be somewhere safe and not in the way of the people with work to do.

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

once again Stall man says something that is a bit insensitive, a little bit crazy, but very, very true.

beezee• 13 years ago

How many commenters in support of this perspective were in the area and part of all this? As someone who was a short distance from the explosions during the marathon, and the focused area of the manhunt during todays lockdown, I'd expect the answer would be none. And if I'm wrong, I'm shocked at the lack of empathy, or even lack of ability to emulate empathy through simple taste and common sense. This is a really disappointing thing for me to see on HN.

technoluster• 13 years ago

I get his point, it raises an important lesson. But the lock down was fairly voluntarily throughout most of the Boston metro area, perhaps except those areas where active investigations were being conducted. People were outside in Back Bay; I walked by plenty of uniformed officers, none of which asked me to return to my home.

hhaidar• 13 years ago

I think it was worth it. The police reacted quickly and caught him alive. Now they can get valuable information out of him, which they couldn't do if he was killed/died from wounds.

vladig17• 13 years ago

Even though there is some rather sharp back and forth here, I think it's awesome that this discussion is happening. The points on both sides are really good.

Personally, I don't think this is purely emotional elation. I live in Boston, the bombing happened down the street from me. I think it's important to point out that the disruption here should not just be measured in terms of number of dead or injured. It's the threat to the way we are used to living our life every day, and the perceived threat to the future way we will live our life.

This week, I have..

* Closed down my office because I was afraid for the safety of my employees * Heard from one of my best friends that his former colleague got killed on-duty (Sean Collier) * Listen to my friend express fear because she is planning to take a train to the waterfront for dinner * Had my mom show up out of nowhere to meet me at the airport because she heard there wasn't a way to get into the city

I didn't lose my life. My friends didn't either. I have nothing to complain about. But I want to make the point that there isn't an easy metric to put around the way life has ground to a halt here over the past week (at least none that I know of). We all experienced a type of stress that is hard to capture in numbers. And, we're happy to get our lives back to normal.

tiredofcareer7• 13 years ago

I've noticed this tack a lot recently (three arguments like this in 24 hours), and I'm concerned by it.

There seems to be an inability on the part of some people, apparently Richard Stallman included, to realize that active intent to harm human beings is not in the same ballpark as passive intent to harm human beings. They're not even playing the same sport. A fertilizer plant has a chance of harming someone in an accident, and while it is definitely wrong if those concerns go unheeded, there is not even a remote comparison to the actions of demonstrated sociopathic behavior to harm, kill, and decapitate eight-year-olds watching a marathon. There just isn't. A man waking up one morning and saying, "gee, I'm going to drop explosive devices in the middle of a fucking crowd in Boston" isn't even in the same universe as "our unstable manufacturing process exploded after an accident".

Let's say, for a moment, that Stallman is in effect proven right about the danger of the chemical plant, and that the chemical plant owners, say, willfully traded employee safety for money. That's wrong. However, inability to be appalled by and react accordingly to a human being intentionally killing and maiming fellow human beings using explosive devices on the streets of a populated city during a marathon, demonstrating full intent to kill and complete disregard for the free agency of children as young as 8, and blowing people's limbs off on purpose, is the mark of a sociopath.

You concern me if you present an argument to me along these lines, that we should "care more" about the fertilizer plant or auto accidents on the interstates in a day or ... whatever. I'm more and more convinced lately that the people in my life who have arguments with me like this, including Richard Stallman, are sociopaths, and I'm sorry. I'm going to make active strides to remove these people from my life, and so should you; the complete disregard of basic social empathy, the understanding of why normal human beings consider the Boston bombings a life-changing event but the chemical plant marginally less so, indicates to me a conscience that is capable of thinking unspeakable things. What else can a conscience like that justify?

Some people can manage being a sociopath long-term, and I think we can all name some examples in the tech industry. It's arguable a bit of sociopath can be a valuable tool for career and business building. I don't think being sociopathic is a death sentence, but it should give you pause when dealing with them, that their conscience leads to hypothetical discussions like this rather than "it's just business" types of transactions in the working world.

None of this commentary considers the media or law enforcement response to the Boston events, which Stallman does discuss, and I do not present an opinion on that point (I do have one, but it clouds the issue). Only the point I've discussed above.

EDIT: I've edited through to adjust a point I mistakenly attributed to Stallman which he really didn't say, but is the logical conclusion. I misread one key sentence in the e-mail that I responded to, and should have paid better attention, and I'm sorry. Thank you for bringing it to my attention; my point still stands in the edited form above, and if you've quoted the prior version, I'd appreciate a second chance at making my point. I'm not going to respond individually to those of you who have quoted the prior version, since it would waste column inches, and I hope you notice my edit and act accordingly.

pekk• 13 years ago

If you know that people will die, but are simply indifferent to it, the difference between that and actively wishing to murder is at least arguably academic. You are killing people with your choices in either case.

potatolicious2• 13 years ago

This is the precise attitude GP is railing against.

Are you seriously tabling the notion that "gee, hundreds of Americans will die in car accidents today, oh well" is even in the same universe as "gee, I think I should drop a bomb in the middle of a crowd"?

The difference here is as wide as the ocean, it is anything but academic.

And this is why some arguments cannot be taken seriously. No one is saying that car accidents, heart disease, and cancer shouldn't be Big Deals, but to say that being idle in these matters is tantamount to mass murder is how you get people to stop taking you seriously.

dyno12345• 13 years ago

By this logic why even try to apprehend the terrorists at all? The death toll was a rounding error in the number of fatal car accidents during the same time period. Since we're not going to do anything differently in response to the fatal car accidents, why should we spend any effort at all trying to stop those responsible for the bombings?

kiba3• 13 years ago

While intent does matter, the consequence is still the same. People die. Therefore, we should devote effort to reducing incidents of death, no matter what is the cause.

People who kill others intentionally are going to be treated differently than those who ignore basic safety precaution, as a matter of justice. But we must still pay attention to the magnitude of tragedy when it comes to allocating money to reduce probability of death incidents.

That mean, if car accidents kill more than terrorists each year, there should be more money on accident prevention.

tiredofcareer7• 13 years ago

Agree with your first paragraph. I definitely think we should devote effort to reducing incidence of death, no matter the cause.

Couldn't agree less with the remainder, because you are comparing car accidents and terrorism, which I specifically said is impossible to do; there is no comparison remotely possible between automotive accidents and terrorism.

NkVczPkybiXICG• 13 years ago

His point was that there are better things in life to worry about. An example is chemical plants.

To paraphrase his letter -- your actions should not change based on the events these past few days. Decisions should be made off of data and actual potential to harm, not on what happens to be scary at the time.

fnordfnordfnord7• 13 years ago

making the case that the chemical plant owners willfully ignored employee safety in the name of profit;

No, that's not what he said. He said more people were killed in the "Texas explosion" he hasn't mentioned anything about the cause other than maybe imply that it was not related to terrorism. He also hasn't maligned the plant owners, but rather suggested that technology might be employed to prevent it from occurring in the same manner again, and that the resources we spend on terrorism and the freedom we've sacrificed might be better spent in other ways.

rictic• 13 years ago

Yet here's rms doing his thing, making the case that the chemical plant owners willfully ignored employee safety in the name of profit.

That is an argument that's not supported by the text.

The point that Stallman is making, as I see it, is to be concerned about overspending (and sacrificing freedoms) on rare salient threats, while neglecting more commonplace but more dangerous sources of danger like chemical plants and car accidents.

As a matter of public policy I could not agree more with Stallman here. For more information on this line of argument I'd recommend reading Bruce Schneier, who makes the point passionately and with authority.

tiredofcareer7• 13 years ago

Richard Stallman made several points in the linked e-mail. The point that I'm concerned with, and made clear that I'm concerned with, is that the Texas plant is the, quote, "bigger danger" than the Boston incidents. He wrote that nearly verbatim; his evidence for that was backed up in the paragraph prior by citing numbers -- specifically, numbers of people dead. That's what I'm attacking, specifically not reaction to, preparation for, or money spent on these heinous events, as I said quite clearly and will continue to say.

My edit specifically applies to the head of your comment.

ucee0542• 13 years ago

This is very stupid.

The guy who goes to deliberately kill a bunch of people by bombing is probably very much not a sociopath, because a sociopath is someone who sees other people as expendable.

That matches the psychology of someone who doesn't give a shit. Which is your corporate CEO who didn't give a damn about the risks of the chemical plant.

A terrorist bomber may very well care deeply. He might be motivated by hatred. He may be motivated by vengeance. He may think his victims really have it coming to them. He may in fact be the exact opposite of a sociopath.

king_jester• 13 years ago

> There seems to be an inability on the part of some people, apparently Richard Stallman included, to realize that active intent to harm human beings is not in the same ballpark as passive intent to harm human beings. They're not even playing the same sport. Cutting corners in the name of profit has a chance of harming someone, and while it is definitely wrong, there is not even a remote comparison to the actions of demonstrated sociopathic behavior to harm, kill, and decapitate eight-year-olds watching a marathon.

I don't really see the distinction here. Active intent vs. passive intent to harm others that means that you known that the actions you are taking will hurt, maim, or kill others and that, one way or another, you are OK with that. To say that passive acceptance of one's actions as leading to the ruining and death of others is not as bad as actively going on and committing murder is silly, either way you are justifying your actions and you had the same end result.

> Let's say, for a moment, that Stallman is right, and that the chemical plant owners willfully traded employee safety for money. That's wrong. However, inability to realize that a human being intentionally killing and maiming fellow human beings using explosive devices on the streets of a populated city during a marathon, demonstrating full intent to kill and complete disregard for the free agency of children as young as 8, and blowing people's limbs off on purpose, is the mark of a sociopath.

If you willingly traded employee safety for sake of profit and knew that doing so could reasonably hurt or kill others, you have demonstrated an intent to kill and demonstrated complete disregard for the free agency of people. That the tactics differ between someone dropping a bomb in a crowd vs. someone abusing their business and employees doesn't change the reality that both are doing something evil and destructive to society.

> You concern me if you present an argument to me along these lines, that we should "care more" about the chemical plant or auto accidents on the interstates in a day or ... whatever.

The point is that there are common issues in our society that cause greater loss of life and damage compared to less frequent events like bombing a crowd or a mass shooting. That doesn't mean that a bombing isn't bad or that it is less important. However, these kinds of events receive much more attention and coverage compared to those common dangers.

> I'm more and more convinced lately that the people in my life who have arguments with me like this, including Richard Stallman, are sociopaths, and I'm sorry. I'm going to make active strides to remove these people from my life, and so should you; the complete disregard of basic social empathy, the understanding of why normal human beings consider the Boston bombings a life-changing event but the chemical plant marginally less so, indicates to me a conscience that is capable of thinking unspeakable things.

For some, the chemical plant incident is more of a life-changing event than the Boston bombings. We should have empathy to see this and consider that hearing alternative points of view may provide a richer perspective about how these events affect our lives and the lives of others. If you reject anyone who doesn't agree with you about how important the Boston bombing is, you are saying that you are not interested in empathy in the first place because you are placing your experience and sharing of that experience as more important than others.

opminion• 13 years ago

You are talking about judging intent, he (and Bruce Schneier) is talking about measuring a reaction. Those are two different things.

The reason why you think that they are sociopaths is because you are conflating both of them.

Their point is precisely that they shouldn't be conflated. Your point seems to be that not conflating them is what characterises them as sociopaths.

tiredofcareer7• 13 years ago

I specifically did not address measurement of the reaction and took active measures not to conflate the two, because I'm quite aware that they are easy to conflate. That's what the bottom of my comment is specifically targeting.

I have some thoughts on the response level, both in the media and law enforcement, but I cannot draw a salient conclusion just yet. The media is an easier target than law enforcement in that regard. I think it's better if I leave that discussion to others like Schneier. My issue is the subtext and, on more than one instance, direct suggestion in Stallman's writing, comparing the two incidents in any way.

bane14• 13 years ago

Thank you.

RMS, like any intelligent sentient being is capable of thinking complex thoughts and making good points.

But I rail against his thoughtlessness. His constant...sociopathy...it's why he's ineffective in getting his views across, why he treats people like automatons (well documented) and why he's plain and simply put, "not a good person".

I never put it in these terms before, I just always felt "skeeved out" by his writings. Logically, he makes lots of sense, but personally he's as connectable as the sidewalk in front of my house. Sociopathy is the perfect term.

Anybody who can sit in Boston the last week, have a cop murdered in cold blood near his office by two men on an active terror event that just murdered and maimed dozens of people a few days before, and upon the conclusion of that event shit out this garbage before the close of the same day is a person so far removed from empathy, from society and from humanity as to be a sociopath.

I've never gone through such a wild swing of elation, joy and exhaustion, then disappointment, sadness and anger in such a short period of time as today. This isn't the kind of frustrating conspiracy nuttery that's so exasperating written by people so lost in their private world as to have lost touch with reality, this is written by a person fully cognizant of their writing and what he's saying, the time in which he's saying it and the tone in which he's saying it.

it should give you pause when dealing with them, that their conscience leads to hypothetical discussions like this.

I'm going to make active strides to remove these people from my life

Amen, and my first step is to leave this thread after this an never return. My next step is to flag any posts here about RMS. Next is to boycott any events where RMS is to be the speaker and actively lobby events who are thinking about hosting him to rethink that decision based on this writing as well as his piss poor treatment of other human beings in the past.

This is inexcusable, this is madness.

kiba3• 13 years ago

This is inexcusable, this is madness.

So, you're worried more about a few dead people rather than all those people you never heard of dying in hospitals, in motor accidents, and other cause of death? They are someone's aunts, uncles, sons, daughters, friends, lovers, etc.

Maybe we should connect our emotion to the logic rather than the other way around.

Glyptodon• 13 years ago

Quite honestly your admitted emotional swings suggest that you are the one closer to the animal state. Anyone infected by excess emotion is essentially unsuitable as an analyst or arbiter regardless of how immediately salient the circumstance.

Any policy overly informed by an animalistic emotional driver instead of proceeding from some sort of logical principal can't be taken seriously.

I've noticed Easterners often can't deal with life at an easy pace while remaining comfortable with the minuscule nature of their existence and thus have trouble living relaxed lives.

Every incident like this illustrates it. If a cartel bombed a motor-home in New Mexico or something there'd be none of this brouhaha because Southwesterners live with open horizons under a sea of stars and can take a step back and don't need to feel validated by trying to rouse the whole country to a frenzy.

Plus it would be far removed from the self-centered self-important East Coast rush where the obvious route to increased salience seems to be requiring a different outfit for everything.

Please stop clutching fear and start reaching towards increased animacy.

marknutter7• 13 years ago

Take a deep breath and ask yourself why you responded so emotionally to these terrorist attacks and not the fertilizer explosion.

Is it the loss of life? There was tragic loss of life in both instances.

Is it the presence of a human instigator? Or maybe the presence of evil? Are terrorists somehow a greater threat than fertilizer explosions because they are supposed to be rational, sentient actors? Are they representative of all that is wrong with humanity? Why are they more threatening than any of the myriad dangers lurking around every corner in this world? I genuinely want to know.

Maybe the very fact that these types of terrorist attacks are so infrequent is what scares us the most. They are met with such a media circus that it's very hard for us not to react in a visceral way.

Or perhaps the scariest part about them is that it represents a breakdown in what we consider decent. The more normal the terrorist or mass-shooter ends up being the more scared we tend to be. By all accounts, these kids were popular, intelligent, handsome young men. And yet within a very short span of time they were radicalized and capable of committing these attacks. That scares us to our core, even though its frequency is so small it should be considered mathematically insignificant.

We desperately want our terrorists to be caricatures of every evil villain we've ever seen. That makes it easier to deal with. Of course they would blow people up, they're evil! The truth is, these types of events, although caused by humans, are no more explainable than tornadoes, lightning strikes, hurricanes, earthquakes, or any other natural disaster we have no control over. Fertilizer plant explosions, on the other hand, we feel like we can prevent, and so they are not accompanied by emotion, fear, and vengeance. But trying to prevent the radicalization of every single youth on the planet is no different than trying to hold a tsunami at bay with a bucket.

RMS is not being a sociopath, he's analyzing an emotional situation in an unemotional way. It doesn't mean he's dangerous, or an asshole, or incapable of relating to other human beings. It means he's logical and not prone to lapses in judgement due to heightened emotional responses.

noonespecial• 13 years ago

Just remember, there are some people who literally cannot see the emotional difference that's obvious to most. Call it sociopathy or being "on the spectrum" or what have you, for them its like watching a black and white TV picture of a world in color.

They may care very much about life, see two events one with many deaths, one with few, and a everyone inexplicably spending all of their money fixing the few and seemingly ignoring the obvious cheap fixes for the many.

So because they care (and not because they don't) they reach for their superhero capes and go try to help.

indrax2• 13 years ago

I am not a sociopath. I ask myself if I want to save lives or if I want to feel better.

I get that a motivated attacker is a more alarming threat, but that is because we didn't evolve with chemical plants and car accidents.

If you just want to reduce your alarm and comfort you friends. Then focus on dealing with whatever alarms you. But by my standards that's not caring.

'Be appalled by' is cheap and easy. 'react accordingly' is, I'm sorry but that's probably not what you're doing. There are so many people in the world who have demonstrated full intent to kill that if you reacted accordingly you'd become Batman.

If this is just about what we say upsets us as we go about our daily lives, then we can agree to disagree and there's no reason to think worse of each other.

woah• 13 years ago

He's just not scared enough! This is terror, damnit! Get with the program, stallman.

csallen2• 13 years ago

So what you're saying is that people who value human life equally -- regardless of whether it's lost "actively" or "passively" -- are sociopaths? That people who advocate for a system that tries to save the most lives possible are sociopaths? What?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you're saying that adhering to some arbitrary societal standard of behavior in the face of tragedy is more important than, you know, saving lives.

linuxhansl• 13 years ago

Please do not equate rational behavior with being a sociopath.

If what RMS says is true (and I admit that I have no way to verify that) and that fertilizer plant is responsible for more deaths than the terrorist attack, then it is a more pressing problem. How can you possibly argue that point (unless dead people as such do not worry you and it is just anger or fear that justifies the actions - but then, who's the sociopath?)

Terrorism is hardly the most pressing problem faced by the US. Due to irrational fears we willingly spend insane amounts of money and have our civil liberties curtailed... To protect us from something that statistically hardly kills more people than lightening.

This is all RMS is trying to point out.

Nobody is saying that these terrorists should not be prosecuted, just that should put this all into perspective.

A rational person interested in the well being of the people would tackle issues like lack of healthcare, edudation, obesity, heart disease, unjust wars, poverty, civil liberties, privacy, etc, etc, just to name a few issues, before tackling terrorism.

An irrational person is driven by fear and anger and thus typically acts against his/her own best interest.

RockyMcNuts• 13 years ago

As terrorists, these guys sucked. The Swedish guy, even the Columbine schoolboys had a much higher body count.

Still, in economic cost, it was a creditable effort, not on the level of 9/11 but not bad, for two presumed amateurs to shut down Boston for a day.

When you do that, you're giving these guys a lot of power.

Imagine if London had shut down every time there were IRA attackers on the loose.

One comes to expect an extremist point of view from RMS, but I find myself mostly agreeing. What the victims experienced is heartbreaking, and we should honor them by catching the bad guys, and also finding ways to make ourselves more resilient.

homosaur12• 13 years ago

You know I had never thought of the financial damage aspect but you're right on about that.

chj2• 13 years ago

@dcurtis: "Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin

reader50009• 13 years ago

"Please don't promote fear of shadows."

Well shit guys we should have got big balls Stallman out there to apprehend the suspect who was known to be homicidal, heavily armed, and possibly wearing an explosive device.

100 people die in cars everyday. That's such an irrelevant statement I still don't fully understand the point. 100 people die in cars everyday so unless a murderer's body count breaches national aggregate auto fatality statistics we shouldn't worry about it? Stallman appears to be confusing "the appropriate resource allocation to the threat of terrorism in general" with "the appropriate resource allocation to an actual active known terrorist".

pcvarmint• 13 years ago

I think RMS raises some good points. The response is out of proportion, just as in the Chris Dorner, Randy Weaver, and Branch Davidian cases. There seems to be a mob mentality looking for a small number of suspects to blame "easily" to explain our societal problems, and then everyone's efforts are directed towards lynching those suspects, as if it will rid the world of evil. It merely kicks the can down the road, without addressing real issues.

Other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5579687

DanBC• 13 years ago

Stallman is a God Tier troll.

He is sincere. He is mostly right. (He's predicted quite a lot of the modern computing ecology). He is extreme.

His one post will generate many posts from polarised commenters, sometimes those threads will devolve into bitter angry flames.

Everyone already knows this.

Yet it still happens.

It's amazing. God Tier.

aj700• 13 years ago

The point that's up for debate is: Are maimings and killings that are designed to change US govt policy more important than other maimings and killings. I think the answer is yes.

I agree that we don't know yet if that was the aim here. I also would agree that the level of terrorist attacks the west is subject to are too small to make us change any policy at all in the way the terrorists wish.

Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

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