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Richard Stallman, the man behind GNU, copyleft, and way too many others accolades to even list, announced at GNU 40 that he has cancer. Fortunately, he reports that it is slow growing and completely manageable. He says he isn't going anywhere. He is 70. Please keep Richard in your prayers, guys.

Terrible news. I wish him all the best. It's impossible to recognize him without the hair.

This is so sad. I agree, he's completely unrecognizable without his hair. I also sincerely wish him the best. Without him, I wouldn't be the programmer I am today.

I really hope someone will send him a well-thought-out email or letter with peer-reviewed citations outlining clearly to Stallman that masks do nothing to stop the spread of respiratory diseases and covid is now and has been an endemic disease evolving towards another common cold variant for well over a year now. It's extremely depressing to watch someone live out their final days in discomfort and isolation. I thought he read better news sources than pharma-sponsored mass media.

>>73143 He might have a weakened immune system from the chemotherapy.

>>73144 Why's that Stallman's deal? Linus heads up Linux. If anyone he should get the explosive anal cancer.

It's sad that people are giving Stallman soykaf for wearing a mask. It just speaks to how fuarrrked their priorities are. "Oh no, he wearing a mask how dare he! You betrayed the tribe vaxxoid" They've put their own petty tribalism over the fact this important historic figure who has given us so much is literally dying.

>>73151 Probably most of those people don't give a soykaf about software freedom, and if they are interested in free software at all it's only so they can feel superior to "bugmen". Nobody would go apeshit about someone freely exercising their right to wear a mask if they really cared about the freedom of software users. I haven't actually witnessed anybody be really mean about the mask thing, but I have known many retards in the past who I could easily imagine doing so. Stallman is the type of person that both r*ightoids and l*ftoids hate because he eats their sacred cows, and he doesn't respond to their poo-flinging.

>>73145 Masking up still wouldn't help him even if he had AIDS, because masks simply do not prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses. We have many large randomized controlled trials on mask wearing now and their conclusions are clear: there is no difference between masking and not masking. >>73151 I'm not "giving him soykaf", I feel genuinely bad for him that he still feels obligated to go through this pointless and unpleasant mask crap. Masking is miserable and living out the rest of your days with reduced quality of life for nothing is horrible.

>>73155 >Masking up still wouldn't help him even if he had AIDS, because masks simply do not prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses I don't think it's that settled. The Cochraine meta-study that you're probably referring to has this to say about N95/KN95 respirators, which he appears to be wearing in the photo: >We are very uncertain on the effects of N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks on the outcome of clinical respiratory illness (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.45 to 1.10; 3 trials, 7779 participants; very low‐certainty evidence). N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks may be effective for ILI (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.03; 5 trials, 8407 participants; low‐certainty evidence). Evidence is limited by imprecision and heterogeneity for these subjective outcomes.

>>73155 Man, we have better things to be doing than correcting 70 year olds about masks. We need to figure out how we can carry on his legacy. I know that he says he's not going anywhere from this cancer, but he is 70 now and when he's gone what are we going to do?

>>73143 Why don't YOU do it if it matters so much to you? I know why. You don't have those peer-reviewed citations proving masks don't stop respiratory diseases. Because masks work. I've faced that canard over and over again. The "proofs" would all fall into three categories: 1. Horrendous studies that miss the point of masks; 2. Official statements that suggest masks aren't 100% effective, implying it means 0%; 3. Idiotic arguments like "masks increase contact surface with your mouth." But none of it matters. One of the most important figures of computing may be a few years away from dying. And your first reaction is to make it all about your culture war soykaf. The one living in isolation here is you. Stallman has a tons of support and seems to have good medical following. Not to mention: masks are a perfect excuse to hide your face in public. Always cracks me up when anarchist and hacker wannabes have a problem with that. >>73154 Do you have examples of him pissing off the left in particular? Only things I can think of are: 1. Some moments he came off as misogynistic; 2. Dissing anarchists by moment; 3. Some other stuff that never sparked any criticism. The Epstein email thing also pissed off people on the right. He also often repeats far-left talking points in his political notes.

A man got cancer ffs and ypu guys made the thread about masks. And you have the face to pretend you care for the man.

>>73168 >Do you have examples of him pissing off the left in particular? That time he got booted off the FSF board for no good reason. >The Epstein email thing also pissed off people on the right. No?

I wouldn't have recognized the face if I weren't looking for the similarities. still looks cool Have strength, comrade.

>>73143 >trolling on lainchan >>73168 >responding to trolling on lainchan

I hope RMS gets through this alright, but even so, they've been a blessing and have lived a life worth celebrating. >>73168 >Dissing anarchists by moment; What is this referring to? I haven't heard of it. As far as I know the only thing RMS has done to piss off the anarchists is that Stallman has a bit of tunnel-vision and only works to symptomatically combat intellectual property within the capitalist system instead of simultaneously working to attack the system that invents it. >>73154 && >>73168 && >>73172 weekly reminder that there is no such thing as 'left' or 'right', not even locally but especially not internationally, and it's a useless and harmful model of understanding politics. use specific terms if you want a conversation to make any sense instead of devolving into inconsistent contradictory identity-based nonsense.

>>73175 You mean to say that the fact that where some people sat in a recinct after the french revolution doesn't represent a one-to-one mapping to the various socio-politico-economic positions and motivations of 6 billion people in the XXI century? You must be trolling!

>>73175 > there is no such thing as 'left' or 'right', not even locally but especially not internationally "Left" and "right" are still relevant in modern-day liberal democracies because fundamentally the law and philosophy of such governments hasnt changed much since then, and they are still used as self identifiers.

>>73168 >You don't have those peer-reviewed citations proving masks don't stop respiratory diseases. Because masks work. No, I'm afraid I do in fact. Large randomized controlled trials (i.e., more than one) in clinical settings demonstrating no significant difference between mask wearers and non-maskers in controlling respiratory disease spread: https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6 Furthermore, here is a good review of the history of droplet theory and how it has led people to poor assumptions about mask effectiveness: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2021.0049 >your first reaction is to make it all about your culture war No anon, that's what you're doing. I merely expressed sorrow that he's living out his final years most likely scared soykafless of interacting with people and being miserable in public... in a way that's completely avoidable if he had better information. You have decided to make it all about your perceived culture wars and politics because you apparently cannot fathom that someone would genuinely want someone they love and respect to be comfortable while they're literally dying. >>73174 >having genuine informed opinions and expressing sympathy for someone is trolling Somewhat sorry I brought it up at this point. Then again, reactions suggest you're still having trouble detaching informed scientific opinion from received mass media wisdom. So maybe not that sorry, and I hope this has made at least one lainon think.

>>73178 Not that lainon, but the first study you cite is only regards to Influenza- and SARS-like viruses. Cancer patients and other immunocompromised individuals have to worry about far more than those two diseases. Additionally, the study only reviews literature as it pretains to the community at large rather than specifically immunocompromised patients. Plus, a lainon mentioned this study's specific limitations in regards to N95/P2 respirators earlier in the thread already. I'll also chime in that you act like there's no reason people should suspect you of baiting/engaging in culture war nonsense. This is ironic when you frequently assume Stallman's in utter terror at the world around him because he's wearing a mask and claim that he's being made seriously uncomfortable by wearing a mask and use those assumptions as talking points.

>>73179 I also forgot to mention that you are assuming Stallman is currently dying (a lot faster than the rest of us at least). What's particularly funny about this statement is that it contradicts the info we currently have and his prognosis has gotten significantly better since he's gotten diagnosed (i.e. if he never found out it would be certain death).

>>73175 >Stallman has a bit of tunnel-vision and only works to symptomatically combat intellectual property within the capitalist system instead of simultaneously working to attack the system that invents it. This is probably the biggest flaw of the free software movement. I'm not saying they should all become woke champagne socialists, but their generally seperate from other important social causes that could help their cause. It's also the fault of leftists for not engaging with them. Chomsky and Stallman were at MIT for years and I don't think either of them have ever met. The other problem is corporate interests trying to co-opt open source for themselves and the way a lot of Linux people are down with this. Today, anyone can get a Unix-like OS (what was once only for businesses and industry) and there's a whole ecosystem where people develop stuff to benefit the community. This is Stallman's greatest contribution. You'd think Marxists, socialists etc would jump on this but as usual they haven't. So it's not just Stallman who has tunnel vision. He's a child of the 60s counterculture and computer geek and that will rub woke leftists up the wrong way. Leftism today is mostly dominated by normi e academics and insane psychos on the internet, and none of them seem to give a damn about software freedom or computers beyond whining about big tech (unless their retarded breadtubers or Chris Hedges doggedly supporting Assange). It's more like tweed suited humanities professor would look at Stallman and is like "yeah fuarrrk that guy, he's filthy and he probably never even read Hegel kekekekek."

>>73168 >double negative masks have never been PROVEN to stop COVID last time I checked. they do something in hospital settings. in public they are for libtards (aka amazon customers) to virtue signal like they did their part and choose the opposite opinion of the right when the order an amazon basics TM mask. if any study ever does get published proving it, you can guarantee its some autistic libtard and if you actually took the time to investigate it youd find it on shaky ground. RMS is a libtard btw if you didn't notice. he fuarrrken loves science. yes that also means hes right about some things, but it also means he carries unhinged libtard beliefs (such as wearing the fuarrrkken mask everywhere even after 3 vaccines, on a virus that has 1.3% CFR at most and thats counting people who would die from the common cold)

>>73181 >You'd think Marxists, socialists etc would jump on this but as usual they haven't. Many serious socialists have, especially in latin America. Generally I think it's just that most socialists in wealthy countries are not serious. Most are more interested in gaining political power than they are in liberation, if they're even motivated enough to do anything besides complain on twitter. There's also the matter that most people have only a very very basic understanding of how a computer works. Anything that pulls back the curtain and reveals the workings of the magic box instills fear in ignorant people. Free software, by its nature, requires people to think a little bit about how their computer works, which immediately makes people apprehensive. >>73168 >>73186 could you please shut the fuarrrk up? So a guy wore a mask, who the fuarrrk cares?? >I don't care it's the other side that cares! I'm ironically detached! There I saved you the effort of replying. >>73185 >>73184 >>73183 kill yourself.

>>73176 Well, yes, but that's far from the only issue with the over-simplified, relative, inconsistent and overall uninsightful model. And when it devolves into those circular arguments, it deserves to be called out. >>73177 >they are still used as self-identiters Yes, but that doesn't make it useful. I can identify as forwards, or orange. My understanding and your understanding of those words may be radically different. A self-identifier like that is worthless at best and misleading at worst. A self-identifier that actually describes an ideology or view is useful. The main issue with the left-right identifier is that it is so broad and subjective to be almost useless. An anarchist and a liberal-democrat are fundamentally opposed and probably see the other as an existential threat. A right-libertarian and a neo-Nazi are irreconcilable at their very cores and almost all their views except the most trivial. Often, the most compatible ideologies (regressive and progressive deviations of democratic-liberalism) tend to sit on opposing ends of a parliament. Even in the conversation referenced, it devolved into 'pissing off the left'... who the fuarrrk are 'the left'? If it means anti-capitalist, pro-democracy socialists, well, RMS hasn't pissed me off ever, nor any other techy socialists I've come across. Nor, seemingly, the ton of anarchists which historically and currently use lainchan. Using broad sweeping statements like left and right suggest a false homogeneity or unity within those groups, which leads to deranged and contradictory conclusions and useless culture-war identity politics. >because fundamentally the law and philosophy of such governments hasnt changed much since [the French Revolution, 1790s] It absolutely has. For one, the US Libertarian (or 'right-libertarian') would have been considered far-left at the time. Neo-liberalism and conservative liberalism (both considered right-wing even in the USA) muddle up the dichotomy too, if anything they would be first and foremost republican and liberalist in older systems.

>>73181 >It's also the fault of leftists for not engaging with them. >You'd think Marxists, socialists etc would jump on this but as usual they haven't. So it's not just Stallman who has tunnel vision. I have to agree. Sure, the FOSS community is notably popular in socialist/anarchist circles but there really isn't the extreme overlap one would expect among famous academics, famous activists nor retarded youtuber grifters (even if the grifters are dumb or insincere, it's still a clear opportunity for them) FOSS and internet piracy are two of the most stable and accessible cases of the opposition to private capital and the ownership over means of production that socialism is centred around, let alone FOSS communities' generally collectivist mode of production. It just seems so obvious when you say it. Anyone can do it. Digital information sharing is basically the post-scarcity fantasy of socialism, realized, in the present day, present time.

>>73186 if you have 3 brain cells, you would have learned that masks are meant to help *reduce the spread* of covid. you retards keep trying to imply that vaccines or masks are advertised as 100% effective solutions and then get mad at your own delusions. fuarrrking moron.

>>73194 Viruses don't exist, so COVID doesn't exist, and there is no justification for vaccines. https://viroliegy.com/

>>73194 >slow the spread >of a disease that doesn’t exist >or no more dangerous than the common cold if it was actually something More likely that the masks were used: * to create the appearance of a pandemic and induce people to take an injection of who-knows-what * reduce population by inducing bacterial infections as mentioned in the 2008 Fauci paper *

>>73194 >>73195 >>73196 >>etc. shut up and go to /r/

>>73138 damn... It's crazy how I just forget that figures like him just aren't going to live forever. IF he kicks the bucket, I wonder who's gonna take the flag and run it home like Stallman did...

>>73193 The Western left is deranged. They've totally lost the whole point of their movement and now just exists as some vague elitist subculture that's becoming more and more unhinged and insincere. Same goes for the "Linux community." Its filled with open source elitists who don't care about freedom and treat Linux as another fad to feed their egos and need for a tribal group identity. >>73206 Dependency. People have built such a big cult around that guy they can't imagine a world with him not around. Without RMS who'll be their leader? I see a lot of people who heroize that guy because of his retarded asinine behavior and not for his advocacy.

>>73207 indeed, he is iconic and gets the status of a hero because he doesn't adhere to the business-talk strata where people in suits, often on TV, pretend to be polite and avoid all uncomfortable topics that may put their economic safety into danger. People who talk loudly and with a much serious, concerned face about challenging the system never challenge or change it, because they never step out of their monetary safety zone. In other words, they simply and safely LARP and therefore accumulate a huge audience of fans and followers and even big presence in the media, because they skillfully avoided anything that may offend half of their userbase, honing their image of a man in a suit to the perfection.

Ah, yes, of course. The thread about Richard Stallman.

>>73208 Only downside to that is he's a bit of an insufferable autistic man child that's difficult to work with. Probably hasn't helped him much with the press. A lot of people feed his ego and encourage his bad behavior.

>>73218 On that topic, you would be surprised to learn that most talented people are hard, insufferable to work with. In any work process you always deal with assholes and if you had any job experience you learn to accept it. You cannot pretend that you have a guarantee that assholes will go non-existent, or that you can ignore them or put them behind a wall. You accept existence of assholes just like you accept existence of rains and storms. You learn to deal with them and put them in place if they go too far. That does not matter because you work with them for reasons different from them being assholes. This is how life is and always was, and that keeps and will keep being because what happens when you remove talented assholes from a "thing", the "thing" dies. Nonetheless, most assholes get taught the hard way that being assholes isn't good, and they learn to compensate for their behavior. Stallman apologized for his words, but for Internet opinion havers this isn't enough.

>>73219 I honestly don't believe this is the case, although it comes across that way sometimes to fifth wheels, looters, and other persons who get in their way. t. have worked with a good number of smart&talented persons who are very pleasant to work with and be around if you don't do things to ruin their lives and make them hate you. If you're well calibrated then the most insufferable people generally work out to be the ones who make work impossible and directionless, and generally get little done themselves.

>>73219 >most talented people are hard, insufferable to work with. In my experience the people who are the best leaders and the best at getting things done are usually agreeable, although often not so concerned with being polite. There is quite a difference between that and being insufferable. Insufferable people are almost always actively detrimental to a project, regardless of any individual talent they have. Most typically the "genius asshole" stereotype only exists because people with specialist knowledge want to lord it over people without, rather than share that knowledge. FWIW I don't think any of that applies to Richard Stallman. He seems like a very pleasant and considerate person.

>>73221 He certainly seems eccentric, but never seems to be actively hostile or insufferable I would agree. Couldn't agree more about your take on the "genius asshole" stereotype. Some of the most intelligent people I've had the pleasure to work with in my life have been very keen to discuss, debate, and come to agreement on topics. Refusal to be wrong, or to engage in conversation, because you think you're better than another is not a sign of intelligence, it's just a sign that you're indignant.

>>73219 There's a difference between being hard to work with and an asshole. I don't think Stallman is an asshole but I've heard many people who've worked with him say he's extremely difficult to work with, nitpicks, and can be very hostile over insignificant things. He can and is this way in interviews and at conventions. Fellow tech geeks aren't bothered by this but it does make him and the whole movement look bad when he's not around people who don't know him and are less accommodating of his autist quirks. Stallman is a pleasant guy but he can be very insensitive and come off as rude unintentionally. Still, there are people who will encourage his behavior when he's genuinely behaving badly and are like "lol based" and don't consider how bad it is image wise. People shouldn't have to deal with actual assholes at work. Sure, we get thick skin and deal with it, but power tripping mangers who yell at you for napping during lunch break shouldn't be a thing and simply because your intelligent shouldn't be an excuse to treat others poorly. Anyway, this is all besides the point. Is lainchan gonna send a get well message to RMS? /g/ sent him a bunch of get well messages. Are we really going to let 4channers outdo us? rms@gnu.org was his email but I'm not sure if he still uses it

OP Back here again. How about all of you insufferable fuarrrking schizophrenics get a fuarrrking life and do something worthwhile rather than coming here and adding absolutely no value to a thread meant to hone positivity in the atmosphere. You little incels may love the company of this terribly negative aura in your real and miserable lives, but don't fuarrrking bring it here before I have to manifest myself into your physical existences and manipulate you fuarrrks to kill yourselves :3.

>>73213 Nothing will change the fact that no woman will ever want to touch you in real life Nothing will change the fact that you have no monetary units to your existence Nothing will change the fact that you are a sad fuarrrk. Look at yourself and why you're so miserable before coming into a thread like this and showing everyone how miserable you are. To be honest with you, nobody really gives a fuarrrk and the only reason I'm telling you right now is because you're also on Lainchan so there is the slightest degree of respect. You have to start changing yourself before you can stop being this retarded and useless to any cause worthwhile.

I hate both pro-maskers and anti-maskers, you guys get mad about the dumbest most nonsensical soykaf I swear. None of you are pathologists or doctors, most of you probably don't even have jobs, so your opinions on the matter don't mean anything objectively (as in, verifiable fact). This thread is about RMS, who has contributed more to the field of computing and the Internet than any of us in this thread combined, times 1000. I'm glad he's going to be okay. Thanks RMS.

>>73236 >brooo bad vibes if you want vibes so much go buy yourself an anal dildo 1. RMS is a hack like all open source people. UN*X is script kiddie nonsense. every single UN*X program always has the same dumbass 2 command injection vulns. he is not the hero you need but the hero you deserve. he has done more than anyone else for you because none of you do anything. you would literally be sucking microsoft's dick and having contests of who bought the most microsoft stuff if it wasnt for his constant utilization of common sense combined with being bothered to argue against bad things 2. youre bringing up your NPC religion (wearing a mask in 2024) and insisting that everyone just sit around pretending the mask policy was anything but retarded, and like RMS im arguing against bad things. 3. nobody cares if your OP LOL

>>73172 Kinda yes it did. Some defended him because contrarianism. But others wouldn't miss the chance to call some fat Jew a pedophile. >>73175 >What is this referring to? His takes often clash with anarchist discourse. Besides, he wrote an article where he pokes fun at anarchists here: https://stallman.org/articles/why-we-need-a-state.html >>73178 >The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions. Care to explain? >you apparently cannot fathom that someone would genuinely want someone they love and respect to be comfortable while they're literally dying First, nice motte-and-bailey. Second, it's precisely because he's immunosuppressed that he'd better be careful about diseases. Third, he has a relatively-tame lymphoma with a median survival time of 10 years. It's too soon to say he's "literally dying." >>73186 >if any study ever does get published proving it, you can guarantee its some autistic libtard and if you actually took the time to investigate it youd find it on shaky ground In other words: dismiss all dissenting evidence on the basis that if you investigated it, it would collapse. This is how people in cults think. I'm not even gonna pull out Google Scholar for you. You already gave away that you don't care about evidence.

>>73246 It is a (evidently quite successful) SysOps to drive attention away from a topic, a person, and to have everybody dancing to their absurd tune. If you look at the original inciter, you should be able to notice familiar patterns, such as pretending to care and later still claiming "I didn't derail the thread", even though they did, and still claiming it's because they care so much about the topic they continue to bury to incite a pointless discussion that doesn't belong. Since this thread is about a personality who has made a productive effort to safeguard the integrity of communication technology, I think it's important to notice these tactics which are used exactly in opposition to his vision.

>>73258 >If you look at the original inciter, you should be able to notice familiar patterns, such as pretending to care and later still claiming "I didn't derail the thread", even though they did, and still claiming it's because they care so much about the topic they continue to bury to incite a pointless discussion that doesn't belong. I've made two posts in this entire thread you utter glitterboy, and then I shut up and have strongly resisted the urge to further debate because I indeed felt bad about derailing the discussion. It truly is impossible for your deranged anti-social brain to imagine that someone would care about this out of empathy, isn't it? Perhaps you should yourself why derails like this can even occur, if the issue is so settled, if the battle lines have been so intractably drawn, if everyone who feigns to care about it is such a nefarious provocateur? I know sometimes it's easy to simply assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a nasty troll up to no good (especially on image boards), but here's an honest question for you to self-reflect on: Why is there a demand for discussions like this, and why aren't you a part of it?

>>73181 >Chomsky and Stallman were at MIT for years and I don't think either of them have ever met. I beg your pardon?

>>73253 >nooo you cant argue about things this is the RMS thread it has to be signed off and perfectly encapsulate our opinion on RMS being sick, such as "get well soon", or "good" you are all terminally autistic. imageboards are a form of unstructured communication.

>>73253 >In other words: dismiss all dissenting evidence on the basis that if you investigated it, it would collapse. This is how people in cults think. I'm not even gonna pull out Google Scholar for you. You already gave away that you don't care about evidence. well i mean, there is no evidence at all. so hypothetically i might be absurd in the future (by wrongly assuming a study is wrong), but for now you're a fuarrrking moron for thinking laws should be based around rumors and things that make no logistical sense. and ill restate what im debating here in case someone is on a different track: the mask does not mitigate the spread of COVID. i mean just imagine if masks were actually important. how would you wear them? youd have to buy a pack of them every week and replace them each day to prevent mold buildup (multiple times a day if you work in construction). mold is almost as bad as covid. remember, covid has a low CFR for normal people who arent like 90, its basically the flu. you cant use disposable masks as a liberal (and if you argue for mandatory mask, you are a liberal in the one specific liberal party and not some other "dont group me in" person) because 6 billion people doing that would be probably the worst thing ever for the environment. or you can buy 20 cloth masks and carefully launder them each week. and youll need to trash them all because the typical modern clothing company made them wrong (literally, this happens with every single piece of clothing you can buy, it takes months of rebuying the same thing to find something good) and they dont fit and you possibly cant return them. this is a month process. i probably spent $500 on masks in the first 2 years of covid just going through these steps. if masks actually worked then theyd have tons of the virus stuck to it so youd need to be especially careful when taking them off and putting them back on or adjusting them. since im not a dildo riding moron and can actually think of myself i already walked through all these scenarios in the first week of covid in 2019 after an hour of study while i was in public places all day every day and decided what measures i will take, and just being more careful about hand hygiene was enough and in fact made my life better since now i dont get sick the same stupid way from touching handles in the store every year. now lets also not forget how yuppies (which all liberals are) use their mask: 1. go into restaurant with 30-300 people 2. have mask on while ordering 3. take it off while eating (for up to an hour) 4. repeatedly touch high contact surfaces then touch mask and put mask back on / readjust it 50 times a day yeahhh.... no.

>>73270 >well i mean, there is no evidence at all. There is evidence it's just contradictory and difficult to draw conclusions from (at least in the case of the fancier N95/KN95 masks) >if masks actually worked then theyd have tons of the virus stuck to it so youd need to be especially careful when taking them off and putting them back on or adjusting them. Virus particles can only travel through the air inside water droplets. It's not like a fine mist is released every time you take off your mask. Water tends to glom together on the mask, which is why they tend to get so many bacteria growing in them. >yuppies (which all liberals are) lmao >1. go into restaurant with 30-300 people >2. have mask on while ordering >3. take it off while eating (for up to an hour) >4. repeatedly touch high contact surfaces then touch mask and put mask back on / readjust it 50 times a day agreed, this behavior is and always has been retarded.

Ive just been sad about his seeming slide off into what feels like real insanity especially over the coronastuff. >It should be a crime to knowingly approach a person while maskless inside a building or vehicle. Ive generally appreciated RMS because, while he may be a little crazy he seems to try to be consistent, but this statement suggests a belief which, if applied consistently, strikes me as wholly incompatible with a free society. Not even that, the only society it is compatible with one is a hellish prison state and I do not want this. Nevertheless I hope he's doing well. well as can be expected.

>>73272 >Virus particles can only travel through the air inside water droplets. This was received wisdom through several generations of weak or non-existent hypothesis testing. It was originally hypothesized when investigating respiratory disease spread in the context of tuberculosis. But tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium, an organism orders of magnitude larger than a virus, and in fact there was never good evidence that respiratory viruses spread through droplets. This is the central assumption underpinning mask theory and it doesn't up hold up to closer investigation. Look back up in this thread if you want to learn more about the accidents of history that led to this flawed hypothesis being accepted uncritically >>73178 >Furthermore, here is a good review of the history of droplet theory and how it has led people to poor assumptions about mask effectiveness: >https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2021.0049 Droplet-spread theory is very convenient, since droplet blocking is something standard masks can accomplish trivially. But standard masks by design do not function to filter out aerosols on exhalation--if they did, you would quickly suffocate. And if viral respiratory diseases do indeed spread through aerosols, then it should be no surprise at all that large randomized controlled trials show little to no difference between masking and unmasking in the spread of covid and flu.

>>73277 Ouch, this is the kind of repressive garbage Chomsky was peddling during the pandemic as well. I understand where it comes from, and it actually shouldn't be all that surprising considering Stallman is himself in the Laptop Class/Retiree Class that can function stuck at home ordering all their supplies without their life collapsing. Still pretty disappointing to hear from him though.

>>73278 >and in fact there was never good evidence that respiratory viruses spread through droplets. It's a common sense assumption to make. How would a protein shell even escape from a liquid body that it's been suspended in? Also by "droplet" I refer to literally any liquid body floating free in the air that's small enough to be forced into a circular shape by surface tension, which includes water aerosols. The "droplet" vs "aerosol" distinction is purely terminology and I'd rather avoid it, water-based aerosols are made up of droplets. This terminology is also criticized in the abstract of the paper you linked. >But standard masks by design do not function to filter out aerosols on exhalation--if they did, you would quickly suffocate. N95 masks are designed to filter out 95% of particulates less than 0.3 microns across, which includes a substantial amount of the droplets in most water aerosols.

Glad that RMS will be okay. Sucks to watch this thread get hijacked by this silly mask "discourse".

>>73178 >https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2021.0049 >Second, it codifies a particle size based on the pathogenesis for TB that research shows does not apply to other infectious diseases. Viral receptors for SARS-CoV-2 are located throughout the respiratory tract for example [61], and initiation of infection in the nose and upper respiratory tract is thought to be important [62]. Therefore, unlike for TB, aerosols of sizes all the way up to the inhalable limit of 100 µm are capable of initiating infection. This source seems to be making a case for the physical effectiveness of masks for covid, rather than the opposite. All this makes me think that it would really suck to be a moral figurehead for any kind of political movement, especially one like free software that doesn't cleanly fit into any particular big tent. If you're the sort of person like rms seems to be who isn't afraid of forming his own opinions and saying what he really thinks about whatever topic, any discussion about you will focus on your inevitable lack of alignment with whatever larger "ideology". Grateful he's been willing to do it at least.

>>73282 Steer public discourse away from a topic that is not convenient to them (free software) and into some bullshit championed by the media. resist all sysops trying to drown the importance of free software These derailments are made to smother all discussion about the free internet, as it is being actively undermined by the big corpos, walled gardens, tech bullies, and spambots that'll have you dancing to the tune of their non-issues.

>>73250 Get the psychological help you so direly require, friend/fiend. I'm here because I like the memories and have been here since 2016~. You're here because you're a retarded schizophrenic. We will never be the same.

>>73287 its not a psyop. its just people being petty and eager to fight on the internet. this kind of remark derails discussion just as much as the mask debate. no one here is "out to smother free software" anyway... hope rms overcomes this

The free software foundation is so back.

>>73325 Clean-shaven Stallman juxtaposed with his usual extremely introverted logic feels strange.

>>73325 There's truth to what he's saying, people who have given up on fitting in socially are more capable of developing interests in defiance of public convention. But resenting corporate bullshit is itself very popular now.

>>73334 >But resenting corporate bullshit is itself very popular now. in a very shallow sense, yes. Lots of people resent corporations but also are averse to doing anything about it besides complain. I have been lectured by a "socialist" about why rejecting proprietary software is actually elitist and does nothing to harm Capital (his reasoning was so ridiculously convoluted that I can't even remember it). "I found someone to blame" is the name of the game, not "I am working towards a solution."

>>73335 I've seen "Marxists" claim that leftists shouldn't support the free software movement because hackers are resisting the "proletarianization" of the tech industry. If big tech succeeds, hackers and freelance programmers will be replaced by a tech proletariat who'll become revolutionary and socialist. Just goes to show you how dogmatic clinging to 19th century ideology is pushing them to nonsensical and destructive positions. With friends like these who need enemies? It's bizarre how the mainstream left support the establishment. Zizek put out an article saying the left should "support law and order." Western leftists are mostly corrupt and degenerate and their leaders are probably paid agents. Zizek takes money from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a US government front organization. Zizek, Butler, Chomsky, etc. they are all controlled opposition. Libertarians and alt right are also controlled opposition being run by different factions within the deep state.

>>73335 >"I found someone to blame" is the name of the game, not "I am working towards a solution." Sure, but when has that ever not been the case when pressed to make personal changes for the greater good? Of course someone would pull elaborate rationalizations out of their ass to defend whatever their current behavior is. But the fact is there are tons of non-altruistic reasons to use free software, and for people who end up doing so, being able to say "ok but fuarrrk *insert relevant things everybody hates*" is an increasingly usable response to any pushback for it. I think peer pressure is less of an issue here than it probably used to be.

>>73337 Nice digits. >are also controlled opposition being run by different factions within the deep state. This part here sort of seems to imply they are in control of everything, while in reality, the social and political structure of the US is unstable and collapsing. It depends what you mean by "the deep state", which is a purposefully obscure term that may signify a number of different actors: trump supporters genereally use it to mean a sort of oligarchy that is in control of key positions in the government (which is where I draw that implication that it is all controlled from a single group), but the alt-right specifically supports trump as a counter force to this " deep state" that is doing everything in their power to keep trump (the alt right candidate) from getting to he white house. Obviously there are shadow groups behind this make-believe "right/left" division, but ultimately I don't think it's a sort of "deep state" but powerful economic groups or actors, both with the exact same objectives, the only difference is that they each aim to benefit their own faction. Both of these factions are a sort of "shadow state" giventhe fact that the whole US political structure is controlled by the wealth of corporations.

>>73357 Not them, but I interpreted their use of "deep state" to just mean anyone who has enough power to hold actual political sway in the US at a national level. The owners. This includes several groups that aren't purely business in nature, such as three letter agencies, religions/cults, billionaires, foreign governments, what have you. What fascists like to do is paint the picture that this "deep state" is homogeneous and all works together, in reality it's messy and there are lots of opposed factions, including the fascists' benefactors. They're not exactly controlled opposition but they definitely aren't independent. >the social and political structure of the US is unstable and collapsing. Honestly it's been collapsed since 2008. It's only sort of kept alive because of the economic juggernauts of Texas and California. But, the end is never the end. "Collapse" is often a protracted metamorphosis into a new state. The transition from Principiate to Domitiate in the Roman Empire took almost fifty years, during which time commentators surely sat around talking about how Rome has fallen.

>>73360 >Honestly it's been collapsed since 2008 This is probably a semantic nitpick, but I have to disagree. The 2008 crisis revealed the frailty of the american system, but they managed to hold up precariously up to the Trump administration, as he was still capable of leveraging the power of the dollar as a reserve currency. But these past few years it's all coming down spectacularly. I liken it to the physical collapse of a building, it may have been unhabitable for years, but the event of collapse itself is unmistakable. Then again, we're talking about rather abstract things and with ill-defined terminology. We can hardly see the thing from all sides, and I agree with you that one collapse (specifically that of the current bureaucracy) need not be the end, but a transition to something else. I don't know, but I think americans could be resilient enough to preserve some form of social/political order, but they will probably divide into strong ethnic factions. The euro-descendants in particular are very hostile to the rest of the innumerable ethnicities that inhabit that land.

>>73261 Well, it's not like I strongly stated that they didn't. I just meant more that they probably haven't met, because they aren't aligned in cause, that's all. Even if they met, it has not resulted in any widespread publication, so I think my point is still there, that's all.

>>73334 >people who have given up on fitting in socially are more capable of developing interests in defiance of public convention I think a more prevalent factor is that, generally speaking, social engagements have integrated proprietary services as a necessity. If you want to interact with young friends, they're primarily interacting on proprietary social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. etc.), video game players are on Discord and Steam, playing proprietary games, many which until recently necessitated Windows. And it's tough to pull them away unless there are other likeminded people in the friend group. It's less about peer pressure and more about peer requirement.

>>73138 That's sad man, wish him all the best.

>>73151 Masks were a thing for some way before corvid, lots forget that. I wear one sometimes for asthma related shenanigans because apparently leaf litter is like snorting straight pollen for me.

Wishing you all the best, Richard. A positive mindset is incredibly beneficial into overcoming cancer and it's great to read here that you already have this.

came to read a thread about Stallman instead read a thread about masks and US collapse thanks is free software going to die? as far as i goes it already smells ill

>>73846 The public has lost interest and corpos have tried to colonize it with their open source soykaf. Who wants to be a free programmer anymore? The public and tech consumers will give you soykaf because whatever you make isn't as shiny and convenient as the slave drivers at Apple or Microshit. As long as there are programmers there will be free software somewhere but the movement and culture are fading out. Linux is less and less about freedom and just a subculture for special snowflakes.

>>73862 how do we save the world? do we take over a state and infest heavily in the open source? heck i don't want the age of slavery again we've just been liberated. i need to touch grass

>>73866 i meant 'invest' godsent typo :D