

Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts - magic5227
http://pastebin.com/DVysCXPj
This is what Stallman wrote right after the suspect was caught.<p>My personal response is:<p>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.<p>Have some decency and respect for the lives lost, and save your opinions for a more appropriate time.
======
ck2
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.

~~~
mindcrime
_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...

~~~
ck2
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.

~~~
mindcrime
_oh wait, they don't - because they are illegal and highly regulated._

OR, it could be because they're expensive, ineffective, don't last, and hurt
accuracy. Or because most murders are not planned out in advance, in
excruciating detail, by criminal masterminds (or even the crooks in episodes
of Columbo). Somebody who finds out their spouse is cheating on them and
decides to kill them in a fit of rage isn't going to care about a silencer.

Likewise, gang on gang crime over drug deals doesn't seem to involve a lot of
stealthy, hit-man style assassination stuff. Those guys don't need silencers.

And the people who _do_ want one and want to avoid your regulations? Well,
they just build their own, no license, background check, or anything else
needed.

~~~
fein
It should also be noted that in some European countries, suppressors are
required when shooting in a close enough proximity to a neighbor that the
loudness could be an inconvenience.

Suppressors are dead easy to make out of household products as is, they just
aren't worth more than 2 shots. Likewise, any individual sent as the imaginary
"hitman" that everyone seems to believe exists, would probably be aligned with
a group with enough finances to either buy legitimate suppressors, or procure
them from the black market.

The only people that cannot purchase automatic weapons and restricted
modifications (suppressors, grenade launchers, etc) are the poor. The legal
roadblocks are overcome (perfectly legally) with money.

------
InclinedPlane
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.

~~~
bane
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.

~~~
InclinedPlane
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.

~~~
kurd_debuggr
this is certainly the most intelligent arguement to RMS' case.

------
acabal
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.

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

~~~
anon808
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.

~~~
platz
I'm not very convinced by by your slippery slope argument with regard to the
US, at least in domestic affairs. (foreign is another matter)

It's probably not a good idea to mix the emotional with the analytical, but
when it happens, the emotional wins; we're human beings.

I hate to get moral/philosophical, but utilitarian motives, in the eyes of
societal norms, usually is the loosing position. The canonical example of this
is the man waiting by the railroad switch who must decide whether to divert a
train to certain doom or let the train run over an individual. According to
society the man must always divert the train.

~~~
zanny
Your example is situational, and also doesn't come close to his argument.

The super-parent argument is that the loss of life in the immediate is shallow
compared to the inevitable loss of life from the loss of liberty and rise of
tyrrany in the name of security.

If people are _on_ the train, condemning many to die for one is never the
right decision. If the train is unmanned (assumed if there is no conductor to
manage it) you are trying to minimize loss of life, so of course you divert
the train and just lose some resources in the crash. That example just doesn't
make sense.

~~~
platz
Yes my example was poor; I don't think I got it right, perhaps I forgot the
correct form. I guess I just am not sure how this inevitable tyranny manifests
in deaths, but I can appreciate the point.

~~~
platz
As a side note, these guys might not have even been caught if we were not
living in 'the panopticon'.

------
mbell
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.

~~~
ra
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.

------
sergiotapia
>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.

~~~
HarryHirsch
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.

~~~
mindcrime
_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?

~~~
HarryHirsch
> Yes, because it's obviously good for business to have your plant blow sky
> high

You know how this is - most often poor working practice has no immediate
consequence. Perhaps a critical patch is installed a few days late, and the
website does not get hacked, no adverse consequences most of the time. At some
point someone will run the numbers, and conclude that good safety practice
isn't that necessary. That's a recipe for disaster. Most everyone here should
be familiar with the Challenger explosion and the runup to it.

> maybe, just maybe, accidents happen, some of which are damn near
> unpredictable and unavoidable.

That's the issue of fault-tolerant design. In an ammonium nitrate plant there
is a risk of explosion; they quite simply do not belong anywhere near a town.

~~~
mindcrime
_At some point someone will run the numbers, and conclude that good safety
practice isn't that necessary. That's a recipe for disaster. Most everyone
here should be familiar with the Challenger explosion and the runup to it._

That's a fair point in a sense, and I'm not arguing that it isn't beneficial
to have some independent eyes looking at things and helping avoid bias. I
_would_ argue that it's not necessarily required to regulate that sort of
thing and make it the job of government to try and prevent every possible
contingency though. I think working to develop a voluntary certification
process, something akin to ISO9001, where being certified would be a "badge of
honor" and - eventually - all but a prerequisite to doing business, would be
preferred.

 _In an ammonium nitrate plant there is a risk of explosion; they quite simply
do not belong anywhere near a town._

That was definitely a sub-optimal design, for sure. I'd be curious to know the
history of how that setup happened, actually.

OTOH, to play devil's advocate a little bit... how often do ammonium nitrate
plants explode? One could probably argue that the industry actually _is_ very
safe if you look at it over the long-run. Or not... I don't actually have
those statistics. Just a point of discussion.

------
CurtMonash
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.

------
vladig17
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.

------
magic5227
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
> 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.

~~~
mpyne
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.

~~~
homosaur
I know what you're saying, but if you're not concerned about what DHS or
d-bags like Lindsay Graham or Obama or police might do to erode rights, you're
falling right into their trap. Shock doctrine works. I'm not suggesting that
this was set up, but never let a good disaster go to waste.

~~~
mpyne
Sure. But maybe, _just maybe_ , it might be possible to have an event like
this happen and note a flaw in the government's requirement to "promote the
general welfare" which can be corrected without unduly infringing on civil
rights.

Because no offense, but Dr. Stallman sounds exactly like that dipshit in
charge of the NRA who says that you can't change _one single little thing_
about gun control because that would invite a slippery slope to the government
disarming all law-abiding citizens.

~~~
homosaur
Well he seems to be particularly angry about something related to the locks on
the building, so I don't even really know what the hell he's talking about.

There's no doubt that Stallman is intellectually inflexible and completely
tone deaf. It's one of his primary virtues, really.

------
moioci
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.

~~~
emily37
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.

------
fnordfnordfnord
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
_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.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
_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.

 _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._

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.

------
27182818284
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.

~~~
GHFigs
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.

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

~~~
u2328
_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.

~~~
asciimo
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.

------
mikegreen
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.

~~~
lurker14
Today's effort was actual security.

------
beezee
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.

------
reader5000
"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".

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

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

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

------
jstrate
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.

~~~
emily37
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.

------
RockyMcNuts
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.

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

------
hhaidar
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.

------
wavesounds
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
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.

~~~
wavesounds
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.

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

------
tiredofcareer
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
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.

~~~
potatolicious
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.

~~~
waps
Plus there's the obvious angle. Accidents are part of life and are random.
With any crime there's always the possibility of repeat, or worse, escalation
(this was an act of islamic terror, so chance of escalation if this goes
unpunished is probably very real).

A society must ensure that crime doesn't pay (because the reason crime is
committed in the first place is obviously because it does pay, not necessarily
in money, but it does pay). Arrest and punishment is essential for that
purpose.

------
technoluster
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.

------
pcvarmint
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>

------
aj700
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.

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

------
DanBC
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.

------
zipfle
rms is rms.

this is not a bad thing.

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

\-- Benjamin Franklin

------
tkahn6
> 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.

~~~
marknutter
> 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.

~~~
potatolicious
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.

~~~
marknutter
The odds are higher that a storm will unexpectedly roll in and strike you with
lightning than you getting blown up by a terrorist, yes.

