Completely agreed, he completely lacks class. Even better, let's attack his ideas on basis that I don't like his beard, or that he looks a little chubby.

He's not living in "the past", his living in his convictions. And that in itself is to be admired.

It's only admirable if you agree with those convictions. Otherwise you have to end up admiring people like the Westboro Baptists and the KKK.

False equivalence. But do go ahead and give us your argument for how hypocrisy is more admirable.

It's not. Babarock said that living in your convictions is itself admirable. But I disagree - if your convictions are bad, living by them is bad too.

Thanks for the downvotes, everyone.

My point was that even though he happens to be spot-on in his very pithy remark about the disease that is Facebook, if you know anything at all about RMS -- or have interacted with him personally, for a minute or two -- you'll know that he's so far off the page from the vast bulk of humanity (in terms of how he communicates) that it's difficult to take anything he says about the pros and cons of social media very seriously.

I didn't understand that comment, either. Was your argument "he's right, but nobody agrees with him, so he's wrong"?

You're being purposefully obtuse at this point.

Maybe:

"Perhaps someone who has such narrow and specialized communication needs that they need to browse the web via email isn't in the best position to be dictating what communication methods the world at large should use".

Boiled down futher:

"What's good (and bad) for one person with specific needs isn't the same for everyone else".

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was getting at. Thanks.

No, that's not what you were getting at, at all.

You made nothing more than an ad hominem attack. First you wanted us to discount Stallman's argument because of...wait for it...the way he reads web pages.

Second you wanted us to discount Stallman's argument because "he's so far off the page from the vast bulk of humanity (in terms of how he communicates)".

Can't imagine how such a mess at communicating and someone so very far off the page keeps duping all those folks who keep inviting him to speak (as well as the folks who gave him the ACM Grace Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer award, the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment, andseveral honorary doctorates):

http://www.fsf.org/events/rms-speeches.html

Mar 01, Madrid, Spain "Por una sociedad digital libre" Mar 07, Sunnyvale, CA "Copyright vs. Community" Mar 13, Republic of Singapore "Free Software and Your Freedom" Mar 14, Republic of Singapore "For a Free Digital Society" Mar 27, New York, NY "For a Free Digital Society" Mar 29, West Lafayette, IN "The Free Software Movement" Apr 03, Ashland, OR "Copyright vs. Community" Apr 04, Ashland, OR "For a Free Digital Society" Jul 10, Dresden, Germany "The Free Software Movement"

Some communicator.

Now. Do you actually have anything at all to say about Stallman's actual argument(s) in that thread? Did you even read them?

You just conflated "need" with "choose" to make what is either an obtuse or dishonest point for your own purposes. Which is it?

Do you know why RMS wgets webpages to his email instead of reading them through a browser like 99.999% of the web-using world?

If the answer is no, then you don't know if it's a need or a choice or some variation between the two - and I daresay you're accusing him of something untoward.

If the answer is yes, which is it?

You aren't more same just because you read email in webpages

Not that it makes it any betterfor him either.