I agree, which is why it's fortunate that no one is or has suggested "cancelling" anyone for "discussing" things.
The report's author(s) are advocating for removing RMS from positions of influence and authority from the free software community because he's advocating for child sex abuse and bestiality, harasses women, and is a shitty human being.
Pretending that anyone ever has been jettisoned from their position or public life for "discussing" something - or that that's what's happening here - is insanely disingenuous.
> It seems like there is no evidence of untoward behavior, just a bunch of gross opinions?
I don't think you actually read it then, because a significant portion of it is about his untoward behavior (as a boss, to random women at conferences, as a Voting Member, etc.)
> But the FSF is an American organization, and in America we have something close to free speech.
Free speech has absolutely nothing to do with this (as you note, the foundation has every right to get rid of him because of his abhorrent views). You don't generally want advocates for child sex abuse representing your foundation, regardless of what sort of foundation it is.
Quillette articles are rarely proof of more than the ability of deranged conservatives to get nonsense published.
>Do you believe that acceptance of the theory that genes impact IQ is split along communist/non-communist lines?
Maybe. I think the idea that genes impact IQ and that IQ actually usefully measures anything - certainly anything that could be described as 'intelligence' - is probably split that way.
Where Kendi and I (appear to, I haven't read his book) disagree is the idea that your antiracist policies must be _explicitly_ discriminatory to work. You can implement universal social goods like "everyone gets housing and health care" which in practice give far more to black people (because on average they're starting further back) but which apply to everyone and get the right outcome.
Certainly I wouldn't argue for a second that we should implement policies that ignore or exclude poor white people.
>The only way that this works is to exert total control of the content of all communications.
Not true! Just being banned from significant swaths of social media has frequently forced many prominent Nazis/alt-righters out of business. Before Kiwifarms recently had all of their major issues, they were already finding it difficult to keep the site running as a result of continued pressure on every host they switched to.
>There is a robust empirical difference that's seen between races.
There's not an objective/standardized way to even measure intelligence, so you'll forgive me if I treat the claim that there's an empirical difference in intelligence between races with a mountain of skepticism.
Personally I'd be more concerned that people don't know that IQ tests are not a measure of intelligence, and that anyone who's claiming that differences in IQ across racial lines are evidence of racial intelligence differences is attempting to launder some racist bullshit.
>The idea that the only cure for discrimination is discrimination is akin to saying the only cure for violence is violence. It’s abject insanity that such a notion is being advanced in society.
Absolutely not. The idea that any of this is fixable with 'forgiveness' is far more insane. You can't undo hundreds of years of systematic disenfranchisement and subjugation with forgiveness - you have to discriminate in the opposite direction.
To quote LBJ, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." That's what Kendi is saying, and he's completely right.
The outcomes have been underwhelming because we (at least, the US) haven't actually been doing this, and we've just found new and arguably worse ways to maintain deeply racist policies.
It would also have quota implications - if I had a 5GB file multiparented in 3 locations, I wouldn't want to suddenly be over quota because Google decided I really wanted it copied to 3 locations.