I used to agree with you until I realized the following:
RMS is part of a very different property rights movement... one that has a history in Western society but was generally abandoned in favor of the sort of understanding of property rights that most of us take for granted.
It is a coincidence that RMS is radical about other issues, such as 9/11, etc. It's likely that someone with his intellect who is so open to new ideas may tend to believe a wide variety of things that mainstream thinkers (like most of us) would find absurd.
The key points are that RMS's views are profoundly Western in their ideological roots (it's not like he smoked some herb and started reading about the property rights views of some remote island society)... and that he puts that philosophical difference ahead of the many possible compromises and middle ground positions he could have adopted. His views are not utopian either, they represent a mostly lost thread of Western thought.
Realizing this about RMS made me appreciate him more. In a world where we all take certain beliefs for granted, RMS reminds us that property is a social construct.
RMS is part of a very different property rights movement... one that has a history in Western society but was generally abandoned in favor of the sort of understanding of property rights that most of us take for granted.
It is a coincidence that RMS is radical about other issues, such as 9/11, etc. It's likely that someone with his intellect who is so open to new ideas may tend to believe a wide variety of things that mainstream thinkers (like most of us) would find absurd.
The key points are that RMS's views are profoundly Western in their ideological roots (it's not like he smoked some herb and started reading about the property rights views of some remote island society)... and that he puts that philosophical difference ahead of the many possible compromises and middle ground positions he could have adopted. His views are not utopian either, they represent a mostly lost thread of Western thought.
Realizing this about RMS made me appreciate him more. In a world where we all take certain beliefs for granted, RMS reminds us that property is a social construct.