For the same reason any other submissions concerning political philosophy, economics, etc. are.
Quite many of those "off-topic" submissions climbed up to the top; probably because people here were interested enough in them. :)
If anyone is interested, and have any questions regarding the topic, feel free to ask! I am sure many people would love to join and be of help as well.
It's cheap and efficient to wear a mask, where it is the taxpayer's money being wasted on facial recognition systems, and on top of that: cameras don't prevent, and are not even being used to prosecute criminals, there are not enough resources to do that, as someone else already pointed it out:
> You only have to look at the widespread increase in CCTV use in Britain. Now when you get mugged in London the police can get you a little video of your hooded attackers for posterity. Except they only have time to go through the recordings if you got murdered, otherwise you will just get a crime number.
But hey, have fun with illusion of safety, deprived freedom and a complete waste of money.
I get your perspective, but just because someone has a red hair, it doesn't render their claims incorrect, or doesn't invalidate anything they say.
I have seen many people being dismissed by others merely because of their voice, which I find funny because they were supposed to focus on the content. It's the content that matters. If the presentation is not to your liking, that doesn't mean that person is wrong. On top of that, you don't need to be factually correct if you are convincing enough; sophistry anyone? Apparently people don't seek for the truth, it's enough if you put a pretty face on stage who has some charisma and you are all falling for it. Be skeptical. Focus on the actual content and ignore the irrelevant things, because they are, well, irrelevant. If you are easily distracted by the speaker's fly being open, that's on you, and yes, the outcome might be detrimental from the perspective of the speaker given the majority of the audience is easily distracted and ignores the actual argument because of the speaker's fly being open, or because he used the word "Micro$oft".
For the same reason we wouldn't need defamation laws if people had better critical thinking skills, as they wouldn't have mindlessly believed the defamation, and the person's life would not have been ruined.
Ultimately, it is your choice. Personally, I am not going to care about the irrelevancies because I focus on what is being said, and not how it is being said. I'm not going to dismiss you because I find your tone offensive, in fact, somehow I manage to not get offended nor care about the tone.
I respect Linus and Theo for their contributions, and I'm not going to judge their quality of code based on their actions unrelated to the code. Surely you, too, care about the quality of code and you won't disregard it when you find out it's been written by a transgender person, right?
If you genuinely care about the argument, you won't disregard it merely because of its irrelevancies, e.g. appearance or behavior you find obnoxious. If you do, then you certainly need to improve your ability to ignore those irrelevant things and focus on the argument.
P.S. I don't deny that presentation matters, but only because there are too many people who are way too keen on dismissing someone's argument because, for example, they find their hair funny. It sounds ridiculous to me, but that's just my opinion I guess.
As I said elsewhere in the thread, I don't particularly condone the requirement of modern society to care about superficial things. I find Stallman gross, and it's distracting, but I'll still listen.
However, what I care about more than Stallman is the causes he supposedly stands for. And Stallman hurts those causes because we're not in this fantasy world where almost nobody cares about appearances and those that don't "don't matter". 99+% of people care about form and appearances. Stallman hurts the cause with the current vibes he gives off, and the tone he takes.
I want to stress this point: There's always a lot of people in these threads who pop up, feeling superior that they "don't care" about Stallman's vibes. Good for you. But your inability to understand why it matters across people who aren't you is a failure, not a success.
You'll note I didn't talk about the substance of Stallman's arguments. I am not saying he is wrong or right.
I am saying he is probably not a net positive though and that is because of form, not content. His arguments may not be invalidated, they're still not useful if nobody except a few cultish followers listen to them.
I thought you were a law-abiding, morally superior citizen, and the first comment from another post I find is incitement, which is the encouragement of another person to commit a crime. Well done, Sir. Made my day. :)
But if they are sexually attracted to children and are "evil", then the creation of the videos and photos are just a "side-effect", the abuse probably would have taken place regardless, right? I had people telling me that possession of child pornography leads to child abuse, what do you think? I watch gore videos[1] sometimes online and I don't want to hurt people. I watch them to remind me that there are many violent people and places out there, that not everything is butterflies and sunshine. It makes me introspect. It makes me value the society that I live in that shelters me, and makes me realize how lucky I am.
EDIT: Actually, I'm trying to come up with reasons that apply to child pornography but without any success. Not saying that they are not going to offer you a "reasonable" insight, but at this moment I can't think of anything. Perhaps something anatomy related? Medical value/curiosity?
On another note: yeah, people do crazy shit for the likes and subscribers, it's pathetic and sickening. All those challenges, etc. Ugh. I try to avoid that side of the Internet. Is it just me or is there really a decline? Yesterday I read how in UK schools they had to remove analog clocks because kids couldn't tell the time off it.
I don't know, I know so many parents who are doing a great job. Their kids don't care much about social media, they are not interested in getting likes, not interested in being YouTubers, know the potential dangers of the Internet, and so on.
[1] Albeit I don't download them, but at the same time you can probably do the same with child pornography, though from a technical point of view you probably have them cached which could be considered possession I guess.
Quite many of those "off-topic" submissions climbed up to the top; probably because people here were interested enough in them. :)
If anyone is interested, and have any questions regarding the topic, feel free to ask! I am sure many people would love to join and be of help as well.