Dan Kaminsky wants you to believe that Richard Stallman merely is “weird” (read: “on the spectrum”), wondering why you won’t think of the children who fear that because Stallman is “weird” like them, theirs is destined to be a future of being canceled.
He can fuck right off with this shit.
As I’ve repeatedly written, autism is not an excuse for despicable behavior, and I can’t even begin to express the levels of anger I experienced when Kaminsky dared to bring the name of Greta Thunberg into it.
What should we say to “weird” kids watching the Stallman situation? We should tell them not to be an apologist for abuse, pedophilia, or rape, and they’ll be okay. The same thing we should be telling any kids.
Stallman is not under siege because he’s on the spectrum, which is the charge Kaminsky is trying to support by mentioning Thunberg, who has been. He’s rightfully under siege because he’s openly held bizarre beliefs about the sexual abuse of children, and credibly is accused of his own abusive and harassing behavior.
(Browsing this discussion on Twitter, I found via William Pietri a wonderfully apt description of “Schrödinger’s Autist, who only ever comes out in internet discussions when men are being shitty to women, as if autism and misogyny are co-morbid”.)
For someone with a top job at a company whose slogan is “Keep it Human”, Kaminsky seems to afford more humanity to abusers (and himself abuses Thunberg’s name) than to the people hurt by them.
Autism is not anyone’s god damned shield.