Site original : Richard Stallman's Political Notes
For once, Kim Jong-un said something reasonable -- about the bully.
However, the threat to retaliate with war for a speech, even a deranged speech by a gangster, is just as wrong from Kim as from the bully.
It appears Russians used Facebook to recruit people for the troll's rallies during the election campaign.
Allowing them to do this fits Facebook's stated mission, "Bringing the world closer together".
Finally, attention is paid to the main danger of driverless cars: surveillance of their users, and maybe of everyone else they go near.
Optimistic discussion of global heating has enabled people to assume that the problem is already being fixed -- and it isn't. We need to convert the recent disasters into an urgent demand to take the necessary steps.
"We have been repeatedly asked: 'Don't you want to leave a better Earth for your grandchildren,' And we've all collectively responded: 'Ah, fuck 'em!'"
Having children not only means they will be caught up in the suffering caused by global heating disaster. It also makes the disaster bigger.
Conversely, deciding to have no children is the biggest contribution you can make in your own life to reducing the disaster. Please, think now of the children, and avoid making any.
The term "sexual assault" is a bad term to use in formulating rules for judging or punishing people, because it lumps together rape with the much lesser crime of groping. We would not judge those the same, so we shouldn't lump them together in our discourse. Any policy that uses the term "sexual assault" will tend to be bad.
The way people are punished when a college declares them guilty of rape is sufficiently grave that I think they must be judged by the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt". I expect most of such accusations are true, but certainly some are false.
However, it is a mistake for a school to conduct a substitute for a trial. The legal system exists for that, and schools can't do that job. Someone who has been raped and wants something like criminal prosecution should go to the state, not to the school.
What schools could usefully do is teach sexual respect that goes beyond merely not committing a crime. The school could have a stricter standard of sexual respect, as a school rule, not as a criminal law. Breaking that rule would not mean one is a rapist, or a criminal at all, but the school would insist one never break it again.
Students that push too far sexually, even if not to the point of crime, could be required to do counselling and make a strong and visible effort to change their way of approaching sex. Most of them would not be rapists, so doing the counselling would not label them as rapists. Rather, they would be making sure they will not be rapists. The school might also require them to avoid for some time campus events where there is alcohol, and subsequently to follow rules so that they don't drink to excess.
A system like this could prevent rape by teaching students to avoid the sort of behavior that could turn into rape.