A:
Did you see Stallman's speaking engagement rider?
B:
No, who's he?
A:
Oh, sorry, he's a real famous, eccentric open source dude. He looks like he was raised by wolves, chews his toenails during panels
B:
Ha!
A:
Yeah, for real. Anyways, he published this list of requirements he has for speaking engagements. And the dude is just totally bizarre, he lists the temperature range where he can sleep, and if it goes two degrees up, he needs a fan on, and two degrees more than that and he needs air conditioning.
B:
Oh, wow.
A:
Yeah. Super, super eccentric. But then with some of the stuff, you can see his convictions, and how important they are to him. Like he won't use cell phones, because you're not allowed to install software on them. He really sees that as almost like a prison. And it's just like, Wow, I think that's a really crazy thing to think. But to think it that strongly, and to really stick with it, it's admirable, I think, it really is. I don't admire his convictions, I think they're nuts, but his ability to live by them is really impressive, imho.
B:
Well
A:
I mean, I tried to be a vegan this summer and then I gave up on it. And I can make myself feel like a real piece of shit about it, no problem. It's like, my stated reasons for being a vegetarian, which is itself pretty fraught these days, but those stated reasons sort of force me to be a vegan, if I want to be coherent. But I really, really don't want to be a vegan. It's a huge pain in the ass, right? It's totally a lifestyle, in a way that being a vegetarian is not. But then, this boils down to, you know, "P" and "If P then Q", but then "Not Q". Which doesn't work. It's a fact to me that it's unethical to treat animals like shit and give them horrible lives just to eat them when there's other things to eat. I feel like I really believe that, I think that's why I'm mostly a vegetarian. But then, if I believe that, I have to also believe that it's unethical to treat animals like shit and give them horrible lives just to milk them, or take their eggs, when there's other things to eat. There's no real distinction there, to argue otherwise is just sophistry or casuistry or one of those other words I'm trying to learn. So I have to be a vegan. But I really don't want to be one. I just don't. So I have to either give up on even attempting to live a coherent life, one that follows ethical principles that I've decided on and believe in, or I just have to acknowledge that I'm a lazy, shitty person whose convictions only last until they're inconvenient. And I tried to make these distinctions, you know, "Oh, I won't be a vegan when I have dinner with someone, because it really also imposes on them, and it's sort of impolite to immediately discard 90% of the restaurants in the world as options because I need to find some place that actually even HAS vegan items," but then, it's like, am I actually discarding things that I believe in because they're vaguely impolite or socially awkward? It's not like factory farms are anywhere near the evil that slavery is, but you know, imagine abolitionists who didn't speak out against slavery when their neighbors were around, because it might be awkward. Look, if you have something that you think is right, and other people disagree with you, screw them. It doesn't matter. But then I didn't want to be a vegan, so I thought that if I weren't a vegetarian either, at least I'd be consistent, at least I'd make internal sense, but the idea of killing animals for my own bullshit philosophical wankery is obviously a terrible idea. That's horrible. But it's like, even if I were a vegan, where does it end? I can't wear leather, either. Ok, that's doable. But people are more Valuable than animals, more Important, with capital Vs and Is, and so, you know, I can't have phones made in terrible conditions either. I can't own anything made in those nightmarish factories in China and the rest of Asia. And I had this genuinely terrible, vertiginous moment where I could see what lay down this path, and it's me in a commune wearing a burlap sack or something. That's where that path leads. And I really don't want that, I just don't. And I don't trust myself here, really, but it doesn't seem to me that a world of burlap-wearing people in communes is better than this world. So. I don't know. I think it's just hopeless.
B:
Jesus.
A:
Yeah, sorry. I guess I sort of needed to dump that on somebody.
B:
Yeah... So anyway. This Stallman dude doesn't have a phone?
A:
Haha, yeah, apparently. I guess he sort of cheats, though, he's willing to use other people's phones to make calls.
B:
That's total bullshit.
A:
Well, I think that's sort of the outlier there with him.
B:
What's his job?
A:
I think he gives talks, and sends emails, and... Yeah, that kind of stuff I guess.
B:
So he's full of shit. He's supposedly got these great convictions, but he's probably the only person alive who can actually live the life demanded by those convictions. His whole job is talking about himself and his movement, that's literally what he does for a living, and he has handlers or little Linux nerds that do the Yelp lookups for him because his convictions don't allow it, and if he needs to make a call, he just borrows a phone from the sinners around him that aren't enlightened like he is, and who instead have real responsibilities, and they need phones and cars to pick up their kids from soccer practice or visit their folks, and they have social lives and don't want to spend their Christmas fighting with their open source DVD player so their nieces and nephews can watch the Grinch. He lives in a fantasy world, he's totally detached from reality. He's no better than you are man, lighten up, Christ.
A:
That's not comforting, though, right? Reducing Stallman to just another self-absorbed, cheating weirdo doesn't change my situation. It's not like I get off the hook for my own failings because Stallman isn't Jesus. Look. I really believe that there are basically two buckets of living, you know, one bucket is that you stand up for what you believe in, and one bucket is that you don't. And it doesn't matter how you fail yourself and live in that second bucket, it doesn't matter if you drink factory farm milk, or you drive drunk, or you cheat on your wife. It's all the same bucket, you know, "We've already established what you are, darling, now we're just haggling over the price." I know I'm in that second bucket. And the fact that, as far as I can tell, every other single person is in that second bucket too doesn't make it ok, it doesn't.