The "critical difference" here is that in other cases the car wasn't manufactured by Elon Musk, the currently-designated Emmanuel Goldstein who needs to be the focus of a Two Minutes Hate every time his name is mentioned.
Edit: when a friend of mine locked her kid inside a conventional car a number of years ago, and the fire department broke the window, I assure you the incident did not even make the local news, much less go national.
In both cases the child is in the car and the door cannot be opened.
In my city, the fire department solves the problem by bashing out a window, just as in this case. I know this because that's what happened when a friend locked in her baby.
That seems more like "exactly the same" than "not remotely the same" to me.
I'll bet it happens dozens of times across the country every single day.
I don’t know where you got the suggestion of sainthood. I personally am not a communist-adjacent like he is and believe me I cringed when I typed the term “oppressed.”
The point is that most people, even most new hackers, misunderstand who Stallman is and what his principles are. At best they see him and some random crazy pedant that’s probably never wrote a line of code like most politicians or lawyers in his space. They don’t understand the dude wrote the world’s most popular compiler for three decades or more (I won’t be surprised to hear they think BillG is more technical than him if you survey). Nor do they have a grasp of his movement to the degree they attribute Open Source, a deliberate and successful attempt to derail his PoV, to himself!
None of that implies sainthood or value judgement on him. It stops at hearing what the guy really says carefully.
I personally think FOSS software is a fine thing, while not being overly fond of the GPL.
If you allegedly "give" me something for "free", but still assert the right to tell me what I can do with it afterward, it's not "free" in either sense of the word. It's not "free as in beer", nor is "free as in freedom".
Stallman's monomania on this subject became tedious and counterproductive decades ago.
Yes, he wrote some great software. So did dozens of others.
I don't share the same feelings about GPL idea and see it as extremely valuable, especially now that rug pull and Amazonification is pervasive.
I do share the feeling towards the free terminology. Over the years he has been fond of libre more and more.
That said I think the reason behind the confusion over the term free is less sincere and somewhat of a Freudian slip in retrospect. I think his original view was indeed against commercialization and he pivoted to the current iteration of Free Software advocacy. By the way, Linus is on the record making the same mistake and initially licensing Linux under a non-commercial license.
Firearms grant their owners the right to say "No".
Tyrants hate that.
Before firearms the world was mostly ruled by "nobles" (i.e., those who had extorted enough from the peasants to afford weapons and armor, and had the free time for the required years of training).
Now, it isn't. That didn't happen because the "nobles" suddenly decided to turn into nice guys.
> Why McDonalds still profitable in Italy and other places famous for great food?
Because McDonalds is cheap, fast, and tastes good. Seems obvious. They haven't sold billions of Big Macs because they taste terrible, no matter how much food snobs would like to pretend otherwise.
Even if you have "great food" sometimes you want a change. Something that might be "great food" to a tourist can be boring to a local.
> I literally cannot remember the last time I had to show proof of age to buy tobacco or alcohol. I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask.
I'm older than you and I'm carded every single time I buy tobacco or alcohol. The policy on showing identification varies widely depending on region, both due to the actual law and store policy.
> Are you referring to the paintings behind glass that weren't affected at all?
You mean other than being unavailable while they were being cleaned/checked for damage?
Some visitors likely traveled thousands of miles, possibly on a once in a lifetime trip, to see the paintings, which they weren't able to do thanks to a toddler-grade temper tantrum.
That's a strange definition of "not affected at all" you have there.
Try to respond honestly (and without sarcasm, petty insults, and other common internet-shitposting-style content) - the parent said the paintings were not affected at all, and they ostensibly were not, according the parent. That doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't a bad thing to do or didn't have real consequences. And regardless, the parent is speaking in the context of whether corporal punishment is justified, which obviously it is not (speaking in the usually-implicit context of morality/civilization). That's the topic of this thread.
Trying to excuse this childish temper tantrum and exculpate the infantile perpetrators with "herp, derp, the paintings weren't damaged at all" is what was dishonest.
Edit: when a friend of mine locked her kid inside a conventional car a number of years ago, and the fire department broke the window, I assure you the incident did not even make the local news, much less go national.