You folks are going to LOVE this one.

On Mitt’s “joke” that he doesn’t know why airplane windows don’t open and how that’s a big problem when there’s an electrical fire in the cabin, Linus Torvalds — Linux’s progenitor and Grand Poobah — had a few words to say on Google+.

He really seems to be a f*cking moron. I suspect he’d crate his dog on top of the aircraft too. Because what could possibly go wrong?

He followed up:

Ok, since I publicly called the guy a f*cking moron, I guess I should also publicly follow up: it does seem Romney was joking. Whew.

I dunno. I have my doubts it was really a joke — sure, give him the benefit of the doubt, but the way he said it was patently ridiculous and, even if intentional, terribly formed and terribly premised. Granted, I’m horrid at jokes off-the-cuff myself most days. But this depends on making yourself look way too uneducated, illogical and simple-minded to be leader of the free world. So I can’t buy it, unless Mitt — the self-aggrandizing fucker that he is — goes for self-deprecating humour in a deadpan.

But regardless of that incident’s joke status, Torvalds also said the following about Mormonism:



This is a really interesting Reddit AMA: much more so than the Obama one that got so much press, although they are obviously both related to the upcoming US elections. Mormonism as a religion is a fairly close second to the Scientologists in the race to “Batshit Crazy”, and quite frankly, it’s not brought up enough in politics because of idiotic politically correct fears of religious criticism. What is interesting is also that the whole “closet atheist” like in the AMA (or at least “doubting”) seems to not be unusual among Mormons. I’ve met people like thism who basically cannot admit even to their family that they aren’t believers, but are then able to talk to me just because they know I’m atheist. So despite that apparent widespread acknowledgement that there’s some serious crazy stuff there based on the rantings on a convicted con-man, the social bonds seem to hold it together fairly closely. Now, any religion tends to be more about the social bonds than the actual belief, but I think Morminism shows that more than most just due to how obviously ridiculous some of it is, and because the history is in fairly well-documented historical times. Older religions have had more time to adjust their crazy (or bring it mainline, so that it isn’t quite as obviously ridiculous, because you don’t think about it)

I fucking love this guy.

Slashdot’s losing their shit over him though, amazingly enough.

Yes, Slashdot. Where geeks go for geek news. It’s acquired a decidedly libertarian bent to its editors and commentariat though in recent years. I’m guessing because entitled libertarian douchebaggery and the IT industry intersect so heavily.

Last night Linux creator Linus Torvalds took to his Google+ page and called Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney ‘a f***ing moron.’ Torvalds’ stated reason? Romney’s much-ridiculed suggestion that air passengers would be safer in emergencies if aircraft windows could be opened (a suggestion which some, including Snopes.com, have taken as a joke). Torvalds also recently called Mormonism, Romney’s religion, ‘bats**t crazy.’ Is this just Linus being Linus? Or does such outspokenness on non-technical matters reflect poorly on the Linux community that Torvalds leads?

Because that’s not a false dichotomy or anything. Outspokenness on non-technical matters just makes him politically interested, not talking out of turn. You want to suppress his freedom of speech? Hells no. I’d much rather the leaders in any community be free to speak as they see fit, so you can determine whether or not their philosophies align with yours, and cut the whole hero worship nonsense. So your glorious leader is an atheist and a liberal. So that makes you have a sad. Linux ain’t affected one whit — not any more than, say, Wikileaks’ existence and good (though controversial) works are tarnished by Julian Assange’s evidently-rapey ways.

Hero worship and the halo effect are psychological biases we need to watch out for. They’re biases we need to challenge, in fact. We’d be poor skeptics otherwise.

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