IMHO invited speakers aren't in any position of power over attendees. At least not in Western countries, IDK how it works in Dubai etc.

"Power" should not be confused with "prestige". If an attendee can ensure the speaker's disinvitation from future events by their complaint, they have plenty of power themselves.

>there is an important difference between an attendee asking someone out at a conference, and an invited speaker (or organiser) asking someone out at a conference. If you're going to be in a leadership position, you need to be aware of power dynamics.

so one side of social messaging is "Don't bother trying to look for a date if you're not a CEO, worth millions, have a home, an education, a plan, a yacht and a summer home" ,

and the other side is

"If you're powerful you'd better know that any kind of question needs to be re-framed with the concept of a power dynamic involvement, and that if you're sufficiently powerful there is essentially no way to pursue a relationship with a lesser mortal without essentially raping them through the power dynamics of the question itself and the un-deniability of a question asked by such a powerful God."

... and you say birth rates are declining precipitously?

Pretty ridiculous. It used to be that we used conventions as the one and only time to flatten the social hierarchy -- it was the one moment where you could talk and have a slice of pizza with a billionaire CEO or actor or whatever.

Re-substantiating the classism within conventions just pushes them furthest into corporate product marketing and employment fairs -- in other words it turns it into shit no one wants to attend without being paid to sit in a booth.

But all of that isn't the problem : the problem lies with personal sovereignty.

If someone doesn't want to do something, they say no. If they receive retribution because of that no we then investigate the retribution and as a society we turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah until they have better behavior.

There is a major problem when we as a society have decided "No, the problem is with the underlying pressure of what a no 'may mean' for their future." 'May' being the operative word.

We have turned this into a witch-hunt, but for maybe-witches or those who may turn into witches without any real evidence of witch craft that prompted the chase.

'Power dynamics's is shorthand for "I was afraid i'd be fired if I denied Stallman." ; did anything resembling this ever occur?

If you're sufficiently-powerful that your power affects how other people feel they can interact with you, then you should consider reducing your power. If it's important for you to be that powerful, and there's really no way to achieve your goals without it, then that's a sacrifice you're willing to make.

> If someone doesn't want to do something, they say no. If they receive retribution because of that no we then investigate the retribution and as a society we turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah until they have better behavior.

This only works if we have accountability. You can't have accountability if there's no evidence that a conversation took place, and if decisions aren't made in open and transparent ways: you can't classify things as "retribution" or "not retribution" without… witch hunts. Oh. So it doesn't solve the witch-hunt problem. (Wearing a body-cam everywhere would, but that kind of mass surveillance has its own problems.)

"Turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah" doesn't help the victim of retribution.

If the (alleged) ne'er-do-well has a strong enough support network, no force on earth will turn them into a social pariah, so this becomes an exercise in eroding political support, and… oh. That's also a procedure decoupled from justice.

This is not a simple topic, and it does not have simple solutions. Many of the issues you've identified (such as selective enforcement) are issues, but that doesn't mean your proposed solutions actually work.

> "I was afraid i'd be fired if I denied Stallman." ; did anything resembling this ever occur?

Edit: while waiting for the rate limit to expire, I found some claims of Paul Fisher, quoted in the "Stallman Report" https://stallman-report.org/:

> RMS would often throw tantrums and threaten to fire employees for perceived infractions. FSF staff had to show up to work each day, not knowing if RMS had eliminated their position the night before.

This conflicts with my understanding of Richard Stallman's views and behaviour. I'll have to look into this further. I've left my original answer below.

---

I vaguely recall a time he tried to remove authority from someone, in favour of a packed committee, because he disagreed with a technical decision they made. (It didn't really work, because the committee either had no opinion, or agreed with the former authority figure about that technical decision.) Can't find a reference though.

But in this kind of context, I'm not aware of Richard Stallman ever personally retaliating against someone for saying no to him. I don't imagine he'd approve of such behaviour, and he's principled enough that I doubt he'd ever do it. (There are a few anecdotes set in MIT about pressures from other people, but these are not directly Richard Stallman's fault, so I think it's unfair to blame him for them.)

This isn't really the point, though. A community leader should be aware of "people stuff" like this, and act to mitigate it. If he doesn't want the responsibility, he shouldn't have the power. By all accounts, he doesn't want the responsibility.