From stallman.org (unfortunately i cannot find the original e-mails that are mentioned in the news articles):

11 August 2019: (https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#11_August_20...)

Jeffrey Epstein ... He also reportedly raped some of those people. I believe those accusations, and I think he deserved to be imprisoned.

14 September 2019: (https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...)

I want to respond to the misleading media coverage of messages I posted about Marvin Minsky's association with Jeffrey Epstein. The coverage totally mischaracterised my statements.

Headlines say that I defended Epstein. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've called him a "serial rapist", and said he deserved to be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended him — and other inaccurate claims — and feel a real hurt because of what they believe I said.

Defending Epstein narrowly with regards to the age of his victims might not be off-brand. Defending the coersion and threats would be entirely off brand.

Apparently, neither happened.

The material provided in the Daily Beast article is obviously a defense of Minsky, not Epstein. The article was journalistic incompetence. You can criticize what RMS said, judge him harshly for it, but it was not a defense of Epstein.

Had no idea he'd said something like this. It's deeply disappointing - he always seemed analogous to a software Jesus or the like.

If it matters he has apologized for those statements, said they where made in ignorance and claims that he's completely changed his mind now.

Still it shows, at best, questionable judgement to have said those things in the first place.

Could you link to that apology?

I'm not sure if he apologized, but here he at least recognize he was wrong

https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

> Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.

> Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.

The reason he requires state actor threat level privacy on all of his devices is now stunningly clear to me. I used to think it was tin foil hat paranoia, but the government has good reason to look at the computers of people who have spoken in the manner shown.

Argue the idea, not the man.

It's $CURRENT_YEAR, I don't think we should argue pedophilia. Or rape. Or Slavery. Some things should be considered settled.

> It's $CURRENT_YEAR, I don't think we should argue pedophilia. Or rape. Or Slavery. Some things should be considered settled.

That's a bit like saying that since we proved the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, that we can now throw away all proofs of it and simply assert it.

If it took civilization a long time to figure out that slavery is wrong, or that children can't consent to sex, then it's an error that people will continually fall into; every new person that is born needs to be taught not only that those things are true, but why those things are true.

"Settled" should not mean that there is a clear, concise description of exactly why something is wrong to point somebody to and / or repeat every time someone asks. It should not mean, "We shout down and ostracize anyone who asks, 'OK, but why?'"

The ostracism comes when you've been told the "why" repeatedly over decades, and still choose to publicly take the position that calculus doesn't exist.

Absolutely - some things are agreed upon to be morally outrageous.

This doesn't mean, to me, that we should condemn those who have historically stated things that are not aligned to those morals. I'm unequivocally not arguing in support of pedophilia I'm arguing against shutting down free discussion and open transference of ideas.

In fact, we should celebrate that rms has/had actually been open with these statements. Speech should not be restricted, in my (admittedly very liberal) viewpoint.

the arguments need to be presented again to each generation because human nature will take us right back there if given the chance. what should be and what is are two different things.