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A comment on Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project. Parent comment

Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by pseudalopex on Friday September 27, 2019 @03:18AM (#21089307)
The reports that he defended Epstein were false. The reports that he defended adults having sex with children were true. Stories that people used to whisper about started to show up in news articles.

The straw that broke the camel's back could be the wrong metaphor. Maybe it's more like the dam burst.

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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by acqq on Friday September 27, 2019 @03:43AM (#21089450)
As far as I know, he publicly renounced his decades old opinion even before the last witch hunt began. The witch hunt was based on false claim. He never supported Epstein.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by pseudalopex on Friday September 27, 2019 @05:34AM (#21090021)
Stallman defended adults having sex with children in 2013.[1] He didn't say anything else about it until now, as far as I know.

[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_2...

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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by zajio1am on Friday September 27, 2019 @07:10AM (#21090581)
In this post he just linked The Guardian article that described lack of solid empirical evidence.

Also note that it is a difference between an empirical claim and a moral claim. While empirical claim that some action almost always leads to negative outcome to others could be used as an argument for that action being immoral, it is still perfectly valid to attack the supporting empirical claim, while not attacking the moral claim.

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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by pseudalopex on Friday September 27, 2019 @07:28AM (#21090682)
The point is that his opinion wasn't decades old.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by zajio1am on Friday September 27, 2019 @08:13AM (#21090988)
My point is that this Stallman's comment is not 'defending aduls havings sex with children', but statement about empirical facts.

There are Stallman's statements defending non-coercive sex with children, but they are older:

https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%20...

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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by acqq on Friday September 27, 2019 @02:10PM (#21094610)
> He didn't say anything else about it until now, as far as I know.

At least there is this one from 14th September, also on his site:

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."

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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by cygx on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:00AM (#21090147)
As far as I know, he publicly renounced his decades old opinion even before the last witch hunt began.

Citation needed. He expressed the same opinion in 2013 that he did in 2006 and 2003:

https://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_2...

https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%20...

https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%20...

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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by hdfbdtbcdg on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:54AM (#21090478)
And withdrew it in 2016...
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by cygx on Friday September 27, 2019 @07:14AM (#21090606)
Good for him - where can I read up on that?
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by dependenttypes on Friday September 27, 2019 @07:53AM (#21090842)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Biograp...

But even if he hadn't changed his opinion there would be nothing wrong with that imo.

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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by hdfbdtbcdg on Friday September 27, 2019 @07:19AM (#21090628)
The same place you linked to.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by cygx on Friday September 27, 2019 @08:26AM (#21091107)
Could you narrow that down? I tried, but there's a lot of material to go through.

The stuff I did find was only tangentially related and not indicative of any changes in position, eg

https://stallman.org/archives/2016-jul-oct.html#16_September...

https://stallman.org/archives/2016-jul-oct.html#12_September...

https://stallman.org/archives/2016-jul-oct.html#15_July_2016...

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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by virgilp on Friday September 27, 2019 @03:53AM (#21089509)
Doesn't matter what metaphor you chose - he was fired for the wrong reasons. To exaggerate: if Trump were found to be helping out a Mexican immigrant, and after the huge scandal with his voter base he'd get impeached - I wouldn't celebrate, at all. Regardless what you think of him, a man needs to pay for his bad deeds, not for the good or neutral ones that just happened in the wrong political climate.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by pseudalopex on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:01AM (#21089534)
He wasn't fired. He resigned under pressure. He cited "a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations", not a single incident.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by soulofmischief on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:13AM (#21089596)
C'mon. Don't bend to falsehoods when it suits your argument. Very few people in such PR nightmares actually "resign", they're just allowed to save face by the company.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by pseudalopex on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:58AM (#21089834)
I said he resigned under pressure. I think MIT would have fired him but not the FSF. My argument is that he was pressured because of more than just one incident.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by hdfbdtbcdg on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:42AM (#21090412)
People are never fired from such positions they are asked to resign. Trying to repaint this as him willingly stepping down is ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by virgilp on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:06AM (#21089561)
That's just semantics, you know that, right?
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by imtringued on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:40AM (#21090397)
He resigned from two independent organizations at the same time. Imagine if your previous boss told you to quit your job.
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by lomnakkus on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:07AM (#21090189)
Parent poster explicitly said "under pressure". What more do you want?
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Re:Stallman Still Heading the GNU Project by virgilp on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:13AM (#21090232)
Really? What's the difference between "fired" and "resigned under pressure"? How does it change one bit my original argument? In this instance, RMS was innocent. Doesn't matter if he was guilty in 999999 other instances(1), he was under immense pressure to resign _for this incident_. What happened to the US philosophy of freedom and liberty that inspired an entire world? I feel like it's completely gone now, they easily sacrifice what were formerly sacred principles, for well-intended but completely misguided reasons.

> It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.

(1) Which is yet to be proven, btw. We shouldn't take destroying a man's reputation so lightly. But well, what do I know. The mob must enjoy its victories, even when they're really defeats.

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