I don’t think it’s fair to chalk it up to “unwillingness to think things through”, though, and that’s my point. RMS doesn’t seem to me to fully appreciate the emotional landlines in some of the subjects he discusses. When you’re talking about software licensing there’s some wiggle room, but when the subject at hand is pedophilia, successful communication requires a degree of tact and nuance that I’ve not often seen him use.

If you say something that 1% of the audience completely misunderstands, so be it. There’s always going to be some contrarians; haters gotta hate. But if the majority of the people have a different interpretation than you meant, then maybe the problem is in how you said it.

landmines?

Yes. Some subjects are very tricky to discuss. I have an example earlier: you wouldn’t want to come across as a Hitler fan. You can discuss these things in public, but have to be exceedingly cautious to avoid people misunderstanding your position.

I get that, I just meant that your text has a typo/autocorrect "landlines". (Apologies for my earlier laconic comment.)

Oh! Yeah, I didn’t even notice that. Yay autocorrect!