this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024

322 points (86.1% liked)

linuxmemes

21625 readers

66 users here now

Hint: :q!

Sister communities:

Community rules (click to expand)

1. Follow the site-wide rules

Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html

2. Be civil

Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.

Do not harrass or attack members of the community for any reason.

Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.

Bigotry will not be tolerated.

These rules are somewhat loosened when the subject is a public figure. Still, do not attack their person or incite harrassment.

3. Post Linux-related content

Including Unix and BSD.

Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of sudo in Windows.

No porn. Even if you watch it on a Linux machine.

4. No recent reposts

Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.

Please report posts and comments that break these rules!

Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't fork-bomb your computer.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

322

So cute 😊 (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

92 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

beat me to it… yeah, he said that weird shit about ‘consenting’ underage children not being traumatized or some shit… or there was no evidence they were… later apologized and said he was shown evidence but, nah… plus the whole Epstein friendship thing…(maybe he was just naively getting fsf donations? ) dude did some fantastic things for computers and humanity overall with gnu… but he’s definitely not cool

That's not exactly what happened.

1. In 2019 he was misquoted by a blogger and then by the press:

Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing'

Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing

What he really said was:

The injustice is in the word "assaulting". The term "sexual assault" is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.

The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein's harem. (See https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed.) Let's presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).

The word "assaulting" presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.

We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.

I've concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation.

Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.

Source: https://stallmansupport.org/explaining-events-that-led-to-stallman-resignation-csail-emails.html

There is no "Epstein friendship" that I know of. He called him a "serial rapist" before that (source).

This is what he was criticized for at the time + unconfirmed rumors (some of them debunked now) of allegedly creepy behavior around women. You can read more on https://stallmansupport.org.

2. Some people dug up his old blog posts.

later apologized and said he was shown evidence but, nah…

Between 2003 and 2013 a few times he expressed his views on pedophilia. It was literally a few times, but yes this is something he actually said and used to believe. He hadn't mentioned that topic again until it was brought up in 2019. That's when he said that he had changed his mind since then and that he was wrong. You can read about it on Wikipedia (can't find the link to the original quote at the moment): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies

As far as I know that was the last time he mentioned this topic.

So now that we got the facts right, the question is if he should be punished for having a wrong/stupid opinion on something 10 years ago. I think no, but apparently some people disagree.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

a. i think she was too young to appear willing

That could be true. It's a valid point.

b. he’s staying at this weird rich dude’s island and suddenly a very young woman wants to have sex and you don’t think she’s cooerced?

It's certainly weird, but I think there is some chance that he didn't know.

but the other term would be statuary rape, which still implies violence…

I don't know much about that, but according to Wikipedia, it's usually not connected to violence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_rape. Statutory rape is a legal term, it's not actually the same thing as rape. See, this is another example of what Richard was talking about.

given his position, i don’t think it’s responsible to try to claim pedophilia might be moral, if the child is “consenting”, etc… like sure, it’s okay to discuss ideas… but he acted as if he knew for sure there’s no evidence that it’s harmful…

It would be better if he didn't have stupid or weird opinions, but he is a philosopher, so he thinks and talks about ethics and stuff like that all of his life. Especially on his blog - you can check stallman.org. He is even against using paid toilets. I don't know where he got the idea that a child could consent or that it wasn't harmful, but I've seen some pedo say online that there is some research, which allegedly proves that. So I assume they just cherry pick to find something that supports their claims, but then they of course ignore all of the overwhelming evidence against it. This often happens in pseudoscience. So maybe he read something stupid like that, I don't know.

i don’t think he should be punished, but i don’t think he should be accepted as a spokesperson, figurehead, or leader…

But if he wasn't who he is, I don't know if he would have created the Free Software movement. Many people today still think that it's a radical idea that users should have rights, which nobody should be able to take away from them. I think we need people like him in our society. I also don't know anyone else who has been fighting for this for 40 years refusing to make compromises on people's freedom (unlike Linus Torvalds for example). To this day he still travels the world and gives talks about Free Software in multiple languages.

i felt the same way about Stallman as i did about Allen Ginsberg when i found out he was a pedo…

But Richard Stallman is not a pedo.