this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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I interacted with one of RMS's public emails last week (not sure if I talked to RMS directly or not) and it came from protonmail. That's about as good an endorsement as one can hope for, so that's where I plan to migrate to.
RMS?
Richard Matthew Stallman, who started the GNU and founded the Free Software Foundation 🙃
Ahhhh noted pedophile apologist Richard Stallman
For those out of the loop: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman-returns-to-fsf-18-months-after-controversial-rape-comments/
Hi there hate campaign, I see you're keeping at it. Here's a song I wrote, third verse is about you.
https://fair.tube/w/7Qkx9RW7ZikNATcqkHWbpm
Edit - while we're at it, for those who want to read up on this matter:
https://stallmansupport.org/
Keep drinking the Stallman Kool aid my friend. He said what he said, publicly, most revolutionaries have a fucked up side, we don't often hear it out of their own mouths.
For me saying that sexual encounters with minors isn't always harmful is beyond the pale and there's no take backs.
Quote his actual words in context.
Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. [Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the old link was broken.]
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
[Many years after posting this note, I had conversations with people who had been sexually abused as children and had suffered harmful effects. These conversations eventually convinced me that the practice is harmful and adults should not do it.]!<
It took convincing from real victims to convince him that minors cannot in fact give informed consent for sexual relations with adults. It also took many years.
Forgive me if I remain skeptical.
Kudos for providing full context. Respect.
That said, skeptical as to what? That his mind changed? Have you got any quotes after his public change of mind which contradict or "sorry not sorry" it? Stories from people who have had bad encounters with him of a pederastic or pederasty-apologetic nature?
Anything, basically, besides some old, excessively candid thoughts that have been directly addressed from a guy who once ate his own toe cheese onstage in front of an audience? I've heard stories about bedsheets from people who hosted him, but that's about the worst I've heard as to his personal comportment, which is undoubtedly weird in a way that people with a certain type of neurodivergent mind find very familiar.
I know a lot of men who needed to have daughters before they evolved in how they looked at sexual assault; you can very legitimately point out that it's quite shitty that a lot of dudes need to have some xx skin in the game before they give a shit, and I will heartily agree with you. I have no daughter, and indeed, I know some... males with daughters who have yet to do that self-examination. We're pretty appalling on the whole.
Likewise, someone might need to have some uncomfortable and educational conversations with kind and patient people who have actually come up against a thing they have not experienced before their position evolves, and that, likewise, is far from optimal, and indeed, there are many dudes out there who would not evolve on the matter after that conversation either. Like I said, pretty appalling bunch on the whole.
And I'm not here to play male apologist, but basically, what you've got on RMS, you've got on all of us, me included. I've been on the internet since the 90s and you could find me doing all kinds of juvenile asshole opinionating on various platforms going back to the usenet archives. Not defending the concept that children can give informed consent by any stretch, but boy was I an insufferable New Atheist. We grow and we learn, and some of us have been doing so for over thirty years on the internet and there's a long record.
So, I think that the ongoing campaign of character assassination against RMS is fueled by different, well-moneyed interests that would just as soon not have him saying a lot of other things that he does continue to say and loudly stand by, rather than those of abuse victims. He is not a crypto-nambla that I have ever seen or heard. Again, enlighten me if you have more than what is widely known already. I'm pretty sure that there are lots of better pickings out there for the folks who make fighting this particular social sickness their vocation, though - there is really nothing here for you at all, just a guy who is a bit too out there with his viewpoints and other things that come from his body.
I wasn't part of this comment chain, and I don't know who RMS is outside of it, but if I knew a guy who said that quote and also ate his own "toe cheese" on a stage and apparently has "stories about bed sheets" (I can only imagine what that means)... I would not be asking for further proof they're shitty just because they seemingly half-assed taking back one statement.
As a man, I have done disgusting things, especially as a teenager or kid, so I could ignore just that toe cheese thing as gross as it sounds. But, I've never tried to say minors are fine after pedophilia. Also "I know a lot of men who needed to have daughters before they evolved in how they looked at sexual assault", sure, I know those kinds of guys too. They're shitty people, it's not an excuse.
You might wanna look into who he is. You use his work all the time. You're using it now. He has a very large body of statements besides this offhand remark from a discussion list, many of which make rich techbros very uncomfortable.
You also might want to educate yourself on autism. He's not public about it but it's one of those very obvious cases. It's all of a package, and a very unique one.
Sounds a bit like special pleading to me. I'm happy to admit that he's done more to advance the usage of FOSS than anyone. I'm also able to feel disgusted by his personal beliefs that he published whether or not he retracted them later.
I am very familiar with Autism and I know enough about it that using it as a blanket excuse for someone's words or behaviors is dangerous. Good on him for amending his opinion 6 or 7 years later, I still wouldn't invite that man into my home.
Your bedsheets thank you, if you believe the stories.
I don't think it's a case that requires special pleading, unless you exist in a mindset where some words constitute "mortal sins" that cannot be washed from the soul. I don't believe in any such stuff, myself, and as I said earlier, there are very few men who would make it into the heaven I also don't believe in, if that were the case.
Nobody is a zero or a one. I appreciate your advocacy but I just have a different standard, no more and no less.
I'm mostly here to advocate for his cause rather than him, but I also won't go along with narratives that serve interests that are clearly at odds with mine and his and yours alike; I made that mistake in the aughts when I was a New Atheist and thought that it was my solemn duty as a defender of truth and child brides to fight Islam with everything I had.
Islam's fine, I was wrong. RMS was wrong, on this and on other things too. I know because he's a man.
You weren't wrong about Islam, you were just too specific. All received religions needs to go.
See, to me that sounds like "all drugs need to go," and as it happens I use drugs. Religion is also a drug that people use to cope. You can't ban drugs, it doesn't work, you just need to help people consume it at non -toxic levels.
That's a fantastic idea, let's swap all the laws pertaining to drugs and received religions. I'd love to see Catholicism, Southern Baptists, Orthodox Judaism, Whabbi and Salafi Islam considered Schedule 1 Religions.
Lol I'm more into personal autonomy, myself.
Now, up here in Canada, we have some very gory pictures of cancer happening that take up like 80% of the face of the cigarette pack. I don't see why we can't have something a bit like that required in front of churches. Perhaps something from the surgeon general about what happens when you huff too much Jesus.
I'd do it in pirate speak, like a warning on catholic buildings saying 'yarr there be pedophiles around these waters, yarr!'