this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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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!'