But people that publicly champion child rape, bestiality, and parent-child sexual relationships doubly so.
The fact there are so many people who are pro child rape, or at the very least pro people who are open advocates for having sex with children, is absolutely disgusting.
I would agree with a small portion of it, but pedophilia, no, no way.
Though I do have something to share on the subject. I used to go out with this girl, I was 19, she was 17. We had sex and all that (willingly, of course). Legally speaking, I was a pedophile, but let’s take a look at the age gap and how old I was.
Anyway, I wasn’t that into this girl, so I break up with her. I did know that she kinda had a crush on me, but I didn’t think it was that serious. Three weeks pass after the breakup and her dad shows up at my doorstep with 2 other guys (his relatives… or at least I presumed as much) accusing me of raping his daughter… I tried to explain that there was no such thing and that yes, we did have sex, but at no point was it against her will. Sure, I might have been the one that instigated the intercourse, but it wasn’t like she didn’t like it. Regardless, her dad was pissed as hell and even threatened to submit this to the DA 😱… I was about to be taken to trial and very possibly go to jail for what? A girl that I broke up with that was probably deeply hurt (I am sorry for that, but you can’t force someone to love someone else) and wanted to get back at me, so she involved her parrents in the ordeal, not thinking things through (of course, she’s young) how this might affect the other person and stain him FOR LIFE.
Luckily, things cooled down, I went to talk to her parrents about this, I said I was sorry and I shouldn’t have had sex with her, but the truth of the matter was that, I didn’t rape her! They also called her to confront me on this, we had a long converstaion with her parrents present, she was furious, lying through her teeth, portraying every single time we had sex as rape. I think her parrents saw through this, since there were personal insults at my expense, not to mention that “why did you break up with me!?” was mentioned quite a few times throught the conversation and that kinda sealed the case that this was nothing more than a broken heart. I promised them I’ll never contact her again, for her sake (and mine as well), and to let her heal, and I never did.
My point is, things could have ended up being A LOT worse for me. I think that me showing up alone at their house kinda made them think about the whole situation and that maybe our daughter is actually lying to us (why would I show up there and risk getting my head chopped off if I really did rape her, right). Just goes to show you that people can be mean, take advantage of a certain situation and portray it as something completely different.
I always asked a partner’s age after that, ALWAYS. Unless it was blaintly obvious she’s not a minor.
This wouldn’t be illegal in the UK or many countries. Age of consent is 16 here. From what I’ve read, USA is an outlier that infantises young adults to impose mortality.
Always weird because the music videos exported by the US are often soft porn and the music industry has a thing for barely legal girls.
I don’t live in the US BTW. I said “the DA” to conform to what most of the viewers on Lemmy are used to (most are US citizens). In reality we don’t have a district attourney, you involve the police and the state takes care of things onwards.
Always weird because the music videos exported by the US are often soft porn and the music industry has a thing for barely legal girls.
Which just goes to show you that that “imposed morality” thing isn’t really working… in the US or anywhere else. The US is somewhere at the top by number of pedophiles vs. number of population.
Yeah, it kinda feels that there is more diversity here, but still, I do belive the majority is from the US, so I sometimes cater in my comments to that part of the population, just to cut down on explaining myself afterwards.
When I read your story originally I remember that I had mixed feelings. But lately I’ve been reading some of the lies that RMS haters tell about him and his views on sex. Reading his blog posts changed my mind about some things and now I’ve realised that you were right and that RMS has a similar opinion.
Richard Stallman was criticised for saying that it’s normal for teenagers (Stallman defines them as people that are at least 14 years old) to have sex with adults. He believes that the laws that call sex with children or teenagers “rape” are dishonest and that the definition of rape shouldn’t depend on someone’s age. His haters criticised him for that too, but your story shows how crazy such laws are.
When he made that statement about pedophilia, I think he was just trying to extend the rights that teenagers normally have onto children (Stallman defines them as people that are 13 years old or younger). I think that he meant well and he really didn’t realise that pedophilia is harmful.
Still, if he’s talking about cases like mine, yes, I can get onboard with that. But with an age gap of 10+ years, no, I really can’t.
I’ve been thinking about the age gap argument and that’s also something his haters like to point out. I think Stallman doesn’t believe that an age gap itself is wrong. So I’m curious why do you think it’s wrong? I couldn’t think of a logical reason and I realised that I’m unable to define what the acceptable age gap should be. Because as you pointed out, big age gaps seem weird even when both people are adults:
My mom was almost 20 years younger than my dad m, but she was 27 and he was 46. That may seem weird, but both of them are adults.
This is unusual, but it’s not wrong. So why would big age gaps be wrong for a teenager and an adult? After all we accept that teenagers should be able to have control over their own bodies (at least in most of Europe and most of US). So shouldn’t it be their decision?
Sorry for posting such a long comment on an old post. I just realised how insane the whole hate campaign against RMS was, because he is right about most of the things he was criticised for.
Most teenagers are too young at 14 to know how the consequneces of their actions might reverbirate in their lives. Sure, they might feel up to the task, but ask any saman of any tribe, 18, 19 is the age when you actually get to be called an adult. Yes, they still lack eperience, by they make up for it by having youth. You put tyem in risky situations so they learn. Old people aren’t wiser, they just have more life experience.
So, my conclusion would be, 14 is too young (in general, doesn’t mean there aren’t 14 year olds thinking like 20 year olds). 16… depends, but with proper guidnace, a lot better than 14. So… yeah, I would be willing to lower the bar, IF parrenting wasn’t seen as a role, but as a duty (this is a diffeent converstaion).
This is unusual, but it’s not wrong. So why would big age gaps be wrong for a teenager and an adult?
The reasons I explained above: not enough life experience.
After all we accept that teenagers should be able to have control over their own bodies (at least in most of Europe and most of US). So shouldn’t it be their decision?
That “control” is mostly imaginary (as it should be), They THINK they’re in control, but when pushing comes to shoving, they always call the parrents (again, as it should be). There is nothing wrong with that, their parrents know them best (or at least how things should be) and they probably know why they did what they did (again, in this world, this is a best case scenario… these things should be REALLY, realy analyzed by people far smarter than me). So, the assumption is, shit happened, they’re young, they can lie out of spite, which makes thigs even harder… let’s find out what happened 🤷.
Sorry for posting such a long comment on an old post. I just realised how insane the whole hate campaign against RMS was, because he is right about most of the things he was criticised fo
As I said, I would agree about SOME of the things (I would call them sane defaults) he said, but not everything. 14 is too young in most cases. 16… I could probably start debating in that.
Thanks for the answer. So it’s not really about the age gap itself? You just think that the age of consent should be 16 or higher? Or is it both?
14 is too young in most cases. 16… I could probably start debating in that.
Is it possible that you are thinking that, because age of consent is very high in your country? I imagine that people who live for example in Germany, where age of consent is 14, might not think the same. In most of Europe it’s 14-16. In some countries teenagers can even get an abortion.
16 or higher, yes. But, the age gap shouldn’t be too big at that age as well. My personal opinion, 10 years at that age, max. Anything above 25, add whatever age gap you wan’t, they are adults in the true meaning of the word.
Is it possible that you are thinking that, because age of consent is very high in your country?
Hm… maybe. After all, I was raised that way.
But still, I’ve seen how much teenagers at that age have going on up there, they’re just thrill seekers at that age, they really don’t know anything about life, they could easilly be fooled by someone older than them.
You are right about teenagers, but on the other hand not all people are the same. For some reason we’ve decided that they are competent to make those kinds of decisions and to do other things like driving a car. So even though they are not adults, we don’t think of them as children either. There is probably no simple answer to this question, though.
Thats the thing about saying an opinion on the internet, its tied to you forever. In real life people tend to change their minds and can re-evaluate on their own shitty opinions after a few decades. Not always, but it happens. But that doesn’t change the fact you said that thing that one time 20 years ago. The people who don’t really care about you and just want a mental straw man to hate don’t care about things like personal growth or that you have changed stance, just that you thought that bad thing at one time.
Im personally guilty of saying some real edgelord shit as a teenager on the internet. If someone somehow collected a few comments I made when I was 15 and went on a 5 paragraph essay about how terrible of a person I am now it would make me roll my eyes and tell them to get bent. Who I was as a 15 year old and my opinions then is completely independent of who I am now and my current stances. But the 5-paragrapher doesn’t care about that, they got their ragebait strawman and a ride on the high horse so they are happy.
Very well said. I think people tend to not realise that personal development is really a thing that happened when they have instant access to the old opinions of people online.
Incredible that this personal development where he suddenly realised raping children is a bad thing, after decades of publicly championing it (and even using his workplace email address to do so), happened immediately after his job became on the line and there were public calls for him to step down/be removed.
I’ve already replied to you regarding this exact stance you have. Readers: check my (or their) comment history for what I have previously replied. Tl;dr they’re linking two completely unrelated situations together to create a narrative that his past opinions are why he resigned. Opinions which have since changed, and the thing that made him resign was where he was being pedantic, while STILL DENOUNCING what had happened to Epstein’s victims (a part which is often conveniently cut).
You don’t need to post it again. You’d do better just responding to the first one and not posting it again making it look as it hasn’t been responded to.
I repeated my stance to reiterate my point, which you seemingly ignored since you repeated your points (which I addressed!) again.
I’m not entirely sure why you repeated yours even after it was addressed, without so much as an acknowledgement that it had been addressed, it’s pointless at best and bad faith at worst. I can only assume the point of that was to make it look like I had not already addressed those points and that they were completely valid.
We aren’t talking about one thing said 20 years go though, we’re talking about something repeated across decades by someone who was a grown man even then, and who only said otherwise when it was convenient to do so to try to keep his job.
Now, maybe he genuinely did just happen to change his mind on whether child rape is ok or not a mere few days after there were calls for him to step down. I just personally don’t believe it.
I agree with your point, but I don’t think this applies to Stallman at all.
Lol, you mean when he changed his opinion 4 days after his comments were outed, and only when it looked like his job was untenable?
Seems awfully convenient that RMS would change his decades-held opinion that paedophilia is fine mere days after he found himself in hot water.
If Andrew Tate, right when Google was mulling over removing his content from YouTube, said “you know, I actually think misogyny is a bad thing. Honest.”, would you believe him? Would you think he’s a changed man?
I wouldn’t. But maybe you’re just more trusting than I am.
It’s funny, because he didn’t get fired, he resigned. And he never returned to his previous position. It wasn’t about losing his job, or getting it back. It was that he grew and changed his opinion. Unless you believe people can’t grow?
And the incident which made him do that (where he even said what was done is wrong!) is not related to the previous comments you’ve listed.
Hey, wasn’t Bill Gates on Epstein’s flight logs? The same Bill Gates who claims he’s never been on any of his islands? Huh, someone with genuine connections and not just pedantic with words. Someone should really look into that. Funny how nobody brings up those who are actually involved.
EDIT: why’d you add two whole paragraphs about Tate a day after I replied? Were you hoping I wouldn’t notice and it’d look like I ignored them? The difference is Tate continually reiterates his opinions (I.e. there’s not a decade gap between him saying it and then saying his opinion changed in light of evidence) and also, actually acts on them (which Stallman has never done).
People in high up positions often “resign” when their position is no longer tenable.
It’s an opportunity afforded to people at the top so they can save face.
I don’t see why you’re bringing whataboutism about Gates into this. The discussion isn’t about Gates, nor do I like Gates. Why bring him up other than to muddy the debate and shift focus away from padeo-champion RMS?
The discussion is about RMS being pro paedophilia, and his cult being in denial about that fact.
He still didn’t return to his position. And again, the things said that lead to him resigning are not related to his previous comments. And again, he actually denounced what happened, in that email chain. He absolutely wasn’t defending it. Go read it yourself, in full. Not some chopped up version.
Hey, Stallman answers his emails, how about you ask him what his opinions are yourself?
Also, I’m bringing up Gates because while there’s massive uproar over some misplaced pedantry a lifelong activist did (again, while denouncing what happened and saying Epstein is described too lightly), it seems eerily silent when it comes to people in the same sector actually having real connections to Epstein and not just unpopular opinions on how words should be used.
The entire thing led to him resigning. It was his comments on Epstein that got the ball rolling, but people bringing up his public championing of child rape using his work email address, as well as women alleging that he had been creepy with them, all led to him losing his position.
Look, you can defend him all you want. That’s fine. I’m just on the “child rape is bad” side of the fence.
We’re on the same side of that fence, don’t think you’re smart by painting me as pro-pedo. It’s incredibly disingenuous and tells me you’re running out of arguments to stand on. Stallman is of the belief that that is bad, and has denounced Epstein’s actions. And even if he didn’t, he still did nothing himself, so I’m not sure how me making the point that Stallman isn’t the devil opponents say he is makes me belong on “that side of the fence”?
The “creepy” allegations have all been debunked iirc. I’ve heard of one about a mattress in his office, which wasn’t even in his office or his mattress? I’ve also heard of him giving a business card (why is that creepy?). If you have any examples with actual evidence which isn’t just “I heard that she said that he said”, feel free to share and I’ll look.
My point about him not returning to his previous position makes the argiment that him taking back his previous views wasn’t just to return to the job he had. As you said that he didn’t actually have a legitimate reason to change his opinion. Because if you don’t like someone, it means they never have a benign reason to change their opinions!
No he isn’t of the opinion that paedophilia is bad, because he has publicly said it’s fine/good several times!
And no, he suddenly “changed his mind” as a last-ditch effort to save his job, and it failed.
If you genuinely believe he had an epiphany and did a complete 180 that just happened to perfectly align with him coming under fire, then you’re pretty naive.
This cult behaviour is fucking weird, dude. The guy repeatedly states that having sex with children is fine and yet you’re fine with him. Re-evaluate your position.
Yea, at the moment I think (or want to think) that he himself doesn’t pose a threath to children or is pedo and also do belive that he generally is a person with a good intent with a terrible take on this topic.
This is something he mentioned literally a few times between 2003 and 2013 (and he talks about a lot of stuff - check stallman.org) and he doesn’t even believe anymore. In 2019 he said that it was something he used to believe, but he realised he was wrong. You can read it on Wikipedia (unfortunately I can’t find the original source for the quote right now): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies
What’s the problem? You want people to not discuss things that are offensive? It’s a shame he used to believe that, but he changed his mind, admitted to being wrong and moved on.
What would you want to happen instead? That we cancel people, because they have an opinion we don’t like?
he was just trying to keep his job
What job? The position at his foundation that he does for free? If he only cared about keeping it, why did he quit 2 days later?
He didn’t change his mind. He only “changed his mind” to try to keep his job, and it didn’t work.
He was only sorry once he got a lot of flak for his pro child rape opinions.
Put it this way - if Andrew Tate all of a sudden said that sexism is wrong and he’s sorry for his actions, only once YouTube started removing his videos, would you believe it to be genuine? Or just him trying to maintain his position? It certainly seems like a convenient time to have a change of heart, no?
And he didn’t “quit” he was ousted. He “resigned” in the same way Liz Truss did, for example.
Sorry, I have no time for people who want to see children get raped.
So him changing his mind was fake, him leaving his own foundation was fake, is there anything that could prove you wrong then?
He was only sorry once he got a lot of flak for his pro child rape opinions.
No, he got in trouble, because he was misquoted by the media when he talked about Minsky. If he is such a liar, why didn’t he apologize for that, since that was actually what the drama was about? He could have said that he was wrong and that he no longer believed that. But for some weird reason he didn’t.
Put it this way - if Andrew Tate all of a sudden said that sexism is wrong and he’s sorry for his actions, only once YouTube started removing his videos, would you believe it to be genuine? Or just him trying to maintain his position?
So mentioning pedophilia 3 times over 10 years (2003-2013) makes it comparable to Andrew Tate?
It certainly seems like a convenient time to have a change of heart, no?
Let’s see. He mentions it for the last time in 2013. Then people dig up his old posts in 2019 and he responds. He had only 6 years to change his mind, very suspicious. Btw, do you know how people knew about those posts? They were on his public website. It was not a secret.
Sorry, I have no time for people who want to see children get raped.
You’re just salty, because we are going to destroy your precious little proprietary software and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
And their whole argument is based on believing that changing an opinion which wasn’t really thought that hard about at the time, and rarely stated, is implausible. But everyone holds at least some opinions which they have not done too much research on, and do not think about much. Why would this one be thought about frequently? The answer is it wouldn’t have been.
Of course, when such an opinion is scrutinised you suddenly have to dig into it and scrutinise it yourself, and this is where Stallman changed it. It’s not some mad conspiracy to save his (volunteer) job, it’s basic stuff.
I’d disengage if I were you. Eventually, they’ll get angry at you, then they’ll try to claim that you support his old, misinformed opinion (even if you explicitly condemn it).
As you’ve seen they’ll also try to claim that Stallman himself wants to do these things, when that has never been so much as hinted at. They make things up. They have no real argument.
Exactly. There have been things that I had believed for most of my life that were false. If we punish people for being wrong, then nobody will ever change their mind. The cost of doing so will be just too big.
Richard also doesn’t care if some subject seems disgusting or if his ideas seem radical to most people. He will talk about the ethics anyway, without any emotions attached. That’s what philosophers do.
They have to make it look like some conspiracy, a “cult”, etc., since they have nothing else that they could use. There are always people attracted by that sort of thinking and for them it will be enough. In 2019 we saw multiple Free Software projects joining a hate campaign against Stallman based on a blog post that misquoted him and another blog post with fake rumours. The second one was linked by the Software Freedom Conservancy (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-speak-for-us) and it contained stories like these:
I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.”
I think all of those people are either blinded by hatred or have some other motive (in this case it’s hard for me to believe they are all this stupid and can’t recognise obvious trolling). Maybe some of them want proprietary software to exist and Richard’s ideas are too radical for them. But the only way they can fight him or the FSF is with lies.
It took me a while to realise this, but 2 of the quotes that this person has posted were not full quotes. I will post them here in case you are curious.
The one from 2003:
The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, “prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia” also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people’s interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent’s will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants).
There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue.
The one from 2006 was a full quote, but that post contains a note now:
[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.]
If you genuinely believe he just happened to have an epiphany on his decades-held opinion that child rape is fine, right when his job was on the line, then I have a bridge to sell you.
And how are you unaware that top-level people in companies and in government and the like are given the opportunity to “resign” to save face when they’re being kicked out? Surely you know that’s a thing.
“Oh well he only publicly said raping children is fine a few times” - Wow. This is the level that the Stallman cult operates at? Oh well he could have publicly advocated for raping children more, so he’s a nice guy really!
Brightened my day so much finding out that sick fuck got cancer. Can’t rape kids, or advocate doing so, when you’re dead.
Let’s create a society where people can’t be wrong. Instead they will be always right! Otherwise they will get cancelled! Isn’t that a great idea?
We will only discuss opinions that everyone agrees with. Child abuse? Well, we don’t like that, so let’s pretend it doesn’t exist and never talk about it. Somebody mentions it? Cancel them! Disagrees with us? Cancel! Changed their mind? Too late! Already cancelled!
“Oh well he only publicly said raping children is fine a few times”
He never said rape, so you are wrong! Cancelled!
Brightened my day so much finding out that sick fuck got cancer. Can’t rape kids, or advocate doing so, when you’re dead.
I hate to worsen your day then, because he is not dying. You were wrong again. Double cancelled!
Stop trying to justify child rape. It’s not acceptable.
And yeah, someone who uses their workplace email address to champion the noble cause of raping children probably should be out of their job.
I know if I started talking about the merits of having sex with kids using my workplace email address, I’d be out of a job pretty quick. As would you.
This guy you simp for is a creep. I can’t believe you’re so deep in his cult that now you’re defending having sex with children. Have a word with yourself.
Removed by mod
Uh, no, there’s no one you should worship.
I have chosen to worship you based upon this position. That is all.
Indeed.
But people that publicly champion child rape, bestiality, and parent-child sexual relationships doubly so.
The fact there are so many people who are pro child rape, or at the very least pro people who are open advocates for having sex with children, is absolutely disgusting.
I would agree with a small portion of it, but pedophilia, no, no way.
Though I do have something to share on the subject. I used to go out with this girl, I was 19, she was 17. We had sex and all that (willingly, of course). Legally speaking, I was a pedophile, but let’s take a look at the age gap and how old I was.
Anyway, I wasn’t that into this girl, so I break up with her. I did know that she kinda had a crush on me, but I didn’t think it was that serious. Three weeks pass after the breakup and her dad shows up at my doorstep with 2 other guys (his relatives… or at least I presumed as much) accusing me of raping his daughter… I tried to explain that there was no such thing and that yes, we did have sex, but at no point was it against her will. Sure, I might have been the one that instigated the intercourse, but it wasn’t like she didn’t like it. Regardless, her dad was pissed as hell and even threatened to submit this to the DA 😱… I was about to be taken to trial and very possibly go to jail for what? A girl that I broke up with that was probably deeply hurt (I am sorry for that, but you can’t force someone to love someone else) and wanted to get back at me, so she involved her parrents in the ordeal, not thinking things through (of course, she’s young) how this might affect the other person and stain him FOR LIFE.
Luckily, things cooled down, I went to talk to her parrents about this, I said I was sorry and I shouldn’t have had sex with her, but the truth of the matter was that, I didn’t rape her! They also called her to confront me on this, we had a long converstaion with her parrents present, she was furious, lying through her teeth, portraying every single time we had sex as rape. I think her parrents saw through this, since there were personal insults at my expense, not to mention that “why did you break up with me!?” was mentioned quite a few times throught the conversation and that kinda sealed the case that this was nothing more than a broken heart. I promised them I’ll never contact her again, for her sake (and mine as well), and to let her heal, and I never did.
My point is, things could have ended up being A LOT worse for me. I think that me showing up alone at their house kinda made them think about the whole situation and that maybe our daughter is actually lying to us (why would I show up there and risk getting my head chopped off if I really did rape her, right). Just goes to show you that people can be mean, take advantage of a certain situation and portray it as something completely different.
I always asked a partner’s age after that, ALWAYS. Unless it was blaintly obvious she’s not a minor.
This wouldn’t be illegal in the UK or many countries. Age of consent is 16 here. From what I’ve read, USA is an outlier that infantises young adults to impose mortality.
Always weird because the music videos exported by the US are often soft porn and the music industry has a thing for barely legal girls.
In Russia too. Until 2003 it was 14.
I don’t live in the US BTW. I said “the DA” to conform to what most of the viewers on Lemmy are used to (most are US citizens). In reality we don’t have a district attourney, you involve the police and the state takes care of things onwards.
Which just goes to show you that that “imposed morality” thing isn’t really working… in the US or anywhere else. The US is somewhere at the top by number of pedophiles vs. number of population.
Out of curiosity, where are you from?
Macedonia, the Balkans.
Ah cool. I do like that Lemmy feels more distributed than Reddit. Too many Americans on it.
Yeah, it kinda feels that there is more diversity here, but still, I do belive the majority is from the US, so I sometimes cater in my comments to that part of the population, just to cut down on explaining myself afterwards.
The age of consent is 16 in most places. Like half of Europe, half of the US states.
RMS wasn’t talking about 16/17 year olds.
There’s very obviously not anything wrong with a 17 year old having sex with a 16 year old.
I was 19, she was 17.
Still, if he’s talking about cases like mine, yes, I can get onboard with that. But with an age gap of 10+ years, no, I really can’t.
My mom was almost 20 years younger than my dad m, but she was 27 and he was 46. That may seem weird, but both of them are adults.
When I read your story originally I remember that I had mixed feelings. But lately I’ve been reading some of the lies that RMS haters tell about him and his views on sex. Reading his blog posts changed my mind about some things and now I’ve realised that you were right and that RMS has a similar opinion.
Richard Stallman was criticised for saying that it’s normal for teenagers (Stallman defines them as people that are at least 14 years old) to have sex with adults. He believes that the laws that call sex with children or teenagers “rape” are dishonest and that the definition of rape shouldn’t depend on someone’s age. His haters criticised him for that too, but your story shows how crazy such laws are.
When he made that statement about pedophilia, I think he was just trying to extend the rights that teenagers normally have onto children (Stallman defines them as people that are 13 years old or younger). I think that he meant well and he really didn’t realise that pedophilia is harmful.
I’ve been thinking about the age gap argument and that’s also something his haters like to point out. I think Stallman doesn’t believe that an age gap itself is wrong. So I’m curious why do you think it’s wrong? I couldn’t think of a logical reason and I realised that I’m unable to define what the acceptable age gap should be. Because as you pointed out, big age gaps seem weird even when both people are adults:
This is unusual, but it’s not wrong. So why would big age gaps be wrong for a teenager and an adult? After all we accept that teenagers should be able to have control over their own bodies (at least in most of Europe and most of US). So shouldn’t it be their decision?
Sorry for posting such a long comment on an old post. I just realised how insane the whole hate campaign against RMS was, because he is right about most of the things he was criticised for.
Most teenagers are too young at 14 to know how the consequneces of their actions might reverbirate in their lives. Sure, they might feel up to the task, but ask any saman of any tribe, 18, 19 is the age when you actually get to be called an adult. Yes, they still lack eperience, by they make up for it by having youth. You put tyem in risky situations so they learn. Old people aren’t wiser, they just have more life experience.
So, my conclusion would be, 14 is too young (in general, doesn’t mean there aren’t 14 year olds thinking like 20 year olds). 16… depends, but with proper guidnace, a lot better than 14. So… yeah, I would be willing to lower the bar, IF parrenting wasn’t seen as a role, but as a duty (this is a diffeent converstaion).
The reasons I explained above: not enough life experience.
That “control” is mostly imaginary (as it should be), They THINK they’re in control, but when pushing comes to shoving, they always call the parrents (again, as it should be). There is nothing wrong with that, their parrents know them best (or at least how things should be) and they probably know why they did what they did (again, in this world, this is a best case scenario… these things should be REALLY, realy analyzed by people far smarter than me). So, the assumption is, shit happened, they’re young, they can lie out of spite, which makes thigs even harder… let’s find out what happened 🤷.
As I said, I would agree about SOME of the things (I would call them sane defaults) he said, but not everything. 14 is too young in most cases. 16… I could probably start debating in that.
Thanks for the answer. So it’s not really about the age gap itself? You just think that the age of consent should be 16 or higher? Or is it both?
Is it possible that you are thinking that, because age of consent is very high in your country? I imagine that people who live for example in Germany, where age of consent is 14, might not think the same. In most of Europe it’s 14-16. In some countries teenagers can even get an abortion.
16 or higher, yes. But, the age gap shouldn’t be too big at that age as well. My personal opinion, 10 years at that age, max. Anything above 25, add whatever age gap you wan’t, they are adults in the true meaning of the word.
Hm… maybe. After all, I was raised that way.
But still, I’ve seen how much teenagers at that age have going on up there, they’re just thrill seekers at that age, they really don’t know anything about life, they could easilly be fooled by someone older than them.
You are right about teenagers, but on the other hand not all people are the same. For some reason we’ve decided that they are competent to make those kinds of decisions and to do other things like driving a car. So even though they are not adults, we don’t think of them as children either. There is probably no simple answer to this question, though.
Suddenly reminded about Shurigina.
Because we’re in a community dedicated to memes and this post is making fun of RMS. Your reaction is misappropriate, especially with this question.
It’s not really making fun of him, it’s the usual treating him like a deity figure.
Just look at the jumping through hoops to defend him that people are doing and always do whenever his… uh… unorthodox views on child rape come up.
COOL GUY CLUB 🎸
Why don’t you include the more recent postings in which he states his opinion has changed? The most recent one here is 11 years old.
Thats the thing about saying an opinion on the internet, its tied to you forever. In real life people tend to change their minds and can re-evaluate on their own shitty opinions after a few decades. Not always, but it happens. But that doesn’t change the fact you said that thing that one time 20 years ago. The people who don’t really care about you and just want a mental straw man to hate don’t care about things like personal growth or that you have changed stance, just that you thought that bad thing at one time.
Im personally guilty of saying some real edgelord shit as a teenager on the internet. If someone somehow collected a few comments I made when I was 15 and went on a 5 paragraph essay about how terrible of a person I am now it would make me roll my eyes and tell them to get bent. Who I was as a 15 year old and my opinions then is completely independent of who I am now and my current stances. But the 5-paragrapher doesn’t care about that, they got their ragebait strawman and a ride on the high horse so they are happy.
Very well said. I think people tend to not realise that personal development is really a thing that happened when they have instant access to the old opinions of people online.
Incredible that this personal development where he suddenly realised raping children is a bad thing, after decades of publicly championing it (and even using his workplace email address to do so), happened immediately after his job became on the line and there were public calls for him to step down/be removed.
Almost unbelievable, even.
I’ve already replied to you regarding this exact stance you have. Readers: check my (or their) comment history for what I have previously replied. Tl;dr they’re linking two completely unrelated situations together to create a narrative that his past opinions are why he resigned. Opinions which have since changed, and the thing that made him resign was where he was being pedantic, while STILL DENOUNCING what had happened to Epstein’s victims (a part which is often conveniently cut).
You don’t need to post it again. You’d do better just responding to the first one and not posting it again making it look as it hasn’t been responded to.
You repeated your stance, what’s wrong with me doing the same?
I repeated my stance to reiterate my point, which you seemingly ignored since you repeated your points (which I addressed!) again.
I’m not entirely sure why you repeated yours even after it was addressed, without so much as an acknowledgement that it had been addressed, it’s pointless at best and bad faith at worst. I can only assume the point of that was to make it look like I had not already addressed those points and that they were completely valid.
And I repeated mine to reiterate my point. No need for this conspiracy theory.
We aren’t talking about one thing said 20 years go though, we’re talking about something repeated across decades by someone who was a grown man even then, and who only said otherwise when it was convenient to do so to try to keep his job.
Now, maybe he genuinely did just happen to change his mind on whether child rape is ok or not a mere few days after there were calls for him to step down. I just personally don’t believe it.
I agree with your point, but I don’t think this applies to Stallman at all.
Because he is biased.
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Lol, you mean when he changed his opinion 4 days after his comments were outed, and only when it looked like his job was untenable?
Seems awfully convenient that RMS would change his decades-held opinion that paedophilia is fine mere days after he found himself in hot water.
If Andrew Tate, right when Google was mulling over removing his content from YouTube, said “you know, I actually think misogyny is a bad thing. Honest.”, would you believe him? Would you think he’s a changed man?
I wouldn’t. But maybe you’re just more trusting than I am.
It’s funny, because he didn’t get fired, he resigned. And he never returned to his previous position. It wasn’t about losing his job, or getting it back. It was that he grew and changed his opinion. Unless you believe people can’t grow?
And the incident which made him do that (where he even said what was done is wrong!) is not related to the previous comments you’ve listed.
Hey, wasn’t Bill Gates on Epstein’s flight logs? The same Bill Gates who claims he’s never been on any of his islands? Huh, someone with genuine connections and not just pedantic with words. Someone should really look into that. Funny how nobody brings up those who are actually involved.
EDIT: why’d you add two whole paragraphs about Tate a day after I replied? Were you hoping I wouldn’t notice and it’d look like I ignored them? The difference is Tate continually reiterates his opinions (I.e. there’s not a decade gap between him saying it and then saying his opinion changed in light of evidence) and also, actually acts on them (which Stallman has never done).
People in high up positions often “resign” when their position is no longer tenable.
It’s an opportunity afforded to people at the top so they can save face.
I don’t see why you’re bringing whataboutism about Gates into this. The discussion isn’t about Gates, nor do I like Gates. Why bring him up other than to muddy the debate and shift focus away from padeo-champion RMS?
The discussion is about RMS being pro paedophilia, and his cult being in denial about that fact.
He still didn’t return to his position. And again, the things said that lead to him resigning are not related to his previous comments. And again, he actually denounced what happened, in that email chain. He absolutely wasn’t defending it. Go read it yourself, in full. Not some chopped up version.
Hey, Stallman answers his emails, how about you ask him what his opinions are yourself?
rms@gnu.org
Also, I’m bringing up Gates because while there’s massive uproar over some misplaced pedantry a lifelong activist did (again, while denouncing what happened and saying Epstein is described too lightly), it seems eerily silent when it comes to people in the same sector actually having real connections to Epstein and not just unpopular opinions on how words should be used.
I didn’t say he returned to his position.
The entire thing led to him resigning. It was his comments on Epstein that got the ball rolling, but people bringing up his public championing of child rape using his work email address, as well as women alleging that he had been creepy with them, all led to him losing his position.
Look, you can defend him all you want. That’s fine. I’m just on the “child rape is bad” side of the fence.
We’re on the same side of that fence, don’t think you’re smart by painting me as pro-pedo. It’s incredibly disingenuous and tells me you’re running out of arguments to stand on. Stallman is of the belief that that is bad, and has denounced Epstein’s actions. And even if he didn’t, he still did nothing himself, so I’m not sure how me making the point that Stallman isn’t the devil opponents say he is makes me belong on “that side of the fence”?
The “creepy” allegations have all been debunked iirc. I’ve heard of one about a mattress in his office, which wasn’t even in his office or his mattress? I’ve also heard of him giving a business card (why is that creepy?). If you have any examples with actual evidence which isn’t just “I heard that she said that he said”, feel free to share and I’ll look.
My point about him not returning to his previous position makes the argiment that him taking back his previous views wasn’t just to return to the job he had. As you said that he didn’t actually have a legitimate reason to change his opinion. Because if you don’t like someone, it means they never have a benign reason to change their opinions!
No he isn’t of the opinion that paedophilia is bad, because he has publicly said it’s fine/good several times!
And no, he suddenly “changed his mind” as a last-ditch effort to save his job, and it failed.
If you genuinely believe he had an epiphany and did a complete 180 that just happened to perfectly align with him coming under fire, then you’re pretty naive.
This cult behaviour is fucking weird, dude. The guy repeatedly states that having sex with children is fine and yet you’re fine with him. Re-evaluate your position.
Oof, I wish that I haven’t heard about this
It’s unfortunate. And it’s very strange that a lot of the cult just ignores it or actively covers it up
I was banned from the Reddit sub because of it lol, hopefully here doesn’t have the same mods
Yea, at the moment I think (or want to think) that he himself doesn’t pose a threath to children or is pedo and also do belive that he generally is a person with a good intent with a terrible take on this topic.
This is something he mentioned literally a few times between 2003 and 2013 (and he talks about a lot of stuff - check stallman.org) and he doesn’t even believe anymore. In 2019 he said that it was something he used to believe, but he realised he was wrong. You can read it on Wikipedia (unfortunately I can’t find the original source for the quote right now): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies
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What’s the problem? You want people to not discuss things that are offensive? It’s a shame he used to believe that, but he changed his mind, admitted to being wrong and moved on.
What would you want to happen instead? That we cancel people, because they have an opinion we don’t like?
What job? The position at his foundation that he does for free? If he only cared about keeping it, why did he quit 2 days later?
He didn’t change his mind. He only “changed his mind” to try to keep his job, and it didn’t work.
He was only sorry once he got a lot of flak for his pro child rape opinions.
Put it this way - if Andrew Tate all of a sudden said that sexism is wrong and he’s sorry for his actions, only once YouTube started removing his videos, would you believe it to be genuine? Or just him trying to maintain his position? It certainly seems like a convenient time to have a change of heart, no?
And he didn’t “quit” he was ousted. He “resigned” in the same way Liz Truss did, for example.
Sorry, I have no time for people who want to see children get raped.
So him changing his mind was fake, him leaving his own foundation was fake, is there anything that could prove you wrong then?
No, he got in trouble, because he was misquoted by the media when he talked about Minsky. If he is such a liar, why didn’t he apologize for that, since that was actually what the drama was about? He could have said that he was wrong and that he no longer believed that. But for some weird reason he didn’t.
So mentioning pedophilia 3 times over 10 years (2003-2013) makes it comparable to Andrew Tate?
Let’s see. He mentions it for the last time in 2013. Then people dig up his old posts in 2019 and he responds. He had only 6 years to change his mind, very suspicious. Btw, do you know how people knew about those posts? They were on his public website. It was not a secret.
You’re just salty, because we are going to destroy your precious little proprietary software and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
They’re obsessed.
And their whole argument is based on believing that changing an opinion which wasn’t really thought that hard about at the time, and rarely stated, is implausible. But everyone holds at least some opinions which they have not done too much research on, and do not think about much. Why would this one be thought about frequently? The answer is it wouldn’t have been.
Of course, when such an opinion is scrutinised you suddenly have to dig into it and scrutinise it yourself, and this is where Stallman changed it. It’s not some mad conspiracy to save his (volunteer) job, it’s basic stuff.
I’d disengage if I were you. Eventually, they’ll get angry at you, then they’ll try to claim that you support his old, misinformed opinion (even if you explicitly condemn it).
As you’ve seen they’ll also try to claim that Stallman himself wants to do these things, when that has never been so much as hinted at. They make things up. They have no real argument.
Exactly. There have been things that I had believed for most of my life that were false. If we punish people for being wrong, then nobody will ever change their mind. The cost of doing so will be just too big.
Richard also doesn’t care if some subject seems disgusting or if his ideas seem radical to most people. He will talk about the ethics anyway, without any emotions attached. That’s what philosophers do.
They have to make it look like some conspiracy, a “cult”, etc., since they have nothing else that they could use. There are always people attracted by that sort of thinking and for them it will be enough. In 2019 we saw multiple Free Software projects joining a hate campaign against Stallman based on a blog post that misquoted him and another blog post with fake rumours. The second one was linked by the Software Freedom Conservancy (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-speak-for-us) and it contained stories like these:
I think all of those people are either blinded by hatred or have some other motive (in this case it’s hard for me to believe they are all this stupid and can’t recognise obvious trolling). Maybe some of them want proprietary software to exist and Richard’s ideas are too radical for them. But the only way they can fight him or the FSF is with lies.
It took me a while to realise this, but 2 of the quotes that this person has posted were not full quotes. I will post them here in case you are curious.
The one from 2003:
Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2003-mar-jun.html
The one from 2013:
Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#04_January_2013_(Pedophilia)
The one from 2006 was a full quote, but that post contains a note now:
Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05 June 2006 (Dutch paedophiles form political party)
If you genuinely believe he just happened to have an epiphany on his decades-held opinion that child rape is fine, right when his job was on the line, then I have a bridge to sell you.
And how are you unaware that top-level people in companies and in government and the like are given the opportunity to “resign” to save face when they’re being kicked out? Surely you know that’s a thing.
“Oh well he only publicly said raping children is fine a few times” - Wow. This is the level that the Stallman cult operates at? Oh well he could have publicly advocated for raping children more, so he’s a nice guy really!
Brightened my day so much finding out that sick fuck got cancer. Can’t rape kids, or advocate doing so, when you’re dead.
Let’s create a society where people can’t be wrong. Instead they will be always right! Otherwise they will get cancelled! Isn’t that a great idea?
We will only discuss opinions that everyone agrees with. Child abuse? Well, we don’t like that, so let’s pretend it doesn’t exist and never talk about it. Somebody mentions it? Cancel them! Disagrees with us? Cancel! Changed their mind? Too late! Already cancelled!
He never said rape, so you are wrong! Cancelled!
I hate to worsen your day then, because he is not dying. You were wrong again. Double cancelled!
Stop trying to justify child rape. It’s not acceptable.
And yeah, someone who uses their workplace email address to champion the noble cause of raping children probably should be out of their job.
I know if I started talking about the merits of having sex with kids using my workplace email address, I’d be out of a job pretty quick. As would you.
This guy you simp for is a creep. I can’t believe you’re so deep in his cult that now you’re defending having sex with children. Have a word with yourself.
Don’t talk to me, you are cancelled.
Cool beans. Don’t want to talk to a paedophile lover anyway.
Remember, children can’t consent and they don’t want your dick.