this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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I hate the RMS cult. He's done good stuff for software, but he's not a guy you should worship.
Richard Stallman on paedophilia:
RMS on June 28th, 2003
RMS on June 5th, 2006
RMS on Jan 4th, 2013
E: FFS. "But he changed his mind" - no, he put out a statement saying he doesn't believe those decades-held opinions days after there were calls to remove him from a public-facing position. Call me a pessimist, but that timing seems awfully convenient to me. He didn't change his mind, he was just trying to keep his job.
The RMS cult is fucking insane. Are the downvoters paedophiles too, or are they merely fine turning a blind eye to these views, just because their guy was the one to say it? If it was, idk, Zuckerberg who said this, would you defend him like you people are defending Stallman?
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.
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.
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.
Because he is biased.
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.
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?
COOL GUY CLUB πΈ
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 π±... 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.
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 π€·.
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.
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.