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It's notable that all of these anecdotes are from back in the '90s and before; since I assume Stallman's accusers dug around very hard for material and this is the best they could find, it stands to reason that he probably has long since improved in that regard. Moreover, the same cluster of people among others has seriously been arguing (https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...) that a mattress in the office of someone whose every public profile involves a mention of how he slept in the office for years to develop GNU is unambiguous sexual innuendo (quote: "He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it."). I am not sure how trustworthy their accounts can be considered to begin with.

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I don't think it is even worth focusing in on specific issues; throwing mud at Stallman's character is post-hoc rationalisation for a situation created by thoughtcrime.

Even if the mud sticks, the major problem is that Stallman was forced to resign after what appears to be (from public info) a moral panic. People acting on moral panics is really bad; good process is slow process.

There are real complaints about Stallman. There have been since the 90s. If it looked like he was resigning because of those then that would be a totally different kettle of fish.

I don’t mean to quibble and I really want to strsss this next point: I’m absolutely as lost as we all seem to be regarding how some people in our communities should be dealt with. I don’t yet know how we’ll choose to handle them. But anyway, using the term “thoughtcrime” feels incredibly disingenuous and could easily be misconstrued as intentionally inflammatory. Obviously you wouldn’t be intentionally inflammatory on HN so Im guessing you’re accidentally using the incorrect term–since most of the accounts we’ve seen are actual actions he has taken, it did not stay inside his mind, it was manifested into actual action in the real world towards other people, this just isn’t “thoughtcrime.” Even the people who were closest to him are very publicly discussing that there were a great many actual real world actions which made them feel everything from uncomfortable to intentionally avoiding him, again, even the people closest to him say these incidents were happening out in the open and happening regular enough to make them uncomfortable even when they weren’t the targets of his behavior.

Like I said, I had an immense amount of respect for him, I met him quite a few times, but I’m as lost as we all seem to be on how our communities should deal with folks like this. Either way, let’s at least try our best on HN to not accidentally inflame or accidentally mislead people.

Thoughtcrime is an apt description for the events that triggered this moral panic.

"Thoughtcrime" here refers to the mere expression of taboo opinions, independent of a person's actual behavior towards others.

It seems to be the case that Stallman did engage in inappropriate behavior - which perhaps should have been dealt with differently by CSAIL, MIT, the FSF board etc. The appropriate response may very well have been to ask for his resignation.

But those behaviors are not why he was asked to resign. Reference to his past behavior was a post-hoc rationalization. It seems the real reason he was fired was because he expressed a difference of opinion over the nature of Marvin Minksy's guilt as a result of his association with Epstein.

Well, it wasn't even about the opinion he expressed, rather he was fired because someone publicly misinterpreted his opinion, and that mistaken opinion was picked up by the media.

Well, it wasn't even about the misinterpreted opinion. He was fired because MIT is (I'm sure) facing some very serious scrutiny over it's entanglements with Epstein, and the very real concern that one of it's famed professors may have been a co-conspirator in a powerful and depraved criminal ring. The whole Stallman affair serves as a nice deflection from that scrutiny.

As it stands, it does not even look like Minsky ever participated in said criminal activity (as far as I can tell, the victim only said that she was compelled to offer herself to Minsky, and another witness claimed that Minksy turned her down). While there likely were many powerful people who were knowing participants in Epstein's activities, it seems that Epstein was also someone who liked to befriend very smart STEM folks, and not all of them may have been aware as to what exactly Epstein was involved in.

People in public positions have always had to be careful about what they say. It really lowers the quality of discussion to talk about "thought crime" in this context. Stallman isn't being thrown into prison for expressing his political views. He's being fired from his job (to the extent that it is a job) for making ill-judged and offensive comments.

> It seems the real reason he was fired was because he expressed a difference of opinion over the nature of Marvin Minksy's guilt as a result of his association with Epstein.

No, thats not it. The inflammatory comment was the following:

>“It is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17".

This statement is as clear as mud, but it certainly seems to suggest that age shouldn't be considered as a factor in determining consent.

Do you think RMS argument is wrong here though? Why?

Age of consent in my (European) country is 16. Do you think we are all rapists here? And looking up the law 14 is permissible (with a few caveats), even if the other person is over 21.

In the United States it depends on the state. So Minsky would have done a horrible rape crime in the US Virgin Islands (age of consent 18), but in Massachusetts (age of consent 16) ... it would be all perfectly fine and A-okay? This appeal to law seems a bit relativistic for making a moral judgement?

I don't see how what you're saying is relevant. RMS said that the age was a "minor detail". He didn't make any claim about what the age of consent should be. Given his previous comments, one suspects he doesn't think there should be one: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...

He said age "17 or 18" is a minor detail, which from my perspective, coming from a country which has an age of consent under both, I agree.

I don't understand what he means by that. If there is an age of consent, then some people will be under it by a year. What is the alternative? In your country, there are also people a year under the age of consent. Whether not someone is above the age of consent cannot possibly be considered a "minor detail" in determining whether or not they consented.

Put it this way a member of the Norwegian government has been widely reported to have had sex with a drunk 17 year old (I am not certain whether the reports are true since the teenager has declined to comment). If the age of consent were 18 then the minister would have been investigated by the police. Since it is 16 the minister continues to serve in the government without stigma. Big difference in outcomes but the teenager is the same age.

Of course there has to be a cutoff. 16 seems reasonable to me. But I would not have sex with any teenager.

>Of course there has to be a cutoff.

In which case the difference between $AGE and $AGE-1 is not a "minor detail".

Legally speaking no it is not. Morally speaking yes it can be (depending on many factors).

Some legal systems attempt to account for this. E.g. England and Wales have two key ages. Having sex with someone under 16 might be (to use US terms) rape or statutory rape depending on whether the person under 16 consented. Both are illegal but rape more so. Having sex with someone under 13 is always rape since children under 13 are not considered able to consent. But in some cases 16 is not the cutoff if e.g. a teacher has sex with a pupil under 18 this is also always illegal. On the other hand if the defendant genuinely did not know the chief witness was under 16 and there was consent this is a defense.

RMS was objecting to the legal definition of rape (hence the reference to it varying between countries). But if you want to switch to the moral issue, then that’s even more black and white. Is it ok for a 70 year old man in a position of power to (hypothetically) have sex with a 17 year old girl? Erm, no. Can sex in such circumstances be fully consensual? No, it can’t. So if your suggestion is that RMS was making some kind of defensible moral argument, I can’t imagine what it might be.

I happen to be English so I’m familiar with the laws in England. I don’t see how any of that is relevant. The English law has cutoffs of exactly the same kind (it’s just that the relevant age threshold is usually 16 rather than 18). Obviously, no-one thinks that any such threshold can be completely non-arbitrary. It is just as "morally absurd" for sex between two 16 year olds to be legal and sex between a 16 year old and a 15 year old to be illegal. But unless - like RMS - you fail to recognize that age is a factor in consent, you have to make a cut somewhere. Apparently, from RMS's point of view, the most troubling feature of such laws is that they may prevent 70 year old Profs screwing 17 year old girls.

> it ok for a 70 year old man in a position of power to (hypothetically) have sex with a 17 year old girl. Erm, no. Can sex in such circumstances be fully consensual? No, it can’t

I provided an example with a government minister in Norway already... The minister in question remains in the government (the allegations are unproven but would easily be enough to destroy a British politician). Clearly two very similar western countries have very different moral stances on sex between consenting adults!

With regards most of the rest of your post we are largely in agreement.

Except regarding your misunderstanding of RMS's position. I invite you to read what he wrote yourself and revert if you think that is what he actually meant to say! Or to edit your post.

We're both discussing what he wrote.

Terje Søviknes seems the closest match to your description. For an adult in a position of power to get a 16 year old drunk and then have sex with them is obviously wrong. It's certainly caused a scandal in Norway: https://exepose.com/2018/02/15/endless-sex-scandals-in-norwe...

You apparently regard the case as one involving "consenting adults", even though you describe the girl as drunk! It does seem that at bottom, the tiny minority of people who think they've found a morally defensible interpretation of RMS's comments are the people who are basically ok with adult men sexually exploiting teenage girls. Or at least, who think it's very important to sharply distinguish these people from "real" rapists.

I assume that the politician you are referring to remains in power because the allegations are (you say) unproven.

> We're both discussing what he wrote.

I'm not prepared to discus that further with you until you can justify or retract your libelous interpretation.

As for the government minister that is not the one in question. I found the one involving Trine Skei Grande far more comparable https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/a2Wp1M/han-var-17-skei.... Even so you will note that the minister you mention can continue to serve as an MP.

What made you pick out the Terje Søviknes case over the Trine Grande case?

So many to choose from! You didn't give a name, and I can't read your mind.

I said explicitly that the minister in question remained in government, that the teenager in question was 17 and that there was no suggestion of coercion. There was no need to even name names these facts stand on their own.

At the time the age of consent was 16 in the US Virgin Islands...

It doesn't suggest that age shouldn't be considered. It says the difference between 17 and 18 years old is minor. The justification is that depending on which country or even state within a country you're in you could be committing "rape" in one and not committing any crime in another. As rape is a word most people understand as awful violent crime it is absurd for it to depend on details like exact location where it takes place.

It could (and should) be called differently. If you call a consensual sex with 17 years old "rape" you're doing disservice to real rape victims.

There has to be an age of consent. Sex without consent is rape. I don't see the problem. Different countries have slightly different definitions of pretty much every crime in the book. Whether or not you are committing fraud, burglary, assault, etc. etc., will also depend on a number of "minor details" that may vary between jurisdictions. Either RMS thinks there should be an age of consent, in which case it's obvious that the age in question must be somewhat arbitrary, or he doesn't think there should be an age of consent. Given RMS's previous comments on the same subject, it's pretty clear what he's saying here: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...

> Given RMS's previous comments on the same subject, it's pretty clear what he's saying here

While I do disagree with Stallman's statement here, I think it's important to point out that your insinuation is not justified.

He did not say that he thought pedophilia was good, only that he was skeptical of the claims that it was bad because he'd only ever been presented with examples of involuntary pedophilia. In the intervening years since this comment was made and the present, his mind has been changed on the subject.

He said that he was "skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children". Thus, it's not surprising that he thinks age is irrelevant to the question of whether or not someone was raped. I feel that my insinuation is therefore entirely justified.

> because he'd only ever been presented with examples of involuntary pedophilia

This framing only underlines the point: if you think that children can "voluntarily" have sex with adults, then clearly you don't think age is relevant to consent! It's overwhelmingly obvious what RMS thinks here. He thinks that it's ok for old men to have sex with "willing" teenagers. I.e., he rejects the entire basis of an age of consent.

>In the intervening years since this comment was made and the present, his mind has been changed on the subject.

Can you provide a reference to his supposed retraction of this statement dated before September 2019? As far as I can see, he only retracted this statement - which remained on his website for many years - after this whole shit storm started. And without apology or any hint of shame. You can see Stallman saying similar things about the age of consent as late as 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20180924231708/https://www.stall...

Just to reiterate, the subject under debate is what Stallman meant by the claim that the difference between 18 and 17 years old "is a minor detail".

You claim he means "there should be no age of consent"

Others are arguing he means "the difference between those particular ages is minor, and both could be considered reasonable ages of consent".

We could debate endlessly on what Stallman feels in general about the age of consent, but with regards to that particular comment I cannot see how your interpretation is justified given the particular words he chose for that specific comment. If he had wanted to argue that there is no need for an age of consent, then I'm sure he would have chosen words that meant that.

> Can you provide a reference to his supposed retraction of this statement dated before September 2019?

No, but Stallman doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would be dishonest in that manner.

> You can see Stallman saying similar things about the age of consent as late as 2018

That's a stretch. He does not mention age of consent (although he does not seem to be bothered by the fact that the young woman was 16). He does however draw a distinction between adolescence (late adolescence in particular) and childhood, which would seem to be relevant.

>Others are arguing he means "the difference between those particular ages is minor, and both could be considered reasonable ages of consent".

That does not make it "morally absurd" to set 18 as the legal age of consent, so I don't think that's a plausible reading of what RMS said. He could only find the idea morally absurd if he found the idea of the age of consent morally absurd - which is consistent with everything he's ever said that touches on the issue. If he was merely quibbling about the age, he'd say "I think the age of consent should be a bit lower."

>No, but Stallman doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would be dishonest in that manner.

It's not clear what you are referring to here. I'm not much impressed by someone later saying that they changed their mind a long time ago (if you have a reference to RMS saying that - I don't). Grossly wrong public statements should be publicly retracted. If they're not retracted, then they're fair game for criticism.

>although he does not seem to be bothered by the fact that the young woman was 16)

He says "she may have had — I expect, did have — entirely willing sex with him, and they would still call it 'assault'". That is, he thinks the fact that the girl was a teenager (and he didn't know she was 16 specifically in the earlier version of the comment) is no barrier to her having "willing" sex with an older man. It's painfully obvious what RMS thinks. He thinks that age should not be a factor in deciding whether or not someone was raped or sexually assaulted, since people of any age (or at least, teens up) can "willingly" have sex with much older adults.

> That does not make it "morally absurd" to set 18 as the legal age of consent

Looking again at what he said, I think his main point was about whether the particular hypothetical should be dubbed "rape". Now, you may say "someone under the legal age of consent cannot give said consent, so ergo the act is rape". Which is true, but even when the law has to draw a bright line regarding the age of consent, the law still does distinguish between "statutory rape" and "forcible rape". Both are wrong, but the latter is generally considered moreso. Furthermore, statutory rape tends to have more exceptions when the victim is closer to the age of consent.

If we are going to use the term "rape" in an unqualified manner, then the usual connotation is "forcible rape". I think it is fair to object to the unqualified use of the term where the victim was appeared to be a willing individual above the age of consent.

It's a bit like calling Martin Luther King Jr. a "criminal". Yes, he was put in jail, and technically he did violate local law, but the activity he was engaged in (non-violent protest of unjust laws) hardly fits the expected model of what is typically implied by the word "criminal".[1]

Now I bring this up not in order to compare the character of either Minsky or Stallman with MLK, but merely draw attention to a fallacy of reasoning known as the non-central fallacy[2].

An edge case in the manner of statutory rape (where the victim seemed to be willing and of age, and was in fact close to the age of consent) is still likely illegal and wrong, but we should still take care to note how such a case differs from a more central example of forcible rape.

> It's not clear what you are referring to here. I'm not much impressed by someone later saying that they changed their mind a long time ago (if you have a reference to RMS saying that - I don't). Grossly wrong public statements should be publicly retracted. If they're not retracted, then they're fair game for criticism.

My understanding is that he did make a public retraction of sorts this month. It's still an open question as to when he thinks the age of consent is, but I do believe he thinks there at least is one. Despite the timing of his retraction, I do think he was sincere.

[1] You've mentioned elsewhere that you are English, so I don't know how salient the example is to you. I hope it makes sense. [2]https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...

It's difficult to see why Stallman would choose this case to make a point about rape vs. statutory rape. If you look at the context, the person he was replying to was pointing out that Minsky having sex with the girl in question (if this happened) might have legally constituted rape.

Statutory rape may in some cases not be a serious crime (e.g. an 18 hear old having sex with a 17 year old), but we are talking here, hypothetically, about a 70 year old man having sex with a 17 year old sex slave. And yeah, when you are a 70 year old man being offered sex for free by an attractive teenage girl who for some reason lives on your weirdo chum's private island, I do think some degree of due dillegence is required.

>My understanding is that he did make a public retraction of sorts this month

I know - I mentioned that. I asked if there was any evidence that he'd changed his views prior to September 2019. There appears not to be. And he has never apologised or shown any hint of shame.

>Lesswrong

No idea why you think this interminable blog post is relevant. But of course it's no surprise that you're linking to Lesswrong, which has a history of burying serious discussion of rape and sexual assault in endless reams of pseudorationalist bafflegab.

The point is that consensual sex with 17 years old is not rape no matter what the law in particular jurisdiction says. Call it something else like sexual misconduct for example. By calling it rape you're demeaning the term. You can't reasonably use the word rape for something that vast majority of people in Western culture consider to be perfectly ok behavior or maybe a bit indecent but certainly not criminal. You're just demeaning the term of you do that.

Just because it's called statutory rape in US law doesn't mean it's a serious crime in all cases and shouldn't be called in a way to suggest that. That's the point Stallman makes and imo it's the obvious one.

I think in the case where there's such a huge age gap, and where the girl is a sex slave, it is serious crime. The girl could not meaningfully have consented.

But in any case, the poster that Stallman was responding to was merely pointing out that what Minsky allegedly did probably would constitute rape in the relevant jurisdiction.

If Stallman, for whatever weird reason, has some kind of a semantic program for reforming terminology relating to rape and sexual assault, then he chose the worst possible time, manner and place to put it forward. Especially given that he is previously on record as believing that sex between adults and much younger children can be 'consensual'. He's a best a goof on these topics, and at worst a serial creep and harasser. He has only himself to blame.

>how some people in our communities should be dealt with

Fork. See the glimpse project. If it's more inclusive, it will naturally accumulate all alienated contributors.

The contemporary misinterpretation of the mattress aside, RMS already had already earned his reputation in the 90s, as had at least one other OSS luminary of the time.

Case in point: RMS's incredibly uncomfortable St iGNUcius routine was already legendary.[0]

Does he intend for it to be awkward at best, and offensive at worst? I doubt it. Has people told him that it is not received as he intends? Definitely. Does he change his behavior to better reflect his purported views of inclusiveness? Nope.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you intend your actions to be interpreted, it only matters how they actually are interpreted. That failure to adapt to clear feedback, is problem.

[0] From 2009 https://mjg59.livejournal.com/113408.html

I do not think that a tacky joke about "emacs virgins" as part of a comedy routine parodying real religious movements past and present deserves being treated as a punishable offense at all. Not only do I think that this should not be objectionable and those who try to make it out to be are contributing to our society being a worse place than it has to be, calls for punishment on the basis of it also strike me as plainly hypocritical in an age where beloved and respected media and tech figures can use the sexual history of members of their political outgroup as an insult ("incel", "cuck") and are applauded for it.

Long before the current iteration of our dominant ideology, people talked about the slut-versus-stud distinction[1] as one of the ways in which sexism manifests itself in our society. It seems to me that both the circumstance that we would find Stallman joking about female sexual inexperience intrinsically scandalous, and the circumstance that we find $twitterpersonality taking actual malicious shots at male sexual inexperience okay, would serve to reinforce this double standard, not combat it. Consider the possibility that at the very least, the people who are now actually interpreting Stallman's remark as offensive may at least not have been considered good feminists back in 2009, when mjg59's post and my citation were written. Should we fault Stallman for acting ineptly but ultimately in line with what was probably the "best" advice at the time?

[1] https://www.gender-focus.com/2009/11/22/slut-vs-stud/

Assuming good faith, I’m old enough to remember not only 2009, but also the 1990s.

This tacky joke wasn’t considered to be in line with the best advice at either time. While you may need to take my word for 1990s, the very fact that there are multiple contemporaneous articles about the inappropriateness of the 2009 skit, is evidence of that. I will concede that the tolerance for the tacky joke may have been a bit higher in 1990, or even 1999, than it was 2009. Also, to reiterate, I do not think that it is RMS’s intention to offend, but offend he none the less does.

I am confused by the line of thought about someone that may not have been considered a good feminist in 2009, but in 2019 may be considered a good one. People are always welcome to change and adapt their behaviors and opinions to be more inclusive. Furthermore, it is especially welcome to acknowledge past behavior that doesn’t rise to one’s current standards. That is the expected outcome of education, growth, and maturity. To steadfastly refuse to change behavior when it is brought to their attention that is inappropriate, and perhaps not in line with their professed ideas, seems suspect to me. Is there something I’m missing, or perhaps you accidentally got the years reversed, and I misinterpreted?

Some might have found it funny, others might have found it tacky. It's the way jokes work. Important here is that his is not the first time it happened or where it was used disproportionally against him:

https://stallman.org/articles/texas.html

From the above, from someone at TI he met later who was amused by his joke:

"The plant incident, which I found rather humorous, provided a reason for people in the later camp to become offended. This was convenient as they had been looking for one. They were subsequently able to blow it to suitable proportions to gain the attention of management. "

Stallman will always offend people because he speaks about their unethical behaviour. Those offended will use whatever he does as an excuse.

Most people understand the difference between business and professional controversies and those that are demeaning to people based on immutable identity.

It is disingenuous to consider all (mis)behavior equal in severity or kind.

All sensible senior academics keep their doors open. It is one way to avoid exactly these sorts of accusations!

if you can be accused for keeping a door closed, US society is way more fucked up than I thought and these people are much more scary than italian mafia.

fun fact: Selam G. the author of the post on medium builds weapons for the US defense department.

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