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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

RMS has called himself "borderline autistic". I don't disagree. His socially clueless black and white thinking makes it look like he is far in the spectrum. On the other hand it's also his superpower. He does not care about social norms.

RMS is anal about meanings of terms and their use. That's not working well in the current climate where words carry perceived intent. I find myself agreeing with RMS with most of the terminology and it's use in this case.

On the other hand other discussions reveal that RMS has very bad understanding of developmental psychology, sexuality etc. and tries to to figure it out using reasoning which does not work when his model is broken.

The lesson:

If you are figurehead of some big cause, never talk aloud publicly about controversial subjects outside your field. Being a good figurehead means presenting a role to the public. All the stupid and loose talk paints the whole cause.

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im very similar in that regard (i have ASD myself) socially inept, pedantic about terminology etc, but i learned to shut up and keep my opinions to myself as they often dont go down too well, challenging the social norms really does not sit right with a lot of people.

Well he's right that the legal fiction that a minor below the age of 18 in some countries and 17 and 16 in other countries can not consent is arbitrary. And that logically taken at face value the only way to consistently justify the gap between different legal systems to acknowledge that they are in fact legal fictions and if the lesser of those ages can consent in some jurisdictions and it's acceptable then it should be the case that anyone that age or older can consent. But we don't live in that world, we live in a world of legal fictions which are then used to punish those that transgress against the laws. At the end of the day all of this drama is about money and power and its distribution among the rich who exploit and the poor who are exploited and feel that they deserve a greater piece than they got.

This though is different from Epstein who was allegedly a much more dangerous predator going after young children who are not considered to be able to consent in any jurisdiction. At some point it's not longer arbitrary and highly wrong, and he was squarely in that camp if the reports and accusations are to be believed.

> If you are figurehead of some big cause, never talk aloud publicly about controversial subjects outside your field.

I rather think people around him should insist on explaining to him that minors can't consent to some things, certainly not sex with adults, trafficking and prostitution, period. The age may be arbitrary but that doesn't make it "absurd". For him to claim otherwise, no matter how benign the intent, isn't something I'd let slip by.

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