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Comment by EpicEng | Hacker News Reader

>As long of course as no one is coerced into anything

In what insane hypothetical does a 17 year old girl have consensual sex with a 74 year old man on a billionaire's island? At best it's prostitution, c'mon.

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Yes and prostitution is a normal job like any other in my jurisdiction. Coercion isnt part of that. They pay taxes and get to sue if a client doesnt pay. I find the criminalization of sex workers as it is happening in the US extremely barbaric.

Yep, just a normal, level headed 17 year old girl looking to make a quick buck by sleeping with old, rich men. What 17 year old wouldn't love such a life?

I'm with you on prostitution in general, but Epstein was a sleazebag and we know exactly what sort of girls he was grooming. There is no moral avenue that leads to sex with a 17 year old prostitute.

Again, i am not disagreeing. I am making the argument that you can make an argument like Stallman did without deserving mob justice. Stallman broke with the strict morality code of his society and nothing more. That i might have the same opinion as the mob doesnt mean we should go around ignoring free speech and attacking anyone commiting the heresy of playing Advocatus Diaboli. Its not free speech if you only allow people saying what you like.

I am also not talking about justifications for Epstein, i mentioned how unrelated Stallman is to the real problem here namely Epstein and his visitors.

Reading through the comments I'm honestly a bit torn on the outcome for Stallman. Like most here, I think we are too quick to exile people for off color remarks. On the other hand, this isn't the first time Stallman has done something embarrassing, and given his relationship to this guy he should have been smart enough to just keep quiet. He's not just some programmer; he's a representative of MIT and the FSF. I understand why they want to disassociate themselves from him.

Its not about how smart he should have been but if it is ever acceptable to oust someone for infringing on a societies moral compass instead of only for harming or trying to harm anyone. Because historically our shared compass has been shit and the source of quite a bit evil. Racism, sexism and slavery where at some point in time socially accepted and breaching that shared moral compass had dire consequences. Think honorkillings for sex before marriage, pinning white feathers on men to pressure them to die in the trenches of ww1, slutshaming, beeing shunned from society for being gay, having to fulfill your marital duties or face being raped and beaten, mobs forming for people using the wrong colored bathroom or having prostitutes persecuted and treated like second class citizens. Thinking back to since when your version of our shared moral compass no longer involved such deeply reprehensible parts the answer is often rather problematic. Its likely since you reached your 20 or so, since its the version of your societies compass you came up with. Now what are the chances that i just seemed to be arriving once mob justice became a good idea because we finally got the moral compass right?

I for myself think i will run less of a risk of being a staunch supporter of ethnic cleansings without knowing it if I instead stick to the rule that as long as you arent hurting anyone else, you are good to go. And no, hurt feelings from arguments dont count, or we rob our self of ever evolving our compass further. Without free speech and open discussions we are cementing the status quo. So if he wants, Stallman can be as socially incompetent and offensive as he wants. He has to live with being seen as a weirdo, but i dont think he has a problem with that.

But then again, I know that I dont know much on the topic.

> There is no moral avenue that leads to sex with a 17 year old prostitute.

This is highly contestable

Let's not be completely idiotic and remember who we were at 17. Idiotic and acting before thinking, sure, but far from totally clueless.

There's something beyond slavery and prostitution, there's willing exploitation of the old guy for money, beyond the sexual service. If it was a young stud with an old lady, you'd think twice before saying the old lady is a dirty pervert, right :D

But that's never been the point: the point is you and me can debate to no end about bullshit like that with half information and no legal culture, but Stallman, as a member of faculty, has 0 legitimacy doing it on faculty mail.

> but Stallman, as a member of faculty, has 0 legitimacy doing it on faculty mail.

Are you saying that this kind of legal and cultural discussion should not take place in academia?

And there's nothing wrong with prostitution per se.

There is when children are forced into it due to circumstance, coersion, or force. This subject at hand has nothing to do with an adult making a conscious choice.

They're only considered children in some backwards places. Plus as far as I understand 17 is old enough to enlist in the army in the US? Please tell me how you think it's totally ok to send "children" off to war but prostitution now that's a line you won't cross!

More to the point of this thread: since I'm arguing that there's no effective difference between a 17yo and an 18yo prostitute (much like Stallman), should my professional life be ruined as well?

17 with parental consent, but don't be dense; it's the conditions under which these girls are being passed around that is so abhorrent to most people. Stallman should have just kept his mouth shut on this one, and I don't believe HN would maintaine this position if it were e.g. Donald Trump in the middle of this instead of RMS.

This was just the straw that broke the camel's back. RMS has done a lot of great things, but he's also done a lot of bone headed things and some of his colleagues understandably don't want to be associated with him anymore.

Honestly, when Stallman visited my university, because I knew the people that were involved with the organization, I got to know how a massive asshole he is, plus his conduct during the panel he was part of was deplorable. Also the vast majority of the time I saw something written by him made me strongly dislike him. I do recognize how his extremist views have pushed the open source movement into a good direction, though that is pretty much the only positive thing I can say about him.

Still my argument is that he should not be excised from society from having what the hivemind decided was the wrong kind of opinion. It's ok to discuss things and I'd even argue that all discussions should be had.

I just don't want to live in a place where expressing my opinion on some controversial issue, entirely lawfully, might have me excluded from society.

> I just don't want to live in a place where expressing my opinion on some controversial issue, entirely lawfully, might have me excluded from society.

I don't either, but that doesn't mean we need to have an absolutist position on speech. I don't view defending pedophilia or making apologies for the rape of a sex trafficking victim to be merely "controversial."

A few comments up I admitted that I'm torn on how he was ousted as well because I, like you, am not a fan of outrage culture and exiling people who make a remark someone else may find offensive.

That said, I don't think it's reasonable to have this discussion about RMS in a bubble, pretending as if he's never done anything else to contribute to what happened.

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