Instead he seems to prefer to step down from what he has been doing for the last 30 years. Does he really regret nothing?
On a human level I sympathize with the women he has offended (I know the story is also about his behavior over the years), but I also worry about him as well, I hope he stays in good health and spirit.
He could give a fake apology with the hope that this would stop this whole drama, but I believe that he is more principled than that. Plus, apologising for something that you have not done wrong hurts.
Does only work though, if he is sorry, which is not likely.
Because the thing is, allmost all rapist defend themself by saying the victim presented themself willingly and when RMS just declared that the most plausible scenario that the epstein underage prostitute present herself willingly, then he should not be surprised if people understand that wrong and feel hurt, if he has some empathy.
Now whether he has some, remains actually unclear to me after all I read now (but I never met him in person).
Anyhow, for someone talking so much abouth ethics and leading a organization about it, I believe empathy should be a required skill for leadership, otherwise it can (and was and partly is) be seen as a bad joke.
You ever see the science experiment where you supercool a container of distilled water, tap it, and then watch it instantly turn to ice? That's what's happened here. And just as the tap didn't actually freeze the water, neither did the Epstein reporting doom Stallman; rather, it was the long prior history of unfortunate comments about pedophilia and of allegations of harassment.
It was a running joke around MIT that women would place ferns in their office to repel him; his notoriety was enough to create special meaning for ferns. It's surprising he lasted as long as he did, just like it's surprising that you can get a jug of water below freezing without actually freezing it.
The comments were misquoted and RMS fans believe that this is the sole reason for him being fired and are outraged.
Good thing, he already did that. https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
> allmost all rapist defend themself by saying the victim presented themself willingly
In which case they (the rapists) are lying, otherwise they would not be rapists. What about victims of false rape reports though? Do they say that as often?
> RMS just declared that the most plausible scenario that the epstein underage prostitute present herself willingly
Are you saying that this is implausible or even unlikely that she presented herself to be willing to Minsky? (note: he did not say that she presented herself willingly, there is an important difference between the two)
> if he has some empathy
Apparently I do not have any empathy for not understanding what the issue with this statement is, thanks. I believe that you have adopted a very neurotypical view of empathy.
"Are you saying that this is implausible or even unlikely that she presented herself to be willing to Minsky? "
I am saying I don't know any of the persons involved personally, live far away, so I would never make any statements regarding what actually happened.
But in general yes, I believe when someone is coerced into prostitution, it should be obvious to spot real willingnes from forced one, unless you don't want to notice.
"Apparently I do not have any empathy for not understanding what the issue with this statement is, thanks"
And no, you do not, yes. Because the issue is sexism/patriacharlism. Strong men sexually abusing weak women/girls, what was the norm for centuries and was ok to do so (and in some parts of the world still is).
And apparently also partly in the MIT, if Epstein had so much connection there. So in this context, when a victim makes an accusation - and someone uses the defence, "the victim appeared willing" than yes, you clearly lack empathy, to not see how that might hurt feelings and has a high chance of getting misunderstood.
And that we have media, who does not care about truth, when there is a scandal and a scapegoat is a very sad other story.
Even if he changes his mind about some subjective things, he will keep saying other things that are objectively true but people don't want to accept.
Some things he says are objectively true.
Advocating for the legalization of "consensual pedophilia" (whatever that means) is not an objective truth, it's an opinion.
Stallman has said many "problematic" things apart from defending "consensual pedophilia".
""""
[...]
…and then he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”. Let’s also note that he called a group of child sex trafficking victims a ‘harem’, a terrible word choice.
[>] We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that
she presented herself to him as entirely willing.
""""
The only opinion stated here by Stallman is that "it's the most plausible scenario", but it's an objective truth that it's a possible scenario (even if not the most plausible) for the underage girl to be coerced into presenting herself as willing, given the public knowledge of the situation. Then, Selam gets angry because he stated that possibility.
Note that she doesn't disagree with it being the most plausible scenario, she disagrees with it being a possibility at all (an objective truth, because coercion is a thing), and then she twists Stallman's words (presenting oneself as [something] vs being [something]).
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.
I don't have an opinion about the recent reporting of Stallman's comments on Epstein, other than to note that they are, in effect, about pedophilia. I don't have to; Stallman has done us all the favor of being outspoken about his belief that pedophilia should be legal.
I think a lot of advocates for Stallman don't know this about his history, and think they can hang their entire argument on the Epstein pedophilia drama. If that's all that had happened, Stallman defending Minsky, he might be fine. But it's not. If you want to talk about Stallman saying things that others don't agree with, be mindful of what it is he's saying. You probably don't actually want to be defending it.
https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
> Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.
> Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.
He doesn't care.
Society slowly unravel that consent is such a fragile concept, and they have to resort to some finite number (age) to strengthen that stance. But, as the most rational amongst us found out, those numbers are indefensible too.
A better and more defensible stance is the one Catholic's have (Humanae Vitae).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of...
No, it's not; a consent based view does not logically imply that children are capable of consent; in fact, the view that intoxication, mental disability, and other factors can make adults incapable of consent at least strongly supports an approach where children (to, perhaps, an age above the common ages of consent) ought to be viewed as at least presumptively, and possibly conclusively, unable to consent to sex; the dominant legal position is consistent in outline, though there may be room to debate the particular details.
> A better and more defensible stance is the one Catholic's have (Humanae Vitae).
Humanae Vitae didn't even reflect the most defensible stance within the Catholic intelligentsia, which is why the Pope had to dump the position adopted by the Second Vatican Council workgroup on the topic to issue it, and why the document is widely disregarded by the faithful and even large segments of the clergy and even heirarchy (see, e.g., the Declaration of Königstein).
From system design perspective, it operates on lower level rule-based design. This is weaker. I understand there's debate internally about Humanae Vitae, and it's good. But at least it gets the core design stronger by operating on higher level goal/paradigm constraint (the purpose of procreation)
That's actually not how it works; the intricacies of the dual procreative and unitive function model in the theology under Humanae Vitae is no less complex than that of the consent-based system, but it's just based on a moral system with a larger number of specialized axioms; the consent-based system is based on a simpler set of axioms, because it doesn't need a specific set of axioms for sex; the principle of consent underlying the consent-based system of sexual morality is the same one underlying all of the liberal enlightenment political/social/economic ideology.
No links provided. From there we get the leap
> most rational men always come to the same conclusion (the age of consent should be abolished)
Motivated reasoning much?
That seems like the most bizarre and harmful outcome of deciding there's no such thing as consenting 'paedophilia' - something as normal as two 16 year olds hooking up and using their smartphone can turn into a disaster. That can happen any time the definition of child for sexual consent is different from the definition of child for child porn laws, something that you'd think would never happen in any rational legal system, but does!
Perhaps if the age difference is very small, but see hereunder.
However, there is a good reason why a minor isn't able to sign a (legal) contract. Because they're not an adult. The brains stop growing at around age 25. The body at around age 20 / mid 20 (depends on gender and differs per person). So at age 18, teenagers are still growing up. A teenager is unable to consent to an older adult because the relation isn't equal. The adult (presumably) is grown up. It has the huge potential to create a power vacuum.
Which is why we need to be very careful to protect our minors. Which is why if the age difference is minor, its often tolerated even if it isn't exactly legal. Alas, the law is not perfect, but the lawmakers did did try their best to make the law as far as possible for all parties involved.
I read: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
And from a cursory search I didn't see him exactly advocating.
Saying something can be objectively true, entirely non-hypocritical and completely idiotic, all at the same time.