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Comment by endianswap | Hacker News Reader

"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children."

https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...

"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."

https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

Cue somebody pointing out how recent this is; then followed by a rebuttal pointing out the phrase recent years, and that while the post may be new, the change of heart may not be

In fact, he seems to have changed his mind about that as early as 2016:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Biograp...

(Credit for finding this goes to dependenttypes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21092184)

"Not endorsing pedophilia since 2016" is not exactly the ringing character endorsement you might consider it to be.

Ringing character endorsement? It wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to correct the seemlingly common misconception that RMS changed his mind only recently after the fact, when in reality he seems to have changed his mind many years ago.

Also, should people be condemned for opinions they used to hold, even if they changed them relatively recently? If so, what is the point of anybody changing their mind on any topic, if they’re going to get nailed for any opinion they have ever held? What kind of world would that make, where nobody could be expected to change their mind on anything?

2016 IS very recently. Three years ago does not count as "many years ago". Richard Stallman is 66 years old. To have only realized that pedophilia is bad at age 63, only when other people had to convince him..welp.

You seem to be arguing with some other point than the one I was making. Also, you are not responding to what I wrote, and seem to be determined to argue your other point. You are welcome to do so, but please find someone else, who actually holds an opposite viewpoint, to argue with.

Reminds me of this scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer where the character simply didn’t understand something: https://youtu.be/MZ96c7IOIPQ

Which has nothing to do with the objectivly false representation of a completly different statement he made.

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