The attacks on him were dubious at best.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=community%20identity%20by:dang...
“I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.”
https://thenextweb.com/dd/2019/09/13/free-software-icon-rich...
[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...
[2] https://stallman.org/notes/2019-jan-apr.html#25_April_2019_(...
Suppose some guy (Stallman or not) argues that the age of consent should be lowered to 14. Now you are in your right to oppose to that proposal or even be disgusted by it. What you dont have the right to is to silence and ostracize the guy or even suggest that opinion must have any type of consequence , be it legal or moral.
If a situation involves "exploitation" under the law, as most of Epstein's crimes would be considered to, then it is also automatically illegal.
Also, it’s extremely dishonest of you, and frankly a little contemptible, to keep smearing a man by taking this out of context and failing to also mention where he learned more about the issue and changed his views. This serves no other purpose than character assassination.
Defend him if you want. But let's be accurate.
[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
[2] https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...
[3] https://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_2...
(Sorry, you're on your own looking for it -- it was on the first page at the time I saw it.)
I read in The Netherlands in the 70s child porn was quite readily available. See also “Chick arrest”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography_laws_in_th...
In this period there were even politicians openly advocating for allowing sex with children on television: https://youtu.be/nSMpAhQRDB8 (Dutch spoken)
It seems to me often the people advocating for allowing sex with children would be left-oriented.
https://timeline.com/children-of-god-5245a45f6a2a
However I believe most decent human beings these days realize sex with children can be very harmful to children.
Perhaps this is a background Stallman grew up in.
And teenagers. My kid's progressive K-12 private school had a scandal recently when more than a dozen victims came forth with allegations that they had been sexually abused by male teachers in the 1970s. Much of the testimony recounts that sexual relationships between male teachers and high school students were an "open secret" around the school, teachers would invite students to parties at their houses, etc.
It was a very liberal school back then too--the fact that it did not generate a scandal at the time despite being an "open secret" tells you about how the boundaries were being pushed in various directions back then. Luckily that turned out to be an ideological dead end.