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Comment by snvzz | Hacker News Reader

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There are many factually accurate statements that are, nevertheless, inappropriate to wildly inappropriate under the circumstances. I have personally interacted with rms decades ago and have a generally positive impression of his entire body of contributions to computing. Nevertheless, reading the controversies section on the wikipedia page induces a combination of cringing and face-palming.

Someone researching the science of attraction in humans could very well be justified in saying "it is normal for adults to be physically attracted to adolescents".

Someone commenting in apparent defense of a convicted sex offender should not make that exact same claim, whether factually correct or not.

This is a classic motte and bailey: "it's normal for adults to be attracted to adolescents" used to defend "it was reasonable for a fat CS prof in his 70s to believe a young minor on Epstein's island wanted to have sex with him absent any coercion going on (or for Stallman to advance this idea)."

For all we know, she may have been coerced to tell Minsky that reading The Society of Mind was such a turn on for her that she had to ravish the author there & then…

>Someone commenting in apparent defense of a convicted sex offender should not make that exact same claim, whether factually correct or not.

RMS simply kept faith on someone he knew and respected personally (not Epstein!), in the face of accusations he did not believe to be true[0].

0. https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai...

I don't know if rms knew Cody Wilson personally and respected him or not, but he doesn't make that claim in his text: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_Septe...

The person I was referring to is Marvin Minsky, who is dead and thus cannot defend himself.

That is not the person about whom rms made the post with the text in question. (Minksy is not a convicted sex offender.)

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