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Comment by igetspam | Hacker News Reader

Don't let one bad action color your feelings about a person. There are plenty more.

I'll even help with a starting point: https://daringfireball.net/2019/09/richard_stallmans_disgrac...

I once brought up RMS, in relation to a project a friend was working on, on misc@google, when I worked at Google in my 20s. This was circa 2005 or 2006 maybe. Within minutes I was called out by female engineers for promoting someone I'd come to learn was well known to be pretty sexist. That was about 20 years ago and the details of events shared are lost to me now but the sting of promoting a project he was on (and was later removed from) is still there.

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Just in case people don't want to follow the threads, here's Stallman on statutory rape in 2006:

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...

(He himself recanted the statement years later but he had to be convinced by victims that victimization is a problem.)

>he had to be convinced by victims that victimization is a problem You're complaining that he came to the same conclusion as you, but first had to be convinced, since his first opinion wasn't the same as yours. No winning move. One wrong step = cancelled for life.

This is why I provided the first link. Follow the threads. This is not a single event, this is a theme.

But yes, I do think people should be accountable for what they say. (I know the fun term is "cancel" but let's call it what it is, shall we?) If victims of child abuse have to be called to account, so that _he_ may be convinced, then I do not think he is a person we should hold in high regard.

>people should be accountable for what they say

The particular child abuse comment was retracted, there is nothing more to be done. You are holding him accountable for something for which he has already accounted. You are laser focused on the one wrong step.

Think of him what you will, that is your right, but brigading against someone for something said 20 years ago and later retracted is petty.(He was also arguing on the assumption that children can give consent, and that consent=> no bad outcomes.)

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