e.g. Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children.
It is all right for someone to be skeptical about any commonly held view, except when it's about sex with minors.
In any discussion about any kind of sex with anyone under 18 whatsoever, if you're not 100% fully completely convincedly against it, then you're a bad person!!1
Why can't we just discuss this? Like we can discuss anything else? Especially in the US, where the norm appears to be that the KKK people and the Westboro Baptist nutcases are insane, but they should still be allowed to say what they think? Why is that ok with nazis and homo haters, but not for people who are merely skeptical about the current social norm wrt sex with minors?
It's this same attitude that allows governments to block half the internet, it's to seek out the child pornographers! What, you're against my law? Hey guys, this one here is in favour of child pornography!
Note: I completely share the common opinion that sex with minors is bad and that there are only very few edge cases to be found where it isn't (e.g. a sexually active couple, both 17 years old, one turns 18 and is now a peadophile? surely not). I just think that, like everything else in the world, if we're civilized, we'll allow the discussion.
reg: Stallman is an important voice.
detractor: He’s also advocating pedo.
reg: He’s still an important voice.
HN reader: Actually, he isn’t advocating pedo. <- new perspective
also, my compliments for not turning this into a flamewar. in retrospect, it would seem that i was about to.
Attraction to 17 year olds is ephebophilia.
He's not discussing it. He's just expressing an opinion. It's an opinion which appears to be based in ignorance. Without any reference to evidence it's just an opinion, and it's unfortunately close to the opinions given by paedophiles.
People have spent many years trying to get the harm done by paedophiles taken seriously. It's frustrating when someone with a large audience blurts out the same ignorant nonsense that victims have been fighting for years.
So, feel free to say that sexual abuse with children is not harmful - just make sure to read some of the extensive evidence before you do.
If advocating for better understanding of something and simply not buying into the "think of the children" argument can be called advocating for something, well no. That's dishonest and disheartening, and reeks of a vendetta, or at the very least, a petty mind.
It's one thing to support something. It's another thing to be skeptical.
You'd have to have something more than just conjecture from RMS. Nothing I've read or found suggests he is an advocate.
And yes, I realize you are just asking this question.
"Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.
I am skeptical 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."
He's probably wrong about the harm, but even being wrong doesn't void his right to free speech, or to life.
The question (which is unethical to research) is "does voluntary pedophilia harm children?"
In all honestly, the answer is "probably most of the time". Right now, we can't say with absolute certainty that the answer is "probably most of the time". However, the cost of finding out the answer is via a controlled experiment too great, and given the ethics of science today, it definitely shouldn't be researched. We have a lot of reason to believe that children aren't mature enough to handle the consequences, and there are very common negative consequences associated with pedophilia that have been noted for decades. This evidence strongly points to the idea that it is bad, but it isn't proof any more than an apple falling is proof of gravity (it's a case for, but not a proof of). Our society saying "it's bad" isn't proof either.
What Stallman is writing is that he is skeptical of the claim that it is bad. That is a belief, and as already mentioned, testing it would be incredibly unethical. That doesn't make you a bad person for saying that without proof, you refuse to accept a claim.
While what he says may seem heretical, to burn him as a heretic is wrong. Until he says "we should test this" or "I support this group and/or changes of current laws", he hasn't suggested anything that would endanger/harm anyone. The proper response isn't "HERETIC", it is facts that we do know that suggest that this belief is likely (even if not proven in a formal study to be) wrong. For example, bed wetting, PTSD, sexual repression, hypersexualized behavior, extreme depression are symptoms experienced later in life. I don't know what the voluntary/involuntary ratio is, but this suggests that there are serious psychological consequences. Experts in the field would know more. The point being that in an open society, we discuss and counter, not silence and shut down.
Many people believe P = NP despite the years of no solution and a general consensus that researching a polynomial time algorithm is a waste of time. We don't have a proof that P =/= NP, so we can't counter, so we can't counter those who believe it, even if we regard their beliefs to be misinformed or likely to be wrong.
I can’t read the man’s mind, but I do know that he has made a choice to discuss the subject and a choice to poke holes in an argument made by one side of the subject, and the choice to leave that comment right there without any attempt at balance or qualification.
Sadly, no.
I wish we could just relax and have faith on the preservation of such basic rights as free speech, but, unfortunately, this is not the case. It's all too easy to condemn someone for having an opinion we consider dangerous and to suppress their right to state it. We all must learn to live in a world where some people disagree with us in very fundamental ways, because, if we don't, we'll end up living in a world we'd rather not.
He never actually advocated pedophilia, so what awful practices are you saying that he advocates?
That's repugnant. Why do people still invite him to conferences? Surely there's less-objectionable representatives of his views on software.
I do not agree with them, but I defend their (both Dutch pedophiles and RMS) right to state their opinions. Even if I strongly disagree with both.
That said, conference speakers are there at the discretion of the organizers. Not being able to speak is a rights violation; not being able to speak at a conference is not.
I'm glad you didn't say something to the effect of "Not being able to speak is a rights violation; not being able to publish it on the web is not." but you can clearly see it's a small leap from one to the other. After all, the servers, routers and wires always belong to someone.
Which is pretty much what raganwald wanted to happen: fear, uncertainty, and doubt have been successfully seeded.
I'm proud of you for lending your username on HN to remind everybody how truly awful of a person he can be, but I fear that even your clout cannot save this comment from people that love him.
It has lead to people being hell-banned for inoffensive things, the worst I've seen is someone hell-banned because their double post got such a large amount of down-votes.
https://twitter.com/#!/raganwald/status/200664134960939008
I got an earful about him from other people both publicly and privately, and I also recall a thread right here on HN a while back where there were allegations of (and spirited discussion about) his interest in getting young men into his hotel room at conferences.
I’m definitely not criticizing anyone who wishes him well, wishes poorly of him, or just wishes he would step out of the limelight (there seem to be more than a few people who consider him an liability to the open source movement at the moment regardless of past contributions). I was just trying to stick my finger in the wind and ask other people how they feel, not suggest how people are supposed to feel.
But oh, right, other people said those things, not you. You're just reporting, in a comment thread about the man's uncertain physical health, asking if it's "acceptable" to wish him well.
After a cursory search, the only such discussion I could find was about John Draper, not Stallman. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1914498
From what I understand, Stallman doesn't even stay in hotel rooms.
That it was said six years ago and you dredge it up in an entirely unrelated topic shows that you are more interested in grinding an axe than discussing the matter at hand.