In Support of Richard Stallman

So when the story first broke out in 2019, my first reaction was "This is simply not possible." Of course, upon researching further in depth, I agree with the sentiments in the linked site and still strongly support Stallman.

I have come to realize that just jumping on the outrage train is not a good strategy and in fact can be dangerous. One must take the time to understand all the facts and only then come to a conclusion. For example, there are huge differences between the Susan Fowler and Ellen Pao stories whereas lot of people just treat them as the same.

Anyway, my 2 cents - get all the necessary background information first before labelling and assassinating the character of a person.

They don't actually defend the content of "Email #2" but instead claimed that people said untrue things about it and then said those were "lies." But without citing the untrue claims they're debunking, they're just punching air, while leaving the actual inflammatory content of "Email #2" largely uncontested.

Their Claim #4 debunking is essentially just saying "this is accurate, but he changed his mind at some point after this all blow up" (in Sept 2019). Keep in mind that Claim #4 is "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntary pedophilia harms children" from 2006 until it was recanted 10+ years later.

Honestly contrition and growth are better avenues for Stallman rather than this type of "attack the critics" stuff, in particular when they're as weak of defenses and nameless critics as shown here. This is one of those things that someone should have written, read back, slept on, and then hit the delete key because they realized it defeats itself.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pedophile+site%3Astallman.or...

https://www.google.com/search?q=pedophile+site%3Astallman.or...

> But he did publish a highly controversial comment[2] in 2006 about the intention of pedophiles in The Netherlands to form a political party. Stallman wrote, "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntary pedophilia harms children." People today don't think that a prepubertal human being—a child—is capable of understanding all the implications of sexual activity, and in some cases this is so even after puberty. So, in widespread social opinion, “voluntary” does not apply. However, when we make an unprejudiced analysis of this thought, we can see a connection to skepticism which is typical of scientific thinking and inquisitive minds. Skepticism has a role to play in challenging social norms as in “I'm skeptical that human binary genders constitute an immutable truth.”

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