Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

clic.epfl.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 376 posts

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#91

Post by s0ulphire »

Retric wrote: post #75
mardifoufs wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Obviously children experimenting with each other is very different from children having sex with adults. He didn't even mention older teens, he straight up implied that he 1) thinks that voluntary pedophilia is a thing 2) children can consent to sex with adults (again, broad statement that he didn't even limit to older teens) That's very different from children experimenting toge…

I think you’re misunderstanding the definition of what that word means. 1) A 12/13 year old and a 16 year old experimenting is likely pedophilia depending on the biology of the 12/13 year old. 2) consent is a circular argument. The assumption that they can’t give consent arises from the assumption of harm and therefore cannot be used to justify harm. Animals for example can’t give consent to each other, that doesn’t…

The assumption that a child can't give consent is based on their lack of understanding of what exactly they're consenting to, same as a drunk person can't give consent for the same reason. So yes, a 16yo seeking out a 12yo to have sex with would be wrong. Or an 18yo with a 14yo. They are not peers.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#92

Post by jalapenos »

Couldn't there have been some middle ground? Like constrain him to the carpark or something?

Then they could claim to be degrading him, due to his twisted views, while still letting people hear his wisdom on open source etc if they want to.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#93

Post by irthomasthomas »

mardifoufs wrote: post #54
seydor wrote: post #12

We ll never know what "the situation" is and whatever "statements that do not correspond to any of our values" are. Good job smearing mud without saying anything i guess. Did stallman say something since he was invited that was particularly noticeable? if not then these organizers don't know what they 're doing and this reflects bad on them

I mean, his statements regarding pedophilia are enough. It's not exactly a hidden secret. Saying stuff like >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. Is very controversial, even if he backpedalled (only…

He is skeptical of the basis of the laws and is requesting more information.

And this was decades ago. Maybe he changed his mind after people responded to his enquiry? Anyway, it doesn't seem relevent to this recent cancellation.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#94

Post by Retric »

comprambler wrote: post #84
Retric wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re misunderstanding the definition of what that word means. 1) A 12/13 year old and a 16 year old experimenting is likely pedophilia depending on the biology of the 12/13 year old. 2) consent is a circular argument. The assumption that they can’t give consent arises from the assumption of harm and therefore cannot be used to justify harm. Animals for example can’t give consent to each other, that doesn’t…

re:1) If a child in highschool (16) is experimenting with a elementary/middleschooler (12/13), there is a problem. The groupings of children in educational institutions is not abstract. So yes this is pedophilia. re:2) The assumption that they can’t give consent is due to the inherent power imbalance in their “relationship”.

2) Rules of thumb aren’t some deep universal truth. Power imbalances likely favor the older kid, but what about a developmentally disabled 16 year old, a 13 year old paying for an BJ etc. The most extreme counter example older slave girls and 12/13 year old masters used to be a thing.

In general power imbalances are likely, but if that the argument then you should talk about power imbalances not age.

PS: Not an objection to downvoting but what exactly do you disagree with here?

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#95

Post by maxbond »

ithkuil wrote: post #82
maxbond wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere. Where does it say RMS is entitled to give this talk?

OTOH, presumably somebody invited him?

Sure, and then he was disinvited. If they had the agency to invite him, they had the agency to disinvite him.

One time I got in a fight with an ex and made a scene at a party. We weren't invited to any more of their parties. I was miffed but it made sense to me.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#96

Post by olliej »

Ignoring the questions of whether Stallman's persona is good, bad, or irrelevant this kind of thing shouldn't still be happening.

Stallman's personality is not new, and has not changed since the 80s, and nothing newly controversial has come out in like a decade at this point.

It's inexcusable at this point to keep inviting him to give talks and then cancelling them. Either you're ok with hosting him regardless and any of his many prior statements - and I get he has made some super questionable ones - or you're not. Either is ok, but this BS where you pretend that some comment that you don't want to be associated with is new or different or you were unaware of has got to stop.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#97

Post by mardifoufs »

skissane wrote: post #90
mardifoufs wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, his statements regarding pedophilia are enough. It's not exactly a hidden secret. Saying stuff like >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. Is very controversial, even if he backpedalled (only…

> Is very controversial, even if he backpedalled (only after it resurfaced and created a lot of controversy). He said he didn’t understand the issue and talking to abuse survivors helped him understand it better, and that led to him changing his view. To me, that sounds like a person simply updating their views in response to new evidence-new to them even if much older to many others. Labelling it as “back-pedalling”…

To be clear, I'm not implying that he himself is a pedophile. I also get that he might have changed his mind, but Stallman is also not known to actually change his mind very often. I'm not a mind reader and it's just an impression that I've gotten in the way he apologized. But in any case my point was mostly that he actually made pretty controversial statements at some point, and it's a bit disingenuous to insinuate that the statement in the article was just baseless smearing and that we won't know which statements are against their values.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#98

Post by howinteresting »

medguru wrote: post #79
alex_lav wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> advocating guilt by association? You using the word "guilt" suggests you're venturing into the strawman of "innocent until proven guilty", or that public opinion must follow the same rules as the judicial system. Even if he didn't do anything illegal, Jeffrey Epstein is gross and awful. It's totally fine for society to not want people "guilty" of associating frequently and voluntarily to be powerful and influential…

Maybe it's that I'm not rested right now but I find it hard to follow this train of thought because your reasoning is kinda wide, lofty and out there but I think OP means that it's irrational to throw Bill Gates entirely to the side based only on -another person- he associated with. Like how picky and fussy people refuse to touch something clean and unspoiled just because it sat next to something else that happened t…

Yes, of course powerful people need to be held to higher standards! This is plainly obvious to even a child.

For one, powerful people generally have advisers whose job it is to prevent people like Gates from associating with sex criminals like Epstein.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#99

Post by idontpost »

tivert wrote: post #21

Did Stallman do anything new that offended certain political persuasions, or is this cancellation only due to previous controversies/peculiarities? Edit: the level of downvotes/flag-kills of comments just asking "why" and "what happened" is pretty depressing.

[dead]

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#100

Post by kenjackson »

marcodiego wrote: post #32

Bill Gates had bonds with Epstein. His multi decade marriage fell after the fact became public. He didn't get 1% the flak that Stallman had for commenting about a word to describe Marvin Minsky.

Bill Gates didn't say much about it, except he didn't know about any of the "bad stuff" and was deceived. Stallman said a bunch of to try to either claim that the victims weren't victims. Or to try to downplay what happened. Those are huge differences.
Post reply on HN