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

121–130 of 376 posts

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

#121

Post by jasonfarnon »

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”…

"He said he didn’t understand the issue"

No he said he was skeptical that pedophilia harms children. The quote wasn't "say, anyone know does this pedophilia thing actually harms children?" He did more than that: He imputes claims of harm to parents not wanting to admit their kids are "maturing". Now his position his quite hard to distinguish from someone who fully supports pedophilia. If they were in his position, I would expect them to go this well-trodden route: Question the harm; accuse opponents of being puritanical; claim it's already happening anyway.

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

#123

Post by mindslight »

kenjackson wrote: post #100
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.

The difference - one is naively engaging with the topic to try and defend his friend, while the other is saying the predictable politically correct thing that gets attention off him the quickest.

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

#124

Post by netsharc »

e40 wrote: post #11

We live in a new age, where we can know a lot more about the personal lives of famous people. Decades ago, the problematic personalities of famous people were hidden by the gate keepers. JKF benefited from this. It would be nice if there was a more uniform way to handle situations like this. RMS isn't alone, in being accused of unsavory things. Should we shun Bill Gates because of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstei…

It is interesting times indeed, even with problematic personalities in full view, one can still have one's loyal followers attack anyone saying anything against their dear leader with screams of "fake news!". They could even be manipulated to commit insurrection...

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

#125

Post by fvdessen »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #20

My read of the French is TLDR: [starts out by mentioning some people are complaining about RMS being schedule to talk], then: "We have considered the decisions of certain organizations that serve as examples for us and have made certain choices in the past" ("avons considéré les décisions de certaines organisations qui nous servent d’exemple et qui ont fait certains choix avant nous"). then they go on to say they've…

I also think it is interesting to note (for non natives) that they use the interpunct character in their writing, which is used by some french speakers to 'de-gender' french, similar to the usage of the singular 'they' in english. (développeur / développeuse -> développeur·euse·s). This practice is coming from the 'intersectional' movement, which is pretty similar to the woke movement in the US. This practice is quite controversial and is currently banned from official use in France and Switzerland. (The interpunct character is not on the keyboard, so it is quite cumbersome to use)

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

#126

Post by [deleted] »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #72
mardifoufs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedophilia isn't exactly an American only issue. I'm not American but if thinking that pedophilia harms children is an American "taboo"... Then consider me thoroughly americanized lol.

It's far from exclusive, but I don't know enough about other cultures to definitively say universally strong in all existing ones. (It hasn't been historically.)

[deleted]

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

#127

Post by belorn »

mardifoufs wrote: post #97
skissane wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Stallman is known to be fairly academic and pedantic about how words get defined, and historically all act of sexual assault was defined in term of coercion.

There are still people in 2020 that get surprised when people talk about assault which does not involve coercion. Sweden as an example updated their laws in 2018 to change from a coercion based definition to a consent based definition (Stallman post was in 2003).

Stallman changed his mind in 2019, by highlighting that harm can exist even without coercion.

What I recall before they changed the law, people did occasionally discussed the word definition of coercion when it came to sexual assault. It was one of the major reason why they changed it to a consent based definition. I don't know however if the US academic word had similar discussion, but I wouldn't be surprised.

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

#128

Post by hsjqllzlfkf »

mardifoufs wrote: post #97
skissane wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> but Stallman is also not known to actually change his mind very often

Stallman is also not known as someone who can be coerced to say he believes something that he doesn't believe in.

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

#129

Post by Sporktacular »

Retric wrote: post #94
comprambler wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 objec…

So then you agree that power imbalances in sexual relationships are a problem. Good. That should be enough to move forward.

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

#130

Post by runsWphotons »

s0ulphire wrote: post #91
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…

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.

Freshman dating seniors in high school seems a lot different from adults forming a party to advocate for sex with prepubescent children. I wouldn't have thought it belongs in the same discussion but maybe I just got old.
Post reply on HN