11–20 of 87 posts
"Did I even really know who Richard Stallman was before those emails? To be honest, not really" Oh, dear
I think the problem here is that Stallman seems to value technical correctness over propriety, and doesn't seem to value political correctness at all. I get his point that using the term "assault" is probably incorrect, though it may be the correct term in some jurisdictions. The (usually unofficial) term I'd use is "statutory rape", which covers any nonforcible sexual activity between an adult and a minor (roughly p…
"nonforcible" is 100% bullshit in this context. A university professor in his 70s with liver spots on his bald pate who is "approached" by a 17 year old girl for sex on his rich buddy's island is knowingly participating in rape, full stop.
I find it curious that she talks about this as if it is a bad thing. The most sensible thing is to wait until conviction to pass judgement. Why is that whiney?
First, he didn’t even give the typical, whiney, ‘he’s accused but not convicted’ defense. No, Stallman went much further than that. I find it curious that she talks about this as if it is a bad thing. The most sensible thing is to wait until conviction to pass judgement. Why is that whiney?
This is the most sensible thing if you're a juror on a case. Otherwise, judgment may be called for long before a trial even starts, particularly when it comes to dead men (or participants in an elite criminal network which operates above the law) who will never even be brought to trial.
I think the problem here is that Stallman seems to value technical correctness over propriety, and doesn't seem to value political correctness at all. I get his point that using the term "assault" is probably incorrect, though it may be the correct term in some jurisdictions. The (usually unofficial) term I'd use is "statutory rape", which covers any nonforcible sexual activity between an adult and a minor (roughly p…
> Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.
(not that I think the author was even technically wrong to use the word "assaulting" for suspected statutory rape)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"nonforcible" is 100% bullshit in this context. A university professor in his 70s with liver spots on his bald pate who is "approached" by a 17 year old girl for sex on his rich buddy's island is knowingly participating in rape, full stop.
"statutory rape", full stop. To be precise.
This is a poor premise.
I give it a pass because RMS was probably in a similar pique when he sent his ridiculous email.
But elevating this conversation (and actually ditching RMS) will require calm.
“I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
He was responding to a student, who said "Giuffre was 17 at the time, this makes it rape in the Virgin Islands." He was addressing her specific point. He brought up the 17-18 thing because the student herself specified Giuffre's age as the condition of her being raped.
Like, if the student had said "Giuffre was raped because she was coerced against her will," that'd be different. But you can't yourself bring up the technical definition of rape to make your point, then get mad when other people point out that the technical definition makes no sense. If what you really want say is that rape is wrong because it's wrong, just say that!
Of course, the author cares about none of this, because what Stallman said was "problematic." What does that even mean, by the way? This whole post consists of the author repeatedly asserting that various things Stallman said were problematic without explaining why.
This brings me to my next point. Here's an article about "tact filters," a term describing how different people deal with the issue of tact:
http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html
People like Stallman don't get offended, so they assume other people won't either. People who do get offended try hard not to offend others, and expect the same courtesy. These two groups of people have difficulty getting along.
Neither point of view is invalid, in the sense that both sides get along extremely well with other people who are like them. But people with outward tact filters happen to be the majority, so Stallman gets seen as the bad guy. But I could imagine an alternative universe where inward-tact-filter nerds were the majority, and people like this author were expected to e.g. have the mental resilience to not let other people's words hijack her emotions.
So I guess I'm offended that people like Stallman are made to feel bad for being who they are, just because they're a minority.
His belief that children can give valid consent for sexual acts and his "skepticism" of "the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children" has been documented and well known for years, no one cares.
If anything, his pro-pedophilia views have probably helped normalize a general lack of concern over pedophilia and sexual abuse in programming and internet culture, and might have contributed to the acceptance of people like Epstein at MIT.
He's Richard Stallman after all... if he thinks sexual assault isn't a big deal, it's probably isn't, right?
I've noticed that people who write posts like this like to quote their subject, and then go, oh my, how shocking! what an appalling thing to say! without addressing the thing that was said, which in this case was (among other things): “I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.” He was responding to…
Richard Stallman is not a minority, either at MIT or in programming culture.