Richard M. Stallman resigns - <AUTHOR> https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns <comment><USER2> RMS has called himself "borderline autistic". His socially clueless black and white thinking makes it look like he is far in the spectrum. RMS is anal about meanings of terms and their use. That's not working well in the current climate where words carry perceived intent. I find myself agreeing with RMS with most of the terminology and its use in this case. Women who tell stories about him paint a picture of lonely socially incompetent man who makes super creepy attempts to connect opposite sex.

I have worked in jobs where there have been very strange creepy people, both women and men. Some are angry and tense. Some are odd and talk restless or slightly disturbing stuff that make everyone uncomfortable. But if they do their work well they can stay. Others give them some room. It's called tolerance.

If RMS was just random superhacker doing his thing. I would defend him. His boss should find a position for him where he can contribute and other people should feel free to feel uncomfortable and avoid him.

But RMS is de facto leader and public figure in movement that is also political. He does not deserve the same level of consideration as normal HR headache would. Even if everything against him would be completely unjust, there is no requirement for just treatment for top leaders. They can be sacked for any reason whatsoever.

<comment><USER3> Can we please stop excusing bad behavior with some form of "oh because autism"? It's an insult to the many, many neuro-atypical people who don't say shitty, stupid things online, who don't act creepy around women, who don't have a sign on their MIT office that says "Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies)", who don't have a gross mattress in their office where they encourage people to lie topless, who don't try to pressure women into dating them by saying they'll kill themselves otherwise. All of those things describe RMS, things that have been mostly quietly ignored and hand-waved away for decades.

We don't have to tolerate people who make women feel unsafe and unwelcome in our (or any) industry.

You seem to be arguing the usual tired old thing: "but he's a genius and does such great work that we should tolerate the bad things he does". I _really_ thought we'd started to move past that over the last few years.

<comment><USER4> Can you link to sources regarding Stallmans behavior towards women? It's not that I don't believe you but because I tried to google "Richard Stallman suicide threat" and couldn't come up with anything... I do want to believe you, but I can't propagate information without evidence.

<comment><USER5> [https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~lazowska/mit/?source=post_p...](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~lazowska/mit/?source=post_page -----a7e41e784f88</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----)

<comment><USER6> So far as I can tell the name "Stallman" appears nowhere in that document. (I'm not 100% sure because it seems to be a scanned PDF -- but searching for some other words I can see on the page appears to work OK.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's unfortunate that scarlet letter offences are still alive and well in today's culture.

Normally, when someone engages in behavior seen as offensive, the procedure is to pressure the person to apologize and mend his ways, and only get rid of him if he refuses to do so.

But when a "scarlet letter" offence is involved, we jump straight to the punishment phase, removing the person outright with no judicial process. This is completely backwards, anti-democratic, and anti-freedom. It brings a chilling effect on everyone, because suddenly people start to realize that they're living under the Sword of Damocles, which could destroy them at any moment without warning. You can never be sure if something you say or do is going to get you publicly pilloried in future, and destroy your career, friendships, and reputation in the blink of an eye. Far better to just sit quiet and never say anything that might offend someone. Far better not to participate at all.

Mob justice always turns ugly in the end. That's why we have courts.

<comment><USER8> On the other hand even with this resignation he doesn't appologize for anything. He could even have made his point of thinking it's a misunderstanding _and_ appologize, but didn't.

<comment><USER9> Kevin Hart apologized for some offensive jokes, he apologized as advised by the academy, and still got cancelled. Apologizing only serves to augment the conviction of a mob intent on finding fault.

<comment><USER10> You say Kevin Hart "got cancelled", yet he's still working on a Jumanji sequel, another film called Fatherhood and has been in commercials since the Oscars.

It seems like you're gravely overestimating how much power angry people on Twitter have.

<comment><USER11> Cancel culture may be running out of steam, but did Kevin Hart or whomever else know ex ante (meaning right after the scandal outbreak) what they were going to face.

As it stands now outcomes vary wildly. Some people like Kevin Spacey were literally erased from movies that were already filmed; some others have just claimed back their place (maybe not their peak fame) on their own like Louis CK. And then there are neutral outcomes like the one you mention.

And then there's Jussie Smollett who isn't a sex situation but was caught in, uh, something that's not a good look.

<comment><USER12> > And then there's Jussie Smollett who isn't a sex situation but was caught > in, uh, something that's not a good look.

He was caught framing innocent white men for hate crimes. He was going to send people to prison to boost his 'clout'. It's not just 'something'. It was a vile crime

<comment><USER11> (Sarcasm.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> it's rather interesting how all the information technology (social media, etc...) is slowly moving our culture towards increasing self-censorship. One has to have the right opinion or stay quiet.

Having the wrong opinion about certain topics is getting more expensive. Stay away from taboos or else... never mind the fact that what we regard as wrong changes across different societies over time.

Weirdly all the information technology is steering towards being more similar in our opinions and in what we can say without facing consequences.

Recently I started to thing about how in spite of having the ability to share, and change, and store information better and with more ease than ever, we seem to be going in the opposite direction. Instead of having more transparent institutions, everything is getting more "opaque" (so to speak) towards the public (even it this is happening due to overload).

does anyone remember "information wants to be free"? I don't think anybody says that anymore, but I remember reading that a bunch on slashdot in the early 00s

<comment><USER14> This has nothing to do with technology.

If you start expressing opinions about how sex with a sex-trafficked child should be legal, won't your friends and family raise some questions about your character?

Unless we're talking of morally flexible individuals. And at least parents should raise an eyebrow, since we have this natural reaction to protect our children.

> _information wants to be free_

Whomever said that was probably thinking of facts, of knowledge, s/he was probably not thinking of having opinions about pedophiles.

EDIT: don't get me wrong, I think there's a time and place to argue that consensual sex with teenagers might be ok and I think people should be free to make that argument, the problem in this case is that the sex couldn't have been consensual, in which case age becomes relevant, as that teenager isn't fully developed, therefore the harm done is amplified.

And also these opinions have been delivered by a very public figure, with a history of harassing women.

Words matter so the lesson here is don't be a jerk, as technology won't save you from that.

<comment><USER15> Well "child", a 17yo woman doesn't qualify as "child" unless it's a curious legal definition.

These kind of comments are clumsy claims to moral authority, useless flame fodder.

<comment><USER16> > a 17yo woman doesn't qualify as a child

What? 17-year-olds are still in high school. They probably just barely got a driver's license. They can just barely see an R-rated movie without a guardian. They can't even sign waivers to give themselves permission for field trips in my state. How on Earth is it fair to consider them adults and fit to give consent for sex with older men while employed for sex services?

<comment><USER17> I don't wanna touch the Stallman / Epstein story with a 10 foot (3.x meter?) pole, but I do believe that standards vary.

In Germany a 17yo cannot drive, CAN drink and can have (I'm old and it doesn't apply to me, so this might be only somewhat accurate) sex with other people (but cannot be a prostitute), might marry (needs parents approval I believe). Age of consent is 14 (but .. not for sex with adults as far as I'm aware).

I know that German law has nothing to do with this. But please stop and reflect for a second: The US allows 17yo to steer 2+ tons of steel at high velocities, Germany (as the one example I'm familiar with) lets them have consensual sex or drink beer. The same way you say 'How can they agree to sex' one might ask 'How can they be responsible enough to drive'.

It's cultural, not absolute. I understand the outrage, I am in no way defending Epstein, Stallman or anyone here - but please don't present your moral position/your upbringing as absolute truth. See it as something that you were raised to believe and that A LOT of people disagree with on this globe.

(It's obviously not helping the fact that the girls got paid, it's a completely disgusting, sad and shameful story with no recourse - but don't claim 17yo can't have sex with someone older, ... just because)

<comment><USER16> I agree morality isn't absolute, but we're talking about Epstein (an American and convicted U.S. felon) who as far as I know used only American children in his scheme. What I said is relevant to what stage of life the actual victims would likely have been in, as American teens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> People seem to be saying a variety of things about RMS: He's a genius, so let him be. He doesn't understand interpersonal communication. He didn't say the things people thought he said. People are too quick to judge. And so forth.

I was there, about 20 years ago, when he sent e-mail urging all free-software advocates to protest a bill under consideration in the US Congress. I asked him if he had read the bill. "No," he said, "I don't surf the Web." I saw that as a huge cop-out; how could someone claim any moral or leadership authority when he called for protests and a letter-writing campaign on a subject he didn't know about first hand?

It's certainly true that RMS has been remarkably consistent over the 30 years or so in which I've interacted with him -- starting when I was a reporter for the MIT student newspaper, and then maintained the Emacs FAQ, and then wrote for Linux Journal. (No, _not_ GNU/Linux Journal. Sheesh.) He's an extremist. He's a purist. He indeed doesn't get the nuances of interpersonal communication.

But you know what? You can't both lead an organization and be tone deaf to people. You can't be a public figure, demanding respect, and then show such disrespect to others. You can't expect that people will pay attention to what you say when you have so little respect for what they say.

Stallman has long been difficult, obstinate, and rude to people in general -- and a general drag on the cause of open-source (or "free") software. But I had no idea that he was known to be so terrible to women.

But even if he had treated women well -- which doesn't seem to be the case -- it's pretty hard to imagine anyone, anywhere defending Jeffrey Epstein in any way, shape, or form. The guy was terrible, did horrible things, abused a huge number of women, and amassed wealth and power in the most disgusting ways possible. To defend Epstein, or the people who were associated with him, is unacceptable.

Again: You want to defend Epstein in your own personal life? Go for it; you won't have many friends or colleagues afterwards, but that's up to you. But if you do it as the public face of a well-known activist organization? You can't possibly stick around there.

Good riddance.

<comment><USER19> Your argument against Stallman seems to hinge on him defending Epstein, which is something he didn't do. He was defending his late friend, Minsky. Specifically, he was unhappy with the language used to describe his conduct evoking imagery worse than the actual conduct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why does this feel like such a witch hunt?

It is clear RMS was stunningly clueless to write anything about this, but surely we all know of similar engineers that would make a similar error? If everyone were held up to the same moral standard, we wouldn't have many people left in power! Just to be clear: I'm _definitely not_ supporting hurting children (directly or indirectly) - I hope I'm not falling into the same tar pit.

I certainly respect RMS for what he created and his idealism (although last time I saw him talk he spent about half the time negatively pontificating about Linus and Linux, which seriously damaged his credibility IMHO).

It must be devastating to be on the receiving end of such ire.

<comment><USER21> This wasn't a witch hunt. This should have happened a long time ago. He is a creep, and has been problematic for years. "He literally used to have a mattress on the floor of his office. He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it. Many female students avoided the corridor with his office for that reason…I was one of the course 6 undergrads who avoided that part of NE43 precisely for that reason. (the mattress was also known to have shirtless people lounging on it…)" — Bachelor's in Computer Science, '99 All this and more [https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman- appendix...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix- a-a7e41e784f88)

<comment><USER22> Maybe I'm just dense, but I don't understand what the "implications" are. Someone clear up the meaning for me?

<comment><USER23> Sex. He implies that he has sex with women in his office.

<comment><USER24> You're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that women would have sex with RMS, let alone have sex with him on a mattress on the floor of his office. Jokes aside, this sounds downright unprofessional. I would have expected the institution to put this kind of behaviour in place.

<comment><USER25> considering according to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20991909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20991909) he apparently was homeless and lived out of his office for a while, yeah that's probably the definition of unprofessional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Before jumping to criticize Stallman, be aware: there is a big difference between what today's round of headlines claim Stallman wrote, and what he _actually_ wrote. Given the relatively clear-cut nature of the lies the press has told about him, I think he ought to be suing for libel.

<comment><USER27> What is the counter argument for what Stallman wrote? I've seen that the "press is going too hard on him", but, honestly, I think they were justified. What is the "big difference" to you? If someone, personally, said to me that that someone be absolved of a crime, because the other, coerced, party was "willing" at that moment, I'd seriously question their morals.

<comment><USER26> Stallman wrote: "We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates."

Here's the Vice headline ([https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed- computer-sci...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer- scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing)): Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing' (HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965319) )

New York Post ([https://nypost.com/2019/09/14/mit-scientist-says-epstein- vic...](https://nypost.com/2019/09/14/mit-scientist-says-epstein-victim- virginia-giuffre-was-entirely-willing-report/)): "MIT scientist says Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was 'entirely willing': report"

Fox News ([https://www.foxnews.com/us/mit-professor-jeffrey-epstein- ass...](https://www.foxnews.com/us/mit-professor-jeffrey-epstein-associate- entirely-willing)): "MIT scientist defended Jeffrey Epstein associate in leaked emails, claimed victims were 'entirely willing'"

These headlines do not match what Stallman wrote. They wrote awful words, and put them in his mouth, in order to support a narrative in which he said something which he didn't. That's not okay.

<comment><USER27> Stallman conjured up a thought experiment where Minsky is innocent because the minor was "entirely willing." _That_ was the defense Stallman decided, even if those aren't his exact words. His exact words aren't any better then whatever the media decided to run with, at the end of the day his intent was identical. The headline could have been "MIT scientist says you shouldn't get punished for raping minors as long as they present themselves as entirely willing." Do you believe I have gotten that wrong? And if not, can you argue why that is any better than what the media put out?

If Minsky could show up to court for his crimes and he said "Your honor, I didn't know she was 15", he would still go to jail.

<comment><USER28> You are failing to parse this sentence correctly.

He explicitly does not think she was willing. He thinks she was unwilling but was coerced to give the appearance of willingness and that the appearance of the two from Minskys point of view were the same.

This isn't a subtle difference. You think he said almost exactly the opposite of what he said

<comment><USER29> So Stallman's argument was that the most plausible scenario here is this: Minksy -- who at the time of these events had to at least have been in his sixties, not to mention, you know, married -- went over to Jeffrey Epstein's mansion, where Epstein presented a teenage girl to him for the purposes of having sex (the claim she makes is that she was ordered by Epstein to sleep with "powerful men"), and because the girl didn't explicitly _say_ she had been ordered to do so, Minsky was fine with it all.

So, are we saying this is a particularly good defense? Because it doesn't sound like a great defense to me. It doesn't sound like any reasonably smart person -- which Minsky undoubtedly was -- would find themselves in this situation and not have a question or two about the ethics.

Let's agree that the reporting did, in fact, get Stallman's meaning wrong here. Let's even agree that isn't a subtle difference. Here's the thing: even the most generous reading of what Stallman wrote is still, at the end of the day, excusing Minsky's actions.

And at the end of the day, I think that's still a problem.

<comment><USER28> Refer to my comment below. This wasn't a judgment statement. I'm not defending Stallman.

I'm simply saying he failed at the task of correctly parsing this statement in a way that is clearly causing him to misunderstand the story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not unexpected, but I'm surprised it happened so soon after he resigned from MIT/CSAIL.

Earlier today the director of the GNOME Foundation requested that RMS resign from the FSF, and said severing ties with the FSF could happen if he didn't step down.

[https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation- relations...](https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation-relationship- gnu-fsf/)

<comment><USER31> I think there was more social pressure for him to resign from FSF, and more institutional pressure for him to resign from MIT/CSAIL. The institutional pressure probably wasn't as painful, but was more forceful. I think he'd probably been holding back the pressure he felt to get the FSF thing over with for a while, but hoping for the controversy to die down, but when he was forced (or practically forced) to resign from MIT/CSAIL it became clear he wasn't going to win, and he decided to get it over with. Perhaps he'll be sleeping better tonight.

<comment><USER32> Did he resign from MIT? If so, he won't be sleeping well- he actually lived in his office (it was also his residence)

<comment><USER31> Yes. [0] And indeed he used to live there. He hasn't lived there in years, though. [1]

0: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard- stallman...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman- resigns-mit-free-software-foundation-epstein)

1: [https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html](https://stallman.org/rms- lifestyle.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What he said was stupid and disgusting. People sometimes over-estimate the amount of latitude the organization they work for will give them to do this.

The technology industry is taking baby-steps towards _actual_ inclusivity and diversity of thought -- and not this dumbass "I want to be free to say stupid offensive shit with impunity" flavor of "inclusivity" that people around here seem to champion. That is a Good Thing and organizations like MIT and the FSF need to be very careful about whom they let represent them.

As far as I'm aware Stallman has neither been arrested nor has his website been torn down, so he's welcomed to continue to make whatever good and bad points he feels like and the rest of us are welcomed to judge him as we wish: smart, stupid, ignorable, or maybe even abhorrent to the point where maybe he shouldn't be representing a place like MIT. Or the FSF.

It's a free country, after all.

<comment><USER34> If your "inclusivity" stops at Stallman, it seriously lacks performance. You use the wrong word. What you desire is conformity.

edit: Additionally, because I think this isn't obvious here, Stallman opened up the knowledge about software to the whole world and put energy in keeping it that way. Anyone was able to profit from this.

<comment><USER33> > What you desire is conformity.

Inasmuch as any organization must have a set of goals and principles that everyone within that organization must adhere to: Yes!

No one has taken away Stallman's freedom of speech.

<comment><USER34> Then just say that you want conformity to your social norms instead of inclusiveness and be more precise with your statements, please.

<comment><USER33> > your social norms

I am not affiliated with either MIT or the FSF, so my social norms have little to do with it.

Anyway, you're playing the dumb little game that people like to play with this topic: "If you're so 'tolerant' why won't you tolerate people saying offensive shit?"

And you've heard the answer a million times, I bet, you just won't accept it: Because it silences higher-quality diverse voices and "asshole who says repellent things" is already a wildly overrepresented class of person in the tech industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> RMS was defending his friend who, at the age of 74, is accused of having sex with a 17 year old girl on a billionaire's private island.

There is not a defense for what RMS was writing or how he was trying to defend Minsky.

The prevalence of comments trying to turn this against "SJW"s or whatever "other" they can because they're a fan of RMS is disturbing.

This isn't us vs. them.

This is a man who said something wildly inappropriate in an MIT forum and got fired. He deserved it. Defending him by pointing towards people who overreact to things is a bit terrible.

The firing was appropriate and reasonable, not a response to extremists, zealots, or some other kind of witch.

I welcome anyone to provide a counter-argument.

<comment><USER36> How is it we value free speech, but there are certain discussions you just cannot have, even in a rational and measured way, without risking making yourself completely unemployable. You should be able to have a questionable viewpoint in a discussion, without worrying about the lynch mob ending your career.

The consequences here are out of line. You can be reprimanded to take your discussions to a non company venue, in a situation like this, but fired is over the top.

Stallman said "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."

It's pretty clear with the age difference being what it is, this is exactly what statutory rape laws are for. But it is also incongruous that somehow if she was a year older it would be ok. It's also fucked up that if Minsky were 19, the consequences would be the same. Maybe there's a better law to be had here, but how would we ever know if you can't even have the discussion?

I'm appalled by how free speech is under attack lately by the outrage machine.

<comment><USER37> Stallman hasn't been silenced in any way. Free speech does not mean you can say whatever you like without consequence from private institutions and citizens, only that you may say whatever you like without consequences from the government et al.

Your conflation that free speech is under attack is disappointing - That's not what is happening here.

<comment><USER38> This has been said before, but free speech is beyond just government censorship and has a wider definition. Regardless of that, the idea that someone's livelihood is under threat due to their speech can be just as coercive as threatening a fine or jail for their speech. The idea that government chilling is someone kinder than private chilling is wrong.

<comment><USER39> My freedom of association trumps your freedom of speech.

If people don't want to associate with a person who says awful things, it's not a violation of their freedom of speech to disassociate with them.

<comment><USER40> But my freedom of speech should trump your freedom to spin up angry Internet mobs that proceed to turn my words into lies that they use to rip my life apart.

Time will come there will be regulations aiming to fix that, because slander laws apparently aren't enough. And _then_ people will come out and talk about freedom of speech, but the only answer will be, "you had it, and you misused it, and almost ripped the society apart".

<comment><USER41> > But my freedom of speech should trump your freedom to spin up angry Internet > mobs that proceed to turn my words into lies that they use to rip my life > apart.

Your freedom of speech doesn't trump anyone else's freedom of speech. If someone is knowingly or recklessly spreading harmful lies, you have recourse for that, but freedom of speech includes freedom of angry speech, and outside of harmful knowing and reckless lies, it included the freedom to be wrong in your speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> RMS was defending Minsky, awkwardly. As someone who has a history of social awkwardness, he should be forgiven for this. He's been a good steward of the FSF, which has doing important work in the service of free (read: non- backdoored) hardware lately. I know there are good people still at the FSF, but I can only hope they are as incorruptible and dogged as RMS.

The way this attack came suddenly out of the depths makes me suspect something coordinated. It's too similar to how Tor was seized, and how Linus was almost dethroned. There's something nasty afoot, and I don't like it one bit.

<comment><USER43> Minsky was a child molester. There's no way to defend that.

<comment><USER44> Sure there is. How about: "the deposition never actually accuses Minsky of having sex with anyone in the first place"? Or how about, "Greg Benford says ([https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/](https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/)) he was personally present at the incident and witnessed there was no sex"? Wow, who knew it was so easy to defend 'a child molester' for whom there's 'no way to defend' them.

<comment><USER43> 1\. The deposition that's been made public doesn't allege sex with anyone as it was in a lawsuit against Maxwell for trafficking activities. That's outside its scope.

2\. I don't find Benford credible.

3\. Minsky kept taking Epstein's money and holding conferences on Epstein's island for over a full decade after the events Giuffre and Benford describe took place. Is there any benign explanation for that?

<comment><USER45> The benign explanation is that he didn't know Epstein was a monster (few outside the DA's office did until 2018) and that he accepted funding for AI research.

<comment><USER46> Literally any Google search of the man's name would show that he's a fucking monster. It was never a secret, much less after he was convicted of trafficking an underage prostitute in 2008. Nobody can plead ignorance of his crimes. Everyone who took money from him, traveled with him (and his young 'friends'), is absolutely guilty by association of his continued crimes.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=jeffrey+epstein&biw=1345&bih...](https://www.google.com/search?q=jeffrey+epstein&biw=1345&bih=798&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A%2Ccd_max%3A1%2F1%2F2016&tbm=nws)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I am glad that people didn't force Chomsky to resign from MIT due to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair).

Freedom of speech means that people are free to defend what other people find morally objectionable. The idea that the "leaders" should be morally pure is understandable, but ultimately very elitist.

It also reminds me of this article: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/neurodiver...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/neurodiversity- truth-telling/592465/)

<comment><USER48> The situation with Chomsky is not equivalent to this. Chomsky did not want Faurisson prosecuted by French law for his views. Chomsky did not himself express the bad views.

Stallman here was the one expressing the bad views, so he is Faurisson not Chomsky.

<comment><USER47> Like Chomsky, Stallman did nothing illegal or immoral himself, just with his speech defended somebody who (potentially) did an illegal/immoral thing.

So if we consider "holocaust denial" to be the bad action (whether it is or not, that is for another discussion), then the analogy holds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Anybody who has spent time around RMS knows there are problematic behaviours in almost every interaction. This is not just about this one incident, but this one incident where he defends "voluntary pedophilia" was obviously the last straw.

I've met him a few times, put him up on my sofa once. I'd say almost every 15-30 minutes in his presence I would stop myself from saying "that's not an appropriate way to behave" or "please don't say that in that way, you're being rude", for fear of insulting him. Perhaps if more people had done that rather than being in awe and reverence (and there are many people who treat him that way), or just looking for a quiet life (my excuse), we wouldn't be here now.

It is clear to me that he has very low EQ or at least empathy for other people. I have spoken to others who have interacted with him who have suggested he might be on the autistic spectrum, and whilst I am not qualified to make a diagnosis, should such a diagnosis be made it would not surprise me.

At the weekend whilst this was blowing up I suggested he needed help. I think he is genuinely completely unaware why any of these statements would cause others to question his values. Freedom of speech is not a right to be a jerk, and he is unaware that he is seen as a jerk by a lot of people because of the many things he has said and done over many years.

It seems there are many people here who likewise are blind-sided as to why suggesting an underage girl would be entirely willing to have sex with an adult and presented herself willingly would be nothing more than a 'controversial opinion'. There are also people who think this is the only thing he's done that has caused problems - it's not.

I think there are deeper issues at play here, and he would benefit from counselling or therapy of some sort. Most people could even without his behaviour, so I'm definitely going to suggest it would be useful in his case. At a minimum it would help him navigate having a huge chunk of his life disappear over the last 24 hours.

I wish him well, but like almost every ex-colleague of his I've spoken to or who has been outspoken on social media about this: the FSF and MIT/CSAIL will now be a better place to be for others, and I hope that RMS gets the help he has needed for a long time.

I wish him well, but I also know that a large number of people will breathe a sigh of relief now that they can go about their work and studies without having to navigate _him_.

<comment><USER50> > It seems there are many people here who likewise are blind-sided as to why > suggesting an underage girl would be entirely willing to have sex with an > adult and presented herself willingly would be nothing more than a > 'controversial opinion'.

As what he said is literally presented, it is a possible interpretation of the facts: that Minsky may not have known she was coerced because of Epstein's instructions. How much of Minsky's culpability this erases if Minsky did indeed have sex with her (which is disputed itself) is open to debate.

Buuuuuuut, that's a pretty nuanced point to make. It needs to be made more carefully and respectfully to not just descend into rape apologia. Epstein's (and maybe Minsky's) victims are still alive and have feelings. And we want to create a better culture.

And if you're the guy who has already gone on record for not knowing why "voluntary pedophilia" is OK--- maybe you're not the guy to make this point. Because, after all, there's plenty of evidence that you're not so good at it, and your history taints it all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> C-x C-c.

Thank you for bringing the FSF into the world, Richard.

Whatever comes out of this and whatever comes next, your philosophy on software freedom has influenced us in innumerable ways.

<comment><USER52> "C-x C-c" should become a new rallying cry for valuing technological ability over political beliefs.

<comment><USER53> And what of all of the qualified developers who are excluded from the community by ignorant or bigoted people in positions of power? What of their technological ability?

<comment><USER54> You side-step the problem as any hacker would: on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

<comment><USER55> Thanks for the tip, I will gladly lie about who I am by saying that I'm a man, so that I can receive respect for doing the same work I do now.

<comment><USER56> Not trying to be a dick here, but in the hypothetical "on the internet nobody knows who you are", why would you need to specify if you're a man or a woman? I've personally always loved the interactions I've had on the internet back in the 90s-early 00s because someone's opinions/contributions could be analysed objectively without having to fall into the trap of subconscious biases based on the person you're speaking to rather than the object of discussion.

This is not to negate your feelings of being under-appreciated or respected because of your gender, but I am genuinely curious as to why your first response in this scenario would be to fake your gender rather than not caring about it.

<comment><USER51> The point is presumably that online interactions do not form the totality of a career or working life in software.

Yeah, here on HN you don't need to care whether I'm a man, woman, chocolate bar or UFO. In the real world when I take a CS course, go to a conference, take a job etc, having my physical form is pretty useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> "What you can't say" by Paul Graham is eerily relevant today

[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

<comment><USER58> Same thought, this article is superbly written. Thank you for the reference!

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Context: RMS waded into the MIT Epstein scandal

[https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman- fec6ec21...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794)

> I've concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is > absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation.

<comment><USER60> "Waded in" is exactly the right phrase. RMS is neither a legal expert nor a moral philosopher. Commenting on the definition of assault and the nature of consent is outside his field of expertise and he should have just replied with a curt "I will not be attending".

My personal takeaway is that it's important to understand the limitations of your own knowledge before succumbing to the urge to comment on something.

<comment><USER61> The man is known for not keeping his mouth shut when he sees something that bothers him. While I may not like his politics I agree that he should speak his mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Just as much as RMS was right[1], ESR was right[2]. The "cancel culture" is harming the free software movement by practicing human version of Microsoft's EEE[3]. The cancel culture enters the community, establishes interests groups, and starts knocking down prominent contributors. The demands are backed by angry crowds on social media rather than by contributions.

It's time for us to defend each other, and to hold contributions above outraged crowd's size.

\--

[1] "Stallman was right", countless comments here on HN, on LWN, and all over the internet

[2] "Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs", [http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

<comment><USER63> Using the term SJW alone destroys the credibility of any substantial claim using it. If you really want to persuade people, find a term that isn't mainly employed as incendiary jargon of far-right ideology to categorically dismiss anyone left of their viewpoint.

<comment><USER62> The concern has already been raised by sibling comment[0], so cross-posting my response. Let the last line quoted from article be a reply to you.

 _> This has nothing to do with 'SJWs'_

 _> I think it's much more likely you're clinging to buzzwords._

The ESR's article[1] you are referencing is so much more than just headline. I encourage you to read it, and try to re-construct the events, the thoughts, and the emotions that led ESR to post a piece that _explosive_. The comment section alone spans some 760 responses over four years, with people chipping in with their observations from the trenches and with their shattered dreams. While writing, ESR was in communication with several victims of then-recent social media mobs, and conveyed their woes.

The two bits of article that stood out to me:

      >The hacker culture's norm about inclusion is clear:
      >anybody who can pull the freight is welcome

and

      >We must (...)
      >learn to recognize their thought-stopping jargon and kafkatraps

\--

[1] "Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs", [http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918)

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993761)

<comment><USER64> I did read it, much as I read the guidelines for this website.

SJW is not an antonym of hacker. Whatever hacker culture's norm is, breaking work relationships and censorship for someone's words or actions is much older than hacker culture and is done my many more groups than 2010s American Democrat voters. Consider 1984, or Mary Whitehouse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I never much liked Richard Stallman.

But he's a freethinker, and freethinkers necessarily exist outside the mainstream. So, despite not liking him, I also don't like this turn of events.

It does seem arbitrary to me that the same sexual encounter is classified as rape in Arizona and not rape in Virginia. I suppose we have to draw that line somewhere arbitrary. But I wonder if it was a mistake to classify what is called "statutory rape" as "rape" at all. We can make it illegal without calling it rape.

That said, to me, this doesn't seem like a hill worth dying on. But then Stallman is not known for being picky about hills. People like him (or loathe him) because he's principled, and therefore no hill is too small.

<comment><USER66> > That said, to me, this doesn't seem like a hill worth dying on

I don't think he saw it as a hill worth dying on, just a random hill he happened to be shot on. It's part of a random scattering of thoughts he makes public.

Either way, I'm cancelling my FSF donations for caving into this witch hunt. It's long demise will be helmed by people that stand for nothing less they offend someone.

<comment><USER67> > Either way, I'm cancelling my FSF donations for caving into this witch hunt.

If the FSF experiences a drop in donations couldn't they interpret that as people trying to distance themselves with Stallman, and he's basically synonymous with the FSF?

<comment><USER68> If you leave/cancel tell them why, to remove ambiguity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Something about Minsky that seems to have gotten lost: Minsky appears to have turned Epstein's girl down, according to Gregory Benford: [https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/](https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/)

<comment><USER70> The deposition is rather ambiguous about this, it says she was sent there but not whether she did or did not have sex with Minsky.

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFx...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFxrmNhs/view)

RMS did a very stupid thing here, by attempting to defend his friend as though he had had sex with her he cemented that picture in the minds of whoever reads his (RMS's) screed without questioning whether or not the event took place in the first place. It is a pity that the deposition does not allow one to resolve this once and for all.

It speaks of her being directed to have sex with but fails to ask the follow up question (which I would think is very much material) of whether it actually happened in each of those cases. Pretty bad questioning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Regardless of whether it was right to ditch Stallman as the president of the FSF, here's my "wishlist" for his successor (in case they don't revert it):

\- Someone who is less of a hardliner: Stallman's dedication to free software is a good thing but his absolutist style of expressing it might have put a lot of people off who would otherwise not be opposed to the idea of free software

\- Someone who understands the problems of free/open source software (contributors not getting paid, corporate exploitation, ...) and has progressive solutions for it

\- Someone who everyone can (at least kinda) sympathize with and/or relate to: I believe Stallman generally has no bad intent but a lot of his mannerisms are just plain awkward or offensive to a lot of people. Normally that wouldn't matter but the president of the FSF (especially Stallman) is kinda "the face of free software". So showing that the world of free software is a progressive and inclusive space here might just benefit everyone.

We should still honor Stallman for what he did for free software (I mean he basically invented it) and we should IMO continue to welcome him in this space (maybe even as some kind of executive in the FSF because after all he's obviously not incompetent). But maybe he isn't the best person for the role of the president anymore these days.

<comment><USER72> > Someone who is less of a hardliner: [...] his absolutist style of expressing > it might have put a lot of people off

I think this is two different issues.

I wouldn't mind a softer talker, but I would prefer for that person to be a hardliner and someone who would open our minds to alternatives in the openess direction.

There are too many "money talks"/"free market solves it all" people in the world, if the front-person of FSF is a mediator then it will grow in that direction, instead of making the world see more spectrum.

<comment><USER71> That might be a better way to put it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> There are so many judgements on both sides, both in these comments and in the articles on the subject that have been submitted, but very little quoting of what he said in context.

Where can I find what he said? Why is everyone talking about what he meant without quoting what he said so I can decide what makes sense for myself?

<comment><USER74> Vice has the full transcript and it's long, which is part of why people aren't quoting snippets. Quoting snippets is not better in this case than talking about what you think he meant.

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer- sci...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist- richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing)

See also:

[https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman- fec6ec21...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794)

<comment><USER75> Thank you for the links.

BTW: I am not sure why this question is down voted. At least here in Europe this was not real news so it was an honest questions. The FSF site did not explain the why.

<comment><USER74> It's politically sensitive. The lack of explanation was no doubt entirely intentional, so asking can be interpreted as a social faux pas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> So long and thanks for all the code!

To be blunt, I'm not sure the FSF is worth having without someone as stubborn as RMS at the helm, but with any luck, they can still do a proper job of maintaining his legacy. Increasingly I find Stallman was right, and I hope he will continue to publicly do what he can to advance free software.

</comment><comment><USER77> More information on‒what I guess‒is the relevant backstory (RMS making reprehensible statements related to the Epstein scandal) can be found (among other places) in this blog post [1] by Matthew Garrett (original source referenced in the post is [2]).

[1] [https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html](https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html)

[2] [https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman- fec6ec21...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794)

<comment><USER78> >Again, this mailing list has undergraduate students on it. It is likely some of them are "18 years old or 17".

What a horribly asinine point. If you're an undergraduate student and unable to deal with uncomfortable opinions, you are too immature to be a university student. The further infantilization of college students, and worse, college staff, never ceases to amaze me.

<comment><USER79> Do you spend a lot of time at work having your vulnerability to rape talked about by your boss?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Nearly the entire world considers 17 legal [1], including _most_ of the United States. To deny there is a room for a conversation about age of consent being arbitrary seems… really strange.

[1]: [https://philippineslifestyle.com/wp- content/uploads/te3FQnP-...](https://philippineslifestyle.com/wp- content/uploads/te3FQnP-960x436.png)

<comment><USER81> The entire thing is odd. RMS is questioning the morality of the law and the people opposing him are quite literally, unironically, upset because they use the law to derive their morality[0]. More than that, their criticism is based on an intentional clickbait-tier misreading of what Stallman was saying. And after learning this, people are like "oh well, screw him anyway, he's a weirdo." This includes people like Neil McGovern, GNOME Executive Director, who used the opportunity to threaten that RMS leaves or GNOME leaves the FSF.

Living in a country where the age of consent is 16, the oddest thing I find in all of this is that people can hold a straight face while saying that sleeping with a 17 year old constitutes pedophilia but seem to completely ignore that their country tries 13 year olds as adults[1] when they deem it fitting.

[0] [https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/73/Appeal- to-the-Law)

[1] [https://oklahoman.com/article/5580060/13-year-old-boy- charge...](https://oklahoman.com/article/5580060/13-year-old-boy-charged-with- first-degree-murder-in-deadly-crossbow-shooting)

<comment><USER82> That seems like a very definitive description on why you are right and everyone who disagrees is wrong. Do you allow any room for interpretation here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Well, I'm now going to be following Stallman without the FSF around. His (admittedly) iconoclastic views are important, and I appreciate what he says about technology and privacy. His legal views are questionable, yes, but I don't accept the idea that he should be removed from the FSF.

</comment><comment><USER84> I wonder why on Earth did RMS embark in such a dangerous discussion. In modern times talking about those topics is just like Wile E. Coyote throwing a dozen boomerangs at the roadrunner thinking he won't be hit back by some of them.

He should have thought carefully about that: no matter if one is right or wrong, talking about that stuff in public will expose an individual to remotely controllable public anger in a way that will harm all other good stuff he does through ad-hominem attacks ("he has such opinions about rape, therefore his software sucks as do his licensing model and his opinions on closed source"). I for one still think he's a kind of good extremist the IT world badly needs, I agree at least on principle with most of his ideas and recall listening to him at a conference then handshaking him about two decades ago. Still... yeah, it was stupid from him to comment on such sensitive topics; this could harm the Free Software world in many ways, regardless of him being right or wrong, and probably someone will attempt to use that weapon.

</comment><comment><USER85> I have no opinion on Stallman, he could very well be that awful person.

The twitter discussion[0] seemed to me to be very polarized and targeting rage with all the common traits of typical fake news/mass hysteria communication. Maybe it is just the way these things naturally come to daylight.

[0] [https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1172283772428906496](https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1172283772428906496)

<comment><USER86> totally good faith dynamic there, calling it fake news/mass hysteria. great stuff man, real contribution to the conversation. G-d forbid other people be pissed about this.

<comment><USER85> What are you trying to do here ? Can you be constructive please ?

If you read carefully you might notice that I said it "shares common traits with". Because it does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Knowing how stubborn and aloof Richard tends to be, it is a huge surprise that this has happened at all, let alone so quickly. I can only imagine there was an immense amount of pressure from the board, partner projects, and sponsors.

<comment><USER88> Or maybe, as with Guido van Rossum (in an unrelated context), he's had a bellyful of our contemporary variations on the French Revolution.

<comment><USER89> For the uninitiated, what happened with Guido van Rossum?

<comment><USER90> Very unrelated issue - he resigned after the flamewars regarding PEP 572 (the addition of an assignment expression ':='). After it had gone on for a while, he finally used his BDFL authority to shut down debate and approve the PEP, and then resigned shortly after. In particular, he felt that the Python Code of Conduct's requirement for civility was being completely ignored in attacks on him in social media.

See [https://lwn.net/Articles/757713/](https://lwn.net/Articles/757713/) for background, and [https://lwn.net/Articles/759654/](https://lwn.net/Articles/759654/) for his resignation letter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> I'm surprised at the number of news headlines and comments saying that Stallman defended Epstein. He absolutely did not. His entire point can be summed up as "if person A (Epstein) coerces a 17 year old girl into approaching and having sex with person B (Minsky), and does a hypothetically convincing job of it, is person B (Minsky) guilty of statutory rape / sexual assault?" His argument is valid considering Guiffre never accused Minsky of sexual assault, and doubly valid considering there is at least one witness who said that while Guiffre approached them, Minsky did not have sex with her. Even for the people saying that it IS statutory rape in a court of law (i.e. ignorance of her age doesn't matter to the court), please consider that Minsky isn't actually "guilty" because this hasn't been proven in said court of law.

</comment><comment><USER92> It's funny how people flirt between law and objective morality depending on which further serves their argument.

Controlling the language is key to controlling the discussion, and as usual Stallman just wanted to clarify the language. He's used to dealing with a more rational, less public crowd, and didn't realize he was poking a bed of hot coals.

It's very sad to see such backlash and support of deplatformization of someone who has done so much for us over one cluster of comments. Even if you disagree with him, surely we can be allowed more than one mistake in the public eye before the platform we helped create is ripped from our hands. This is quite the authoritarian mindset and it worries me to find it in such prevalence here on Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER93> That this is being framed as a matter of free speech is preposterous. Richard Stallman isn't some low-level engineer. He runs one of the largest and most impactful open source foundations in the world. The question isn't whether it's ok to have these kinds of discussions. Stallman's questions were, to my mind, obtuse and silly, and a 74 year-old shouldn't need those things explained to him, but some people do. The important question is this: is somebody who is this obtuse about rape victims and the difficulties that women face in the workforce fit to lead one of the biggest and most impactful open source organizations in the world? The answer to that is clearly no.

</comment><comment><USER94> I, as many others, never personally liked Dr. Stallman and didn't agreed with many of his views.

That being said, the way that that happened is absolutely terrifying. Fact, that people rather crucify someone instead of argue, explain or prove him wrong is the sign of our times.

End of free speech is here. It's free only if it doesn't offend group powerful enough to destroy you, and it's narrowing every single day. We've seen many instances of this happening both on personal, unpopular views and gossips and false accusations.

Want to keep your career? Best you can do is to steer out of the social media and don't share your thoughts with anyone. Not only controversial ones, because what might not be controversial now, might be controversial in 10 years, and you will suffer because of it.

<comment><USER95> Terrifying is right. Look at how the telephone game evolved a debate about what Minsky knew or didn't into a defense of child sex trafficking:

Stallman:

> the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely > willing.

Selam G.

> [Stallman] says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be "entirely > willing".

VICE:

> Stallman insists that the "most plausible scenario" is that Epstein's > underage victims were "entirely willing" while being trafficked.

New York Post:

> MIT scientist says Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was 'entirely willing'

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> The Internet doesn't forget, so everyone can be branded mysogynist/mysandry/pedophile/etc.. just by making mistakes or having taken quotes out of context. People have limited attention and the media profits on showing the ugliness of others. This is not how it should be but I don't know how to fix that...

<comment><USER97> it's not out of context. you can read his own posts.

<comment><USER96> In my original post, 'making mistakes' was put before 'out of context', the Internet doesn't allow anyone to have a 2nd chance of doing anything. Once you are branded as something, it will stuck with you forever, erasing any previous achievement or contribution you have done. And I don't like that.

<comment><USER98> To get a second chance you need to realize what you did wrong and apologize (at least that the standard I set for kids). Until that I assume he's still just as bad as when he made the "mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> I've seen some online cheering Stallman's resignation from MIT. I suspect they'll also be cheering about this resignation as well.

But this is nothing to cheer about.

Regardless of what low regard the man might be held as a person, he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. These are all hallmarks of scientific inquiry.

It sets a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship on a topic that really requires the disinfecting power of sunshine.

This strengthens the power of those who have no use for scientific inquiry and are more interested in inquisition.

<comment><USER100> I too, am a fan of Stallman's accomplishments and I am sad that debate on this topic essentially can't happen.

That said, I think Stallman's position really is fundamentally wrong and problematic.

Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent. Morally, that stance really is justified in the most common circumstance - when the non-underaged person has more power and experience than the underaged person. In the case under discussion, you have that in spades, double spades.

The sad thing is that individuals interested in freedom, who make serious contributions to some things called free, don't notice that the massive imbalances of wealth today have produced a situation where simple "free choice" is made a mockery of.

And yeah, the thing about inquisition atmosphere, imo, is that it doesn't reveal the rot behind all the "mere" abuse of power.

<comment><USER101> He seems to have expressed a couple distinct arguments:

1\. It isn't pedophilia if the person is sexually mature. Pedophilia is sex with prepubescent children.

2\. He draws a distinction between statutory rape (can't legally say yes according to the law, but otherwise willing and sexually mature) and forcible rape (when someone says no). He made a point about how statutory rape wouldn't be considered rape if it happened in a different location (e.g. Italy) or if the person's birthday were slightly adjusted.

I agree with you that in the Epstein case you have a situation with a dramatic power imbalance. Stallman seems to consider Epstein a serial rapist (possibly for that fact?). He seems to be more pushing back on the pedophilia accusations.

Also - there seems to be a thread lost. It really looks like Epstein was a US Intelligence Officer filming powerful people having sex with young women (including foreign officials) to obtain leverage on them for the United States. This whole aspect of the conversation seems to have melted away in the various other controversies.

<comment><USER102> I'm not going to argue one way or the other. But for those saying legally it's one way or the other.

In Germany (and I find this disturbing) the legal age under which a grown up (over 21 years) can have sex with a kid is 14[1][2]. Of course a judge can find that the child or their legal representative not having been capable of giving consent in which case it's still considered child abuse.

Western societies themselves have such vastly different legal definitions of consent. To be honest I find germanies version to be the weirdest I've seen although I don't know much about the other european countries.

[1] [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzalter](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzalter)

[2] [https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__176.html](https://www.gesetze- im-internet.de/stgb/__176.html)

<comment><USER103> > Germany (and I find this disturbing) the legal age under which a grown up > (over 21 years) can have sex with a kid is 14[1][2].

It is not.

The general legal age of consent in German is 16 years. § 182 (3)

The special legal age is 14 and it's only legal if the other party is under 21.

Even then there are a lot of further exemptions that would make sex with a minor illegal. Prostitution and/or pornography involving minors is always illegal.

<comment><USER104> Not quite true.

In Germany, having sex with someone in the 14-15 range _can_ be illegal _if_ the other party is _above_ the age of 21.

Relevant passage in German, from the parent's link:

"Über die Vorschriften des § 182 StGB Abs. 1 und 2 (Zwangslage, Entgelt) bezüglich des Schutzalters 18 Jahre hinaus, die auch für unter 16-jährige Opfer gelten, können sexuelle Handlungen von Erwachsenen, die über 21 Jahre alt sind, mit 14- und 15-jährigen Jugendlichen nach § 182 Abs. 3 StGB bestraft werden, falls ein gesetzlicher Vertreter des Jugendlichen Strafantrag stellt und im Strafverfahren das Gericht feststellt, dass der Erwachsene eine – etwa mit Hilfe eines Sachverständigen – festzustellende "fehlende Fähigkeit zur sexuellen Selbstbestimmung" des Jugendlichen ausgenutzt hat. _Der Bundesgerichtshof hat 1996 festgestellt, dass der bloße Hinweis auf das Alter der 14- oder 15-jährigen Person für eine Verurteilung des erwachsenen Beschuldigten nicht ausreicht._ "

(emphasis mine)

To summarize: Having (consensual, of course) sex with a 14 year old is _always_ legal in Germany if you're under the age of 21 and not a teacher or some such, and _can_ be illegal if you're over that.

<comment><USER103> yes, dejure it can be legal (not it is legal) for a 21 year old to have sex with a 14-15 year old, defacto it isn't. The BGH decision merely states that for the range 14-15 the court has to look at the maturity of the victim on a case by case basis, because that's what the law says.

That only means the court (not the defendant) will get an expert witness who in the very very vast majority of all of cases will say "well yes, not mature enough, normal/underdeveloped 14/15 yo".

The point of this is not, say the lawmakers (as can be read in the Referentenentwürfe), to give a card blanche to adults to have sex with 14-15yos, but account for the very rare case a 14-15yo actually has a far above average developmental maturity, to the point where a special protection by law is no longer necessary, thus making the age of consent less arbitrary and closer related to the actual state of development of an individual.

<comment><USER104> > yes, dejure it can be legal (not it is legal) for a 21 year old to have sex > with a 14-15 year old, defacto it isn't. The BGH decision merely states that > for the range 14-15 the court has to look at the maturity of the victim on a > case by case basis, because that's what the law says.

> That only means the court (not the defendant) will get an expert witness who > in the very very vast majority of all of cases will say "well yes, not > mature enough, normal/underdeveloped 14/15 yo".

The wikipedia link directly contradicts you:

"Dieser Rückgang wird in der juristischen Literatur nicht etwa so erklärt, dass die Zahl der Sexualkontakte Erwachsener mit Jugendlichen zurückgegangen sei, sondern dass solche Kontakte gegenwärtig gesellschaftlich weitgehend toleriert werden und Erziehungsberechtigte nur noch selten Strafanträge stellen.[6] Verschiedene Studien rechnen damit, dass nur jede hundertste bis zweihundertste sexuelle Beziehung einer über 21-jährigen Person mit einer 14- bis 15-jährigen Person zu einer Anzeige nach § 182 Abs. 3 StGB (in aktueller Fassung) führt.[5]"

<comment><USER103> It does not. Parents not filing complaints is an entirely different matter to courts letting perpetrators skate.

<comment><USER104> From everything I've read, the number of convictions following complaints by parents seem to be pretty rare. Unless we have actual numbers on that however, the discussion is rather pointless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> I am lost for words...angry and frustrated that this has happened. There have been dozens of things RMS has said in the past that I disagreed with and at the end of the day, I always had (and still have) the highest amount of respect for that man. He is the definition of "harmless as a fly".

Found the word I was looking for: DISGUSTED.

</comment><comment><USER106> There is no defending Epstein. Though I think Stallman has made many valuable contributions to free software, I think he has fallen on his sword on this one for no good reason.

<comment><USER107> He did not defend Epstein.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> RMS's definition of pedophile doesn't include people who feel sexuall attraction on person who has puberty and is sexual maturity.

I think that's a fair definition.

He also argues that 17 years old has ability to consent.

Since I'm from a country of consent age of 13 years, I agree.

RMS don't encourage to violate the law, merely presenting the opinion. This opinion isn't blaming certain group like James Watson and his comment on race and intelligence.

I guess some people aren't civil enough to discuss theoretical problems.

<comment><USER14> What's being lost in the conversation is that the child in the the story was trafficked for sex.

We are not talking just about sex with a 17 year old.

<comment><USER108> So RMS called Epstein "serial rapist". He declined to call him "Pedophile" and that cause this outrage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> From the email chain:

> Looking through the article again reportedly points to the deposition > itself. I visited that URL and got a blank window. It is on Google Drive, > which demands running nonfree software in order to see it. See > [https://gnu.org/philos2phy/javascript- > trap.html](https://gnu.org/philos2phy/javascript-trap.html) > > Would you > (not anyone else!) like to email me a copy of the part that pertains to > Minsky? say "not anyone else" to avoid getting 20 copies.

Lol even in the middle of this discussion he sneaks some JavaScript hatred in there!

</comment><comment><USER109> I don't agree with many things RMS says, but I am not a fan of this cancel culture where character assassinations are orchestrated routinely.

<comment><USER110> Cancel culture, or as most adults like to refer to it, consequences.

<comment><USER55> This.

And on top of all that, he quite literally voluntarily resigned, it's in the title.

<comment><USER111> It is not likely, in your estimation, that he was pressured and coerced into "resigning"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> I think it is unfair to hound him over his latest statement about sexual assault. He is absolutely right that the term sexual assault includes actions that are so different that it can be used to unfairly destroy people's reputation. And if you are going to call someone a monster, it is better to more precisely define what type of sexual assault he did.

I myself was sexually assaulted some time ago. I was in an ordinary nightclub, I went to the mens room, and on walking out of the mens room some a-hole decided to slap my ass on the way out. I gave him a dirty look, maybe I should have had him kicked out of the club, but I don't think it was necessary to have him fired from his job or ruin his career.

<comment><USER113> If he wrote that, he'd likely still have a job. But that's not what he wrote. He took it too far.

<comment> ryan-allen What did he write? I'm out of the loop on this.

EDIT: I think this covers it all? [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers- re...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-resign-in- protest-over-mit-media-labs-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein)

<comment><USER113> If we're gonna go with Vice, this is the correct article: [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer- sci...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist- richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing)

<comment><USER95> Holy shit, did Selam G. really just invent the primary component of this complaint?

Stallman:

> the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely > willing.

Selam G.

> [Stallman] says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be "entirely > willing".

VICE:

> Stallman insists that the "most plausible scenario" is that Epstein's > underage victims were "entirely willing" while being trafficked.

<comment><USER111> Yes. That's exactly what she did --- and she's not alone; I've seen many other individuals do the same (after reading the primary source). Whether they've all read too fast, or for some other reason failed to parse the sentence correctly, I have not yet determined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER114> I find the volume of the noise being made over whether or not the "entirely willing" bit was quoted out of context by the media for sensationalist purposes — which it 100% was — quite curious. To me, the place Stallman screwed up was in trying to quibble over terms in defense of a man who we have reason to believe had sex with an woman of an age in a jurisdiction where that might have constituted rape.

Because that's what it's about: he said, "But is it _really_?" — literally, in fact — about something which, for legal purposes, his opinion is irrelevant. To wit:

> _Does it really? 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._

Stallman said that. He went there. He quibbled over whether something constituted rape, as if the Virgin Islands cares one whit what rms thinks of their laws. _That 's_ where he screwed up, and people in the thread said so at the time, too. So people now can try to make this shit-show about his being quoted out of context about "entirely willing" — which, again, _it was_ — as much as they want, but that just won't make it so.

This is entirely about Stallman having quibbled over rape, not whether he was selectively quoted in the course of quibbling over rape.

EDIT: Phrasing

<comment><USER115> >Stallman quibbled over the definition of rape.

 _Hell yes he did_. Wouldn't you? If I made my own country where "rape" was defined as "sex without first doing twenty jumping jacks," wouldn't you "quibble"?

>everyone admits knowingly slept with an woman of an age in a jurisdiction where that constituted rape.

So what? I drove 37 in a 35 today, who cares? You can't outsource your morality to the legal system like that.

If Minsky did something bad, _say he did something bad_. But don't launder your outrage through the VI's laws.

<comment><USER114> Really?

You're going to make a moral comparison between a minor traffic violation (not even a primary offense!) and having sex with a _coerced child_?

<comment><USER116> Either you tie morality to legality, or you don't.

<comment><USER82> Are there any available positions in between these polar opposites?

<comment><USER116> No

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not so sure ambitious competitors aren't riding moral panics and polarized reactions to get rid of incumbents and take their place.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

</comment><comment><USER117> I would like to point out that the court documents have written on them:

A woman, testified that Epstein told her to offer sex to Minsky.

What it DIDN'T said:

That Minsky accepted the offer.

Also there are a witness (someone that was present, Greg Benford) that claims that Minsky didn't accepted the offer.

</comment><comment><USER118> RMS is indeed a visionary and deserves credit for the good works he's done in his life. He may also be a bad person. Or maybe he's a good person who shows extremely poor judgment. I don't really know much about the allegations so I won't defend him or persecute him.

But this is a good move for FSF. RMS must have realized (or been made to realize) that he is now a net-negative contribution to FSF.

</comment><comment><USER25> A good comparison by another poster today here between RMS' statements on the mailing list and the lies the news media published about them [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990426](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990426)

I wonder what this means for the influence of the FSF in general. And will RMS stop working on emacs and other software?

<comment><USER119> > and will RMS stop working on emacs and other software?

Has he still been contributing code? My impression was always that he wrote the first versions of emacs,gcc,... many years ago, and many other people have taken over in the intervening decades. I'm quite confident he isn't working on gcc anymore.

<comment><USER25> I knew he no longer works on GCC and many other projects but I thought he still contributed to emacs. Looking at the recent commits on GitHub, it appears I was wrong about that.

Did he have mainly a supervisory role at the FSF or was he just giving talks lately and no longer actively contributing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Email chain is here:

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001.html)

</comment><comment><USER74> This is the end of an era, regardless of what you think about the events leading up to this point.

</comment><comment><USER121> I have no doubt there will be one of these incidents where the mob mentality that is out for blood leads to catastrophic consequences. I have a hunch that perhaps then people will approach these situations with at least a bit of caution. The guy messed up, but it does not change his contributions. When is his punishment going to be seemed sufficient?

</comment><comment><USER122> All this happens because he tried to make his friend look less bad, in a situation that most people will try to keep a good distance.

Things we take for granted today wouldn't exist without this man. To name just one thing, gcc. Yet people are more eager to punish him for what he said than to praise him for what he did.

</comment><comment><USER123> This is actually the best outcome for the FSF. Unwittingly, the FSF might now need to find a leader who isn't a known weirdo/creep who's "genius" people merely tolerate. This might be the best news for FSF fans like me.

<comment><USER124> I kind of agree. As another free software fan, I've been uncomfortable with a number of things that RMS has been doing. Free software is good, no compromise/no surrender is good, and fighting against proprietary software is good. Doing it the ways RMS has been doing it is often not good.

<comment><USER125> I do not feel at all identified with that view.

Mine is just a particular case, but as a mathematician I was attracted to computer science (as a legitimate field with important real-world effects) thanks to a talk that RMS gave in my university. First I liked his personality and sincerity in the way he explained the printer driver story; then I listened and read everything else he said (especially "the right to read") and it ressonated with my thoughts very powerfully. I guees the same thing happens to many people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> Since they can't be made too visible: Stallman's actual comments: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001.html)

</comment><comment><USER126> When will someone make a Licensing Agreement that strictly excludes the thought police. It's seriously ridiculous that anyone thinks it is important to criticize with a microscope every single thing someone says, some people think out loud it's called discourse. There are quotes from antiquity that it is the mark of someone truly wise who can seriously consider an idea and either accept it or reject it based on its merit, the point being if you can't even bring up something as a topic of conversation that is mentally handicapping yourself.

People will seriously have to reconsider these arbitrary rules when every single word we all say is recorded from birth. That day is not far away.

How Orwellian the situation we have built for ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER127> My other comment was censored, I just strongly disagree with the cancel culture that led to Stallman's resignation.

The person Sarah Mei seems to be leading this fight against Stallman even going so far as renouncing the concept of free software and the GPL because of the association with Stallman.

This is entirely wrongheaded, you can agree with the concept of free software and the GPL and disagree with the political views of Stallman. Personally I don't agree with Stallman's political views but he is right on the issues of software freedom and without that I don't think we would be where we are today, having legally protected operating systems, compilers and so forth free for anyone to use, study, or improve upon.

</comment><comment><USER128> I think this is an awful way for the life's work of someone as dedicated and impactful as Richard's to come to an end.

It's an utterly disproportionate consequence for Richard's missteps which amount to nothing more than a discussion in a mailing list.

</comment><comment><USER129> Some people here seem to need it explained why RMS's comments were wrong.

\- Minsky is accused, by a credible victim of a non-credible, convicted pedophile, of receiving sexual contact with a woman who was underage at the time, and who was dispatched to him as part of her employment.

\- RMS says the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to Minsky as entirely willing. He also says that the difference between 17 and 18 is a minor detail and it's an injustice to refer to it as a sexual assault.

\- RMS fails to understand that an adult with a teenager is unacceptable creeping due to the imbalance of power in several different ways, in this context he's right that 17/18 is a minor detail _because both are unacceptable_. But 17 is also illegal. What if he didn't know she was 17? Irrelevant because he surely knew she was a very young woman, and by implication relished the power imbalance rather than properly backing away. In fact, Minsky should never have accepted friendship with Epstein who was clearly creeping on teenagers in a completely overt way. And RMS shouldn't be defending it.

\- RMS also fails to understand how the employer-employee relationship compounds this with yet another axis of undue power, and how these together make the presentation of being "entirely willing" _impossible to tell apart from having no choice_. This impossibility is why age of consent laws exist even though teenagers can speak and express their opinion. They don't have the structural power to speak freely. To be honest, 18-year-olds don't either. When someone has sexual contact with someone who has no power to say no, that's sexual assault, or it's rape.

\- By taking the side of a man he knows, who was doing wrong, over a woman who was vulnerable, and by brushing off the implied possibility of coercion, RMS shows that he is part of the systemic problem of sexist, exploiter-friendly men in tech which the Epstein scandal has uncovered.

<comment><USER130> He doesn't understands power relations because he ignores them. He doesn't bend, which makes him a general outsider of society, but he expect other to act in the same manner, of not bending, because he doesn't understand social ties.

There are various few occasions that you see RMS bending. Like plane travels (which require IDs), that he just does when he needs to cross oceans. So to him, a person that dd something because of a power relation with an employer is just weird.

<comment><USER129> He "doesn't bend" because he's never had to. He's been able to leverage his privilege into a lifestyle of not bending.

You know what happens to people who "won't bend" and must? They break and die. So people in dire circumstances learn to bend.

Not personally being in dire circumstance is the luck of the draw. Not considering them, or playing "I wouldn't bend" and belittling them, is a refusal to care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER131> > At least Richard Stallman is not accused of raping anyone. But is that our > highest standard? The standard that this prestigious institution holds > itself to? If this is what MIT wants to defend; if this is what MIT wants to > stand for, then, yes, burn it to the ground…

…Remove everyone, if we must, and let something much better be built from the ashes.

Salem, Robotics student who started Remove Stallman campaign

If this isn't literally "revolution [of free speech and thought in cyberspace] devouring its' children", then I don't know, what it is.

</comment><comment><USER132> It is unfortunate. I hope that what Stallman brought to the world due to his personality is not overshadowed by this. I think that the people who, for lack of a better term, are frothing at the mouth with the opportunity to attack him don't have a true understanding of the degree to which free software has changed the world, powering companies and huge parts of the economy. It baffles me. Maybe they just don't care. I'm not sure, but I feel that he is being wildly misrepresented.

</comment><comment><USER133> It's mind boggling. What the media says is a terrible misrepresentation. What he actually wrote can be found here:

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001.html)

Someone tried to intimidate him saying this exchange will be leaked to the press. Stallman answered people at MIT should seek the truth without being afraid.

What sad times we live in! First Linus, now Stallman...

</comment><comment><USER134> I guess it's ok to update the abort() documentation now.

</comment><comment><USER135> Can anyone please provide context on this? Why did RMS feel the need to personally step in and weigh in on the Minsky allegations? Was it indeed just carelessness on his behalf, as many are speculating? Or were his comments part of another conversation inside the FSF that has not been made public?

I've read the email chain that's been circulated but it does not go back far enough. It's the "comments about comments" discussion.

<comment><USER136> [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer- sci...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist- richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing)

actual source email thread embedded at the bottom of the vice article

<comment><USER135> I'm re-reading it now. Maybe I'm just not able to follow the text-based email chain format, but it doesn't seem to include RMS's original email with his comments except quoted as part of another email, which leads me to think that part of the conversation is being covered up. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

<comment><USER136> His original emails are there in the embed, in full.

<comment><USER135> How do you know it is "in full" if all you have seen is the embedded quote?

<comment><USER136> I mean the embedded frame. It contains the full original emails from Stallman, not just quotes. Keep scrolling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER137> I don't believe rms is seriously in favor of child sexual exploitation, but that's a red herring.

The concern for me is has been the accounts of far more directly-relevant behaviour, such as (iirc):

      * repeated phone calls to someone from different phone numbers

      * leering

      * breaking the ground rules for an event, and justifying it on the basis that he's personally exempt from any rules

      * singling out a teenage girl attending one of his talks (as in "oh wow, a GIRL")

      * single her out again while telling his questionable 'EMACS virgins' joke

      * saying in an interview that he didn't know any women who have contributed to GCC, when there had been at least 4

It all adds up to several accounts of people saying they've left the free software movement (or avoided it entirely) because of his behaviour combined with his stature. As a community leader who supposedly leads by example, he needs to do better, and if he doesn't, the community needs to hold him accountable. That's happening now.

Personally, I think this is a good thing, and I'm glad that he's made the decision to step aside (even if under pressure) rather than fight bitterly and see the community divide along these lines.

It also seems like a good opportunity for him to pass the torch and see what happens, or at least take a long hiatus to get some caring advice and to sort himself out, like Linus did last year. The FSF will _eventually_ need to become an institution that can carry on its mission without him, and this will be a good test of that. If things go off the rails, he can pen another manifesto and I'm sure a bunch of us will read it.

</comment><comment><USER138> I think Stallman did great work with the FSF and GNU.

I also think the FSF will be hugely better off without him around, and it's insane that it took this long.

</comment><comment><USER139> Anyone who has actually read the email thread and considers it a defence of sexual assault, the topic of the thread, is as intellectually bankrupt as the media witch hunts rms was warning about and fell victim to.

We should be all concerned that media witch hunts like this can in act such results. It is abhorrent that any discussion that triggers a progressive dominated media can destroy people's lives.

<comment><USER35> I read it.

There was some irrelevant quibbling about how accusations are worded.

Then there was the speculation that the seventeen year old girl who is accusing his 73 year old friend of a sex crime would have appeared willing in the exchange with the implication that this apparent willingness made the situation not Minsky's fault.

Doesn't matter if it didn't happen, defending statutory rape like that is really inappropriate, and with a ~60 year ago gap it doesn't really matter about the details. It was a very creepy situation and indefensible.

Stallman was defending it, it wasn't just some intellectual problem with the wording of accusations.

Not a witch hunt, not a victimization of an innocent intellectually curious man, it was a measured and reasonable response to a very inappropriate conversation.

<comment><USER115> >, defending statutory rape like that is really inappropriate

See, the thing about statutory rape is that it is illegal, and sexual assault is _also_ illegal, but (surprisingly!) that does not mean that they are the _same_ thing. (It is left as an exercise for the reader to see if this applies to other pairings like, say, "public drunkenness" and "murder in the first degree.")

Stallman was not "defending statutory rape": he was saying, "Words mean things, and the words "sexual assault" suggest an image of 75-yr-old Marvin holding girls down and raping them, and that it is unlikely that that, you know, actually happened."

>It was a very creepy situation and indefensible.

Oooh, so _creepy_! Too _creepy_ to think about, even! Nazis were pretty creepy: let's accuse them of violating the CFAA, before there were computers! Anyone defending them against this is defending Nazis, and worse, _creepy_ Nazis! They are likely _creepy_ as well! This _creepy_ stuff seems to be contagious...

Since it can't be made too visible, Stallman's actual comments: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER140> That's depressing news. As is the fact that your have to overcome a sense of hesitation when disagreeing with internet mob tribunals.

</comment><comment><USER141> What exactly is the endgame of this outrage mob culture that tries to consume anyone who holds even a slightly unorthodox opinion?

</comment><comment><USER132> Politics is sports and this is a chance to see which jersey you happen to be wearing. Personally, I find one side is actually attempting to argue from a logical standpoint whereas the other is concerned about the emotion evoked by the situation. This is apparent because you will be labelled insensitive if you attempt to point out the flaws.

</comment><comment><USER142> I don't know what the correct standard is for an organizational leader when it comes to this stuff, but I don't understand why they need to inflate Stallman saying "presented herself as entirely willing" to him saying she was "entirely willing".

</comment><comment> kube-system Regardless of Stallman's opinions, whether perceived or actual (I couldn't care less about his non-tech commentary), his poor communication skills have long made him a subpar leader.

</comment><comment><USER143> The blog[0] that started it is a disgrace, the only value they act on is spite. The movement they claim owner ship should reject any association with them, I do.

> our movement will only be successful if it includes everyone. With these as > our values and goals > We call for Stallman to step down

[0] [https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not- spea...](https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-speak-for- us/)

</comment><comment><USER144> The previous thread was [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20989696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20989696).

<comment><USER30> It's good context, but that one was focused on his MIT resignation, & predates his resignation from the FSF.

<comment><USER144> When there is significant new information in a major ongoing story, standard practice is to have a new thread about the latest development, and let the earlier thread fall off the front page.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query="significant%20new%20information"&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER145> Stallman's career of relentlessly pissing upwind is ended by a disagreement on the implications of the phrase "presented to". A weird time to be alive.

</comment><comment><USER146> One thing a lot of folks are missing is that this was not an isolated incident; the fact that this is the straw that broke the camel's back isnt' that important in the grand scheme of things. I made the same point in more detail in the comments for the article about his MIT resignation:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990574](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990574)

</comment><comment><USER147> The most alarming thing about witch hunts like this, is that big social corporations have all the means to control which panic will spread or be shunned. And if Stallman's FSF colleagues endorsed the panic and pressured him into resignation instead of protecting him, it might mean that FSF has just lost it's independence from corporate power.

</comment><comment><USER148> From Vice.com:

Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the "most plausible scenario" is that Epstein's underage victims were "entirely willing" while being trafficked. Stallman goes on to argue about the definition of "sexual assault," "rape," and whether they apply to Minsky and Giuffre's deposition statement that she was forced to have sex with him.

In response to a student pointing out that Giuffre was 17 when she was forced to have sex with Minsky in the Virgin Islands, Stallman said "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."

>>Giuffre was 17 at the time; this makes it in the Virgin Islands.

>Does it really? 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'.

>I think the existence of a dispute about that supports my point that the term "sexual assault" is slippery, so we ought to use more concrete terms when accusing anyone.

[https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer- sci...](https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist- richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing)

</comment><comment><USER149> Stallman is a revolutionary. In our dystopian times of surveillance capitalism, he has spent his life trying to fight for a utopian alternative. He is a hero and this reaction is completely unwarranted. The man is famously eccentric, but he is not evil. Posterity will not look kindly to these events.

</comment><comment><USER150> You know, I keep seeing everyone saying getting rid of Stallman is a good thing for the FSF.

For what it's worth, I think it is a tragedy.

The man is an idealist who has stubbornly managed to hold on and thrive in a pragmatist's world.

There are too many claims to which he is a shining counterexample to the assertion that "Nobody really does that!"

So what if he's a bit of an odd duck? Show me a good programmer who doesn't have quirks! MIT is, in fact, famous for their tradition of living with, and embracing unconventional behavior, while still furthering the State-of-the- Art.

The Free Software Foundation, which has accrued greater and greater entrenchment and influence by non-free software makers and projects alike has always owed to Stallman at least a degree of toleration and begrudging due considering the movement basically started with him last I checked.

I read through the email chain in the Verge articles. It's enough even redacted to give me a solid enough basis from which to say there was _nothing_ untoward about Stallman's posts. I got out of it a caution to read only into what was actually written down, and to avoid letting an unproven narrative whisk the entirety of a man's career away until all the facts were in. At a later point he even states he's read that poster's sources and was unable to locate any evidence conclusively saying that Minsky did anything against her knowingly, and if anything happened, while still being a crime, characterizing it as assault adds a layer of meaning to the accusation that is not immediately obvious from the presented evidence. He's even open to the possibility he hasn't seen something the emailed had, tried to find it, and asked if they'd be willing to send him a copy due to hos commitment to not trafficking services dependent on abusive practices.

If that gets you foisted on the stake these days, I think the Spirit of Salem must be blowing through Massachusets, and it's discovered the fires of the Internet burn hotter than any mere log.

I do not see a malicious intent or an attempt to defend/justify what may have happened to those women. Only an exhortation to not get ahead of what results the System has actually managed to discover as fact.

As the last poster in the email thread the Verge decided to post mentions, as Scientists, we must ask those pesky inconvenient questions which seem to so stifle the actions and catharsis of following our passions, and seek only to know the truth.

And from what I was able to read in the minutes I can dedicate,it is far from a sure thing, but misrepresentation off the character and context of the conversation has already spread like wildfire.

I hesitate to even post this, because to be honest, if people can turn Stallman of all people into a Pariah over just those two emails, heavens above, I'm not sure there are many others behind the cause who can say as honestly to have practiced what they preach to the degrees he has. What chance do the rest of us have? That is exactly the type of chilling effect that this type of behavior and manufactured outrage, combined with the uncertainty of knowing from whence it may come is so adept at propagating.

There is a point where hysteria, and the flames of the passions must stop. Ruining a person's life and reputation for anything more than what can be proven is one of them. That doesn't mean I'm trying to cover up harm, or protect pedophiles. It means I'm committed to the System, due process, and the tenets of rational scientific inquiry.

It is not appropriate that any person should be hung by any segment of the population for endorsing letting the chips fall where they will, or asking to have more compelling physical evidence provided.

The world post 1980 has seen more than anyone would like of wrongdoings not punished as thoroughly as they may needs be, but it is _not_ in anyone's interest that the System be any looser in the Standard of Evidence to be met before officially taking action against someone. No one should want to let slip the Dogs of War in that regard, especially given the number of lives that have been given in ensuring a country existed where that was explicitly prevented at great effort from being possible.

Good luck, Richard. I pray you and the movement survive this without irreparable damage...but I'm not even sure the damage isn't already done.

</comment><comment><USER151> Stallman puts himself up for scrutiny by being in the public eye.

I may agree with his political positions regarding free software, but his talents are otherwise rather run of the mill at this point.

This is the free market. Thanks for your contributions. But you've since lost first mover advantage.

</comment><comment><USER152> I hoe that the moderators will crack down on the outrageously defamatory statements being made on this thread...

If the aim of HN is to run a better forum for discussion then lying in a defamatory way about people should not be tolerated as part of civil discourse.

<comment><USER152> And yes failure to make yourself aware of basic facts before defaming someone is as bad as lying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER153> Stallman was questioning an absolute statement by using some logic and common sense, building a most-likely scenario for what happened - which could maybe better reflect the situation based on knowledge he had about the deceased.

He did not transfer the guilt to the victim nor defended anything wrong that Minsky may have done.

This scenario seems entirely plausible for me. The deceased is not here to defend himself, so I guess it's up to his friends/family/coworkers to defend his reputation.

Also, about the age of consent, I find it ludicrous that a number of people do not know the age of consent on most of the western world is usually 16 or less. Some are even saying "some european countries still have 16 or 14 y/o as age of consent..." as if the age of consent is going to increase in the short term.

Spoiler alert: USA is the odd one out, and it's more in line with Turkey than Western Europe. Let this information sink in for a moment.

</comment><comment><USER154> And this is why you NEVER get politically involved in anything and learn to keep your political comments to yourself. Nothing good was going to come of this no more how he put it. Bottom line is he should have just kept his mouth shut.

</comment><comment><USER155> I'm allowed to criticize him after reading what he actually wrote, right? Because I did and came away from it with the conclusion that he's evil and shouldn't be anywhere near anything resembling a leadership position.

<comment><USER156> He is many things, and shouldn't have been in a leadership position for a long time, but he is definitely not evil.

I have a hard time even imagining how you reach the conclusion that he might be evil. Even the worst out of context headlines on his recent quotes just put him in the "gross" category.

I say this, and I'm very glad he stepped down. I've argued for years that he should have stepped down a long time ago.

<comment><USER155> Evil is fundamentally a lack of empathy and I see no empathy from this man. He's not a cackling crazy Hitler figure, but he seems to have a difficult time figuring out just what the problem is with having sex with children and with child slaves, and chooses to dedicate a great deal of mental energy defending the more powerful people in this scenario.

<comment><USER156> The definition of evil is always … a heated topic, but the common theme usually is that the suffering evil inflicts is not accidental.

In your reply here, you're describing sociopathy. I wouldn't describe Stallman as a sociopath but I could definitely see the arguments for it. But even the most repulsive things I've seen this man say/do never got me to think "Yeah, this dude wants others to suffer".

Edit: And no, I don't think he has a difficult time "figuring out what the problem is".

<comment><USER155> I think that's a facile Hollywood idea of evil. People like that exist, but plenty of evil people don't care about suffering.

A psychologist assigned to the Nuremberg trials put it better than I ever could. "In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

<comment><USER157> Thus, American justice system is evil? Law knows no empathy. Politics is even worse. Media didn't consider it worth it a split second of thought to gauge impact on life of this man.

<comment><USER155> Of course. The American justice system is horrendously evil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER158> It's enlightening that the mob that uses Apple's locked down devices (which is "cool" instead of "gross") is able to fire RMS over his comments on semantics; The Nash equilibria are clear.

</comment><comment><USER159> I just want to say that I'm glad consequences are coming to people who behave badly. We can't as a community or profession let these people dictate the tone for the rest of us.

</comment><comment><USER160> Where can I see a link to what he actually said? As usual everyone is giving their own interpretation of his controversial remarks with their own spin.

<comment><USER111> [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/091320191...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/09132019142056-0001.pdf)

This is an excerpt from the CSAIL mailing list archive, so start at the bottom and work your way up. All names aside from RMS have been redacted.

Some people are also bringing up this post from April, so here is that text: [https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan- apr.html#25_April_201...](https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan- apr.html#25_April_2019_\(Plea_deal_for_Epstein\))

But the main content is the mailing list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER161> Mirror, since the site is having problems: [http://archive.is/h48kp](http://archive.is/h48kp)

</comment><comment><USER162> People going on about how he made some harmless comments which have been misrepresented have no clue about how toxic RMS has been for decades. The latest comments (especially coming while the nation is still reeling from the Epstein affair) are the absolute tip of the iceberg. He has been openly sexually harassing female staff and students for a long time now, and has been tolerated or enabled by other powerful figures. Getting booted from his positions was a matter of when, not if.

<comment><USER163> Citation needed.

Not saying it is or is not true. But these are powerful claims to be marking with no sources.

<comment><USER162> Lots of citations at [https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman- appendix...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix- a-a7e41e784f88)

<comment><USER163> I read the "citations" and I was left feeling a little skeptical, added to the fact that the daily beast is not considered by many to be a credible news outlet. Regardless; The tone of this article itself uses such emotive words that I would struggle not to define it as a hit-piece.

it seems I'm not alone in my assertion: [https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/_/f0l50w4/?co...](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/_/f0l50w4/?context=2)

<comment><USER82> "Citation please"

"Here's an article"

"I'm skeptical. Also lots of people don't like that messenger. And I don't like the tone of the article. Also I found someone who agrees with me."

Would you care to address the points raised in the article rather than dismissing it because you don't like the source?

<comment><USER163> hackernews puts a high emphasis on civility, so I'll be succinct because I find what you said to be absurd.

We do not take for granted that every website is 100% truth or fact. And when presented with something that has only emotion and no fact then we are right to dismiss it. This is why we do not link to things like Obama's tan suit being Marxist and meaning it[0].

I read into it more, I saw only emotive language and some women who called rms creepy 20 years ago, nothing else. And, yes, I find rms creepy (toe skin eating, anyone?). It is not valid reason to persecute. However, I'm totally open to the idea that this man has horrible ideas and opinions about women and paedophilia. But this is not a compelling citation unless you're swayed by the kind of language the author uses.

For what it's worth there are good comments on this article here that indicate something rms previously said about the age of consent in the Netherlands being lowered to 12, and he later changed his opinion on that. It's a troubling opinion that he had, but I, personally can't get too bent out of shape if someone changes their mind from something problematic when presented with evidence.

[0]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/28/tan-suit- sc...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/28/tan-suit-scandal- obama-trump/)

<comment><USER82> Thank you for the civil response. Good primer on the websites as well, so far I've been taking every written word everywhere as 100% truth and fact but your point is something I had never considered before.

If a 66 year old man tells you that contrary to everything he's written on the matter, he has recently learned that having sex with children is wrong, is that a moment where you wouldn't personally get too bent out of shape about it?

I mean, yes we all change our minds about things. But is there no nuance to it at all? Do you erase someone's entire past as soon as he says "I've changed my mind, child rape is wrong"?

<comment><USER163> Yes I change my mind on a person who changed their values. Although it's not as if I change it to be completely 180° from my original estimations of the person.

I think it's soulless to never allow a person to grow or change when presented new information no matter what age they are.

Or, are only young people allowed to change their minds? Or is nobody?

I mean I've had pretty stupid ideas about things ranging from communism as a good political ideology to believing that the UK would be better outside of the EU. But when presented with new information I changed my opinion. I would hope people don't treat me as a communist or a brexiter.

<comment><USER82> > Or is nobody?

I think I've made it clear that my position is that absolutely no one should ever be allowed to change their minds. Again, thank you for being civil.

<comment><USER163> That's your prerogative I guess. I definitely don't subscribe to the same ideology.

In fact I find it worrying that you do. To each their own I guess.

Thank you for being civil. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER164> Could someone please make a comprehensive list of the people and media accusing him of misconduct? It's time to start keeping track of them and being aware of their toxic characters every time we're dealing with them in some way.

First on the list: This guy: [https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome- foundation-relations...](https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation- relationship-gnu-fsf/)

</comment><comment><USER165> This is definitely not the first time RMS has made damage to the free software movement by saying stupid things.

</comment><comment><USER166> The man is 66. Regardless of the circumstances, it is probably a good time for him to retire.

The FSF could use a shakeup.

</comment><comment><USER167> "Famed Lisp hacker and author of GCC resigns from Python kindergarten."

About time, man!

</comment><comment><USER168> I move that we flag and bury this thread now. It's choke-full of flames and it has the highest level of personally abusive comments I've seen in the last few months on HN. It's getting like reddit in here.

I just don't think we can discuss this issue sensibly, even on HN.

</comment><comment><USER169> Would anyone please care to explain why did Mr Stallman resign?

<comment><USER170> Mr Stallman said in an email that Marvin Minsky probably wasn't a rapist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER171> Well that is news to me. Other than that I offer nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER125> If you read the infamous CSAIL thread you'll probably see that there's nothing wrong with it. This is a rather tame argument between civilized people. I'm very sad that they got him for this ridiculous thing.

</comment><comment><USER172> Question for those who think Stallman getting forced out is great news: There are people in this forum arguing that Stallman's statements weren't that bad. Should they be fired from their jobs?

Yay for throwaway accounts, I guess.

<comment><USER173> The key issue at hand here is that people in leadership positions must be held to higher standards. Doubly so when they act as a very personal figurehead and spokespearson for the community they represent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER174> Related -> [https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman- fec6ec21...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794)

</comment><comment><USER175> This is a sad day for the FSF. Yes, he's got bad opinions, but he's also done an incredible amount to serve the Free-as-in-Freedom community. He's a Great Man, but not necessarily a good one.

</comment><comment><USER176> They rather just close the FSF, nobody will care once Stallman is gone. Maybe all this fake outrage is nothing more than large companies trying to end open source.

</comment><comment><USER177> Another victim of a twitter lynching mob.

</comment><comment><USER178> What happened? This seems sudden.

</comment><comment><USER176> Activists Ruins yet another thing, will there be anything left in the world once the Mao Moral Police arrests everyone ?

</comment><comment><USER179> This post is nothing but trouble

</comment><comment><USER180> Maybe Microsoft can hire him.

</comment><comment><USER181> Can anyone please share original link that Stallman wrote?

<comment><USER111> [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/091320191...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/09132019142056-0001.pdf)

Start at the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> What did he do? Forgive me, I am not on Twitter et.al.

<comment><USER74> He said some socially unpalatable things. Some woman decided he should be "removed" because of it. Somehow, she got her way it seems.

Some sources with the backstory:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20991756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20991756)

</comment></comment><comment><USER182> my god the fragility of people who expect their free speech to be consequence- free

</comment><comment><USER180> Maybe Microsoft can hire him?

</comment><comment><USER183> Nathaniel Hawthorn raising.

</comment><comment><USER132> The modern day Letter A.

</comment><comment><USER184> He did the Epstein

</comment><comment><USER185> I never thought in a million years I'd see the Silicon Valley bubble become so deranged that they'd reverse polarity. Watching HN eat their own liberal legends like Stallman, at the direction of Fox News and NY Post. This is truly astonishing.

<comment><USER165> Both RMS and ESR are nut jobs. There are other people who can be better ambassadors for FLOSS than they are.

<comment><USER74> Yeah, RMS is a "nut job" alright. RMS developed the free software movement at great personal cost because he so strongly believed in it that he was intermittently homeless while tilting at these windmills.

Only a "nut job" would make a choice like that.

Joan of Arc was also a "nut job." She was an illiterate teenaged girl who felt compelled by hearing voices to put an end to The Hundred Years War and play handmaiden to the birth of modern France.

 _The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man._

\-- George Bernard Shaw

</comment></comment></comment><comment> marble-drink I'm so relieved to find that at least on hacker news people can still evaluate this situation with reason. Out there it's a witch hunt and Stallman is now a witch.

RMS is a great man but sadly has difficulties communicating with the wider world. This has been true of many great minds throughout history. It's sad to see it happen to one of my own heroes but I believe history will do him justice if we continue to fight for free software.

I wish somebody would have simply advised him not to speak on such matters because nothing good could become of it. Maybe he needed a PR manager. That sounds awful, but apparently this is what the world wants: carefully filtered speech that doesn't stray far from what people already agree with.

<comment><USER35> There are a chain of media reports which inaccurately portray what Stallman was saying.

But look past that into what was happening.

Stallman was trying to defend Minsky who had sex with someone, a teenager, nearly 60 years younger than him on a billionaire's private island. There isn't an imaginable circumstance where what happened there was not, even in the best possible light, incredibly creepy.

His intellectual arguments were understandable in a way, but in the context of defending Minsky and in the venue they were wildly inappropriate and indefensible.

It doesn't matter how "great" you are or how socially awkward, any institution should fire you for doing something like that.

<comment><USER186> It also wasn't in isolation; he made very similar remarks in 2006 on his blog that he got flak for, but people mostly brushed aside as 'oh, Stallman..'

Comments here seem to mostly equate this situation to a Cancel Culture outcry over an isolated remark. That's not what happened here. rms has had decades of inexcusable behavior for any individual, much less someone affiliated with MIT and heading something as large as FSF. He had to answer for this eventually.

I sincerely appreciate his contributions to this world. But I also sincerely feel that we can't give people free passes for their behavior (see: courtesy cards at conferences) just because they've done well in other respects. We need to end the acceptance of Brilliant Jerks.

<comment><USER187> I think I mostly agree with you, but what _should_ happen to people with "inexcusable behavior?" should they be fired once? Should they be unemployable for all time? Is justice served after decades of living in a gutter? When we react with outrage mob justice we make people toxic to all future employers. It's extremely hard to ever rebuild your life, especially now where everything on the internet lives forever. I agree that we need to turn around acceptance of "brilliant jerks" but the Law of Unintended Consequence here in many cases seems way worse than the original problem we were trying to solve.

<comment><USER188> RMS is not going to have a problem finding employment in six months or so. He's just going to have to spend some time demonstrating he's not a sexist liability before he can take leadership positions again.

That seems reasonable and fair.

> I agree that we need to turn around acceptance of "brilliant jerks" but the > Law of Unintended Consequence here in many cases seems way worse than the > original problem we were trying to solve.

Which is... what exactly? You're appealing to a slippery slope but from my perspective we climbed UP said slope to get to holding RMS to account for years of bad behavior, and even now reprehensible folks are using awful excuses like, "They're just on the spectrum" as ammo in the "Yes but he's a powerful man" argument they've been winning for a long time.

<comment><USER189> RMS is unemployable at this point. He is also 66, so he could just retire as an option.

<comment><USER190> Why is he unemployable?

<comment><USER25> RMS hasn't had a paid job as a programmer for 40 years as far as I know. People say he was homeless and living in his office at MIT while working on GNU in the 80s.

Isn't he basically a speaker and advocate nowadays? That career is unlikely to be very successful now that all major organizations dumped him and he has fake news headlines saying he defended Epstein following him everywhere (backed up by apparently two decades of known antisocial personal behavior).

He doesn't exactly sound like the kind of person you'd hire to work as a normal developer nor would that comport with his strange ethics of refusing to use any non-Free software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER191> This is one of those cases where Reddit > HN

 _" Context: In a recently unsealed deposition a woman testified that, at the age of 17, Epstein told her to have sex with Marvin Minsky. Minsky was a founder of the MIT Media Lab and pioneer in A.I. who died in 2016. Stallman argued on a mailing list (in response to a statement from a protest organizer accusing Minsky of sexual assault) that, while he condemned Epstein, Minsky likely did not know she was being coerced:

> We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she > presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced > by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from > most of his associates.

Some SJW responded by writing a Medium post called "Remove Richard Stallman". Media outlets like Vice and The Daily Beast then lied and misquoted Stallman as saying that the woman was likely "entirely willing" and as "defending Epstein". He has now been pressured to resign from MIT

Furthermore the deposition doesn't say she had sex with Minsky, only that Epstein told her to do so, and according to physicist Greg Benford she propositioned Minsky and he turned her down:

> I know; I was there. Minsky turned her down. Told me about it. She saw us > talking and didn't approach me.

This seems like a complete validation of the distinction Stallman was making. If what Minsky knew doesn't matter, if there's no difference between "Minsky sexually assaulted a woman" and "Epstein told a 17-year-old to have sex with Minsky without his knowledge or consent", then why did he turn her down?

Edit: He has also resigned from the Free Software Foundation, which he founded. Grim news for free software, since I think true-believing purists like Stallman are vital to prevent various kinds of co-option."_

source: [https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/d5axzu/why_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/d5axzu/why_isnt_there_any_discussion_about_the_stallman/f0l21m3/)

</comment><comment><USER192> > _Washington had slaves, that doesn 't mean we should hate him._

Counterpoint: yes it does.

Judging Washington _by the standards of his time and his peers_ , slavery was abhorrent. Take the case of Quock Walker, who sued for his freedom in 1781, for instance. The chief justice of Massachusetts (and later Washington's own nominee for chief justice of the US) wrote:

> _As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans > in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and > cattle [...] nowhere is it expressly enacted or established. It has been a > usage -- a usage which took its origin from the practice of some of the > European nations, and the regulations of British government respecting the > then Colonies, for the benefit of trade and wealth. But whatever sentiments > have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example > of others, a different idea has taken place with the people of America, more > favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate > desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, > or shape of noses-features) has inspired all the human race. And upon this > ground our Constitution of Government [...] sets out with declaring that all > men are born free and equal [...] and in short is totally repugnant to the > idea of being born slaves. This being the case, I think the idea of slavery > is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can be no > such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature [...]_

As recorded by Washington's contemporary James Madison, Washington's contemporary Gouverneur Morris denounced the three-fifths compromise during the 1787 constitutional convention:

> _He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious > institution. It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed. > Compare the free regions of the Middle States, where a rich & noble > cultivation marks the prosperity & happiness of the people, with the misery > & poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Va. Maryd. & the other > States having slaves. [...] Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall > be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them Citizens and > let them vote. [...] The admission of slaves into the Representation when > fairly explained comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and S. C. who > goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of > humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections & > damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Govt. > instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pa. > or N. Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice._

We should not so facilely dismiss the difficult challenge that Washington is seen as the father of this nation and yet owned slaves. _Other founding fathers_ understood that the American norm of liberty was clearly incompatible with holding slavery in anything other than contempt. _Other founding fathers_ called his behavior "repugnant" and "nefarious" \- why should we shy away from criticizing him? It seems far more sensible to me to worry that Washington (along with many others) led our nation into believing a compromised, twisted view of liberty and the natural rights of man, with lasting consequences for the country which hardly ended in the Civil War.

<comment><USER193> I'm not saying that Washington thought he was right to have slaves. He was wrong to have slaves and it reflects poorly on him that he did. Rather, I'm saying the amount of good he did for this country far outweighs his wrongs.

<comment><USER192> I'm making a subtler point: the good he did for this country was inescapably intertwined with his ownership of slaves.

One view you can take, which seems defensible, is that he grew to agree with the anti-slavery view late in life, yet as a calculated measure to hold the country together when half the economy was dependent on slavery, did nothing about it, and also was too weak to give up his own station in life which was similarly dependent on slavery. Yet he freed his slaves in his will, both for their own sake and in the (ultimately vain) hope that he would inspire others to do the same.

The other view is that he never actually believed it, or he would have made freeing human beings a political priority. He was embarrassed into freeing his slaves after Martha's death, but he fundamentally thought that it was more important for himself and Martha to live their last years in comfort than for his slaves to live in freedom, and that the negative peace of the new country holding together was preferable to the positive peace of meaningful liberty. And that therefore the "good" he did for this country was to set us up for the Civil War and for many more decades of viewing certain people as not fully deserving of human rights.

And relevantly to RMS and the free software movement - if Washington _hadn 't_ been there, if instead William Cushing or Gouverneur Morris had been in a similar role, what would they have done? Or even if Washington were still there but he did not use his leadership position to say, "I don't like slavery, but we have to keep it for now," what could Cushing or Morris have accomplished? Washington presided over the convention where Morris made his ultimately ineffective argument.

Washington wasn't the only founding father, nor the only skilled military leader among the revolutionary forces. In a world without him, would the US still have won and would it have been better set up to fight slavery? (Would the revolutionary forces have allowed black soldiers in earlier, and moreover had more morale among the black soldiers, thereby leading to an earlier victory?) If such a scenario is plausible, then the good he did didn't outweigh his wrongs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER194> So did Stallman just assume that the Minsky allegation is true? Does he know something we don't or is he just jumping to conclusions?

</comment><comment><USER195> This rapist is out - CANCELED!

</comment><comment><USER196> My goodness, Stallman just got cancelled. I think it's absolutely fair to criticize statements he's made (I absolutely disagree with his statements on pedophilia), but not to pressure him out of the work to which he's devoted his life. Kicked out of MIT and the FSF? That's gotta be rough for the guy.

Always nice to see a few angry people on the 'net with out-sized voices manage to bring down an icon of computer science. No one should have his life ruined by a kangaroo trial in the court of public opinion. People don't make good decisions when they try to react and "do something"; it would make more sense to let things die down a little and get the facts on what actually happened. Then make a decision on how best to go forward.

</comment><comment><USER197> "When the forest is chopped down,

the chips fly"

\--Joseph Stalin

</comment><comment><USER198> For those, like me, who missed the story behind this story... TL;DR: Richard Stallman has resigned from MIT and the FSF over comments he made defending Marvin Minsky "partying" with Epstein, and donations made to MIT. Joi Ito, the Media Lab director resigned over covering up the donations. Nicholas Negroponte "shocked" with his defense of these donations. Lawrence Lessig wrote about trying to rationalize the donations.

</comment><comment><USER199> While we are throwing rms under the bus, can we also throw left wing philsophy away [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of_consent_laws)

</comment><comment><USER200> Revolution devours its children.[Jacques Mallet du Pan]

</comment><comment><USER201> This is very sad that the leader of the FSF took such actions. We benefited from his insights and advocacy on software, but the defense of Epstein, who essentially had a child abuse production line and defense of pedophilia is not something I can support and it is proper that someone new takes over.

Stallman's views were a variety of American libertarianism. While there are a few good points within that tradition regarding personal freedom, it's kind of sad that he carried some of the other baggage with his obsession with age of consent laws.

<comment><USER202> From reading his comments isn't he defending someone named Minsk who had sex with a 17 year old and didn't know she was being coerced into it by Epstein?

It seems to be a bit of a far fetched theory to me that this guy would meet a 17 year old through Epstein and not really be aware of what Epstein was doing, but it doesn't really seem to be a defense of sexual trafficking, pedophilia or rape.

That being said this is from my reading of the above thread so maybe I'm not getting the full picture here.

<comment><USER203> In they were in Massachusetts, Minsky might have asked, "Are you here willingly, and how old are you?" And he could have received the reply, "Absolutely, I'm having the time of my life with Jeffrey and all the famous people he introduces me to, and I'm 16."

And the sex might then have seemed consensual and legal to Minsky, because even now in 2019, the age of consent in Massachusetts is 16.

<comment><USER189> Deleted.

<comment><USER203> That's not what I see when I click on that link! Just in case we're seeing different page-versions, what does a frozen copy of the Wikipedia page from a third site show? Also "16":

[https://archive.is/n3Nfs](https://archive.is/n3Nfs)

<comment><USER189> Oops, I mistook Massachusetts for New York. My geography sucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER204> I am sad to see the top comments on HN are whining about free speech. The guy is sick. I am glad he is kicked out.

</comment><comment> jarek-foksa It's worth mentioning that Stallman was appearing on Russia Today on a regular basis, usually to support the Russian narrative rather than to advocate the Free Software. If you are shilling for foreign oligarchs, expect the US disinformation machine to be used against you.

</comment><comment><USER205> Unfortunate witch hunt against an innocent, if strange, man. I could go on but people don't want to hear anything other than the hateful things that they believe.

<comment><USER155> Nobody's burning him at the stake or putting him in jail. He can go on living a perfectly good life. What he can no longer do is act in a leadership role in the community and corrupt that community with his crap.

<comment><USER205> He's not corrupting anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER206> I'm obviously late to the party and I have no idea what happened there and what are you talking about, so let me express my sincere condolences in case if this is another SJW victory or something, but more importantly: what did he do as a president and a member of board of directors of FSF anyways? I never quite understood what is it's actual real-world function for the last like 20 years.

</comment><comment><USER119> Eh, stallman's career was basically always about pontificating from his moral high ground. Makes a lot of sense to me for him to step off the pulpit when he expresses himself so poorly, has so many people complaining about his super- cringe behavior towards women for the last 3 decades, and becomes infamous as the "is it _really_ ok to refer to statutory rape as 'assault', or does that give people the wrong idea" guy.

</comment><comment><USER207> This is a good step.

Stallman has been a liability as a figurehead for a long time, and software freedom deserves better standard-bearers.

I saw Stallman once at a public lecture. He was incredibly rude, but is seemingly oblivious to how obnoxious he is being (he struck me as somebody heavily on the spectrum).

I hate to think how many people have written off the cause of software freedom as a joke because of his conduct.

People around him ought to be telling him in stronger terms that his views and general manner are unacceptable.

<comment><USER208> you know, i saw Stallman at a conference once and the nice people at FSF were also there. FSF as a whole is doing important work and liked the talks they gave and how they were talking about some of the issues ivolved.

Stallman on the other side came across as a nutjob. And it wasn't because of his principles (which if you think about it are great and something to actually aspire to - at least in connection to software) but because of his behavior. Being antisocial or making a claim without paying attention to the social context or the setting the way he managed to do leads me to believe that he may have some sort of mental health issues. again: all respect for his work and principles when it comes to software dissolved by anti-social behavior.

<comment><USER20> Note that "nutjob" and "mental health issues" are name-calling and I suspect against the HN guidelines e.g. see [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20name- calling&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER209> I'm pretty damn disappointed with the discourse here. What RMS wrote in the MIT mailing list was so reprehensible, that I'm pretty sure the people here defending him must have not read it. So here is the comments he wrote to a major MIT mailing list where he victim-blames child sex trafficking victims in the wake of MIT media lab accepting money from credibly accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein:

> The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky:

> "deceased AI 'pioneer' Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of > Epstein's victims [2])"

> The injustice is in the word "assaulting". The term "sexual assault"is so > vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims > that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much > worse than X.

> The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference reports > the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein's harem. (See > [https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky- > jef...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey- > epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed.)) Let's presume that > was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).

> The word "assaulting" presumes that he applied force or violence, in some > unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they > had sex.

> We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she > presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced > by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from > most of his associates.

> I've concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is > absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation.

> Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a > specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.

You can (and we must) acknowledge Stallman's contributions to the field while not condoning his pattern of bad behavior. because if we let a leading figure in the industry act this way publicly, it reflects bad on all of us. We cannot claim to be an industry that accepts and welcomes diverse viewpoints and experiences while still holding up a man who has such a long laundry list of reprehensible behavior as a leader and respected figure in the industry.

<comment><USER111> No, you just have a _wildly_ differing opinion from the people you speak of (well, most of them, anyway... there does seem to be more than one crowd of defenders).

It goes both ways - Stallman's words seem pretty accurate to me, and it's totally alien to me that you would find them reprehensible. In particular, I cannot understand how you came to the conclusion that he "victim-blames" Giuffre - even though he writes that she "was being coerced into sex" and "She was harmed".

</comment></comment><comment><USER155> Tech bros: "I wonder why tech is so disproportionately male. Must be something biological."

Also tech bros: "I can't believe RMS got forced out just for going on a crazy rant about rape on a CS mailing list. Why, any one of us could be next!"

<comment><USER210> The "tech bros" trope is getting quite tired; it would be more constructive to avoid such generalizations and stereotypes

<comment><USER155> I think it's quite appropriate in this context, where tons of them come out of the woodwork to defend this bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER211> It is interesting that Stallman has been expressing very harsh opinions, unpopular among many people, for decades. Nothing happened to him, on the contrary, he was well respected even among people who did not share his political views and who were frequently on the receiving end of his criticism.

But as soon as he dared to veer a little from the party line in one particular question, he has been unpersoned in literally couple of days, despite all apologies and attempts to explain he didn't really mean any heresy. I guess that shows who you can disagree with and who would _really_ hurt you if they even suspect you might disagree (even though you don't).

</comment><comment><USER212> People have to have a path to redemption. Stallman apologized and admitted he was wrong. Why is it not acceptable to make a mistake with words? Isn't it impractical to expect everyone to never say something they regret? These are _words_ we're talking about. It's not like Stallman raped a child.

Kicking him out of FSF and MIT seems quite excessive for somebody saying something and then apologizing for it. Whether they are Stallman, a student, or anyone really.

Do the people involved at FSF and MIT hold themselves to the same standard they're holding Stallman to? We'll surely find out because humans tend to say a lot of stupid shit over the course of their lifetime.

<comment><USER213> Constructing a situation in which Marvin Minsky somehow was blameless for his relationship with a known pedophile and child sex trafficker and situations directly resulting from that relationship, then projecting the reactions of other people through that situation, is not merely a _mistake with words_. Coupled with his at-best-real-gross chinstroking about minors, consent, and statutory rape in the past, it demonstrates a pattern. And it's a pattern that, obviously, made enough people uncomfortable as to want to not associate with him--as is their right.

MIT doesn't _have_ to give Richard Stallman a do-nothing job. The FSF doesn't _have_ to give Richard Stallman a (nearly) do-nothing job. Everybody makes mistakes, sure. You make up for those mistakes by doing good and doing right and if Stallman wants redemption, literally nobody is stopping him from going after it. They're just not bankrolling it. There's a difference here.

<comment><USER212> > is not merely a mistake with words.

Yes. Yes, it is. Are we talking about the same story? We're talking about something Richard Stallman said. That is his offense and the reason for him being kicked out of FSF and MIT.

Since you dodged the whole point of my comment by reiterating that Stallman said something offensive, I'll restate my point clearly as a question: In your opinion, can someone be forgiven for saying something wrong? and how do they seek that forgiveness other than apologizing and admitting they were wrong?

I'm sure like everyone you've said horrible shit over your lifetime, whether in public or private, whether strangers or family. If we brought out those people hurt by your words over your lifetime, wouldn't you want to be forgiven? Don't hold other people to a different standard than you hold yourself.

<comment><USER213> _Being the kind of person who would do what he did_ , having a history of being That Guy in shitty and gross ways ("tender embraces" cards, opining about "natalism" on emacs-devel, pedophile apologia over a couple decades) is why this became the straw that broke the camel's back. _Saying_ is a reflection of _being_ , and that is what is so often elided by a certain crowd getting all hot under the T-shirt right now.

Particularly for figures with significant platforms, the way to redemption is through demonstrating that one has learned and improved, not merely quickly saying "I'm sorry!" and moving on. Perhaps a good way to start would be for RMS to spend time working with an organization dedicated to helping survivors of sexual assault, learning from that experience, and using his broad platform to discuss what he learns with people who, as this thread amply demonstrates, could sorely use the perspective.

<comment><USER212> > Being the kind of person who would do what he did

And what kind of person are you? You're a "good" person and Stallman a "bad" one? Stallman's evil but you're just ignorant? Ha!

I'm not a fan of Stallman, but your shit stinks too.

<comment><USER213> My shit does stink, yes. Never felt a need to cape up for pedophiles, but I've certainly said and believed some real unfortunate shit. I used to be a shitty little "libertarian" when I was younger who, through _saying_ things, _did_ hurt people. Had the modern MRA/GamerGate funnel existed when I was young I'd probably have fallen into it. As it is, I've spent most of my adult life being coached out of and in many ways _deprogramming_ myself out of being a selfish reactionary, and working (deeds, not words) to make up for being shitty.

I'm not a particularly good person--but I'm _working on it_ in a conscious way. He can, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> It is very clear that many people are here to defend statutory rape or recite talking points from Reddit. The thing is, you couldn't be around OSS for more than a month without tripping over Stallman harassing women or producing a six-page rider or yelling at parents on mailing lists for having children. This wasn't a sudden or unexpected event: this is a troll finally discovering the boundaries of what the community would tolerate.

</comment><comment><USER70> RMS is a fool. He should have kept his mouth shut because he is one of the least qualified people to speak on this subject, given his own admission of having problems relating to others in an empathic way and his previous very insensitive comments on adults having sex with minors.

On top of that he does Minsky a huge disservice:

Minsky can't defend himself anymore and RMS has now made a direct connection between Minsky and having sex with underage girls _when in fact this may never have happened at all_.

The deposition is unfortunately ambiguous about this fact:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFx...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFxrmNhs/view)

Page 204, the question is 'Where did you go to have sex with Marvin Minsky?'; then further down that Ghislaine Maxwell directed her to have sex with him but crucially never asks her whether or not it actually happened, and at least one person is on record that Minsky turned her down:

[https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/](https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/)

</comment><comment><USER214> So the next time someone does something bad, and a group of people rally to support them despite it being obviously bad, we should all look back to this thread.

RMS is a figure in the hacker/tech community so the hacker/tech community has done most of the excusing for his behavior.

It's sad. There's room for argument in how much backlash he should receive, but if you're arguing that what said is fine, I would argue that you may be fooling yourself.

Consider some public figure you dislike (politician, celebrity, etc). Now pretend that person said these things. Would you be so forgiving? Maybe you would. But if you find the answer to be no, then you're just protecting your own. Quit that.

</comment><comment><USER215> I've always heard the person who brings a company to a turning point might not be the one to make the turn. Maybe it's the same for movements. Open source went a long way with his poor behavior, but now it's likely to become a liability as open source spreads further into a world of collapsed context and diverse experiences.</comment>