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The Stallman Report

(stallman-report.org)
197 points pkilgore | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.82s | source
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hollerith ◴[] No.41842507[source]
I am concerned about the fact that we don't know the identities of any of the authors of this web page.

There are people who find it very enjoyable to destroy someone's reputation (for basically the same reason that there are people for whom murder is such a turn-on that they cannot stop themselves from doing it till they get caught).

Also, there might be ways to profit or personally benefit from a campaign like this. E.g., one of the authors of this web page might covet one of the titles or jobs Stallman currently holds -- for themselves or for a friend. E.g., Stallman or one of his supporters might be approached in the coming days with an offer: I can make this web page disappear from public view, but it will cost you. Basically any rival has an incentive to try to get you fired and to destroy your reputation.

I suspect that we as a society should adopt the general rule that anonymous attacks on the reputation of a person should be ignored. In the absence of such a rule, anyone can keep on waging campaigns of reputation destruction (in pursuit of getting ahead somehow or of a twisted kind of enjoyment) with little to no cost or risk to themselves. The attack can include lies, and even if the lies are discovered, again there is no cost or consequence to the attacker.

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cassepipe ◴[] No.41842773[source]
It seems that you are worried about cases but there are no witness/proof that is where the truthfulness of accusations is in doubt. No such thing here, they are basically quoting him and putting related quotes together. Almost like someone writing a book review of a philosopher or something.

You could say "what about out of context quoting!?" but he seems quite consistent in his ideas and it would be quite a coincidence that so many excerpts expressing the same idea are taken out of context.

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1. asrt ◴[] No.41845774[source]
The Epstein quote is taken out of context and his controversial opinion about age of consent (which isn't even that different from the opinions held by esteemed philosophers like Michel Foucault and Simone de Beauvoir) was retracted publicly by him years ago.
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2. cassepipe ◴[] No.41846835[source]
Well if you have read the document he only retracted his opinion on children children and childhood seems to stop for him at 14 and after that you are a teenager and you are fair game.

I have a lot of sympathy for teenager leading their own sex lives with each other. I have a lot less sympathy for adults that bring up the fact that teenager are entitled to a sexuality when the implication is that adults shouldn't be frowned upon for courting teenagers. Even less so for someone who had to retract his previous positions that children of all age...

EDIT: You haven't read the document clearly because it does not rely on the epstein quote and clearly marks what has been retracted

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3. mariusor ◴[] No.41847586[source]
> you are fair game

I am pretty confident that when Stallman writes about large age gaps, he wasn't condoning predatory behaviour, but wanted to emphasize the fact that some people can be fully capable of making their own decisions even if they are in their teens. (I would go a little further to add that some people in their twenties or later can be equally vulnerable to predatory behaviour as regular sheltered teens, and it's mostly up to the upbringing they recieved) Maybe I'm too charitable in my interpretation, but "teens being fair game" is not what I understood for sure.

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4. cassepipe ◴[] No.41850400{3}[source]
Yes but there has to be a limit. Legislators western countries have agreed that this was around 14/18 with some caveats regarding age gaps. It seems most countries are ok with teenagers having sex lives between themselves but try to avoid relationships where an older man has a position of authority over the teenager. It seems sensible enough.

But I notice that he hasn't written at length about how teenagers should be able to vote before they are 18 that I know of. The fact that he is weirdly fixated over this issue reminds us of Gabriel Matzneff and others who were basically men who wanted to be able to have sex with teenagers because they enjoy it and had no issue with having power over their younger partner.

Teenagers are already allowed to have a rich sex life, what they need is more protection from older men not less.

I mean it is enough to read the report and the quotes to understand that that man is a militant and wants better acess to teenagers for sexual purposes. The report also does a good job of explaining what's wrong with it if you care about those issues.