October 14th, 2024 Richard Stallman (aka “RMS”) is the founder of GNU and the Free Software Foundation and present-day voting member of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) board of directors and “Chief GNUisance” of the GNU project. He is responsible for innumerable contributions to the free software movement, setting its guiding principles, organizing political action, and directly contributing to a flourishing free software ecosystem. The majority of Stallman’s political activity has been of priceless value to society at large.
  • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
    171·
    9 hours ago

    There is a very real discussion of the way that we have conflated “minor” (a legal status) and “child” (a developmental state), and used that to infantilize adolescents who are very much not children…

    but that discussion is not about sex, it’s about the way that people abuse that legal status in order to deny adolescents normal choices that they are developed enough to make, such as what books to read, medical decisions, what they do with their property (or even the ability to own property), etc.

    Stallman is using that very legitimate discussion as cover to argue about whether children (i.e. pre-adolescents) should be able to have sex with adults.

    He is, at best, the worst kind of provocateur, doing this because he knows it riles people up, so that he can feign some position of superiority about not being upset about his very intellectual /s take, and at worst, desiring to enable or normalize pedophilia and hebephilia.

    • rahEnglish
      1·
      7 hours ago

      so that he can feign some position of superiority about not being upset about his very intellectual /s take

      Uhh… I think that says more about you than it does about Stallman.

      at worst, desiring to enable or normalize pedophilia and hebephilia

      That doesn’t follow from what Stallman’s said. I mean unless you just make stuff up. You could say that at worst Stallman is an intergalactic overlord who comes down to planets and drinks babies’ blood while pretending to be a software engineer in order to mock the planetary occupants’ stupidity. I’m sure you make up whatever dark fantasy you wanted and say, given what Stallman has written, he’s at worst that dark fantasy. But just because you say “at worst” Stallman is something, doesn’t mean it’s true. Dark fantasies don’t help here.