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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

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.

johnny22 7y ago
" I am sad that debate on this topic essentially can't happen." It could happen if your point about power and consent was taken as a given (at least in the context of this topic).
thrwayxyz 7y ago
>That said, I think Stallman's position really is fundamentally wrong and problematic. So you have the default opinion anyone in our society will have. I'm interested in what the heretic has to say why we are wrong. However with what has happened to Stallman I doubt I ever will. A shame because something has gone hugely wrong when half of all children are thinking of suicide.
- danharaj 7y ago
  You can just go read what he says. No need to be so pompous about it.
- rexpop 7y ago
  > So you have the default opinion anyone in our society will have. Hardly.
throwstallman 7y ago
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.
- johnny22 7y ago
  well it might also have to do with that folks like bill clinton and donald trump were associating with him..
- rjzzleep 7y ago
  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
  - poisonborz 7y ago
    14 is a common age of consent in East-EU/Balkans https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/age-of-consent-europe.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/age-of-co...
wyoming 7y ago
To defend Minsky and Prince Andrew, there’s no evidence they knew she was underage. She also appeared in a photo with Andrew and Ghisline Maxwell. Perhaps he knew she was underage but for a member of royalty to fly to a private island and have underage sex with 8+ girls at once is a serious allegation which is what she claimed. Maybe it’s true but at least one of the accused by her (the famous lawyer involved) has claimed to have evidence that she is lying — or more precisely, exaggerating her story. My ex-girlfriend dated Prince Andrew (she was in her late 20s). I’ve been around some of these people in South Florida and LA. A lot of allegedly good people will ignore red flags but people openly targeting underage girls seems to be isolated to only one or two principals. Of course, all of this is wrong —- even this concept of pleasure parties where young (over 18) girls are brought to billionaire parties often by younger guys. Turning regular girls into “sugar babies” or prostitutes is a major problem.
- AndrewBissell 7y ago
  > Maybe it’s true but at least one of the accused by her (the famous lawyer involved) has claimed to have evidence that she is lying — or more precisely, exaggerating her story. Ah, Dershowitz. The one who says, yes, he got a massage at Epstein's Palm Beach place, but it was from a 52-year-old woman named Olga and he kept his pants on the whole time. I'm sure we'll see his exculpatory evidence any day now.
mapgrep 7y ago
I also disagree with his opinion on this topic. Strongly. But is it reasonable for someone to be essentially fired for having an incorrect opinion?
- eesmith 7y ago
  By "having an incorrect opinion" I'll assume you mean "having and voicing an incorrect opinion." Yes. There are laws against workplace harassment. Harassment may include repeated voicing of discriminatory opinions. The harasser may be fired to prevent the workplace from being a 'hostile environment'. Even when the law does not require action, someone may be fired even after a single conversation with incorrect opinions (and I mean 'incorrect' in the factual sense here). Take Jimmy Snyder, a.k.a. "Jimmy the Greek". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Snyder_(sports_commentator)#Racial_comments_and_dismissal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Snyder_(sports_commentat... . > On January 16, 1988, Snyder was fired by the CBS network (where he had been a regular on NFL Today since 1976) after making several questionable comments about African Americans during a lunchtime interview on January 15, 1988 with Ed Hotaling ... More directly, if it's the 1950s and I call my stridently anti-Soviet Union boss "a pinko Commie" to his face, that's voicing an incorrect opinion -- and I might easily be fired for it. (It's not hard to come up with modern-day examples, but I felt it best to use phrases which no longer have the emotional power they once did.) None of these apply to what happened with Stallman. I instead wanted to address your broader topic of being fired for expressing an opinion.
  - mapgrep 7y ago
    >None of these apply to what happened with Stallman That’s the point. If it were harassment, false accusation of a colleague, etc, it would not be merely expressing a bad opinion. But as you say, none of those apply. And I think it’s clear I was not raising an issue of what is legal, but of what is right and just, and desirable for a university, for a workplace, for a society.
    - eesmith 7y ago
      You write "That’s the point". But you asked a much broader question. I gave two examples, one real ("Jimmy the Greek"), and one hypothetical ("pinko Commie"). Do you really want to get into a discussion of how it was not "right and just" to fire Jimmy the Greek for his racist comments?
zaphirplane 7y ago
Did he resign because of these comments / opinions? Or you are commenting on his opinions [edit] seems the resignation is due to the comments and I’m living under a rock
will4274 7y ago
> Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent Yes and no. With a 17 year old, in some jurisdictions, it's rape in such and such degree, but in other jurisdictions, it's a separate crime, and in other jurisdictions it's not a crime at all. I think the stronger argument is that it's illegal/immoral, rather than getting stuck on a single word.
- jimclegg 7y ago
  So if I have sex with a consenting 14-17 year old on vacation (the actual legal ages of consent in Europe) people in USA can just call it rape/sexual assault? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe Stallman has a point, even though he should've steered clear of this by 100 miles. People who don't travel internationally probably have a huge blind spot on this issue...
  - will4274 7y ago
    Yes, in fact, federal law makes it a crime for Americans to go to a foreign country and have sex that would be legal in that country, even Western European countries with typical laws. It's considered "sex tourism"
malandrew 7y ago
> a situation where simple "free choice" is made a mockery of. I'm not so sure. "Free choice" today as defined by those on the left is "free to make choices independent of constraints imposed by personal capacity or personal resources", whereas it has historically been interpreted as "free to make choices independent of constraints imposed by other humans". The problem with the former definition of free choice is that it requires encroaching on the latter definition of free choice. If you have two people that are equally poor, both are equal in terms of having free choice under both definitions. If one of those people becomes wealthy, they continue to be equal under the latter definition of free choice, but are unequal under the former definition even though nothing has changed in the circumstances of the one that became neither richer nor poorer than he was previously.
ekianjo 7y ago
> Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent. Yes, but how do you understand the wide age variations for "consent" worldwide? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cabalamat 7y ago
> Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent. There are many jurisdictions where this is not the case.

johnny22 7y ago

" I am sad that debate on this topic essentially can't happen." It could happen if your point about power and consent was taken as a given (at least in the context of this topic).

thrwayxyz 7y ago

>That said, I think Stallman's position really is fundamentally wrong and problematic. So you have the default opinion anyone in our society will have. I'm interested in what the heretic has to say why we are wrong. However with what has happened to Stallman I doubt I ever will. A shame because something has gone hugely wrong when half of all children are thinking of suicide.

danharaj 7y ago
You can just go read what he says. No need to be so pompous about it.
rexpop 7y ago
> So you have the default opinion anyone in our society will have. Hardly.

throwstallman 7y ago

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.

johnny22 7y ago
well it might also have to do with that folks like bill clinton and donald trump were associating with him..
rjzzleep 7y ago
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
- poisonborz 7y ago
  14 is a common age of consent in East-EU/Balkans https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/age-of-consent-europe.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/age-of-co...

wyoming 7y ago

To defend Minsky and Prince Andrew, there’s no evidence they knew she was underage. She also appeared in a photo with Andrew and Ghisline Maxwell. Perhaps he knew she was underage but for a member of royalty to fly to a private island and have underage sex with 8+ girls at once is a serious allegation which is what she claimed. Maybe it’s true but at least one of the accused by her (the famous lawyer involved) has claimed to have evidence that she is lying — or more precisely, exaggerating her story. My ex-girlfriend dated Prince Andrew (she was in her late 20s). I’ve been around some of these people in South Florida and LA. A lot of allegedly good people will ignore red flags but people openly targeting underage girls seems to be isolated to only one or two principals. Of course, all of this is wrong —- even this concept of pleasure parties where young (over 18) girls are brought to billionaire parties often by younger guys. Turning regular girls into “sugar babies” or prostitutes is a major problem.

AndrewBissell 7y ago
> Maybe it’s true but at least one of the accused by her (the famous lawyer involved) has claimed to have evidence that she is lying — or more precisely, exaggerating her story. Ah, Dershowitz. The one who says, yes, he got a massage at Epstein's Palm Beach place, but it was from a 52-year-old woman named Olga and he kept his pants on the whole time. I'm sure we'll see his exculpatory evidence any day now.

mapgrep 7y ago

I also disagree with his opinion on this topic. Strongly. But is it reasonable for someone to be essentially fired for having an incorrect opinion?

eesmith 7y ago
By "having an incorrect opinion" I'll assume you mean "having and voicing an incorrect opinion." Yes. There are laws against workplace harassment. Harassment may include repeated voicing of discriminatory opinions. The harasser may be fired to prevent the workplace from being a 'hostile environment'. Even when the law does not require action, someone may be fired even after a single conversation with incorrect opinions (and I mean 'incorrect' in the factual sense here). Take Jimmy Snyder, a.k.a. "Jimmy the Greek". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Snyder_(sports_commentator)#Racial_comments_and_dismissal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Snyder_(sports_commentat... . > On January 16, 1988, Snyder was fired by the CBS network (where he had been a regular on NFL Today since 1976) after making several questionable comments about African Americans during a lunchtime interview on January 15, 1988 with Ed Hotaling ... More directly, if it's the 1950s and I call my stridently anti-Soviet Union boss "a pinko Commie" to his face, that's voicing an incorrect opinion -- and I might easily be fired for it. (It's not hard to come up with modern-day examples, but I felt it best to use phrases which no longer have the emotional power they once did.) None of these apply to what happened with Stallman. I instead wanted to address your broader topic of being fired for expressing an opinion.
- mapgrep 7y ago
  >None of these apply to what happened with Stallman That’s the point. If it were harassment, false accusation of a colleague, etc, it would not be merely expressing a bad opinion. But as you say, none of those apply. And I think it’s clear I was not raising an issue of what is legal, but of what is right and just, and desirable for a university, for a workplace, for a society.
  - eesmith 7y ago
    You write "That’s the point". But you asked a much broader question. I gave two examples, one real ("Jimmy the Greek"), and one hypothetical ("pinko Commie"). Do you really want to get into a discussion of how it was not "right and just" to fire Jimmy the Greek for his racist comments?

zaphirplane 7y ago

Did he resign because of these comments / opinions? Or you are commenting on his opinions [edit] seems the resignation is due to the comments and I’m living under a rock

will4274 7y ago

> Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent Yes and no. With a 17 year old, in some jurisdictions, it's rape in such and such degree, but in other jurisdictions, it's a separate crime, and in other jurisdictions it's not a crime at all. I think the stronger argument is that it's illegal/immoral, rather than getting stuck on a single word.

jimclegg 7y ago
So if I have sex with a consenting 14-17 year old on vacation (the actual legal ages of consent in Europe) people in USA can just call it rape/sexual assault? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe Stallman has a point, even though he should've steered clear of this by 100 miles. People who don't travel internationally probably have a huge blind spot on this issue...
- will4274 7y ago
  Yes, in fact, federal law makes it a crime for Americans to go to a foreign country and have sex that would be legal in that country, even Western European countries with typical laws. It's considered "sex tourism"

malandrew 7y ago

> a situation where simple "free choice" is made a mockery of. I'm not so sure. "Free choice" today as defined by those on the left is "free to make choices independent of constraints imposed by personal capacity or personal resources", whereas it has historically been interpreted as "free to make choices independent of constraints imposed by other humans". The problem with the former definition of free choice is that it requires encroaching on the latter definition of free choice. If you have two people that are equally poor, both are equal in terms of having free choice under both definitions. If one of those people becomes wealthy, they continue to be equal under the latter definition of free choice, but are unequal under the former definition even though nothing has changed in the circumstances of the one that became neither richer nor poorer than he was previously.

ekianjo 7y ago

> Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent. Yes, but how do you understand the wide age variations for "consent" worldwide? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

cabalamat 7y ago

> Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent. There are many jurisdictions where this is not the case.