4 ms·

So a while ago people would have said the same about homosexual sex. Luckily, people questioned it anyway, despite being vilified for doing so. How do you know

So a while ago people would have said the same about homosexual sex. Luckily, people questioned it anyway, despite being vilified for doing so. How do you know which supposedly unconscionable things are actually bad and which are not, if we are not allowed to question them? Whilst I'm not defending this particular point, on the meta level we need to be able to question things, however settled they might seem, or else we will never again recognise the areas where we are wrong. A friend of mine is fond of telling people who make such absolute, unquestioning claims that they would have made an excellent SS officer.

benreesman 7y ago
My point isn’t about the substance of his remarks (though I’m firmly in the “adults shouldn’t fuck children” camp if my position were somehow relevant). My point is that there are a bunch of people nitpicking that the Minsky remarks aren’t a tacit endorsement of pedophilia, and maybe they’re not. But RMS has a tacit endorsement of pedophilia on his website, so if that’s a bad enough thing to fire someone over then that ship sailed a long time ago. If tacitly endorsing pedophilia is something MIT is cool with, that’s a different conversation. I very much doubt they’re cool with it, but I’m not affiliated with MIT, so you’d have to ask them.
- doubleunplussed 7y ago
  No. Your comment did not read as "my opponents are nitpicking by denying that he questioned the badness of sex with children", you just stated your belief in the badness of sex with children and how nothing more needs to be said. "Full stop". "Why is this a conversation". And you are now backpedalling. Stop with this crap, I'm sick of the emotional rhetoric and lies in everything. I wish we were in a world where en employee saying something just isn't considered endorsement, tacit or otherwise, by the employer. Then we wouldn't be in this mess. And I can't help but notice that activists who want to punish certain views are the ones encouraging the interpretation of employees' speech as endorsement by the employer in order to be more effectively able to punish speech they don't like. I'm sure they would be less happy if the shoe were on the other foot and authoritarian rightists were in charge, but they are not looking that far ahead apparently.
  - benreesman 7y ago
    I said “you’re gonna have a bad time”. He’s having a bad time. The fact that I’m anti-pedophilia is incidental to the fact that the Minsky remarks are not necessary to establish that RMS is (was?) at least plausibly pro-pedophilia at one point by his own admission on his own website. I literally cannot believe that words like “SS Officer” and “authoritarian rightists” are making an appearance in a conversation that started roughly with “nah he actually said that shit, here’s the link, and no one should be surprised that he’s having a terrible time as a result, the Minsky shit is not necessary to establish that he actually said that”. I really cannot see why everyone is so fucking super duper hyper charged up over this. Pedophilia being bad is about as vanilla of a position that it’s possible to take on anything, and while free speech entitles people in the US at least to take a different position, it seems like kind of a stretch to expect anyone’s employer to line up behind that.

benreesman 7y ago

My point isn’t about the substance of his remarks (though I’m firmly in the “adults shouldn’t fuck children” camp if my position were somehow relevant). My point is that there are a bunch of people nitpicking that the Minsky remarks aren’t a tacit endorsement of pedophilia, and maybe they’re not. But RMS has a tacit endorsement of pedophilia on his website, so if that’s a bad enough thing to fire someone over then that ship sailed a long time ago. If tacitly endorsing pedophilia is something MIT is cool with, that’s a different conversation. I very much doubt they’re cool with it, but I’m not affiliated with MIT, so you’d have to ask them.

doubleunplussed 7y ago
No. Your comment did not read as "my opponents are nitpicking by denying that he questioned the badness of sex with children", you just stated your belief in the badness of sex with children and how nothing more needs to be said. "Full stop". "Why is this a conversation". And you are now backpedalling. Stop with this crap, I'm sick of the emotional rhetoric and lies in everything. I wish we were in a world where en employee saying something just isn't considered endorsement, tacit or otherwise, by the employer. Then we wouldn't be in this mess. And I can't help but notice that activists who want to punish certain views are the ones encouraging the interpretation of employees' speech as endorsement by the employer in order to be more effectively able to punish speech they don't like. I'm sure they would be less happy if the shoe were on the other foot and authoritarian rightists were in charge, but they are not looking that far ahead apparently.
- benreesman 7y ago
  I said “you’re gonna have a bad time”. He’s having a bad time. The fact that I’m anti-pedophilia is incidental to the fact that the Minsky remarks are not necessary to establish that RMS is (was?) at least plausibly pro-pedophilia at one point by his own admission on his own website. I literally cannot believe that words like “SS Officer” and “authoritarian rightists” are making an appearance in a conversation that started roughly with “nah he actually said that shit, here’s the link, and no one should be surprised that he’s having a terrible time as a result, the Minsky shit is not necessary to establish that he actually said that”. I really cannot see why everyone is so fucking super duper hyper charged up over this. Pedophilia being bad is about as vanilla of a position that it’s possible to take on anything, and while free speech entitles people in the US at least to take a different position, it seems like kind of a stretch to expect anyone’s employer to line up behind that.