9 ms·

Thank you for the link. My impression is that RMS mainly had some opinions which were leftover from the “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s which were

Thank you for the link. My impression is that RMS mainly had some opinions which were leftover from the “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s which were not particularly shocking or out of line back then, but are considered job-losing toxic opinions here in 2019. For the record, as someone who saw that whole movement first hand, I disagree with the whole “free love” movement and think sex should only be done in a lifetime monogamous commitment. I have met and have had dinner with RMS; he came off to me as a very kind person who has very strong principles. I do not see the imaginary monster that the outrage clickbait media is trying to make RMS be in him.

mirimir 7y ago
Yeah, from someone who was there, that's almost it. I'd add hacker punk as another key influence. But seriously, you don't say that stuff in public these days. Edit: Even if you're joking, or just doing it to light people up. Which was, you know, quite the thing. Back in the day. And damn, had to work at it, but I found a couple BOFH episodes that actually mention women.[0,1] 0) https://bofh.subversivedata.com/story/2009/4 https://bofh.subversivedata.com/story/2009/4 1) http://bofharchive.com/1998/bastard98-21.html http://bofharchive.com/1998/bastard98-21.html
- strenholme 7y ago
  Yeah, I agree that you don’t say that stuff in public these days, and I have always felt that, with Romeo-and-Juliet exceptions, the age of consent should be respected. Keep in mind that, around the time RMS posted those more controversial blog entries (which I still feel are being quoted out of context [1]), the Wikipedia was allowing out and out pedophiles to post their disgusting and repulsive pro-pedophilia advocacy [2]. And, yes, I found that advocacy repulsive back then and find it repulsive today. [3] [1] https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ No, I did not write this article, but I think it makes some legitimate points. [2] https://archive.is/iG9KX https://archive.is/iG9KX (Trigger warning for victims of child sexual abuse) [3] At https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_movement/Archive_13&diff=prev&oldid=4770710 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_mo... (Again, trigger warning) I expressed my opinion in 2004 that what the Wikipedia was allowing w.r.t. pro-pedophile opinions back then was repulsive, an opinion I still hold today.
jl6 7y ago
What’s considered toxic about the free love movement?
- strenholme 7y ago
  It normalized the objectification of women [1] and allowed sexual predators [2] to flourish. [1] Objectification: instead of treating a woman like a person, they were reduced to being a body to satisfy a man’s base urges. [2] Sexual predator: Men who do not care about women as human beings but merely see them as potential sexual conquests, and who do dishonest and manipulative stuff to get a woman to have sex with them. Dishonest stuff includes getting a woman drunk so they will consent to sex; lying about one’s wealth or achievements (the canonical example is someone who never joined the military claiming they are a Navy SEAL); etc.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    I’m pretty sure both those things existed before the sixties.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    I was there, and part of it. You may find it hard to believe, but there were lots of young women who were just extremely promiscuous. Just as promiscuous as the young men were. Free sex was a political statement. A form of rebellion against the status quo. And of course, it was enabled by the ready availability of antibiotics and hormonal birth control.
    - strenholme 7y ago
      I saw a lot of that movement too, probably not as much as you. My sense is that no one was finding any real satisfaction from having short term strictly sexual relationships, and my sense in this day and age of #MeToo (which I very strongly feel has become a witch hunt) is that some men were hurting some women emotionally by only wanting them for sex.
      - 7y ago
input_sh 7y ago
> [P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness. June 28th 2003: http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html > I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29 https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...
- mirimir 7y ago
  Damn, he actually wrote that under his real name? That was unwise. I wouldn't even say that as Mirimir. Except about prostitution and adultery, of course.
  - input_sh 7y ago
    There was also one that I can't be bothered to find that goes something along the lines of "teens sext each other, therefore child pornography should be legal".
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Well, there was that recent case about the tween girl who got convicted of distributing child pornography for sexting another tween. So it's obvious to me that underage sexting itself shouldn't be prosecuted as child porn. Because if they're old enough to prosecute as adults, they're also old enough to legally share naked pictures of themselves. But of course, it's arguable that third parties -- especially adult third parties -- who distribute such images should be prosecuted.
      - salawat 7y ago
        Look, this conversation right here that you're making is exactly why people beiing willing to take a stance against these sorts of "thou shalt be dumped upon for even mentioning" things is necessary. He's not a fool in that regard. He understands that as long as you can attach paedophilia to something, this type of outrage phenomena can completely sink any attempt at civil discourse, and can be weaponized in order to force through liberty/civic rights destructive measures. Think about it. We could frame an Act to implement Panopticon for the sake of catching Paedophiles, and then poof! Resistance disappears because if you dissent, you're now pro-paedophile! Yet every last civic minded person who values personal freedom/liberty should be able to tell that the inevitable result of such a system being implemented is inevitable abuse. Now replace that with LGBT rights, or women's rights, or sexual assault, or any other controversial theme under the sun. You cannot have the Nazi exception. In any form, or on any topic. Freedom is Freedom. And you can't even dismiss it with a handwave to the freedom to experience consequences either, because you're just perpetuating the sin you're willing to punish Stallman for by tolerating the outright lies of the reporter which fueled the whole thing in the first place. https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-the-nazi-exception/ https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-t... People need to put the pitchforks down, and go about your day. You should advise the people who started the entire hubbub that the proper place to deal with that disagreement was with Stallman himself in private, maybe with an administrator. If we resort to mob justice to get our way, we end up throwing out any semblance of Order to our country, instead we just end up with a reflexive gaggle of inflammable passions waiting for the next match to be struck. I hate to say it, but you really can't fault Stallman on this one. You can be annoyed. You can find it distasteful; but in the end he is exactly right. It is important that the more heinous the accusation, the greater the pains needed to be taken to ensure that we specifically and only read into what is actually there, and adhere to what is actually actionable by law. Otherwise you see exactly what has erupted here. An outburst of rage against someone completely uninvolved, combined with the burning down of the metaphorical village for what? A Five Minute Rage? Christ, how Orwellian! 1984 isn't even being misused as a manual. It's here and now. God help us.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

mirimir 7y ago

Yeah, from someone who was there, that's almost it. I'd add hacker punk as another key influence. But seriously, you don't say that stuff in public these days. Edit: Even if you're joking, or just doing it to light people up. Which was, you know, quite the thing. Back in the day. And damn, had to work at it, but I found a couple BOFH episodes that actually mention women.[0,1] 0) https://bofh.subversivedata.com/story/2009/4 https://bofh.subversivedata.com/story/2009/4 1) http://bofharchive.com/1998/bastard98-21.html http://bofharchive.com/1998/bastard98-21.html

strenholme 7y ago
Yeah, I agree that you don’t say that stuff in public these days, and I have always felt that, with Romeo-and-Juliet exceptions, the age of consent should be respected. Keep in mind that, around the time RMS posted those more controversial blog entries (which I still feel are being quoted out of context [1]), the Wikipedia was allowing out and out pedophiles to post their disgusting and repulsive pro-pedophilia advocacy [2]. And, yes, I found that advocacy repulsive back then and find it repulsive today. [3] [1] https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ No, I did not write this article, but I think it makes some legitimate points. [2] https://archive.is/iG9KX https://archive.is/iG9KX (Trigger warning for victims of child sexual abuse) [3] At https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_movement/Archive_13&diff=prev&oldid=4770710 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_mo... (Again, trigger warning) I expressed my opinion in 2004 that what the Wikipedia was allowing w.r.t. pro-pedophile opinions back then was repulsive, an opinion I still hold today.

jl6 7y ago

What’s considered toxic about the free love movement?

strenholme 7y ago
It normalized the objectification of women [1] and allowed sexual predators [2] to flourish. [1] Objectification: instead of treating a woman like a person, they were reduced to being a body to satisfy a man’s base urges. [2] Sexual predator: Men who do not care about women as human beings but merely see them as potential sexual conquests, and who do dishonest and manipulative stuff to get a woman to have sex with them. Dishonest stuff includes getting a woman drunk so they will consent to sex; lying about one’s wealth or achievements (the canonical example is someone who never joined the military claiming they are a Navy SEAL); etc.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  I’m pretty sure both those things existed before the sixties.
- mirimir 7y ago
  I was there, and part of it. You may find it hard to believe, but there were lots of young women who were just extremely promiscuous. Just as promiscuous as the young men were. Free sex was a political statement. A form of rebellion against the status quo. And of course, it was enabled by the ready availability of antibiotics and hormonal birth control.
  - strenholme 7y ago
    I saw a lot of that movement too, probably not as much as you. My sense is that no one was finding any real satisfaction from having short term strictly sexual relationships, and my sense in this day and age of #MeToo (which I very strongly feel has become a witch hunt) is that some men were hurting some women emotionally by only wanting them for sex.
    - 7y ago

input_sh 7y ago

> [P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness. June 28th 2003: http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html > I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29 https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...

mirimir 7y ago
Damn, he actually wrote that under his real name? That was unwise. I wouldn't even say that as Mirimir. Except about prostitution and adultery, of course.
- input_sh 7y ago
  There was also one that I can't be bothered to find that goes something along the lines of "teens sext each other, therefore child pornography should be legal".
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Well, there was that recent case about the tween girl who got convicted of distributing child pornography for sexting another tween. So it's obvious to me that underage sexting itself shouldn't be prosecuted as child porn. Because if they're old enough to prosecute as adults, they're also old enough to legally share naked pictures of themselves. But of course, it's arguable that third parties -- especially adult third parties -- who distribute such images should be prosecuted.
    - salawat 7y ago
      Look, this conversation right here that you're making is exactly why people beiing willing to take a stance against these sorts of "thou shalt be dumped upon for even mentioning" things is necessary. He's not a fool in that regard. He understands that as long as you can attach paedophilia to something, this type of outrage phenomena can completely sink any attempt at civil discourse, and can be weaponized in order to force through liberty/civic rights destructive measures. Think about it. We could frame an Act to implement Panopticon for the sake of catching Paedophiles, and then poof! Resistance disappears because if you dissent, you're now pro-paedophile! Yet every last civic minded person who values personal freedom/liberty should be able to tell that the inevitable result of such a system being implemented is inevitable abuse. Now replace that with LGBT rights, or women's rights, or sexual assault, or any other controversial theme under the sun. You cannot have the Nazi exception. In any form, or on any topic. Freedom is Freedom. And you can't even dismiss it with a handwave to the freedom to experience consequences either, because you're just perpetuating the sin you're willing to punish Stallman for by tolerating the outright lies of the reporter which fueled the whole thing in the first place. https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-the-nazi-exception/ https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-t... People need to put the pitchforks down, and go about your day. You should advise the people who started the entire hubbub that the proper place to deal with that disagreement was with Stallman himself in private, maybe with an administrator. If we resort to mob justice to get our way, we end up throwing out any semblance of Order to our country, instead we just end up with a reflexive gaggle of inflammable passions waiting for the next match to be struck. I hate to say it, but you really can't fault Stallman on this one. You can be annoyed. You can find it distasteful; but in the end he is exactly right. It is important that the more heinous the accusation, the greater the pains needed to be taken to ensure that we specifically and only read into what is actually there, and adhere to what is actually actionable by law. Otherwise you see exactly what has erupted here. An outburst of rage against someone completely uninvolved, combined with the burning down of the metaphorical village for what? A Five Minute Rage? Christ, how Orwellian! 1984 isn't even being misused as a manual. It's here and now. God help us.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]