4 ms·

https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-scientist-stallman-pedophilia https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-scientist-stallman-pedophi... He's never adequately explained

https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-scientist-stallman-pedophilia https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-scientist-stallman-pedophi... He's never adequately explained from what I can tell why he made those statements in the first place. If he could provide that additional insight, I think it would help others evaluate the sincerity of his apology. The question today that I have for Mr. Stallman, whom many of us hold in the highest regard for his role in the free software movement, is a very frank one: Were his remarks in support of pedophilia designed to persuade Mr. Epstein to donate part of his $500 million estate to the Free Software Foundation, much like he observed role-models such as MIT president Rafael Reif do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Reif sent Mr. Epstein a personally signed thank-you note for his donation to the Media Lab, or colleagues like Martin Nowak do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Nowak created a web page on a university website and an office in his department for a convicted child-rapist in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in donations that were promised to his academic program at Harvard and hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, often laundered through Epstein's fellow billionaire pedophile friends like Les Wexner and Glenn Dubin, to Harvard University, where Mr. Nowak is employed as a math professor?

Udik 6y ago
From your link: > Stallman’s nasty comments last week drew attention to some even more appalling stuff he said back in the mid-2000s. In one 2003 post, the famed coder even wrote that “everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately.” Funny that this "even more appalling stuff" is the law in such backward places like Austria, Germany and Italy. Just slightly less uncivilised countries such as Denmark, France, Sweden, set the age of consent to 15. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  I personally don't feel he meant 14 year old girls should have sex with older men. I think he meant teenagers should experiment with each other.
- selfishgene 6y ago
  To the extent that Stallman used his position at MIT and the FSF to help Jeffrey Epstein evade prosecution under the federal RICO statute for several decades by colluding with Epstein co-conspirators MIT president Rafael Reif, MIT corporation chairman Robert Millard and corporate vice presidents Morgan, Newton, Ruiz and Lucas, as well as colleagues Seth Lloyd and Marvin Minsky, in hopes of receiving the kind of money that they witnessed Epstein donate to Harvard as quid pro quo for Harvard law professor and Epstein best buddy Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz negotiating the infamous 2011 "sweetheart deal" with federal prosecutors, that was also facilitated by Benedict "Dick" Gross, Martin Nowak, Stephen Kosslyn, Steven "Use-of-the-Internet-to-Entice-a-Minor-into-Prostitution-is-A-Okay" Stinker of a Pinker, and former Harvard president Larry "Women Can't Do Science" Summers, then that's a huge obstacle to allowing Mr. Stallman to continue to serve on the board of the FSF. As far as the examplars you quote above, namely Austria, Germany and Italy, along with some of their collaborators during WWII, I wonder if even Epstein, Maxwell, Reif, Summers, Pinker, Kosslyn, Minsky, Oxman, Dubin, Wexner, Black, Zuckerman, and last but not least, Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz, would approve of citing these countries as modern role models for the protection of basic human rights.
  - Zuider 6y ago
    >To the extent that Stallman used his position at MIT and the FSF to help Jeffrey Epstein evade prosecution under the federal RICO statute for several decades Can you present any evidence that Stallman did anything of the sort?
    - selfishgene 6y ago
      The evidence at this time is largely circumstantial: i) Mr. Stallman's job was to raise money for the FSF. ii) Mr. Stallman's friend and possible mentor was accused of sexual misconduct involving an underage girl who was allegedly being trafficked by Mr. Epstein on "Pedophile Isle." iii) Mr. Stallman's statements appear more designed to justify and rationalize Mr. Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls than to defend the reputation of his friend and possible mentor Mr. Minsky against accusations that he presumably wanted to believe were false. iv) Mr. Stallman was presumably aware of Mr. Epstein's donations to Harvard and the reason why he was making them given the accusations that had been leveled against Mr. Epstein in the press through articles like this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/us/03epstein.html https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/us/03epstein.html v) Mr. Stallman presumably knows that he is a public figure who is recognized around the globe for his lifelong contribution to the free software movement, and that any statements which he makes in support of Mr. Epstein personally, or in defense of his alleged illegal behavior, could be seized upon by attorneys like Mr. Dershowitz to help Mr. Epstein negotiate his next "sweetheart deal," much like Mr. Epstein's "CIA connection" was used to bamboozle federal prosecutors for the first deal. Regarding this last bullet point, do realize that this was exactly what Mr. Reif was doing for Mr. Epstein when he handed him that personally signed thank-you note that has caused so much public outcry and calls for his resignation. By the way, Reif's thank-you note is also eerily similar to what happened here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/gabriel-matzneff-pedophilia-france.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/gabriel-matz... Note that in this case, pedophile prize-winning author Gabriel Matzneff received his "thank-you" note not from the president of MIT, but from the former president of France! Matzneff openly bragged about taking multiple eight year-old boys to bed that he picked up at a shopping plaza in the Philippines so that he could enjoy sexually abusing them all at the same time, to only then celebrate it in one of his most despicable novels, and like Epstein, he also managed to evade prosecution for these crimes over the course of several decades, because he had his set of "protectors" sitting in powerful places too. So Stallman should think about answering his critics at the appropriate time, because it sure as hell looks like he was providing "reputation laundering" for Mr. Epstein along with MIT president Rafael Reif, and in the court of public opinion, what Mr. Stallman has hopefully learned by now is that circumstantial evidence is often all that's needed to convict.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
>He's never adequately explained from what I can tell why he made those statements in the first place. If he could provide that additional insight, I think it would help others evaluate the sincerity of his apology. I don't think it's relevant to his work. And if anything I said caused such a reaction from the public, I wouldn't say anything else about it either. It just is not likely to help anything.

Udik 6y ago

From your link: > Stallman’s nasty comments last week drew attention to some even more appalling stuff he said back in the mid-2000s. In one 2003 post, the famed coder even wrote that “everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately.” Funny that this "even more appalling stuff" is the law in such backward places like Austria, Germany and Italy. Just slightly less uncivilised countries such as Denmark, France, Sweden, set the age of consent to 15. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
I personally don't feel he meant 14 year old girls should have sex with older men. I think he meant teenagers should experiment with each other.
selfishgene 6y ago
To the extent that Stallman used his position at MIT and the FSF to help Jeffrey Epstein evade prosecution under the federal RICO statute for several decades by colluding with Epstein co-conspirators MIT president Rafael Reif, MIT corporation chairman Robert Millard and corporate vice presidents Morgan, Newton, Ruiz and Lucas, as well as colleagues Seth Lloyd and Marvin Minsky, in hopes of receiving the kind of money that they witnessed Epstein donate to Harvard as quid pro quo for Harvard law professor and Epstein best buddy Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz negotiating the infamous 2011 "sweetheart deal" with federal prosecutors, that was also facilitated by Benedict "Dick" Gross, Martin Nowak, Stephen Kosslyn, Steven "Use-of-the-Internet-to-Entice-a-Minor-into-Prostitution-is-A-Okay" Stinker of a Pinker, and former Harvard president Larry "Women Can't Do Science" Summers, then that's a huge obstacle to allowing Mr. Stallman to continue to serve on the board of the FSF. As far as the examplars you quote above, namely Austria, Germany and Italy, along with some of their collaborators during WWII, I wonder if even Epstein, Maxwell, Reif, Summers, Pinker, Kosslyn, Minsky, Oxman, Dubin, Wexner, Black, Zuckerman, and last but not least, Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz, would approve of citing these countries as modern role models for the protection of basic human rights.
- Zuider 6y ago
  >To the extent that Stallman used his position at MIT and the FSF to help Jeffrey Epstein evade prosecution under the federal RICO statute for several decades Can you present any evidence that Stallman did anything of the sort?
  - selfishgene 6y ago
    The evidence at this time is largely circumstantial: i) Mr. Stallman's job was to raise money for the FSF. ii) Mr. Stallman's friend and possible mentor was accused of sexual misconduct involving an underage girl who was allegedly being trafficked by Mr. Epstein on "Pedophile Isle." iii) Mr. Stallman's statements appear more designed to justify and rationalize Mr. Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls than to defend the reputation of his friend and possible mentor Mr. Minsky against accusations that he presumably wanted to believe were false. iv) Mr. Stallman was presumably aware of Mr. Epstein's donations to Harvard and the reason why he was making them given the accusations that had been leveled against Mr. Epstein in the press through articles like this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/us/03epstein.html https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/us/03epstein.html v) Mr. Stallman presumably knows that he is a public figure who is recognized around the globe for his lifelong contribution to the free software movement, and that any statements which he makes in support of Mr. Epstein personally, or in defense of his alleged illegal behavior, could be seized upon by attorneys like Mr. Dershowitz to help Mr. Epstein negotiate his next "sweetheart deal," much like Mr. Epstein's "CIA connection" was used to bamboozle federal prosecutors for the first deal. Regarding this last bullet point, do realize that this was exactly what Mr. Reif was doing for Mr. Epstein when he handed him that personally signed thank-you note that has caused so much public outcry and calls for his resignation. By the way, Reif's thank-you note is also eerily similar to what happened here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/gabriel-matzneff-pedophilia-france.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/gabriel-matz... Note that in this case, pedophile prize-winning author Gabriel Matzneff received his "thank-you" note not from the president of MIT, but from the former president of France! Matzneff openly bragged about taking multiple eight year-old boys to bed that he picked up at a shopping plaza in the Philippines so that he could enjoy sexually abusing them all at the same time, to only then celebrate it in one of his most despicable novels, and like Epstein, he also managed to evade prosecution for these crimes over the course of several decades, because he had his set of "protectors" sitting in powerful places too. So Stallman should think about answering his critics at the appropriate time, because it sure as hell looks like he was providing "reputation laundering" for Mr. Epstein along with MIT president Rafael Reif, and in the court of public opinion, what Mr. Stallman has hopefully learned by now is that circumstantial evidence is often all that's needed to convict.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

>He's never adequately explained from what I can tell why he made those statements in the first place. If he could provide that additional insight, I think it would help others evaluate the sincerity of his apology. I don't think it's relevant to his work. And if anything I said caused such a reaction from the public, I wouldn't say anything else about it either. It just is not likely to help anything.