3 ms·

Yes, it is good form to link to the claims you are debunking, but these claims are not strawmen. If you want an example of people making untrue claims about "Em

by creata 6y ago

Yes, it is good form to link to the claims you are debunking, but these claims are not strawmen. If you want an example of people making untrue claims about "Email #2", here's one very popular Medium post doing just that: > ... and then says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be "entirely willing". https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21... The dead comment next to mine has more examples. That said, the line > 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. is incredibly disgusting, no matter how you look at it.

atq2119 6y ago
I happen to suspect that RMS is wrong on the pedophilia point, but if all you can say about it is that you find it disgusting, alarm bells should be going off in your head that there may be something here which You Can't Say (in the http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html sense). This all reminds me of the sexuality portrayed among children in Brave New World, or the supposed homosexuality of Ancient Greece. What I suspect is happening here is that even voluntary pedophilia is harmful for children relative to our current society, but who knows what the case would be in a very differently structured society. Sexuality by definition is largely about how we relate with other people, so what is our isn't harmful in sexual development almost certainly depends at least in part on the society we live in. Which means that forces that want to conserve the relevant aspects of our society have an incentive to censor RMS on any thoughts along those lines.
- atq2119 6y ago
  It occurs to me (but I can no longer edit) that I wrote the above comment while only thinking about children after puberty. The Epstein connection of the larger story primed me into that frame, and the comment would have looked differently if I'd also considered sex with, say, 6 year olds. I still don't think "disgusting" is the right category for RMS's "thinking out loud on the internet", but the remark was definitely dangerously naive of the developmental stages of children. It's also sobering to see how easy it is for myself to write something that can be interpreted to sound much more nefarious than what was really in my head when I wrote it.
betwixthewires 6y ago
I'm not a huge fan of RMS as a person, he's an incredibly difficult individual and ideological to the point that he refuses to take even reasonable arguments into account. On that topic though, I understood it to be an academic exercise, just a case of internal inquiry, and not a statement of personal motivation of any kind. I don't believe it is disgusting to objectively consider any concept without bias, even if I disagree with the consideration itself. Consideration of any ideas being off limits is indistinguishable from heresy.

by creata 6y ago

atq2119 6y ago

I happen to suspect that RMS is wrong on the pedophilia point, but if all you can say about it is that you find it disgusting, alarm bells should be going off in your head that there may be something here which You Can't Say (in the http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html sense). This all reminds me of the sexuality portrayed among children in Brave New World, or the supposed homosexuality of Ancient Greece. What I suspect is happening here is that even voluntary pedophilia is harmful for children relative to our current society, but who knows what the case would be in a very differently structured society. Sexuality by definition is largely about how we relate with other people, so what is our isn't harmful in sexual development almost certainly depends at least in part on the society we live in. Which means that forces that want to conserve the relevant aspects of our society have an incentive to censor RMS on any thoughts along those lines.

atq2119 6y ago
It occurs to me (but I can no longer edit) that I wrote the above comment while only thinking about children after puberty. The Epstein connection of the larger story primed me into that frame, and the comment would have looked differently if I'd also considered sex with, say, 6 year olds. I still don't think "disgusting" is the right category for RMS's "thinking out loud on the internet", but the remark was definitely dangerously naive of the developmental stages of children. It's also sobering to see how easy it is for myself to write something that can be interpreted to sound much more nefarious than what was really in my head when I wrote it.

betwixthewires 6y ago

I'm not a huge fan of RMS as a person, he's an incredibly difficult individual and ideological to the point that he refuses to take even reasonable arguments into account. On that topic though, I understood it to be an academic exercise, just a case of internal inquiry, and not a statement of personal motivation of any kind. I don't believe it is disgusting to objectively consider any concept without bias, even if I disagree with the consideration itself. Consideration of any ideas being off limits is indistinguishable from heresy.