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He is skeptical of the basis of the laws and is requesting more information. And this was decades ago. Maybe he changed his mind after people responded to his

• bitwize 3y ago
  Somebody had to sit down with him and walk him through why pedophilia is bad and is rape, irrespective of whether the victim gave consent. It is, as they say, "not a good look, my dude". It's germane to his current persona because of his statements that what Minsky supposedly did does not constitute assault because he was deceived about the victim's age. It was taken as "here we go again, Stallman is defending chomos again."
  • mardifoufs 3y ago
    Exactly! I think this is why "he changed his mind" does not really sit right with me. This isn't rocket science or even some culture war contentious issue. Having sex with kids is bad, and was considered bad when he said those things and put the blame on parents for being mad that their kids got abused. If there's one thing that communists, liberals, conservatives, fascists, anarchomonarchists (lol) can all agree on is that pedophilia is bad. It's a bi/tri/partisan issue. It's not some status quo position that he just happened to defend by force of habit. Maybe it was ok on the internet back then, but 2006 isn't that far away. So we can't even say that the cultural context was different. I'm not saying he lied when he said that it just took someone to talk him through it... But it sure is weird that a grown 40yo+ educated man didn't understand that having sex with children was bad.