3 ms·

You're a middle aged man on a private island and a teenage girl suddenly wants to have sex with you. Is this natural or a cause for concern? Pretty clear choic

You're a middle aged man on a private island and a teenage girl suddenly wants to have sex with you. Is this natural or a cause for concern? Pretty clear choice here, and pretty clear how many people here are taking the other side while trying to obscure that they know exactly what they're actually standing up for. RMS comments are so egregious exactly because "she acted like she wanted it" is not an excuse for such situations that involve such a gross imbalance of age and power. If you do not see that plainly you have some hard thinking to do about who you are and just what you want to do.

prepend 3y ago
> You're a middle aged man on a private island and a teenage girl suddenly wants to have sex with you. Is this natural or a cause for concern? Many people are comfortable and support prostitution. I don’t morally support prostitution but won’t condemn others for consuming prostitution where the sex workers was compelled or morally harmed in doing her work (eg, human traficked, blackmail, unfair revenue share, underage, etc etc). Obviously if you’re on an island and some teenage girl wants to have sex with an old man, something is up. But it’s not beyond imagination that the answer is prostitution and not only explained by compelled, unwilling human trafficking. But I feel like we spend too much time circling here. RMS was just commenting on logical explanations for what has happened. I’m not trying to judge Minsky’s actions but RMS’s quote where he did not say that Guiffre was willing and “sources” misquote the mailing list. To me, it seems RMS is clearly saying that Minsky thought that Guiffre was willing, not that she actually was. RMS was saying that Guiffre was likely instructed to pretend to be willing, not that she actually was. The language isn’t confusing or obtuse, it’s just quotes incorrectly. I think if someone is misquoting they are dull or have ill intent. I don’t think it’s right to misquote to support your point. It’s wrong and wastes time correcting the quote rather than arguing the point. If someone wants to argue Minsky was wrong to sleep with a 17 year old, then do so. But conflating RMS with Minsky’s actions, especially years afterwards is a separate issue. Id expect more from programmers and logical thinkers working to build and promote the use of free/open source software.

prepend 3y ago

> You're a middle aged man on a private island and a teenage girl suddenly wants to have sex with you. Is this natural or a cause for concern? Many people are comfortable and support prostitution. I don’t morally support prostitution but won’t condemn others for consuming prostitution where the sex workers was compelled or morally harmed in doing her work (eg, human traficked, blackmail, unfair revenue share, underage, etc etc). Obviously if you’re on an island and some teenage girl wants to have sex with an old man, something is up. But it’s not beyond imagination that the answer is prostitution and not only explained by compelled, unwilling human trafficking. But I feel like we spend too much time circling here. RMS was just commenting on logical explanations for what has happened. I’m not trying to judge Minsky’s actions but RMS’s quote where he did not say that Guiffre was willing and “sources” misquote the mailing list. To me, it seems RMS is clearly saying that Minsky thought that Guiffre was willing, not that she actually was. RMS was saying that Guiffre was likely instructed to pretend to be willing, not that she actually was. The language isn’t confusing or obtuse, it’s just quotes incorrectly. I think if someone is misquoting they are dull or have ill intent. I don’t think it’s right to misquote to support your point. It’s wrong and wastes time correcting the quote rather than arguing the point. If someone wants to argue Minsky was wrong to sleep with a 17 year old, then do so. But conflating RMS with Minsky’s actions, especially years afterwards is a separate issue. Id expect more from programmers and logical thinkers working to build and promote the use of free/open source software.