On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 09:49:55PM +1100, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
And that is the problem. To Stallman — GNU project is a technological freedom project. But for most maintainers — it's “purely technical” project.
And **that** is the problem with most humans - life to most humans is about maximising [ efficiency | productivity | entertainment | wealth | health | pleasure ].
Life is purely "a technical project" and how to extract the most out of life, for **me**.
Freedoms be damned!
The following is a mostly text (one small image of Stallman) relatively comprehensive/ abundantly linked summary of the present campaign against RMS, notwithstanding some virtue signalling on the part of the collator, who correctly notes that in much of Europe the age of consent is 14 and notwithstanding the age of consent in other areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America Justice for Dr. Richard Matthew Stallman #rms #justiceforRMS #freesoftware #freespeech #supportRMS https://jorgemorais.gitlab.io/justice-for-rms/ Dr. Richard Matthew Stallman (born 16 March 1953), often known by his initials rms, and occasionally upper-case RMS, is an American free (libre) software movement activist, hacker and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in a manner such that its users receive the freedoms to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software that ensures these four freedoms is termed free software. Stallman launched the GNU Project, founded the Free Software Foundation, developed the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs, and wrote the GNU General Public License. Richard Stallman is currently the object of an Internet defamatory campaign which forced him to resign from his position at MIT and even from the FSF which he founded himself. He has actual flaws, but the campaign is largely motivated by mischaracterizations, disproportionality and intolerance. 2 Mischaracterizations The following two false accusations were made against Stallman based on severe mischaracterizations of an email thread (see here the original) about the connections of Jeffrey Epstein1 with MIT: 2.1 Stallman as an Epstein supporter At least one large website published a article claiming that Stallman defended Epstein. No cogent argument was presented for the accusation, only a severe misquotation (see below). In truth, on 25 April 2019 he had called Epstein a “serial rapist” who got an “extremely lenient” plea deal; in fact, “so lenient that it was illegal.” Stallman then wondered “whether this makes it possible to resentence him to a longer prison term.” 2.2 Stallman as a victim blamer Many large websites wrote articles accusing Stallman of considering Epstein victims as “entirely willing”, in a shocking failure of reading comprehension. In truth, talking about Virginia Giuffre (the Epstein victim whom Stallman wrote about), he said the “most plausible scenario” was that “she presented herself to him as entirely willing” [my emphasis] even if actually she was under coercion from Epstein, because the trafficker “had every reason to tell her to conceal that”. Then in his second email from that same discussion, Stallman said “given the circumstances, that implies she was coerced by Epstein”[my emphasis]. A few paragraphs later he reiterated: We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex – by Epstein. She was being harmed. But the details do affect whether, and to what extent, Minsky was responsible for that. [my emphasis] Therefore, Stallman said multiple times that Giuffre was a victim of coercion into sex. He just did not see evidence that Marvin Minsky2 knew about the coercion. Stallman presumed Minsky not to have been responsible. He did not presume Giuffre to have been actually willing. 3 Extremely liberal opinions about sex on his personal website A true part of the story is that Stallman’s personal website has extremely liberal opinions about sex and related subjects. Some excerpts from many years ago did defend the alleged liberty of children to have sex – even with adults – “if the child accepted it”. For example, in 2003 Stallman wrote I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.) In 2006 he was skeptical of the claim that “voluntary” pedophilia harmed children. He wrote something similar in January 2013, but within limits. This author opposes such an opinion! However, Stallman later changed his mind and, on 14 September 2019, (belatedly) retracted it. 4 Sex with a 17 year old One of Stallman’s recent leaked emails did still imply that sex between an adult and a 17 year old is not rape – but so does all of Europe. In fact, the BBC informs that Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Portugal set the age of consent at 14 and nowhere in Europe is it over 17. In this context, while I strongly oppose sex with prepubescent children or young teenagers, I suspect 3 17 years old should be enough to legally consent to sex. I emphasize the word legally. Legality, morality and social acceptability are different things. Even those of us who think it was immoral for an adult2 to have casual sex with a 17 year old might, taking into account that Minsky presumedly thought she was willing, consider it disproportional to posthumously make him a pariah. And even people who support 18 as the legal age of consent should agree that consensual sex with a 17 year old is far less grave than forcing a person into sex, which is why it should be described with a separate word, not “rape”. Perhaps sex with an actual child can be called “rape”, but a 17 year old (who Minsky presumedly thought was willing) is not a child. This was Stallman’s point. He is known for demanding terminological precision. 5 Perfect storm Stallman’s first email contained an excerpt that, when taken outside the context of the two emails and his earlier strong condemnation of Epstein but mixed with his old (belatedly retracted) opinion about tolerance of pedophilia as well as his actual flaws and eccentricity, made him appear to be saying that Giuffre was actually “entirely willing”. This widespread interpretation is utterly false and has caused grave injustice to Stallman. He does have extremely liberal opinions about sex and did take too long to retract his previous defense of tolerance for pedophilia, but does that justify expelling him from both MIT and the FSF which he founded? 6 Free speech and open mindedness The author does not ask the reader to agree with every Stallman opinion. If fact, I am an orthodox married Catholic who, within the limits of reasonable tolerance, am very pro-family – within a coherent worldview inspired by the great Pope Francis. I oppose many of Stallman’s views about sex and related subjects. Yet I believe in free speech and also in “test everything and hold on to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). One learns a lot from Stallman views about civil liberties, privacy, environmentalism, social and economic justice and politics, specially (of course) software freedom and digital rights. I reject many of his extremely liberal opinions about sex, particularly that previous opinion which he thankfully retracted, but those are opinions on his personal website which he clearly separates from FSF and MIT. And I support many of the other opinions on that same website, just as I reject the excessive violence of the French Revolution but support separation of Church and State and the metric system. Regarding the two emails that destroyed Stallman’s reputation: presuming (as we must, in the absence of evidence of guilt) that Minsky thought he was having consensual casual sex with a 17 year old (which is legal in every European country), then is that act so socially unacceptable that we should (posthumously) make a pariah of Minsky and even of those who dare defend his memory? And if people like Stallman are made pariahs for their opinions – and in this case he even retracted the most shocking one – then how can we have an honest debate and ascertain the Truth? What happened to freedom of inquiry? 7 Fair character assessment The author also does not ask the reader to overlook Stallman’s other sins – that is, those that are real and corroborated, since the Internet defamatory campaign generated or amplified lots of hearsay. However, the assessment of Stallman’s character ought to be based on an accurate interpretation of real evidence considered in the context of his real life. The Internet defamatory campaign leads to an atmosphere in which people exaggerate his real sins – besides believing and disseminating clearly false or uncorroborated accusations – and overlook favorable evidence, testimony and circumstances. This is unjust. It is similar to a jury trial in which the jury is contaminated by a strong campaign of character assassination. 8 Parting words Please tolerate English mistakes (constructive feedback highly welcome!) – I am Brazilian. By the way, the current Brazilian president is incompetent, misguided, lacks respect for women, minorities, science and the sanctity of life and did not have my vote. He currently has little popular support. 9 Help wanted This initiative needs help – for example, text improvements, publicity, translations. Please contribute via issues, patches, merge requests4, contact me via diaspora* (jorgemorais@pod.disroot.org) or simply publicize this initiative! 10 Attribution and copyleft This website is partly based on https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ (accessed [2019-09-28 sáb]), this copy of the email thread, information from this BBC article, the English Wikipedia articles about Stallman and Marvin Minsky (both accessed [2019-10-01 ter]), and quotes from stallman.org. It is published under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 4.0) License. The picture (published under the same license) of Richard Stallman is from Wikimedia Commons (I scaled and recompressed it). I believe the quotes from stallman.org are covered by fair use. Footnotes: 1 A wealthy trafficker of women (many underage) for sex 2 Marvin Lee Minsky (9 August 1927 – 24 January 2016), a pioneer of artificial intelligence and friend of Stallman. The first email in the thread accuses Minsky of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre. The author of this article has not carefully studied the evidence about Minsky and therefore at this moment has no position regarding whether or not Minsky did in fact have sex with any of Epstein’s victims (see the email thread for arguments for and against this hypothesis). 3 I say suspect because I have not studied the applicable legal doctrine and theory and therefore I cannot have a conviction. 4 If you cannot create an account on GitLab.com then you can still send me patches or suggestions via diaspora* or email. I also take suggestions of better hosting. Author: Jorge P. de Morais Neto Created: 2019-10-09 qua 18:56 Validate