> I'm sure Richard Stallman still thinks sex with teenagers is acceptable.
This is my red flag for someone who's being intellectually dishonest about RMS. It's also the signature move of cancel culture -- aggressively reducing someone's opinion to one that can be easily canned as intolerable.
Using this to erase the many, many reports of his behavior is tragic. You're pulling one thread and saying that the rest don't exist. This is the central activity of rape culture.
I've seem RMS at work first hand and my experiences fit right in with the experiences being reported. I get that people don't want him to be the person that is being described: this is a natural response. But I am using my voice to say that just the small bit of RMS that I experienced first had is enough to justify his loss of position and status. And from the look of it my story is just one of a very large number of similar and worse stories.
> You're pulling one thread and saying that the rest don't exist
That's the thing: most of the oft-repeated threads are unconvincing at best and plain dishonest at worst. If there better examples of RMS's inappropriate behavior we should be focusing on those.
There have been many examples. I myself have typed what I personally witnessed multiple times. I'll just put it this way today: I saw more than enough for him to be fired and more than enough for him to be demoted from his leadership roles. I am a real person, former Senior Director of Engineering at a fortune 50. I saw what I saw.
I don't see it as a reduction, there are over ten very serious accusations on that thread alone and most comments are sourced. Even discounting the author's biased comments, there's still a lot of proven intolerable behavior.
Then it would be in the author's best interest to avoid the examples that are easily discountable. RMS's opinions on the age of consent are well documented and within the realm of reasonable discourse (the most commonly cited example is him pointing out that the age of consent varies wildly depending on what part of the world you're in).
> RMS's opinions on the age of consent are well documented and within the realm of reasonable discourse.
Well documented, yes. Within the realm of reasonable discourse, no. Or more accurately, only reasonable among the circle of advocates who consider everything Richard Stallman says to be reasonable, by definition.
This[0] is a list of items from RMS' blog which speaks to his opinions more clearly. For further context, here[1] is the HN thread discussing it, and here[2] is my own comment therein which points out in each item, in RMS' own words, explaining why his opinion on the matter falls far outside what would be considered reasonable by most people.
It is not merely the case that RMS stated as simple mathematical fact that ages of consent differ from place to place, rather he has stated on multiple occasions his belief that children are capable of consenting to sexual relations that that sex between an adult and a child is not only normal, but healthy and should be encouraged by society.
This is my red flag for someone who's being intellectually dishonest about RMS. It's also the signature move of cancel culture -- aggressively reducing someone's opinion to one that can be easily canned as intolerable.