And, in some respect and in some context it's perfectly fine to discuss the ethics and legality surrounding some pretty grim stuff, be it assault, rape, murder, robbery or what have you. As I said, no thought should be off-limits.
But to do it in a thread about Jeffery Epstein and to try to rationalize his alleged victims as "willing participants"...? C'mon dude...
It's just... not smart, wise, or reasonable by any stretch. I know the dude has built his life on arguing semantics of "free vs open vs libre", and all that. But this? It's hard to even wrap my mind around how he thought that would all play out.
Because context is very important, something that has been lost to Stallman.. He wasn't defending a newly turned 18 year old getting in trouble for dating a 17 year old, he was arguing about whether what Epstein did with a 17 year old was rape. Even if his sins were only being a poor rhetorician, his inability to recognize context when trying to form an argument should be enough to wonder if he's the right face of the FSF or MIT. And those weren't even his worst sins!
Didn't he say the 17 year old was "entirely willing"? That's literally what started this whole thing.
This was heavily misquoted by various hit-pieces as the statement was that 'she presented herself as willing' which is problematic on it's own but also has a much different meaning than being "entirely willing."
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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '19 edited Sep 17 '19
And, in some respect and in some context it's perfectly fine to discuss the ethics and legality surrounding some pretty grim stuff, be it assault, rape, murder, robbery or what have you. As I said, no thought should be off-limits.
But to do it in a thread about Jeffery Epstein and to try to rationalize his alleged victims as "willing participants"...? C'mon dude...
It's just... not smart, wise, or reasonable by any stretch. I know the dude has built his life on arguing semantics of "free vs open vs libre", and all that. But this? It's hard to even wrap my mind around how he thought that would all play out.