To be clear, Richard "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children" Stallman is totally nuts (although I'll give credit where it's due, he finally walked back his stance on pedophilia).
First off, he recanted on that, in particular after actually seeing or meeting people to whom it happened.
One thing I just don't understand is how people can want to shut off their brains when seeing one thing unusual and not go "That seems really odd, maybe I'm just misunderstanding it, and need to investigate a bit more."
If you don't, you miss out on some of the most exquisitely unique samples of the human species. People with life experience so deep as to have limited exposure to some of the more mundane ones we all take for granted. I'd recommend offering a bit more benefit of a doubt, and a wee bit more effort in terms of investigating context before writing someone off.
After all, if they're going to be your enemy, you might as well know them for what they really are that you don't underestimate them.
> First off, he recanted on that, in particular after actually seeing or meeting people to whom it happened.
Yes, I pointed out his backtracking on that.
> After all, if they're going to be your enemy, you might as well know them for what they really are that you don't underestimate them.
I don't think of Stallman as an enemy, just a very creepy guy who happened to make some important contributions. Regardless of his backpedaling, I would have extreme reservations about leaving him unsupervised around children. That doesn't mean his ideas were all bad, just that he shouldn't be put on a pedestal. Lots of great ideas came from very flawed people.
- Fritz Haber is responsible for the Haber process that unlocked atmospheric nitrogen for use in fertilizer, and saved multitudes from starvation. He was also responsible for horrific suffering thanks to his other project, chemical weapons.
- Hans Reiser was a brilliant engineer who created a widely used linux filesystem. He's also a convicted murderer.
- Wernher von Braun was a brilliant rocket maker who was responsible in large part for putting Americans on the moon. He was also a Nazi who made weapons that killed many innocent civilians.
This seems like an instance of "what you can't say". The taboo is so strong that to even question it leads observers to speculate about whether the questioner is insane or evil. I suspect the reality is some manner of neurodivergence, either autism or a thing we don't yet have a good name for.
I even feel the need to add that I don't share his skepticism, lest I raise suspicion about my own position by posting this.
Like all humans he is full of faults has a long track record of unfortunate postures and statements, but as a technologist the best analogy for him would be an atomic clock sent back in time to before we understood relativity.
A stopped clock is still right twice a day.