I've always thought of Stallman as the canary --- the extremist at the edge. I don't agree with a lot of things about him, but I think it's important that such people exist in order to "delineate the boundaries". Him changing his views towards "acceptability" should be taken as a bad sign, regardless of what those views are.

fwiw I don't think framing everything in as a sign in the sad story of a society on the way to 'X', is a particularly productive way to think about this kind of story. I could be that this is just a personal story of an individual who is internally consistent, and changed a view based on discussion and new information.

To be fair, that disavowal came after his former behavior and views - which went not only accepted but defended by his peers and followers for years (including on HN following his "cancellation") finally became too much for people around him to bear. No other public figure with a history like his would be given even a shadow of a benefit of the doubt over nothing but a brief blog entry. If he were a politician or a celebrity HN would want to see him hanged with the rest of the degenerate elites.

I hope that he has changed his mind, but until there's some evidence that he's changed his behavior, there's no reason to assume he was doing anything but covering his ass (possibly at the behest of someone else) and trying to save his position and status. That's what would be assumed of anyone else, that's what should be assumed of him.

> If he were a politician or a celebrity HN would want to see him hanged with the rest of the degenerate elites.

you may be surprised at some of the names here:

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/French_petition_against_age_of_c...

The consequence of power is such that it emboldens an individual to believe that limits on themeselves, are a moral wrong. The common knowledge acceptance of sexually deviant debauchery, has been pervasive across time (Caligula to Epstein). It is much harder to expose, with the extreme wealth disparity.

I'd bet you have to be really sloppy nowadays to get caught.

When I was a teenager, back in the 1990s, I idolised RMS. The GNU project and FSF were what I idolised him for, back then I'd never heard his views on these issues. As I grew older, I started to think that the hardline position of the FSF was impractical, at least for my own life. I wouldn't say I idolise him any more.

I think his former views were completely wrong, but I try to understand where he was coming from: RMS comes out of a progressive 1970s cultural milieu in which a lot of people were willing to question all aspects of traditional moral values, including age of consent laws. I can think of a number of now-mainstream European politicians, who in the 1970s were willing to associate with (or at least tolerate) "pro-pedophile" advocacy groups, and that way they behaved in the 1970s has come back to bite them – Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey, Patricia Hewitt. Someone like Allen Ginsberg, who was an open member of NAMBLA – and, by at least some accounts, actively abused underage boys – was nonetheless an acceptable figure in polite society – something that would be quite unbelievable in the year 2020. In the 1970s, a lot of what is now the mainstream gay rights movement was willing to associate with organisations like NAMBLA; by the 1980s, the mainstream gay rights movement had fully severed those ties, which was a prerequisite for the cultural and political successes of the LGBT movement of today. In the 70s, the victims of child sexual abuse were largely invisible, they were not being heard in the conversation in the way they are now, and society (including much of the radical left) had not yet begun to take their experiences seriously.

What makes RMS a bit different, is that figures like Cohn-Bendit, Harman, Dromey and Hewitt, realised their mistake (or at least cared enough about social acceptability to move with the times.) RMS clung to this view long after it had become seriously socially unacceptable in a way it had not been in his twenties. Why?

Well, it is obvious to me that RMS has a lot of autistic traits (as do I myself). I'm not the only person to notice this – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20969320 – to arrive at and defend socially unpopular positions through application of abstract reasoning, completely divorced from real world human experience, and then to cling to them pigheadedly, is something a lot of people with autistic traits end up doing at some point. So I think his autistic traits are another big part of the picture here that other people may not be seeing.

RMS' former views were always wrong: I'm the father of two young kids myself, to me their wrongness is completely obvious. But I can understand how something which is completely obvious to me, even to most people, might not have been obvious to him, and why it might have taken some real world interaction with abuse victims for him to understand it. And, to the best of my knowledge, these wrong views of his were purely theoretical, I've never heard any claims he's actually acted on them, or even had any personal interest in acting on them – unlike someone like Allen Ginsberg.

I'm not saying this because I think he should be the leader of the free software movement. I think he has done an enormous amount for that movement, but it probably now would be better served by someone younger and more attuned to contemporary culture. But he's a human being, and I feel the urge to understand him sympathetically, rather than join in a mob out to get him.

For what it's worth I think the right thing happened to him for possibly the wrong reason, and the community around him is as much to blame as he for enabling the damage he's done for as long as they did. If not for that whole debacle of an email conversation being leaked and made public, he would still be in a position of authority and still be normalizing the acceptance of behavior like his in tech culture.

There should always be room in society for someone to see the error of their ways and amend, but it's going to take more than a tweet's worth of text to make up for decades of - and let's be honest - sometimes passionate advocacy for reprehensible behavior, and the anecdotal evidence of creepy behavior towards women IRL, and that's not unreasonable. Sympathy doesn't mean one shouldn't expect growth.

What makes you think that there's only been a tweet's worth of text on the matter? Furthermore, why should the movement he spearheaded suffer because others can't be bothered to try to understand a brilliant, eccentric, neurodivergent individual?

Frankly speaking, I think most of the "normal mainstream" that condemned Stallman without even bothering to check up on and verify the facts of the accusations made against him outed themselves as easily manipulated, savage, and unstable individuals with little or no consideration for the damage they heaped upon a man who was doing nothing more than trying to encourage postponing of judgement until the facts were all in. In that one, tragically twisted-by-the-media email, Stallman did exactly what any civilized person who believes in the tenets of our system of justice should have done. He called for calm, and to give his friend the benefit of a doubt until all the facts were in. The "weird creepy guy" acted more in line with the ideal of normalcy than anyone else!

I'd take 100 more people just like him with all the inherent quirks than any of the mob who rushed to condemn him without even so much as getting to know him. I mean, good God. Show me someone who hasn't had a questionable view in their life from lack of reflection, and I'll show you someone who hasn't actively tried to get to know all the many facets of their species, or consciously come to terms with their own capacity for atrocity.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone! Til then, people need to nut up, shut up, and take a damn number. Thank who/whatever they worship they woke up this morning, and give thanks but that there for the Grace of $Subject_of_Worship go I.

Now get off my lawn, and keep your damn chickens out of my garden! They may be cute, but they're ruining my sprouts!

grumble grumble

>What makes you think that there's only been a tweet's worth of text on the matter? Furthermore, why should the movement he spearheaded suffer because others can't be bothered to try to understand a brilliant, eccentric, neurodivergent individual?

If there were anything else, fanboys like you wouldn't hesitate to mention it every time you want to pull the "autism sympathy" card to make anyone who's been creeped out and offended by his behavior out to be " easily manipulated, savage, and unstable individuals" who can't comprehend the tragic, broken genius who's too good for this world.

The movement will be fine. The movement doesn't need him, and if it does, it's not a movement, it's a cult.

>I'd take 100 more people just like him with all the inherent quirks than any of the mob who rushed to condemn him without even so much as getting to know him.

Yes, well, you can have your hundred quirky middle aged pedophile apologists, as society seems to have enough to go around. I'll be satisfied when they're kept away from positions of authority and their behavior stops being defended by people around them. Just be sure to burn your sheets after they stay over.

Jesus Christ, get some perspective.

I suspect part of the explanation is: Part of what manifests as brilliance is early development of the mind. Consequently, brilliant people tend to think, "Well, I was mature enough in my early teens, and surely there must be others like me—perhaps some even younger. The law should not restrict those who are mature enough; that is like restricting adults." The train of thought may continue with something like "There are already mechanisms for having a child make an adult-level decision: parental approval, child emancipation", or "The legal age of consent varies enormously around the world and throughout history, and is clearly arbitrary". (The biologically non-arbitrary age points would seem to be "puberty"—probably around age 12-16 depending on which pubertal milestone you choose—and my 7th grade science teacher's favorite, "when the brain's frontal lobe finishes developing", which would be age 25 or so.)

If the person is also resistant to discarding views merely because those views are hated, then, well, it's easy to see how their beliefs might end up where they do.