this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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[–] yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 22 hours ago (13 children)

I sometimes like to read his political posts:

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2025-jul-oct.html

And honestly? I mostly agree with them? Like this:

ABC ordered to pay Antoinette Lattouf another $150,000 for unlawful termination over Gaza Instagram post.

But a company faced with enormous threats wielded by fascist officials who demand that certain views be suppressed will treat such penalties as the normal cost of sucking up.

The [Israeli] army says that HAMAS is using apartment buildings for "surveillance", and has bombed some of those buildings to destroy them. Based on this logic, the army might bomb every tall building in Gaza City with the large bombs that the US is providing

He has some questionable beliefs as well, though for unusual reasons. He accepts non-binary people but refuses to use they/them pronouns because he doesn't like the ambiguity of singular/plural pronouns. So he has invented the neopronouns per/pers to refer to singular non-binary persons. I genuinely think no other person on this planet could hold this opinion.

[–] primrosepathspeedrun@anarchist.nexus 37 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Okay that's all cool or cool-and-stubbornly-autistic. But he has some other opinions that are not, about consent and age.

So the blanket 'fuck yeah, stallman!' Doesn't really fly anymore.

[–] yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Hasn't he admitted to changing his opinion after learning about the effects on children? I'm not in the loop about this.

But yeah, you definitely shouldn't treat his words as gospel. A lot of questionable-at-best stuff in there.

[–] kadu@scribe.disroot.org 34 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Hasn’t he admitted to changing his opinion after learning about the effects on children?

He did. The argument against him was half based on misquotes and incomplete sentences, but the other half was indeed once his opinion - he argued that age of consent was a dumb concept and that instead it should be based on what the child wants to do and any harm they were subjected to.

He later on said he regretted this view because it was explained to him that there's no ability to consent and this always causes harm to the child. His original arguments were, in typical Stallman fashion, quite obsessed with definitions themselves, almost as if the subject at hand didn't really matter he was just bothered about how the definition had some flaws.

But even with that in mind... I can't feel comfortable knowing he defended this point of view, and it does significantly harm my opinion about him.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 6 points 18 hours ago

Everything you said there is pretty typical with high functioning ASD, up to and including others being uncomfortable with past behavior and statements.

I can't say I disagree with him - in an ideal world. Now all we need is a world where it's easy enough to tell if someone is mature enough to make those kinds of decisions, no one uses power imbalances to allow them to achieve their desires, kids are fully aware of the impact their decisions will have on them decades in the future, and on and on. That's clearly not the world we live in, and I expect it will never be, and so we err on the side of caution, and don't condone children engaging in certain activities until they're older, and even then only with people of a similar age until such a time where trying to stop them from engaging in potentially reckless behavior is more harmful than allowing them to do so.

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