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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 17 2019, @05:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the resign:-to-sign-and-sign-again? dept.

Richard M. Stallman Resigns as FSF President and from its Board of Directors

https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns (emphasis from original retained):

On September 16, 2019, Richard M. Stallman, founder and president of
the Free Software Foundation, resigned as president and from its board
of directors.

The board will be conducting a search for a new president, beginning
immediately. Further details of the search will be published on
fsf.org.

For questions, contact FSF executive director John Sullivan at
johns@fsf.org.

Copyright © 2004-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Privacy Policy.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 license (or later version)Why this license?

Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Resigns from MIT Over Epstein Comments

Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Resigns From MIT Over Epstein Comments

Famed free software advocate and computer scientist Richard Stallman has resigned from MIT, according to an email he published online. The resignation comes after Stallman made comments about victims of child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, including that the victims went along with the abuse willingly.

"I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT," Stallman wrote in the email, referring to MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. "I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations."

[...] Last week, Motherboard published the full email thread in which Stallman wrote that the "most plausible scenario" is that Epstein's underage victims in his campaign of trafficking were "entirely willing." Stallman also argued about the definition of "rape" and whether the term applies to the victims.

[Ed.'s note - just because Vice say things in the above blockquote does not mean that SoylentNews or its editors consider it a demonstrably provable representation of reality. We're just reporting that they are reporting, nothing more. At least this Ed. finds out-of-context quoting of short inflamatory phrases to be particularly disingenuous, and perhaps even a warning sign that manipulation of a quote has taking place. -- FP.]


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Tuesday September 17 2019, @03:06PM (4 children)

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 17 2019, @03:06PM (#895168)

    It is indeed the case that we have an assumption in law that a minor cannot consent.

    Who is the "we" with that assumption?

    Age of majority relates solely to legal control over one's person / actions (and hence to contracts, although with some exceptions as you say).
    Age of consent for sex, as with age of license for other actions, is totally unrelated, if it is the same where you are that is pure coincidence.

    A lot of US states have age-of-consent below 18, most of Europe is 14-16 (yes, you read that right 14 - heck, Spain was 12 before the millennium) - and many of those have further exceptions which reduce it in the case of similar aged participants. Elsewhere in the world it's even more variable if anything.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority [wikipedia.org]

    Children DO have will.

    Hell yes - as any parent knows, even before they hit their teens. Their competency in exercising it doesn't magically appear at age of majority either.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:36PM (3 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:36PM (#895312) Journal
    "Who is the "we" with that assumption?"

    Pretty much the entire planet reflects that assumption in law to some degree.

    "Age of majority relates solely to legal control over one's person / actions (and hence to contracts, although with some exceptions as you say).
    Age of consent for sex, as with age of license for other actions, is totally unrelated, if it is the same where you are that is pure coincidence."

    I disagree completely, they are not at all unrelated. They're rooted in the same rationale. The minor variations in the specifics do not alter that.

    "A lot of US states have age-of-consent below 18, most of Europe is 14-16 (yes, you read that right 14 - heck, Spain was 12 before the millennium)"

    IIRC Mississippi allowed 13 in certain circumstances until recently. But so what? It doesn't change the underlying assumption driving the laws, you're talking about fine-tuning the arbitrary cutoff points. You can smoke and drive at one age, drink at another, that doesn't mean the laws that say this aren't based on the same fundamental assumption.

    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday September 18 2019, @01:46PM (2 children)

      by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 18 2019, @01:46PM (#895635)

      you're talking about fine-tuning the arbitrary cutoff points. You can smoke and drive at one age, drink at another, that doesn't mean the laws that say this aren't based on the same fundamental assumption.

      That common assumption is that there should be a cutoff point in age, this is very different to "assumption in law that a minor cannot consent".

      What I disagreed with, and still do, is that the cutoff point is assumed to be the same for not-being-a-minor and consent-to-sex - for a lot of (maybe most of) the planet it quite simply isn't.

      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:37AM (1 child)

        by Arik (4543) on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:37AM (#895996) Journal
        "That common assumption is that there should be a cutoff point in age,"

        That the younger people are not yet prepared to rely on their own judgement and/or will.

        "this is very different to "assumption in law that a minor cannot consent"."

        Is it? Isn't the whole idea of minority that young people are not completely prepared to exercise judgement?
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday September 20 2019, @10:01AM

          by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 20 2019, @10:01AM (#896444)

          > Isn't the whole idea of minority that young people are not completely prepared to exercise judgement?

          No. The whole idea of minority is that someone else (usually parent/guardian) has legal/financial control over, and responsibility for, your affairs. Nothing more.

          You may be confusing minority with "age of license" which is a general legal concept of being old enough to have permission to do something in law (including, but not limited to, consent to sex). The fact that minors around the world can, and do, legally consent to sex, demonstrates clearly that the law considers minors adequately prepared to exercise judgement for the purposes of consent to sex.