There was no reason for him to resign in the first place. All he said was that he wasn't going to believe an accusation against a friend without evidence.
That's not all that he wrote. He made very specific speculations about what happened by way of making excuses for Minsky: https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com] . Take Vice's spin with a grain of salt, but Stallman wrote a lot more about it than simply that he refused too believe accusations against his friend without evidence.
What is your claim? That the emails quoted there are fabricated? I already recommended disregarding Vice's spin, but they quote emails. Are they wrong in claiming that Stallman wrote the things they quote?
This, exactly. Ignore what Vice says, but they did provide the actual email chain to review. RMS went way out on a limb about "willingness" while admitting these were children. Children cannot consent, not to mention the entire felony aspect of what accusations were made. Willing or not, a felony is a felony.
She was only a child because of the legal jurisdiction.
It was perfectly legal for Prince Andrew to have sex with her because the age of consent in England is 16.
Minsky (allegedly) raped her because the age of consent in the US Virgin Islands is 18. If the sex had happened in the British Virgin Islands or back in Boston, it would have been legal.
It was illegal to transport her, but neither Minsky nor Andrew did the transporting.
Willing or not, a felony is a felony.
Minsky was dead when the accusations were made and unable to defend himself. He was never convicted of any felony.
What Richard said was insensitive and showed a lack of appreciation for woke-outrage, but he wasn't wrong.
...Minsky (allegedly) raped her because the age of consent in the US Virgin Islands is 18.
Wrong!
This is the part where everybody gets the facts in the allegation incorrect. There is no allegation of rape (statutory or otherwise). Giuffre was directed to do an action, which, if it had happened, would have been rape. But she didn't ever actually allege it happened.
Specifically, her deposition said that Ghislaine Maxwell directed her (at the time age 17) to go to Epstein's private island in order to have sex with Minsky....it continues to say that she did fly to Epstein's private island... but the deposition stops at that point. She never actually say that she did have sex with Minsky.
There was no allegation of rape. From all the facts we are given, she may have to the island, told Minsky "let's have sex," and Minsky replied "no thanks, you're just a kid". Or for that matter, she doesn't even say she even met Minsky, much less propositioned him.
Stallman isn't being arrested. Minsky isn't being charged with a crime - he died before that could happen. So there's no reason for yoyr legal defense.
People were unhappy with Minsky because he consorted with an infamous pedophile, despite being clearly told by MIT not to consort with an infamous pedophile. We don't know exactly what Minsky did while visiting the notorious convicted pedophile's pleasure estate multiple times - presumably he just watched TV and played tennis with Epstein, and didn't reall
People were unhappy with Minsky because he consorted with an infamous pedophile, despite being clearly told by MIT not to consort with an infamous pedophile.
They told a prominent professor NOT to consort with a major donor they were courting? That would be a first.
The rest of your post is a hairball of unwarranted assumptions.
Stallman isn't being arrested. Minsky isn't being charged with a crime -
Correct. Because he wasn't accused of a crime. No crime by Minsky was alleged in the deposition.
he died before that could happen.
Yes: he died before he could be not charged with a crime that was not mentioned in the deposition and for which there is no reason to believe ever happened,
So there's no reason for yoyr legal defense.
Well, no reason other than correcting a blatant mis-statement of fact.
People were unhappy with Minsky
People being "unhappy" with him is a completely different statement from an allegation that he raped somebody.
If your statement is "people were unhappy with him," I won't bother to correct
Stallman was defending him in case it had taken place though. His defence was not "it didn't happen", it was "Minsky wouldn't have had reason to assume a 17 year old girl he had just met on a private island was not consenting."
Part of what Stallman wrote, quoting someone else, was this:
> Giuffre was 17 at the time; this makes it __rape__ in the Virgin Islands.
Does it really? I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.
Stallman seems to be arguing for some idealized, universal definition of "rape". That is neither achievable nor reasonable. Different countries have different laws about what constitutes rape,
The problem is that they MIS-quoted the emails. Unlike what Vice claimed, Stallman never claimed that she was not coerced by anybody. In fact, he assumed that she WAS coerced by Epstein.
You have to follow several layers of links to see what he ACTUALLY wrote and it doesn't say the same thing as they claimed.
Vice is about as believable as Gawker. Thanks for playing, and better luck next time.
Vice cited a named source for their information—an MIT alum named Selam Jie Gano—and linked to an article in which Selam provides even more details [medium.com]. Vice's believability, poor as it is, has no bearing on the matter.
The emails from Stallman went out to a large mailing list that includes nearly the entire CS department at MIT, from which they were then forwarded on to others, including Selam. As such, if what Selam posted was in any way false or misleading, it should be trivially easy to refute th
Dig down (and you will have to dig down to find it) and read what Stallman actually posted. Read it carefully. It does not say what Vice or Selam Jie Gano claimed it said.
I would characterize Stallman's defense as "If Minsky did have sex with that girl he did not know she had been coerced by Epstein and he did not coerce her himself".
But let's strip this of inflammatory wording. The young woman in question was 17 years old, not 10. It may or may not have been apparent to Minsky that she was 17 rather than 1
Vice is about as believable as Gawker. Thanks for playing, and better luck next time.
-jcr
This Reddit post I quoted in/.'s original coverage is still the most concise explanation I've seen (and yes, it reinforces how Vice and Gawker and Daily Beast and other such outlets are trash):
Good summary from reddit [reddit.com] (since Vice is not a credible source):
Context: In a recently unsealed deposition a woman testified that, at the age of 17, Epstein told her to have sex with Marvin Minsky. Minsky was a founder of the MIT Media Lab and pioneer in A.I. who died in 2016. Stallman argued on a mailing list (in response to a statement from a protest organizer accusing Minsky of sexual assault) that, while he condemned Epstein, Minsky likely did not know she was being coerced:
We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
Some SJW responded by writing a Medium post called "Remove Richard Stallman [archive.is]". Media outlets like Vice [archive.is] and The Daily Beast [archive.is] then lied and misquoted Stallman as saying that the woman was likely "entirely willing" and as "defending Epstein". He has now been pressured to resign from MIT [stallman.org]
Furthermore the deposition doesn't say she had sex with Minsky, only that Epstein told her to do so, and according to physicist Greg Benford she propositioned Minsky and he turned her down [archive.is]:
I know; I was there. Minsky turned her down. Told me about it. She saw us talking and didn’t approach me.
This seems like a complete validation of the distinction Stallman was making. If what Minsky knew doesn't matter, if there's no difference between "Minsky sexually assaulted a woman" and "Epstein told a 17-year-old to have sex with Minsky without his knowledge or consent", then why did he turn her down?
How is that a good explanation? You, and that reddit comment, start getting things wrong in the first sentence. Giuffre testified that Ghislaine Maxwell -- not Jeffrey Epstein -- directed her to have sex with Minsky (and with many others).
If Minsky accepted the offer of sex with Giuffre, and as you point out he may not have, the crime would not hinge on whether she acted like she was willing or not. It would hinge on whether she was younger than 18, and he was older than (as I read the laws) 23. There i
If I read the quotes from Ray above, it seems to me that you're interpreting the words of Stallman. He believes that if there is no physical force, the word assault is not appropriate. And he seems to ignore the possibility of using the word rape as short for statutory rape, which is typically how people generally interpret the word rape. Happened to me too, before it was explained to me that the legal definition includes using the word rape for those cases, no matter how much the younger party really wante
Maybe you should read the PDF instead of "quotes from Ray".
Stallman objected not only to the word "assaulting", but to the phrase "sexual assault", essentially on the basis that it's not specific enough for him (pages 16-17 of the PDF), and on the theory that "[t]he word 'assaulting' presumes that he applied force or violence". That's a legitimate criticism of the announcement he quoted, but emphatically is not legitimate for the phrase "sexual assault". Stallman objects to that phrase anyway because it i
Does it seem at all credible that a middle aged man who knew about Epstein's reputation (it was well known and the institution he worked for had banned donations from him) was flown to his island, where he just happened to meet a 17 year old girl who wanted to have sex with him shortly after they met for the first time, and didn't suspect that she might hand been coerced at all?
Vice is about as believable as Gawker. Thanks for playing, and better luck next time.
-jcr
Are you implying you somehow won a game? With nothing more than an ad hominem attack? Maybe you can provide either evidence or at least a written counterclaim that the sources (the full text of which was published by vice) is somehow incorrect?
Stop acting so childish and actually come up with some substance. I've seen you post, you're normally much better than this.
Gawker's the one that angered a silicon valley billionaire by truthfully revealing that he was gay, and then published a real video of a former wrestling star having sex, correct? 'cos I thought that's what they had the reputation for, publishing too much truth, not too little? They were entirely trustworthy, that wasn't the issue.
There is what Vice quoted from Stallman's emails, and what Vice wrote beyond the quotes. The latter is Vice's spin. And, yes, they could misleadingly quote from emails -- but they provided a PDF of the email chain, only blocking out some of the personal names and email addresses of people involved. You can see it yourself, it is right at the bottom of the article I linked to. You can judge Stallman based on what he wrote without relying on Vice's opinion of it.
Uh...pick one? If it's a spin to be taken with a grain of salt, why would I simultaneously take it seriously?
The suggestion is that you take the facts seriously while ignoring their opinion on the matter. Vice cites a named source and links to additional details from that source. The facts are the facts and are deserving of serious consideration, regardless of any words Vice put to paper on the subject.
I took the facts seriously when they came out and came to my own conclusions regarding Vice's and others' character assassination attempts. What about it?
You suggested there was a contradiction in something that was said. I pointed out that there wasn't. What you do with the facts is your own business. I'm fine with you drawing your own conclusions. After all, when it comes to anything even remotely close to these sorts of topics, any attempt at a nuanced argument gets blown out by people saying that the subject is a horrible person for not being on their side completely.
I still think Stallman is an unlikeable sleazeball who was characteristically inconsider
There is a contradiction that I pointed out above. And as for his remarks on the issue, I found them as insightful as ever in his case, by which I mean a lot. Sometimes you need someone devoid of passion and with a clarity of mind to point out the obvious, such as, in this case, the overblown, illogical, and implausible character of the accusations thrown at a dead person unable to defend himself. That lots of people don't personally like Stallman being that someone is their problem, not Stallman's problem.
Vice apparently cannot read English (nor can the blogger that posted the blog that Vice reported on). What he ACTUALLY said is that if indeed Minsky had sex with a young woman, she most likely presented herself TO MINSKY as entirely willing. That doesn't claim that she WAS entirely willing, just that that is how she presented to Minsky. In other words, he doesn't believe without evidence that his friend would have had sex with her had he known she was coerced.
I read it as he finally learned lesson 0; never ever apologize to the mob. EVER, does not matter even if YOU actually think you may have been wrong. They are just looking a for someone crucify to assuage their own misplaced guilt or atone for their own sins, they are nothing but a primitive cult looking for right sort of virgin to throw into the volcano.
The only actions you can take are 1) ignore them if your power position is actually such that responding to them raises their profile, not dignifying them w
They are just looking a for someone crucify to assuage their own misplaced guilt or atone for their own sins, they are nothing but a primitive cult looking for right sort of virgin to throw into the volcano.
Upvotes, retweets, and insightful mods are a helluva drug.
I don't think that's what he said. In this post I'm not going to comment on MY opinion about what he said. Here I'm going to just quote exactly what he said. Here are his exact words, at the bottom of this image https://bit.ly/2PeBK0y [bit.ly]
The email thread was about Minsky. Stallman said:
-- > Giuffre was 17 at the time; this makes it __rape__ in the Virgin Islands. Does it really? I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17. I think the existence of a dispute about that supports my point that the term "sexual assault" is slippery, so we ought to use more concrete terms when accusing anyone. --
He also said: -- The injustice is in the word "assaulting". The term "sexual assault is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X. --
"we ought to use more concrete terms when accusing anyone"
It seems that rather than saying "Minsky raped her", Stallman thought it would be more appropriate to say something like "Minsky had sex with a 17yo who had apparently been coerced by Epstein." Readers can make up their own mind about your own thoughts about that.
That does not say whether Minsky knew she was coerced
That bit right there is one of the biggest issues. The idea that Minsky, a middle aged guy, could fly out to Epstein's island, knowing his reputation, and meet a girl a third of his age who immediately wants to have sex with him and not think that something was amiss seems like an incredible stretch just to defend his friend's indefensible actions.
That should have been a big clue, one would think. Of course we weren't there, so we don't know quite what he saw and heard, but it does seem strange. Nevertheless, I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute.
You said "knowing Epstein's reputation". What was "Epstein's reputation" at that time? Later, info came out, but at that time? I don't know. I wouldn't assume without evidence what this "reputation" was and what the guy had heard. I'd need more info in order to make any judgement about that either
The biggest problem here is people continue to talk about the Epstein/Minsky thing, where he posted the usual sloppy attempt to correct something minor that derails a greater discussion (and was apparently wrong anyway, not needing to defend Minsky if I remember rightly), while ignoring the fact that immediately after this came out numerous unrelated allegations came up against Stallman about his treatment of women.
He probably could have ridden out either, but the two together was a lethal blow. Unfortun
186,000 Miles per Second. It's not just a good idea. IT'S THE LAW.
Good for him. (Score:5, Informative)
There was no reason for him to resign in the first place. All he said was that he wasn't going to believe an accusation against a friend without evidence.
-jcr
Re: Good for him. (Score:3, Informative)
That's not all that he wrote. He made very specific speculations about what happened by way of making excuses for Minsky: https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com] . Take Vice's spin with a grain of salt, but Stallman wrote a lot more about it than simply that he refused too believe accusations against his friend without evidence.
Re: Good for him. (Score:5, Insightful)
Vice is about as believable as Gawker. Thanks for playing, and better luck next time.
-jcr
Re: (Score:2)
What is your claim? That the emails quoted there are fabricated? I already recommended disregarding Vice's spin, but they quote emails. Are they wrong in claiming that Stallman wrote the things they quote?
Re: Good for him. (Score:5, Informative)
This, exactly. Ignore what Vice says, but they did provide the actual email chain to review. RMS went way out on a limb about "willingness" while admitting these were children. Children cannot consent, not to mention the entire felony aspect of what accusations were made. Willing or not, a felony is a felony.
Re: Good for him. (Score:5, Insightful)
Children cannot consent
She was only a child because of the legal jurisdiction.
It was perfectly legal for Prince Andrew to have sex with her because the age of consent in England is 16.
Minsky (allegedly) raped her because the age of consent in the US Virgin Islands is 18. If the sex had happened in the British Virgin Islands or back in Boston, it would have been legal.
It was illegal to transport her, but neither Minsky nor Andrew did the transporting.
Willing or not, a felony is a felony.
Minsky was dead when the accusations were made and unable to defend himself. He was never convicted of any felony.
What Richard said was insensitive and showed a lack of appreciation for woke-outrage, but he wasn't wrong.
Re: Good for him. (Score:5, Informative)
...Minsky (allegedly) raped her because the age of consent in the US Virgin Islands is 18.
Wrong!
This is the part where everybody gets the facts in the allegation incorrect. There is no allegation of rape (statutory or otherwise). Giuffre was directed to do an action, which, if it had happened, would have been rape. But she didn't ever actually allege it happened.
Specifically, her deposition said that Ghislaine Maxwell directed her (at the time age 17) to go to Epstein's private island in order to have sex with Minsky. ...it continues to say that she did fly to Epstein's private island... but the deposition stops at that point. She never actually say that she did have sex with Minsky.
There was no allegation of rape. From all the facts we are given, she may have to the island, told Minsky "let's have sex," and Minsky replied "no thanks, you're just a kid". Or for that matter, she doesn't even say she even met Minsky, much less propositioned him.
The deposition is here, if you want the details on what she said: https://drive.google.com/file/... [google.com]
(It also has a lot of gaps. But those facts don't seem to be in doubt.)
Re: (Score:1)
Stallman isn't being arrested. Minsky isn't being charged with a crime - he died before that could happen. So there's no reason for yoyr legal defense.
People were unhappy with Minsky because he consorted with an infamous pedophile, despite being clearly told by MIT not to consort with an infamous pedophile. We don't know exactly what Minsky did while visiting the notorious convicted pedophile's pleasure estate multiple times - presumably he just watched TV and played tennis with Epstein, and didn't reall
Re: (Score:2)
People were unhappy with Minsky because he consorted with an infamous pedophile, despite being clearly told by MIT not to consort with an infamous pedophile.
They told a prominent professor NOT to consort with a major donor they were courting? That would be a first.
The rest of your post is a hairball of unwarranted assumptions.
Re: (Score:2)
Stallman isn't being arrested. Minsky isn't being charged with a crime -
Correct. Because he wasn't accused of a crime. No crime by Minsky was alleged in the deposition.
he died before that could happen.
Yes: he died before he could be not charged with a crime that was not mentioned in the deposition and for which there is no reason to believe ever happened,
So there's no reason for yoyr legal defense.
Well, no reason other than correcting a blatant mis-statement of fact.
People were unhappy with Minsky
People being "unhappy" with him is a completely different statement from an allegation that he raped somebody.
If your statement is "people were unhappy with him," I won't bother to correct
Re: (Score:2)
Stallman was defending him in case it had taken place though. His defence was not "it didn't happen", it was "Minsky wouldn't have had reason to assume a 17 year old girl he had just met on a private island was not consenting."
Re: (Score:3)
Part of what Stallman wrote, quoting someone else, was this:
Stallman seems to be arguing for some idealized, universal definition of "rape". That is neither achievable nor reasonable. Different countries have different laws about what constitutes rape,
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that they MIS-quoted the emails. Unlike what Vice claimed, Stallman never claimed that she was not coerced by anybody. In fact, he assumed that she WAS coerced by Epstein.
You have to follow several layers of links to see what he ACTUALLY wrote and it doesn't say the same thing as they claimed.
Re: (Score:3)
Vice is about as believable as Gawker. Thanks for playing, and better luck next time.
Vice cited a named source for their information—an MIT alum named Selam Jie Gano—and linked to an article in which Selam provides even more details [medium.com]. Vice's believability, poor as it is, has no bearing on the matter.
The emails from Stallman went out to a large mailing list that includes nearly the entire CS department at MIT, from which they were then forwarded on to others, including Selam. As such, if what Selam posted was in any way false or misleading, it should be trivially easy to refute th
Re: (Score:2)
Dig down (and you will have to dig down to find it) and read what Stallman actually posted. Read it carefully. It does not say what Vice or Selam Jie Gano claimed it said.
I would characterize Stallman's defense as "If Minsky did have sex with that girl he did not know she had been coerced by Epstein and he did not coerce her himself".
But let's strip this of inflammatory wording. The young woman in question was 17 years old, not 10. It may or may not have been apparent to Minsky that she was 17 rather than 1
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Vice is about as believable as Gawker. Thanks for playing, and better luck next time.
-jcr
This Reddit post I quoted in /.'s original coverage is still the most concise explanation I've seen (and yes, it reinforces how Vice and Gawker and Daily Beast and other such outlets are trash):
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
Good summary from reddit [reddit.com] (since Vice is not a credible source):
Context: In a recently unsealed deposition a woman testified that, at the age of 17, Epstein told her to have sex with Marvin Minsky. Minsky was a founder of the MIT Media Lab and pioneer in A.I. who died in 2016. Stallman argued on a mailing list (in response to a statement from a protest organizer accusing Minsky of sexual assault) that, while he condemned Epstein, Minsky likely did not know she was being coerced:
Some SJW responded by writing a Medium post called "Remove Richard Stallman [archive.is]". Media outlets like Vice [archive.is] and The Daily Beast [archive.is] then lied and misquoted Stallman as saying that the woman was likely "entirely willing" and as "defending Epstein". He has now been pressured to resign from MIT [stallman.org]
Furthermore the deposition doesn't say she had sex with Minsky, only that Epstein told her to do so, and according to physicist Greg Benford she propositioned Minsky and he turned her down [archive.is]:
This seems like a complete validation of the distinction Stallman was making. If what Minsky knew doesn't matter, if there's no difference between "Minsky sexually assaulted a woman" and "Epstein told a 17-year-old to have sex with Minsky without his knowledge or consent", then why did he turn her down?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How is that a good explanation? You, and that reddit comment, start getting things wrong in the first sentence. Giuffre testified that Ghislaine Maxwell -- not Jeffrey Epstein -- directed her to have sex with Minsky (and with many others).
If Minsky accepted the offer of sex with Giuffre, and as you point out he may not have, the crime would not hinge on whether she acted like she was willing or not. It would hinge on whether she was younger than 18, and he was older than (as I read the laws) 23. There i
Re: Summary (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Maybe you should read the PDF instead of "quotes from Ray".
Stallman objected not only to the word "assaulting", but to the phrase "sexual assault", essentially on the basis that it's not specific enough for him (pages 16-17 of the PDF), and on the theory that "[t]he word 'assaulting' presumes that he applied force or violence". That's a legitimate criticism of the announcement he quoted, but emphatically is not legitimate for the phrase "sexual assault". Stallman objects to that phrase anyway because it i
Re: (Score:1)
Does it seem at all credible that a middle aged man who knew about Epstein's reputation (it was well known and the institution he worked for had banned donations from him) was flown to his island, where he just happened to meet a 17 year old girl who wanted to have sex with him shortly after they met for the first time, and didn't suspect that she might hand been coerced at all?
It beggars belief.
Re: Summary (Score:1)
You are assuming she was coerced, but without any proof. A 17 yo is perfectly capable of reasoning and doing his/her own choices.
Re: Summary (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Stallman's statement was that if they did then Minsky could reasonable have believed it to be consensual.
That beggars belief.
Re: (Score:2)
Vice is about as believable as Gawker. Thanks for playing, and better luck next time.
-jcr
Are you implying you somehow won a game? With nothing more than an ad hominem attack? Maybe you can provide either evidence or at least a written counterclaim that the sources (the full text of which was published by vice) is somehow incorrect?
Stop acting so childish and actually come up with some substance. I've seen you post, you're normally much better than this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Take Vice's spin with a grain of salt
but Stallman wrote a lot more about it than simply that he refused too believe accusations against his friend without evidence.
Uh...pick one? If it's a spin to be taken with a grain of salt, why would I simultaneously take it seriously?
Re: (Score:2)
There is what Vice quoted from Stallman's emails, and what Vice wrote beyond the quotes. The latter is Vice's spin. And, yes, they could misleadingly quote from emails -- but they provided a PDF of the email chain, only blocking out some of the personal names and email addresses of people involved. You can see it yourself, it is right at the bottom of the article I linked to. You can judge Stallman based on what he wrote without relying on Vice's opinion of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Uh...pick one? If it's a spin to be taken with a grain of salt, why would I simultaneously take it seriously?
The suggestion is that you take the facts seriously while ignoring their opinion on the matter. Vice cites a named source and links to additional details from that source. The facts are the facts and are deserving of serious consideration, regardless of any words Vice put to paper on the subject.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You suggested there was a contradiction in something that was said. I pointed out that there wasn't. What you do with the facts is your own business. I'm fine with you drawing your own conclusions. After all, when it comes to anything even remotely close to these sorts of topics, any attempt at a nuanced argument gets blown out by people saying that the subject is a horrible person for not being on their side completely.
I still think Stallman is an unlikeable sleazeball who was characteristically inconsider
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Good for him. (Score:1)
Who cares?
Re: (Score:2)
Vice apparently cannot read English (nor can the blogger that posted the blog that Vice reported on). What he ACTUALLY said is that if indeed Minsky had sex with a young woman, she most likely presented herself TO MINSKY as entirely willing. That doesn't claim that she WAS entirely willing, just that that is how she presented to Minsky. In other words, he doesn't believe without evidence that his friend would have had sex with her had he known she was coerced.
I hope it's reasonable to say that most of us he
Re: (Score:3)
I read it as he finally learned lesson 0; never ever apologize to the mob. EVER, does not matter even if YOU actually think you may have been wrong. They are just looking a for someone crucify to assuage their own misplaced guilt or atone for their own sins, they are nothing but a primitive cult looking for right sort of virgin to throw into the volcano.
The only actions you can take are 1) ignore them if your power position is actually such that responding to them raises their profile, not dignifying them w
Re: (Score:2)
They are just looking a for someone crucify to assuage their own misplaced guilt or atone for their own sins, they are nothing but a primitive cult looking for right sort of virgin to throw into the volcano.
Upvotes, retweets, and insightful mods are a helluva drug.
The exact words that he said (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think that's what he said. In this post I'm not going to comment on MY opinion about what he said. Here I'm going to just quote exactly what he said. Here are his exact words, at the bottom of this image https://bit.ly/2PeBK0y [bit.ly]
The email thread was about Minsky. Stallman said:
--
> Giuffre was 17 at the time; this makes it __rape__ in the Virgin Islands.
Does it really? I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17. I think the existence of a dispute about that supports my point that the term "sexual assault" is slippery, so we ought to use more concrete terms when accusing anyone.
--
He also said:
--
The injustice is in the word "assaulting". The term "sexual assault is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.
--
"we ought to use more concrete terms when accusing anyone"
It seems that rather than saying "Minsky raped her", Stallman thought it would be more appropriate to say something like "Minsky had sex with a 17yo who had apparently been coerced by Epstein." Readers can make up their own mind about your own thoughts about that.
Re: (Score:2)
Complete email chain here: https://assets.documentcloud.o... [documentcloud.org]
You missed the most important part.
That does not say whether Minsky knew she was coerced
That bit right there is one of the biggest issues. The idea that Minsky, a middle aged guy, could fly out to Epstein's island, knowing his reputation, and meet a girl a third of his age who immediately wants to have sex with him and not think that something was amiss seems like an incredible stretch just to defend his friend's indefensible actions.
Re: (Score:2)
That should have been a big clue, one would think. Of course we weren't there, so we don't know quite what he saw and heard, but it does seem strange. Nevertheless, I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute.
You said "knowing Epstein's reputation". What was "Epstein's reputation" at that time? Later, info came out, but at that time? I don't know. I wouldn't assume without evidence what this "reputation" was and what the guy had heard. I'd need more info in order to make any judgement about that either
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At that time he had already been banned from giving donations to the institution Minsky worked for.
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The biggest problem here is people continue to talk about the Epstein/Minsky thing, where he posted the usual sloppy attempt to correct something minor that derails a greater discussion (and was apparently wrong anyway, not needing to defend Minsky if I remember rightly), while ignoring the fact that immediately after this came out numerous unrelated allegations came up against Stallman about his treatment of women.
He probably could have ridden out either, but the two together was a lethal blow. Unfortun