Except that in fair trials we have the concept of stare decisis, that once something has been decided, it's been decided. We very intentionally do not have the courtroom try to reason something out from first principles every time. We do not defend each person who runs a red light by saying, is it actually bad to run a red light. The cases which do overturn existing legal or social precedent are rare, carefully picked by the lawyers to be as sympathetic as possible (cf. Rosa Parks), and carefully timed to line up with sufficient hope of social consensus having changed around the law.

While it is absolutely your right to say "What if this bad thing is not actually bad," to do so without presenting a novel argument about it, and especially to do so for the sake of being contrarian, is not how we make decisions. You should look at the strongest arguments on both sides. You should privately take the opposing side and then see if you can knock it down.

The arguments Stallman presented were hardly arguments and were not novel at all. They're arguments that have occurred to the people he's arguing against, already. If he wants to seek the truth and not just advocate a side, he could have and should have figured that out. I still believe in his right to free speech (in the sense that I would defend his freedom to speak without government coercion), but I don't think he made a contribution to the discourse that's worth defending at a social level.

You think that Minsky being unaware of the coercion would not be a mitigating factor in accusing him of sexual assault? When was that decided?

Powerful billionaire brings you to his private island and presents a beautiful young woman to you who appears ready and willing to have sex with you, a 75-year-old man.

Is that ever credible, even in a porno?

For Stallman to push this "Minsky didn't know" narrative now, with no horse in the race, and Minsky having passed away 3 years ago, is beyond the pale. I get the idea of trying to defend the reputation of your dead friend, but... c'mon. It's not the time or the place, and Stallman should know better after decades of being "misunderstood".

Then again, an account from someone else at the gathering claims he saw what happened, and that Minsky rejected the girl's advances. If true, that kind makes the whole thing moot.

(I'd like to not get into arguing about Minsky's own actions or about mitigating factors in sexual assault in this particular thread. 'esotericn is talking about what is reasonable to discuss or not in which circumstances, not about the merits of the argument in question. And I'm also personally not interested in arguing the case.)

I guess I don't understand your point about Stare Decisis, then. Is your point that Stallman knew that his argument was wrong, but he put it forward anyway? Was there some piece of social case law he was supposed to be referencing here?

If those circumstances were unfavorable to him (as in your analogy), i'd be convinced that Minsky was at fault. If not, then I wouldn't be. But all that is to say that it seems to me that Stallman's abstract argument was fine to bring up - it just then puts the question back to his counterparts in the discussion to articulate a view on those circumstances to justify their position.

To clarify further, however, Minksy was not dead "before any of this hit the news"; he died in January 2016.

Claims against Epstein had significant publicity much earlier than that; as just one example, in 2015 the Prince Andrew - Epstein connection was making headlines due to the Virginia Roberts case.[1]

[1] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bbc-planning-panorama-...

You’re absolutely right that the allegations against Epstein were in the news before 2016 though, after all he was initially sentenced for his crime in 2007.

This is a strange conclusion for you to draw because this statement applies to the majority of HN posts likely including both yours and mine. No decisions are being made here.

Perhaps some context would be useful with regards to Stallman.

Edit: in my defence, is op defending Stallman, or Epstein? Honestly, I don't know how Epstein and Stallman are related. I don't follow Stallman's every statement he makes. I simply asked for some context and enlightenment in this headline and esotericn's comment.

edit: ok...finally some context from other commenters answering (finally) my question, which I think is this from 11th August 2019:

Jeffrey Epstein appears to have committed suicide in his cell. Or perhaps he was murdered — it is not unusual for prisoners to murder prisoners accused of sexual crimes.

Epstein was accused of trafficking: bringing people long distances on false pretenses and then pressured them into sex or prostitution. He also reportedly raped some of those people. I believe those accusations, and I think he deserved to be imprisoned.

Some of his victims were legally adult. Some were teenage minors. I don't think that makes any moral difference. I don't think rape is less wrong if the victim is over 16.

Ok maybe I'm really thick, how does this cause Stallman to resign? His language seems pretty much on par with newspaper of headlines in his "blog". I really don't have an axe to grind either way. I'm trying to get to the bottom of who said what?

Edit..again: so thanks to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990293 , this is the crux of the matter:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...

I've not read the full thread so don't have an opinion either way. If Minsky and Stallman were good friends then I can understand Stallman coming to his defence, especially when dead people can't give an account of themselves. That said I kinda feel Stallman's dug a bit of a hole for himself, and may need a bigger shovel to get out.

So I think the OP is wondering out loud why it's not OK for Stallman to have a public opinion about the morality of the situation where it is apparently OK in one country, but if you go on holiday to another country it is rape.

The OP did not mention Epstein at all and it's not related to the discussion in any way. The problem is that the media has been waging a kind of character assassination of Stallman and quite frankly appears to have slandered him rather badly.

However, to answer the OP's musings: Stallman should know better than to get pulled into this kind of conversation because he has many political opponents who will stop at nothing to drag his name in the mud. He was completely stupid to respond at all. Maybe it's not fair, but it's reality.

No, having sex with Epstein's trafficked victims is considered rape in pretty much all countries. Protestations that the victim "presented herself as willing" are like defending a buyer of obviously stolen goods on the basis that the fence didn't overtly tell them they were stolen. Minsky was a 73-year-old man offered sex by a 17-year-old girl on his friend's Caribbean island -- he knew what the real situation was.

I'm also pretty much 100% in agreement that Minsky ought to have known that what he was doing was wrong. However, I know literally nothing of the situation. It was stupid of Stallman to give a "for instance" because it's always going to be construed as him advocating a really bad situation. But later he literally asks people for copies of the deposition (that he can read with free software) so that he can find out what actually happened. He also had no idea what actually happened and was basically saying that he's not willing to condemn someone without understanding the circumstances. There may be mitigating details that we know nothing about. There may not.

There are people who believe that there can be no mitigating details. They may very well be correct (again, I literally don't know), however, I hate the witch hunt against people who do not wish to pillory others without understanding the situation first.

Having said that, like I said, it was stupid of Stallman to wade into this. He's got a big target on his back and there are people who will take every opportunity to lob something at him.

Given that even the Virgin Islands locals took to calling it "Pedophile Island," it's a pretty good guess that most of the people who went to the parties there had at least an inkling of their true nature. But no-strings-attached money (or worse, other "favors") were a powerful motivator to look the other way.

> Given that even the Virgin Islands locals took to calling it "Pedophile island"

Locals almost always have more knowledge about a place in their backyard than someone flown in for a special occasion.

> Epstein was accused of trafficking: bringing people long distances on false pretenses and then pressured them into sex or prostitution. He also reportedly raped some of those people. I believe those accusations, and I think he deserved to be imprisoned.

>Some of his victims were legally adult. Some were teenage minors. I don't think that makes any moral difference. I don't think rape is less wrong if the victim is over 16.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903050208/https://stallman....

Sure, but if anyone bothers to read to the end of that sentence he says:

"I don't think that makes any moral difference. I don't think rape is less wrong if the victim is over 16."

He's not defending rape in any way shape or form, regardless of age.

Am I the OP in this context?

I think this is exactly what I'm talking about? I've made a comment explaining how this environment baffles me, and you think my comment must be somehow tribal in nature.

Tribal in what way? And I said nothing of the sort. I have no "tribal" interest in Stallman's efforts or his beliefs. I think the man has done some fine things in terms of GPLv2, less so v3, but I'm certainly not an absolutist.

I genuinely didn't understand your comment, which you still haven't answered, yet you attack me for being "tribal".

The answer is, err, "not applicable"?

edit: ok, so now I have some context:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990293

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...

Which after all this was what I was asking for. Jeezo.

> Stallman wrote that it was most plausible that the Epstein sexual partners were willing participants

is one of the misquotations of what Stallman actually wrote that change the meaning significantly.

He wrote

> 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.

"presented ... as entirely willing" is very different to "were willing"

Suppose you wished to discuss "ethical problems" in a tutorial, people can do that, and in some other (limited) environments too. You might - to invoke a particularly awful idea - like to hypothetically explore whether what people wear had relationship to their likelihood of being targeted for sexual assault.

If you are in a position of leadership however, you incur responsibilities. People under your leadership must be confident that if someone were to tell you they have been sexually assaulted, your response would not be to wonder what they were wearing. The reason for this is, as is well established, that speculation over what women (or survivors in general) were wearing at the time they were sexually assaulted is a loaded idea that has widespread use in casting blame on the victim of sexual assault, and has been very effective at this for hundreds of years, leading to a vast amount of preventable suffering, all because of we continue to tolerate the mistaken idea that women might somehow 'invite' their own assault.

A person in a leadership or representational role doesn't get to publicly speculate about "clothing and sexual assault" in the abstract, because they have a duty to be aware of how incredibly damaging that is in the general sense, and how public speculation about that sort of relationship would clearly act to dampen survivors of sexual assault from coming forward, including in the org they are leading, in addition to being distressing for the people who have experienced it in the past, which is a significant fraction of people in general, even supposing the speculator meant well.

Even though Stallman wasn't a professor, and was "just" a Visiting Scientist, he maintained an office on campus, and was afforded a certain level of status by MIT. With that status comes an amount of responsibility. Making "philosophical" arguments that appear to defend abhorrent positions, regardless of the intent behind those arguments, is not in line with that responsibility.

>A person in a leadership or representational role doesn't get to publicly speculate about "clothing and sexual assault" in the abstract [...]

How is this applicable to Stallman? What was Stallman doing at MIT? It doesn't seem like he's in any sort of leadership position.

2) It would take a staggering feat of mental gymnastics to suggest Dr. Stallman's idiosyncratic role at CSAIL -described variously as "visiting scientist"- absolves him of having leadership responsiblities to students.

3) Though I did not go into details at the time, the argument above applies more widely than leaders per se - it applies to people who affiliate with and represent organisations; for example, I think we could probably agree it would apply to television anchors whether or not they led a 'team' of any kind.

Stallman's relationship with MIT (and vice versa) is a public enough role that I've known about for nearly 20 years though I live on the other side of the planet.

"What he should have done was in my opinion deliver one policy speech. 'This is where we stand on antisemitism. This is where we stand on the mechanisms for dealing with antisemitism in our party. Case closed.' The other major mistake he made was .. a complete abandonment of the principle of free speech. People have a right to say and think whatever they want. 'I'm a member of the Labour Party. OK. I subscribe to Labour Party's political platform. That's what makes me a member.' But that doesn't mean you have the right to troll my Facebook postings, you have the right to vet everything I say or post on Instagram. I mean that's Romania under Ceausescu, that's North Korea under Kim Il Sung. That's now going to be the mandate of the Labour Party? To be trolling in your thoughts and ideas? To see whether you are an antisemite? Everybody, including you, including your camera people harbors some antisemitic stereotypes... OK. Who cares? I mean It's very hard to extirpate, ... because it's rooted in thousands of years. I mean it's everywhere. It's part of the atmosphere, it's part of the environment, it's part of the history. Do I not harbor any anti-black stereotypes any racist stereotypes? Do I harbor no sexist stereotypes? No! And now we are going to have a Labour Party, which is going to [?] the depths of your conscience, ... looking for some evidence of antisemitism, ...? It's complete lunacy and it's a complete repudiation, abandonment of the most fundamental principles of what's called the Enlightenment beginning with as the Germans put it in that nice German folk song Die Gedanken sind Frei (Thoughts are free). People have the right to think what they believe, and since thought is inseparable from speech, you have the right to think and speak as you please. And if you don't like what a person is saying then you have the right either not to listen or try to persuade the person ... but what you don't have the right to do is penalize people, punish people, expel people for their thoughts... It's a complete political disaster because all it does is it forces people to repress what they're thinking until a demagogue comes along and starts saying what you're thinking, what you were forced to repress. And instead of your erroneous thoughts having been answered, the fact that you were forced to repress them, it validates it for you. ... And then the demagogue comes along and starts to exploit all of those repressed thoughts. So morally it's unacceptable to try to police people's thoughts and politically it's a complete disaster." https://youtu.be/OPYfLY2cAi4?t=616

Stallman wrote that “the most plausible scenario” for Giuffre’s accusations was that she was, in actuality, “entirely willing.”

How is that a rational, defensible statement in any terms?

What he actually said, without Vice editing the quote, is:

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.

From the email thread reproduced in its entirety by Vice at https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420....

In my estimation, there's a big difference between Vice's framing of "Stallman said she was 'entirely willing'" and the full quote above. There are, of course, other poor comments in that thread.

EDIT -- I mention Vice specifically, because their article (which I'd read earlier) has similar phrasing to the wording used here (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbm74x/computer-scientist... -- "Stallman said the “most plausible scenario” is that one of Epstein’s underage victims was “entirely willing.”"), and I'd thought the quote that codesushi used was from that publication. On double checking, it might be unfair to single that publication out for the given quote.

There are other pretty bad comments, yes. If most of the coverage focused on those rather than something he didn't actually say, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it.

Now that I can't say I totally agree with. The free software movement is a political movement, and as such his statements and opinions on social issues of all kinds have a deep impact on whether or not he can be a good representative of the FSF.

But we should at least be truthful about his statements and opinions!

It can mean that.

sentence immediately after that makes it clear that he didn't mean it as such.

No, it is debatable. The following sentence does not clearly state they were unwilling.

Another Stallman gem:

I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.

"Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it. Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why."

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_Septe...

Edit: just noticed that's from two days ago, so in reaction to this fiasco.

The first is what was actually said the latter is a lie being repeated.

"The most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing," Stallman wrote in his post last Wednesday. "Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates. I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term 'sexual assault' in an accusation."

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_in...

"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."

Say what you will about the inappropriateness of RMS's conduct or speech or timing, but you should not try to persuade people by misquoting him.

We know that we are in deep trouble when the new generations start solving math formula or hypothesis democratically, by the numbers of 'likes' and 'thumbs up' that they receive.

Is a popular opinion true automatically just because is emotionally satisfying to us, and hence is popular? Not.

As long as he assumes the risk to be corrected and wrong, Stallman has the right to express an discomforting ugly hypothesis or a discordant opinion. And is just that, an opinion. I have no reason to thing that is a dishonest one, that there is malice, attempt to defamation, or that there is a hidden agenda subjacent about it

Demonstratively, he did not have that right.

Or perhaps you believe in some kind of imaginary right where you could still be held to have it if you predictably suffer terrible consequences should you attempt to make use of it?

I've commented a number of times on this subject, calmly trying to direct people back to the facts-- but each time I know that any one of those message could be misrepresented and turned into terrible false accusations about me, simply because I pissed off the wrong mob.

I think the right you imagine might exist for some people-- people who do nothing of notice, people who never challenge anyone's thinking, or people who really don't have to give a darn about what anyone else thinks-- maybe it exists for me, maybe it exists for you at least for the moment. It did not exist for RMS.

Which of these three seems more likely in GENERAL:

A) That this happened on a party island and all adults were willing.

B) That someone has been lead to believe this is a consensual act on some party island with willing people there; but in reality the victim is coerced into presenting false consent.

C) That the 'active offender' is aware of a lack of consent and that they are with a victim.

Since I choose to believe that at least a majority of humanity aren't evil; just more than likely stupid and easily tricked, I happen to believe that the set a circumstance being either A or B is more likely that C. I also believe that if "services" were legalized and HEAVILY REGULATED circumstances B and C would be FAR less likely to happen.

Epstein hosted conferences on a number of occasions for scientific luminaries, which is why-- for example-- there are pictures of Stephen Hawking on Epstein's island.

Minsky was involved in an AI conference held by Epstein in 2002.

What I was suggesting is that there are plausible reasons someone might find themselves on such an island; which seem more realistic if those involved are rich elite who lure 'loose' individuals down with warm sandy beaches and cold drinks.

My take on the full RMS text in question is that they were (probably biased but) pointing out that they believed in a friend being a good person and thus the generic case I called Scenario B being the one that they believed was likely.

As I lack the facts to properly make a judgement on the issue I can only speculate about what //might// have happened, and hope that those who should be reaching a judgement gather all the possible facts and prove those who are guilty as such, without making more victims out of others tricked or entrapped by the actual wrong-doers.

I guess you mean that a position taken for the purposes of intellectual discourse (e.g. devil's advocate) could just as well be the person's "real" position?

Is there actually a difference in practice, if they're not in a position to act upon it anyway? (Or is the issue that by engaging in the discourse they are acting upon it?)

I think I understand your basic point - everyone who's a public figure is subject to the opinions of a huge number of people who might want to attack them (politically, physically, whatever), and that limiting expression of opinion is a way to protect against this. But doesn't that ultimately result in all public figures being "soft", "tame", basically politicians?

> “I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat – the farmers weren’t too pleased about that.” - Theresa May, UK prime minister, when asked of the naughtiest thing she'd ever done

Just look at the state of comedy today. It’s absurd. Their jokes are taken as their actual real-life positions on things.

It's an odd twist of irony. Everyone seems to be able to be rational, intellectual, and level-headed, when the issue they are debating does not personally affect them.

Edit: Judging by the karmic sentiment, we are probably unable to have a rational, intellectual, level-headed discussion of such a topic. Pity.

> rational, intellectual, level-headed discussion of how, say, their right to speech should be restricted

Isn't that a contradiction in and of itself?

The other side thinks that it's perfectly good and proper to not have a rational, intellectual, level-headed discussion of reprehensible topics, and would rather the first side not pull them into it.

Odd, that.