Minsky was accused, and those are the details.
It doesn't matter if it didn't happen, RMS was defending Minsky in the situation that it did by saying the girl who was less than a quarter of his age would have appeared willing.
That gets you fired. Even if it is entirely hypothetical.
And surely to defend a rapist, even an accused one, is nearly as bad as being a rapist? Why, perhaps we should skip the courts all together and simply tar and feather them in the public. That's worked out well historically...
He was asked to resign because it's a good play for MIT, you don't have to defend against a wrongful termination suit if the person in question willingly resigns.
If he wanted to defend himself, he would have stayed and fought, let himself get fired, file a lawsuit.
But he resigned, willingly.
Or possibly, because both the SFC [1] and the head of the GNOME foundation [2] said that they would find it unacceptable to work with the FSF as long as Stallman was still the leader, he realized there was no way staying on would be possible.
[1] https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-spea... [2] https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation-relations...
Clearly, as the angry Twitter mob of virtue signalers clearly has no desire or respect for objective arguments and accusations based on facts, let alone what the law actually says.
This smear campaign targeted at Stallman only ceased to be about the law once the self-righteous Twitter mob of virtue signallers was forced to admit that Stallman was in fact absolutely right to point out that the accusations correspond to statutory rape instead of sexual assault.
Unfortunately instead of doing the honest thing and admit they were wrong, they started moving the goal post and resort to Cardinal Richelieu tactics to try to come up with anything to keep up with the harassment and persecution.
Although it looks like you really believe that's what happened, it is not what happened.
And no amount of repetitions can change the fact that he did not "defend his friend from rape accusations".
> It doesn't matter if it didn't happen
It kinda matters though...
> That gets you fired. Even if it is entirely hypothetical.
And that's absurd.
We always arrive at the same conclusion.
EDIT:
can I ask you why all these comments look the same?
it kinda looks like a pattern to me...
He just expresses on honest opinion on the matter.
Like he always did all of his life.
> That's not how argument works.
To prove you wrong I don't have to prove an alternative scenario.
You are wrong, that's enough.
It's just what it is, he wasn't defending his friend, which, BTW, is not even accused of raping anybody.
> The comment was inappropriate
Like this is new for RMS...
I never said he is not weird, I've said he never supported or praised or defended rapists.
That's enough to prove who said it wrong.
It's all in the transcripts, it's all there, word by word.
> Those are the rules of the game (public relations),
But he's not a PR.
He has never been.
Right, and this time he has finally paid the price. I admire RMS; he's a genius, and he's done a lot with FSF. But I'm tired of his jackassery. If he, in his high profile position, wants to make arguments nitpicking what is rape and what is the age of consent with what is obviously a sensitive subject, then sure. Just don't do a surprised Pikachu when people hate him and want him gone.
For what?
For stating the obvious?
This time he didn't do anything wrong, other than pointing out what everybody in their right mind think: a dead person who cannot defend himself anymore was being falsely accused of child rape but the evidence just proved that he did no such thing and that, anyway, admitting there was sex involved, it wasn't pedophilia.
> I'm tired of his jackassery.
Who cares what you are tired of?
I'm tired of this constant wining, just because you're alive it doesn't mean your feelings are _so_ important.
But I don't want you to be fired because of it.
> is the age of consent with what is obviously a sensitive subject
so we should not talk about what you think is a sensitive subjects?
It isn't for me, I live in Europe, age of consent in my country is 16.
Are you so self entitled?
Who do you think you are?
> Just don't do a surprised Pikachu when people hate him and want him gone.
People are stupid.
I don't care what people think.
Nothing has been proven. It hasn't even entered a court of law yet. Yet here you are willing to accept any and all internet rumors. Aren't you a smart individual.
> But I don't want you to be fired because of it.
I absolutely would lose my job if I was holding a high leadership, PR position at my company for making idiotic statements. You would too.
> I don't care what people think.
There you go. No one cares about your sentiment. Literally I don't care about what it is you have to say at all. Why should anyone care about what YOU, some no-name internet user has to say. The fact of the matter is that people care about what high profile individuals think whether you agree with this or not (once again no one cares about your silly opinions). And someone spoke with their foot in their mouth. Is it technically wrong to state that more people die from medical errors than mass shootings as Neil Degrasse Tyson so eloquently put it? No it's not wrong. You and RMS are so insistent on being right that you can't even understand what context means. You guys are the type of people to get mad at the world and can't understand why you're hated by everyone. So by all means live this way. But no one else does. And don't whine because you're not liked.
And just for the record,
> But he's not a PR. He has never been.
is actually completely wrong. RMS by his own account hasn't written actual code in decades now. What does he actually do with his time on FSF besides go around and do talks? Nothing. What is that? Oh wait... it's literally PR for FSF's values. He does do some things now that I think about it. He writes his silly opinions on CSAIL mailing lists when many thought he wasn't even a part of CSAIL anymore. So he had that going for him as well.
Do you know the presumption of innocence principle?
> I absolutely would lose my job if I was holding a high leadership, PR position at my company for making idiotic statements. You would too.
I dare you try and lose at this game.
I can't lose my job, I live in a country where workers freedoms are protected.
Especially when expressing opinions as private citizens and not while doing their job.
You probably should learn a few things about what RMS stood for, even for a low standard country like the US.
> Why should anyone care about what YOU
For no reason.
In fact I'm ok with it.
You are crying that are tired.
> You guys are the type of people to get mad at the world and can't understand why you're hated by everyone
I really don't care.
I'm loved by the people I love, you, believe me, are less than dog shit to me.
And I'm quite sure it's reciprocal, and that's ok.
It is very saddening though to watch "you guys" still using this pathetic tactics...
This are things people use to say when they are kids, to try get under other people's skin and make them angry.
They don't work with functioning adults.
Are you sure you aren't the one everybody hates?
Looks like it's very important for you to be loved, you;re obsessed with it.
Have you talked with someone about it?
> RMS by his own account hasn't written actual code in decades
And Bosso hasn't played any music in ages, and Schumacher hasn't driven a race car in years.
Guess what? they can't anymore!
So what?
> So he had that going for him as well.
What makes you so sure you're not gonna be next?
> Oh wait... it's literally PR for FSF's values
He was founder and president of the FSF foundation.
He stood up for FSF values, because FSF values are HIS values.
He made them. they didn't exist before him.
He wasn't a PR, he was himself.
A PR is someone who works in public relations, he never did that.
So innocent until proven guilty? Oh wow aren't you the legal expert. You're taking Greg Benford's words at face value. Everything is still "he said, she said" and you don't know any more than I do. Yet you're willing to assume that someone simply cannot be guilty of any wrong doing based on pure speculation while calling it evidence. You're not some neutral balanced individual, so stop pretending.
> I can't lose my job, I live in a country where workers freedoms are protected.
This isn't a matter of freedom of speech being violated. Many Americans strongly support free speech compared to many European countries. But your speech obviously has consequences. If you're dumb enough to write things that can get you fired on an email to a large mailing list, then don't blame the world when people don't like it. And RMS didn't break the law. He won't be arrested or fined by the government. But yes employers or organizations can want him gone. Why don't you read what freedom of speech actually means.
> I really don't care.
I already wrote that I don't care about your opinions. So I'm just gonna not read the worthless part here. Congratulations on responding to me not caring about you with you not caring about what I care about. I applaud you.
> And Bosso hasn't played any music in ages, and Schumacher hasn't driven a race car in years.
I'm saying that RMS's previous contributions don't matter. Read between the lines.
> What makes you so sure you're not gonna be next?
You clearly don't understand what I am saying. Literally read what I write if you want to respond sensibly.
> He was founder and president of the FSF foundation.
Yes, and he was asked to resign and the FSF (it's not actually FSF Foundation so learn how acronyms work) will have a chance to live on. It's hilarious how you equate FSF with RMS. Yet the person who is apparently so important to the cause just got himself fired because he couldn't act more sensibly. I anticipate the FSF actually doing something meaningful now.
> He wasn't a PR, he was himself.
You're just saying semantics at this point. RMS had the most comfortable in the world. He went around the world on FSF dime from donations. He lived in a house that MIT provided for him because his old professor Gerald Sussman asked for it. He hasn't written actual software in decades. All he literally did was travel to give talks. If that's not PR, then what is it. I'm glad that fanboys like you exist all the way in Europe. Go start a GoFundMe for Richard Stallman. I anticipate he's not showering again.
It does matter that RMS, in a hypothetical defended the supposed actions in the way that he did.
And yes, I repeated myself many times to several people saying similar things with the intention of facing all of the threads with a similar challenge. So what?
Like... he wrote about it?
Many others did, nobody lost the job.
It must be horryfying to read someone else's opinion in 2019 America...
You're talking like Stallman is some kind of new Ted Bundy...
> And yes, I repeated myself many times to several people saying similar things with the intention of facing all of the threads with a similar challenge. So what?
are you sure you're not simply obsessed with it?
The thing with him is that people were just so frigging fed up and didn't know what to find to get rid of his ass. One day, he decided to write about the moral definition of rape, the next day he was out :D No need to be a Stallman-level genius to see what happened, he could finally be fired without all the frigging free software extremists yelling censorship... Stallman is now the SJW devil incarnate ahah
And I'm Italian, my grandfather was a partisan, I know what I'm talking about.
BTW, I am yelling, because what he said is perfectly reasonable, given the context.
Why would he be concerned with such details if not for defending Minsky? He is weird, and pendatic. But that we knew for a long time.
Some people do software, like Linus Torvalds, other linger for decades doing nothing and discuss the value of rape. Hope we'll hear less of his nonsense in the future.
So RMS is defending his deceased friend as though he was accused, it would have been more effective to question the accusation rather than to defend as though it had happened.
He said: The girl was most likely willing, and it's morally imprecise to call this a rape, at worst it would be a statutory rape.
Who gets respect, who gets fired ? :D
He very clearly did not say that, he said the girl was most likely presented to him as willing.
How is it you've made half a dozen posts in a thread about this without even bothering to read what you're commenting about?
Par for the course, ditto everybody else that did not bother to read the court transcript. It's 200+ pages but doublespaced, you can go over the whole thing in an hour or two, it makes you wonder how Epstein ever managed to avoid being jailed for a long time.
I'll bet that before this whole thing is over there will be many more 'names' that end up disgraced or worse.
Why do you feel compelled to paraphrase (and in the process lie)?
That's not what happened.