> That is what “defending” means: he took objection to what Minsky allegedly did being accurately characterised as assault and a crime.

That "and" is pretty disingenuous here, turning the sentence from accurate to grossly misleading. RMS took objection to the act being characterized as assault. Not as crime. And the truth is, it does matter what crime was committed, not only that a crime was (allegedly, as it turns out). It would matter to you if your deceased friend was accused posthumously that their record is at least kept accurate, if it isn't straight.

Yeah but see, nobody cares. Stallman is not well paid by his students, some of which female, to hold sexual assaut position in his MIT functions. He could, for example, let judges decide what the definition of rape should be, that's what we all pay taxes for after all.

He can hold an opinion about the moral definition of rape, sure, but why express it so widely in a corporate environment, it blows my mind.

Is a university a good place to discuss things?

You’re talking about a man who was pedantic about language his entire life.

It’s not the same as a rapist saying “it wasn’t rape, she didn’t say no” especially since he wasn’t the implicated party.

In fact I don’t see him not stating it’s not a crime or not morally bankrupt by itself either.

Assaulted does carry a particular connotation does it not? Assaulted meaning, in the biblical sense: attacked.

> You’re talking about a man who was pedantic about language his entire life.

Thank you for reminding us of this. The man was a noted stickler for language. In fact many ppl only know him via the GNU/Linux interject meme.

The age of consent in a large part of the world (including a large part of the US) is 16. In Europe it goes down to 14, with some protections from abuse over those with power over the teen (e.g. teachers).

Some(?) European countries do legally differentiate between children and teens and that seems reasonable bases on what we know about biological and developmental differences.

I also regrettably used "child sex abuse" inaccurately before when referring to Epstein. This reflects the legal status in the US I believe, but paints the wrong picture of actual children instead of teens being harmed. It pays to be accurate, because discussions around this topic are completely hysterical as it is.

To be fair, I don’t think he said it wasn’t a crime. He simply didn’t think it equated to the same moral depravity as sexual (physical) assault, hence why he thought it should have a different term to describe it.

Not defending it, but characterizing his words correctly in context.

for it to be accurate you have to look into the laws of a given jurisdiction. If you take EU 17 is age of consent in all countries but Vatican and Malta with a significant portion being significantly lower.

> If you take EU 17 is age of consent in all countries

There is no age of consent in France. (However there are aggravating thresholds if there was a crime: under 18 if committed by someone with authority over the victim, under 15 for other cases.)