You're spreading lies, whether or not you're aware of it.
The man has resigned (most likely being forced out) for being pedantic about an accusation about a 74 year old man, that allegedly - and in fact not at all, if the actual witness testimony is to be believed - had sex with a 17 year old prostitute. And that was in response to another e-mail that used that same technology forum to spread aforementioned accusation.
Regardless of what you think of RMS, and whether or not he got what he deserved considering the history of his past behavior, please do not spread misinformation.
Why are we blindly trusting witnesses who were on a billionaire's private island known (now and then) to be used as a sex club?
It's just as likely that the witnesses are lying as telling the truth.
Seriously. Go read the source material.
* Minsky went to Jeffrey Epstein's pedo island. * Everyone agrees he was offered a 17 year old girl * Someone else, who was also on pedo island for some reason, says he didn't take the offer, even though they were on pedo island * RMS described the trafficked child as "willing" * RMS has also made public arguments for legalizing pedophilia * People somehow still take RMS seriously
I see one wrong thing and one omission:
- The woman in question did not claim Minsky took the offer either. She only testified that she made the offer. There's an argument here that if Minsky had taken the offer, she would have said so.
- RMS did not describe the trafficked child as "willing". He said she presented herself to Minsky as willing, and suggested she might have been coerced by Epstein. I'll quote RMS here:
"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."
That RMS said "she was willing" is one of the two biggest lies the news headlines told about the situation (other being that he defended Epstein.)
I do not disagree with the rest of the statements you wrote (as quoted above).
That unbelievably loose semantics, especially considering this wasn't some random streetwalker at a bar. They were on an billionaire's island with a f'ing sex temple, for god's sake. And, I'll reiterate, this was a child being offered to a 74 year old man.
What I will concede is that RMS is the first person I wouldn't expect to understand any of the unspoken obviousnesses of the situation, such as being able to deduce, in the moment, why a child prostitute would be presenting herself as willing. Regardless, that doesn't cover how he used it at the time to excuse Minsky allegedly sleeping with her, because this supposed witness wasn't openly known. "He may have thought the child was willing" is about the most disgusting excuse imaginable.
But what upsets me most is that people jump to the defense of a 66 year man that does this, as if he shouldn't have learned by now how not to act like this, even with impairments. He has been allowed to be this way, because his horrid behavior is always defended by his fans.
> RMS is the first person I wouldn't expect to understand any of the unspoken obviousnesses of the situation, such as being able to deduce, in the moment, why a child prostitute would be presenting herself as willing
RMS did precisely that - showed the understanding by assuming the child was coerced. You seem to be actually arguing here that she was willing.
> Regardless, that doesn't cover how he used it at the time to excuse Minsky allegedly sleeping with her, because this supposed witness wasn't openly known.
He didn't excuse him. On the contrary, he assumed the accusations were true. Let me quote his own words:
> The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem. (See https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jef...) Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
He did not defend Minsky from accusation of having sex with a minor. He only wanted to make sure the accusation doesn't get inflated in public perception from "had sex" to "applied violence to have sex". That's literally all he wanted. Whether or not that was needlessly pedantic or inappropriate at the moment, it is strictly not true that he defended Minsky against accusation of sex.
Let me reiterate, even though RMS was as clear as humanly possible here - he was not defending the act of sleeping with that woman, he was only trying to stop the alleged sex being inflated into accusations of physical violence.
> people jump to the defense of a 66 year man that does this, as if he shouldn't have learned by now how not to act like this, even with impairments
You're assuming a lot. How about, people jumping to the defense of a person who has been subject of an Internet which hunt based on purposeful misinterpretation, later turned into explicit lies in the media headlines? Some people do not like RMS, but hate lies more.
Projection. Read that paragraph you quoted, specifically the words "in the moment". Nobody is arguing that Stallman didn't deduce she might have been coerced. His whole excuse is that Minsky wouldn't have been able to tell that in the moment, even though he was on f'ing sex trafficking island.
That a 17 year old offering to sleep with a 74 year old man on a billionaire's sex island was a victim of trafficking is not something that takes any bit of thoughtful reflection to figure out! It can be done in the moment by anyone with a conscience.
> He didn't excuse him.
Yes he did. "The 74 year old man might have thought the 17 year old on sex trafficking island was willing" is an excuse of the most disgusting type. Now you're making excuses for the excuser.
> Some people do not like RMS, but hate lies more.
You have proven no lies in my bulleted list.
Did he know, in that moment, he was on a sex trafficking island?
> That a 17 year old offering to sleep with a 74 year old man on a billionaire's sex island was a victim of trafficking is not something that takes any bit of thoughtful reflection to figure out!
Well, apparently Minsky may have figured that out, given that the witness testimony is that he turned the offer down.
Regardless, this is off topic anyway. What's on topic is that RMS did not excuse the accusations of sex, only the accusations of violence which the original accusations (to his impression) risked turning into.
> Now you're making excuses for the excuser.
No, I'm only repeatedly restating what RMS said in different forms in a vain hope that one of these restatements "clicks" with you.
> You have proven no lies in my bulleted list.
I believe I did prove one (note that I didn't accuse you of making it, just repeating it).
You know, this thread and the whole RMS story does make me worried about future of humanity. Great many people in the industry have revealed themselves to have no ability to read with comprehension, or parse clear English sentences. Now I see why people can't even agree about most basic facts in scientific issues like global warming - they read one thing, but in their minds, they read a different thing.
I have nothing more to add on this topic.
This "witness" also has zero bearing on anything Stallman wrote, as he was writing under the assumption that the accusation is true. Your continued use of it in defending Stallman denotes bad faith.
> ...RMS did not excuse the accusations of sex...
No, he only wrote a blog post saying that diddling kids should be legal. I can infer from that his thoughts on the Minsky situation.
> No, I'm only repeatedly restating what RMS said in different forms in a vain hope that one of these restatements "clicks" with you.
You're reiterating your interpretation as if it's valid. It is not, for all the aforementioned reasons.
Moreover, I don’t even like the idea of the GPL. Other licenses are better, but still suboptimal in regards to freedom. Real freedom is the public domain. In fact, all of my open source software is released under the public domain.
The French Revolution was most violent event of its time with many fractions fighting against each other and was followed by dictatorships.
People can still admire what he did back in the day, but you don't have to defend his views or his bullshit. Like Bobby Fischer, you can absolutely admire and study his past chess games, but he was a reprehensible human being.
Because he is genuinely a very smart person compared to most people decrying character flaws as something relevant to distance yourself from. In strict professional circles, this statement alone would have disqualified you already.