Also, as far as I understood it. The latest thing was just the last straw.
So which "latest thing" was the last straw and how?
"The sign was probably there for decades"
How about "sorry for spreading misinformation"?
"So which "latest thing" was the last straw and how?"
So you did not read the medium blogpost that started this, at all?
By "stuff" I mean all the subsequent "revelations" about his character.
> So you did not read the medium blogpost that started this, at all?
So you meant the event where he tried to defend his deceased colleague? That "last straw"? How dare he.
"So you meant the event where he tried to defend his deceased colleague?"
Yes, that is what I mean. Because for some weird reason, women are sensitive to women being sexually exploited. And the Epstein topic is loaded.
It is not about that he defended him, it is about how.
And Epstein was convicted before.
"He was convicted of only these two crimes as part of a plea deal; federal officials had in fact identified 36 girls, some as young as 14 years old, whom Epstein had sexually abused"
Minsky did associate with him nevertheless. So whether there actually was sex or not ... if RMS says the most plausible sitution was that the women was "entirely willingly" .. is insensitive and stupid at least.
Because every sex abuser says the victim was willing. So if RMS uses then this exact argument, of course that triggers and backfires.
He didn't defend Epstein. Quite the opposite.
> Minsky did associate with him nevertheless.
Apparently, so did many, many other people. Very few of which have somehow been mentioned in this scandal.
Anyway, that is obviously reaching. Simply being in the vicinity of a known convict is not a reason for having a career destroyed. And Stallman himself wasn't there.
> is insensitive and stupid at least
Yes, well. It was. It doesn't mean that the following witch hunt was justified. People are entitled to being stupid somtimes.
> Because every sex abuser says the victim was willing.
Imagine yourself in a position where someone is saying your good friend of decades is a rapist. And there's some evidence that intercourse happened, but the details are unknown. And the friend is unable to defend himself. Would you keep silent?
The story is well known
The sign was there
And together with it there was an Amnesty International sticker.
So it really depends on what people want to see, more than what's really there.
I've seen much worse sign, like professors not receiving at their office even if they were required to, posting signs with the new address where you could find them (usually their private studio office)
And they only received if it was "really needed" otherwise you just sent an email and waited.
That's what made me really furious when I was a student.
Women were more concerned that they traveled 100kms from their home towns to meet the professor and talk about their thesis and finding their door shut, not of some stupid signs that was clearly a joke made by someone who wasn't a threat to anybody.
The real threat came from the polite, well dressed, highly educated, power angry monsters, those like Epstein.
Stallman is the exact opposite of that kind of men.
Stallman is the exact opposite of that kind of men."
But he defended someone who associated with Epstein and who had sex with an underage girl, he got from Epstein.
He did not.
I think it's time to cut with the BS!
- according to the sources Minsky never had sex with the girl, if you have proof of the contrary, please provide them
- Stallman was not defending Minsky, in fact he even assumed the sex happened, he was arguing against using the term "sexual assault" because its legal definition is very different from the everyday connotation
But I found something I think you might enjoy.
I found someone who probably nailed it
How about, if the old person would be mick jagger? I could imagine, he still has his charms to some. Also I have seen young attractive women aproaching old yoga gurus for example ..
But yeah, the old guy wasn't mick jagger, nor a yoga master and at best he did assume the girl was a 18+ old prostitue doing it willingly for money and power
p.s. the author of that comment is you
I also know that I have written, that I did not know many details about the case or the witch hunt in general as it was a witch hunt, in which both sides were wildly throwing accusations around and I found it hard to find actual facts. And that seemes to be still he case.
Now apparently I misunderstood the comment about the sign being tacked later on, but how do you know Minsky turned her down?
The details are not 100% clear at this point, but there's a testimonial: https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky#Epstein_interact...
The claim that the sign was attached to the door later (yours not intentional, but on other comments, I saw it like this)
The claim as a fact, that Minsky did not have sex with that girl.
When this remains unclear so far.
The girl is likely going to get out of the scandal unscathed, so in my personal opinion she deserves whatever scorn she has received.
And whether or not the sex happened, is probably irrelevant in the context of this discussion. After all, it wasn't public knowledge on Sep 12.
The woman who pointed out misogyny in her professional and educational environment should be scorned and attacked?
It's shockingly obvious from this thread how much work we have left on fixing the misogyny problem in tech.
And no, simply being an awkward nerd (whether that happened or not), or "being a creep" how some people called it, does not automatically mean being misogynystic. One has to be aggressive or malicious for that.
Why are you talking like this? I understand if you feel strongly about this, but personal snipes aren't cool, and don't feel nice to receive.
Do you believe that the women who have come out and said RMS' behavior made them uncomfortable feelings are invalid?
Because I feel like willful mislabeling things for emotional effect is what got us in this situation. Remember the contents of the original email: it was pointing out that "child rape" was not a good description of the event that supposedly took place (as it was thought at the time). And I happen to agree with that distinction, no matter how tone-deaf it might have sounded.
> I understand if you feel strongly about this, but personal snipes aren't cool, and don't feel nice to receive.
Please understand that you repeat an unfair accusation against a person that contributed quite a lot to our society. And who got hurt profusely by similar accusations already.
> Do you believe that the women who have come out and said RMS' behavior made them uncomfortable feelings are invalid?
Which women, though? I've only seen one personal account so far, and it accused him of staring at her cleavage for a while. Which is rude, of course, but by itself, as one instance, does not justify the whole shebang. Especially when you consider how many years him career spanned, and how many people he must have met during that time (where are all the others?).
The rest was a few rumors like "I heard people say things about him in my class of '95", which is very hard to verify, as well as apologize to someone. How old were you in 1995? I was 9.
From what I've seen, Richard is a polite guy, or at least tries to be, so if there were actual faces to go with the accusations, I'm pretty sure he'd write the apology himself.
No. It was more than that. Stop downplaying, if you want to be taken seriously. But I stop repeating myself.
Weird that you tell someone to buy a dictionary, and in the same sentence use an incorrect definition for misogyny.
He openly advocated against criminalization of pädophiles. That gets you the term pedo, even though not fair, it is playing with fire.
And if it was indeed a case rape, in the sense of exploitation of a minor by minsky, who felt the rush of lust, which the other sides asume, than he is a rape apologist, if he says the most likeley scenario is, that she presented her as "willing", as this is, like I said, the common rape defence.
But like I said, I allmost don't know any actual facts, except that the whole discussion was horrible, as most people did not know nor wanted to know facts, before judging.
If.
And was it "women" or "a woman"? Once? Maybe, like, 30-40 years ago? If happened, it was a shitty thing to do, but it shouldn't have any effect on a person's life decades later.
Maybe consider the whole span of his career before readily accepting 3-4 vague rumors as something really damning.
> He openly advocated against criminalization of pädophiles. That gets you the term pedo, even though not fair, it is playing with fire.
True. But that's been known for years. And stating one's opinion once on a personal blog is not a crime.
> But like I said, I allmost don't know any actual facts, except that the whole discussion was horrible, as most people did not know nor wanted to know facts, before judging.
It's unfair to conclude "everybody behaved badly" and shrug when only one side is paying the price.
Espesially since the choice to move the "discourse" to the social media plaforms (inhabited by very different people) has been made by the original accuser.
"he was arguing against using the term "sexual assault" because its legal definition is very different from the everyday connotation"
He did quite more than a semantic argument, by saying "more than willing"
Who said that and when?
"but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. "
Is the quote from EMS I mean. The one who started all this.
Yes, apparently some people have an extremely emotional reaction to seeing the word "willing" anywhere near the topic of sexual exploitation, but that's not a good enough reason to break out the torches full-on. Especially in an academic environment (where people are supposed to be able to think first).
The extra "revelations" post was also published on Sep 16.