It is impossible to express how sad these events are... we had a new Socrates and we gave him the hemlock again, for reasons even more ridiculous than two thousand years ago.
>>Are you being sarcastic, or do you see the parent post as an attack on the concept of metaphor?
Given that the parent post has been substatially edited without comment after a reply was posted, it's a moot point to comment on the response sans original context.
had a new "Socrates" that defended a serial sex trafficker* and made those who worked around him extremely uncomfortable very often. Also as others have mentioned, he still had a very full career and is most likely still doing what he enjoys, just not in the same context or places as before.
edit: never directly defended Epstein, my error. this does not excuse his other behavior in any way.
You should read his actual emails, he never defended Epstein. Sites were just parroting what they read on a medium article written by someone with an axe to grind who'd never met RMS.
Stallman's "defense" of a serial sex trafficker (applogogies for the poor transcription, I just did some minor corrections to the OCR from vice):
"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin
Minsky:
deceased Al "pioneer" Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting
one of Epstein's victims
The injustice is in the word "assaulting". The term "sexual assault"
is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation:
taking claims that someone did and leading people to think of it as
Y, which is much worse than X.
The accusation quoted is a clear example of in?ation. The reference
reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein?s harem.
(See [URL that didn't make it through OCR])
Let's presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
The word "assaulting" presumes that he applied force or violence, in
some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing.
Only that they had sex.
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.
l've concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it
is absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation.
Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a
specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the
criticism.
" [0]
As an aside. as discussed in the thread, it is not clear if any first party even accused Minsky of engaging in the alleged sex in the first place
The entirely willing line again? The actual claim was that Epstein ordered them to appear willing. Not that they were willing, but that they were forced to appear that way to Epsteins guests. It was part of Stallmans defense of Minsky, who he thought had no knowledge of Epsteins crimes.
The media lynch is documented here: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ Stallman wrote: the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.
The Daily Beast re-contextualizes this as that she was, not presented as, willing. And the title includes "defended Epstein" and "victims", plural, both of which are entirely fabricated, and not reflected in Stallman's writings.
In short, The Daily Beast is lying to you, and half a month later has not bothered to clarify or correct their article. You should assume anything else they print is utterly unconcerned with the truth, and spun however they like. I can't begin to put my contempt for them into words.
Personally, I think the comparison to Socrates drinking the hemlock is probably a little dramatic for this scenario. Or at least a little bit idealistic on RMS and a little bit harsh on "us".
The Twitter bullies will be so happy and think it was their voice that made the difference. In truth, they are nothing without the antifreedom Twitter mods promoting their hate.
This is sad, but it was also bound to happen eventually. I went to one of his talks a few years ago, and what had been billed as a one hour talk dragged on for almost 2 1/2 hours. After the first hour, people were getting up and leaving. Whenever anyone did, he would call them out from the stage. It was very awkward.
While I believe strongly in Free Software, I think the movement would really benefit from a new more charismatic leader, someone from a younger generation. I hate to say that because RMS has given and sacrificed so much, but times have changed.
28 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 64.6 ms ] threadGiven that the parent post has been substatially edited without comment after a reply was posted, it's a moot point to comment on the response sans original context.
edit: never directly defended Epstein, my error. this does not excuse his other behavior in any way.
What? RMS never did any such thing.
Citation needed.
"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky:
The injustice is in the word "assaulting". The term "sexual assault" is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.The accusation quoted is a clear example of in?ation. The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein?s harem. (See [URL that didn't make it through OCR])
Let's presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
The word "assaulting" presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.
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.
l've concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation.
Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism. " [0]
As an aside. as discussed in the thread, it is not clear if any first party even accused Minsky of engaging in the alleged sex in the first place
[0] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
Try being less dishonest, you shameless sack of shit.
First of all, RMS was defending Minksy, not Epstein.
Second, he was saying the most likely scenario was that she presented to Minsky as willing.
All he was saying was that the person he knew, Minsky, was most likely oblivious to her being coerced by Epstein.
He never came to the defense of Epstein, the alleged trafficker, to the best of my knowledge.
The Daily Beast re-contextualizes this as that she was, not presented as, willing. And the title includes "defended Epstein" and "victims", plural, both of which are entirely fabricated, and not reflected in Stallman's writings.
In short, The Daily Beast is lying to you, and half a month later has not bothered to clarify or correct their article. You should assume anything else they print is utterly unconcerned with the truth, and spun however they like. I can't begin to put my contempt for them into words.
Though RMS certainly has his flaws, what the media has done here is very wrong.
[0] https://www.change.org/p/journalists-to-stop-the-persecution...
Judging by his website, he gets wrapped up in the whole world's biz. A stretch of RMS-time is probably long overdue.
While I believe strongly in Free Software, I think the movement would really benefit from a new more charismatic leader, someone from a younger generation. I hate to say that because RMS has given and sacrificed so much, but times have changed.
Most importantly, the top comment observes that it's somewhat likely this is fake.