TACKER: chance (Chance Platt)
SUBJECT: .. RMS Character Asassination
DATE: 27-Mar-21 18:03:45
HOST: iceland
Ok, this is all really interesting to me!
But - mostly - I just don't know RMS personally. I never met him. When all
this went down initially, in his emailed defense of Minsky in the Epstein
bru-haha, the "entirely willing" phrase got a lot of air.
As I'm writing this, almost my opinion of this is changing.
Stallman was writing to defend Minsky against having sex with a minor. The
"entirely willing" phrase is in the context of that defense. Clearly, RMS
was defending a position. He wasn't taking into consideration the context
of sex with children. Is sex with children ever alright?
So the question becomes - it is ever okay to interject yourself in a
controversial subject in that way? And the answer, I think, is no. Stallman
I think should have had the foresight to think, "you know, maybe defending
Minsky isn't the best idea, sex with underage children is bad". He puts
words to that effect; whether or not they're technically true is
irrelevant. Sometimes it is in your interest to stay silent.
If a minor presents themselves to an adult, ANY adult should have the
wherewithal to think and act in a healthy way. A heatlhy interaction first
would have been that there's clearly an age difference, is this ever
alright? Second thought is, what literally is this person's age? And then
sort things out from there.
If Stallman had just said, "I was close to Minsky, and I think he would
have made the heatlhy choice given the circumstances" - that would have
been fine, issue over. His defense, laid out.
Stallman defending Minsky in the way he did shows that he valued the
feelings, developmental stage, and rights of the child less than defending
his friend. It isn't a good look.
However --- whatever MY feelings on this are; I'm just a rando on the
Internet --- I have never, ever met RMS. I don't know the context of where
this came from, or any of the actors. What I have read written online also
is devoid mostly of all context. It's difficult to recreate a twenty or
thirty year relationship in a few minutes.
That's where this gets interesting. RMS is sort of one of the earliest
people to have hugs chunks of their reasoning and interactions recorded in
various ways electronically, online. He's kind of a pioneer into the
current Facebook and Instagram generation. He arguably has had more of
social interactions recorded online - forever for anyone to see - that
anyone else in history. Also, he's historically relevant in creating those
said tools. The joke artwork he had posted on his site (at least a few
years ago) of his portrait in the form of a saint - is sort of right. He's
a huge presence in nerd-culture, and every word had been read, re-read,
written about, stressed about.
I have this HUGE feeling if I ever met him at MIT, I might think he was
weird. But then, think he was actually alright.
He got caught, defending a close friend who has since passed, against
accusations of having sex with a child. Has RMS ever had sex with a minor?
Ever raped someone? Hell, like Louis CK - did he ask women lower in his
organization to watch him jerk off? I mean, RMS seems like the most nerdy,
keyboard-culture guy out there. Isn't that totally benign?
That open letter - supporting RMS's removal from leadership positions - it
doesn't actually include Debian or Ubuntu as whole organizations. But it
DOES include a couple of heroes of mine - Matthew Garrett, and Stefano
Zacchiroli.
I'm really mixed on this whole thing. It's almost like, should I have ever
been interested in the whole free-software thing, because these people,
collectively and possibly objectively, are NUTS. Life has more important
things to spend my energy on.
这根本就没在讨论 “sex with children is alright”，也没有在维护 Minsky
类比一下，打人和杀人都是犯法，但并能说打人就等于杀人，A说“根据新闻报道，X可能没有杀人”，然后 B 过来说，“打人也是犯法啊，你是在维护打人者吗？”（He wasn’t taking into consideration the context of sex with children. Is sex with children ever alright?）。更有甚者，说“你是在维护杀人犯”（说 rms 在维护 Epstein 的人）。
The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky:
“deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one
of Epstein’s victims [2])”
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 X and leading people to think of it
as Y, which is much worse than X.
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-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed.)
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.
I’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.
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.
I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.