[Discuss] RMS

[Derek Martin]

On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 07:54:52AM -0400, Rich Pieri wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 23:50:12 -0400
> John Abreau <abreauj at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Of course, if Stallman was assuming Minsky did indeed sleep with the
> > victim, then Benford's testimony doesn't count in Stallman's favor.
> > In that case, Stallman's remarks could be considered creepy, but
> > Minsky's turning down the victim's approach would not be creepy.
> 
> This. Here is what RMS wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> This is RMS presuming that Minsky did have sex with Giuffre. Then he
> explains why, if this really happened, it was not rape or sexual
> assault.

No, that's not what he said.  He said, quoting from the thread:

    We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex--by Epstein.  She
    was being harmed.  But the details do affect whether, and to what
    extend, Minsky was responsible for that.

And the part you are referring to:

    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.

I can not see how, unless you suck at reading English, you can
interpret this any way other than that he takes issue with the term
"sexual assault" PRECISELY because it is NOT "clearly defined."  It
instead refers (as I previously said) to multiple different behaviors
that all carry the same label, but which are not at all the same
crime.  His issue is that the legal DEFINITIONS, plural, do not all
conform to the ENGLISH definition of the word "assault" and hence
attach a level of negativity that is inflated compared to the lay
understanding associated with the term "sexual assault."  He insists
that due to this conflation, accusations should be explicit in what
they are accusing.

What part of this is in any way not clear?

> Now substitute Epstein for Minsky in RMS' rhetoric and see what you get.

He clearly did not do that.  The first bit I quoted makes that clear.
I have elsewhere seen that he has called Epstien a serial rapist.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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