Comment by adrian_b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adrian_b | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

You should have said "due to his alleged bad behavior".

The allegations have been made after his death, when he could not defend himself and even those allegations do not contain the slightest evidence of "bad behavior" of Minsky, but only of Epstein:

"Virginia Giuffre testified in a 2015 deposition in her defamation lawsuit against Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell that Maxwell "directed" her to have sex with Minsky among others. There has been no allegation that sex between them took place nor a lawsuit against Minsky's estate. Minsky's widow, Gloria Rudisch, says that he could not have had sex with any of the women at Epstein's residences, as they were always together during all of the visits to Epstein's residences."

I have no idea which is the truth about Minsky, but I find it disgusting that when R. M. Stallman has published a correctly argumented defense for his dead friend, there have been great attempts to cancel him, even if there were no grounds to criticize this action. Sadly, there is no difference between the American "cancel culture" and the hunt for the "enemies of the working people" that happened in the universities of the countries from Eastern Europe after those countries became controlled by the Russians after WWII. Also there, it was typical that some unproved allegations of even minor "bad behavior" would result in the accused losing their academic jobs and being permitted for the rest of their lives to do only some menial work, for their "reeducation". When any friend had attempted to defend them against the false accusations, they would have had the same fate, exactly like in the case of Stallman.

And most people in eastern Europe seem to be 100% convinced that it does actually come from Russia, and any attempt to argue otherwise gets you labelled a "Russian"...

RMS's "correctly argumented defense" was that the underage women under Epstein's employ "presented themselves as entirely willing", so Minsky is in the clear because the accusations are moot. I would like to see your definition of "correct", and I hope you do not work in public relations.

You probably have not read the various texts written by Stallman about this subject, as the main arguments were different.

I have searched now for your quote, and it is extracted from a context where its meaning was different.

In that context, Stallman was replying to a newspaper article that had accused Minsky of "sexual assault" against an underage woman. Stallman was arguing that even if it were true that Minsky had intimate relationships with an underage woman, then the term "sexual assault" would still be inappropriate, because Epstein's employee must have presented herself, as instructed by her boss, "as entirely willing".

So this was not an argument about whether Minsky was guilty or not of something, but it was only an argument against a journalist using the hyperbolic term "sexual assault", without having any evidence backing it up.

As we now know, the newspaper article was even more baseless, because there has never been any evidence that Minsky had any relationship with an underage woman or that he knew that such a woman had received the suggestion to please him, among other eligible guests.

Stallman's position was right, because true sexual assault must be clearly distinguished of statutory rape, exactly like armed robbery must be clearly distinguished of fraud, even if all are crimes that must be punished. True sexual assault and armed robbery are felonies everywhere. On the other hand, whether something is statutory rape or fraud or it is not punishable, that depends on the jurisdiction, as the laws are very different from place to place.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com