"The original Remove Richard Stallman post contained leaked communications from a private mailing list. In it, the author quotes an email from Stallman where he explains that Marvin Minsky likely wouldn’t have known that the woman on Jeffrey Epstein’s island was coerced:
…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.
A paragraph later, the author summarizes Stallman’s view as:
…he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.
This is the opposite of what Stallman said, but this lie was repeated by the press. An article in the Daily Beast said:
Stallman wrote that “the most plausible scenario” for Giuffre’s accusations was that she was, in actuality, “entirely willing.”
An article in Vice spread the same lie:
Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked.
There are two possibilities here. Either the author of the Medium post was not capable of correctly parsing the sentence, or she didn’t care about truth and was leveling as many accusations as possible in the hope that one would stick. In other words: she is either foolish or malicious. The same goes for the writers of the Vice and Daily Beast articles. To describe what they did as journalism would be an insult to journalists."
"By satisfying the mob today, we are sacrificing our future. That’s the real risk."
So, in the end, RMS lecture in 2023 was cancelled because of a controversy that happened 2 years ago that since then has been solved?
IMO it just looks bad for EPFL if they decided to cancel the lecture based solely on this. If they knew about it, then why tell RMS he could hold a lecture only for them to cancel it on the last minute to bring back this topic again?
Exaggerating a bit but this is like inviting Linus Torvalds for a lecture, then cancelling it at the last minute because of his previous attitude towards the Linux git repository.
EDIT: I just read their response and they are boldly assuming that RMS would divert the topic from free software and open source during his lecture, which I find it very difficult to do so, unless asked, given what I know of his persona.
EPFL PhD student here. This lecture was organised, and then canceled, by a student association called CLIC, not by EPFL. Notice that the linked website is not EPFL's
It was organized by Ynternet [1]. CLIC, I'm guessing, was mainly used for logistics, which is why their withdrawal ultimately pulled the rug from under everyone.
You’re right, that is a misquote. But what he actually wrote honestly wasn’t that much better.
The problem with a lot of these sorts things is intentionally making yourself blind to the emotional impact, pretending not to know, when some part of you does understand what you’re doing.
It’s all just plausible deniability. We get it quite clearly, we don’t need it explained to us.
You might say this is tone policing but he’s a prominent leader of the open source movement. What he says matters.
> You’re right, that is a misquote. But what he actually wrote honestly wasn’t that much better.
“Much better” in what sense? I think Minsky is guilty because using sex workers is categorically immoral. But most on HN don’t agree with me, and think that it would’ve been no problem had Virginia Giuffre been 18 and willing. In that case, doesn’t Minsky’s moral culpability turn on whether he knew Giuffre was 17 and unwilling rather than 18 and willing?
I honestly gotta ask. Why is it that half the planet commenting on young sex with very strong, very critical opinions, keeps confusing the age of consent with the age you're allowed to vote?
On 99% of the planet, if a 17yo acts like, and is willing to screw your brains out, you're good to go and quite legal. In fact, same for a 16yo. In fact, on half the planet including a large portion stateside, that works for 15 too.
The fact that you bring up morals here is very telling. Sex is not some magical scary thing that's worse than murder, and should stay hidden and never talked about. It's... just sex. It doesn't matter if there is a power imbalance - women find powerful men attractive. The power imbalance can't be used at work on a screw me or get fired basis, but it can be used in "I'm powerful and that scores me points with you."
Now if someone is a hooker and under 18, but you're not hiring the hooker nor know she is a hooker, guess what... You did nothing wrong, neither did the hooker, nor is sex work "immoral." The guy the hooker works for did something wrong and... died for it. All is well, undersexed people need to stop poking their nose in other people's assholes.
American culture, including Puritanism, being exported worldwide since the 1980s, first through Hollywood and then through tech.
You will not find a less Puritanical view of the matter on a forum composed of mostly people from the US or deeply embedded within its culture, like many software engineers are.
For US and tech, sex talk and sexual freedom is a concept best avoided. You'll find more people arguing against gun control than arguing in favour of sex work or that age of consent is an arbitrary, cultural limit, not a hard one.
EPFL being an scientific organisation with international reach is influenced by this US cultural effect, and in general Switzerland is culturally more prude than its neighbours.
Rayiner is from Bangladesh originally, not the USA. You may be surprised to learn that the USA is by no means the culture with the strictest rules about sex and prostitution.
EPFL PhD student here. Please note that the linked website is not EPFL's. The lecture was organised and then canceled by a student association called CLIC
I love how you make up this fake scenario in your head where the guy is threatening the woman with his power. Yes, the scenario where a powerful guy is threatening the little girl is unsexy. Good thing the only brain conflating the article and discussion thread with this little world you've created in your head, is the person who created this little world in your head.
The guy was on an island with a horny 17yo who was all over him. He wasn't threatening anyone. Now maybe the owner of the island was - and that guy went to jail and died.
Now the real question is, why would you run over a puppy with your car? You see, if running the puppy over with your car is wrong, then I'm right.
This is so true. The "morality" when it comes to sex, is thinly disguised religious dogma, that has been passed down the generations unquestioned. A 17 year old is absolutely capable of consent. However I feel if she has been manipulated in any way then it should be illegal.
It's quite the opposite. Religious dogma is quite comfortable with young women marrying old men and sleeping with them.
It is modern morality with out better understanding of psychology and brain development that lead many people to believe that sex in extreme age differences and extreme power imbalances is fraught. And in many cases, immoral. Regardless of whether the young person is a day under or a day over the "age of consent".
I would posit that cases where a 17 year old is sleeping with a 55 year old and it is NOT due to some form of coercion, are extremely rare.
> I would posit that cases where a 17 year old is sleeping with a 55 year old and it is NOT due to some form of coercion, are extremely rare.
Only if you assume that for some reason minors are pure and always operate rationally and "morally", thus it is just impossible that a 17 year old has decided that, yes, they want to have sex with a much older person. And somehow when they turn 18 their brain completely reconfigures.
Because I've been 17, I've had friends that age that wanted to do just that by their own accord, and some that have gone through that fantasy, without being coerced whatsoever. It's a bit weird, not really my cup of tea, but I know what being a horny teenager feels like.
While I am strongly in favour of 18 being the arbitrary threshold of consent, we as society need to remember that teenagers become sexual beings much earlier than 18 years old. It's simple biology, and I wonder if many of these "prudes" have lived a weirdly sheltered childhood and have not experienced normal sexual development.
Then you need to leave Alabama, where the 17yo marries the 55yo first, and go to a nightclub in half the European and most of the Asian countries, pick up a 17yo, and do her in the bathroom. You won't succeed the first night. If you're overweight you won't succeed at all. But if you're a decently aged 55yo who looks good but old, and takes care of his appearance and is a fun person to hang with, you will succeed the second night.
So "posit" what you like, the rest of us live in the real world where 17yo girls at a nightclub are crazy, rebellious, and very horny.
You do need to be able to dance well, you need to pay the bill for the whole table, and you need to be fun. That's what going out is for, that's why people are there.
Me, I'm old and married now but not a karaoke trip to Cyprus goes without some 17yo trying and repeatedly failing to go back to my hotel despite the ring. That's because this old dude can sing sensitive french ballads, rap-up some jay-z, or dance well while singing k-pop reading native hangul. If that doesn't work, I'll do a russian song w/o an accent, and we all know those girls are easy. I'm fun, I'm not fat, and that's all it takes.
That 17yo btw. That's probably your daughter, and the more you lock her in to a repressed life, the more she'll shack up with guys like me. Choo-choo!
In most of the world prostitution is either legal or tolerated and not really looked down upon. You might be right that it is an opinion, but you're wrong that it is not held by the majority globally. Most people throughout the world would agree with the person you're responding to.
Prostitution is illegal throughout Asia, which has a plurality of the world’s population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Asia. Even in places where it is legal or semi-legal, it is an unspeakably grave moral offense. For example it’s legal in Bangladesh, where I’m from. But that’s because it’s viewed as a last resort for desperate women who have no families in a country that has no social safety net. Prostitutes are outcasts from the rest of society.
That they are outcasts is just surface level societal judgment and not at all addressing what actually occurs in the society nor how perverted people actually are in it, despite you insisting otherwise up and down this thread
> The fact that you bring up morals here is very telling.
Do you not have them?
> Sex is not some magical scary thing
Clearly that’s not true—virtually every society treats sexual assault as a far worse crime than the equivalent physical assault. In the “Me Too!” era, words about sex can get you fired and blacklisted in ways similarly offensive words about other subjects won’t. And that makes sense as a matter of science. Sex is how humans procreate. Women’s power over mate selection plays a critical role in ensuring fitness of the species. It’s totally unsurprising, therefore, that we have developed myriad social mechanisms to reinforce women’s power over mate selection.
All woman I know don't give a f about 'powerful men'.
And while I think sex work should be allowed and legal, there needs to be a mechanism which makes it much much harder to coheres someone into doing sex work who actually doesn't want to do it but has no better option.
You know the people who do sex work because there is no other option. The kids! Who do this because of there parents .
People who do this due to pressure. People don't even go to the police if they are aware that a priest was molesting a child! People were not telling CK of who was mastorbating in the office!
And don't think most girls in Thailand like their jobs. They got used to.
What any documentation about prostitutes. They accept what they do. Seldom have I seen anyone saying 'oh I love my job's the opposite is true.
We take dreams from people because we can.
Even normal woman have so much pressure alone going out of the house without makeup.
Or having to have sex.
Most people are not as oversexed as you. Stop projecting.
That's not the dichotomy. It's whether or not she was coerced, and there's a presumption of coercion with minors. It's still wrong if she's 18 and being trafficked.
You're a middle aged man on a private island and a teenage girl suddenly wants to have sex with you. Is this natural or a cause for concern?
Pretty clear choice here, and pretty clear how many people here are taking the other side while trying to obscure that they know exactly what they're actually standing up for.
RMS comments are so egregious exactly because "she acted like she wanted it" is not an excuse for such situations that involve such a gross imbalance of age and power.
If you do not see that plainly you have some hard thinking to do about who you are and just what you want to do.
> You're a middle aged man on a private island and a teenage girl suddenly wants to have sex with you. Is this natural or a cause for concern?
Many people are comfortable and support prostitution. I don’t morally support prostitution but won’t condemn others for consuming prostitution where the sex workers was compelled or morally harmed in doing her work (eg, human traficked, blackmail, unfair revenue share, underage, etc etc).
Obviously if you’re on an island and some teenage girl wants to have sex with an old man, something is up. But it’s not beyond imagination that the answer is prostitution and not only explained by compelled, unwilling human trafficking.
But I feel like we spend too much time circling here. RMS was just commenting on logical explanations for what has happened. I’m not trying to judge Minsky’s actions but RMS’s quote where he did not say that Guiffre was willing and “sources” misquote the mailing list.
To me, it seems RMS is clearly saying that Minsky thought that Guiffre was willing, not that she actually was. RMS was saying that Guiffre was likely instructed to pretend to be willing, not that she actually was. The language isn’t confusing or obtuse, it’s just quotes incorrectly.
I think if someone is misquoting they are dull or have ill intent. I don’t think it’s right to misquote to support your point. It’s wrong and wastes time correcting the quote rather than arguing the point.
If someone wants to argue Minsky was wrong to sleep with a 17 year old, then do so. But conflating RMS with Minsky’s actions, especially years afterwards is a separate issue. Id expect more from programmers and logical thinkers working to build and promote the use of free/open source software.
Even if I accept the premise that sex work is categorically immoral, which is an interesting position and maybe even the right one for society.
The situation that Minsky found himself in was not one where he knew that Virginia was a sex worker nor one where he was paying her or having her paid by proxy. The situation was one where he was approached by her and she acted interested in him.
I suppose you could argue that he is morally guilty of sex outside the marriage or cheating(don't know if he was married or not).
17 is legal all over the US - I don't really think you are grasping the issue with Epstein, his island, the victims, and the gentleman he invited there.
Morality is a cultural construct, that radically changes over time. Whoever thinks otherwise is simply ignorant there is a wider world outside their reality bubble.
It’s not in the sense that it’s currently legal in every US state to have sex with teenagers (18 and 19). So I don’t think it’s a categorical dilemma in that the entire US legally allows it. And laws are based on morals, etc etc.
And then there are states and countries with even lower legal ages.
Just because I think it’s skeevy, doesn’t mean society is settled on it.
Take a look at strip clubs and professional porn and you’ll find tons of 18 year olds being salivated on by middle aged men (and I suppose middle aged people of all genders, but mostly men).
I recently read the bio of sex actress Sasha Grey who started making porn days after her 18th birthday and won industry awards and Hollywood fame as a teenager.
If you are a 40 year old man with substantial financial power, and you're on a private island where a teenager suddenly wants to have sex with you, that throws an entire universe of red flags. It may not be illegal, but it would absolutely be the basis for me to cut someone out of my life, and I'm disappointed the galaxy brain libertarians here don't see what's obviously problematic about it.
> You’re right, that is a misquote. But what he actually wrote honestly wasn’t that much better
Agree. Broadly speaking, if someone is accused of a moral crime about which you have no privileged information, publicly hypothesizing about how they might be innocent is tantamount to a defence.
It's a limit on free speech. And in private circles, it could be debated responsibly. But when stated publicly, the argument's components of character defense and appeal to rationality are confusingly (possibly inextricably) balanced, which should be obvious ex ante.
> Broadly speaking, if someone is accused of a moral crime about which you have no privileged information, publicly hypothesizing about how they might be innocent is tantamount to a defence.
What ??? How ??? Are we supposed to assume that every accusation we hear about is true, and everyone is guilty until proven innocent?
This is especially ridiculous in the US where nearly every rich person can be expected to get sued about anything because it's common to hand out hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in settlements to avoid publicity before the case even reaches court.
> Are we supposed to assume that every accusation we hear about is true, and everyone is guilty until proven innocent
No. Not publicly* commenting on an accusation is very different from blindly accepting it. (Note the caveats: moral crime and your having no new information.)
* I recognise he made these comments on a “private” mailing list, but I have to assume someone like RMS understands the futility of trying to keep a mailing list of all things private.
So, you think this statement should not be made publicly but also not in private since a private statement is just a public statement yet to be leaked? Bollocks.
> you think this statement should not be made publicly but also not in private since a private statement is just a public statement yet to be leaked
I think it’s fair to discuss with people you trust. A mailing list between friends could be that. But I know of no reasonable expectation of privacy on anything referred to as a mailing list. (If you don’t know everyone on the list, it may be confidential, but it isn’t a personal conversation.)
> And in private circles, it could be debated responsibly.
To quote the original comment in this thread: ""The original Remove Richard Stallman post contained leaked communications from a private mailing list."
csail-related really wasn't all that private. Anybody at MIT could add themselves to it (and perhaps could add others to it) and many undergraduates did just to see Stallman make the comments he did. (Long before this scandal, he had several amusing habits and mannerisms on this particular list.) It wasn't exactly public, but it wasn't really private either. And there had been prior scandals from it that had been made public ("a mailing list" in this article but I remember it happening on csail-related): https://thetech.com/2017/04/20/egg-donor-advert
"the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing" means that "most likely she told Minsky that she was entirely willing [and not being coerced, and Minsky didn't doubt that]".
I can't see any other intepretation of the statement. Whether that's a reasonable things to expect from Minsky (or whether we want to hypothesize at all on what happened) it's up for debate, but the formulation doesn't seem ambiguous.
> he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.
I think the real problem is that the journalist lacks the moral vocabulary to explain why RMS and Minsky are both wrong, and must resort to nonsensical legalisms. Virginia Giuffre was 17 when this happened, making her, in the words of the author, “an enslaved child.” But according to sex-positive feminism a mere year later she could’ve be an empowered sex worker. Under that logic, whether Minsky could tell the difference between those is dispositive of his moral culpability. And of course that’s ridiculous.
The real explanation is that a 17 year old is a child and cannot meaningfully consent to sex with a 73 year old man. Nor can an 18 year old. Or a 21 year old. It’s inherently coercive and wrong. And Minsky sure as hell knew that Giuffre was young and not on equal footing with himself.
Why does the age of consent just keep going up? How long before we have laws regulating age gaps for full grown adults? At what age does a person get entrusted by the All Knowing Democratic State to make all their own personal decisions for themselves?
Maybe the real explanation is that the age is arbitrary, a 17 year old is most likely as capable as an 18 year old of making these decisions, is not a child, and that the word "coercion" here applies because she was isolated on an island by someone who traffics in human beings for the express purpose of trafficking her. Of course this position is unfashionable, but it has the miraculous benefit of identifying it as enslavement even if the woman had been 50, as well as allowing people to make their own personal decisions without infantilizing them.
Human brains aren’t fully developed until the mid-20s. Historically, people got married and had sex long before that, but those relationships were arranged by family that at least in theory was supposed to make good decisions for the young person. As society has moved to an individualistic model, where adults are taken out of the loop, it makes sense that the age of consent would go up.
> Maybe the real explanation is that the age is arbitrary, a 17 year old is most likely as capable as an 18 year old of making these decisions, is not a child, and that the word "coercion" here applies because she was isolated on an island by someone who traffics in human beings for the express purpose of trafficking her.
That doesn’t address the author’s apparent view that Minsky is morally culpable and so is RMS by defending him. You can disagree with that view, but it’s worth trying to understand why many people would think Minsky did something wrong whether or not he knew about Giuffre’s specific situation.
Also, your logic is circular. “Trafficking” is a legal term that applies here because the women were under 18.
By this reasoning a 21-year old also cannot consent to sex with another 21-year old, or indeed, can consent to anything else. You're correct that human brains aren't fully developed until the age of 25 or so, but that doesn't mean humans are blubbering morons who can't consent to anything before that age.
Also it's not at all established that anything actually happened with Minsky; from the testimony it's only clear that she "was directed" to have sex with Minsky, but not that any sexual activity took place. Given that she was clear about this in other cases, it seems that nothing happened.
“Section 1591 covers sex trafficking for both children and adults. This provision, however, applies to trafficking in adults aged 18 or older for commercial sex acts only if done by actual or threatened force, fraud, or coercion. The use of force, fraud, or coercion is not necessary for criminal liability to attach when the victim is under 18 years of age.”
“Coercion” is defined to mean threats of physical harm or physical restraint, or threats of abuse of legal process.
Epstein was charged with sex trafficking of minors, so the government didn’t need to prove the “force, fraud, or coercion” element. For her part, Giuffre’s primary allegation is that she was “groomed” while she was underage.
Is it established that Minsky did, in fact, have sex with Giuffre? She said so in her deposition, and said it would have been on the island. But Minsky's wife said that was impossible because they were always together.
She said Epstein "directed her" to have sex with Minsky, but if I'm reading this right she didn't say she actually did have sex with him; copying from Wikipedia: "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."
In [1] it says "she was forced to have sex with MIT professor Marvin Minsky", but if you read the actual records that's based on then it's very vague and unclear if she was only "directed" and it never happened, or if it did.
This makes it quite different from Prince Andrew for example, where she stated she did have sex with him in clear terms.
> a 17 year old is a child and cannot meaningfully consent
Careful with broad assumptions.
That's not true in most European countries, for example.
> And Minsky sure as hell knew that Giuffre was young and not on equal footing with himself.
So what?
Madonna is only dating guys that are at least 30 years younger than she is.
Anyway, sex between Minsky and Giuffre was never proved and, most of all, what Stallman said has nothing to do with it, he simply said that if someone send a girl to have sex with you, she's gonna act as willing and will probably lie about her age. Ans that it is pretty ridiculous that at 17 years + 364 days you're considered a child, but they day after you are free to become a sex worker. People should not jump from being kids to adulthood just because the law says so, they should go through different phases of increasing responsibilities and agency.
At my age it's difficult for me to tell 17 years old people and 27 years old people apart They look the same to me. A few times I've asked aren't you too young to drink/smoke? and they were over 25 and got pretty offended by my question.
We talk about inclusivity here all the time, but what about being inclusive of neuroatypical folks who have quirks that don't come off as being polished and PC in current social code du jour?
This all so so grates on me because it means we are wasting all this time and energy on things that don't matter all the while the real monsters of society go unchecked because with their psychopathic streak they know how to play a convincing PC game on the outside while committing real atrocities.
The thought-leader of the FSF might be socially awkward, but no, people, he is not the great Public Enemy No. 1 some people are making him out to be.
There is nothing about neurodiversity that requires tolerating apologetics for peadophilia.
As a child sexual abuse victim myself I assure you, this matters far far more than RMS making another one of his stump speeches.
He played an important role in software yes. He also burned his reputation purely through his own choices and convictions, not any mental condition. He can fade away and the computing world will be just fine.
My understanding is that he has been misquoted (as OP explained), and anytime he did attempt to make a "defense" for Minsky it was all full of "Yeah technically" in the way that autistic folks tend to process things. The only problematic thing he said, to my knowledge, he recanted and then explained he learned better after engaging with sexual abuse victims to learn more of their experiences. It's hard for me to see autistic people as actual predators, because in my experiences they are almost always the victims who have their intents and words mischaracterized and misconstrued for a dozen and more reasons.
> If that's true, then you can write informatively rather than with hand-waving.
He is neuro-atypical in some not-well-defined way. His behavior is perceived as anti-social by the typical person who interacts with him. He's pushy, abrasive, and doesn't follow American mainstream social norms.
He also has real enemies (douchebags like ESR who tried to steal credit for his work), who up-play this. You'll see attacks on TMI or personal hygiene.
He's also brilliant, devoted his life to making the world a better place, and was largely successful.
Then condemn him for the things he actually said or did (and I agree, there are valid reasons to distance oneself from him), not on account of misinformation.
While i agree in principle, in practise it is very human nature that once someone does enouh questionable things people will stop rushing to that person's defense, and it starts to matter much less if the current thing is true. It is sort of reverse boy who cried wolf.
"By satisfying the mob today, we are sacrificing our future. That’s the real risk."
https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/09/30/in-defense-of-richard-stal...