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0 pointsfreetime26y ago0 comments

Essentially Stallman takes issue with accusing Marvin Minsky of sexual assault because:

> The word "assaulting" presumes he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way.

And then Stallman goes on to point out there is no evidence to suggest that Minksy acted violently toward the victim, and may have been unaware that the victim had been coerced by Epstein.

Given that the definition of "assault" is "a physical attack", I can't really disagree with him from a purely semantic perspective. And I would agree that there are other terms terms such as "statutory rape" and "soliciting prostitution" that may better describe what Minsky is accused of.

Is it "shameful" for me to see some merit in his argument?

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kelnos6y ago

I think this is all missing the point. RMS may have been technically correct about what happened, but he chose to speak up at the wrong time, about the wrong topic, and derailed the conversation into a diversion that didn't add any value.

And to make matters worse, he tried to quibble about the definitions of "sexual assault" and "statutory rape", which is pretty insulting and hurtful to people who have been victims of those situations.

Now, I don't necessarily see that this should definitively add up to RMS being forced out of MIT and the FSF, but this, combined with decades of awful behavior around women and some pretty messed up attitudes around what he called "voluntary pedophilia", is an understandable camel's-back-breaking straw.

Frondo6y ago

It's a misapplied kind of pedantry anyway; he can quibble with what he thinks "assault" means but "sexual assault" has a legal definition.

It also confuses me to see people talk about stallman's language tricks as pedantry when he spends a lot of energy redefining terms or trying to pull out alternate meanings -- kind of the opposite of pedantry. Or a pedantry against his private dictionary.

freetime2OP6y ago

Sexual assault does not have “a” legal definition. It has many different and often conflicting legal definitions depending on which state you happen to be in. Things that might factor in would be the victim’s age, whether the defendant knew the victim’s age, the type of sexual act, etc.

Laws are notoriously complex (it’s why we have lawyers), and if you are going cite “a legal definition” that conflicts with the common definition of a word (e.g. assault), I think that carries a burden of actually citing the applicable law that was violated. But that’s simply not possible with in Minsky’s case as there are just not enough details in the deposition where he is named, and he was never formally charged with any crimes.

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concordDance6y ago

People really dislike a hate train/circle jerk/lynch mob being derailed by facts.

I greatly dislike the new emphasis on feelings and image over accuracy and truth that has entered the tech sector in the last decade or so.

^ not particularly directed at your comment, it just inspired the thought

pjc506y ago

Legally any form of touch can be considered assault in the wrong context. It doesn't have to "look violent".

(Check your local statutes!)

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