[badatshipping]

I've noticed that people who write posts like this like to quote their subject, and then go, oh my, how shocking! what an appalling thing to say! without addressing the thing that was said, which in this case was (among other things):

“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.”

He was responding to a student, who said "Giuffre was 17 at the time, this makes it rape in the Virgin Islands." He was addressing her specific point. He brought up the 17-18 thing because the student herself specified Giuffre's age as the condition of her being raped.

Like, if the student had said "Giuffre was raped because she was coerced against her will," that'd be different. But you can't yourself bring up the technical definition of rape to make your point, then get mad when other people point out that the technical definition makes no sense. If what you really want say is that rape is wrong because it's wrong, just say that!

Of course, the author cares about none of this, because what Stallman said was "problematic." What does that even mean, by the way? This whole post consists of the author repeatedly asserting that various things Stallman said were problematic without explaining why.

This brings me to my next point. Here's an article about "tact filters," a term describing how different people deal with the issue of tact:

http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html

People like Stallman don't get offended, so they assume other people won't either. People who do get offended try hard not to offend others, and expect the same courtesy. These two groups of people have difficulty getting along.

Neither point of view is invalid, in the sense that both sides get along extremely well with other people who are like them. But people with outward tact filters happen to be the majority, so Stallman gets seen as the bad guy. But I could imagine an alternative universe where inward-tact-filter nerds were the majority, and people like this author were expected to e.g. have the mental resilience to not let other people's words hijack her emotions.

So I guess I'm offended that people like Stallman are made to feel bad for being who they are, just because they're a minority.

[AndrewBissell]

Stallman seems quite "offended" on behalf of Minsky in his original email, so your whole thesis here that he is somehow blind to the moral considerations at play won't hunt.

What is shocking about Stallman's email is he apparently thinks it would absolve Minsky of guilt to simply assume that Virginia Roberts "willingly presented herself" to him for sex. But this is of course nonsense -- it's the exact set of conditions under which sex is forced on many trafficked victims who are handed off by some procurer. And of course no one really believes that Minsky didn't know the score; many try to defend him by saying, "but he was disturbed by her offer and didn't accept it!" That he continued to associate with Epstein after that, rather than immediately leave or offer help to Roberts and Epstein's other victims, says all there is to day about Minsky's character which Stallman feels so compelled to defend.

[badatshipping]

Did he try to absolve Minsky of guilt? I thought the thesis of his defense of Minsky was:

"Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism."

"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."

He's not wrong that "sexual assault" is used ambiguously to describe a wide range of behaviors, some worse than others. If a guy does something that's 7/10 bad, and everyone's saying it's 9/10 bad, what's the right way to point out that it was only 7/10 bad?

[AndrewBissell]

This is such an odd argument. No one kvetches over the meaning of "murder" because some are more brutal or premeditated than others.

[rumanator]

> This is such an odd argument. No one kvetches over the meaning of "murder" because some are more brutal or premeditated than others.

This assertion is patently wrong. Discussions whether an homicide constitutes murder (1st degree or felony) or manslaughter (voluntary or not) are plentiful.

[toast0]

Isn't that the whole point of manslaughter? Killing people is (usually) a crime, but it's not always murder.

[krapp]

>I'm offended that people like Stallman are made to feel bad for being who they are, just because they're a minority.

Richard Stallman is not a minority, either at MIT or in programming culture.

[badatshipping]

Fair point, but the expected norm in society, the one that posts like this draw from, centers around outward tact. Like, the whole moral injunction the author is trying to establish here is that he's saying tactless things.

[krapp]

The author might be offended by Stallman's lack of tact, but I don't think that's the "whole moral injunction." Rather, she places him as an exemplar of a culture that tolerates, if not celebrates, sexist and abusive behavior to the point of excusing and dismissing rape and sexual assault.

[AndrewBissell]

No, it's not about tact, it's about advocating a viewpoint which demonstrably enables child predators and instills justified feelings of fear in women working at institutions alongside Stallman.

[badatshipping]

That's my whole issue here. The author's post makes it sound like her problem is with his lack of tact. She complains about his "choice of words," about how it wasn't "appropriate" to send an email to undergrads, how "shocked" she is.

If the problem is that his viewpoint is morally reprehensible, why not just say that, and let's hear some arguments in that direction?

[krapp]

>If the problem is that his viewpoint is morally reprehensible, why not just say that, and let's hear some arguments in that direction?

I had no problem parsing that subtext from the article. I don't know why you didn't, maybe you just skimmed it?

[badatshipping]

I know she thinks that, but it's not what her post is about. She quotes Stallman, assumes the reader will agree that what he said was problematic, then spends the rest of the article discussing how we shouldn't tolerate problematic people.

[eesmith]

> People like Stallman don't get offended

What? Quoting Stallman himself at https://stallman.org/notes/2010-jan-apr.html :

"I have often felt offended by criticism of my views, but people have a right to criticize and even insult ideas they disagree with, so I learned to live with it and Muslims must learn it too. Nothing that people do or say is entitled to immunity from criticism — not even the Church of Emacs."

Also:

"The idea of charging people to use a toilet offends me so much that I absolutely refuse to use a pay toilet." - https://stallman.org/notes/2017-mar-jun.html

"I consider this just as offensive as barring women from seeing a film would be, or barring them from driving their children to school." - https://stallman.org/notes/2015-mar-jun.html

"I don't object to the existence of the song "God Bless America" although I find it insipid, and I love Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame despite its explicitly Catholic text and purpose--but I would take offense at the use of either one in an official context which implies government endorsement of the statements about religion." - https://stallman.org/notes/archive-2002.html

Or, he was offended when I refused to say "GNU/Linux".

Since he certainly does get offended, the rest of your comment doesn't seem to apply.

[badatshipping]

The article takes issue with Stallman commenting callously on a sensitive topic, having a view the author finds offensive, and directing those comments insensitively toward the wrong people. She never presents an argument why what he said was problematic. This makes me believe that regardless of the correctness of what he's saying, the mere fact that he's "defending" this side of the issue is itself offensive to her.

Suppose Stallman suddenly wanted to optimize himself to offend the author of this post as little as possible. Having a more correct point of view would hardly move his metrics. Having more tact would, drastically. That was my point in bringing up the tact article.

You're entirely right; everyone gets offended by something. I should've been more precise.

[eesmith]

> She never presents an argument why what he said was problematic

Okay, then I will.

Stallman states incorrectly that "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."

That is incorrect because "sexual assault", according to US law, means "any nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by Federal, tribal, or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent." - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/34/12291#a_27 (34 U.S. Code § 12291 (29)).

While the military has a different set of laws, I'll point to https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/920 as an example, because it's clear and easy to find:

  (b)Sexual Assault.—Any person subject to this chapter who—
    (1) commits a sexual act upon another person by—
      (A) threatening or placing that other person in fear;
      (B) making a fraudulent representation that the sexual
        act serves a professional purpose; or
      (C) inducing a belief by any artifice, pretense, or
        concealment that the person is another person

You can see that "force or violence" is not a requirement for sexual assault.

Similarly (again, this is from military law, but similar principles apply to civilians)

    (2) commits a sexual act upon another person—
     (A) without the consent of the other person; or
     (B) when the person knows or reasonably should
       know that the other person is asleep, unconscious,
       or otherwise unaware that the sexual act is occurring;

It's still sexual assault even if no force or violence is needed because the other person is unconscious.

In all of these, the key aspect is "consent", or rather, the lack of consent.

Many of Selam G.'s arguments are based on the legal concept of consent. For examples:

> then he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.

The law is that an enslaved child cannot consent to sex in this way, so cannot be regarded as being "entirely willing."

(As another example, an 11 year old student may be "entirely willing" to have sex with his/her 35 year old teacher - it's still illegal as the presumption is that proper consent cannot exist at that age and power relationship.)

Stallman attempts to justify this as: “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.”

As the topic is an accusation of sexual assault, which is a legal definition, and which seems to be correctly applied for this case, it is irrelevant to bring up a personal view that the law is wrong.

More problematic, we all know that hard age numbers like this have problems. What magic is there that I can buy beer in Canada at 18 but cross the border it's a problem?

But age is an attempt to make the law clear. If 17 is fine, why not 16? 13? 8? 2? Make it too young, and there cannot be consent.

Since Stallman doesn't seem to accept that concept of consent, can we assume that if Prof. X of MIT had sex with an "entirely willing" 5 year old, it would have been okay according to his morals?

I hope not! But the problematic part is Stallman never presents a valid argument why sexual assault is the wrong term, and the best reading I can make of his views is that he doesn't understand consent. Which is indeed problematic.

As an example, if someone notifies him that FSF organizer Foo sexually assaulted Bar by having sex with Bar while Bar was drunk and asleep, and who did not previously give consent, would Stallman respond that that wasn't assault, and not address the actual issue?

[claudiawerner]

>The law is that an enslaved child cannot consent to sex in this way, so cannot be regarded as being "entirely willing."

Stallman's defense of Minsky was that she appeared "entirely willing" to Minsky, probably on the orders of Epstein. He does not say at any point that she was "entirely willing" - only that Minsky was probably ignorant of the fact. Going from all the previously observed good character of Minsky to judge that probability is reasonable.

>As the topic is an accusation of sexual assault, which is a legal definition, and which seems to be correctly applied for this case, it is irrelevant to bring up a personal view that the law is wrong.

Why? He is making direct reference to the fact he thinks the law is problematic. He thinks it's morally absurd. It is very likely that you, too, have issues with the way certain laws are defined.

>Since Stallman doesn't seem to accept that concept of consent, can we assume that if Prof. X of MIT had sex with an "entirely willing" 5 year old, it would have been okay according to his morals?

No, because he specifically mentions the issue of being "whether the victim was 18 years old or 17" - at the very most you can draw from this that he views 17 years old as a more appropriate age of consent. Nowhere is he embarking on a "slippery slope" or "where do you draw the line?" or a gradient/heap of sand fallacy.

>by having sex with Bar while Bar was drunk and asleep, and who did not previously give consent, would Stallman respond that that wasn't assault, and not address the actual issue

Perhaps he would, though he would also most likely view it as a heinous act, just as he views the abuse of minors to be a heinous act.

[DanBC]

> just as he views the abuse of minors to be a heinous act.

Note that he only thinks that after people spoke to him. He hasn't always held this view.

[claudiawerner]

He said that he was skeptical of the claim that "voluntary pedophilia" (sloppy terminology on his part, ironically) harms children. There is nothing wrong with skepticism. That skepticism was later revoked. I was once skeptical of the idea that capitalism is inherently exploitative, and after having it explained to me, I am not any more.

[eesmith]

Is having sex with a 17 year old girl who an enslaved child subject to strict liability, in which case Minsky's views don't make a difference to the crime, or is it mens rea, where it can?

I don't know. Stallman doesn't address it. Hence, if he's really trying to change minds, he's doing a bad job of it. If he researched the issue - which I don't think he did - he would have known to cover issues like this before using 'appeared "entirely willing"', and qualified things appropriately.

> Why?

Because others have the personal view that it's sexual assault.

It's a very weak argument to say they are wrong, based on your views, when they can say that you are wrong based on their views.

The thing is, the current law backs their interpretation that this is sexual assault, or at the very least would be some some jurisdictions.

Hence, his personal view that it's absolutely unreasonable is bogus.

> at the very most you can draw from this

Correct. The point is, he doesn't offer any replacement viewpoint, other than "the current law is wrong." Therefore, it's very easy to interpret his statement as promoting sex with minors.

Which is what happened.

Anyone with a basic understanding of the issue would know this - to start with, in trying to understand why those laws exist in the first place, before making a claim that they are immoral. Then would need to show how the existing laws are actually immoral.

Stallman did not do that.

> Perhaps he would

The FSF is small enough that it doesn't fall under federal EEOC training requirements.

Does it fall under MA ones? Who is responsible for FSF EEOC training? Who can reprimand Stallman for violating EEOC laws regarding sexual harassment?

Has he had EEOC training? How often? Does he have enough understanding to be able to follow the relevant law, even if it doesn't believe it to be correct?

> just as he views the abuse of minors to be a heinous act

Sure. Now, what does he consider to be "abuse of minors"? Because apparently his definition doesn't include what the US VI law would now define as second degree rape.

As an example to show what I mean about the importance of knowing what "abuse" means, I could say that spousal abuse is wrong, yet reject the idea that raping my spouse is possible. The logic, which once held in the US, was that the wife's marriage contract was also consent to sex any time the wife wanted.

Or, "child abuse" is bad, but many in the US think that spanking a child is not abuse - though it is illegal in some countries.

Hence why it's useless to say that "abuse is bad" without knowing what counts as abuse.

[claudiawerner]

>I don't know. Stallman doesn't address it. Hence, if he's really trying to change minds, he's doing a bad job of it.

I agree, and after the media started to gather around his comments, he regretted that he did such a poor job of communicating.

>It's a very weak argument to say they are wrong, based on your views, when they can say that you are wrong based on their views.

Firstly, it is not as "absolute" as you make it sound. Nowhere does he actually use that word or imply that his moral judgements are handed down from heaven. He explicitly says "I think" - and as a moral claim, it only requires as much justification as our other moral claims, which all reduce to "ought", which cannot be gained from an "is". Your moral view is that all humans are of equal moral worth, your view is that murder is wrong, etc. - all of these reduce to matters of opinion which are difficult if not impossible to justify absolutely. Stallman, for one, does not appear to be a moral realist. If Stallman had proclaimed that he was actually a subscriber to the doctrine of moral error theory (perhaps even with good reason, say he read a paper on the doctrine which he found convincing), he wouldn't have to justify "That's morally wrong" any more than he'd have to justify "I don't like bananas".

>Correct. The point is, he doesn't offer any replacement viewpoint, other than "the current law is wrong." Therefore, it's very easy to interpret his statement as promoting sex with minors.

His statement is more than that, it claims (a) that the law is wrong (again from his point of view) that it is of consequence if the victim is 17 or 18, (b) that the law (perhaps globally) is wrong that whether this act in particular is permissible depends on the specific location of the act. Whatever misunderstanding comes about from these two points is only from reading more into what he said than what he actually expressed, a chain of inferences that build up until someone on HN can say that by the same logic he'd be OK with the rape of a five year old.

>Then would need to show how the existing laws are actually immoral.

It's immoral according to his system of morality. You don't have to listen to it, and he doesn't have to listen to yours. The law is a different matter.

>Now, what does he consider to be "abuse of minors"?

I did not put that part in quotes myself because he never uses that term, even so, I apologize for the misattribution on my part. He says,

"Since then, through personal conversations, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why."

That is to say, he thinks that "sex with a child" can harm them psychologically, and as such, "adults should not do that". Granted, this is not a comment on the law (there are many things we should not do which are not illegal), but they are comments on his moral system (by the use of "should" in this apparently non-instrumental sense).

[DanBC]

> He was responding to a student,

He is responding to say that this rape of children was not rape and it was not assault and it was not so bad after all.

Of course people are going to be upset if he interjects a "well, actually" to defend a child rapist.