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by koonsolo 1907 days ago
As a leader you indeed need to protect people, and when someone is accused of "assault", I think it's OK to put things in perspective. He gave a clear objective description of the situation, and nobody can claim his observations were wrong. Remember that the accusation was "assault", and I agree with Stallman that this was too harsh given the circumstances.

I want my leaders to stand up for reality. If you prefer your leaders to be "think about the children", then that's up to you.
1 comments
Latty 1907 days ago
You can absolutely claim he was wrong, we are talking about a case where it was assault. A minor can't consent under the law. Claiming it was consensual is an excuse that the laws specifically says does not hold because it abusers will always say that, and the responsibility is on adults not to have sex with them. It doesn't matter if there was consent given or not, the person committed assault because the society chooses to have a rule where that is the crime when the other person is a minor. Either way, minors were harmed because it allows abusers opportunity.

Refusing to enforce that rule is absolutely wrong, and it is disqualifying for a leadership position. You are now using "Think of the children" as a thought terminating cliche in reverse, where any attempt to protect minors is unreasonable.

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nojokes 1906 days ago
The world you are looking for is "abuse". Abusers (your wording) abuse, they do not assault (when they do, then they become an assaulter).

What Marvin Minsky did in that situation was to abuse this 17 year old girl. What he did was morally (and most likely also legally, I do not know the full details) wrong but as far as we know, he was not violent or forcing.

That is the important difference Richard Stallman tried to make.

What Marvin Minsky did was wrong but we should not accuse him in something he did not commit.

The same goes with manslaughter and murder.

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Andrew_nenakhov 1906 days ago
> What Marvin Minsky did in that situation

* - what he allegedly did in that situation. This claim is disputed and was never proven.

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koonsolo 1906 days ago
Ah yes, I thought I read that somewhere. Which makes this whole witch hunt even more absurd.
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koonsolo 1906 days ago
Seems like at this point, both of us are not fit for leadership ;)
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