[Discuss] RMS

[Seth Gordon]

The English word “cancer” can refer to anything from a skin tumor that a
doctor can remove as an outpatient procedure, to metastatic pancreatic
cancer that is certain to kill you within six months. But both of these
things are still cancer. Likewise, the word “assault” has a very broad
range of meaning—anything from raising a fist with the intention of
punching someone to brandishing a rifle with the intention of shooting
someone. But both of these behaviors are, under a definition that goes back
to English common law, assault.

So no, I don’t think it’s at all reasonable for someone to complain about
statutory rape being described as “sexual assault”, even though certain
instances of sexual assault committed against adults are crimes of greater
magnitude than certain instances of statutory rape. When I see arguments
like that being put forward I wonder if the speaker’s actual motive is to
decriminalize the behavior at issue entirely.

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 12:24 PM Derek Martin <invalid at pizzashack.org>
wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 07:54:52AM -0400, Rich Pieri wrote:
> > On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 23:50:12 -0400
> > John Abreau <abreauj at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Of course, if Stallman was assuming Minsky did indeed sleep with the
> > > victim, then Benford's testimony doesn't count in Stallman's favor.
> > > In that case, Stallman's remarks could be considered creepy, but
> > > Minsky's turning down the victim's approach would not be creepy.
> >
> > This. Here is what RMS wrote:
> >
> > > The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation.  The reference
> > > reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein's harem.
> > > (See
> > >
> https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed
> .)
> > > Let's presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
> > >
> > > 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.
> >
> > This is RMS presuming that Minsky did have sex with Giuffre. Then he
> > explains why, if this really happened, it was not rape or sexual
> > assault.
>
> No, that's not what he said.  He said, quoting from the thread:
>
>     We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex--by Epstein.  She
>     was being harmed.  But the details do affect whether, and to what
>     extend, Minsky was responsible for that.
>
> And the part you are referring to:
>
>     The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin
>     Minsky:
>
>     “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting
>     one of Epstein’s victims [2])”
>
>     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.
>
>     The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference
>     reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem.
>     (See
> https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed
> .)
>     Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
>
>     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.
>
>     We can imagine many scenarios, but 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.
>
>     I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it
>     is absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation.
>
>     Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a
>     specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the
>     criticism.
>
> I can not see how, unless you suck at reading English, you can
> interpret this any way other than that he takes issue with the term
> "sexual assault" PRECISELY because it is NOT "clearly defined."  It
> instead refers (as I previously said) to multiple different behaviors
> that all carry the same label, but which are not at all the same
> crime.  His issue is that the legal DEFINITIONS, plural, do not all
> conform to the ENGLISH definition of the word "assault" and hence
> attach a level of negativity that is inflated compared to the lay
> understanding associated with the term "sexual assault."  He insists
> that due to this conflation, accusations should be explicit in what
> they are accusing.
>
> What part of this is in any way not clear?
>
> > Now substitute Epstein for Minsky in RMS' rhetoric and see what you get.
>
> He clearly did not do that.  The first bit I quoted makes that clear.
> I have elsewhere seen that he has called Epstien a serial rapist.
>
> --
> Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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