> Avoiding this, like Stallman did, is a way of playing with semantics to reduce the seriousness of an accusation.
Well, yes, since the point was to speak against what he called "accusation inflation" - which, I believe, wasn't even directed as much to Minksy's case as into general usage of that term in English:
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 word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing...
Notice how it was "accused of assaulting" that Stallman spoke against, and that "sexual assault" was then mentioned by Stallman as a way to explain his position.
And guess what? I don't actually agree with his opinion about the term "sexual assault". I mean, I see his reasoning and I agree with it on its own, but to me that ship has sailed - it's not enough for me to challenge the already existing usage of that term; especially when it does actually make some sense to "inflate" its meaning, because the harm done by non-consensual sexual acts often greatly exceeds the physical attack aspect itself (which may not even be there). So I can accept that term even though I find it somewhat inaccurate, technically. Kinda metaphorical. It clearly is enough for Stallman though, as evidenced by many other language crusades he's been on for his whole life.
That said, the fact that it was "assault" and not "sexual assault" that was used there in the announcement seems to just prove the Stallman's point.
> Stallman is certainly not the best the autistic community has to offer, and I really wish you would stop implying he is.
Where was I implying that? That's very far from what I'd ever be comfortable with suggesting. Stallman doesn't even properly recognize his shortcomings and could really put much greater effort into dealing with them which would help him and his causes (and in turn, my causes, since I share his concerns about software freedom). This particular case is, however, not an example of that.
> Public figures cannot express opinions like this about rape!
Which opinions? What does "like this" mean? I honestly don't follow! My own views on this matter are exactly what some would describe as very "leftist" or "woke", and I do share your concern about men who don't understand consent. People in privileged position (which men that don't have to wear in a specific way every day out of the fear of being assaulted certainly are in) have greater responsibility when it comes to understanding such issues. That said, you don't need to belittle consent to point out that "assault" in "sexual assault" doesn't mean literal "assault" anymore, especially in context of situation where there was no evidence that the act even took place at all in the first place (which might have changed since, I don't know - I really couldn't care less about Minsky himself). Mind you - Stallman didn't even mention that. If his intention was to defend Minsky, he was a very poor defender.
Also,
> Autistic men who don’t seem to understand consent like this, or think they have figured out an inconsistency in society’s rules around sex, freak me the hell out.
That's a real issue, and it leads such people to plenty of suffering and depression. They should be educated, not ostracized. If we don't do it, they may turn somewhere else where they'll get worse - there are some circles that claim to offer them "help" and "answers" already, but those don't make the society a better place.