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EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

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Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#291

Post by pen2l »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #171
pen2l wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We talk about inclusivity here all the time, but what about being inclusive of neuroatypical folks who have quirks that don't come off as being polished and PC in current social code du jour? This all so so grates on me because it means we are wasting all this time and energy on things that don't matter all the while the real monsters of society go unchecked because with their psychopathic streak they know how to pla…

There is nothing about neurodiversity that requires tolerating apologetics for peadophilia. As a child sexual abuse victim myself I assure you, this matters far far more than RMS making another one of his stump speeches. He played an important role in software yes. He also burned his reputation purely through his own choices and convictions, not any mental condition. He can fade away and the computing world will be j…

My understanding is that he has been misquoted (as OP explained), and anytime he did attempt to make a "defense" for Minsky it was all full of "Yeah technically" in the way that autistic folks tend to process things. The only problematic thing he said, to my knowledge, he recanted and then explained he learned better after engaging with sexual abuse victims to learn more of their experiences. It's hard for me to see autistic people as actual predators, because in my experiences they are almost always the victims who have their intents and words mischaracterized and misconstrued for a dozen and more reasons.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#292

Post by simondw »

usernew wrote: post #252
rayiner wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re right, that is a misquote. But what he actually wrote honestly wasn’t that much better. “Much better” in what sense? I think Minsky is guilty because using sex workers is categorically immoral. But most on HN don’t agree with me, and think that it would’ve been no problem had Virginia Giuffre been 18 and willing. In that case, doesn’t Minsky’s moral culpability turn on whether he knew Giuffre was 17 and unwi…

I honestly gotta ask. Why is it that half the planet commenting on young sex with very strong, very critical opinions, keeps confusing the age of consent with the age you're allowed to vote? On 99% of the planet, if a 17yo acts like, and is willing to screw your brains out, you're good to go and quite legal. In fact, same for a 16yo. In fact, on half the planet including a large portion stateside, that works for 15 t…

> women find powerful men attractive

You're conflating "is powerful" with "has power over me." The latter can be used for coercion, and it's not always sexy for someone to threaten you.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#293

Post by philwelch »

marcodiego wrote: post #32

Bill Gates had bonds with Epstein. His multi decade marriage fell after the fact became public. He didn't get 1% the flak that Stallman had for commenting about a word to describe Marvin Minsky.

The amount of social grace you get for being a powerful billionaire is a lot more than you get for being a weird nerd.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#294

Post by fxtentacle »

xinayder wrote: post #266
myshpa wrote: post #145

"The original Remove Richard Stallman post contained leaked communications from a private mailing list. In it, the author quotes an email from Stallman where he explains that Marvin Minsky likely wouldn’t have known that the woman on Jeffrey Epstein’s island was coerced: …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…

So, in the end, RMS lecture in 2023 was cancelled because of a controversy that happened 2 years ago that since then has been solved? IMO it just looks bad for EPFL if they decided to cancel the lecture based solely on this. If they knew about it, then why tell RMS he could hold a lecture only for them to cancel it on the last minute to bring back this topic again? Exaggerating a bit but this is like inviting Linus T…

To me, their announcement almost suggests that they feel threatened by his presence:

"There will be other opportunities [..] to talk [..] in a more peaceful context."

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#295

Post by arp242 »

davidktr wrote: post #251
rayiner wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”. I think the real problem is that the journalist lacks the moral vocabulary to explain why RMS and Minsky are both wrong, and must resort to nonsensical legalisms. Virginia Giuffre was 17 when this happened, making her, in the words of the author, “an enslaved child.” But according to sex-positive feminism a mere year later she could’ve be an empo…

Is it established that Minsky did, in fact, have sex with Giuffre? She said so in her deposition, and said it would have been on the island. But Minsky's wife said that was impossible because they were always together.

She said Epstein "directed her" to have sex with Minsky, but if I'm reading this right she didn't say she actually did have sex with him; copying from Wikipedia: "Virginia Giuffre testified in a 2015 deposition in her defamation lawsuit against Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell that Maxwell "directed" her to have sex with Minsky among others. There has been no allegation that sex between them took place nor a lawsuit against Minsky's estate. Minsky's widow, Gloria Rudisch, says that he could not have had sex with any of the women at Epstein's residences, as they were always together during all of the visits to Epstein's residences."

In [1] it says "she was forced to have sex with MIT professor Marvin Minsky", but if you read the actual records that's based on then it's very vague and unclear if she was only "directed" and it never happened, or if it did.

This makes it quite different from Prince Andrew for example, where she stated she did have sex with him in clear terms.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jef...

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#296

Post by lockhouse »

thraway3837 wrote: post #210
lockhouse wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Correct move. Holding an opinion that is unethical, immoral and destructive to society is unacceptable. And nobody wants to be associated with that. I wish this was not up for debate, but unfortunately, we seem to want to debate the same things repeatedly no matter how many times we know that certain things are problematic. Who gets to decide what opinions are correct and therefore allowed? Sounds very thought-poli…

Like I said, there's no reason to debate certain things anymore. You mentioned the exact point that I preemptively stated. We don't debate that racism is bad, there's no debate to be had about it. We don't debate climate change, it's a fact. We don't debate women's rights, its been decided a thousand times over and the effects have been proven several million times over. Asking to debate these things is unproductive…

> Like I said, there's no reason to debate certain things anymore.

That's your opinion.

> We don't debate that racism is bad

The Supreme Court is about to decide on a case regarding Affirmative Action, which is the practice of making decisions based upon someone's race (AKA racism).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/05/04/presiden...

> We decided as a collective that murder, rape, abortion, climate change, evolution, gender pronouns, and all the other stuff was the right direction.

There have been debates about whether murder is justifiable in certain situations, such as self defense under the castle doctrine.

We're literally discussing Stallman's opinion about whether some girls were raped.

Abortion is INCREDIBLY controversial. It is far from a decided issue with concensus.

Same with climate change, not even the entire scientific community is certain to the degree of man-made influence on our climate.

Darwinian style evolution remains officially a theory.

Gender pronouns, yeah again, hardly a consensus there. Biologically, there are X and Y chromosomes, and that's where known and agreed upon science ends. It's just very disingenuous to pretend that people having gender pronouns that differ from their biological sex is some universally agreed upon truth.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#297

Post by JdeBP »

seydor wrote: post #12

We ll never know what "the situation" is and whatever "statements that do not correspond to any of our values" are. Good job smearing mud without saying anything i guess. Did stallman say something since he was invited that was particularly noticeable? if not then these organizers don't know what they 're doing and this reflects bad on them

It's not a press release from a years-long professional in the industry. It's an announcement from the press officer, who is (per the WWW site's own directory) a BSc student in a STEM subject not related to PR, of a student-run organization that does social events.

As one commenter has already pointed out, the hyperlinked WWW site is for CLIC, the student-run organization, not for the EPFL as claimed in the title at the top of this page. The page says CLIC in the banner at the top, and CLIC four times in the body.

I'm not sure how "Association des étudiant.e.s en Informatique et Communications" abbreviates to "CLIC". Apparently it was "CDIC" some years ago. That doesn't help to clarify, though. (-:

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#298

Post by [deleted] »

sph wrote: post #257
usernew wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly gotta ask. Why is it that half the planet commenting on young sex with very strong, very critical opinions, keeps confusing the age of consent with the age you're allowed to vote? On 99% of the planet, if a 17yo acts like, and is willing to screw your brains out, you're good to go and quite legal. In fact, same for a 16yo. In fact, on half the planet including a large portion stateside, that works for 15 t…

American culture, including Puritanism, being exported worldwide since the 1980s, first through Hollywood and then through tech. You will not find a less Puritanical view of the matter on a forum composed of mostly people from the US or deeply embedded within its culture, like many software engineers are. For US and tech, sex talk and sexual freedom is a concept best avoided. You'll find more people arguing against g…

[deleted]

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#299

Post by prepend »

marcodiego wrote: post #32

Bill Gates had bonds with Epstein. His multi decade marriage fell after the fact became public. He didn't get 1% the flak that Stallman had for commenting about a word to describe Marvin Minsky.

I expect Gates has a PR firm tasked with reducing this kind of stuff. And I am cynical enough to believe it includes astroturfing any social media or site (including HN) to disinfo it away.

RMS doesn’t have Gates’ resources.

Re: EPFL cancels Stallman's lecture citing “the situation regarding” his persona

#300

Post by mensetmanusman »

usernew wrote: post #252
rayiner wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re right, that is a misquote. But what he actually wrote honestly wasn’t that much better. “Much better” in what sense? I think Minsky is guilty because using sex workers is categorically immoral. But most on HN don’t agree with me, and think that it would’ve been no problem had Virginia Giuffre been 18 and willing. In that case, doesn’t Minsky’s moral culpability turn on whether he knew Giuffre was 17 and unwi…

I honestly gotta ask. Why is it that half the planet commenting on young sex with very strong, very critical opinions, keeps confusing the age of consent with the age you're allowed to vote? On 99% of the planet, if a 17yo acts like, and is willing to screw your brains out, you're good to go and quite legal. In fact, same for a 16yo. In fact, on half the planet including a large portion stateside, that works for 15 t…

"You did nothing wrong, neither did the hooker, nor is sex work "immoral." "

This is one opinion, not held by the majority globally.

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