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It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

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Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#101
post #88
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also spends a lot of time arguing that statutory rape shouldn’t count. So if he thinks that’s all Minsky did, it seems entirely fair to summarize that as “totally cool.” Not to mention that if Minsky did in fact have sex with a slave who was forced to do it, that’s real actual rape, and the best thing you could say there is that Minsky was somehow tricked into committing rape.

Lots of people think statutory rape shouldn’t count. In the British Virgin Islands the age of consent is 16, so the crime Minsky is accused of isn’t a crime a little while away. I don’t think it’s fair, or accurate, to characterize the entire population of the British VI as being “totally cool” with other forms of sexual assault and human trafficking. I think the risk I run is in characterizing acts incorrectly. I’m…

The US, and England, and probably other countries, have enacted laws that mean some sexual offences against children committed outside those jurisdictions can be tried inside the jurisdiction. Precisely to stop this kind of sex tourism.

See for example this from England:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/48

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/53A

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#102
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you have a reasonable discussion? Stallman emailed a big mailing list for a computer science department the following about a child sex trafficking victim: "The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem…Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it). ... We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as en…

If a person has sex with a minor without knowing they are a minor it is a crime. But should they lose their livelihood and reputation if they didn’t know the parts that make it a crime or didn’t commit the coercion themselves? If I buy a car cheaply at auction that was seized as part of a drug-dealing crime and then get busted for having drugs still stashed in the doors, I am now a drug offender. I did not knowingly…

At some point recklessness takes over from lack of mens rei. If someone is so reckless as to have sex with a 17 year old without making very sure that she consents and isn't coerced then they're so reckless that it doesn't matter if they know or not.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#103
post #88
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also spends a lot of time arguing that statutory rape shouldn’t count. So if he thinks that’s all Minsky did, it seems entirely fair to summarize that as “totally cool.” Not to mention that if Minsky did in fact have sex with a slave who was forced to do it, that’s real actual rape, and the best thing you could say there is that Minsky was somehow tricked into committing rape.

Lots of people think statutory rape shouldn’t count. In the British Virgin Islands the age of consent is 16, so the crime Minsky is accused of isn’t a crime a little while away. I don’t think it’s fair, or accurate, to characterize the entire population of the British VI as being “totally cool” with other forms of sexual assault and human trafficking. I think the risk I run is in characterizing acts incorrectly. I’m…

I don’t get it. If it wasn’t rape (statutory or otherwise) then what is RMS saying isn’t “totally cool” about it?

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#104
post #14

I grow more and more tired of these discussions. Talks of banishing people because they’re ignorant, rude, sexist. Conferences are getting shut down, people are having their world turned upside down for being ignorant. Every topic is a hot potato. I feel i can’t even have a reasonable conversation about diversity, ignorance, or whatever the controversy of the day is. It’s easier to just be quiet than express opinions…

Why can't you have a reasonable discussion? Stallman emailed a big mailing list for a computer science department the following about a child sex trafficking victim: "The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem…Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it). ... We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as en…

A couple things to note.

1. The sex they are talking about was in 2001, which was before there were any criminal cases or charges or civil cases against Epstein. Is there any reason for Minsky to have suspected that the girl he met at Epstein's place then was being coerced?

2. Stallman and Minsky were good friends.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#105
post #78
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He keeps saying it shouldn’t qualify as sexual assault or rape. If it’s not that then what is it?

For Minsksy it’s at least statutory rape, not cool at all. For Epstein it’s the whole gamut of messed up stuff, also not cool. It seems to me that Stallman is saying that qualifying language is valuable as statutory rape in USVI (and most other jurisdictions) has a much smaller penalty than other forms of sexual assault. So using the same word for Epstein and Minsky is not fair, I think, to their victims. But saying…

> For Minsksy it’s at least statutory rape

That's probably not the case. At the time, 2001, the age of consent in the US Virgin Islands was 16. Around the middle of that year the legislature said they wanted to raise it to 18, but I don't think they actually accomplished that until the passage of the Child Protection Act of 2002.

(For comparison, it varies from 16 to 18 for US states. 16 in 31 states and DC, 17 in 8 states, and 18 in 11 states).

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#106
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every topic is a hot potato. Yeah, you can't even condone raping children anymore. What has the world come to? More seriously, the point is that this topic is not enough of a hot potato if RMS is comfortable talking about it in public.

I don't disagree with you, but I think a lot of commenters here are talking past each other. We all agree that having sex with a 17 year old girl who is being abused and manipulated by a billionaire pedophile is inexcusable. I personally don't like the use of the phrase "child rape" to describe it because it's the same phrase you would use to describe the violent rape of a toddler. If the terminology we use to debate…

Fair enough. My comment above used obvious overstated sarcasm, but I agree that these things are different. Substitute "statutory rape of a minor" or something like that above. I don't think this means that we should judge RMS any differently.

> having sex with a 17 year old girl who is being abused and manipulated by a billionaire pedophile [...] makes you a sleezeball

Not the greatest way to put this, I think.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#107
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong about it is that Epstein is running a child sex trafficking ring. It's not clear what Minsky knew.

Best case scenario for Minsky, if he did have sex with this girl, is that he was tricked into raping her. But RMS isn’t going with that. He’s going with “not rape.”

I'm not sure that it is possible to be tricked into raping someone. Rape has a mens rea requirement that the defendant intended for the sex to be non-consensual. Some jurisdictions do subject that to a requirement that the defendant honestly and in good faith believed it was consensual, and that being mistaken about that was a mistake that a reasonable person would have made. If you are tricked into it, you probably won't have the necessary mens rea.

For example, consider this hypothetical.

Bob meets Alice at a bar, asks her to have sex with him, she says yes, and they do so. Later, it is discovered that Charles forced Alice to go to the bar, meet Bob, and say yes to whatever he asked. Bob did not know about this. He thought it was just a normal, consensual hook up at a bar.

Bob would probably not be guilty of rape, because a reasonable person in that situation would believe Alice had consented.

Charles, though, would be guilty of rape. (Rape in most jurisdictions isn't just you having sex with someone against your will--it is making someone have sex against their will with you or a third party).

Stallman is not arguing that nobody raped or assaulted the girl. He's just saying that he thinks Minsky is like Bob.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#108
post #107
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best case scenario for Minsky, if he did have sex with this girl, is that he was tricked into raping her. But RMS isn’t going with that. He’s going with “not rape.”

I'm not sure that it is possible to be tricked into raping someone. Rape has a mens rea requirement that the defendant intended for the sex to be non-consensual. Some jurisdictions do subject that to a requirement that the defendant honestly and in good faith believed it was consensual, and that being mistaken about that was a mistake that a reasonable person would have made. If you are tricked into it, you probably…

Statutory rape is generally a strict liability offense, where mens rea is not an allowed defense.

One of the common forms of being tricked is when the other person claims to be at least 18 (or rather, at least of the age of consent). Quoting https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/can-i-be-con... :

> Historically, statutory rape was a "strict liability" offense, meaning that it didn't matter whether the actor knew that the other person was too young to consent to sex. Some states now permit a defense of honest mistake. Basically, the actor argues "I honestly thought she was old enough because...." However, other states don't recognize this defense.

As a specific example, in Tiba Francis vs. the Government of Virgin Islands (quoting https://web.archive.org/web/20110928024344/http://www.vid.us... ):

> Appellant Tiba Francis appeals his conviction for aggravated rape. ... At trial, he argued that mistake of fact is a defense to the aggravated rape charge, and moved that the trial court should allow the jury to consider such defense. ... The jury convicted appellant of the Aggravated Rape charge based on the trial judge's instruction that mistake of fact as to the victim's age is not a defense. ... Because the trial court correctly interpreted section 1700(a),this Court will affirm Francis’s conviction.

I see this as clear evidence that rape in the Virgin Islands does not always have a mens rea requirement.

On the general topic of "being tricked", here's some history from the UK, where the mens rea requirement was allowed as a defense (from https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/criminal-law/the-... ):

> Rape and its mental element was considered in the case of DPP v Morgan by the House of Lords, in 1976. The victim, Mrs Morgan’s husband (Morgan) invited three men, who were strangers, to have sex with his wife (Mrs Morgan). Morgan had, allegedly, told the three men that his wife was ‘kinky’ and was likely to resist and say no to sex and that this would mean she was actually saying yes and was only resisting to get ‘turned on’. Morgan denied that he had said this to the three men. All four men had sex with Mrs Morgan by using force and violence against her resistance. The three men claimed that they believed that Mrs Morgan was consenting due to what Morgan had told them prior to inviting them. The jury was directed by the trial Judge who stated that ‘unless their belief was based on reasonable grounds, it could not constitute a defence to rape. The three men were convicted of rape and Morgan was convicted of aiding and abetting. All four men appealed to the Court of Appeal then the House of Lords against their convictions. Here it was held that there could not be a conviction of rape if the man honestly thought that the woman had consented to sexual intercourse with his belief not having to be reasonable. However, the proviso was applied and the convictions were upheld.

However, it is no longer allowed. Continuing to quote from the same source: "There was widespread public disapproval of the decision made by the House of Lords in DPP v Morgan, with the decision being hailed as the ‘rapists’ charter’, which was formally known as the ‘mistaken belief’ because it meant that the victim (woman) could actively not be consenting by resisting with struggle and even shouting ‘no’, but the man’s conviction could still be upheld." ... "One of the major changes in the law of rape brought by the 2003 Act was the abolition of the ‘Morgan Rule/Defence’, which as mentioned earlier, could have been used when a man believed the woman had consented, no matter how unreasonable the belief. The law today to determine a belief to be reasonable or not is done by analysing if any steps were taken by the man to be sure whether or not the women had consented."

This is the "honestly and in good faith" requirement you pointed out was the case for some jurisdictions in the US. I wanted to highlight it as an example of being tricked into having sex that was different than the scenario you presented.

Stallman may be making the argument you say he is. However, the relevant law appears to be one of strict liability, and has been for a long time.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#109

> Remove everyone, if we must, and let something much better be built from the ashes. This is cancel culture taken to the extreme. Now that everything is built, the builders are expendable. They're "problematic." We're facing down a new form of puritanism that is a greater threat to civil rights than the "problematic" individuals they seek to destroy. No defense for RMS' statement, it's absurd, but if there's no mode…

Something like what Python has done in transitioning off of a BDFL is well worth discussing.

Even though I'm not religiously bound to the GPL, it would be idiotic to refuse props to RMS for having profoundly affected society in a positive way through the FSF.

Are we confident that the FSF doesn't pass on with RMS? How?

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#110
I think just because someone may be bad at one thing, does not necessarily mean they are bad at other stuff too.

Also, I think you should have the right to your opinion. But, people who have other opinion also must have right to their opinion, too, rather than only one.

These are just as true with Stallman as with Minsky, and also the other people who complain about it, I think.

I don't like it either that they did that sex, and I fail to see how "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing", but I think it make sense that you should not "accusation inflation", even though other people might says differently. I do not defend rapists, but also do not accuse them of other stuff too automatically.

Whether or not you use GPL and Emacs and so on are entirely different decisions than those reports they mention, though. It is separate, even if done by the same person.

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