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I think it is unfair to hound him over his latest statement about sexual assault. He is absolutely right that the term sexual assault includes actions that are

I think it is unfair to hound him over his latest statement about sexual assault. He is absolutely right that the term sexual assault includes actions that are so different that it can be used to unfairly destroy people's reputation. And if you are going to call someone a monster, it is better to more precisely define what type of sexual assault he did. I myself was sexually assaulted some time ago. I was in an ordinary nightclub, I went to the mens room, and on walking out of the mens room some a-hole decided to slap my ass on the way out. I gave him a dirty look, maybe I should have had him kicked out of the club, but I don't think it was necessary to have him fired from his job or ruin his career.

agumonkey 7y ago
This was the kind of gray area people dealt with on their own and cannot IMO be regulated by law (because it's just barely possible to define). There are limits though but today it's becoming too binary and myopic. Weird era.
gkoberger 7y ago
If he wrote that, he'd likely still have a job. But that's not what he wrote. He took it too far.
- ufo 7y ago
  And more importantly, this latest controversy was not an isolated incident. It builds on a long history of questionable behaviour
- ryan-allen 7y ago
  What did he write? I'm out of the loop on this. EDIT: I think this covers it all? https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-resign-in-protest-over-mit-media-labs-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-re...
  - gkoberger 7y ago
    If we're gonna go with Vice, this is the correct article: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
    - smallmancontrov 7y ago
      Holy shit, did Selam G. really just invent the primary component of this complaint? Stallman: > the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Selam G. > [Stallman] says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”. VICE: > Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked.
      - mantap 7y ago
        Probably, but it doesn't really matter because the real damage was done by his comments ~15 years ago, it just took the Internet an unusually long time to notice.
      - mtrower 7y ago
        Yes. That's exactly what she did --- and she's not alone; I've seen many other individuals do the same (after reading the primary source). Whether they've all read too fast, or for some other reason failed to parse the sentence correctly, I have not yet determined.
lizzard 7y ago
Wild that you would conflate a slap on the ass in a nightclub with an underage girl in basically sex slavery being pimped to a 70 year old. And then going to court over it despite all the danger and pain that exposed her to. Do you think those might be very different things?!
- smallmancontrov 7y ago
  The fact that those are very different things was the entire point of the post you replied to. Conflating "slap on the ass" with "sex slavery" is bad. Conflating "sex with an apparently legal, willing partner who later turned out to have not been either legal or willing" with "coercing a child to have sex with you" is bad.

agumonkey 7y ago

This was the kind of gray area people dealt with on their own and cannot IMO be regulated by law (because it's just barely possible to define). There are limits though but today it's becoming too binary and myopic. Weird era.

gkoberger 7y ago

If he wrote that, he'd likely still have a job. But that's not what he wrote. He took it too far.

ufo 7y ago
And more importantly, this latest controversy was not an isolated incident. It builds on a long history of questionable behaviour
ryan-allen 7y ago
What did he write? I'm out of the loop on this. EDIT: I think this covers it all? https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-resign-in-protest-over-mit-media-labs-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-re...
- gkoberger 7y ago
  If we're gonna go with Vice, this is the correct article: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
  - smallmancontrov 7y ago
    Holy shit, did Selam G. really just invent the primary component of this complaint? Stallman: > the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Selam G. > [Stallman] says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”. VICE: > Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked.
    - mantap 7y ago
      Probably, but it doesn't really matter because the real damage was done by his comments ~15 years ago, it just took the Internet an unusually long time to notice.
    - mtrower 7y ago
      Yes. That's exactly what she did --- and she's not alone; I've seen many other individuals do the same (after reading the primary source). Whether they've all read too fast, or for some other reason failed to parse the sentence correctly, I have not yet determined.

lizzard 7y ago

Wild that you would conflate a slap on the ass in a nightclub with an underage girl in basically sex slavery being pimped to a 70 year old. And then going to court over it despite all the danger and pain that exposed her to. Do you think those might be very different things?!

smallmancontrov 7y ago
The fact that those are very different things was the entire point of the post you replied to. Conflating "slap on the ass" with "sex slavery" is bad. Conflating "sex with an apparently legal, willing partner who later turned out to have not been either legal or willing" with "coercing a child to have sex with you" is bad.