6 ms·

>And what's wrong with that take, exactly? You know what's wrong with it and you described what's wrong with it over the next several sentences. Somebody who d

by jolux 6y ago

>And what's wrong with that take, exactly? You know what's wrong with it and you described what's wrong with it over the next several sentences. Somebody who doesn't understand that is not fit to be a leader. If you don't understand those power imbalances, you are bound to do harm.

seba_dos1 6y ago
> If you don't understand those power imbalances, you are bound to do harm. That's not a bad point. But then it turns out that it's not really connected to the statements about Minsky, is it? > Somebody who doesn't understand that is not fit to be a leader. This is stretching it way too far, since this assumes that understanding of power in hypothetical scenario that doesn't connect to yourself somehow translates to ones ability to assess their own power. This may be true for some, but doesn't have to be. I won't be convinced that someone is unfit to be a leader because they didn't recognize the issues of power in a hypothetical scenario they have never been in. Heck, I myself constantly learn and start to see them in cases I never considered before. Different perspective changes everything, and there are perspectives I simply never witnessed until someone told me about them!
- jolux 6y ago
  > That's not a bad point. But then it turns out that it's not really connected to the statements about Minsky, is it? The statements about Minsky are harmful. What reason is there to be coming to somebody’s defense when they are credibly accused of something like that? Frankly I don’t want friends who would react like Stallman did if I were to be accused as seriously as Minsky has been. People who are going to do harm because they don’t understand power imbalances should not be leaders. Yes, we’re all bad at something, but if that’s the thing you’re bad at, it’s probably not the place for you in our society. On this I will be firm. It is incumbent on leaders to understand power and take the potential for abuse in situations of power differential seriously. They must be scrupulous. These comments would not be made by someone who is scrupulous about power imbalances.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - seba_dos1 6y ago
    > What reason is there to be coming to somebody’s defense when they are credibly accused of something like that? Accused of what exactly? See, the whole point of Stallman's statements was to clarify what exactly Minsky was being accused of, no more no less. He didn't even doubt those accusations in any way. It's plainly written there in his e-mail. You're being dishonest.
    - jolux 6y ago
      >Accused of what exactly? Accused of having sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking victims. >See, the whole point of Stallman's statements was to clarify what exactly Minsky was being accused of, no more no less. It's quite plain what Stallman was responding to. Stallman himself even says he sees no reason to disbelieve it. Unfortunately, "I didn't know she was a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim when I raped her" is not much of a defense, to me, ethically. Stallman imagines a situation in which Minsky was duped into having sex with this person without knowing her situation or her age. Why does Minsky get the benefit of the doubt here? This is not a court of law, and he was not a stupid man, to say the least. He even organized an academic symposium on Little St. James with Epstein in 2011, after he was already registered as a sex offender.
      - seba_dos1 6y ago
        > is not much of a defense, to me, ethically So what? It's not a defense, obviously, but it's enough to ask not to use the word "assault" when talking about those accusations because it's clearly misleading. It makes you imagine different things when you hear it than what is actually being talked about. You don't even have to give Minsky any benefit of doubt to ask for that. Whether that changes the moral or ethical outcome is completely irrelevant (and of course, I don't think it does). We're talking about a person who refuses to use singular they because... it's grammatically ambiguous so he comes up with and consistently uses perse/per/pers instead[0]. Like, c'mon, showing up in that thread to argue about used words is the most on-brand thing he could do. [0] https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html

by jolux 6y ago

seba_dos1 6y ago

> If you don't understand those power imbalances, you are bound to do harm. That's not a bad point. But then it turns out that it's not really connected to the statements about Minsky, is it? > Somebody who doesn't understand that is not fit to be a leader. This is stretching it way too far, since this assumes that understanding of power in hypothetical scenario that doesn't connect to yourself somehow translates to ones ability to assess their own power. This may be true for some, but doesn't have to be. I won't be convinced that someone is unfit to be a leader because they didn't recognize the issues of power in a hypothetical scenario they have never been in. Heck, I myself constantly learn and start to see them in cases I never considered before. Different perspective changes everything, and there are perspectives I simply never witnessed until someone told me about them!

jolux 6y ago
> That's not a bad point. But then it turns out that it's not really connected to the statements about Minsky, is it? The statements about Minsky are harmful. What reason is there to be coming to somebody’s defense when they are credibly accused of something like that? Frankly I don’t want friends who would react like Stallman did if I were to be accused as seriously as Minsky has been. People who are going to do harm because they don’t understand power imbalances should not be leaders. Yes, we’re all bad at something, but if that’s the thing you’re bad at, it’s probably not the place for you in our society. On this I will be firm. It is incumbent on leaders to understand power and take the potential for abuse in situations of power differential seriously. They must be scrupulous. These comments would not be made by someone who is scrupulous about power imbalances.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  > What reason is there to be coming to somebody’s defense when they are credibly accused of something like that? Accused of what exactly? See, the whole point of Stallman's statements was to clarify what exactly Minsky was being accused of, no more no less. He didn't even doubt those accusations in any way. It's plainly written there in his e-mail. You're being dishonest.
  - jolux 6y ago
    >Accused of what exactly? Accused of having sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking victims. >See, the whole point of Stallman's statements was to clarify what exactly Minsky was being accused of, no more no less. It's quite plain what Stallman was responding to. Stallman himself even says he sees no reason to disbelieve it. Unfortunately, "I didn't know she was a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim when I raped her" is not much of a defense, to me, ethically. Stallman imagines a situation in which Minsky was duped into having sex with this person without knowing her situation or her age. Why does Minsky get the benefit of the doubt here? This is not a court of law, and he was not a stupid man, to say the least. He even organized an academic symposium on Little St. James with Epstein in 2011, after he was already registered as a sex offender.
    - seba_dos1 6y ago
      > is not much of a defense, to me, ethically So what? It's not a defense, obviously, but it's enough to ask not to use the word "assault" when talking about those accusations because it's clearly misleading. It makes you imagine different things when you hear it than what is actually being talked about. You don't even have to give Minsky any benefit of doubt to ask for that. Whether that changes the moral or ethical outcome is completely irrelevant (and of course, I don't think it does). We're talking about a person who refuses to use singular they because... it's grammatically ambiguous so he comes up with and consistently uses perse/per/pers instead[0]. Like, c'mon, showing up in that thread to argue about used words is the most on-brand thing he could do. [0] https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html