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That was an old statement. It wasn't that statement which prompted the pressure to resign. He said two things that caused the uproar: These are the two things

That was an old statement. It wasn't that statement which prompted the pressure to resign. He said two things that caused the uproar: These are the two things he said that were controversial and prompted the pressure to resign: 1) He said that Marvin Minsky's sexual misconduct was being mischaracterized as violent sexual assault when no evidence existed of that, as far as I know he was correct about this. 2) He said that in his opinion the difference between having sex with a 17 year old and an 18 year old was not so great that one of them should be referred to as rape, regardless of the age of consent where it happened. The age of consent is 16 in well over half of the US (including the state Stallman lives in) so I don't find that second statement terribly controversial. The real problem was that this was all said in the context of Minsky and Epstein when the pitchforks were out. Stallman denounced Epstein several times but he was friends with Minsky and didn't like the accusations against Minsky being mischaracterized.

tzs 4y ago
> He said that Marvin Minsky's sexual misconduct was being mischaracterized as violent sexual assault when no evidence existed of that, as far as I know he was correct about this. Not quite. He said that when the woman was told to go offer sex to Epstein's guests she would have been told to make it seem like it was consensual. This should not have been controversial. Of course someone forcing someone else to offer people sex is going to instruct them not to let on that they are being forced. > He said that in his opinion the difference between having sex with a 17 year old and an 18 year old was not so great that one of them should be referred to as rape, regardless of the age of consent where it happened. In this particular case, she was over the age of consent. Sometime later, in part in response to the Epstein situation, they raised the age of consent to 18. > The age of consent is 16 in well over half of the US It is 16 or under in most of Europe [1]. Age # of Countries 18 3 17 2 16 20 15 12 14 14 [1] https://www.ageofconsent.net/continent/europe https://www.ageofconsent.net/continent/europe

tzs 4y ago

> He said that Marvin Minsky's sexual misconduct was being mischaracterized as violent sexual assault when no evidence existed of that, as far as I know he was correct about this. Not quite. He said that when the woman was told to go offer sex to Epstein's guests she would have been told to make it seem like it was consensual. This should not have been controversial. Of course someone forcing someone else to offer people sex is going to instruct them not to let on that they are being forced. > He said that in his opinion the difference between having sex with a 17 year old and an 18 year old was not so great that one of them should be referred to as rape, regardless of the age of consent where it happened. In this particular case, she was over the age of consent. Sometime later, in part in response to the Epstein situation, they raised the age of consent to 18. > The age of consent is 16 in well over half of the US It is 16 or under in most of Europe [1]. Age # of Countries 18 3 17 2 16 20 15 12 14 14 [1] https://www.ageofconsent.net/continent/europe https://www.ageofconsent.net/continent/europe