Comment by _rpaf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _rpaf | Hacker News Reader

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How excellent of you to redact the most damning part of your quote of the initial accusation, that literally says:

> He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it. Many female students avoided the corridor with his office for that reason

Now go ahead and tell me it's a coincidence you kept that part out, and it was probably not a big deal, and they were all exaggerating in some inexplicable coordinated effort to be disturbed.

So your arguments basically consist on half-quotes, "it happened long ago, so it isn't true", "unsubstantiated; since there's no recordings of it, he probably just said something nice and was misinterpreted yet again" and "maybe that happened, but since I, a man, who'd never be targeted by his sexual advances, think it's ok, it's ok", completely disregarding the fact that all these accusations have been corroborated by witnesses, ranging from people interviewed on several media and dozens of reports and online comments from people who claim to have worked with him over the years, let alone the several unrelated victims of his "urban legends", and most of all, the fact that people repeatedly let him know about his attitude and he didn't give a damn.

In short, yet another big, somehow coordinated witch hunt by overly sensitive SJWs.

I've been in grad school offices that had cots or bean bags in them. Is the contention in here he explicitly said that "people fuck me in my office" or something as coarse as that? Tbh, the only purpose those beds served was for people to rest on them during late nights working. Now, the issue of course why they need to spend so many late nights at the university working, but that's besides the point.

Btw, you seem to be citing something. Could you share it here?

Sure. There are plenty of first-hand accounts of his behavior, a quick Google search will lead you to many.

Here's a link to one I've most recently run into from someone who worked at MIT. Yes, it's a Reddit comment, but if you check out his profile you'll see the user's been on the site for 11 years, has close to 140k karma, and has many posts in the past that refer to his professional career.

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d59r46/richard...

>A lot of people are acting like this is just about the Epstein comments. The MIT community was up in arms not just over that but at the mountain of shit Stallman has gotten away with over the last few decades, including crap like telling female researchers he'd kill himself unless they dated him, keeping a mattress in his office and inviting people to lay topless on it, defending pedophilia and child rape. He's been making women at MIT uncomfortable for years

>I wish there were more to tell but it's exactly what it sounds like. He had a mattress in the corner of his office and he'd leave the door open and if you were a woman who happened to walk by or heaven forbid need to talk to him for academic reasons he would find an excuse to invite you to use it

You'll also find other similar stories on that thread.

Of course that's not a coincidence, hence the ellipses of omission. I left out the bits that weren't factual. Even then your "Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office" comes out of nowhere.

"He kept the door open to proudly showcase" could have easily been "He kept to door shut to hide his actions", that is: both cases would be equally damning from the writer's perspective, and hinges only on their "implications that went with it" which are their invention alone.

Facts remaining, he had a mattress in his office. He left his door open. Sometimes people were sitting on the bed.

> "it happened long ago, so it isn't true"

No. It happened a long time ago. People, over time, remember the emotional impact of something on them, but no longer the precise wording. She remembers the gist of someone talking about suicide, because that's what she thought he meant. Without the exact wording and cirumstances, it can be very difficult to figure out what transpired. So it's not "it isn't true" or "she must be lying", but the account is unsubstantiated, likely irretrievably so, because "it happened a long time ago."

> completely disregarding the fact

I don't disregard them, I check them one by one, and so far I found them lacking.

Why are you angry at me for reading what other people said before believing them at face value?

> that all these accusations have been corroborated by witnesses, ranging from people interviewed on several media and dozens of reports and online comments from people who claim to have worked with him over the years, let alone the several unrelated victims of his "urban legends", and most of all, the fact that people repeatedly let him know about his attitude and he didn't give a damn.

Please provide links outside of twitter. So far most accusations lead back to the initial article on medium by Salem G.

> In short, yet another big, somehow coordinated witch hunt by overly sensitive SJWs.

I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. I read the allegations, try to find the various sources, and try to put them into a logical context. I guess I'm simply a Knight for Justice (also: old weirdos)

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