Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

> Some have described me as being "tone-deaf," and that is fair. With my difficulty in understanding social cues, that tends to happen. For instance, I defended Professor Minsky on an M.I.T. mailing list after someone leaped to the conclusion that he was just guilty as Jeffrey Epstein. To my surprise, some thought my message defended Epstein. As I had stated previously, Epstein is a serial rapist, and rapists should be punished. I wish for his victims and those harmed by him to receive justice.

> False accusations -- real or imaginary, against me or against others -- especially anger me. I knew Minsky only distantly, but seeing him unjustly accused made me spring to his defense.

People aren't saying he's "just as guilty" as Epstein. They are saying that:

Minsky (71) had sex with a 17 year old who had been trafficked and coerced, in 2001. This was several years after (1999) rumours started spreading about "pedophile island".

In many places this makes Minsky a rapist, whether or not he knew i) she was trafficked or ii) she was coerced or iii) her age.

> Minsky (71) had sex with a 17 year old who had been trafficked and coerced, in 2001.

You're doing the exact thing that journalists did when they condemned RMS. Virginia Giuffre testified that Epstein directed her to have sex with Minsky; however she has not said that they actually had sex. His ex-wife also claims that she was with him the entire time they were on the island.

Maybe DanBC was there too and knows the truth.

That's not the claim that RMS is making though, is it? And I'm responding to what RMS said, not necessarily what actually happened.

https://time.com/5651186/jeffrey-epstein-investigation-co-co...

"Minsky’s widow, Gloria Rudisch, denied he had sex with Giuffre or any other girls, telling the New York Post that the couple had visited Epstein a few times, but that she was always with her husband."

His email was written with the presumption that he slept with her:

> Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).

Exactly. The problem is that the behavior he defended was problematic, whether or not it actually happened. This signals to potential predators in the future, "I will look for excuses for your behavior if I like you".

> In many places this makes Minsky a rapist, whether or not he knew i) she was trafficked or ii) she was coerced or iii) her age.

In most places rape, like most crimes, require both actus reus (victim was coerced) and mens rea (perpetrator was aware of that). This is a complicated by the age issue (as a mistake of age is often an explicit exception to mens rea), but in general you cannot be thief, murderer or rapist without knowing that.

US trafficking laws include the concept of "reckless disregard".

I don't recall it ever having been proven that Minksy had sex with anyone. I'm obviously open to being corrected on this.

> I don't recall it ever having been proven that Minksy had sex with anyone. I'm obviously open to being corrected on this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky

" The Minskytron or "Three Position Display" running on the Computer History Museum's PDP-1, 2007

In 1952, Minsky married pediatrician Gloria Rudisch; together they had three children"

I am assuming it was through sex.

Touché

That is not how these things work nowadays. Journalists simply reprint each other until everyone accepts their theories as facts

We're not talking about what Minsky did or did not do. We're talking about the situation that Stallman set up, and then defended. In Stallman's version Minsky did have sex with a coerced trafficked 17 year old, and Stallman is fine with that happening.

Didn't Minsky rejected her proposal to have sex?

Unknown. Wikipedia says

> Virginia Giuffre testified in a 2015 deposition in her defamation lawsuit against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell that Maxwell directed her to have sex with Minsky among others. There has been no allegation that sex between them took place nor a lawsuit against Minsky's estate

Minsky was on the island in 2002, and Guiffre (born 1983) was 18 at the time.

Again, that's not the claim that RMS made, is it? RMS started from the position that she was 17, and trafficked, and that Minsky had sex with her. He then defended that behaviour.

What actually happened isn't particularly relevant. We're not talking about what happened, we're talking about the behaviours that RMS will defend.

RMS defended the concept of someone having sex with a trafficked coerced 17 year old girl.

> Minsky (71) had sex with a 17 year old who had been trafficked and coerced, in 2001. This was several years after (1999) rumours started spreading about "pedophile island".

Fabricated from whole cloth. Not even Virginia Giuffre alleges this.

Source: The depositions. Which clearly none of you have read.

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