Bill Gates says it was a "huge mistake" to spend time with Epstein
axios.com
axios.com
Challenging existing power structures essentially requires you to be absolutely spotlessly clean, whereas being an elite who doesnt challenge the system gives you a lot more leeway not only to misbehave but also to be given the benefit of the doubt when it's unclear if you did. Epstein clearly exploited that to the max.
That's quite misleading. Richard Stallman was criticised for a repeated pattern of behaviour. Allegedly, according to many witnesses, he harassed and coerced women for decades.
[0] https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
From [0]: "I’m writing this because I’m too angry to work."
Stallman's crass words about consent, re sex-traffic teenagers, was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
The vagueness in your comment mirrors the vagueness in the stories that tend to accuse Stallman of "troubling behavior".
They do mention a couple of examples of things that could imply sexual harassment if you squint (e.g. that business card) but what the examples really tend to show when you look at them independently of the hit piece they inhabit is that stallman is kind of cringey.
This is what happens when you make powerful enemies. This is how you do character assassination. Hell, there were stories like this about Bill Gates too.
> could imply sexual harassment [only] if you squint
> character assassination
Complete hyperbole.
As I said in another thread, threatening suicide at somebody because they won't date you is neither "vague" nor "cringey": it's straight up emotional abuse and coercion.
"Betsy S met me at a lunch around 40 years ago. I am sure her recounting of her recollections is sincere, but she must have misunderstood the last thing I said to her. She said she didn't want an acquaintance with me. That no, on top of so many noes from others, impelled me to express despair; she seems to have misconstrued that as a demand.
Betsy S, I regret that this misunderstanding caused you distress. I never intended to demand anything of you. I only ever wished you well. "
I could see the argument in calling this emotional abuse if there was a pattern of doing this, especially to partners, but there isn't. It's almost always used as a form of emotional blackmail in toxic relationships or with children. It is effective in that context and a common form of abuse.
What this looks more like is the cynical exploitation of a singular expression of, yes, cringey vulnerability from 40 years in the past used to try and cancel RMS with a grand old witch hunt.
Now that's emotional abuse.
Bill Gates also had similar accusations thrown at him right after his divorce that intimated vague accusations of harassment by nameless individuals and one specific example of a woman (also nameless, but probably real) whom he asked out to lunch.
It was clearly a hit piece that didnt take (though by whom it's hard to say).
That's not just 'sad', as you call it. That's abusive emotional manipulation.
And no, neither depression nor autism excuse such behaviour.
Not to put too fine a point on it but google revealed exactly one source for this rumor.
Here is the article link again: https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
Specifically, here is one of many accusations in that article:
> When I was a teen freshman, I went to a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Central Square with a graduate student friend and others from the AI lab. I don’t know if he and I were the last two left, but at a table with only the two of us, Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him.
> I felt bad for him and also uncomfortable and manipulated. I did not like being put in that position — suddenly responsible for an “important” man. What had I done to get into this situation? I decided I could not be responsible for his living or dying, and would have to accept him killing himself. I declined further contact.
> He was not a man of his word or he’d be long dead.
Not saying that RMS didn't do that, but the only evidence offered is in a section with two other anonymous quotes:
“He literally used to have a mattress on the floor of his office. 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…I was one of the course 6 undergrads who avoided that part of NE43 precisely for that reason. (the mattress was also known to have shirtless people lounging on it…)”
I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.”
Honestly, looking at this: to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it. ... the mattress was also known to have shirtless people lounging on it…
Makes it seem like RMS might like to have shirtless men hang around his office and the writer sounds homophobic.
Please. What a complete (and baseless) misdirection.
This is like that time Kevin Spacey responded to accusations of him committing sexual assault by coming out as gay.
>showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it.
We, the reader, are supposed to read into the implications, I have seen it argued up and down over the web that this is PROOF that RMS was a serial abuser because he had a mattress in his office.
I am showing that you can read the "implications" in a completely different way.
I think a grown-up woman could've just asked at that time, "sir, do you really mean this? - yes/no ... ". Is this really the dirt you can come up with after 40 years?
The garbage my GF looks at on MTV and whatever american stations there are, shows far worse stuff which everybody thinks is okay. All those people are not canceled and do a lot less for the world in general.
There’s nothing better than tearing down the better man.
Stallman's words are threatening to entrenched power and tech profit margins whereas Bill Gates almost acts as a poster boy for them.
I get that he’s autistic; so am I. But autistic people can also be gross jerks who overstep boundaries, and autism should not excuse that.
They basically fired (forcibly resigned) the guy for talking.
But you'll find that the biggest critics of Stallman were also the biggest critics of Gates. We already knew that Gates was a villain! What are we going to do, cancel Bill Gates some more? Remove him from FOSS communities?
Aren't we supposed to hold our own to a higher standard than our enemies? You're allowed to be flawed, but there's absolutely no space for abusers in a liberatory movement.
The inconsistency (where it exists) on an individual level is reflective of an inconsistency on a societal level by who holds the puppet strings. That isnt you. Or me.
Moreover 99% of individuals could act perfectly consistently individually and yet the accusations that get amplified vs. those that get muted will reflect the interests of whomever has a dominant voice.
>there's absolutely no space for abusers in a liberatory movement.
If your contention is that Richard Stallman's weird and slightly creepy business card constitutes abuse you are likely more interested in sabotage.
I'm not gonna argue that Stallman definitely ISNT "an abuser" but I have definitely read articles that implied that he was based upon evidence like that.
The information that Bill Gates had meetings with Epstein came to light 2 years ago but we still had articles promoting the Gates foundation and Gates work with vaccines.
Bill Gates worked with MIT on quantum dot tech: https://news.mit.edu/2019/storing-vaccine-history-skin-1218
Bill Gates donated money to MIT's Media Lab: https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-connections-jeffr...
Will MIT be returning that money as well?
>But you'll find that the biggest critics of Stallman were also the biggest critics of Gates.
>I was shocked. I continued talking to my friend, a female graduate student in CSAIL, about everything, trying to get the full email thread (I wasn’t on the mailing list). I even started emailing reporters — local and national, news sites, newspapers, radio stations. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Selam+G+Stallman&t=ffab&ia=web >https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21... >https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
and yet:
>https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Selam+G+Bill+Gates&t=ffab&ia=web
Nothing.
Hm I think the more relevant context to include might be that Epstein had already been _convicted_ for separate sex crimes _before_ these hang-outs with Bill, as well. But axios’s thing is brevity I guess.
Indeed. It makes Bill's decision quite the choice.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/martin-luther-king-fbi_n_4631...
Maybe there is some huge investigation going on that we don't know about but all that is visible currently is the Ghislaine trial and now the Giuffre trial. I'm really surprised that nothing more has come out given that the FBI reportedly seized the video recordings from Epstein's surveillance systems:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/shocking-origins-jeffrey-epste...
And if you're doing global health work, there are large parts of the world where those are the types of connections that you need.
I really don't like the implication of the whole interview. CNN is merely capitalizing on guilt by association. Sure, Epstein was a bad guy. No question about it. But tacitly accusing people who merely had dinner with him of also being bad, is stretching it beyond both reason and fairness.
Edit: In the billionaire league you can hire an entire small corporation to look after your interests. Lawyers, PR people, "influencers", security experts - whole offices of full-time employees and contract hires who do nothing but You.
If you're any good at it, you hire people who can hire people who can hire people to get things done covertly by back channels - if necessary.
So getting associated with someone like Epstein certainly is a huge mistake. And not just a personal one. Either Gates knew the risks and personally decided they were manageable, or someone decided that Gates needed some bad advice.
Considering that Gates is now divorced, I suspect the former. But at this distance - who can tell for sure?