You also lend Stallman more weight than he deserves. His resignation will go unnoticed by all outside of our specific tech sphere and certainly will not "set a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship" (???).
Should we cheer his resignation? It's undoubtedly a sad moment for him and his supporters, but Stallman's behavior quite likely has held back the FSF for some time. He's an ideologue, not a leader.
2. Stallman's argument was simply to call a spade a spade, and not a defense of Epstein or Minsky. If you told 10 people (each unaware of any of the facts alleged) that Minsky sexually assaulted a girl, and then asked them to describe what they imagine occurred after hearing he sexually assaulted some, many might assume he violently assaulted someone. The degree of differences in guesses that you might receive makes the word functionally prone to tarnishing someone with a reputation for a different crime than the one they committed.
Stallman therefore asked for the incident to be described in unambiguous terms; for example, that Minsky had sex with a sex trafficked 17-year old 50 years his junior on Epstein's island. That does not mean he defends that scenario -- you can still view it as reprehensible, and condemn it, but at least you are not engaging in "accusation inflation", where you are condemning someone for a potentially worse crime than they committed.
3. I agree that Stallman is unnoticed outside this sphere, but this is part of a continued trend of threatening people's reputations and livelihoods for stating an opinion. I created a throwaway for the first time ever simply for this comment (which I think is relatively benign), so yes, I think this trend will continue to lead to self-censorship.
If you were both under the age of consent, as is often the case, in many jurisdictions [0], neither of you were able to give consent, and your sex act was technically non-consensual on both sides. This is not just theoretical -- there are many cases of prosecutors charging consensual underage couples with statutory rape, or with child pornography charges for sexting a picture of themselves to their boyfriend/girlfriend, and often using these laws in unjust ways (e.g. charging only the black boyfriend with statutory rape, but not equally charging the white girlfriend).
Let's assume you and your first love grew up in California, had sex for the first time just days prior to your 18 birthdays (when you both became legal), and are now 30 and have been happily married for 10-years. By your definition, you both committed violent sexual assault, and I'd be correct to go around your workplace saying things like "oh zzzeek? you know he's committed violent sexual assault. Some sort of rape. I don't know the details, but just wanted you to know."
This is a contrived example, and I'm in no way equating this with Minsky or Epstein. I'm not defending either of their actions whatsoever. But I think that Stallman is correct that using words in this type of manner, deliberately ignoring such qualitative differences in degrees, is unfair. It doesn't matter what the legal or dictionary definition might be -- it's creating a misleading impression in someone else's mind as to what you are guilty of, rather than simply stating in clear terms what you did and letting that person decide for themselves how culpable or abhorrent you are.
[0] https://www.wklaw.com/sex-between-teenagers-can-lead-to-a-co...
Rather than blaming the laws which define sexual assault this way, Stallman chose to blame the people who wrote a perfectly accurate description.
On this last point, We have to agree to disagree. His firm and unwavering stance on many issues is a flag planted in the sand - "This is how things should be" (whether or not its practical). It is a point of reference which countless engineers, designer, entrepreneurs in tech (including in big companies in FAANG, etc.) have been influenced by (whether or not they were able to live upto his ideal) when building their systems and companies.
Everyday, living in the dystopian nightmare that the modern world (both real and virtual) is becoming, oftentimes enabled by OSS, 'Stallman was right' is something that keeps coming back. Its not just a glib meme.
I expressed no opinion either way on that topic. I don't even consider the topic relevant to my position, which is that once we agree that merely asking some questions will result in harsh punishments, we're hosed as a society.
Today, it's the question you hate that gets punished. Tomorrow it will be the question you hold most dear.
So your premise is flawed and thus your position is (ironically) irrelevant to the topic.
As far as I can tell, the discussion was on-topic given that a former professor, Minsky, was being accused of "assault." Stallman's questions and statements revolved around the use of that term and the trouble that its lack of specificity brings.
The university is (ideally) full of scholars holding controversial views, asking uncomfortable questions, and being accused of all manner of crimes. If one of them (Minsky) can be tarred and feathered without a trial, any of them could be.
Imagine a person emails a large distribution group at their office with the following question: "I notice we have many black employees: does anything think it might be beneficial if we return to chattel slavery and own them? Could lower our bottom line"
Would that person be fired? Should that person be fired? Are there questions that shouldn't be asked? Is everything fair game?
