Apart from a very few, every accomplished technologist have started using Twitter and their followers to attack others. This is nothing but the witch hunt from medieval times done differently.
I have interacted with RMS in Emacs developer list, he has a strong opinion and nothing more, nothing less. He is not trying to create a mob and nor is he starting an upraising. If you have an opinion, voice it and leave it. Yes, I agree RMS needed a PR to tread the land mine ridden modern life.
Overall, it is sad to see RMS and his work getting trivialized for totally unrelated reasons.
Is that unrelated, trivial behavior that should be ignored?
This isn't a witch hunt, what he did was wildly inappropriate and the number of people defending his behavior because he's quirky and did great things is a little disgusting.
As for 17, as someone in my 40's, I couldn't tell you the difference between someone who is 17, and someone who is 18, without them telling me or asking to look at their (hopefully non-forged) ID. If she lied (under coersion from Epstein), how could anyone have been able to tell?
But the coercion is very true, and hence my explicit callout. The question becomes did Minsky know that? Did he have any reason to suspect it?
Would they tell you?
I suggest you turn down any offers from billionaire convicted sex traffickers to go to their private island and meet young women then.
To be honest, you should probably turn down that sort of offer even if you're really good at telling how old people are.
For me, it would be too much like romancing my nieces, so I doubt I would take up the offer. In 30 years, who knows.
I've stated elsewhere I wouldn't be interested, but (not speaking of the Epstein/Minsky debate for a moment) who am I to judge someone for their consensual activities?
I've seen this same argument like 4-5 times now in this thread.
I agree, being able to tell the difference between 17 and 18 is difficult, however a line must be drawn and it seems that 18 is that line.
If a girl is 18 years and 1 day old, vs a girl who is 17 and 364, is there a big difference? No, however that is where society has drawn this line.
If you use the argument 18 looks like 17, then eventually people may say 17 looks like 16, 16 looks like 15 etc and is a slippery slope.
Also chances are the girls in question were most likely sex trafficked (Modern day slave trade by another name).
It's quite rare that someone who did due dilligance and were criminally mislead to are charged for the crime.
The women in question (those in contact with Epstein) were, in no way, a representation of chattel slavery, which is (i presume) what you mean by "modern day slave trade". They were neither 'owned' nor 'inheritable', they were also (by all reports) paid. Slaves are not paid.
The phrase "Modern Day Slave Trade" as it refers to sex work denigrates those who were forced into slavery by men with guns, as well as the subset of women and men who chose to participate in the sex work economy willingly, whether full-time or on-the-side.
I've seen many patently stupid things coming from the US lately, but this is certainly the most idiotic US witch hunt I've ever witnessed in my life.
1. As long as women or men are adult deemed by society (for example: 18 years old), anything is fine, even if 18 year old woman paired with 74 year old man. Age of consent rule.
2. A man should not date a woman younger than his age / 2 + 7. So a 74 year old can only date the youngest woman with 44 years age. Creepiness rule.
3. A man should not date a woman younger than 25 year old because the brain is not fully formed until 25 years age. Unless the man is more or less 25 year old himself. So a 74 year old man can only date the youngest woman with 25 years age. Brain fully formed rule.
Of course there are edgy case rule. We call it Romeo-Juliet rule (no more than 4 years difference). 16 year old woman should not pair with 74 year old man but if the man is 18 year old, that should be fine.
If someone had told me that we'd be violating this ridiculous American "creepiness" rules of yours, I'd have missed out on a lot of fun.
Edit:
I'm not saying the work of a person can't be good if he did bad things.
I think it's important not to glorify people.
Free software is important for all of us, but so is a stand against sexsim or the likes.
I say yes and that it isn't even an opinion. If you disagree with me, you are helping defend such abhorrent behavior. You wouldn't do that, would you?
Why? Because such neutrality allowed the creation of a space where people could express anything to everyone at a cost that was practically free. If the creators had been more politically engaged - that never would have happened. It would have been locked down from the start.
Now - if you go looking for it - you'll find studies that observe what happens when human group sizes increase. More "punisher" type personalities emerge, applying greater social costs on expression in an attempt to enforce hegemony. I would cite - but feeling lazy.
In response to the ever increasing social costs imposed by such punishers - the ones who created the free for all in the first place, turn more desperately to their stated neutrality... largely as a means to avoid punishment.
The punisher types won't accept this - because they want to root out dissenters hiding in their neutrality... so begin punishing those who don't proactively state their right minded political stances in every space. They apply such punishment for example - by statements of "deep disgust"... as though this hyperbolic reaction is not hyperbole at all; as though the mere act of not engaging is the worst of moral failings.
I would be terrified of such people... I would be terrified of you - if it weren't for the aforementioned irony with which I opened. You just do it cause game theoretically you are predicted to do so - because of the system brought into being by exactly the sort of people you hate.
We deserve you.
Kinda like how the AI in the Matrix deserve the mathematical anomaly called Neo. They can't get rid of it. But they created it... This thing that wars against them, under the heroic illusion of its own agency and righteous purpose.
I have the feeling the state of mind wasn't really neutral in the past, so there wasn't a neutral time that created all this.
There was much more gate-keeping going on in the past. I think this cost us much more innovation and new technology.
My impression is as following:
I don't think we move from non-political to political and from "free for all" to "only the good are allowed".
We are moving from one political strucuture that prevented some kind of people to cobtribute to another.
I'm not sure if this will yield better results, but I certainly hope so.
Also, I think the good tech/ideas of the past shoudn't be thrown away, because if we throw them away the people who created them did bad stuff to other people, the victims did suffer in vain.
But we should strife for creating things in the future with less suffering.
As a kid, I loved Lord Byron's poetry. Later, disgusted at his personality, I stopped reading his works. Still later, now I realise that flawed human beings can create beautiful works. Such is life.
And I started thinking of the kids Michael had sharing his bed and realized that, until then, I had had sympathy for them only in an abstract. Now I think about those kids whenever one of his songs comes on, and you know, I no longer enjoy listening to it.
Oh the horrors if people growing up think that rape is reprehensible.
Not saying one view is better or worse than the other. Simply pointing out people choose to get involved at different levels...
I argue that art always happens in context and one context is who did it. Appreating art from someone who is clearly hurting others can't have done something so important to me to still enjoy it.
If a case is made which has some very rare and difficult scenario I'm not sure what I would do.
That would be problematic.
I think theres a debate to be had over whether they should profit from those actions though.
Also keep in mind that Homosexuality was put in the same box as paedophilia and rape ( probably worse than rape). Social mores change, and are different from country to country. The girl involved was 17 as I understand it, which would be over the age of consent in my country.
Guess you avoid Caravaggio too, then.
Do yo actively avoid using technology invented or heavily influenced by problematic people?
The want of keeping tech and politics appart is a political choice in itself.
Is it surprising? How many people here work for horrible companies, and justify it to themselves by simply following directions? In a similar discussion the other day, a user literally wrote that they would have to be paid substantially well to report wrong-doings their company is involved with so as not to interrupt their lifestyle.
Disgusting, yes.
There's nothing disgusting about this, assuming that the wrong-doings are really bad and this would all go public. Society does not treat whistleblowers well. They generally lose their livelihoods when they go public with what they know. So yes, they should be paid substantially well to report wrong-doings, because they're usually ending their careers when they do this. If society isn't willing to stop ruining their careers when they "do the right thing", then society has no standing to call them "disgusting" for not willingly sacrificing their lives for the sake of truth.
>then society has no standing to call them "disgusting" for not willingly sacrificing their lives for the sake of truth.
A tad over dramatic. We aren't talking about Snowden here; hundreds of HN users work for the major companies doing morally ambiguous things. They aren't going to be blacklisted for spilling the beans on Facebook. In fact, in this political climate they might even benefit greatly.
If you're willing to harm other people in order to avoid potential harm to yourself, it's disgusting, and no amount of "but what about me?" will convince me otherwise.
