So price of the service goes up, revenue goes up... quality goes down and service is worst... and this is kind of recurrint theme with other companies... what's the option here?
And remember same will happen with healthcare, education, products like cars or phones...
I have been thinking about calling the economic model that comes with this kind of shit Cancerpitalism, it's growth for growth sake, and that's the whole thing with Cancer.
This shit is way out of control, so if you are sick, then medicines are more expensive, if you want to buy a present, all your ideas are more expensive...
"Micro transactions"... Stopping your game to show you ads... Pay to win... Fcking street fighter 6 you have to buy it like 4 times to see all the characters... buy a car and then pay for heated seats, show you ads on the fricking big screen... buy a laptop everything is solder and the piece of crap comes with 4gb of ram but it's a "AI computer" because it's fcking expensive and lame because AI I guess... take your pet to the hospital and all of them are bought by "hedge funds"... a.k.a. we bought all of them so 500$ for someone to see your pet 10mins... "virtual health care" you then have to accept 10 million pages of terms of service so you can put your virtual glasses and see your "virtual band aid on your exposed fractured bone"...
F uc king Cancer
the whole idea of Capitalism is that if you are good doing something then you improve your service and that allows you to have a competitive edge... then to compete someone has to offer a better service... BUT BECAUSE WE HAVE TO GIVE MORE AND MORE AND MORE WE HAVE TO EXTRACT MORE AND MORE AND MORE FROM CUSTOMERS...
stop and think... shareholders sued united healthcare because the service "improved" after Mario Bross brother throw an effin red shell to this 'ffin guy...
The new opus is so friking incredible that we had to put some safeguards like in fable... means... we notice that Opus can still do some of the work that we want to charge WAY more and we can't do it if the cheaper model does it...
1 year later... whoops sonnet 1337 gets safeguards... because it's so amazingly incredible... and we are sorry but opus 69 goes up in price...
and we are now releasing claude Astro-pus-able... 1000$ to hear the summary about what you want to ask... if you have to ask the price for the output you can't pay it
Now, ask yourself if you want AI taking decisions around your life... it will pull numbers... someone will have a "goal" of 1000 "hits" and there you go, 2-3 months in jail working to check what went wrong...
But don't worry, the other P AI system will ensure that the first one doesn't do mistakes...
that smells like bullshit to be fair. if you have a system that makes errors over 90% of the time then you have a system you can leverage to make fewer errors.
the situation would have to be very particular/contrived for that not to be the case.
The situation is very particular. When the system makes an error, I make a bigger profit. If the system made fewer errors, it would approve more things that cost me money.
Why do you think I'm motivated to make fewer errors under that situation?
Nah, it's cumulative errors per claim. E.g. maybe the per-decision-factor rate is somewhere over 50% but overall most claims will have errors because so many factors go into coverage/reimbursement decisions.
That's not how type 1 & type 2 errors work. The article is describing type 2 (false negative) and inverting the output has no correlation with the percent of false positives (type 1)
I can easily build you a system that will guess the price of a stock tomorrow wrong at least 90% of the time. Even 100% wrong if you'd like. How would you use that to make fewer errors in some other system?
What’s binary choice we are discussing here and what’s the opposite that you’d do? Approve every claim that was denied by the AI, and vice versa? Or what’s the binary choice related to stock prices you’re referring to?
I agree, that most real world problems, are not binary choices. But in this case actually yes, just do the opposite.
For that reason error rates above 50% don't make any sense. Building a system, that is reliably wrong, is as hard as building one that is reliable correct, because the systems are the same, just with the output inverted.
The worst you can get with a system is 50%, at which point you can just flip a coin, because that is just pure random. Any deviation from that is going to be an improvement.
I always thought insurance claims were more complex, some things may be wholly or partially covered on a line by line basis, and there should be justification provided. In certain cases they go to mediation or even court. It doesn’t seem binary to me but maybe it works differently where you are.
> if you have a system that makes errors over 90% of the time then you have a system you can leverage to make fewer errors.
member the three words "delay, deny, depose"? Insurances - and not just in the US, Germany has similarly bad stuff going on - aren't making a profit if they just blindly accept claims. It is much more profitable to deny with a vague "AI" system (or a blanket automated deny) first, and only have a first look with an actual human agent at it when the customer complains or files a lawsuit.
You seem to have missed the point, which is that the decision to murder a large number of innocent people was made by humans at the top of the chain of command, and 'AI' is being used as a thin pretext for that.
The pattern matches various other acts of senseless violence against innocents in South America.
The message isn't "We did this accidentally. We should understand how it happened, so we can make sure it doesn't happen again.".
It's "We do this to make the point that we can, no one can stop us, and if we're challenged we're going to lie about it."
> It's "We do this to make the point that we can, no one can stop us, and if we're challenged we're going to lie about it."
FWIW, forcing people to go along with transparent lies is a popular social manoeuvre. It signals both the power of a group and the power of the person leading the lie.
Although it is a very frustrating tendency, because honesty and realism tends to be better for the people who have the numbers. It is hard to organise real efforts around lies.
The decision was indeed made by AI and humans failed in their duty to fucking verify it. They green lit and now we have school children dead. No single component of this whole chain is defensible.
Depends on what "decision" means. If I say, "Claude, compile a list of 1000 buildings to blow up," and then skim the output briefly and then press the red button, I wouldn't say Claude "decided" anything.
If someone made a table of one hundred potential targets and rolled ten ten sided dice to pick a row to target, do we blame the decision on the dice, the table, Wizards of the Coast, or the person who decided this was a good way to choose targets?
You’re conflating who chooses the decision maker with the decision making device.
So AI’s output is not so different than a roll of dice? Definitely the people who decided to put in such an incapable and unreliable tool should be held accountable. No dispute in that.
We had a public tender for some 3d model of a railroad project a few years ago, three companies applied and for some reason (corruption) the most expensive one was selected to make the model.
They blamed excel for the bad choice. Excel.
I mean sure, you can always blame the tool, i can blame my cars rear parking sensors when i hit someone when backing up during parking, but come on... at some point, a human is responsible. Someone, some person, decided and greenlit the decision to bomb those places and should now be in jail for that.
I mean, what's next? A building collapses, because the load bearing sections are too weak... do we blame CAD tools now?
>The decision was indeed made by AI and humans failed in their duty to fucking verify it.
The decision to leave the decision to AI was made by humans. It's on the moronic humans for not understanding the limitations and flaws of the software they are using and believing the marketing material without constantly verifying their results.
How good or bad the software is an almost equally important but separate issue.
Judicially, you can hold a person accountable for "accidentally" killing 100+ children easier than you can a technology system. The technology system will always be used as the scapegoat for the government's atrocities.
I'm not sure why the "people make mistakes too" crowd can't seem to grasp this concept.
No, but the US has historically permitted even cold-blooded torture of innocents with no liability, and has asserted the state secrets privilege to prevent lawsuits and prosecutions, so it wouldn't have mattered.
But that's a US-specific thing. With humans you at least have this theoretical liability-- that there is someone who could be punished.
Doesn't invalidate my point. I didn't say it was easy to hold a person accountable, just easier than a techonology system, whose owners point the finger back at government.
I think we both want to see justice for those 100+ innocent children murdered (as well as those innocent lives in Afghanistan and Iraq) by the U.S. Military's incompentence.
There were never "weapons of mass destruction," although Congress was mislead to believe there was.
In the Minab attack, Congress wasn't even given the option to authorize.
For the sake of argument, I'm also entertaining your idea of what happens after the U.S. spends 20+ years killing innocent family members overseas. And how that strategy has changed since the Iran conflict many years later? Have we learned a single thing about entering into endless conflicts?
We're bringing an end to anti-American radicalism by conducting a repeated pattern of carelessly murdering of children of potentially pro-democracy parents in these regions, while also cutting international aid?
If it was my 12-year-old murdered by a "targeting error," I would dedicate my life to revenge. Not a "democracy effort" by President yam tits and his neoptism family circus failing to broker deals internationally on behalf of good intentioned American voters bankrolling this needless loss of American troops.
This is a war that is generally supported by both Republicans and Democrats - the latter mostly dissenting to the fact that it is being conducted without Congressional approval.
It is also a war that extends in part from the Gaza genocide, which as we know was overseen and backed by a Democratic administration.
In other words, this is a war enabled and sanctioned by our government collectively, and not a particular administration or party.
Unless congress votes on it this is an illegal war. There is no wiggle room here because Iran was not an imminate threat to the US and took no military actions against us.
Did representatives from the U.S. House and Sentate vote to authorize this?
No. You're full of shit. It's Trump's Executive Branch demanding quotas from the Pentagon that led to bad information being used to murder 100+ children. No surprise with "No Tab Pete" at the helm of the Pentagon.
Maybe if Republican and Democrat elected representatives had an oppportunity to authorize the Iran war, I would listen to you.
Respectfully, your argument is bullshit. Produce voting records authorizing the war, or shut up.
Every family member of a fallen U.S. Service Member should be seeking you out right now for how many American soliders have been lost to this Congressionally unauthorized war, with no results to show for it but record high Diesel prices causing American farmers to go bankrupt.
They haven't voted to stop it, either. We're way past 90 days, it's a choice for congress not to exercise their power.
Schumer could be raising hell and disrupting everything in the senate in order to force a vote, it would be incredibly popular and define the midterms, but he's choosing not to.
Took them a few tries to even get there, and the senate hasn't even taken it up for consideration. Chuck Schumer wants this war, even though 60% of Americans and like 90% of democrats are against it. He just needs deniability to blame it on Trump.
Just came back to this. I am genuinely curious: were you expecting to start a discussion with such a disrespectful reply, or were you just ragebaiting?
I'm genuienly curious to continue the discussion you started if you want to give it the time. If you're too senstive, I understand. Respect is earned, and I'm willing to listen.
Do you believe every TV ad you see, too? If you do, do you think you should stand in judgement of people who don't?
Thinking everyone who doubts is a cynic is your problem, and you're continuing to execute on it. When the next liar rolls in and says they fixed everything, you'll be the first to run in bashing people saying "no, I don't think he did."
Do you not read? Do you not know anything about what America has done?
Killing kids overseas is the best way to end up with dead Americans. That's not virtuous, it's just common sense.
Without accountability and justice for those families that experienced unnecessary loss, they're coming for us to seek their own justice. Rightfully so.
Can you not take a second to put yourself in their shoes as a parent? If the tables were turned and Iran's government "accidentally" bombed an elementary school in the U.S., I feel like you would have a different opinion on justification for revenge.
In this instance on the very first day of strikes on Iran, the U.S. Military instigated future conflict by murdering hundreds of innocent children. Your children will pay the price in one way or another.
Actions have consequences. Trump and his installed sycophants in Congress and the SCOTUS reject that reality, but their constituents aren't as gullible as they banked on.
When they get their golden parachute, Presidential pardons, and taxpayer funded-protection, you are left holding the bag for bankrolling this atrocity.
AI is a different order of magnitude since unlike all other technology across all of human history you can hand off the task and decision-making itself entirely to the AI.
It's the difference between a sword and a nuclear missile even though both are "technology"
> Now, ask yourself if you want AI taking decisions around your life... it will pull numbers... someone will have a "goal" of 1000 "hits" and there you go
Before anyone does this please let me know beforehand so I can invest in paperclip factories…
Please, think about the american companies!
If we don't protect them, when they go broke (because they will, it will be the perfect triple dip) and we bail them with american taxes we will have paid twice for all the work they had already stealed (not my words, this is a microsoft anti-ai exec...)
Twice, trice or quadrix(tm) are just approximations, we have already paid with:
- more expensive electronics
- less work
- all the retirement money put into gpus
- all the "fair use" of all the books, all the images,
- and then taxes to bail them?
As someone on the spectrum/neurodivergent myself, no, it does not excuse his behavior whatsoever (or the lack of action by MIT).
Stallman predicting that a technical capability could be abused and then somebody eventually abusing it is not Cassandra syndrome, it's just threat modeling run amuck. It gets old after a while (I should know, I remember classic Slashdot lol). The actual question is whether his proposed cure(s) were worth the cost, and that has very much not been "proven right" (if anything, LLMs/agents are rapidly eroding some of the practical premises his arguments depended on, IMO)
> if anything, LLMs/agents are rapidly eroding some of the practical premises his arguments depended on, IMO
As someone who also remembers classic Slashdot, it's staggering how many of the things Stallman was writing about back then came true. Software is centralized and subscription based, and largely not under the consumer's control. I fail to see how LLMs make any of these situations better, care to elaborate?
> Software is centralized and subscription based, and largely not under the consumer's control.
Is it really though? I'll grant that you might have a point with iOS/Android and things like banking apps (no problem with the apps existing, it's when there's no web-based alternative is where the real issue lies). But there's more (F)OSS code out in the wild then there's ever been, more (F)OSS alternatives to most major software, Steam runs on Linux, major companies like Google and Nintendo putting licensing notices where you can read them). Not to mention the rise of open source hardware, the whole makersphere, etc.
> I fail to see how LLMs make any of these situations better, care to elaborate?
By driving the cost of software to zero. I've had great success over the past year or so constructing a whole range of system software, the original "no driver for this printer" complaint Stallman had would be solved with an evening of Claude/Codex/etc usage now (and to prove my point, we just had someone crank out a Linux GPU driver for M4 Apple Silicon using LLMs)
It's still a fringe movement even now, at least the turbo fanatic, FSF disciple kind. It was normal companies like Google adopting Linux that drove adoption, not something Stallman did.
Don’t throw other people under the bus to justify what a wretched person he is. Being autistic doesn’t make you defend pedophilia or any of the other unpleasantness he’s implicated in.
I can write "EA-3167" and "pedophilia" in an article 100 times. Congratulations! You're now associated with pedophilia. That's a classic smear campaign.
Unless someone can cite something Stallman specifically said or did which implicates him, I'm passing on this as part of a smear campaign. I will not accept:
- An article reporting on an article reporting on a misquote of Stallman
- Subtext you read into something he wrote (his flaw is he doesn't get subtext to what he writes)
There's infinite communications from him. He has no filter. Go on. Find something. If you can't, accept you're wrong. The alternative is that I'll accept you're being malicious.
> “In 2006, Stallman published a controversial comment about the intention of pedophiles in The Netherlands to form a political party[1]. He wrote, I am skeptical of the claim that voluntary pedophilia harms children. People today don't think that a prepubertal human being—a child—is capable of understanding all the implications of sexual activity (in some cases this may be so even after puberty). So in widespread social opinion, the concept of “voluntary” does not apply.
In the same article, Stallman writes, [...] stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. This is not totally improper, it encompasses the immense diversity of beliefs about age of consent and morality across cultures.
As for laws, in the United States the criteria for determining age of consent and related issues differ across jurisdictions, some of them have raised the age of consent as recently as 2017 and 2019. Furthermore, the United States seems to have a double standard when it comes to these laws, since marriage of a child with an adult—even much older—is allowed under certain circumstances; we believe that this seriously disregards children's wellbeing in favor of some other “convenience.” Lastly, it may be surprising to some that age of consent in the US is 16 in 34 States”
Then the actual “defense of Stallman” bit is that he changed his mind or at least said he did… thirteen years later:
Whatever the reasoning that led Stallman to write those statements, the fact is that later he changed his mind:
> “14 September 2019 (Sex between an adult and a child is wrong)
Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.
Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.”
Note the date and remember this VERY late “change of heart” coincidentally took place one month after Epstein died and became the current sensation he remains.
That’s from an attempt defend him, and ironically the site is full of documentation of the hideous things he says and believes.
The so-called "article" is a one-line comment on a post in what looks like a 2006-era Twitter-style feed. I think one would see a similar amount of crazy from virtually anyone posting this much, without a filter.
Read it.
Do you believe Stallman is a pedophile on the basis of this comment?
I do not.
I've seen similar comments in academic texts, in the context of cultures where this happened and was acceptable (e.g. Greek pederasty in ancient Athens). From what I know of Stallman's communication style, I read this comment in a similar, if much less informed, light. He's making an incorrect but academic point, poorly.
> I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
THE EXACT SAME QUOTE on the page you linked. I get it. Do yourself a favor and stop making excuses for him, you can still support the points he makes about FOSS without defending the rest or the man himself. His problem isn't communication style it's the content of what he says that's a problem.
I also never said "Stallman is a pedophile" I said he supports pedophilia. That comment alone, never mind the others, is more than enough to make that claim. Have a lovely weekend.
Eventually some of them will be right. Choosing which to heed without hindsight is the problem. Though in this case, Stallman was not a lone kook at the time.
I think it's a good, analogous, contemporary example of how RMS tends to be misunderstood.
In this context, his comments tend to be:
a) Correct, if you read them precisely (which is how RMS writes -- precisely)
b) Horrible, if you read them with the subtext implied in mainstream culture (which is how people read what RMS writes)
That combination results in "with the terrorists" in 2001, "with Epstein" in 2026, and a lot of similar things in between.
Coincidentally, it's highly unlikely Minsky did anything wrong. All the people thrown under the bus by MIT were either the people who acted ethically and came forward or, like Minsky, were dead. All the people who did unethical things didn't come forward, and are in the Epstein files. Not all the MIT folks in the Epstein files did unethical things, but many presumably did....
The MIT transparency report is worth reading in the light of the release. MIT had most of that information about its faculty at the time.
> Coincidentally, it's highly unlikely Minsky did anything wrong.
Virginia Giuffre said that she had sex with Minsky when she was 17 and he was 73. I think no matter how you look at it (even if she was technically above the age of consent in the jurisdiction of Epstein's island), it is still wrong and he absolutely should have known that.
I am a big fan of Stallman's work and his views considering computer science and its role in society, but his views are not precise or correct in this matter.
> but his views are not precise or correct in this matter.
The views he expressed re sexual assault were abhorrent
I have huge respect for RMS. Being this wrong once shows the bad way (we) men of a certain age were raised. The idea that sexual assault must involve violence or the threat of violence is old, out of date, and at one point RMS held it along with society at large
Times change, and as we get older we need to change with them.
In this instance, Stallman was arguing semantics. His long-term criticism [1] is that ‘sexual assault’ is being used to cover a wide range of wrongful actions, where a more nuanced terminology to distinguish between them would be more appropriate. That in itself doesn’t imply he finds any of those actions acceptable, only that he’d like them to have more specific names.
He might not have picked a good time and place to share his terminological views, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them per se.
From the article, Stallman said "We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing."
That expresses an extreme obtuseness about human behavior and a lack of nuance. A 17 year old is a child.
This expresses an extreme inability to properly communicate subtext, which is common for autistic individuals, or ones autism-adjacent.
Stallman's comments, if read logically like a computer, are generally strictly correct. Stallman's comments, if read inferentially like a human might, often imply abhorrent things.
> Stallman's comments, if read logically like a computer, are generally strictly correct. Stallman's comments, if read inferentially like a human might, often imply abhorrent things.
That's not true. I understand the drive to categorize it as such, but if you look at the context of what he said, which is even mentioned in that article, you will realize that this is not a "definitional" issue or have anything to do with strict precision of terms.
That is a red herring that you are getting stuck on and using to defend him. I don't care about whether or not he thinks they are applying a word that he disagrees on the definition. I will cede that if you wish, because it is besides the point and not what he is actually arguing.
He (like you) is making the claim:
> Coincidentally, it's highly unlikely Minsky did anything wrong.
That is demonstrably an incorrect statemet. We may not a definitive morality that I can point to you and we both agree to the letter, but a 73 year old man should have the wisdom to recognize that sleeping with children is damaging to children even if they appear willing.
I will grant that Minsky's participation was probably not the most damaging thing in her life, but he chose to participate and he harmed her, contrary to what you and Stallman are claiming. It is unfortunate that we have many men (and women) who believe and like Stallman and Minsky. It shows that we need to address this and train ourselves better, so that everybody is on the same page when it comes to how we let children develop in our culture.
I'm not sure how to respond to this, except to point out that in a second comment, you finally conceded this:
> Minsky's participation
Did not happen.
The polite thing would be to apologize.
And this:
> if you look at the context of what he said
Would require you to share context. People have a history of sharing an article about an article about an article about what Stallman said.
When I go back to the source, he does have an extreme case of foot-in-mouth, but I have seen nothing from primary sources which would justify the smear campaign. Usually, the "context" is a conversation about terrorists or whatnot, Stallman making some academic point, and the "context" labelling him as "with the terrorists." Stallman:
- Can't read the room
- Doesn't follow the context
- Speaks precisely
Let me be blunt: You're smearing good people who worked to improve the world. That's not cool. It's also something which does broader harm than you might imagine. It means all but the most thick-skinned won't want to get into positions like Minsky or Stallman.
The Minsky situation was MIT looking for a fall-man.
The Stallman one dates back to Microsoft's engineered astroturf campaign, back when they were anti-FLOSS.
Why the fuck would I ever want to pick a fight with a corporation doing something nasty, if the result would be people like you calling me a pedophile?
The reason I give people a very large amount of benefit-of-the-doubt is because I've seen the effect these engineered smear campaigns have on individuals. I've also seen the amount of crazy that happens when one is famous. If a million people know who you are, and 0.01% do something crazy -- obsessive false accusations, bomb threats, or whatnot -- that's still a hundred people. Britney Spears or Zuckerberg will have security teams, legal teams, and PR teams to handle that. People who, like Stallman, are fundamentally doing something for the public benefit have the same pressure from crazies, astroturf, and whatnot, but without the ability to afford a defence.
It does seem entirely possible (not sure about ‘most plausible’) she would have presented herself as entirely willing. I see no fundamental problem with that statement. (Note that there’s a huge difference between ‘presented herself as entirely willing’ and ‘was entirely willing’, which I should hope you’re keeping in mind.)
Legally, a 17 year old may be a child in many jurisdictions, but that fact alone has little bearing on their appearance and maturity, so how is it relevant to the topic here? Had she been several months older at the time, would that have had any bearing on her interactions with Minsky, given her situation?
The above commenter and others have made the claim that Stallman is just being "precise" and "correct" about a misapplication of what sexual assault means, which is exactly besides the point and a red herring. They have also made the claim that "she would have presented herself as entirely willing". That is also besides the point. A 17 year old is a child, and that should have been enough for Minksy to not have engaged with her like that, and to recognize that Epstein was taking advantage of her (and in fact, trying to take advantage of him by offering her to him). That should have been enough. Making arguments about definitions or that she appeared "willing" are illegitimate attempts to deflect a serious moral failing. That in and of itself is a moral failing of Stallman, compounding Minsky's failing by trying to defend it.
Unless you mean to imply that any sexual acts between a young person and a remarkably older one ought to begin with the former showing their ID to prove they are in fact of age, the fact that she was legally ‘a child’ is irrelevant to the moral failing at hand. (Because it would be absurd for the morality of the act to radically shift based on whether it takes place a couple of months later or earlier.)
I do agree it was a significant moral failing (assuming he did go through with it), even if she did indeed present herself as willing and appeared of age. I don’t agree that trying to differentiate it from other related moral failings (even if it’s in a better light) constitutes a moral failing in itself, though. It is beside the point and not helpful to the matter at hand, but I don’t see much harm in it.
> Because it would be absurd for the morality of the act to radically shift based on whether it takes place a couple of months later or earlier.
The morality of this is that you should not take advantage of and harm a vulnerable person. In this case, being a child makes them deeply vulnerable. It doesn't matter if it is "a couple of months later or earlier".
Yes, that’s exactly my point. Law usually draws a (somewhat arbitrary) line between child and adult, but what really happens is that people mature gradually, so while the practical difference between a 10-year-old and a 30-year-old is great, the practical difference between a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old is minuscule.
> Virginia Giuffre said that she had sex with Minsky when she was 17 and he was 73. I think no matter how you look at it (even if she was technically above the age of consent in the jurisdiction of Epstein's island), it is still wrong and he absolutely should have known that.
This statement is factually false.
She said she was asked to offer herself for sex to Minsky. People inferred from this that sex happened, but Virginia did not say this. Read the full file.
Accounts from Minsky's wife say that Minsky declined. Accounts from Minsky's friends say he was very monogamous. No one close to the situation supports an account of Minsky having sex with Virginia Giuffre.
The natural next step should not have been to indict Minsky's reputation, but to ask Virginia Giuffre the natural follow-up: How did Minsky react when you made the offer?
In the deposition in Giuffre v Maxwell, she says she was directed by Maxwell to have sex with Prince Andrew, Jean Luc Brunel, Bill Richardson, Marvin Minsky and others. In those remarks, she is usually asked if she was sent or directed, presumably because they were concerned with Maxwell's involvement, and less concerned with the actual acts.
> Accounts from Minsky's wife say that Minsky declined.
That statement is factually false, unless you have a source that is not publicly available. The only accounts I can find is that his widow said it couldn't have happened because she said she was always with him, not that he declined.
Everything you wrote is materially correct. Given that you have this background, can you please explain how this:
> Virginia Giuffre said that she had sex with Minsky when she was 17 and he was 73.
Was not a lie?
Also: Yes, I do have sources which are not publicly available, but the difference between "declined" versus "it couldn't have happened because she said she was always with him" is within the spectrum of ambiguity of real-world human speech and memory. It is not materially different. The material point is there are multiple witnesses (at least the widow, in public sources) that say he did not have sex.
If you want proof of MIT folks covering up:
a) Read the MIT Transparency Report
b) Look at photos on archive.org from people who went to Epstein island and events whom MIT did not reveal. All this was public at the time.
Compare. But MIT also has travel records, so most of the people in the Epstein files, MIT knew about and chose to omit.
It is materially different. Either it did not happen as the widow claimed, or it did and it was declined.
I will back down from my claim that Minsky did have sex with Virginia Giuffree. In the deposition in the case against Maxwell, the questions were if Maxwell directed her to have sex with Prince Andrew, Jean Luc Brunel, Bill Richardson, Marvin Minsky and others. She was not asked if she actually followed through.
If you have non-public information, then feel free to share, otherwise there is nothing left to say.
> I will back down from my claim that Minsky did have sex with Virginia Giuffree
Thank you for backing down.
An apology would be warranted.
> It is materially different. Either it did not happen as the widow claimed, or it did and it was declined.
The material fact was that sex did not happen, regardless of whether the argument was that people saw Minsky decline or the argument was that the widow was with him the whole time and saw it did not happen. The two are not contradictory.
> If you have non-public information, then feel free to share, otherwise there is nothing left to say.
I do. I never met Minsky, which was odd given we revolve in similar circles. I did and still do know a lot of people who do know Minsky, whom I trust. The accounts -- which for me are second-hand and for you are now third-hand, were that the widow wasn't the only witness that sex did not happen, and that people who know Minsky well found the concept of him cheating on his wife inconceivable. That's just not his personality.
That's good enough for me to conclude that Minsky did not have sex with Virginia. It's not hard proof, but it seems extremely unlikely.
However, even if it did seem plausible (let's omit the insider information from a stranger on the internet), I would STILL not indict Minsky without clear evidence. Treating people as guilty without proof is kind of evil, in my opinion. It's two kind of evil:
- It makes smear campaigns work. The reason corporations, the CIA, and other organizations are able to run character assassination on activists and whistleblowers is precisely people like you, willing to run with allegations.
As a footnote: If you actually cared about pedophiles, corruption, and sex, why haven't you followed up on the obvious? The logical question -- if you bothered with logical inference over outrage -- would be why there were multiple, non-public witnesses who weren't mentioned in the MIT Transparency Report. Epstein got around a lot in MIT circles.
You've made several dubious claims. I'm honest and humble enough to be self-critical and not claim beyond what the deposition said, but that doesn't mean I should be held to a higher standard than you (i.e., if you did what you are demanding of me, you would have already apologized several times).
You are claiming there is no difference in the defense by the widow (who said she was always with him), while also claiming that Minsky was offered but declined. Both can only be the true if the offer was discreetly made and that the widow did not notice. The consequence is that it diminishes her as a reliable witness and also raises the question if the offer was discreet, couldn't it have been just as discreetly accepted?
If we accept your insider knowledge, it does not improve the circumstances. Not just because friends and colleagues would want to defend someone they are involved with (and indirectly, themselves), but also because the issue here is not just whether he participated, but why didn't he respond appropriately?
He was an intellectual leader. Shouldn't we demand our leaders to be moral? In a slightly better world, he would have had the moral clarity of Norm Finkelstein and rejected any association with Epstein once he was offered sex by a 17 year old under his care. It does not appear that Minsky did that, likely because he did not want to risk the grant money and perks of hob-knobbing with the wealthy, or risk reputational harm that Epstein could have inflicted to discredit him.
I will share a more ambiguous situation to make it clearer why Minsky's response was problematic. I had a friend at a Zen center when two young women came to visit. One of them was wealthy, and the other was nominally her friend but behaved like a servant. The wealthy one even directed her to have sex with some of the male students and other visitors. It was disturbing to my friend, and at the time, he was not sure how to respond. One could claim that the young woman who was being directed was benefitting from the relationship, and that, after all, she was an adult.
However it is clear that it is toxic behavior, even if the young woman's victimhood might seem ambiguous to some. I would claim that the behavior should be rebuked and that morality should not just be about protecting the victims you see but also about rebuking malevolence, because there are so many victims that are not seen. The wealthy young woman was exhibiting her character, and that character would likely persist whether it was in a relationship with her friend, children, or other vulnerable people. She should be plainly told that it is not ok.
Although I think some of your assessments are misguided, I think we have common ground about scape-goating (which you were referencing in the second half of your response, but didn't name). If Minsky had rebuked Epstein, or if my friend had rebuked that young woman, it is likely that both would have been scape-goated. Malicious people do not bind themselves to morality so they can lie, instigate and conspire to undermine the reputation of whistle-blowers and other truth speakers. This is a persistent problem of humanity that was exemplified by the stories of Socrates and Jesus, and all of free-thinkers killed during the European medieval period, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It is a problem even in much more mundane settings, and will occur whenever a moral person confronts immoral leadership. That is why we have to trumpet morality, lend support to moral behavior and speak out against abuse.
I'm not advocating for Minsky to be condemned as a terrible person. I'm just pointing out that he, as an example of wide-spread societal behavior, did not do the right thing.
> You are claiming there is no difference in the defense by the widow (who said she was always with him), while also claiming that Minsky was offered but declined. Both can only be the true if the offer was discreetly made and that the widow did not notice.
This doesn't seem like rocket science. If I am e.g. at a dinner party with my spouse, I might be aware there was no opportunity to have sex while not monitoring every conversation my spouse is involved with.
Conversely, if someone flirts with my spouse, and my spouse doesn't engage, I might not take notice, or if I do, I might not find it important enough to report back. There's a broad space of possibilities. "Offered," in this context, is pretty broad.
Famous people have such "offers" all the time. I was once mildly famous, and in one place I visited, there was a person who clearly expressed interest, who looked perhaps half my age. I signed an autograph and quickly moved on. This is the first time I even thought to even relay the story.
> Not just because friends and colleagues would want to defend someone they are involved with...
... you have paranoid delusions. That's just not how the world works.
> If Minsky had rebuked Epstein
I have no evidence this did not happen, and neither do you. Most times, such rebukes are private. I also have no idea what, if anything, Minsky knew.
> rejected any association
> I'm not advocating for Minsky to be condemned as a terrible person. I'm just pointing out that he, as an example of wide-spread societal behavior, did not do the right thing.
You have no idea what he did. You picked a random person, and decided to vilify him in your brain, based on fragmentary quotes.
I'll also mention: Good people associate with bad people. Christians often cite how Jesus associated with tax collectors, sex workers, and other sinners. As a tactic, isolation does not work. Overcoming racism means associating with racists. Overcoming sexism means associating with sexists. "Talking with" is not the same as "supporting," and if we didn't have cancel culture or "cut diplomatic relations" as a punishment, the world would be a much better place.
I can't edit my last comment but want to address the rest of your response even if it has become clear that you are not discussing this in good faith.
> > Not just because friends and colleagues would want to defend someone they are involved with...
> ... you have paranoid delusions. That's just not how the world works.
This is absolutely how the world works. Notice I did not say only. There usually will be a cohort that will immediately try to distance themselves, but also a cohort that will defend. The ratio will be different in different circumstances. You are denying the defending cohort while you are clearly part of it (if we believe your prior statements about your closeness to the situation). That is absurd.
What is further absurd is that you are comparing Minksy and Epstein to Jesus's ministry amongst the poor and marginalized. I am not sure how to respond to that. I did not know Minksy but I can assure you he was much more likely thinking about his grant money and protecting his own reputation (and MIT's) than being Christ-like to Epstein.
What you are talking about is enabling: ignoring morality. Once again, I'll state that that is not ok, and admonish Minksy for his own actions, as well as understanding that why we do this as a society is also to remind each other of what should be ok and what should not be ok. You seem to want to say that Minksy's association with Epstein was ok. I disagree. Let's leave it at that.
> I will back down from my claim that Minsky did have sex with Virginia Giuffree
And then continue to argue basing your arguments on that "fact." You have some kind of vendetta. It's not grounded in evidence, and you're willing to contort facts around that vendetta.
And you write things like:
> if you did what you are demanding of me, you would have already apologized several times
What I'm asking you to do is to not spread baseless accusations, especially about someone who can't defend themselves because they passed away.
The people you should apologize to aren't myself, but the people whom you slandered.
The topic seems to be warnings and predictions coming true even if they seem far-fetched at first. The linked article doesn’t talk about any warnings or predictions. It only recounts (in a way) how RMS, while discussing the topic of Epstein’s abuse, said some things which many people found offensive, leading to his resignation.
I guess it is marginally relevant; it just seems odd to drop a marginally relevant link unaccompanied by further comment. Usually people seem to mention what brought it to mind, or which part they found particularly interesting.
You were correct to dismiss pizza gate, as it was completely unfounded and pure right wing fantasy about satanist democrats eating babies in a basement.
Now that we have an actual conspiracy involving the elites of the world in a child sex trafficking ring, the people previously pushing the pizza gate narrative are nowhere to be found. They can't accept that their guy was Epstein's best friend for decades and the second most cited name in the files (after Epstein himself).
Haven't seen a single republican distance themselves from Trump because of his deep ties with Epstein.
> everything you know about Epstein and his circle was already public knowledge after his first conviction 20 years ago
Complete nonsense, a lot of Epstein's deep ties to Silicon Valley and academia weren't even developed until after his conviction, and weren't reported to the public until much later.
The more lurid takes on Epstein and his network/influence popularized by the QAnon psyop certainly did a lot to encourage everyone to look the other way, but the facts themselves were reported by a handful of responsible and even-keeled gumshoes in fringe/alt media until Julie Brown came along.
jsrozner for president.
Again... just imagine the cost of say replacing the SSN and each and every one of the licence drivers in the US... JUST IMAGINE THAT COST PAID FROM THE TAXES YOU PAID, and again by you because it's not free... so it's leaked all over again in 1 month because there is no way "to incentivize these guys to jail" fast enough.
It's done and works that way because the deterrents are 1% of the income of the company.
Can we please have a 1 release focus on fixing bugs? not more ai but fixing bugs, 1 release where you can disable AI... 1 release to make it faster again, 1 release to polish... not to push the next "game changing UI design..."
the "upgrade to 18.4" took my iphone to 26.whatever and siri got even worst...
siri set an alarm for 10:40 (creates one at 12:08)... NO, delete that one, 10 40 (does nothing)... hey siri... (ajum), delete the previous alarm... (done!) now set an alarm at 10:40 (alarm at 4pm....)... eventually you get tired... you go to the alarms app.. and then there is the previous "deleted" alarm and the other one...
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