> Things like "consent" or even a misrepresentation of the person's age are generally considered irrelevant
Legally, frequently you are correct, but not always culturally. To leave Minsky aside, I believe a lot of people accept the misrepresentation argument even when the law doesn't, usually when the ages are close and the minor is somewhere they shouldn't have been allowed. The typical example would be a 20 year old meeting a 17 year old at an 18+ event.
Stallman is an ivory tower thinker. His inability to accept the societal rules you mention are core to him being Stallman. At some point he seems to have decided that his moral philosophy revolves around the concept of harm rather than rules. This is what led him to his earlier posts on incest, sex with minors and necrophilia, if nobody is being harmed then in what way is it wrong? The most obvious answer is that Stallman is incorrect that nobody is being harmed, however I should point out that these topics are actually discussed in related academia (the incest and necrophilia ones are more popular because they doesn't garner the same backlash).
The Minsky issue is complicated by the difference between what Stallman was defending and what now seems to be the actual case. As far as I can tell Giuffre was actually 18 (she was 17 the previous year when she was on the same flight as Minsky) and it seems she didn't actually have sex with Minsky (this isn't clear, she never actually said she did and apparently Minsky mentioned the encounter to people at the time and said he rejected her).
However, Stallman was arguing for the facts as he thought they were, which was that Minsky did have sex with her when she was 17, with her instigating things at Epstein's behest. Stallman was again engaging his ivory tower, questioning how we can call him a rapist if she was 17 but not if she was 18, and how can we blame him for things he didn't know (that she was being coerced). This is exactly how we already knew Stallman thinks. He has ignored some things here, such as what 75 year old Minsky could reasonably believe was going on when an 18 year old came on to him on Epstein's island, but they're facts that could have been pointed out to him and might have changed his opinion. Or perhaps not, if that situation happened to Stallman he might indeed think that finally, after all these years, he has found the cute 18 year old who is into geriatric nerds.
Legally, frequently you are correct, but not always culturally. To leave Minsky aside, I believe a lot of people accept the misrepresentation argument even when the law doesn't, usually when the ages are close and the minor is somewhere they shouldn't have been allowed. The typical example would be a 20 year old meeting a 17 year old at an 18+ event.
Stallman is an ivory tower thinker. His inability to accept the societal rules you mention are core to him being Stallman. At some point he seems to have decided that his moral philosophy revolves around the concept of harm rather than rules. This is what led him to his earlier posts on incest, sex with minors and necrophilia, if nobody is being harmed then in what way is it wrong? The most obvious answer is that Stallman is incorrect that nobody is being harmed, however I should point out that these topics are actually discussed in related academia (the incest and necrophilia ones are more popular because they doesn't garner the same backlash).
The Minsky issue is complicated by the difference between what Stallman was defending and what now seems to be the actual case. As far as I can tell Giuffre was actually 18 (she was 17 the previous year when she was on the same flight as Minsky) and it seems she didn't actually have sex with Minsky (this isn't clear, she never actually said she did and apparently Minsky mentioned the encounter to people at the time and said he rejected her).
However, Stallman was arguing for the facts as he thought they were, which was that Minsky did have sex with her when she was 17, with her instigating things at Epstein's behest. Stallman was again engaging his ivory tower, questioning how we can call him a rapist if she was 17 but not if she was 18, and how can we blame him for things he didn't know (that she was being coerced). This is exactly how we already knew Stallman thinks. He has ignored some things here, such as what 75 year old Minsky could reasonably believe was going on when an 18 year old came on to him on Epstein's island, but they're facts that could have been pointed out to him and might have changed his opinion. Or perhaps not, if that situation happened to Stallman he might indeed think that finally, after all these years, he has found the cute 18 year old who is into geriatric nerds.