The record doesn’t say what you’re implying. Virginia Giuffre’s deposition is that Epstein told her to have sex with Minsky. It does not say that Minsky agreed, touched her, or did anything. That’s “he was instructed to be offered to,” not “he did it.”<p>What we have from people who were there:<p>Greg Benford (physicist and SF author, present that day) stated publicly: "I was there. Minsky turned her down. Told me about it." [InstaPundit, Aug 2019, quoting Benford: <a href="https://instapundit.com/339725/" rel="nofollow">https://instapundit.com/339725/</a> ]<p>>Typical Crap Journalism from NYT:<p>>“In a deposition unsealed this month, a woman testified that, as a teenager, she was told to have sex with Marvin Minsky, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, on Mr. Epstein’s island in the Virgin Islands. Mr. Minsky, who died in 2016 at 88, was a founder of the Media Lab in the mid-1980s.”<p>>Note, never says what happened. If Marvin had done it, she would say so. I know; I was there. Minsky turned her down. Told me about it. She saw us talking and didn’t approach me.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford</a><p>Minsky was there with his wife, told her about the approach, and told Benford right afterward. So we have a first‑hand, on-the-record account that he declined, plus the fact that he immediately told his wife and a colleague. There is no evidence he “did” anything.<p>So: (1) the allegation that he did something is unsupported by the testimony and contradicted by an eyewitness; (2) even if it weren’t, “a man is what he does” has nothing to do with whether Society of Mind or his other theories are valid. Newton’s physics and Minsky’s cognitive architecture stand or fall on evidence and argument, not on moral purity. Conflating a disputed personal allegation with the worth of his ideas is a smear, not an argument.<p>David Henkel-Wallace (gumby) has posted about this before on HN:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22015840">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22015840</a><p>>gumby on Jan 10, 2020 | next [–]<p>>I know several people who were at that island and have discussed this event; one even told me that he remembered it because Marvin came over to him and said "this woman just offered to have sex with me." Also Gloria, his wife, was there, though I haven't asked her about it (and wouldn't). This seems believable to me.<p>>OTOH I did read Giuffre's deposition and she says not just that she was told by Epstein to proposition various people but that it happened. I find that very hard to believe having known him so long, but she made that statement under oath. Also I'm not sure Marvin was famous enough to be worth making up a story about (as opposed to, say, a famous heir to a throne).<p>Gumby was mistaken in claiming the deposition says “it happened”; he was very likely inferring it from the same transcript. What "happened" is she was told to have sex with him, but there is absolutely no evidence or testimony that he did, and there is evidence from Greg Benford that he didn't.<p>Gwern draws the same distinction:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20774197">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20774197</a><p>Look for yourself here:<p><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7010864-virginia-giuffre-maxwell-deposition" rel="nofollow">https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7010864-virginia-giu...</a><p>Now do you have anything interesting to say about his theories, other than trying to smear him?