201–210 of 289 posts
Why does it seem like people working in tech have such a hard time keeping their personal and professional lives separate? I'm not just talking about incidents of poor conduct. It's also the fact people are exchanging insults and serious accusations over blog posts. It's not like the observers have the facts and evidence to make fair judgements on these matters. The whole trial by social media is really embarrassing…
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I disagree on both parts. Downvoting without explaining only stifles communication and smugly reinforces both sides' viewpoints. A downvote IMO should only be used if the comment is brazenly off-topic, offensive, or factually incorrect. As for the second part, someone could be a true angel but never witness any harassment and never have the chance to bring an offender to justice - does that make them a better or wors…
Doesn't that depend on what you mean by "just got along" and "didn't cause these kinds of problems"? Don't rock the boat? Don't be a narc or a buzzkill? Get a sense of humor?
I did not say at all that one should stay silent in the face of adversity.
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False accusations of sexual harassment in particular, or accusations in general?
> False accusations of sexual harassment in particular, or accusations in general? False accusations of sexual harassment do, in fact, happen (and, should a general perception that they do not occur become widely recognized, it would be reasonable to expect that that alone would make false accusations more common -- the general acceptance of the belief "no one would lie about X" encourages lying about X.)
A blog is no substitute for due process. Appelbaum may be guilty of all of the things he's been accused of, he may be guilty of none of them. Let's see some formal charges, sworn witness statements and court proceedings before we decide. False accusations can and do happen all the time.
Have you missed the part where many of the people that have been abused by Appelbaum are also radicals that both distrust the criminal justice system AND think that it has overall negative effects that don't serve anyone? There are ways of getting to accountability and rehabilitation and justice that don't have anything to do with filing charges in a court of law. Start with looking up "restorative justice" and "rest…
I don't really care. For all its faults, due process in the West is still a whole lot better than the alternatives.
> There are ways of getting to accountability and rehabilitation and justice that don't have anything to do with filing charges in a court of law.
If these allegations are true, Appelbaum is clearly someone who needs to be locked away from society for decades in my opinion and no-one can arbitrarily claim that authority. The important word is 'if'.
> Start with looking up "restorative justice" and "restorative justice rape" for example, to read about approaches that have worked.
Great. Let's find out if a rape happened first. Because it didn't happen at Duke Lacrosse, it didn't happen to Emma Sulkowicz, it didn't happen at the University of Virginia, it didn't happen to Nicola Osborne, Elizabeth Coast, Katherine Bennett, Cassandra Kennedy or Linsey Attridge.
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A slippery slope, if you will? No, let this case stand on its own: The leaders of the Tor community were shown evidence they considered to be sufficient to boot this guy. It's a community they lead, they get to decide who is welcome. You want to start your own community and welcome him with open arms, you go right ahead.
Last I checked the Tor developers don't own the entire privacy community. That said, yes, they do lend a lot of legitimacy to this claim, but it just concerns me that no one has publicly put their name on a rape allegation and nothing has been taken up legally.
You slide right past my assertion that the Tor community must be able to decide who is welcome in the Tor community and refer to a nebulous "privacy community" now. Is the "privacy community" even at issue? I don't know what that is. If there is a group called the "privacy community", then yes, I agree, they should decide who is welcome in their club.
As far as I know, he's not being prosecuted. The only rights he acquires from not being prosecuted are that he won't go to jail. Right? He doesn't have any automatic right to join my club, your club, or the Tor community's club.
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I agree with that, assuming he is guilty. On the other hand, it's up to the particular community (or employer) to weight the situation. I don't think doing something illegal should mean that every community should shun you, and it seems to me that's what the article calls for.
The problem is that the guy is literally a danger to the community. Allowing him to go to events and parties is literally putting your attendees in danger.
Another similar case comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_ca...
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When the police and justice system collects information about clothing, sexual history with defendant, alcohol and other drugs, they do so because these are legally relevant facts to establishing a narrative that's otherwise often too lacking in material basis. The police and justice system wish to know these facts so they know the strength of some legal narrative and what counternarratives can be supported. Wearing…
> Drug use damages the credibility of any party. I agree that victims are often doubted because of drug use. (I think that's an error by police; instead of doubting the victim they should be treating the victim as a vulnerable person who was more likely to be abused) But can you show me any examples where a rapist who claimed he had consent was doubted because he had been using drugs? It feels as if the doubt only go…
Imagine a situation where the government doesn't ask first, and instead defense asks first on their terms. That's incompetent.
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> "well, she wore a sexy dress and followed him up to his room so maybe his claims that it was consensual are true." how is that reasonable? maybe we should ask what she claims and what he wore. but wait, what clothing indicates whether someone is a rapist? tshirts and tatty jeans? polo shirt? suit? of course clothing implies nothing. why does her wearing "sexy" clothing -- to say nothing of "sexy" being all about th…
First, what do clothing say about intention? I would like to live in a world where clothing is all about keeping a balanced body temperature and nothing else . The second question is of course, does it even matter what intention people had? Maybe it should not be the police job to determine which person is more believable, but rather just write down the statement of the accuser and the accused, and collect any eviden…
If someone walks into a bank wearing gloves and a ski mask in the middle of a hot local summer where that's decidedly uncomfortable clothing, are you going to assume nothing at all about their intentions? Would you think it wildly unreasonable if someone else did?
Did every single person -- every victim, bystander, and authority figure -- deftly slink away or obediently succumb to his forcible coercion?
Maybe I'm just a violent individual with anger issues but I would've had no problem with physically correcting his behavior.
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> But even then, he shouldn't be entirely prevented to participate in coding on Tor or political activity or whatever he was doing. You think that if this guy literally raped people he should not be excluded from the community he exploited and damaged? What the fuck, dude? If the stories coming out about this guy are true, then he is dangerous. He should be excluded from the community, not as some sort of vigilante p…
> You think that if this guy literally raped people he should not be excluded from the community he exploited and damaged? Duh, no, and I already explained my position in other comments. Perhaps I should have written "society" instead of "community" in the original comment, that would have been clearer. Any community should be free to shun him, or not to do it. And community which doesn't shouldn't be called out for…
I don't think anyone here has actually proposed that Appelbaum be excluded from society as a whole. It is, however, perfectly legitimate to tell people/communities/society, "Hey, be wary of this guy. He has a history of abuse."
> Any community should be free to shun him, or not to do it. And community which doesn't shouldn't be called out for not doing it.
It's absolutely reasonable to call out a community for not doing the right thing. If a community is enabling members to do terrible things, they should be called out. If a community is enabling abusers, or sheltering thieves, or otherwise hiding unethical or criminal behavior, it's perfectly correct to say, "Hey, you're an accomplice to the crimes you're enabling." To say that no one should call out the Tor community for enabling Appelbaum is to say that no one should have called out the Catholic Church for hiding child molestation.
> Your question is a little loaded, because you assume that the community feels it was damaged. But maybe it doesn't.
Clearly at least part of the community feels that Appelbaum has done damage.