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“But he does good work.”

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Re: “But he does good work.”

#251

Post by stale2002 »

js8 wrote: post #206
stale2002 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If he is, then it should be a police matter. But that may be difficult to do in practice, if the person is outside the U.S. jurisdiction. Another similar case comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_ca...

If multiple female friends come up to me and tell me that they are comfortable around a person because they said some lewd things or grabbed their butt, I'm not going to respond by saying "oh well why don't you just go to the police and get them arrested". I'm just going to ban the guy from the event.

This is not a court of law. If I am running a private event, I can ban people for whatever reason I feel like. And "this person has made multiple people very uncomfortable because of the things he said or has done" seems like a pretty damn good reason to me.

Re: “But he does good work.”

#252

Post by fl0wenol »

hashberry wrote: post #244
lusen wrote: post #33

our cultural environment gives us a bias toward downplaying the problem of rape and sexual harassment. i've found this thought experiment helpful in exploring bias: rape is torture. for some it is worse than murder. sexual harassment is aggression. for some it is worse than being punched in the face. how would you feel if someone at your work murdered or punched someone else? how would you feel if there was a systemi…

What about "up-playing" rape? In an account of one of Jacob's assaults[0], the victim wrote: "he was rubbing my clit and rimming the edges of my vagina" and then below she wrote according to German law this is rape with a maximum of 10 years in prison. Was this torture and worse than murder? [0] https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees....

No, it's just predatory, disgusting, and wrong.

Five years.

Re: “But he does good work.”

#253

Post by mafribe »

mafribe wrote: post #231
lusen wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how much of a problem are false accusations compared to not reporting sexual harassment or rape? this is a really interesting point worth investigating. i don't have research on hand to link to (though it's fresh on my mind from reading Roxanne Gay's Bad Feminist), but my understanding is that sexual harassment and rape are grossly underreported. false positives is not a huge problem. false negatives are. by talking…

my understanding is that sexual harassment and rape are grossly underreported. My understanding is quite the opposite. Recent media scares from the mattress girl to the UVA rape hoax to "Joey" [1], not to mention financial incentives (e.g. alimony in divorce cases), are exactly helping to convince me otherwise. Historically, lynching was often justified by references to rape of some damsels ... Are you suggesting tha…

Sorry, that should be: ... are not exactly helping ...

Re: “But he does good work.”

#254

Post by Criticism123 »

danso wrote: post #15

I typed this response to a comment that called the OP "mostly bullshit" and that if someone does wrong, it is incumbent upon the victim to file charges or forever hold their peace. The comment was flagged so I couldn't submit what I typed, so I've pasted it here. I agree that it's hard to find black and white in accusations...but I'd argue that even the judicial system leaves more than enough gray to argue over. And…

Not a day goes by here in /r/politics without having to listen to SJW infestation in tech. Yesterday it was the ((YC)) dude and now this.

Re: “But he does good work.”

#255

Post by gozur88 »

pjc50 wrote: post #69
camperman wrote: post #38

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.

False accusations can and do happen all the time No, accusations are labelled as false all the time; genuinely baseless accusations are much rarer.

You have no idea how often "genuinely baseless" accusations happen. Nobody does. We know they happen, but we're only sure when the accuser is a really terrible liar, as in the Rolling Stone UVA article's "Jackie" or Mattress Girl, or the accused (the actual victims) were able to produce a video as in this case:

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/25/local/me-false25

Nobody knows how many guys are rotting in jail because they ran across a vindictive (or just plain crazy) woman who can keep her story straight.

Re: “But he does good work.”

#256

Post by camperman »

jessaustin wrote: post #250
camperman wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't but even if I was it isn't shameful at all - it's how justice works in Western societies. Someone is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Allegations are just that - allegations. If there are a wide variety of them independently from different people, then it's more likely that there is something to them but that still doesn't mean you can just rush to judgement. That way lies Duke Lacros…

The courts can lock you up or kill you, so it's appropriate if they have somewhat stringent standards for guilt. Private organizations can only show you the door, and the standards for that are quite a bit less exacting. The media episodes you mention are not relevant to the internal operation of private organizations.

Hang on, we're not just talking about violations of internal company policies that led to a dismissal here. We're talking about crimes. I quote: "sexual harassment, rape, stalking, personal threats, and more." Appelbaum is entitled to defend himself and face his accusers in court if they believe they have something against him.

As to his guilt, I don't know. Half of me thinks he could well be a slimeball that's guilty as charged. If that's the case, then he needs to go to jail. But the other half of me remembers that there's 'women in tech' organisations that have been accused of framing technology leaders for sexual assault just to marginalize them. That's why I want to see some due process and some real evidence.

Re: “But he does good work.”

#257

Post by ultramancool »

kafkaesq wrote: post #241
ultramancool wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not raped though, which is what I was trying to get at. Sorry if I was vague. You're right, the evidence of many other incidents is indeed there.

In conjunction with the description of involuntary genital exploration that normally precedes the above quote it was, unambiguously, an episode of sexual assault. You can debate whether digital-only -- but nonetheless involuntary -- stimulation fits the legal definition of "rape" in this or that jurisdiction, if you want. But if so, you'd be splitting hairs.

Yeah, check the post times.

Re: “But he does good work.”

#258

Post by nikdaheratik »

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #184
danso wrote: post #15

I typed this response to a comment that called the OP "mostly bullshit" and that if someone does wrong, it is incumbent upon the victim to file charges or forever hold their peace. The comment was flagged so I couldn't submit what I typed, so I've pasted it here. I agree that it's hard to find black and white in accusations...but I'd argue that even the judicial system leaves more than enough gray to argue over. And…

It should be difficult to convince the system, it should not be easy. If it were people would 'hack it' to there benefit. See welfare. True, a victim will face the emotional hurdle and trauma. The system is unfeeling. People these days mostly avoid confrontation. Going to the police is confrontation by proxy, and when it takes convincing to get them to take action, a beaten down victim has quite a battle to face. The…

What do you even mean when you say: "See welfare." Welfare is designed to temporarily give out free stuff, it's not easy, but it also is less annoying than the Police.

With the police, the entire process for reporting many of these issues revolves around convincing them to do their job. Or rather, convincing them that your problem is important enough, or else an easy enough case to make, that they should devote time to it rather than other crimes in the area.

And then you say "Going to the police is confrontation by proxy"? That sentence, at least in any civilized part of the world, is complete nonsense. The reason why we have police, ideally, is to reduce the number of confrontations by making the cost of both crime and of escalating violence swift and clear. The job of courts and the police is to prevent vigilantism, as well as to protect people. It does more to prevent additional violence both because most criminals (who aren't the best in society) know that you don't try and take on the police and because it keeps the people being hurt by crime from lashing out and escalating.

And then you go on this victim blaming "you must train on self defense" nonsense? If you live in a war zone, or a really rough neighborhood and you can't count on the police, you might have a point. But for most people crime happens rarely, and nearly all of the time there's no way to prepare for it unless that's all you do with your time. Maybe that's how you want to live, but for me and most other people, that's alot of mental and emotional energy to spend on something that isn't likely to happen.

Re: “But he does good work.”

#259

Post by gozur88 »

vtlynch wrote: post #56
camperman wrote: post #38

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.

Suggesting that the volume of accusations and eyewitness accounts that have been made against Appelbaum may be "false accusations" is a shameful thing to do.

It's rather more principled than "shameful". You need only look at what happened to Jian Ghomeshi to realize this kind of stuff can be coordinated by people with their own agenda.

Without an impartial investigation, we on the outside know nothing but what has been alleged.

Re: “But he does good work.”

#260

Post by js8 »

dpark wrote: post #249
js8 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think anyone here has actually proposed that Appelbaum be excluded from society as a whole. Well, that's how I read the original article (it's an appeal to all tech people to shun him) and some of the comments. > If a community is enabling abusers, or sheltering thieves, or otherwise hiding unethical or criminal behavior But we don't know if he was criminal. It's a matter of justice to decide that. In any c…

> But we don't know if he was criminal. You're reading selectively. I also mentioned abusers and unethical behavior. You overlooked that because it doesn't fit into your "justice system" narrative. > But it's not OK to call out some community because it doesn't do extra punishment to people who we consider morally bad. Yes, it absolutely is. The problem here is you're worried about punishment when you should be worri…

I am worried about the community. But I consider abusers to be part of it, whether you like it or not. I believe that shunning them out completely is worse than trying to rehabilitate them (which means some punishment plus some forgiveness).

I see this as a variation of a NIMBY problem. If you consider community as a sort medieval thing, which needs to be protected from outsiders at all cost anyway, it's a perfectly valid strategy to deal with abusers by shunning them out.

But modern world is not like that. The abusers have to live somewhere in the society, and if they are not allowed to interact with others, you will get a bigger problem. And arguably, USA applies this strategy the most from all developed world, and it is a cause of considerable problems.

And I am saying again, what I specifically disagreed with was the call to other groups to shun him.

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