Not Working for Us (Preparing to Discuss Jacob Applebaum at CCC) • Hacker News Board

Re: Not Working for Us (Preparing to Discuss Jacob Applebaum at CCC)

#21

Post by EliRivers » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 3:19 PM UTC

guitarbill wrote: post #2

Everybody deserves justice. I don't think Medium posts and a lynch mob are the way this is achieved. Get the police involved when a crime is committed. Enough with the hearsay character assassinations. This time, the author even admits that he's conflicted and that his memory isn't completely reliable. So as somebody from the "out-group" it's hard to take it as seriously as it probably should be taken :( Edit: Instea…

"Edit: Instead of spawning a discussion, I should have guessed this would be downvoted immediately for not representing SJW values. Sorry to disappoint."

I think it's important to have told you why I downvoted. I just downvoted you for this passive-aggressive childishness. The rest of your post seemed reasonable.

Re: Not Working for Us (Preparing to Discuss Jacob Applebaum at CCC)

#22

Post by md_ » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

guitarbill wrote: post #11

md_ wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bit of a thin-skinned-ness to editing your own post to complain about downvoting. (I get downvoted sometimes. Honestly, who the fuck cares?) To answer the substantive point you make, I think the hyperbole of "lynch mob" is a bit overused in these circumstances. Historically, lynch mobs hung (often innocent) victims from trees. Writing Medium posts isn't exactly equivalent. So what exactly is your complaint?…

> There's a bit of a thin-skinned-ness to editing your own post to complain about downvoting. (I get downvoted sometimes. Honestly, who the fuck cares?) Yeah, but it worked! Shit, maybe that's the equivalent to click-bait. I see it as a community service though. Downvoting helps if something is factually wrong. But if you downvote because you disagree, but then don't articulate that, you aren't helping anyone. You're…

I agree it can be career-destroying. And in the cases where the public makes a decision that is counterfactual--when they believe a smear that is not true--that obviously is a miscarriage of informal justice, as it were.

Where we disagree, I think (the specifics of this case aside; I don't think the public reaction in this case is counterfactual) is in precisely what moral "should" applies to such public discussions.

Does the risk that the public may be misled mean we should have no open discussions of accusations of criminality? Clearly not, I think--especially when it comes to miscarriages of the formal system of justice, transparency is the only recourse. (Imagine how different our discussions of criminal justice reform would be if we did not have access to statistics showing the racial imbalance in the American justice system!)

So what's your exact claim here? That the whole thing is unseemly? I guess it is, a bit. (Would it be less so if the alleged crime were less prurient?) But are you suggesting this should not be on Hackernews? (I don't have a strong opinion on that; this place isn't my playground, but rather someone else's.)

I guess it's not clear to me what you're exactly arguing. (And conversely, my only point was that in general there's no clear stricture against public accusations of criminality, as long as they are not defamatory, and that in general society probably benefits from those who are unsuccessful in the legal system being able to make such accusations publicly.)

Re: Not Working for Us (Preparing to Discuss Jacob Applebaum at CCC)

#23

Post by mindcrash » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

rurban wrote: post #19

woodandsteel wrote: post #7

Good article by Isaacson. I would add I think it would be good if the CCCers got some outside consultation, both from people in the sex abuse field, and at least one person who is an expert on sociopaths, since that is what it seems JA is. I think it would also helpful would be helpful to learn communication skills like active listening and the ones in Marshall Rosenberg's book Nonviolent Communication.

But if you read the long Zeit article[1] and esp. the latest taz article[2] it becomes clear that the other party consists also of psychopaths whose actions were even more dangerous. [1] http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-sexua... [2] https://www.taz.de/!5361578/

As mentioned in the Medium article:

"The unvoiced threat I understood was that Jake was willing to (directly or via proxies) coordinate the initiation of a police investigation, leak it to a friendly journalist, and destroy my life if I talked.

We ended with a hug and a promise to engage again.

Weeks later, a German journalist published a long, well-sourced story, clearly (to me) coordinated by Jake or one of his circle, casually describing Jake providing illegal drugs to party attendees. The sword, it seems, is out of its sheath."

Who says these aren't some of Appelbaums German friends in journalism?

Re: Not Working for Us (Preparing to Discuss Jacob Applebaum at CCC)

#24

Post by woodandsteel » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 2:11 AM UTC

rurban wrote: post #19

woodandsteel wrote: post #7

Good article by Isaacson. I would add I think it would be good if the CCCers got some outside consultation, both from people in the sex abuse field, and at least one person who is an expert on sociopaths, since that is what it seems JA is. I think it would also helpful would be helpful to learn communication skills like active listening and the ones in Marshall Rosenberg's book Nonviolent Communication.

But if you read the long Zeit article[1] and esp. the latest taz article[2] it becomes clear that the other party consists also of psychopaths whose actions were even more dangerous. [1] http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-sexua... [2] https://www.taz.de/!5361578/

The link just reinforces what I am saying. You have a community with some bad social norms, and many people in it are now realizing it and trying to change the whole group.

Re: Not Working for Us (Preparing to Discuss Jacob Applebaum at CCC)

#25

Post by woodandsteel » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

woodandsteel wrote: post #24

rurban wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you read the long Zeit article[1] and esp. the latest taz article[2] it becomes clear that the other party consists also of psychopaths whose actions were even more dangerous. [1] http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-sexua... [2] https://www.taz.de/!5361578/

The link just reinforces what I am saying. You have a community with some bad social norms, and many people in it are now realizing it and trying to change the whole group.

Let me add that there are two competing stories here. One is that JA is a sociopath, and got away with it because of the norms of the group, but now people are changing and rejecting such behavior.

The other is that the females in question all thought for years that JA's behavior was fine, or at least not very bad, and then all of them, for some unaccountable reason, went crazy at the same time and irrationally decided to persecute him and him alone.

I find the first story a whole lot more plausible than the second.

Re: Not Working for Us (Preparing to Discuss Jacob Applebaum at CCC)

#26

Post by woodandsteel » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 2:23 AM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #16

guitarbill wrote: post #2

Everybody deserves justice. I don't think Medium posts and a lynch mob are the way this is achieved. Get the police involved when a crime is committed. Enough with the hearsay character assassinations. This time, the author even admits that he's conflicted and that his memory isn't completely reliable. So as somebody from the "out-group" it's hard to take it as seriously as it probably should be taken :( Edit: Instea…

If a group of people trust the testimony of the claimed victims and collectively agree to disavow of the conduct of the alleged perpetrator, what's wrong with them all choosing to reject that person? Why does the state (police) have to be involved in everything? Are you saying the state's verdict is always correct, and nobody should disagree with anyone who hasn't been convicted by the state?

Exactly. And let me add that you can have police force that works for justice only if the larger society has a whole lot of good norms that are enforced informally. If you don't have that, then the police will just be a bunch of thugs, as is the case in many countries.