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Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

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Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#381

Post by Chris2048 »

grey-area wrote: post #312
enriquto wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... forcing her into a corner ... I did nor interpret her text that way. To be fair, the whole text is very confusing for an article that purports to be "shedding light". The sentence that talks about the corner is this: "On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me, and said (...)" Now, this is extremely vague and can mean anything. He was already…

Now, this is extremely vague and can mean anything. He was already going out, but she was in the way, and the exit door was on a corner?...This can be construed as assault or as a normal goodbye when leaving the house of somebody. A normal goodbye is not forced on someone who has repeatedly said no to advances. The account was really quite clear, far clearer than McClure's apology. And yet you feel the need to make u…

Smugly declaring "The account was really quite clear" and then attacking with an ill-intent ad-hom "yet you feel the need to make up details ... in order to try to excuse.." is not constructive.

> Your response says more about you than her

This bullshit. You are not her, you have no more information than anyone else here. Please cut out the ad-homs.

> long screeds about how this woman might well be lying

Where was this claimed in this thread? Please, quote the exact words.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#382

Post by qubex »

CPLX wrote: post #331
qubex wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is why she kept drinking what he was pouring. ( This is absolutely not a ”she was looking for it” remark ... I'm just curious why in her initially sober state she had less incentive to avoid risk than when she was a little inebriated. His behaviour is absolutely nothing but despicable.)

Have you ever spent a lot of time around people you look up to and respect professionally and/or who are a bit famous? You get flustered and want to be liked and accepted. It's natural, and the burden is on the person in the more powerful position not to exploit that.

A long while ago I made the decision that I would never drink if I were not comfortable with the situation. Trying to impress somebody is a situation I am not comfortable with, so in this particular situation I would not drink. I consider this a sound policy (but then of course, of course I would, because it is my policy, so I'm biased).

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#383

Post by ToadLegs »

jancsika wrote: post #342
ToadLegs wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you construct a whole evil persona for someone, just for asking a few logical questions on the web. I don't come at this as the pushy sexual conqueror you seem to assume. My perspective is from social anxiety. I already am very hesitant to approach women, because everything seems forbidden and inappropriate. What I hear OP saying is that there is nothing I can do to be sure some woman doesn't fi…

> I don't come at this as the pushy sexual conqueror you seem to assume. My perspective is from social anxiety. I already am very hesitant to approach women, because everything seems forbidden and inappropriate. This social anxiety is not in the same category as the behavior of the perpetrator of sexual assault in this blog post. There are plenty of sites that will pair you up with someone for a date. You can meet so…

The only point I really wanted to make is that "If anyone reacts negatively to anything you do, it is always because you did something wrong" is an insane standard for human behavior.

I think most everyone agrees with that in general. But when it's phrased "men please remember it isn't how you feel about whether or not an action was appropriate or inappropriate, it is how they feel about it", it's apparently a whole other story.

I was hoping there could be a sane and logical discussion about that, but that seems impossible, at least here and now.

> Please tell me you understand the difference between that and your own potential to have an awkward encounter with a woman due to social anxiety.

I do understand that. I wasn't commenting on the main story at all, only the "If anyone reacts negatively..." quote.

And I assume that when people say "and men please remember...", they really only mean pushy inconsiderate men, and forget that their word will be read by people like me who really need to hear advice about becoming more assertive.

Final nitpick: I'm not so concerned with an awkward encounter. I have a lot of those. My fear is doing something I think is within modern rules of courtship, and be branded a sexual predator. My other fear is being so scared of doing something inappropriate that I never do anything at all and remain forever alone...

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#384

Post by Zikes »

ab4570 wrote: post #329
Zikes wrote: post #87

> Generalized sexist statements and behavior that convey insulting or degrading attitudes about women (e.g. Insulting remarks, obscene jokes or humor about sex or women in general) This should be generalized to include both sexes. I often see insulting or degrading comments about men by people in the tech world, especially with terms like "mansplaining".

I agree with you. I don't agree with you being down-voted. Complaining about the down-voting does you no good though.

I don't care.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#385

Post by DanBC »

Zikes wrote: post #298
DanBC wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just ban me now. Mods should honour these requests, because not doing so leads to bad things. But until they do, you can set noprocast to a large number and then scramble your password.

I may be tilted, but I don't intend to intentionally break the site rules just to force a ban. It'd just undermine the point I'm trying to make about wanting to have a fair and reasonable discussion.

Setting noprocast and scrambling your password are not breaking site rules.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#386

Post by Zikes »

DanBC wrote: post #385
Zikes wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be tilted, but I don't intend to intentionally break the site rules just to force a ban. It'd just undermine the point I'm trying to make about wanting to have a fair and reasonable discussion.

Setting noprocast and scrambling your password are not breaking site rules.

> Mods should honour these requests, because not doing so leads to bad things.

You don't get to imply I'm about to break the site rules and then ignore that.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#387

Post by Lazare »

monfrere wrote: post #239

I have experienced similarly persistent (or arguably even more persistent) unwanted sexual advances from other men, but I certainly didn't feel "assaulted". As a socially clueless gay man, I was hoping someone could help elucidate the most problematic parts of McClure's behavior here. The two factors that stand out for me are 1) McClure controlled the funding of the agency Yeoh was heading, so he was in a position of…

> In any other context, I would consider asking someone something a third time after two "no"s to be an example of annoying badgering, but not necessarily harassment.

You would be incorrect. It's not really a grey area.

> I have experienced similarly persistent (or arguably even more persistent) unwanted sexual advances from other men, but I certainly didn't feel "assaulted".

Good for you. But legally in the country I live in, what she described was assault. And if you experienced the same thing, it would also be assault. If you didn't feel it was assault, then you don't have to report it, of course, but that doesn't change what it is.

When someone says no, you can't decide that what they really meant is "would you please grab me and forcibly kiss me". That is not "annoying badgering".

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#388

Post by dang »

Zikes wrote: post #272
dang wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what to tell you because we have such wildly differing perceptions. The threads I'm seeing have a lot of different points of view in them—fundamentally disparate points of view with tons of disagreement.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14693109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14692712 These are entirely reasonable statements, and they're flagged. Not just downvoted, flagged . Censored. Removed from the discussion. That's my only problem right now. I understand user comment flagging is useful in lieu of moderation, but I'm personally seeing myself silenced persistently in this discussion and it's extremely d…

Ok, I've now had time to look at those comments and they're not 'entirely reasonable'; they contain elements that many people could reasonably object to and indeed flag as inflammatory.

To pick the most obvious, you use the word 'sexism' in a contentious way that is bound to land with many readers as trolling—and you didn't just do that once, you dropped it in numerous times. That's the sort of thing that leads to the feeling that the reasonable aspects of your comment are just a pretext, while the subtext is gratuitous provocation. I don't think you did that on purpose, but your claim that people were flagging 'entirely reasonable' comments arbitrarily is inaccurate. Just to be clear, my point isn't about the correct meaning of 'sexism'—it's that if you throw explosive footballs around, however unintentionally, your comment becomes subject to flagging for the sake of a non-flamewar discussion.

Many commenters are blind to the things in their comments that land objectionably with others. They're much (much!) too quick to conclude that the fault is all on the other side, that my 'entirely reasonable' comment is unjustly suppressed, and so on. If you want to get out of that loop you need to take a deeper, more reflective look at your own expressions. Then you can find ways to express your substantive point of view that aren't accidentally bound up with things that produce troll effects and you can participate in a (hopefully) higher-quality discussion.

As I mentioned upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14693838) flagging provides an important service by making a distinction between gratuitously provocative comments and the ones that express similar points of view more thoughtfully. The actual effect in the threads is to make substantive discussion between opposing points of view possible, because otherwise the flamebait would be overwhelming. Indeed it has been so impossible in the past that it's rather astonishing to see it beginning to happen, i.e. people beginning to hear each other and offer at least tentative respect across division lines. That would definitely not be happening if the more inflammatory comments weren't being flagged.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#389

Post by barrkel »

skc wrote: post #347

I'm male and I find it so bizarre that men behave in this manner. But it happens so often that I wonder sometimes if I'm the one who is not normal. I love women. I am attracted to them constantly. But the thought of making sexual advances towards them when I have not received any sign of interest beyond friendship or business etc, repulses me. How hard can it be to just be nice. As men we really need to do better.

FWIW, I've never noticed signs of interest from the opposite sex; it was only after the fact, when I talked about an odd occurrence, or someone acting unusually, that people told me that it was probably a sign of interest. I didn't start a relationship until I started making much more active moves; that took many years.

My point being, I don't think it's that unusual for many men to simply not notice these signs you find obvious. To this day I can't tell. I'd be having dinner at a restaurant with my parents and my father would tell me that the waitress was unsuccessfully trying to flirt with me!

(I mean this as no defense of Dave. My fault is never noticing and never acting when it's welcome; I have never acted without verbal or written invitation. It took my current partner sending me a text saying that she was worried I wasn't into her, before I knew I could move further.)

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#390

Post by glangdale »

camelite wrote: post #322
eropple wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to credit 'dang and 'sctb's public moderation and tone-setting for a lot of it (and I've been a critic of weak and permissive moderation here in the past, so credit where credit is due). HN still has some really profound problems with punching down, but so does everywhere else and it's improved significantly; amongst the places I hang out it's gone from perhaps the most egregious example of the kind of nastine…

I will second that the moderators deserve credit for the change in "tone" as you put it. But it is not really a change in tone, but rather that the hold-on-a-seconders, whose "tone" is generally utterly anodyne in comparison to the reflexive vituperation they receive (not that it bothers me) have been warned off contributing. And so it goes.

The contributions of those anodyne 'hold-on-a-seconders' should not be missed. There was a reflexive script that they worked off that sounded all very mature but pretty much came down to people wandering into every thread and reminding everyone that sometimes victims lie.

They never had any specific reason to do this; it was never the case that these guys had new information. They just felt consistently moved to remind us all that No-one Really Can Know All The Facts every time an allegation turned up, like they had just invented epistemology and wanted to tell the world.

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