Live data from Hacker News

Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

reuters.com

51–60 of 61 posts

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is down voted. The last century has been painful for children as every venue of leadership has been used for abuse, the list is vastly longer than what you state. Understanding why abusers seek out these positions is not difficult. The solution is more transparency of interactions at every position.

> The last century has been painful for children as every venue of leadership has been used for abuse... I'm going to preface this with "I have no hard data to back this up", but I have a feeling that this isn't a matter of the last century as being more of a problem than previous ones. Rather, I think it's the globalization of communication that has brought it to light in that time. This sort of thing has probably b…

That's a useful point.

I think economics play a role as well. Specifically, when the economy increases rewards to education and higher-level thinking, the damage caused by child abuse becomes felt more broadly. It's always been horrible for the individual victims, but it's easier for society to turn a blind eye when it's an easily replaced unskilled child laborer than when it's a young student on a long road to a sophisticated trade.

I think you can see this dynamic in many places. For example, the birthrate goes down when wealth goes up. You invest more in fewer children. That investment includes caring more about ensuring they are treated humanely.

It's always been wrong, but now it's also expensive.

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#52

I watched a video the other day of a geologist talking about the fact that the hardest thing she had to deal with when working in Antarctica was the way her thesis advisor acted. And since she needed a letter from him to proceed then his threat of "you'll never work in science again" had some basis in reality. She talked about how deeply it impacted her but that she only reported when her 3 year old daughter said she…

> It did make me wonder about how we could restructure academia/society so that random individuals don't have so much power over other people. It seems like a recipe for disaster.

As someone working my way through (and hopefully out of) academia, the issue here is that the thesis advisor is not some random individual. Yes, even under favorable conditions the circumstances are ripe for abuse. Unfortunately I'm not sure what the solution would be.

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#53
post #41
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mishandled interrogations of young children This is a big issue tbh. I've been through one interrogation, in a fairly peacefull country and not as a suspect, i'm sure i could've handled that poorly enough to help convict an innocent man (he was still convicted, then found not guilty). Interrogations are hard for good reasons (its easier for the police to get people off their feet and incriminate themselves), but us…

> he was still convicted, then found not guilty Should that be charged? Convicted would imply they were found guilty, to be charged a prosecutor only needs to think they have a reasonable chance of their case succeeding at trial.

You can be found not guilty on retrial after appeal.

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#54
post #6

> FBI Director Chris Wray made no excuses and said the bureau had fired one of the agents who had falsified the details of Maroney's 2015 interview about the abuse. I remember there was another FBI agent falsified evidence in Trump investigation. Found it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/kevin-cline... Now Durham is going to charge a former federal prosecutor of making a false statement to the F.B.I.…

The FBI was originally founded by Hoover to persecute political dissenters. It's focus on crime only came later.

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#55
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any time you have kids with parents who put them under the care of authority figures you’re setting up a stage for abuse of trust and power The same could be said of many ‘adult’ institutions, like corporations and governments. America elevates the idea of a titular, all-powerful leader (CEOs, President, etc), yet we seemingly cannot go a day without news of a new scandal or abuse of power.

Fair, but adults have full emancipation and can make their own decisions. Children are not full adults, so they need extra care when put in these situations.

Totally agree. My point was that perhaps the problem is our tendency to vest complete, unquestioned authority to individual leaders within many different institutions.

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallels we see in abusers across cultures and institutions likely indicates that this is a dark face of human behavior that needs extreme mitigation strategies (there are documented cases in essentially every institution with a power structure). There are a lot of ways forward that will improve the lives of children, the biggest hurdle is getting adults to listen and then implement.

My take on this is we need to raise people to know that it’s OK to question authority.

Swinging back to the article in question - this has devastating results on the victims when the questions are ignored by others in authority. So in addition to questioning authority, those in authority also need to be held accountable for their actions.

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is down voted. The last century has been painful for children as every venue of leadership has been used for abuse, the list is vastly longer than what you state. Understanding why abusers seek out these positions is not difficult. The solution is more transparency of interactions at every position.

> The last century has been painful for children as every venue of leadership has been used for abuse... I'm going to preface this with "I have no hard data to back this up", but I have a feeling that this isn't a matter of the last century as being more of a problem than previous ones. Rather, I think it's the globalization of communication that has brought it to light in that time. This sort of thing has probably b…

I was thinking someone along these lines as well, but then taking into consideration the massive number of wars and total number of deaths in the last century compared to much of human history, we are still slowly recovering from that.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/6...

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#58
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last century has been painful for children as every venue of leadership has been used for abuse... I'm going to preface this with "I have no hard data to back this up", but I have a feeling that this isn't a matter of the last century as being more of a problem than previous ones. Rather, I think it's the globalization of communication that has brought it to light in that time. This sort of thing has probably b…

That's a useful point. I think economics play a role as well. Specifically, when the economy increases rewards to education and higher-level thinking, the damage caused by child abuse becomes felt more broadly. It's always been horrible for the individual victims, but it's easier for society to turn a blind eye when it's an easily replaced unskilled child laborer than when it's a young student on a long road to a sop…

Agreed, bit for the notion that parents with more children would care less per child: As a parent with multiple children, there seems to be a network effect, because you see them interact more with one another as a group, so the caring compounds.

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#59

I watched a video the other day of a geologist talking about the fact that the hardest thing she had to deal with when working in Antarctica was the way her thesis advisor acted. And since she needed a letter from him to proceed then his threat of "you'll never work in science again" had some basis in reality. She talked about how deeply it impacted her but that she only reported when her 3 year old daughter said she…

In a science fiction novel I read, the power problem was said to be solved with a hierarchy that was not acyclic, so nobody was another's absolute superior. I don't think this would work in reality though.

Re: Simone Biles condemns U.S. Olympic Committee, FBI for sex-abuse crisis

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except I don’t want my kids’ broadcast to other people. Plenty of other kids’ parents are just as problematic as the teachers. It takes one family to opt out of this for the whole thing to be moot for that classroom so this wouldn’t work.

You don't get to opt out of police wearing body cams when they arrest you. You don't get to opt out of public school teachers wearing body cams when they teach you.

Where I am there was a daycare which streamed cam videos of its workers taking care of babies until it came out that some parent was masturbating watching the babies/nannies (his wife reported him). This is not that great an idea. Also, with deep fakes getting so much easier with more data someone could take your kids' images and create other videos which you have no idea of.
Post reply on HN