Live data from Hacker News

Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

forums.somethingawful.com

91–100 of 370 posts

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#91

He leaves behind a complicated legacy. It's important to note that credible allegations of domestic abuse lead him to sell SA in the past year, and this can't be set aside. At the same time, SA's influence on the modern internet can't be understated. The 'image macro' of early SA (maybe created by Lowtax himself, from what Fragmaster says in his video in the link) is the direct ancestor of today's common meme image--…

>credible allegations I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. Domestic abuse is a real problem, but false allegation of domestic abuse is a real problem, too. Indeed, if a person wants to harm another without lifting a finger, the simplest thing to do is claim "He hurt me" or "I'm afraid of him" and you'll get every cop, judge, attorney, a legion of your…

> Domestic abuse is a real problem, but false allegation of domestic abuse is a real problem, too.

That’s some MRA bullshit and I want to call it out. You have in one sentence made a false equivalence, because your claim is entirely untrue. It’s not a problem anywhere near the magnitude of real abuse cases. So much I couldn’t find results except one shit article from 2009, everything else was nothing but bullshit blogs.

Go peddle your bullshit elsewhere.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#92
Others are discussing the important and serious stuff, so I wanted to touch on something more lighthearted.

I was in the e/n scene so knew of SA but never got involved, and it wasn't till 2013ish when he started doing YouTube playthroughs of the worst indie 'games' he could find which were quite entertaining on their own merits and showed off people's creativity that might otherwise be ignored. Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pIFud0Bsa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsCF-mz6Y6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9II_cq01hY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRQC9c6RkeI

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#93
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an odd take. > I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a cred…

But yours is not an odd take, I'm afraid. You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible), an ad hominem (not projecting, but thanks for the baseless speculation), and another strawman (I did not and do not confuse meaning with definition). All in quick succession, all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. There's no argument to be made since you didn't mak…

This looks to me like you admonished GP for creating a hypothetical situation and drawing a conclusion from it one paragraph before you do the same. Both scenarios add to the conversation in different ways.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes off as naive. I saw the domestic abuse allegations again him and decided to read up. He had multiple allegations from both exes. He lightly joked about rape, domestic abuse etc. Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny, you can still see him making these jokes int interviews about his situation. You've got people on HN today that believe that metoo is just made up. Tho…

The problem with metoo is that the solution it envisioned for the problem, was to attempt to undermine the justice portion of the justice system as much as it could, and to create as many avenues for extrajudicial punishment as it possibly could. The entirely inevitable outcome of this is that these new systems were put to use by people to enact personal agendas, in any venue where interpersonal politics was relevant…

#metoo was literally about bringing the attention to the scale of the problem and raising awareness, and normalize talking about abuse, so that it wouldn't continue in silence.

The court of public opinion has existed before and after #metoo. Let's not pretend that #metoo invented it. If twenty people were to go public and say that Justin Bieber beat each of them with a crowbar, Justin Bieber would have some 'splainin to do, whether or not there's a court case.

If twenty people gave interviews and said that Martha Stewart personally fed them poisoned pies for shits and giggles, Martha would be affected by that, whether these people decide to sue or not.

But the society made an exception for sexual abuse. Rape and drugging in particular. #metoo simply made it count just as much.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes off as naive. I saw the domestic abuse allegations again him and decided to read up. He had multiple allegations from both exes. He lightly joked about rape, domestic abuse etc. Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny, you can still see him making these jokes int interviews about his situation. You've got people on HN today that believe that metoo is just made up. Tho…

The problem with metoo is that the solution it envisioned for the problem, was to attempt to undermine the justice portion of the justice system as much as it could, and to create as many avenues for extrajudicial punishment as it possibly could. The entirely inevitable outcome of this is that these new systems were put to use by people to enact personal agendas, in any venue where interpersonal politics was relevant…

>growing cohort of people who now reactivity think that any accusation is more likely to be false than true

And hopefully both will join a third cohort that withholds all judgement in the absence of proof.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#96
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an odd take. > I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a cred…

But yours is not an odd take, I'm afraid. You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible), an ad hominem (not projecting, but thanks for the baseless speculation), and another strawman (I did not and do not confuse meaning with definition). All in quick succession, all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. There's no argument to be made since you didn't mak…

>You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible)

Seeing something happen does make an allegation more credible; this is the whole point of, say, witness testimony. Why we are more likely to believe things which are attested to by others. Credibility is also an element of character and relation to the victim. If I told my parents I was mugged in an underpass on my way home, which explains why I don't have my cell phone, I'd be a little weirded out if they simply replied with "your allegations are not credible, that's a strawman."

>we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent.

Guilt and innocence in which epistemic context? Consider that there are both very well known cases of public opinion being wrong (and overturned by a court or other method), or the findings of courts being wrong (and overturned by public investigation and revelations). Guilt in one arena does not necessarily equal guilt in another[0], and I think that's part of the point GP was trying to make.

>a couple fights, she takes the kids, he shouts, she calls the police and claims abuse, he is beaten and arrested; during the divorce she uses the arrest as evidence of the abuse, and frames the beating as evidence of her husbands violent tendencies

You can't seriously accuse GP of setting up a straw-man, then relay an idealized (for your point) situation which is, to my knowledge, not backed up by any statistical power.

>Because this is what I'm arguing against, and I can't understand how or why anyone would want this to be how things work.

You're arguing from a view-from-nowhere, that is, you have already relayed the facts of an unfair situation and the legal consequences of that situation, without taking into account that the situation you relayed is a failure of the justice system, not only of the allegation. Your depiction of how a single allegation snowballs like that isn't impossible - but you haven't done anything to show that this is the result of most (or even a significant number of) allegations of domestic abuse.

[0] "In at least a wide variety of cases, our orientation toward testimony is a non-skeptical one: when someone tells us that P, we end up justified in believing that P. And ordinarily, if the speaker knows that P and tells us that P, we end up ourselves knowing that P. That testimonial knowledge is common is both commonsense and philosophical orthodoxy.

But we do not always take this kind of stance. Sometimes we interrogate testimony; sometimes we explain it away or demand proof. As much recent literature in both social psychology and epistemic injustice has shown, social and cultural factors influence the degree to which testimony is considered credible."

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#97
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an odd take. > I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a cred…

But yours is not an odd take, I'm afraid. You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible), an ad hominem (not projecting, but thanks for the baseless speculation), and another strawman (I did not and do not confuse meaning with definition). All in quick succession, all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. There's no argument to be made since you didn't mak…

> You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible)

Multiple eye witnesses help make the allegation credible, yes. Which would go against the idea of no allegations being considered credible by the general public. That was your opening statement.

> But I'd suggest stepping back and considering the overall point you're trying to make.

It's very simple. Some allegations are credible, and it is entirely reasonable for the general public to thing some allegations are credible and others not.

> You might start with a scenario which is, by construction unfair: a couple fights, she takes the kids, he shouts, she calls the police and claims abuse, he is beaten and arrested; during the divorce she uses the arrest as evidence of the abuse, and frames the beating as evidence of her husbands violent tendencies; the court accepts this argument and he loses the children, getting supervised visitation only 90 minutes once a week.

> Does that sound right, or fair to you?

It sounds like it has nothing to do with whether any allegation can be considered credible. It could be an argument against all allegations being considered credible and it can be an argument against people mixing up someone _alleging_ another is guilty and that person being _found_ to be guilty.

> all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent.

Perhaps try reading my comment again, and if after that and this extra explanation you still think I am claiming somehow that all allegations should lead to convictions or that all allegations are credible or that guilt should be assumed, then I have no way of reaching a consensus with you as to what point I'm even trying to make.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#98
post #86
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny Autists often don't pick up on that and continues to make unfunny or cringe jokes year after year. That makes them prime targets for false accusations, since the world is full of people like you who will assume they are guilty just because they are socially unaware.

As an autistic: no. Lack of social awareness isn't an excuse for rape and abuse jokes. You don't need any social awareness to figure out that you shouldn't do that. The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind. Autism is not stupidity. You are not doing "autists" any favor by trying to excuse this behavior. (Also, for some reason , autistic women aren't seen joking…

“Jokes at someone else’s expense = bad” seems to me like it literally* requires some social awareness.

* in its original definition

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>credible allegations I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. Domestic abuse is a real problem, but false allegation of domestic abuse is a real problem, too. Indeed, if a person wants to harm another without lifting a finger, the simplest thing to do is claim "He hurt me" or "I'm afraid of him" and you'll get every cop, judge, attorney, a legion of your…

> Domestic abuse is a real problem, but false allegation of domestic abuse is a real problem, too. That’s some MRA bullshit and I want to call it out. You have in one sentence made a false equivalence, because your claim is entirely untrue. It’s not a problem anywhere near the magnitude of real abuse cases. So much I couldn’t find results except one shit article from 2009, everything else was nothing but bullshit blo…

Accusing your spouse for domestic abuse to prevent them from seeing their kids is like toxic divorce 101. It doesn't cost anything, carries no risk and in a divorce court you don't have to prove much, rather your spouse would have to prove that he didn't abuse you. This is different from criminal court where getting a guilty verdict is very hard. If he was found guilty in a criminal court it would be very different.
Post reply on HN