I don't know anything about any of this, none of the people involved, and haven't even used Tor...but just based on the language used in this post, it has "witchhunt" written all over it. Sometimes you just get the feeling from a certain way things are written that it's a bunch of people ganging up linguistically on one person. Probably more likely, this is a charming guy who a lot of people liked and wanted to be with and got his way a little too much and now the scorned are coming out of the woodwork. There's a spectrum of rape that never seems to get discussed, and since there's no context and everything in this post is weighted towards making it seem like it was all aggravated rape, e.g. violence vs. just "not full consent" or things getting out of hand makes it feel like a witchhunt and high-school-level drama. I mean, from the sounds of it, a lot of the people complaining are willing parts of a weird group sex BDSM community where stuff like this is easily misconstrued. Again, I know nothing so I could be totally out of line here, but the language of the post makes me feel it's a witchhunt more than a real problem person. There are definitely douchebags everywhere, and I don't want this to come off as like, accepting of rape or violence. Just that a lot of times things get overblown, especially when people get their feelings hurt in non-illegal ways and want some kind of revenge. Again, to be really clear, I don't know anything, but I'd personally like to see discussion from both sides and not just have it be a witch hunt thing.
Well, I'm pretty clearly not making a case for anything other than my own opinion about the language used. Since I have no emotional attachment to this at all, I'm merely pointing out my initial interpretation, based on the language used, is that this is probably a witch hunt.
Looks like your original comment was flagged. Unable to see why it was flagged.
Sexual harassment is crime we all must take seriously especially the tech industry which is struggling get in more women.
But at the same time open blogs like these must be taken with a bit of skepticism too because it is one person's story. We must question if not assign malicious motives to the victim.
P.S. What can we do about such cases ?
I think entire tech industry can create a fund specially for victims of sexual abuse so vulnerable women could consult a lawyer for a very low price who will be specialized in handling such cases. The hammer of justice must be brought into picture as soon as possible. It is unfair that some women has to live with this burden for so many years.
Clearly people are personally upset with my interpretation and are voting me down. But that's the mob mentality at work. Alleged victims now silence THEIR critics, it's a case of black kettle pot things. This is a textbook witchhunt, and now that I've heard from other comments how they don't care for the police either the whole thing just seems like some online teleplay and not "news" at all.
I also feel that it's not that we all need or want more women in tech, it's that we need and want fewer men. It's weird that a good chunk of the women trailblazing back into tech (after all, programming was primarily a women's occupation as late as the 70's) are hyper feminists who maybe want to be programmers but also really want to just do something that most people now perceive as a "male" occupation, for personal or gender pride or whatever. Hear me out, before you flag this one too.
This (programming is a male occupation) is a horrible fallacy that is running through our society, especially in the most common female mindsets. Programming is not a classically male occupation, and programming ability has nothing to do with gender. It's not something where physical strength is valuable and thus statistically more likely that a male is the best candidate available in the labor pool to work it.
And when you think about it, programming is really the perfect job for a woman who also wants to take time off or have flexible hours for having a baby and raising a family (common reasons for the most common choices for female degrees, education and social work). A good chunk of women plan their careers around their desire to have a family, you see. This is out of choice and it's not something where there's a guy in HR who is looking at a file of a man and a file of a woman and giving the man a raise (on average).
I don't know why more women aren't clamoring to get trained and get jobs in programming, but from what I've seen first hand, it's not discrimination by men, or sexual harassment or any of that. I think it's due to other women shaming women programmers for working in a male industry when it's not and being male provides no advantage. It's women on women that's the main problem. I think it's due to women not getting college degrees in the right areas and that's something pretty easy to fix. The industry as it is now is still pretty new and I think that most educated women have set out and dominated the other areas (law, medicine, accounting, business management) and tech just hasn't had the social appeal that strong women want in a career. It's not fun or socially awesome to sit and program all day. Why would you do that to your life when you could be in meetings or selling stuff or curing cancer or fighting a court battle? I think once everyone realizes that programming ability is maybe something socially desirable (who knows if that will ever happen), women will flow back in and probably dominate this world also, just naturally.
So, anyway, I personally don't feel that bad for today's women programmers. It's not men's fault the majority of your peers went into a soft social science, nursing, education or business degree and are now leading fun, awesome lives in really fun, socially important careers. I am sorry that the rest of your gender has let you down and now you are working alone in a really bad line of work that's hard on your body and is mostly dominated by weird shut-ins and people unable to communicate. Teach your daughters to program, teach them that making computers do things is as cool as making a recipe or whatever, and teach their friends also. And I think that this is already happening and in about 10 years the problem will resolve itself. In the meantime, you are going to have an industry dominated by 90% mostly socially awkward men and 10% mostly hyper-fem women and that's just a recipe for all kinds of mudslinging, misunderstan...
Since the victims have very little trust[1] in the ability of the judicial system to handle this properly, the question about whether what Jacob did is legal or not is entirely unimportant. What matters is if there are victims who are hurt in more than just "their feelings". Given the number of credible people who have voiced concerns, and given that most of them also think that Jacob should get help, not go to jail, it seems very safe to believe the victims. The alleged damage done to them outweighs the possible damage that Jacob could face for being falsely accused by so many people.
Anyway, it's not like Jacob has any shortage of advocates in the public. He's charismatic, smart, likable. He'll be able to surround himself with supporters far more easily than his vulnerable victims can.
---
[1] Very justifiably, as recent high-profile cases like Brock Turner or Jian Ghomeshi demonstrate.
The judge himself acknowledged that the evidence in this case raising a reasonable doubt is not the same as saying these events did not take place. This is where the law fails. Under intense scrutiny and a barrage of questions of details that happened many years ago, anyone can "lie" or have "inconsistencies". A victim can try to befriend the assailant in an attempt to reclaim or recontextualise what happened to her. The law is ill-equipped to handle this situation.
Remember that the verdict of "not guilty" is not the same as "innocent". We can't take away Ghomeshi's freedom, but we can send him to counselling, warn women, or other things that do not require judges and cops.
In theory, the English legal system is biased towards convicting as few people as possible. The idea with "innocent until guilty" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" is to only convict under the presence of enough undeniable evidence. Because it requires so much to convict, in theory most people will not be convicted. This is because we consider the error of wrongly convicting an innocent person to be far graver than to let guilty people free (the cost of this error is even more dramatic in the case of death penalty).
If you are familiar with hypothesis testing in statistics, it is the exact same idea. Your null hypothesis (innocent) is accepted by default unless you have overwhelming evidence (a very small p-value) that your hypothesis is not true. In that case, you reject the null hypothesis (and convict). But with a lukewarm evidence (not tiny p-value), you just "fail to reject". You never actively accept the null hypothesis.
This is why "not guilty" is not the same thing as "innocent". A court does not attempt to establish someone's innocence or not. A court is biased towards convicting only in the face of undeniable evidence. And that's why things such as whether the victims contacted Ghomeshi after the assault or not are "reasonable doubt" and thus he's acquited. Not because the court proved that the assault didn't happen, but because the court failed to obtain undeniable evidence that it did.
> The judge himself acknowledged that the evidence in this case raising a reasonable doubt is not the same as saying these events did not take place.
There is a fairly dramatic, well-known example of this (outside of the area of sexual assault) in the OJ Simpson case where the high (beyond a reasonable doubt) standard of criminal law failed to be met, resulting in a criminal acquittal for murder, but the lower (preponderance of the evidence -- or, in layman's terms, whatever the jury finds is most likely to be true) standard of civil liability resulted in a finding of civil liability for wrongful death.
A criminal acquittal means innocence only from the perspective of the criminal justice system, it doesn't mean the act charged was not committed by the person charged.
If you have 40 minutes to spare, I'd be interested to know if there are any remainings criticism of that case other than those that get demolished here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRyt5FhrBEk
Call me old fashioned (I'm old) but in my day a man and a woman who were each attracted to the opposite sex and were not related were advised not to sleep in the same bed. I am not defending Jake and believe the victims, but just wanted to make the point that some of the older conventions were there for a reason.
I promise you, men and women can sleep in the same bed without either one of them committing sexual assault. Saying that this is inherently dangerous implies that men can't control themselves, which is ridiculous and absolves rapists of responsibility.
They can, but experience suggests that it's a high-risk situation: risk of one or both people misunderstanding or poorly communicating their intentions, risk of one party "trying something" and crossing the line with the other, and so forth.
It's better for straight, platonic friends of the opposite sex to sleep in different beds to avoid misunderstandings (or predatory "misunderstandings", for that matter).
She unequivocally told him that she didn't want any romantic or sexual involvement.
>As politely as I could, I explained, “You can have the floor, and I’ll take my bed, or the other way around. If you’re comfortable with it, we can share my bed, as friends. Meaning no physical contact.”
True misunderstandings are easily cleared up. Predatory "misunderstandings" are not.
It's hard not to question the character of adults who put themselves in positions like this, repeatedly, and then whine about the (frankly not-so-injurious) outcome on the Internet.
And yes, to some extent you can say this of both Appelbaum and Lovecruft. I can't say if Appelbaum is being targeted for social termination, or whatever the three-letter agencies call it these days... but I will say that if he were, I think the story would read much like this, where a lot of his acquaintances are encouraged to pile on with specific yet non-actionable accusations.
See the Julian Assange 'rape' case for another example where his supposed crime was actionable, but only in a jurisdiction with laws that 99% of the world finds unnecessary. It's absurd to think that Assange would have found himself facing rape accusations if he hadn't already painted a target on his back, and that seems likely to be true for Appelbaum as well.
It's hard not to question the character of adults who put themselves in positions like this, repeatedly, and then whine about the (frankly not-so-injurious) outcome on the Internet.
Is this different than blaming the rape victim for dressing provocatively? And does it matter if being "provocative" is locally defined as "not wearing a burka"? Or going outside without a male chaperone? On one level, these are simple precautions that likely reduce the risk of sexual assault. On another, they are absurd and outdated limitations on personal freedom.
I don't read this or the other accounts as whining. I think it's an account of a community trying to define its norms. At a glance, it looks like those norms are about as far in one direction from mainstream America as conservative Islamic societies are in the other direction. As such, discussion can help those in the middle (who frequently consider themselves enlightened) to understand the perspective of those in the more conservative society.
Is this different than blaming the rape victim for dressing provocatively?
Yeah, I think it is. When the victim willingly climbs into bed with someone who has previously made him/her uncomfortable, it's time for even the most stalwart SJW to acknowledge that the situation is not entirely one-sided.
I think it's an account of a community trying to define its norms.
We've spent the last 10,000 years or so doing just that. So far, the answer seems to be, "Don't sleep with people of the compatible sex that you don't want to, um, sleep with."
Of course we haven't arrived at the best possible set of norms yet, but I'm not convinced that unchallenged cries of victim-blaming in cases like this are going to lead us there.
At a glance, it looks like those norms are about as far in one direction from mainstream America as conservative Islamic societies are in the other direction. As such, discussion can help those in the middle (who frequently consider themselves enlightened) to understand the perspective of those in the more conservative society.
When the victim willingly climbs into bed with someone who has previously made him/her uncomfortable, it's time for even the most stalwart SJW to acknowledge that the situation is not entirely one-sided.
Sure, but could the same be said if a lone female gets into a taxi with a male driver, feels uncomfortable, but doesn't get out? If the taxi driver takes this to imply sexual consent, does saying that only "the most stalwart liberal Westerner" would defend her behavior make the situation any less one-sided?
We've spent the last 10,000 years or so doing just that. So far, the answer seems to be, "Don't sleep with people of the compatible sex that you don't want to, um, sleep with."
I'm claiming that there is far less uniformity to these beliefs than you imply. Some societies take it further, and say "Women should not show their face to anyone who is not their spouse or kin", and others take a more liberal approach. Even in Western society, approaches to sharing beds have changed dramatically in the last couple hundred years. Try here for explanations of "bundling" and "pigging": https://books.google.com/books?id=WnrEAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT259&lpg=...
Sorry, I'm not sure what this means.
Based on your statements, I'm guessing that you hold relatively standard conservative Western beliefs regarding the implications of certain interactions between non-married members of the opposite sex. As such, a woman inviting a man to non-sexually share her bed is a difficult situation to comprehend: how could anyone be blamed for misinterpreting and overstepping the bounds of this arrangement?
I'm saying that just as we in the West might condemn a taxi driver or shopkeeper for raping an unchaperoned female patron (even if that patron felt uncomfortable with the situation but entered it voluntarily), others might be justified in condemning someone who "feels up" a woman whose bed they are allowed to share. I don't have the answer as to whether condemnation is justified in this case, and can only say that the "rightfulness" of the condemnation depends on the societal context within which it occurs. I don't think there is an absolute basis by which the "right" limits of propriety can be judged.
Sure, but could the same be said if a lone female gets into a taxi with a male driver, feels uncomfortable, but doesn't get out? If the taxi driver takes this to imply sexual consent, does saying that only "the most stalwart liberal Westerner" would defend her behavior make the situation any less one-sided?
That scenario is not even remotely comparable to the events that Lovecruft is describing, which have apparently taken place over months or years.
Have you read her post? She and Appelbaum have a history, which she recounts in a way that (perhaps to her credit) doesn't flatter her case. If the events are as she described, then yes, Appelbaum behaved inappropriately and inexcusably. But considering what victims of sexual violence have historically had to face, I don't think much of Lovecruft for even bothering to post this account. It amounts to a lot of whining about a betrayal of personal trust that should have come as no surprise whatsoever.
Based on your statements, I'm guessing that you hold relatively standard conservative Western beliefs regarding the implications of certain interactions between non-married members of the opposite sex.
My values/beliefs aren't relevant here, and I can honestly say they're not contributing to my opinion of what I've read about this case.
It's impossible to be 100% objective, of course, but for the same reason, it's unreasonable to assign 100% of the blame to either party without a much better awareness of exactly just what happened, and of what might have motivated it.
I didn't imply that men can't control themselves. I am saying that sexual arousal in both parties is more likely to occur when they sleep together and misunderstandings may result. It's not binary Platonic/Sexual Assault. There's gray area in between. Why risk it? us oldies might say.
While travelling, the first time he came to the city I
lived in, I invited him to stay at my house. As politely
as I could, I explained, “You can have the floor, and
I’ll take my bed, or the other way around. If you’re
comfortable with it, we can share my bed, as friends.
Meaning no physical contact.” We both slept in my bed.
That turned out (mostly) fine. (Except, of course, being
propositioned again, this time for a threesome with Jake
and one of my roommates.) In fact, Jake and I proceeded
to share beds in a friendly manner over the years, and
nothing bad ever happened.
Why don't people report/blog about these things immediately? It's hard to tell what can be true or what is just piling on someone who their ingroup decided to hate.
> They included first-person accounts of Jake deliberately intimidating and shaming people, not taking no for an answer, undressing and sexually touching a person who was sleeping, and having sex in front of a group with a person who had repeatedly said no.
So...we're supposed to believe that this guy decided to have sex in front of a group of people with a person who repeatedly said no and gave no consent, and the group just sits there and watches it, and then blogs about it months/years later? What kind of people are these that just stand around and watch an obvious rape go on? Are they accomplices? Liars? People suffering from bystander effect?
The question is whether the bystander effect really happened or not.
I'd like to ask all the people that claim that he raped a random person in front of a group of people: How do you feel about your own involvement in it? Do you feel any guilt at all for letting this guy just rape someone right in front of you?
Also, with your example, the power differential is drastically different. If you have 7-8 people, you can easily coerce a slightly larger crowd to not do anything under threat of violence.
If you have one guy raping someone and 20 people standing around, that is completely different from 1 guy raping, 6-7 threatening people, and 20 watching.
If the allegations true, they should prosecute, and should have prosecuted immediately. As well as all the other people who knew of it. And we should continue to work towards a world where that is a no brainer.
Most people are nice. It's only a few people, mostly with unfortunate backgrounds or fates that are not. Let's work towards institutions which handle this efficiently, without the need for mobs
"As contrast see" someone who wasn't abused state that they know he's a nice guy? That's not convincing to anyone who doesn't disbelieve victims by default.
The idea that people who suffer abuse are in the wrong by not going to authorities who typically also disbelieve them is poisonous.
Contrast as in "here is a different opinion by people who also know him better than most of us". Truth will be found (hopefully) by a criminal investigation, not by by the court of public opinion.
You are right, victim blaming is horrible. That's why I didn't say "they should have said something immediately, now they have lost credibility"
I understand why they might not go immediately and don't blame them for it. I still think the right thing is immediate prosecution. If they don't feel like they will be helped by the authoritiesthat is a problem, which needs to be addressed both on the sides of the authorities (with proper training and procedures) and education (teaching people to prosecute immediately instead of shutting up)
The whole point of this type of abuse stemming from authority is to make the abused discredited, typically by recruiting people into one's defense (and, in fact, Alison cites a specific instance where she was recruited into defending). What would be unusual in a case of systemic abuse would be to find no one who stepped up to defend the abuser who had no direct knowledge of the abuse.
Their opinion is clearly irrelevant to the question of whether abuse occurred, and that they would offer such an irrelevant opinion is neutral evidence at best.
Also re authorities, you're talking about people on the Tor project, and most systemic abusers are pretty careful to not provide a clear chain of evidence. So you're asking someone to go to an authority they likely specifically distrust to blow up their relationship with their community likely for no gain, since there will almost certainly not be a successful prosecution. I'm sure you can see how this might not be an appealing option.
I just really dislike this situation where it boils down to "(s)he said/(s)he said" and the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" flies out the window
Another thing I don't get is why they wouldn't prosecute now that the community is already fractured.
Thank you for listening! I wouldn't be surprised if there were some sort of legal action eventually, but I also wouldn't be surprised if there weren't -- as mentioned, it's unlikely he left any hard evidence of wrongdoing. Though of course a lot of people who thought they were alone in their abuse are now learning that this was systemic, so they may be able to piece something together.
Among the many other issues with trying to report sexual assault to the authorities, many of the individuals involved are anarchists or libertarians and don't want to involve state powers that they view as equally abusive.
Also, and this is where I probably sound like an as:
If you are an anarchist and don't believe in law enforcement OR in the ability of your community to replace them then tough shit if something happens and you have nobody to turn to. That is kinda the whole purpose od ordered society to provide a way to deal with that
Have you ever been sexually assaulted? (That's a rhetorical question, unless you actually want to answer.) It's deeply traumatic. In situations where you previously trusted the person who hurt you, it can be very hard to come to terms with what actually happens. Many victims feel shame. It takes time and often therapy to come to a place where you're ready to speak about it publicly.
(I'm not saying this is the experience of everyone who's ever been sexually assaulted, but it's an experience that has been commonly attested to.)
And yes, I understand that, the "immediately" was a bit knee jerk. But at least part of what you described is what I meant in another comment here: it should be part of both education and procedures to make immediate prosecution not only possible but a no brainer. Then we can avoid situations like this, which always reeks to me as "guilty until proven innocent"
> If the allegations true, they should prosecute, and should have prosecuted immediately.
Prosecution of alleged crimes is, in most jurisdictions, at the sole discretion of the state, not that of the injured parties.
(Civil litigation is possible at the instigation of the injured parties, but the calculation of whether that is desirable even if legally justified is not so straightforward that one could reasonably, in a blanket way, say that if there allegations are true, they should make and pursue them in court.)
One thing you may not be considering is that the Tor community largely comprises highly libertarian or anarchist individuals. There is a strong bias against giving moral sanction to The State by utilizing the services of its judicial system.
You may not agree, but this is an important psychological factor when discussing this particular community.
I think it's immensely positive that she came forward, although all of this too late, it would have taken a vastly better environment for the people involved to be open from the beginning. Abuse shouldn't fester like this.
> Jake’s behavior is representative of a systemic problem, grounded in a star culture that has allowed individual fame to overpower the ability of the community to recognize its collective needs.
This is basically personal power in group dynamics. It's found in many in-groups where a person has the power to do whatever they want, yet still remain a vital part of the group.
There's also a fallacy here that a "community" is what people think it is: a group of people who work together in each others' best interests. More often, communities are groups of individuals who sometimes cooperate, but whose priority is still their own position in the group. This is partly why a critical mass of community members coming forward at once is needed to challenge power.
(The other aspect is that a challenge to a person in power is also implicitly a challenge to the other group members who have given them power, which is why you see people either ignore or react personally when a person with power is attacked)
> Calls for police intervention are particularly alarming to hear from a community in which so many advocate for a stateless society.
We do not live in a stateless society. We live in a society that makes people feel shame, fear and indecision for reporting certain crimes. If you believe in transformative justice, design your education to help people feel comfortable going to the police immediately. No lovey-dovey non-violent community action is going to substitute the fear of repercussions for crimes, such as jail time.
> 1. We must believe victims, and continue to foster an environment where they feel safe to report their stories of abuse.
I agree with the second part. The first part implies that anyone who claims to be a victim is a victim, and completely defeats points 2.1 and 2.3. If Jake decried being a victim first, we would be forced to believe him (unless you're going with either gender stereotype or bandwagon fallacy as the determining factor, the latter of which could also end in Jake's favor).
Communities are not impartial and can not police themselves impartially. There's a reason that there are police that police the police.
I flagged this because, aside from the connection to the Tor community, there's really nothing relevant here to the Hacker News community. This seems to be a developing issue with no hard facts and lots of he-said-she-said. No positive comments will come from this post.
I disagree. Many want to get more women into tech and this is one of the issues that we need to confront and talk through to come to some sort of consensus on appropriate behavior so women feel welcome and safe.
I agree with you, but this post is not helping that. There's nothing here discussing how women can get into tech. It's incredibly disingenuous to scream "but women in tech!!" every time an issue like this crops up. This is an account of one person's experience with another person, not an objective look at sexual harassment in tech.
Instead of discussing the issues that prevent women from joining the tech community, you want blogposts about how to get women into tech. Is that accurate?
No, we should discuss issues, but it needs to be done constructively and objectively. Maybe someone writes an article that gathers all of these stories and analyzes them? If an article like that was posted, we would have something concrete to discuss. There's nothing to discuss here except the finer points of how this one particular person sexually harassed this other person.
I submitted this because it's intensely relevant to the HN community. This type of dynamic is pervasive, particularly in self-organizing groups (such as many open source initiatives) and understanding and addressing these issues is key to the tech community growing more inclusive and productive.
No positive comments will come from this post.
Well it's a good thing that HN isn't just a place for happy, fun joy that you get to experience while people elsewhere are being abused and exploited.
Positive doesn't necessarily mean happy fun joy, in the context of HN, I think it means "value was added". Look at the comments this post is generating... Is any value being added?
If this was some kind of article about these people's experiences, then I can understand the value it adds. But this is just he-said-she-said, there's no value here. The guy they purport to be an offender hasn't even been charged!
>The guy they purport to be an offender hasn't even been charged!
Courts are not the arbiters of truth, and they may claim to deal in justice, but really what courts can judge is tightly bounded by law and doesn't get into the full moral complexity of day-to-day life.
Do you think that random posts on the internet get into the full moral complexity of day-to-day life, then? A couple hundred words is worth more than a criminal investigation?
I see a number of other comments offering clear, concise explanations of why a serial abuser might not successfully be charged, and in fact why abused individuals might be reluctant to come forward at all. There's some value right there!
> while people elsewhere are being abused and exploited.
Which of course doesn't include the still completely unsubstantiated plagiarism claims, and answering no questions about that. It doesn't include stunts like "TimeToDieJake" or this: https://twitter.com/Shidash/status/741259721756319744 and whatever else will predictably follow in the wake of sentencing someone as "rapist, sociopath, plagiarist, period", just to start it all off. It doesn't include flagged Jill Bähring's account either, naturally, that's not abusing and exploiting someone and then not even allowing them to defend themselves.
None of this takes away from the other allegiations, but two wrongs still don't make a right, one can be abusive in response to abuse.
Oh, does nobody want to call me crazy, or talk about how I'm isolating myself, or call me a rape apologist? Ignoring and downvoting questions every single time, from day #1, not addressing the plagiarism claim in earnest once, anywhere. It's all one bundle, and you better "think of the children" or else, right?
All that while you waggle your finger at me? Nope. Use your words, or live with your part in this. Having double standards isn't twice as good as having standards. It's like having none.
If there's one thing Jacob can be found guilty of, it's ungentlemanly behavior. Jake needs to be a lot smoother, and make sure that the women he's involved with don't feel ashamed after their interactions with him. To put it simply, he's creepy.
Basically what you've got here is a classic botched seduction. It probably stems from the fact that Jacob has a poorly developed sense of empathy with women, possibly dating back to a messed-up childhood.
The facts are though:
1. Alison has a "minor romantic interest" in Jake, and he invites her back to his apartment.
2. He proceeds to invite her into the bathroom and gets naked. This is moving too fast, but she still likes him, so she sits with him.
3. He convinces her to strip down to her t-shirt and panties. Again, she is uncomfortable.
4. He "nonconsentually washes" her. Now the creep factor has gotten too intense. She's being drug along instead of gently whisked through the seduction. She starts to cry and leaves.
What we are having a problem with as a society is how we view women's agency. In the past, we viewed women as mentally weaker than men, and so there were rules of conduct, such as, don't go into a man's apartment alone if you don't want to be seduced. What we have now is this strange hybrid where a woman can voluntarily go alone in the evening into a man's apartment, talk to him while he's naked in the tub, strip down to a t-shirt and panties, and when he starts to wash her, call this sexual assault and ruin his career.
Of course consent is relevant. According to her narrative though, she said she didn't want to get into the bath, and then after talking more, started taking off her clothes and put her feet in the water. Then Jake "kind of pulls her into the tub halfway" and starts to "nonconsentually wash" her. It's not clear from the story whether her shirt is still on at this point.
Jacob is certainly guilty of ungentlemanly behavior, lack of smoothness, and pushiness, assuming that her story is accurate and complete, but to call this sexual assault is crazy.
All you nerdy guys out there, if you don't want something like this to happen to you, learn the dance -- there is a sequence and a pace to these things if you want a woman to feel good.
She said no multiple times and he persistently pressured her anyways. As leader in the Tor community and a colleague she looked up to he was in a huge position of power making it easy to coerce her. He physically pulled her into the tub, directly against her clearly stated nonconsent. To not call that just "ungentlemanly" is what is actually crazy here and you should be disgusted with yourself for making it sound like he did no worse than forget to hold a door open for a passerby.
> All you nerdy guys out there, if you don't want something like this to happen to you
If you don't want actively ignoring someone's else's nonconsent and forcing them into sexual contact with you to happen to you- wait wtf?
> learn the dance -- there is a sequence and a pace to these things if you want a woman to feel good
Ah yes, the don't-sexually-assault-people dance. A classic in romantic etiquette. It sure makes women feel good not to be assaulted. Do you read the things you write?
No, this is not mere clumsiness. Applebaum is acting out his massive, repressed rage toward women -- a rage that seeks to possess and control them. Until he deals with that, no amount of "smoothness" is going to fix the problem.
(The following is not specific to this case or the Applebaum situation. It is more of a general observation based on many current and past cases)
It's disturbing how many stories of alleged or actual sexual harassment/assault involve alcohol. We've figured out that we cannot handle mixing alcohol and driving, and so make an effort to have a "designated driver" so that those drinking won't have to drive.
Is it perhaps time to extend this beyond driving? When interacting with people you might be sexually attracted to in situations where you are going to be drinking, have some designating non-drinkers around to watch over those who imbibe and stop them from making alcohol induced mistakes?
Alcohol is problematic in sexual situations for a couple reasons:
• It impairs the ability to give informed consent, so people who have been drinking often agree to do things that they would not have agreed to had they not been drinking.
• It impairs the ability to recognize that someone else is too impaired to give consent.
This can lead to truly bizarre situations, such as two people each thinking that they are willingly having sex with the other but legally they are actually each raping the other.
I suspect that most people also greatly underestimate how much alcohol it takes to impair their judgement sufficiently for them to get into problematic situations that they would normally easily avoid.
So what can be done about this? No way are people going to give up alcohol, or even give up getting smashed at social events. Can something be done to help those people at least not abuse people while smashed or become easy victims while smashed?
Regardless of what you think about the events that transpired, this thread is a perfect example of censorship and self-censorship.
There's a clear trend here among the posts that get downvoted, and while it is within the rules and spirit of the site to do so, it is at the very least ironic that supposed anarchists and libertarians, who so vehemently oppose centrally mandated censorship are perfectly fine when that happens to advance a narrative they agree with, through an echo-chamber which essentially works as the central authority.
That certainly takes away what little credence there was left to their idea about a stateless society and doesn't paint a pretty picture to the magnitude of a delusion required to somehow, in one's mind, to convince themselves that mob justice is better than the rule of law.
How many people are afraid to speak out here, despite disagreement?
There's a clear trend here among the posts that get downvoted, and while it is within the rules and spirit of the site to do so, it is at the very least ironic that supposed anarchists and libertarians, who so vehemently oppose centrally mandated censorship are perfectly fine when that happens to advance a narrative they agree with, through an echo-chamber which essentially works as the central authority.
Quoting the punchline of a common joke, "No, we can only conclude that there is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black."
What evidence leads you to conclude that the self-described anarchists and libertarians approve of centrally mandated censorship? Unless you have non-public knowledge of individual HN voting patterns (and are willing to assume that downvotes accurately reflect a desire to censor) it seems like an unwarranted leap to go from a handful of anonymous internet downvotes to decrying the hypocrisy of both movements.
How many people are afraid to speak out here, despite disagreement?
What, with the horrible consequence of being downvoted looming over them? Probably a lot fewer than are afraid to speak out about charismatic abusers who have threatened to ruin their personal and professional lives if they speak out.
This is a pretty classic example of a common phenomenon -- to paraphrase Alana Massey, people often mistake the discomfort of being confronted with their own violence for the suffering they caused by it. Appelbaum's "victimization" isn't remotely close to the suffering of the his victims.
>What, with the horrible consequence of being downvoted looming over them? Probably a lot fewer than are afraid to speak out about charismatic abusers who have threatened to ruin their personal and professional lives if they speak out.
Downvoted? How about losing your job. Speak out and if your account has your Twitter handle, email, employer, etc. that many HN'ers share (or indirectly share by using the same handle on other sites) - risk having an ideological hate mob targeting you and lighting a metaphorical fire under your employer's ass until you get laid off because they disagree with your beliefs? Shit that has been happening in increasing amounts in the past decade. Plenty of people with the "wrong thoughts" self-censor or remain psuedonymous or anonymous to share their "real" thoughts.
The defense for attacking these people is almost always "They are a bigot/sexist/racist/transphobe/Islamiphobe/___ist/___phobe", often without actual evidence or relying on a he-said/she-said. Which is just a "morally correct" version of attacking someone for their beliefs and opinions. With very few lines and exceptions - I do not think anyone should lose their jobs for having their own beliefs and opinions. It's a very dangerous line to walk.
>Appelbaum's "victimization" isn't remotely close to the suffering of the his victims.
Innocent until proven guilty has been tossed to the side I see.
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[ 72.0 ms ] story [ 457 ms ] thread> I know nothing so I could be totally out of line here
> I don't want this to come off as like, accepting of rape or violence
Nice case you're making there.
Sexual harassment is crime we all must take seriously especially the tech industry which is struggling get in more women.
But at the same time open blogs like these must be taken with a bit of skepticism too because it is one person's story. We must question if not assign malicious motives to the victim.
P.S. What can we do about such cases ?
I think entire tech industry can create a fund specially for victims of sexual abuse so vulnerable women could consult a lawyer for a very low price who will be specialized in handling such cases. The hammer of justice must be brought into picture as soon as possible. It is unfair that some women has to live with this burden for so many years.
It isn't a single 'open blog'. Alison is a widely respected member of the infosec, internet freedom and librarian communities.
I also feel that it's not that we all need or want more women in tech, it's that we need and want fewer men. It's weird that a good chunk of the women trailblazing back into tech (after all, programming was primarily a women's occupation as late as the 70's) are hyper feminists who maybe want to be programmers but also really want to just do something that most people now perceive as a "male" occupation, for personal or gender pride or whatever. Hear me out, before you flag this one too.
This (programming is a male occupation) is a horrible fallacy that is running through our society, especially in the most common female mindsets. Programming is not a classically male occupation, and programming ability has nothing to do with gender. It's not something where physical strength is valuable and thus statistically more likely that a male is the best candidate available in the labor pool to work it.
And when you think about it, programming is really the perfect job for a woman who also wants to take time off or have flexible hours for having a baby and raising a family (common reasons for the most common choices for female degrees, education and social work). A good chunk of women plan their careers around their desire to have a family, you see. This is out of choice and it's not something where there's a guy in HR who is looking at a file of a man and a file of a woman and giving the man a raise (on average).
I don't know why more women aren't clamoring to get trained and get jobs in programming, but from what I've seen first hand, it's not discrimination by men, or sexual harassment or any of that. I think it's due to other women shaming women programmers for working in a male industry when it's not and being male provides no advantage. It's women on women that's the main problem. I think it's due to women not getting college degrees in the right areas and that's something pretty easy to fix. The industry as it is now is still pretty new and I think that most educated women have set out and dominated the other areas (law, medicine, accounting, business management) and tech just hasn't had the social appeal that strong women want in a career. It's not fun or socially awesome to sit and program all day. Why would you do that to your life when you could be in meetings or selling stuff or curing cancer or fighting a court battle? I think once everyone realizes that programming ability is maybe something socially desirable (who knows if that will ever happen), women will flow back in and probably dominate this world also, just naturally.
So, anyway, I personally don't feel that bad for today's women programmers. It's not men's fault the majority of your peers went into a soft social science, nursing, education or business degree and are now leading fun, awesome lives in really fun, socially important careers. I am sorry that the rest of your gender has let you down and now you are working alone in a really bad line of work that's hard on your body and is mostly dominated by weird shut-ins and people unable to communicate. Teach your daughters to program, teach them that making computers do things is as cool as making a recipe or whatever, and teach their friends also. And I think that this is already happening and in about 10 years the problem will resolve itself. In the meantime, you are going to have an industry dominated by 90% mostly socially awkward men and 10% mostly hyper-fem women and that's just a recipe for all kinds of mudslinging, misunderstan...
Since the victims have very little trust[1] in the ability of the judicial system to handle this properly, the question about whether what Jacob did is legal or not is entirely unimportant. What matters is if there are victims who are hurt in more than just "their feelings". Given the number of credible people who have voiced concerns, and given that most of them also think that Jacob should get help, not go to jail, it seems very safe to believe the victims. The alleged damage done to them outweighs the possible damage that Jacob could face for being falsely accused by so many people.
Anyway, it's not like Jacob has any shortage of advocates in the public. He's charismatic, smart, likable. He'll be able to surround himself with supporters far more easily than his vulnerable victims can.
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[1] Very justifiably, as recent high-profile cases like Brock Turner or Jian Ghomeshi demonstrate.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/christie-blatchford...
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/a-good-day-for-jus...
If you are familiar with hypothesis testing in statistics, it is the exact same idea. Your null hypothesis (innocent) is accepted by default unless you have overwhelming evidence (a very small p-value) that your hypothesis is not true. In that case, you reject the null hypothesis (and convict). But with a lukewarm evidence (not tiny p-value), you just "fail to reject". You never actively accept the null hypothesis.
This is why "not guilty" is not the same thing as "innocent". A court does not attempt to establish someone's innocence or not. A court is biased towards convicting only in the face of undeniable evidence. And that's why things such as whether the victims contacted Ghomeshi after the assault or not are "reasonable doubt" and thus he's acquited. Not because the court proved that the assault didn't happen, but because the court failed to obtain undeniable evidence that it did.
There is a fairly dramatic, well-known example of this (outside of the area of sexual assault) in the OJ Simpson case where the high (beyond a reasonable doubt) standard of criminal law failed to be met, resulting in a criminal acquittal for murder, but the lower (preponderance of the evidence -- or, in layman's terms, whatever the jury finds is most likely to be true) standard of civil liability resulted in a finding of civil liability for wrongful death.
A criminal acquittal means innocence only from the perspective of the criminal justice system, it doesn't mean the act charged was not committed by the person charged.
So, unsubstantiated character assassination is superior?
It's ironic that you cite the Ghomeshi case which completely fell apart when actually examined by the judicial system.
If you have 40 minutes to spare, I'd be interested to know if there are any remainings criticism of that case other than those that get demolished here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRyt5FhrBEk
It's better for straight, platonic friends of the opposite sex to sleep in different beds to avoid misunderstandings (or predatory "misunderstandings", for that matter).
>As politely as I could, I explained, “You can have the floor, and I’ll take my bed, or the other way around. If you’re comfortable with it, we can share my bed, as friends. Meaning no physical contact.”
True misunderstandings are easily cleared up. Predatory "misunderstandings" are not.
And yes, to some extent you can say this of both Appelbaum and Lovecruft. I can't say if Appelbaum is being targeted for social termination, or whatever the three-letter agencies call it these days... but I will say that if he were, I think the story would read much like this, where a lot of his acquaintances are encouraged to pile on with specific yet non-actionable accusations.
See the Julian Assange 'rape' case for another example where his supposed crime was actionable, but only in a jurisdiction with laws that 99% of the world finds unnecessary. It's absurd to think that Assange would have found himself facing rape accusations if he hadn't already painted a target on his back, and that seems likely to be true for Appelbaum as well.
Is this different than blaming the rape victim for dressing provocatively? And does it matter if being "provocative" is locally defined as "not wearing a burka"? Or going outside without a male chaperone? On one level, these are simple precautions that likely reduce the risk of sexual assault. On another, they are absurd and outdated limitations on personal freedom.
I don't read this or the other accounts as whining. I think it's an account of a community trying to define its norms. At a glance, it looks like those norms are about as far in one direction from mainstream America as conservative Islamic societies are in the other direction. As such, discussion can help those in the middle (who frequently consider themselves enlightened) to understand the perspective of those in the more conservative society.
Yeah, I think it is. When the victim willingly climbs into bed with someone who has previously made him/her uncomfortable, it's time for even the most stalwart SJW to acknowledge that the situation is not entirely one-sided.
I think it's an account of a community trying to define its norms.
We've spent the last 10,000 years or so doing just that. So far, the answer seems to be, "Don't sleep with people of the compatible sex that you don't want to, um, sleep with."
Of course we haven't arrived at the best possible set of norms yet, but I'm not convinced that unchallenged cries of victim-blaming in cases like this are going to lead us there.
At a glance, it looks like those norms are about as far in one direction from mainstream America as conservative Islamic societies are in the other direction. As such, discussion can help those in the middle (who frequently consider themselves enlightened) to understand the perspective of those in the more conservative society.
Sorry, I'm not sure what this means.
Sure, but could the same be said if a lone female gets into a taxi with a male driver, feels uncomfortable, but doesn't get out? If the taxi driver takes this to imply sexual consent, does saying that only "the most stalwart liberal Westerner" would defend her behavior make the situation any less one-sided?
We've spent the last 10,000 years or so doing just that. So far, the answer seems to be, "Don't sleep with people of the compatible sex that you don't want to, um, sleep with."
I'm claiming that there is far less uniformity to these beliefs than you imply. Some societies take it further, and say "Women should not show their face to anyone who is not their spouse or kin", and others take a more liberal approach. Even in Western society, approaches to sharing beds have changed dramatically in the last couple hundred years. Try here for explanations of "bundling" and "pigging": https://books.google.com/books?id=WnrEAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT259&lpg=...
Sorry, I'm not sure what this means.
Based on your statements, I'm guessing that you hold relatively standard conservative Western beliefs regarding the implications of certain interactions between non-married members of the opposite sex. As such, a woman inviting a man to non-sexually share her bed is a difficult situation to comprehend: how could anyone be blamed for misinterpreting and overstepping the bounds of this arrangement?
I'm saying that just as we in the West might condemn a taxi driver or shopkeeper for raping an unchaperoned female patron (even if that patron felt uncomfortable with the situation but entered it voluntarily), others might be justified in condemning someone who "feels up" a woman whose bed they are allowed to share. I don't have the answer as to whether condemnation is justified in this case, and can only say that the "rightfulness" of the condemnation depends on the societal context within which it occurs. I don't think there is an absolute basis by which the "right" limits of propriety can be judged.
That scenario is not even remotely comparable to the events that Lovecruft is describing, which have apparently taken place over months or years.
Have you read her post? She and Appelbaum have a history, which she recounts in a way that (perhaps to her credit) doesn't flatter her case. If the events are as she described, then yes, Appelbaum behaved inappropriately and inexcusably. But considering what victims of sexual violence have historically had to face, I don't think much of Lovecruft for even bothering to post this account. It amounts to a lot of whining about a betrayal of personal trust that should have come as no surprise whatsoever.
Based on your statements, I'm guessing that you hold relatively standard conservative Western beliefs regarding the implications of certain interactions between non-married members of the opposite sex.
My values/beliefs aren't relevant here, and I can honestly say they're not contributing to my opinion of what I've read about this case.
It's impossible to be 100% objective, of course, but for the same reason, it's unreasonable to assign 100% of the blame to either party without a much better awareness of exactly just what happened, and of what might have motivated it.
Never mind.
> They included first-person accounts of Jake deliberately intimidating and shaming people, not taking no for an answer, undressing and sexually touching a person who was sleeping, and having sex in front of a group with a person who had repeatedly said no.
So...we're supposed to believe that this guy decided to have sex in front of a group of people with a person who repeatedly said no and gave no consent, and the group just sits there and watches it, and then blogs about it months/years later? What kind of people are these that just stand around and watch an obvious rape go on? Are they accomplices? Liars? People suffering from bystander effect?
I'd like to ask all the people that claim that he raped a random person in front of a group of people: How do you feel about your own involvement in it? Do you feel any guilt at all for letting this guy just rape someone right in front of you?
Also, with your example, the power differential is drastically different. If you have 7-8 people, you can easily coerce a slightly larger crowd to not do anything under threat of violence.
If you have one guy raping someone and 20 people standing around, that is completely different from 1 guy raping, 6-7 threatening people, and 20 watching.
If the allegations true, they should prosecute, and should have prosecuted immediately. As well as all the other people who knew of it. And we should continue to work towards a world where that is a no brainer.
Most people are nice. It's only a few people, mostly with unfortunate backgrounds or fates that are not. Let's work towards institutions which handle this efficiently, without the need for mobs
The idea that people who suffer abuse are in the wrong by not going to authorities who typically also disbelieve them is poisonous.
You are right, victim blaming is horrible. That's why I didn't say "they should have said something immediately, now they have lost credibility"
I understand why they might not go immediately and don't blame them for it. I still think the right thing is immediate prosecution. If they don't feel like they will be helped by the authoritiesthat is a problem, which needs to be addressed both on the sides of the authorities (with proper training and procedures) and education (teaching people to prosecute immediately instead of shutting up)
Their opinion is clearly irrelevant to the question of whether abuse occurred, and that they would offer such an irrelevant opinion is neutral evidence at best.
Also re authorities, you're talking about people on the Tor project, and most systemic abusers are pretty careful to not provide a clear chain of evidence. So you're asking someone to go to an authority they likely specifically distrust to blow up their relationship with their community likely for no gain, since there will almost certainly not be a successful prosecution. I'm sure you can see how this might not be an appealing option.
I just really dislike this situation where it boils down to "(s)he said/(s)he said" and the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" flies out the window
Another thing I don't get is why they wouldn't prosecute now that the community is already fractured.
Also, and this is where I probably sound like an as:
If you are an anarchist and don't believe in law enforcement OR in the ability of your community to replace them then tough shit if something happens and you have nobody to turn to. That is kinda the whole purpose od ordered society to provide a way to deal with that
Have you ever been sexually assaulted? (That's a rhetorical question, unless you actually want to answer.) It's deeply traumatic. In situations where you previously trusted the person who hurt you, it can be very hard to come to terms with what actually happens. Many victims feel shame. It takes time and often therapy to come to a place where you're ready to speak about it publicly.
(I'm not saying this is the experience of everyone who's ever been sexually assaulted, but it's an experience that has been commonly attested to.)
And yes, I understand that, the "immediately" was a bit knee jerk. But at least part of what you described is what I meant in another comment here: it should be part of both education and procedures to make immediate prosecution not only possible but a no brainer. Then we can avoid situations like this, which always reeks to me as "guilty until proven innocent"
Prosecution of alleged crimes is, in most jurisdictions, at the sole discretion of the state, not that of the injured parties.
(Civil litigation is possible at the instigation of the injured parties, but the calculation of whether that is desirable even if legally justified is not so straightforward that one could reasonably, in a blanket way, say that if there allegations are true, they should make and pursue them in court.)
You may not agree, but this is an important psychological factor when discussing this particular community.
This is basically personal power in group dynamics. It's found in many in-groups where a person has the power to do whatever they want, yet still remain a vital part of the group.
There's also a fallacy here that a "community" is what people think it is: a group of people who work together in each others' best interests. More often, communities are groups of individuals who sometimes cooperate, but whose priority is still their own position in the group. This is partly why a critical mass of community members coming forward at once is needed to challenge power.
(The other aspect is that a challenge to a person in power is also implicitly a challenge to the other group members who have given them power, which is why you see people either ignore or react personally when a person with power is attacked)
> Calls for police intervention are particularly alarming to hear from a community in which so many advocate for a stateless society.
We do not live in a stateless society. We live in a society that makes people feel shame, fear and indecision for reporting certain crimes. If you believe in transformative justice, design your education to help people feel comfortable going to the police immediately. No lovey-dovey non-violent community action is going to substitute the fear of repercussions for crimes, such as jail time.
> 1. We must believe victims, and continue to foster an environment where they feel safe to report their stories of abuse.
I agree with the second part. The first part implies that anyone who claims to be a victim is a victim, and completely defeats points 2.1 and 2.3. If Jake decried being a victim first, we would be forced to believe him (unless you're going with either gender stereotype or bandwagon fallacy as the determining factor, the latter of which could also end in Jake's favor).
Communities are not impartial and can not police themselves impartially. There's a reason that there are police that police the police.
No positive comments will come from this post.
Well it's a good thing that HN isn't just a place for happy, fun joy that you get to experience while people elsewhere are being abused and exploited.
If this was some kind of article about these people's experiences, then I can understand the value it adds. But this is just he-said-she-said, there's no value here. The guy they purport to be an offender hasn't even been charged!
Courts are not the arbiters of truth, and they may claim to deal in justice, but really what courts can judge is tightly bounded by law and doesn't get into the full moral complexity of day-to-day life.
Which of course doesn't include the still completely unsubstantiated plagiarism claims, and answering no questions about that. It doesn't include stunts like "TimeToDieJake" or this: https://twitter.com/Shidash/status/741259721756319744 and whatever else will predictably follow in the wake of sentencing someone as "rapist, sociopath, plagiarist, period", just to start it all off. It doesn't include flagged Jill Bähring's account either, naturally, that's not abusing and exploiting someone and then not even allowing them to defend themselves.
None of this takes away from the other allegiations, but two wrongs still don't make a right, one can be abusive in response to abuse.
All that while you waggle your finger at me? Nope. Use your words, or live with your part in this. Having double standards isn't twice as good as having standards. It's like having none.
Basically what you've got here is a classic botched seduction. It probably stems from the fact that Jacob has a poorly developed sense of empathy with women, possibly dating back to a messed-up childhood.
The facts are though:
1. Alison has a "minor romantic interest" in Jake, and he invites her back to his apartment.
2. He proceeds to invite her into the bathroom and gets naked. This is moving too fast, but she still likes him, so she sits with him.
3. He convinces her to strip down to her t-shirt and panties. Again, she is uncomfortable.
4. He "nonconsentually washes" her. Now the creep factor has gotten too intense. She's being drug along instead of gently whisked through the seduction. She starts to cry and leaves.
What we are having a problem with as a society is how we view women's agency. In the past, we viewed women as mentally weaker than men, and so there were rules of conduct, such as, don't go into a man's apartment alone if you don't want to be seduced. What we have now is this strange hybrid where a woman can voluntarily go alone in the evening into a man's apartment, talk to him while he's naked in the tub, strip down to a t-shirt and panties, and when he starts to wash her, call this sexual assault and ruin his career.
Jacob is certainly guilty of ungentlemanly behavior, lack of smoothness, and pushiness, assuming that her story is accurate and complete, but to call this sexual assault is crazy.
All you nerdy guys out there, if you don't want something like this to happen to you, learn the dance -- there is a sequence and a pace to these things if you want a woman to feel good.
> All you nerdy guys out there, if you don't want something like this to happen to you
If you don't want actively ignoring someone's else's nonconsent and forcing them into sexual contact with you to happen to you- wait wtf?
> learn the dance -- there is a sequence and a pace to these things if you want a woman to feel good
Ah yes, the don't-sexually-assault-people dance. A classic in romantic etiquette. It sure makes women feel good not to be assaulted. Do you read the things you write?
It's disturbing how many stories of alleged or actual sexual harassment/assault involve alcohol. We've figured out that we cannot handle mixing alcohol and driving, and so make an effort to have a "designated driver" so that those drinking won't have to drive.
Is it perhaps time to extend this beyond driving? When interacting with people you might be sexually attracted to in situations where you are going to be drinking, have some designating non-drinkers around to watch over those who imbibe and stop them from making alcohol induced mistakes?
Alcohol is problematic in sexual situations for a couple reasons:
• It impairs the ability to give informed consent, so people who have been drinking often agree to do things that they would not have agreed to had they not been drinking.
• It impairs the ability to recognize that someone else is too impaired to give consent.
This can lead to truly bizarre situations, such as two people each thinking that they are willingly having sex with the other but legally they are actually each raping the other.
I suspect that most people also greatly underestimate how much alcohol it takes to impair their judgement sufficiently for them to get into problematic situations that they would normally easily avoid.
So what can be done about this? No way are people going to give up alcohol, or even give up getting smashed at social events. Can something be done to help those people at least not abuse people while smashed or become easy victims while smashed?
There's a clear trend here among the posts that get downvoted, and while it is within the rules and spirit of the site to do so, it is at the very least ironic that supposed anarchists and libertarians, who so vehemently oppose centrally mandated censorship are perfectly fine when that happens to advance a narrative they agree with, through an echo-chamber which essentially works as the central authority.
That certainly takes away what little credence there was left to their idea about a stateless society and doesn't paint a pretty picture to the magnitude of a delusion required to somehow, in one's mind, to convince themselves that mob justice is better than the rule of law.
How many people are afraid to speak out here, despite disagreement?
Quoting the punchline of a common joke, "No, we can only conclude that there is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black."
What evidence leads you to conclude that the self-described anarchists and libertarians approve of centrally mandated censorship? Unless you have non-public knowledge of individual HN voting patterns (and are willing to assume that downvotes accurately reflect a desire to censor) it seems like an unwarranted leap to go from a handful of anonymous internet downvotes to decrying the hypocrisy of both movements.
What, with the horrible consequence of being downvoted looming over them? Probably a lot fewer than are afraid to speak out about charismatic abusers who have threatened to ruin their personal and professional lives if they speak out.
This is a pretty classic example of a common phenomenon -- to paraphrase Alana Massey, people often mistake the discomfort of being confronted with their own violence for the suffering they caused by it. Appelbaum's "victimization" isn't remotely close to the suffering of the his victims.
Downvoted? How about losing your job. Speak out and if your account has your Twitter handle, email, employer, etc. that many HN'ers share (or indirectly share by using the same handle on other sites) - risk having an ideological hate mob targeting you and lighting a metaphorical fire under your employer's ass until you get laid off because they disagree with your beliefs? Shit that has been happening in increasing amounts in the past decade. Plenty of people with the "wrong thoughts" self-censor or remain psuedonymous or anonymous to share their "real" thoughts.
The defense for attacking these people is almost always "They are a bigot/sexist/racist/transphobe/Islamiphobe/___ist/___phobe", often without actual evidence or relying on a he-said/she-said. Which is just a "morally correct" version of attacking someone for their beliefs and opinions. With very few lines and exceptions - I do not think anyone should lose their jobs for having their own beliefs and opinions. It's a very dangerous line to walk.
>Appelbaum's "victimization" isn't remotely close to the suffering of the his victims.
Innocent until proven guilty has been tossed to the side I see.