Employee email claims leadership delayed acknowledging McClure’s harassment | Hacker News Reader

Employee email claims leadership delayed acknowledging McClure’s harassment

techcrunch.com

56 pointsmido2216 comments

The timing and delivery of Dave's "I'm a creep, I'm sorry." mea culpa now seems more logical to me.

A person who has committed transgression B, which is one-level more reprehensible and more opaque than transgression A, will admit to A in the hopes of forestalling a deeper inquiry into B.

I don't know what to call this rhetorical tactic (fallacy?), but I imagine sex offenders must employ it regularly to mitigate public backlash.

I wish there was a name for that too, though I wouldn't call it a fallacy - more of a game theoretic strategy that plays out in any kind of adversarial situation. I've most commonly noticed it in lying: given two parties with imperfect information about each other, one is lying and the other is sniffing out the lie.

The liar predicts, on a basic cost-benefit analysis, that "throwing away" information that satisfies a bar of suspicion will be enough indirection to quell further inquiry, because acting perfectly erudite won't "win." The liar doesn't value this information much or at all (and more importantly, knows that the other party doesn't really value that information much either), but knows that the inquiry will be dropped because the other party will think they value the information enough for it to be a confession.

Plus you have a bunch of people who essentially defended him with all the talk of how social settings can be confusing and we all make mistakes and we're not robots and bladiblah. I bet a lot of them will either ignore this or just double down.

I'd call it a kind of PR plea-bargaining.

It is called a "limited hangout."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout

This is a good example of the dynamics of harassment. What was perceived as a one incident a day ago is now a much more widespread issue.

When talking about harassment keep in mind that for every voice that rises chances are many more have not come forward due to pressure or fear of consequences.

This is the sort of logic that ultimately destroys due process. "This person was accused so they must be guilty of the accusation... and much more!"

How about "This person was accused. Let's at least take the accusation seriously instead of dismissing it out of hand."

The consequences of making a public accusation like this are generally negative for the accuser as much as or more than the person accused. Often even if the accusations result in a conviction in a court of law. Often even true accusations do not result in convictions. Sometimes even accusations of actual physical rape of an unconscious woman, accompanied by video evidence.

Meanwhile the accuser's life gets turned upside down. They're demonized. Their every past relationship is scrutinized. They're accused of "asking for it" and not taking necessary precautions. Their reputation is dragged through the mud. Their career ends because they're deemed a troublemaker and nobody wants to alienate the boys club, nor work with someone who might have the audacity to call out colleagues or superiors on their misbehavior.

The person they accused is defended and excused as being drunk or, well, "boys will be boys".

So, yeah, every now and then someone makes a false accusation.

By for every true accusation there are typically many more victims who were too afraid of the consequences of speaking up.

Silence is the enemy of justice.

The leadership of this organization is complicit. It's disingenuous to pretend they "just found out." There are enough signals that indicate that they let "Dave be Dave." They let this continue on for years. Terminate this organization for the good of those involved and their investors (some of whom also likely knew).

This presentation of his seems like it should have raised some eyebrows: https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/dmc500hats/how-to-pitch-a-...

It looks like Donald Trump made it.

Wow, that presentation is pretty shocking. How on Earth did he get away with both the harassment and the crude commentary for so long? In retrospect, knowing how he was treating women for years and looking at a presentation like this, it seems almost as if he was taunting the general consumer tech public with his behavior.

“Due to the sensitivity of personnel issues and the privacy of all involved, the investigation was kept confidential.”

Wow, there is a predator in the group, but "privacy"?

Privacy concerns of the victims is a serious point to be respected.

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