Comment by throwawaykite | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaykite | Hacker News Reader

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Really sorry to hear about your ordeal — I was once wrongly accused by a woman of something heinous and it took me a while to recover from the shock and PTSD.

In particular this part of your post bothers me: “The experience haunts me to this day..”

No - This shouldn’t be the case. You did nothing wrong. While there is no magic wand to “fix” how you feel - and esp low probability that an online post from a stranger would do anything but please consider the following strategies:

1. Try to understand shame. What is it and Why it is there? (evolutionary reasons) It might be liberating.

2. Know quite simply that the past doesn’t exist. Except In our heads.

3. Take inspiration: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37735368

4. Try to research into revenge porn - what happened to you is very common; in some parts of the world with serious consequences for women - understanding that you are not alone (or special) might be oddly liberating.

5. Talk to someone. Maybe even a pro.

Just some strategies that are available to you - hope you heal soon. (I am sure you are already trying to recover - Your message just stuck a cord and I wanted to offer advice)

I think your situation is very much connected to the current wave of revelations of wrong doing against (mostly) women.

Every time one of these celebrities denies a true accusation it causes a whole new wave of damage not only to the victim but, to every person who will ever have to fend off a wrongful accusation, because it muddies the waters and creates FUD.

Yes, the data suggests the percentage of false accusations is small. However it burns me when people suggest bringing it up at all diminishes the bigger issue of assaults on women. In fact I think they enhance each other because they’re both about seeking clarity and justice.

I’ve seriously heard people debate the death penalty by arguing, that the possibility of executing an innocent person is not one of the big issues because, that probably happens small percentage of the time. Scared the crap out of me to hear it articulated by a real person.

Some media outlets have chosen to be critical of Louis CK’s response to the accusations against him. They think they are advocating for women, when actually they’re doing all of us a huge disservice.

Focusing on the quality of apologies is a red herring. Only two things matter, the crime and the truth getting out about crime. Judge his apology/non apology anyway you like, at least he ended it decisively, instead of propagating it for enternity by sowing doubt.

I recall reading that something like one in ten people on death row ends up being acquitted, so the idea that only a small percentage of people are wrongly executed is factually wrong in the first place.

Hey, Scalia said innocence is no defense once you're convicted, so "wrongly executed" is debatable.

(lots of heavy sighing/sarcasm should be inferred)

> Judge [Louis CK’s] apology/non apology anyway you like, at least he ended it decisively, instead of propagating it for enternity by sowing doubt.

What are you talking about? It was "ended" by the NYT publishing, in this current Weinstein/Spacey climate, an article about his offences[1] and leaving him absolutely no other choice but to finally come clean.

He was publicly painting his victims as liars (which you quite rightly condemn in your second paragraph) as recently as a couple of months ago[2]:

    NYT: So [the accusations are] not real?

    CK: “No. They’re rumors, that’s all that is.”

Even now, not only does he not apologise, he tries to excuse his completely inexcusable behaviour by trying to pretend he thought it was even remotely acceptable.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/arts/television/louis-ck-...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/movies/louis-ck-rumors-wo...

That’s the whole point, they don’t have to ever admit it, regardless of the publicity, short of hidden camera footage.

The huge problem is, that even when it’s damning enough that 99% of people call bullshit, their denial will continue to cause great pain and make it difficult for other people to get justice in the future.

In a perfect world they wouldn’t have committed the crimes in the first place, but it’s a relative scale, and having an uncontested documented case is a bigger win over a denial, than having a good apology is over a bad/non apology.

> having an uncontested documented case is a bigger win over a denial

I agree. The mistake is crediting that to CK ("at least he...") when in the wake of an article as damning as the one in the NYT, in the current climate where the story was not going to go away, as before, he had absolutely no other option than admit it.

> That’s the whole point, they don’t have to ever admit it, regardless of the publicity, short of hidden camera footage.

I think that was true before (pre-Weinstein), and will unfortunately probably become true again, but right now there is too much attention being paid to showbiz abuse/harrassment for someone to get away with ignoring/denying truthful allegations against them.

That article said that CK emailed and apologized to many of the women years earlier. The only ones he seemingly didn’t were the two in the hotel room which, according to other sources, agreed to let CK do it. Maybe they thought he was joking but he may not have realized they weren’t okay with it.

The power dynamic is the issue. Can you truly consent to something sexual coming from someone who can end your livelihood?

I understand the rationale behind thinking "oh they should just have just gotten up and walked away" but it makes me sick to my stomach to justify sexual harassment at all PERIOD.

I am sickened by CK's actions. However I am equally as sickened that the conversation is focused on louis ck, who certainly deserves to lose his career, but in my opinion indecent exposure is no where near as traumatizing a crime as forcible rape.

It just screams limited hangout where the big wigs make the new money pervert take the fall in order to take the heat off them.

This is what I’m referring to. Your sickening, the the other media outlets critical of CKs response is lost energy that could otherwise better be used against the problem.

You assume discussions are driven by who to focus on, when they are driven by understanding and figuring out the best way forward for healing and justice weighing all variables.

It’s natual to be angry, there’s nothing wrong with it, please carry on with doing it. However I’m asking we separate that anger from discussions of any lessons, priories, strategies, conclusions we can learn from any of this if it has a chance of improving perspective in the long run.

Critical analysis is different from grieving and empathy, and very hard to mix. I’m sure I probably couldn’t separate them if I were a victim or someone close to me was.

In some small country there was recently a very interesting story. A relatively unknown actress made a post to her Facebook feed accusing relatively famous director of sexual assault without any details given (I was sexually assaulted by X, it still haunts me, #MeMoo). On Friday evening. On monday morning, one relatively strong politician with PhD in law decided to question organisations' under their influence cooperation with said director. The stated motive was that several days of public silence under such a heavy accusations is unacceptable. Politician with PhD in law states that innocent until proven guilty is a concept from criminal law, which is orthogonal to moral code.

This scares me. With this huge stream of information (disregarding signal to noise ration) stories lose "longevity" - lifetimes of stories are getting shorter and shorter and there is less and less time to react. Collecting facts for good rebuttal takes time and for trickier cases may take so long that publishing a good rebuttal backed with facts is like beating a dead horse. People tend to react to public outcry. Everyday we see a new mass hysteria, which is just perfect place to spread fake news and propaganda.

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