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Comment by adenozine | Hacker News Reader

Is there any proof to this?

Not that I'm in disbelief, but I guess I just wonder why nothing has been done if it's as intense and awful as the claims.

Either way, it's repulsive to hear about bad behaviors like these in beautiful scheme communities.

I hope everybody involved heals and flourishes.

Edit: to be clear, obviously I believe the guy. It just seems crazy that such an amount of responsible, educated people would let this happen in any kind of professional or educational setting. If someone spoke that way to anybody at my work, they'd be absolutely brutalized and more than likely terminated that same day.

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Because it can be difficult to approach cruel people about their cruelty, would be my guess.

Kind of a weird instance of The Bystander Effect

It's usually called "missing stair": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair

I think verbal abuse, when done a certain way, is tolerated in a way that other forms of bullying aren't. Unless there are threats or sexual harassment, people in power will usually get away with being a complete ass with no consequence (and even then!). Good to know that your workplace isn't like this, at least that's your perception, but some places allow people like this to thrive. This has to change.

> why nothing has been done

Felleisen is a project founder. People often feel extremely uncomfortable holding open source founders to task for their behavior.

> why nothing has been done

Probably because without Felleisen there is no Racket. He's obviously not the only team member, but he's been working on it for decades. If you censure him, the whole thing might fall apart.

And, of course, confronting people is uncomfortable. The article's author even arranged himself with it: "The rest, I ignore. For me so far, that compromise has sufficed."

human groups are really not optimal for these. I've now witnessed (and my radar is not wide) at various degrees insane amount of silence.. if people have a solution, or hints, I want to hear/read about it

I don't think it's easy to get proof for this kind of things. Basicaly you have to wear a recorder (or keeping a recorder app open all the time) whenever you meent with him. Doable but still, PIA.

What would the author have to gain from fabricating it?

For the record, I believe the author.

But asking what the author would gain from fabricating it is a terrible reason to believe something. Pathological liars exist and they prey on people with such low bars for belief.

I think it's exceedingly rare for an outstanding technical contributor like Matthew Butterick to also be a pathological liar, especially in ways that would hurt their own career.

Both of these are great questions, I wish situations like these were resolved with a recorded conversation between at least the accuser and someone who attempts to be unbiased that was involved.

I recently had an acquaintance get cancelled who held pretty troubling religious opinions, but outwardly the way he treated everyone was better than the vast majority of people treated others in that community. I feel like a conversation would've resolved that issue without him losing 3 positions, one of which being his job.

I don't know enough about this particular situation to have an educated opinion.

But in my experience with these kinds of situations, people often misconstrue and sometimes even knowingly misrepresent them not because a rational reason to fabricate them, but just because of one or the other irrational psychological reason to do so. People are not rational, and the mere fact that they wouldn't get anything doesn't mean that they would do it.

Maybe you misunderstood my post, I don't disbelieve him. I'm raising concerns that there's apparently brazen abuse happening amongst many accomplished adults with nobody being held accountable for it.

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