This is a blog post that’s incredibly confusing and painful for me to write
blog.maxistentialism.com
blog.maxistentialism.com
1. I understand those that say that he should sue. But think of it this way: even if he goes through a long lawsuit to sue and wins, he still comes up worse for wear: people who hated him to begin with will just say he "bought" his freedom with high priced lawyers, and the publicity the trial would generate would just hurt him more no matter what the outcome.
2. What's frustrating to me is even in these HN comments, the fact that he _isn't_ suing is somehow proof that there might be more to the story! You end up not winning -- not going to trial is because you know the "truth" might come out, and going to trial and winning will still prove that you might still be guilty, but celebrity status/money helped you.
3. Other people argue he should / should not have posted this blog post. But again, it's a catch-22: if you don't publish the blog post, it's because you are trying to bury the story because there might be some truth to it. But if you do publish it, now people think you aren't telling the whole truth and are just spinning it to get people on your side!
So really, no matter what you do, there's no good solution. If you sue, your victory will be Pyrrhic at best. If you don't sue, you're hiding something. If you post a response, you are spinning it. If you don't post, you're hiding something.
Worse yet, defending Max can end up being a lose-lose situation as well. If I believe Max's story, and defend him in forums/communications, that can portray me as being a sympathizer to sexual offenders rather than victims, which would anger me very much.
Sexual assault is a travesty. Period. And victims already have many times a hard enough time coming forward and talking about it, yet alone going to the police -- under the assumption that they might not be believed or that they will be shamed. But we need to make sure that there is justice for all, without hurting either side. We still have a long way to go.
Yes, I'm aware of that bias, and no, it has no bearing on the observations at the top of this thread.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=female+...
i'm guessing the respondant didn't even notice my use of gender neutral nouns.
this is a completely unfalsifiable statement, the standard stock-in-trade of people on the internet promulgating a specific political agenda.
And then she was acquitted and the nation lost its mind? And if you ask anybody on the street "is Casey Anthony a murderer?" you'll get the answer "oh I know she is, I studied the evidence and the prosecutor is a moron?" You know how so many people want justice for the girl that now Casey Anthony has to hide, everywhere she goes, for the rest of her life?
That's what people are working toward with the Internet. You should not care if someone is accused of something because accusation is an easy thing to do. Being convicted of a crime is a different story. Yet, we have an entire ecosystem of people who have built up a defensive wall around the sacred act of accusation by calling it "coming forward," and absolutely destroying anybody who speaks out against that holy act being considered as important as it is.
I don't know how to fix it, either, but I do know now, more than ever, it is frightfully easy. And that a frightening portion of people are perfectly willing to spend their limited time on Earth debating something that impacts them absolutely zero, including this accusation.
As long as no further evidence or testimony surfaces, this will be forgotten by almost everybody within a week, and in a month or two, nobody will even think about it except for the accuser and the accused.
Want proof? You raped me. Remember when you did that? Hey everybody! Beachstartup actually raped me. It definitely happened and I'm very traumatized by it. Not a day goes by where I don't encounter some trigger that reminds me of the time that beachstartup raped me.
See? Nothing happened. Both in meatspace and online, accusations that aren't backed by evidence might gain temporary attention, but they won't last. You certainly can't just decide to make someone's reputation "instantly, completely and forever ruined" on a passing whim.
Adhering to a presumption of innocence when trying to determine facts about the world more generally is obviously nonsense.
I was not advocating presuming guilt in any context - that would be even more nonsensical.
In this case a presumption of innocence means "things are the same as I understand them to be based on previous evidence until I am shown that they are now different." You are not born guilty so you must remain in a state of innocence until you commit a crime. And because that crime must be proven you are innocent until proven guilty.
In this case neutrality is the same thing as believing in someone's innocence.
This is fundamentally different than, for example, the distinction between a lack of a belief of God and a belief that there is no God - because we know something about people, all people, from experience, whereas we know nothing about God.
If you interpret "presumption of innocence" as purely a check against the base rate fallacy, then sure - it applies anywhere humans are doing reasoning.
I think that it serves other important roles in regard to punishment in particular, and those other roles are harmful in situations where you are seeking truth as opposed to asking whether to punish.
In particular, consider the obviously fallaceous:
"Should we put more resources toward investigating rape allegations? Well, in each of those cases where we have not put enough resources to determine the veracity of the allegations, we need to assume the innocence of the accused. By that reasoning, we can conclude that 100% of uninvestigated allegations are false, so we clearly should not spend any more resources on them."
Lets say we know from experience that about 10% of the prevously uninvestigated cases end up proving guilt. Does that mean the allegation itself means the person being accused has a 10% increased probability of being guilty, merely because they were accused? In other words, does merely accusing them make them less innocent? I would have to say no - their objective innocence or guilt has nothing to do with whether or not an allegation was made.
You said: "those other roles are harmful in situations where you are seeking truth as opposed to asking whether to punish."
To use your example about investigating rape allegations, the presumption of innocence doesn't stop the legal system from investigating (possibly true) allegations to begin with, so why would it stop our political system from being open to the possibility of devoting more resources to investigating rape allegations, or journalists from pursuing a story to determine the truth of what happened?
In other words, the possible truth of an allegation shouldn't nullify the presumption of innocence because possible truth is not evidence. We are in no better position now that this particular allegation has been made than we were before it ws made - we still have no idea what happened. And that's true whether we're a prosecutor or just a regular person wanting to know what happened.
In fact I'd say in all cases the presumption of innocence is not harmful to seeking truth and in fact enhances it as it prompts the production of further evidence.
Assuming anything less than innocence seems more harmful to seeking truth as it allows instances like the Duke Lacrosse case or (perhaps) this recent Michael Arrington ordeal to take place, which causes more skepticism when future victims make a legitimate accusation.
Of course an allegation is evidence. If it was not evidence, we would expect to do as well investigating cases where there have been no allegations as cases where there have. That's crazy.
And what you've done above isn't "unpacking things" - you're using the same terms in the same ways with all the same assumptions.
This is not productive. I'm done here.
My use of "unpacking" was not serious and in fact meant to be over-the-top condescending, as yours was.
I agree that it is not productive to continue this conversation. But for the record if you decide to argue against a bedrock ethical principle like the presumption of innocence, you should expect some pushback.
In the future you could probably earn more respect in debate, and perhaps even friends, by being less snarky and more respectful/charitable towards your opponent
Unquestionably.
"Which one do we weigh more?"
The one that is stronger evidence, in the precise mathematical sense - P(B|A)/P(B).
In the case of accusation, "the odds you are accused, given that you are guilty" may be low - let's say that only 10% of women so assaulted come forward. But the number of people accused is far less than one in ten.
In the case of denial, "the odds of denial, given innocence" is very nearly the same as "the odds of denial, regardless", so the odds don't shift back much.
So it is more likely after accusation and denial than before accusation and denial. Note that this doesn't mean that it is more probable than not, it means that it is more probable than it was. That depends on the base rate that we agree needs to be incorporated. But there being a low base rate doesn't change what is or isn't evidence, or the strength of that evidence.
"We're in the same position as we were before the allegation was made. We still have to assume the accused is innocent, because that's what we assumed before the allegation was made."
If that were true, it would make no sense to look into allegations - you'd be equally likely to find guilt looking into a random person.
'My use of "unpacking" was not serious and in fact meant to be over-the-top condescending, as yours was.'
Mine was not at all intended to be condescending. It was very specifically intended to say, "We aren't getting anywhere referring to 'presumption of innocence' without talking about what we mean by presumption of innocence", which is what I then tried to do.
"I agree that it is not productive to continue this conversation."
And yet we continue to. This isn't reflecting very well on either of us, I suppose.
"But for the record if you decide to argue against a bedrock ethical principle like the presumption of innocence, you should expect some pushback."
I was not arguing against the presumption of innocence. From my POV, I was arguing against misapplication, overextension, and dilution of the presumption of innocence. We are both of the opinion that "the presumption of innocence" as we understand it needs protecting.
"In the future you could probably earn more respect in debate, and perhaps even friends, by being less snarky and more respectful/charitable towards your opponent"
Pot, possibly lighter kettle. I fully agree we should be respectful and charitable. I try. I fail. When I fail, call me on the particular violation. You responded to perceived snark with snark, where snark wasn't even intended!
In an ideal world we would simply say "where is the evidence, this should be sorted out in a trial". But given that the cops are so hostile to sexual assault victims, forensics which aren't processed for decades (http://www.npr.org/2014/01/25/266275211/tested-at-last-rape-... ) and a legal system which will try the credibility of victims, it's hard to blame any sexual assault victim who shies away from reporting.
In the end, unanswered questions persist.
The day when these sorts of accusations from a man against a woman carries the same weight with the same debilitating effects, then we can start talking about the legal problems.
Until then, this is about the bias our society as a whole has against men with respect to the rape issue, and woman understanding this.
What does it even mean for 'society' to 'have a bias'? That individuals in group G fare worse in situation S, all other things being equal, than individuals in other groups? If you have a better reading, please let me know. If not, we have disembarked too far from the cognitive for bias, an inherently cognitive thing, as our explanation.
Look at my name and call me a hammer-nail guy, but here's what I think: it comes down to options - yours, others', your expectation of others', theirs of yours, and most especially the resulting interplay of all of the above. Human beings are the situation you put them in.
You and I (and Max Temkin and Julian Assange) have a grounded reason for a general fear of false rape accusation: that option is available to any woman we've ever spent an hour with. Is any individual, no matter her motivations, terribly likely to exercise that option? No, but that's not the disturbing part. The disturbing part is, there's no recourse once they do - no options.
But why! Why are there no options? Because rape is the exact thing that it is: a grievous crime whose lasting scars are emotional more often than physical. Anything else, it's different: show me the dead body, show me the stolen thing, what have you. If you're a woman, and some dude rapes you but somehow there's no physical scarring and no dna and no webcam recording and no witnesses-- an altogether plausible scenario, we can all agree-- then fuck you, says the legal system. No options. Not that the legal system has an option in the matter either; you can't have a system that sends people to jail for decades on testimony without evidence. No options here, no options there, no options everywhere, for everyone.
We, by which I mean the public, tend to believe the accuser, in my personal opinion, a) because some fraction of the public is women who have been exactly there, with no options, and see themselves in the accuser (regardless of whatever the real truth of the matter may be), and b) because they don't believe their voice matters anyway. Perhaps secretly, but all the same. Your girlfriend's opinion on Ben Roethlisberger's guilt of rape will, she is well aware, have zero legal effect. But it's your potential no-option situation, not hers, on your mind when you challenge her living room accusations for lack of evidence. A challenge which she can't answer because rape is the thing that it is.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/22/adria-richards_n_29...
"He has three children and is now unemployed. "
Not pursuing this through the appropriate venues—the legal system—simply lets her "get away with it". That's not being nice to her, that's being in an abusive relationship and not speaking up for yourself.
Right now it's a little thing. Defending himself could end up doing a Streisand effect and making it worse.
If she's not lying, then, well. He shouldn't do that, then.
The second part though... What? If she's not lying, then that means he actually raped her and he should have to deal with those consequences—he should be prosecuted for rape!
Your last statement makes it sounds like you're trying to let him off the hook if he indeed raped her, which is why I think you are getting downvotes.
"Additionally, I’m not wild about the precedent that sets for other women to come forward in cases of actual sexual assault."
Ummm.. what about the precedent OP is setting if he's letting her get away with it. Sometimes there's a nice decision and a smart decision to make. Unfortunately, OP chose the former.
> I’m not wild about the precedent that [suing for libel] sets for other women to come forward in cases of actual sexual assault.
Very, very, very few men have the wealth, fame, connections, and social media presence that Max has. He can defend his reputation; most men can't. He has to know this.
He is openly trying to set the precedent that suing over a very public false accusation is somehow anti-women. That's just gross.
There's something about that statement that just feels so very... off to me. A rich man should fight on behalf of all poorer men against the all-conquering, all powerful woman? Because that's not in any way representative of the power women have in situations like this.
I would agree with that statement, and do not consider it gross at all.
I can only assume that this is the case with many rape accusations, especially those from years ago, though what limited research there is suggests false rape accusations are rare (2-8%).
The horrible part about it is that when an accusation like this is made, either one person or the other will potentially have their life destroyed, but the alternatives for both parties are also horrible: for the victim to stay silent, or for the falsely accused to not defend themselves.
You also have to acknowledge that when you have a rape accusation, there isn't a boolean result(either the allegation is false, or it's true, meaning there was rape). It's a broad spectrum, with only around a third of the cases resulting in conviction.[1]
As far as I understand, only if there wasn't a sexual contact will the allegation be considered false. In other cases, there will be some sort of investigation. So, it's possible to have basis for allegation and NOT have rape.
Correct me if I am wrong though.
---
Of the 136 cases of sexual assault 8 (5.9%) were coded as false reports, 61 (44.9%) did not proceed to any prosecution or disciplinary action, 48 (35.3%) were referred for prosecution or disciplinary action, and 19 (13.9%) contained insufficient information to be coded (see Table 2).
[1]http://www.icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-Allegati...
"Of the 136 cases of sexual assault (5.9%) were coded as false reports..."
I grant rare is subjective, but doesn't that statistic say that only 1 in 17 of the reports in the study you're citing were found to be false? I get what you're saying about "not boolean," but the handout on false allegations from that conference you linked to (your link doesn't work, but if you take the first part of "http://www.icdv.idaho.gov/conference/" you get the full schedule) says, "when more methodologically rigorous research has been conducted, estimates for the percentage of false reports begin to converge around 2-8%." I don't see anything that suggests the allegation is only false if there wasn't sexual contact, either.
"The determination that a report is false can then only be made when there is sufficient evidence to establish that the sexual assault did not happen (was not completed or attempted). This does not mean that the investigation failed to prove that the sexual assault happened--in that case the investigation would simply be inconclusive or unsubstantiated. It also does not mean that the suspect was unable to successfully complete the sexual assault--this would be an attempted sexual assault and/or some other sexual offense."
(I should note I'm not taking any position on the allegation against Max Temkin here.)
(44.9%) did not proceed to any prosecution or disciplinary action (13.9%) contained insufficient information to be coded
> That is my rapist. Having his face pop up on my news feed unexpectedly in any context has the capacity to ruin my day. Seeing him praised in the press is giving me a panic attack.
This is classic SJW (Social Justice Warrior) / Tumblr language. Many within this community genuinely believe a man is raping a woman literally by only looking at her. No, this is not a joke.
For some representative examples of how insane those within this movement are, there are plenty of examples posted on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction
I don't doubt this girl genuinely believes she was raped, but I'm quite confident her definition of rape is vastly different than the mainstream definition.
As for the Cards against Humanity game, let that be "exhibit A".
Humor is humor, nothing more.
What an utterly false, utterly stupid thing to say. If you think humor is removed at all from misogyny and racism you are willfully blind.
But to call 'rape', the actual incident has to be non-consensual. Later regrets don't make the cut.
> You're not making a reasonable argument at all, you're saying that because you dislike group X, and person A "sounds like" group X, they're untrustworthy.
The "reasonableness" of this type of logic varies depending on which "group" you're talking about. Sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason, and some stereotypes are more consistently correct than others.
> For all of the problems the SJW community has, each post like yours makes them seem more justified.
Really? So if someone like me happens to "not like them as a group", it justifies their nonsense assertions such as looking at a woman is rape, or all men should die?
Sorry, I simply cannot take people like this seriously.
Also I am going to have to see the research methods that allowed them to come up with that number of false rape accusations, since I doubt it is possible to come up with a real number.
Again, I don't know anything about this case. I don't know if he did anything wrong. But your assumption is disgustingly ignorant.
Incorrect. You're quoting the FBI statistics, but there have been several studies done over the years, later reviewed by Philip N.S. Rumney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#Rumney...
Rumney took together all the data he could find about false accusations, and studies of false accusations. He researched the information used in the studies, the methods used to obtain said information, and their findings. The result: a varyance of between 1% and 90% in terms of what was considered a false accusation, with a mean/median of about 20% over the findings in all the studies.
His conclusion, however, was that these studies varied so much (and their information and means of retrieval so inconclusive) that it is impossible to know what an accurate rate of false accusations is.
So the numbers you're quoting are, statistically speaking, worthless. I suggest reading the studies and their sources before merely repeating the numbers that validate your point.
I personally think the threat of libel (followed by the claim he won't because he's a good person or whatever) is a creepy move if he accepts there's the possibility she might have misinterpreted something. If she legitimately believes she was wronged, then that comes across as an intimidating silencing technique.
Or maybe he's just trying to prevent comments of the type "if she's lying, why doesn't he sue her? He probably has something to hide."
What he seems to say in his post is that he is willing to let this slide because the alternative could well result in fewer women speaking out about sexual assaults they have suffered. He has decided that the negative (a false accusation against him) is worth an overall positive (women hopefully feeling free to speak out). That is his choice to make.
If you monitor this public accusation drama that's currently in vogue, Oregon 3:14-CV-00146-PK[2] is a case to watch.
[1]: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Michael_Schwern_arrest
[2]: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/1vely89ia/oregon-district-c...
From the court documents it looks like there was physical evidence of the assault, so, even leaving out the fact that the police were called at the time (rather than an accusation being made for the first time ten years later), I don't think it's fair to say this is based "on an accusation alone".
Sadly he seems to have neither.
Um, isn't that exactly what he's doing with his blog post? He says straight out that the accusation is false. That's the means he sees fit.
If he expects this to happen again in the future, then it might make sense to pursue a libel case. But if not, and if the premise here is that what she's saying (regardless of whether it's true) is damaging to him, then it makes sense that he'd have to seriously consider whether filing a libel suit against her would really be an effective remedy.
It's unlikely that the objective truth of the matter could ever be definitively proven one way or the other. Therefore, even if he were to win such a suit, the act of defending himself will tend to make him look more guilty and less like a victim. So I think he has little to gain and much to lose from filing suit.
In order for this to be "libel, pure and simple", you have to prove damage to a reputation, defamation of character, that the claims prevented you from doing business, did psychological damage, etc.
His ability to win a case rests on his ability to prove his business or state of mind has been seriously damaged by these claims. The problem with that is also his saving grace: it happened 10 years ago, so most people won't give it much credit without evidence. Because people won't give it much credit, his personal and professional reputation won't be damaged.
If he did initiate a suit, it would probably bring him an enormous amount more trouble both professionally and personally than if he addresses it quickly and lets it die, which is what he's decided to do. So really he probably has no case and this is his best course of action.
But then again, I Am Not A Lawyer, so what the hell do I know? Armchair lawyering sure is fun though.
Assuming he is innocent that is. Who knows?
Also, I agree with some of the posts in this thread: the fact that such an accusation has any value, when it supposedly happened 10 years ago, is ridiculous, as proving that something did or did not happen 10 years ago is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
I'm not saying it did not happen, but it is very unlikely to be proven/disproven (and by proof, here, I mean actual proofs, not people's words on the subject).
If rape did happen, bring it before the courts. If not, don't ruin peoples' lives. And don't wait 10 years to accuse someone.
Who knows what really happened. Were they both blackout-drunk? Was it really awkward and bad? Maybe she consented and then regretted it? Maybe it was rape, in which case she should have reported it 10 years ago... Is she trying to cash in since he's slightly more successful than the stereotype of a philosophy major?
I am not an expert on the matter, but for many rape victims, it is not as easy as it sounds. A lot of different factors come into play when trying to muster the courage to go report a life-shattering incident such as rape. Guilt, fear of not being taken seriously, facing the incident once again, anguish about legal procedures, etc.
Can't emphasize this enough, it's not something you can look at rationally and say "That person should have done that".
But making an accusation on Twitter is all too easy.
In our society, when a crime occurs we want justice. Mob anger on the internet isn't justice.
Thankfully, I've never been sexually assaulted, and I have no insight into either side of this particular situation, but I doubt that it's quite that simple for the victim of a rape.
I know that for some crimes, there is no statute of limitations. I don't know whether rape is one of them.
This is a lot easier said than done. There is still a lot of stigma around rape victims today, especially when the rape victims aren't female.
Statistically most rapes in the military are committed against males. Most of these rapes aren't reported.
https://twitter.com/paulidin/status/487237076413612034
I saw another tweet from Andy Baio saying that the victim would release her side of the story on an online site (the link he gave was blank, though)...whatever the events, it probably wasn't ideal for a "friend of a friend" to make such a conclusive indictment, for either the OP or for the accuser.
People are just gullible, and the internet hasn't helped. I swear you could tweet that Einstein was a purple midget and as a result 5 people would go their graves believing it.
He has a wannabe "Youtube celebrity" channel where feminism is a main topic. I am going to go ahead and say it. Whatever his motivations for writing this, by injecting himself into the middle of it he can now benefit financially off of this.
Absent any further evidence from either party and giving both the benefit of the doubt, doesn't this seem like the most likely explanation? It isn't that uncommon for two people to have two completely different takeaways from the same event. If you throw in the probable lack of experience of the two parties, the likelihood that alcohol was involved, and the admission by one of the participants that they lacked communication skills, those odds would seemingly skyrocket.
This is the reason for the whole 90's politically correct era of asking permission before every escalation. That is the best way to prevent this possible scenario until both parties gain the experience, the communication skills, the confidence, and the level of safety to properly convey what the want from the situation.
One wonders why she didn't accuse him of rape at the time.
no.
do I think a 19 year old isn't going to accidentally rape someone?
yes.
Just how many years of experience do you think it takes before one can avoid accidentally raping someone?
[1] Mosher WD, Chandra A, Jones J. Sexual behavior and selected health measures: Men and women 15–44 years of age, United States, 2002
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16250464
> RESULTS:
Among adults 25-44 years of age, 97 percent of men and 98 percent of women have had vaginal intercourse; 90 percent of men and 88 percent of women have had oral sex with an opposite-sex partner; and 40 percent of men and 35 percent of women have had anal sex with an opposite-sex partner. About 6.5 percent of men 25-44 years of age have had oral or anal sex with another man. Based on a differently worded question, 11 percent of women 25-44 years of age reported having had a sexual experience with another woman. The public health significance of the findings is described.
Here's the study with the graph; as you can see, only 69% of 19-year-old men had had vaginal intercourse (i.e., sex): http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad362.pdf
It isn't that difficult to avoid accidentally raping someone. Seriously. Why is this something that needs to be argued? 19 is not 15, period.
You have the money to defend yourself, you are luckily able to fight back against these fabrications. What if you were less fortunate? You would be -fucked- my friend. You should definitely sue her ass for libel.
It sounds like this is kind of exactly what he doesn't want - to somehow represent or stand up for total strangers who were also accused of sexual assault. And I can see why.
If he sues her for libel what, exactly, does he get out of it? Ironically, he'd get a lot more attention than has already been paid to the topic. I doubt he wants that, either.
Not reporting rape when it occurred is not the fault of the victim.
However, she leveled public accusations 10 years later when the only chance of evaluating the accusations is the word and unreliable memories of the two people involved.
Now, even that isn't necessarily a bad thing. She should have that right, and people should come forward in case there are other silent, more recent, victims.
Unfortunately, internet culture involves people thinking that they somehow have the ability and responsiblity to judge the truth of these accusations and then publicly voice that opinion. I wish fewer people on this thread were doing that.
We need to have a safe, secure, victim friendly system for logging these types of accusations, investigating them, looking for corroboration, and then strict guidelines for publicizing these accusations even if the statue of limitations has expired.
Public shaming works, the court of public opinion doesn't.
The most honorable thing in that whole post is this:
"You will not harass or threaten the woman making these claims. I am not looking for a mob of people carrying pitchforks on my behalf. If you harass her or go after her in any way, you are not a friend of mine, and you are not a friend of Cards Against Humanity."
Is this the same Cards Against Humanity that I'm thinking of? Because I'm pretty sure that game "punches down" quite hard.
Somehow all my friends love it; I personally don't care to imagine midgets ejaculating into dismembered bodies regardless of the context. I guess I just don't understand the humor of shock.
I usually find an excuse to leave a party sooner after CAH gets pulled out, whether I'm roped into playing it or not. Maybe that makes me a loser, whatever.
I'm also used to things that are way, way more "edgy". There are games out there that are much more offensive and rely only on shock value, usually involving the n-word and related interspersed frequently.
So were the creators: http://fusion.net/modern_life/story/cards-humanity-creator-p...
(Also, "Surprise sex!" is still on the list at http://www.cardsagainsthumanity.com/wcards.txt)
Willful misuse of terms to evoke cultural reactions is not uncommon, extremely hard to counter in fairness, and terribly destructive.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." - The Princess Bride
Yeah, it's a terribly dishonorable, but still extremely effective tactic.
yvain has some interesting writings about how "rape culture" is nonsense [1] and why "willful misuse of terms" is so damn effective in derailing rational debate [2].
[1] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/19/i-do-not-understand-rap...
[2] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word...
Have fun at gX!
I'm a bit confused by this part. I thought that the ignore calls and texts method of breakup only worked when those were essentially the only forms of communication you had with the person when not on a date. That method then works because with no more communication, they can no longer arrange dates.
How do you make that method work when the other person is in the next room?
- She was also cowardly about how the relationship ended, and could never work up the nerve to confront him in person. In my own dorm doors were usually kept closed, so if you didn't seek someone out, you would rarely see them at all.
- She knocked on his door, and he ignored her then too, but omitted it from the article, focusing on where the relationship didn't go rather than exhaustively detailing how it ended
- The two people kept separate schedules that meant they often weren't home at the same time, save sleeping hours (or, if either had a flexible-schedule night shift job, as my own roommate did, not even then)
- The relationship occurred near the end of a semester, and both parties moved out about the time it ended. They no longer ran into each other.
It's interesting that so many people who are internet-famous feminists seem to love Cards Against Humanity. Surely I'm seeing a pattern where there's only pure coincidence, but it caught my attention a while ago.
If you're part of the group that's immediately discounting her accusation and claiming she made it up, I've got to ask: why? The only reasons I see mentioned here are "it was a long time ago, she would have pressed charges then if she were telling the truth" and "she refers to rape culture, she's clearly a social justice warrior trying to pick up some Twitter followers." But both are transparently bad reasons to attack her credibility.
A more interesting question is how to dispel the fog of claims and counterclaims that makes identifying and prosecuting intimate violence so difficult. I can't imagine anything short of the panopticon that could do that, though.
While you can't really tell in he said-she said cases, rapists and similar are often creatures of habit and if you get unrelated victims with the same story that narrows things down. Plus there can be other evidence. Rolf Harris for example - that was a bit of a shocker.
Neither of those reasons are particularly logical, but we're dealing with humans here, not machines.
Let me know if you still cannot see the post and I'll paste in the text.
So, as food for thought: What if something happened between these two that was rather awkward, and can be interpreted either way? In that case, I think the OPs response is entirely reasonable - "Oh fuck, this is not what I thought it was, or what I intended it to be. I'd like to talk to her".
I'm very sad the woman's first reaction was to lob a public accusation, yes. If she thinks it's rape, she should've file charges, instead of instigating a pitchfork campaign. On the flip side, the reactions here show exactly how most women claiming rape are treated, including by law enforcement. It immediately becomes a witch hunt.
So how about we withhold judgment on this for a little while, until there are actual facts?
Or are we so desperate for yellow journalism that we must comment on other's private lives without any information?
Many people suppress traumatic experiences. It's rarely successful, but it sometimes works as a coping strategy. For a while. All it takes is one triggering event to bring it to the foreground again. If that event happens ten years later, that's when it happens.
Yes, it's a long time. Unfortunately, that's the way our brain works, sometimes. The OP seems to understand that.
There are 121 comments right now. I have no idea how many users HN has, but I think it is safe to assume that the writers of those 121 comments are not a significant part of the group.
I think it is a mistake to draw conclusions about "HN" from a bunch of comments.
That's what I meant by "in the aggregate". Any given commenter might come down wherever they feel like that day - few people here are so stubborn that they never change their mind - but the trend is there.
But that was not the point of my post, and I'm sure you're aware of that too.
You mean to say that you're amazed by how few such comments are here?
> HN is awfully quick to take sides, and it's very predictable where it comes down.
Yes, exactly. HN groupthing seems to be leaning a lot towards misandry lately.
> So how about we withhold judgment on this for a little while, until there are actual facts?
That's exactly what we should be doing here.
Commenters: Please follow the HN guidelines and ensure that your comments are substantive and civil.
We often use the first sentence of a post as a replacement title when the article title itself is misleading or linkbait, so using it here isn't really a stretch.
> If you see me this weekend at GaymerX, I could use a hug.
Hook. Line. Sinker.
You could have threatened/forced your partner to appear to be enjoying or giving consent. Or your partner could falsely accuse you of doing that. Either way it doesn't prove there was no rape.
And nice try framing this as a cool new intersection of technology and the law, but "ubiquitous storage" has nothing to do with creating pornographic films without consent. That's been possible since the 1800s, so it has nothing to do with our modern digital age.
A person who went to my university was just sentenced to a couple of years in jail for doing what you did, and beyond the law it's plain disgusting and creepy. You want to film the women (really appreciate the correction, bud) you have sex with? Ask them first.
You sicken me.
Yes, you would go to jail for recording the sex act (assuming a jury didn't show mercy on you), but you would not go to jail for the rape you didn't commit.
In terms of your future reputation and life opportunities, it's much better to go to jail for recording a sex act than for a rape you didn't commit.
In the case that I was referring to, the law under which the person was convicted also registered him as a sex offender, so neither path would've avoided that. Which is as it should be.
Furthermore, apart from what the male-dominated herd wisdom of the internet would like to believe, people don't just get convicted of rape because someone makes a baseless accusation. If you got convicted of rape, it's just like any other criminal case, and that means there was a solid, evidence-backed case against you, and a jury of your peers decided that you were conclusively guilty.
I'm not saying that a false conviction never happened. But if you're someone like the sicko with the throwaway account, filming your every sexual encounter because you're afraid someone's going to accuse you of rape, you're probably not approaching your sexual encounters with a healthy attitude.
Accusations of sexual assault don't require there to have been any sex act, near-sex act, or even co-presence in the same room to have profound impact on the accused. Colleges have very strong responses to accusations of sexual assault, largely because actual assaults are very common, and colleges also have extra-judicial rules and regulations and systems of punishment with significant consequences. This is what makes the accusation of sexual assault a powerful tactic of revenge.
"I spoke with my lawyer, and she thinks I have a clear case to sue this woman for libel and get a restraining order, but I have no desire to bully or harm her. Additionally, I’m not wild about the precedent that sets for other women to come forward in cases of actual sexual assault."
We really have no landmarks in this new world - whilst I applaud attempts to put the NSA back under the constitution, they are merely a surprising symptom not a cause - everything we do in the digital world is now available for everyone everywhere and when to search.
We need laws, and more importantly cultural norms to deal with this.
I have no idea if rape occurred in this case all those years ago - but I do know that this will cease to be news when it becomes commonplace.
It is a new world, and we must be brave to find the promised land without drowning in the mess that will throw it forth.
Rant over
I'd hate to think that accusations become so commonplace that we no longer think of such a horrible accusation as being unusual. That would give cover to those actually guilty, and leave the innocent always accused.
Sadly, I can't say you are wrong.
Yet imagine if all those rapes were reported -over social media. We would still hav this anamolous conviction rate and yet a sea of accusations.
Not sure what part of that is worse really.
1) He is allowing someone to diminish the voices of those who have actually suffered rape and need justice. He is also giving ammunition to those who attempt to make the argument that most purported victims of rape are "crying wolf".
2) He makes himself look culpable. This kind of thing is serious and if he's in the right he needs to make it known. The damage to his reputation is already done.
By standing up for himself he'd also be standing up for real victims. Engaging this kind of thing in the legal courts and the court of public opinion can't be easy. I hope at least there can be some resolution.
He absolutely isn't. Many crimes like this rely on two opposing testimonies - what he said happened, and what she said happened. Even when an actual assault occurs it's very difficult to prove anything. Suing her for libel could absolutely discourage genuine rape victims from stepping forward.
> Sorry, foreign person, but our store is not yet available in your inferior country.
He is a d*ckhead, after all.
- A Frenchman.
Can't apologizing like this be considered as an admission of guilt? Or is that what Hollywood/TV would like me to believe?
EDIT - I didn't mean admitting guilt in terms of the law, but how a lawyer would spin it. Think of what a good lawyer could do with this quote. Max admits that part of the relationship could have been "traumatic for her" and then apologizes for it and then wishes he could have spoken in private.
It would suck if that was used against him legally.
Assuming this account is accurate that is.
Which is actually the whole problem here. There is no proof on either side to say one is correct and the other not. So basically the whole thing will or will not hurt this guy, CAH and/or the accuser in a way that it should or should not have based entirely on who wants to believe what.