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Comment by chrisbennet | Hacker News Reader

It might be hard for guys to believe that men would do something like this (except in the movies) but consider this:

Do you believe the stories of how many people fail the "fizzbuzz" test in interviews? Yes, as wild as the idea is, the phenomena is very real.

Not being an interviewer and not having any incompetent programmer friends it blew my mind that someone could be a developer for years and still not know how to code.

I've don't remember seeing sexism any place I've worked but being married to a female software developer opens your eyes - it's very real.

Just because as guys, we haven't experienced it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

View on HN

The other thing to think about: if the author hadn't written a blog post about this, would any man have known about the incident? If a guy puts his hand on your leg under the dinner table, are you going to interrupt the meal to tell everyone else at the table? Are you go back to work and tell all your male coworkers?

It's not just software developers, by the way. A law firm where a friend works had an incident recently where a male partner coerced a young female associate into performing sexual favors. One day she couldn't take it anymore and rage-quit, and he just got sent to sexual harassment training.

For what it's worth, I'm a guy and I know of at least one VC in the NYC area who has a habit of, um, blurring the lines with female founders. Which I've learned about just through casual conversation with friends in the biz who are women. So this news does get out there, even if not through overt channels.

Wait, he coerced a coworker into sexual favors, and has to do to sexual harassment training but wasn't fired? I can't even imagine the full extent of liability an event like that might open the company up to. Not to mention how demoralizing it can be to other employees.

Not to defend the SOB, but it's never black or white. It will be just "he says, she says" and nothing concrete could be proven. Here's another story that's closer to Silicon Valley:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-stanford-unde...

Plus of course, if only "being polite" at the dinner table over a hand on a leg was all that was going on...

I recently spoke with a fellow lady friend involved in the Cocoa community on the topic of harassment, and between the two of us, we came up with a list of men in the community we knew that crossed the line in some fashion or another. It sadly added new information to a list I already had in my head from other conversations and personal experiences. Everything from cheating and STIs to physical assault and rape. We don't speak out because people don't care, people wouldn't believe us (no level of proof is ever enough), and sometimes we try to speak out but those people in question are loved no matter what shit gets thrown their way. It isn't worth _our_ ruined reputations and huge emotional toll for telling the truth.

And yet some people still manage to express surprise that I'm actively working towards leaving the industry... tech is special, people don't even get sent to sexual harassment training. :(

I have no doubt stuff like this happens but it's kept pretty well under wraps. The other day, a female salesperson was moved across the office, some kind of conflict with a male salesperson. No one who knows will say why, but the guy has a reputation as a lech, so one can only imagine. No jobs appear to be at risk either.

That said, I also recently read about Joe Lonsdale, and the crazy episode he's being put through. It's worth keeping in mind people do make stuff up, particularly when there is an incentive do so so.

I don't think it's hard to believe. There are sleazy people out there. They have guys and gals encourage them over the years by either explicit or implicit approval.

These are the kinds of guys who have been at it since their youth and it has been accepted by their peer group who look the other way. For a few it might be afforded by some new found power that comes from wealth and they feel 'cavalier' enough to express it without fear of repercussions.

Whatever the source, these guys are nothing but lithe predators. And they don't only pray on women, some pray on other men as well -tho they are less common.

In retrospect you want to ask, why didn't I protest at the time? It's hard. You freeze, you can't believe it and you want to give the person the benefit of the doubt, even when you know that there is no doubt.

I worked in manufacturing before getting into software development and always had one or two female coworkers (sometimes even as my superior) and never experienced sexism among my coworkers. My girlfriend drives semi for a living and in the first 3 years of driving truck never experienced it either until recently when a store owner at a place she deliveTA to said something along the lines of "they let women drive trucks blah blah". I was completely floored that someone could think and say such things. It was the type of situation like you described where you wouldn't think that a business owner could say such things but it happens and it's terrible that it does.

I reread your post a few time but I'm a bit puzzled. Can you explain the connection between the fizzbuzz test, being a real developer, sexism and the article?

He's saying that just because you don't have first-hand experience with something, or can't fathom how something is possible, doesn't mean it can't happen.

Thank you ssharp, that's exactly what I was trying to convey.

Huh. I read your comment more as "you can be perceived as an expert in your trade and still suck at it." Groping a potential client's boobs is a clear sign of sucking at being a VC.

Summary: it might be hard to believe that things like these happen, but they do. Just because you have not personally experienced it does not mean you should generalise your experience to all people. For example, many programmers fail the fizzbuzz test, despite the parent's inability to find such people amongst his friends and associates.

Many more people fail the fizzbuzz test than you would expect. Likewise, more women are treated in this fashion than you would expect.

I believe the OP is saying that while it is often difficult to believe that events like fizz buzz fails or overt sexual misconduct could even be possible because they seem so unlikely and outside of the realm of expectations in our personal daily experiences, that does not mean that they don't happen or are even all that rare given a broader sampling of human interactions.

I think he is inferring that just as there are outliers in terms of programming competency, there are also outliers in terms of ethical behaviour.

I like your example quite a bit, but to make a side point:

Do you really think it might be hard for guys to believe?

I absolutely don't. There is a tiny loud minority that might argue this disingenuously but even they don't actually believe it, they are just engaged in a political battle in an attempt to protect themselves from a perceived potential threat. Or they fully endorse identity politics and feel they need to do some PR for their "side".

Everyone knows this happens, the issues are specific facts in individual cases and the prevalence overall. This rhetorical technique is consciously being used to avoid the actually issue as it's messy and difficult.

"I like your example quite a bit, but to make a side point: Do you really think it might be hard for guys to believe?"

That is a good point. In my world view, even the jerks are "nice people trapped in an a-hole's body". I guess I was trying to speak to the "inner nice person" that resides in those guys who don't "get it" yet.

That makes sense, I have a different world view and wouldn't think in terms of an "inner nice person" (or "inner evil person" for that matter).

You've made me think I have ignored another class of people who automatically disbelieve this kind of thing: people who's world view is naively optimistic and have a lot of emotional pressure to believe the world is too fair for this behaviour to be going on regularly. Seems like you saw that reason for disbelief more easily than I did.

FWIW I do believe sexism exists in tech. My displeasure seeing stories like this one centers around the comments.

1. Commenters seem to be attributing the actions of the investor to character traits, rather than circumstance (ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)

2. I don't think the situation is as cut and dry as failing a fizzbuzz (ie there is likely another side to this story)

3. Commenters seem to want the penalty for the investor to be immediate and large (public shaming, ban from YC investment opportunities, etc). I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process.

"People seem to want the penalty for the investor to be very high (public shaming, ban from YC investment opportunities, etc). I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process."

Well this is a tough situation.

I'm not sure she could take this fellow to court for touching her sideboob, so there absolutely will not be due process. With that being the case, he should just be allowed to do the same over and over and the victim shouldn't be allowed to say anything?

Two Sundays ago, a woman flirted with my friend and got him to buy her a drink. She was uninterested in him, merely thirsty. Should the victim spread her name far and wide, publicly shaming her? If unexpected and unwanted physical contact is the dividing line, that same day a different woman kissed me without my permission. Should I publicly name and shame her?

I suspect most people's demands for a public naming/shaming are merely knee-jerk emotional responses rather than principled positions.

Did this happen in a business setting? Did either women try to use a potential $50k investment as a tool to gain sexual access?

If not, your friend should probably just be more careful who he buys drinks for.

As for the kissing, you don't provide many details, so I'm going to assume you're talking about your grandmother. In which case, absolutely name and shame. Grandmas have been getting away with that crap for way to long.

A similar event did happen in a semi-business setting last year. I met a woman at a bar, discussed work and personal travel, and decided to meet up another time. I thought it was a sale, she thought it was a date. She did touch me in a manner far better suited to a date, at which point I figured out that we talked past each other. Should I name and shame her?

If you've actually got some set of abstract principles you are willing to use across the board, I'd love to hear them. But I don't think that's where most of the commenters here are coming from.

If you feel like that person was exploiting a power dynamic to coerce you into accepting her advance, and that the world would be a better place if you "named and shamed" (note your misdirection here, since the person we're discussing didn't "name and shame" anyone), then yes.

I know the OP didn't name and shame, I'm referring to the comments here asking for them to do so - this comment thread is about whether or not that should be done.

I don't know what "power dynamic" means, but feel free to provide a clear definition for it. If you've actually got some set of abstract principles you are willing to use across the board, I'd love to hear them.

From my vantage point, I don't see much of a problem here. Offering investment is a beneficial act. So is offering romantic or sexual options. It's hard to see why offering both together suddenly becomes a bad thing - worst case the recipient can decline and is exactly as well off as before.

I'm not sure where to start with this. Is it the idea that you find the act of a stranger putting their hand on a bodily location that would trip the statutes in several US states governing sexual assault "an offer of romantic or sexual options"? The idea that such an "offer" of "options", were we to stipulate that there was any optionality involved, would have been benign? Your statement that the "worst case" is the recipient declines and is "exactly" as well off as before?

But then I reread your second graph, where you cordially invite me to litigate the meaning of the term "power dynamic", and I realize you're just going to draw me into a fake debate where you play the nerd trump card of discrediting a straw man notion of social science instead of engaging the actual issue. And it's not like I'd lose that argument, just that it would be an enervating experience for both of us.

By your logic (which I don't agree with), it would have been okay ONLY IF the side boob were written into terms of the contract, stipulating that there must be tit for tat. And then we can assume that there would also be an article double d: "$50,000 will be left on the dresser."

Well, no. That's just a case of bad communication that I hope you both were able to transcend. And that sounds like it could have been a fun date. Smart, non-asshole men and women are fun to date.

You're fishing for events in your life that are superficially similar to the events in the article -- drinks at a bar, some kind of unwanted touching, etc -- but are substantively quite different.

And you're trying to draw parallels with extremely vague language. Someone kissed you. Who? A child? Grandma? A bus driver? Your boss? Why? Where? Someone touched you "in a manner far better suited to a date." What does that even mean? Did she hug you? Caress your cheek? Slap your ass?

You'll have to use your own best judgment as to whether it's appropriate to name and shame.

It's hard to see how they are substantively different without actually stating some moral principle and then observing that the two situations live on opposite sides of it.

As I said, I'm pretty sure most folks here are following knee-jerk emotional reactions, and the events I'm relating don't trigger the same emotional reactions.

If it was an honest misunderstanding, those things can happen. There is some room for leeway. But even on a date, you don't immediately grab the other in the crotch or by the breast. There are generally some stages you go through to check for consent, starting with simply touching/holding a hand or arm.

And in the case discussed in the article, it was very explicitly not a date, and yet the guy went straight for the boob while making a business proposition. There's no way that's not way out of line.

> Two Sundays ago, a woman flirted with my friend and got him to buy her a drink. She was uninterested in him, merely thirsty.

Flirting is flirting, and doesn't necessarily imply intent to go any further. Some people enjoy flirting and find it fun in itself. You and your friend are likely in the wrong for expecting it to go any further.

> If unexpected and unwanted physical contact is the dividing line, that same day a different woman kissed me without my permission. Should I publicly name and shame her?

"Unwanted kissing" is sexual assault under most definitions (including many legal ones). I wouldn't see an issue with publicly naming this woman. It's your choice, though, and strongly depends on what you feel about it.

Yeah, that's a shitty thing to do. It's called Pussy Privilege. If a man did this, it'd be screamed at from mental abuse (drink) to rape(kiss).

It sums up to : I'm a woman, get me something because I "might" have sex with you. But not really. And those that realize this to its full potential can screw their way to the top.

> It's called Pussy Privilege.

On Reddit, maybe, but not when speaking with adults.

That sort of thing only works on men who think they can trade something for sex. If you buy a woman a drink (or bring a deer to her cave) with the expectation that she now "owes" you, be prepared to be disppointed.

Suppose someone of the same sex bought you a drink, would you feel obligated to have sex with them? How about if they implied that they would love to invest in your company?

Yes, blame the victim, a young college kid who didn't know any better. But I suppose even a college kid from a village with less than one lac people should immediately know all the subtleties of picking up women, right?

FYI, it's a dick move to accept a drink from someone who you don't want to continue interacting with. I wouldn't accept a drink from a man I didn't want to at least hang out with either.

Yes, it's totally a dick move to misrepresent your intentions in order to exploit someone. I agree with you. (BTW: I'm from a small village!)

My comment was aimed at those men who feel "entitled" to things because they somehow imagine that every woman is a prostitute and it's just a matter of price. It's a question of respect and empathy. When someone tries to use the "law or reciprocity" for gain instead of being genuinely generous, they shouldn't be shocked when someone sees through their attempt and shuts them down.

But that was my initial point. It's verboten that a man does it at all. He may accept a drink offered to him, but would never prompt a woman for a drink.

It is a bit different in male gay bars, having been to a few. Then the rule changes to "I'm interested in you, wanna drink?", in the implied consent that there will be communication and a showing of sexual interest.

A woman can prompt a man for a drink, and have no intention at all of anything else, including communication. And by using social mores, the man looks bad to his peers if he refuses. This is what I meant.

I think it's a difficult moral judgement to make. If she were to out his name, he would likely have to face extreme consequences. The internet justice mob is relentless and often over-prosecutes. However, by staying silent, she feeds into his power and does absolutely nothing to stop this type of behavior from him or anyone else.

I actually think her strategy was good. She is raising awareness without alerting mob. Since this story hit HN, and will likely be circulated outside of it as well, the investor is more likely to come across it, and any other investors or persons in a position of power in technology are also much more likely to read it.

In today's age, there is an unfortunate balance between what can be responsibly shared online and what cannot. Once you put something out there, it's no longer in your hands. By not naming the investor publically, she also still has power to let individuals like her peers, colleagues, YC, etc. know of his specifics.

This is the second time on this thread you've suggested there might be "another side to the story". When the "other side" would belong to an anonymous abstraction, the suggestion that we dig for it is disingenuous: it comes across not as truth-seeking, but as a mendacious attempt to discredit the account.

The moral of this story wasn't "here is a person who is evil", or even "here is an event that doesn't do a good enough job to keep stuff like this from happening" (is the event even named?).

The moral of the story is "this stuff happens, and this is what it is like for people who experience it".

You may just have to live with the fact that there's no way to interrogate her account without sounding like a creep.

As I said above, my displeasure seeing stories like this one centers around the comments. (which to be clear is not a problem with the story).

I agree the moral of this story wasn't "here is a person who is evil". The commenters calling for OP to name the investor don't seem to have grasped this.

You may just have to live with the fact that there's no way to interrogate her account without sounding like a creep.

Similarly, there's no way to question satanic cults without sounding like you don't care about the children being ritually molested. Or no way to criticize MADD without sounding like you support drunk driving. And there's no way to question accusations of witchcraft without sounding like a witch.

The blind acceptance of a moral panic is definitely scary. I'm pleasantly surprised to see you calling it out on this topic. getting

When the best example you can come up with of someone being railroaded by outrage is this guy:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rw50uko2nl5aoj2/Screenshot%202015-... --- which, seriously, is actually the last example you provided of someone getting railroaded by outrage ---

... I think it's fair to call shenanigans on the idea that we're in a "moral panic".

Of course, your comment wasn't germane to mine, either; it was an attempt to change the subject. The comment to which you responded doesn't even engage gender --- it doesn't even mention it. It's a smokescreen, which you're throwing up as another attempt to discredit the story.

You keep citing that quote of Dickinson without acknowledging the context:

"You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of niggers, it will be your fault." - Mel Gibson, Director of "Passion of the Christ", shortly before Pax Dickinson's tweet

See also Justine Sacco, who mocked clueless attitudes and was assumed to be supporting them.

I stand by my example. All Pax Dickinson did was express views and mood affiliation that goes against the dominant narrative. You haven't even claimed he did anything else. Justine Sacco didn't even go against the dominant narrative, she was just misinterpreted as doing so.

Just so we're clear that your model of a person victimized by the attention being paid to sexual harassment and gender parity is Pax Dickinson.

I'm not sure your best rhetorical strategy here was "doubling down", by the way. And also: I don't think I've ever mentioned that quote before.

I'll repeat for a third time: I stand by my characterization of Dickinson as a person who hasn't even been accused of sexual harassment, harming gender parity or anything else at all besides disagreeing with our politically correct elites.

You are right that it wasn't you who mentioned that particular quote. We were thinking of the same discussion, though it was someone else who brought that one up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8169903

Both there and here, you seem to have this unwavering belief that Pax Dickinson has done something horribly wrong, yet you seem unwilling to state what that is. It's a bit confusing. I have absolutely no idea what argument you are trying to make.

I do not think Pax Dickinson did something "horribly wrong". I think he was fired for cause, and that firing was legitimate: as a public-facing officer of a relatively PR-dependent company, he exhibited gross incompetence. Being fired is not the end of the world.

Which is, of course, my point: your best example of someone railroaded by outrage is someone fired for incompetence. The point is that you don't have much evidence for there being any kind of moral panic, because there isn't much evidence of any kind of panic.

What about the UVA rape case? Fabricated story, targeted a fraternity, lots of extralegal unpleasantness. Throughout, the hounding of those young men was carried out by people serenely confident that they were acting to protect young women's sexual freedom.

Julian Sanchez has a nice write-up of a similar discussion:

http://www.juliansanchez.com/2015/01/27/chait-speech/

Chait if anything benefited from the hyperventilating response his piece on political correctness got. (I nodded along to most of that piece, by the way.)

> I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process.

Thank you. If we can manage to learn something from the many Justine Sacco's with ruined lives due to misinterpreted words and actions, it's that due process has value.

Taking the time to process incidents properly is more important than expressing our (appropriate) outrage at the alleged actions. Doing so honors the victim as well, as today's victim is tomorrow's alleged perpetrator.

I can't see that this is down to fundamental attribution error. That is the fallacy of assuming that because someone acts in a particular way, its because they are always that way, or that its because they are a member of a group that is always that way. However this kind of sexual harrasment is unacceptable no matter how many times you do it. Even if its just once because he was feeling lonley/sad/drunk/whatever, its still showing that the guy is an asshole.

So in your case, the FAE is "guy is an asshole" rather than "acted like an asshole". I'm pointing this out because I thought it was interesting that you still at least sounded like you were committing the FAE, even in a comment explicitly talking about the FAE.

> However this kind of sexual harassment is unacceptable no matter how many times you do it. Even if its just once because he was feeling lonely/sad/drunk/whatever

I'm sorry to hear that OP had this experience, but I'm not willing/able to draw conclusions about the character of the other party w/o hearing the other side of the story. For example, you're assuming that the actions were intentional on his part and that he understood OPs wishes/desires/state-of-mind.

To put that another way: conditional on the assumptions you're making being correct, I agree the guy's a complete asshole :p

While FAE is a common bias, I think this is misusing it. This is not the cliche example of "driving like an asshole", which everyone does at some point for a variety of reasons. FAE requires an alternate explanation where the behaviour is justified and the assumption it's the result of a character flaw is the error. You can drive like an asshole because you are racing to the hospital or late to a big job interview or something similar.

At the very least he was being sexually aggressive in a business context with a person over whom he had substantial power. There are no charitable explanations based on unknown circumstances we can reasonably assume here.

Your character is determined by the totality of your actions, not by some imaginary inner version of yourself - although that's a very common delusion we all use to avoid acknowledging our character flaws.

> FAE requires an alternate explanation where the behaviour is justified and the assumption it's the result of a character flaw is the error

No. FAE is pointing out that no one internally says "I'm an asshole, therefore I should drive faster." ie FAE points out that character determined action is a mode of reasoning that's guaranteed to misunderstand the other person.

For a different classic example, consider a negotiation where you determine the other person is "greedy". If you catch yourself committing the FAE, you might instead determine "the other person seems to want money for something", and inquire. Perhaps by making sure they get the thing they think they need (which may or may not require as much money as they thought), you can cause them to no longer be "greedy" in your eyes. It's very rare that a person actually wants as much money as possible to be spent on nothing in particular (ie is actually greedy)

> Your character is determined by the totality of your actions, not by some imaginary inner version of yourself - although that's a very common delusion we all use to avoid acknowledging our character flaws.

I think the point of FAE is that human action is context dependent, and not some enduring trait. How someone acts in college basically isn't predictive of how they will act when they have grandchildren. If character traits really existed, this wouldn't be the case.

> There are no charitable explanations based on unknown circumstances we can reasonably assume here.

As I already said:

dlss> For example, you're assuming that the actions were intentional on his part and that he understood OPs wishes/desires/state-of-mind

I think if you assume the hug's outcome was not intentional, or assume the investor was mistaken about OPs wishes/desires/state-of-mind it's quite easy to come up with charitable explanations. Did you try this?

The opposite of FAE is the actor-observer bias, were we overestimate the role of circumstances and underestimate the role of personality traits in our own behaviour.

Both of these biases are defined in a framework where actions are the effects of a personality operating in specific circumstances. We tend to misunderstand other people a little in one direction and ourselves in the other direction.

> I think the point of FAE is that human action is context dependent, and not some enduring trait.

That is a view people have, it's just not one I find convincing, and it's not the one in which these types of cognitive biases are defined or studied. Personality/Character evolves, often quite a bit, as people age but still exists.

> I think if you assume the hug's outcome was not intentional, or assume the investor was mistaken about OPs wishes/desires/state-of-mind it's quite easy to come up with charitable explanations. Did you try this?

I considered it for quite a while. Did OP not notice he had a prosthetic arm? Did he have severe nerve damage from an old motorcycle accident? Has he left his hand resting on his mothers or grandmothers breast when hugging them? Like I said, nothing we can reasonably assume here.

And I'm a bit disgusted by the second part of your statement. He was being solicited for investment money at a business event, and offered it. It doesn't matter if she was flat out propositioning him, it doesn't matter what the genders involved are. There was a large power differential, it was a business event, he combined making a pass with offering her 50K. There are no circumstances which defend this. And those facts are not in dispute. I an now having a really hard time not making the fundamental attribution error in evaluating what type of person you are. But I assume if you thought about what you just said you would realize the mistake.

> Personality/Character evolves, often quite a bit, as people age but still exists.

If it evolves, why is it preferable to circumstance when explaining things? To my mind, the benefit of character traits vs circumstance was that distinction.

Also: do you believe that character primarily evolves based on circumstance?

> I considered it for quite a while. Did OP not notice he had a prosthetic arm? Did he have severe nerve damage from an old motorcycle accident? ... nothing we can reasonably assume here.

Hmm, I find reasonable examples very easy to come up with: he might have been jostled by another bar patron, been surprised by OP rotating, been surprised by how slender OP was, or simply failed a dexterity check. In these hypotheticals he either didn't notice (he was distracted by having been jostled for example), or did notice but was too embarrassed to apologize / allowed OP to quickly change the subject.

> I an now having a really hard time not making the fundamental attribution error in evaluating what type of person you are. But I assume if you thought about what you just said you would realize the mistake.

Your position, if I'm understanding you here, is that there exists no reasonable set of circumstances on the part of the investor where he genuinely believes he didn't try to proposition OP. Based on you including OP not noticing the touch of a prosthetic arm as your most likely alternatives, I'm guessing you think he's 99% likely to be guilty.

My position is that, given the evidence at hand, the chance the investor is guilty is less than 50%. This is also the view taken by US civil court -- if this was an employer/employee situation, OPs statement on its own wouldn't satisfy the preponderance of evidence requirement for a harassment claim (aka greater than 51% chance of guilt).

And the fact he combined "we should get drinks frequently" and "i'll invest 50K" and physical contact that you conveniently keep leaving out? You keep concentrating on one part that you have an accidental narrative for, I already granted it to you, I left it out completely and the evidence is still clear.

Anyway, this has gone on long enough you think? We aren't getting anywhere.

To be clear, I wasn't focusing on any part in particular, I was giving better examples based on the examples you gave.

I also believe that saying you'd like to get drinks frequently with someone doesn't mean you'd like a sexual relationship with them (you might want introductions, information, friendship, or might have expressed as much to be polite). Even if you give them a hug. Even if you'd like to give them money as an investor.

I also think the question of power dynamic isn't settled, as the standard fundraising tactic is to imply there are a lot of investors interested in investing. (That it's a seller's market). OPs final reply to the investor is in line with him having been mislead about how much the $50,000 meant to OP / what the power dynamic was.

But yeah, I agree this is as good a time to part ways as any. Let's close by wishing no one ever incorrectly judges either of us. Cheers!

"I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process"

You realize in practice this means you are against nearly all public discourse and, even more insane, are proposing a stance that linearly scales protection from being mentioned in public with wealth.

What about a journalist impacting a politicians livelihood by printing a sourced story? That's out. Whistle-blowing of any kind? Obviously out. Filing a law suit? Well that goes public before the due process so that's out too.

This is simply a restatement of a very old school defense of the strictly hierarchical society. One should know their place and not question or impugn the integrity of their betters.

We are social animals, your livelihood will be affected by what people think about you. Get over it. There is no solution to this that respects the concept of freedom.

> You realize in practice this means you are against nearly all public discourse

I don't believe this to be the case. IMO due process is scalar not binary, and responsible journalism includes many due process protections... for example, the other side of the story has been considered and presented in most news stories, and if the central claim is proven false the story is usually killed.

> even more insane, are proposing a stance that linearly scales protection from being mentioned in public with wealth.

I didn't mention scale / I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion.

> This is simply a restatement of a very old school defense of the strictly hierarchical society. One should know their place and not question or impugn the integrity of their betters.

Not at all. I'm saying that before you punish people you should consider the idea that they are innocent and limenting that most of the other commenters don't seem to agree with this position.

I'm not sure to what extent you are arguing with me, and to what extent you are arguing with cached thoughts from other discussions. https://squid314.livejournal.com/329561.html might help with that.

> I didn't mention scale / I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion.

I am assuming that the more wealthy someone is the more likely it is for a bad public reputation to impact their livelihood. I was unclear about that. To be more clear the correlation is extremely messy but exists.

The rest of it we covered in the other thread (yes, I recognized the username). There is no punishment going on, the person in question is anonymous. We are considering the actions and how unethical they are. You keep saying there is some way this person could be innocent, what could that be? Put your cards on the table, come up with a hypothetical where you were an investor at a business event and you combined an offer of money with making a pass and should be judged to be innocent.

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