Thread

1. Havoc · 1790342300 · focus · HN ↗

   Sad that they feel this is necessary.

   Also feels like something that could be life ruining if someone innocent finds themselves on the list by mistake/fluke. This is presumably crowdsourced which is not bulletproof

   1. add-sub-mul-div · 1790343177 · focus · HN ↗

      Interesting that every instance of sexual assault is preemptively doubted by default, whereas that's not a primary part of the conversation for accusations of other crimes like arson, theft, embezzlement, etc. False accusations of any crime could hurt the accused, that's more or less an unavoidable tautology of the legal system. There's just one kind of crime where public conversation obsesses about that, though.

      1. cthalupa · 1790343712 · focus · HN ↗

         Yes, all false accusations are bad.

         But sexual assault is the one area that is almost always taking two parties at their word, and very very frequently, the only court is the court of public opinion. That makes it rife for abuse in both directions - people doing it believing they'll get away with it because it comes down to their word vs. someone else's if it ever even comes out, since so few people go to the police, and people know they can lob an accusation out there and do a lot of damage without having to prove anything.

         I think the former happens far far more than the latter, but I'm also not going to wonder why people discuss the latter - it's real, and it happens. People discuss getting attacked by sharks whenever sharks come up, too, even though that's almost certainly not going to be something they need to worry about, either.

         This sort of list is exactly the sort of place where those false accusations can be really easily inserted with minimal vetting. I'd also bet it is an almost entirely accurate list.

         All these things can be true at once.

         1. ToucanLoucan · 1790344241 · focus · HN ↗

            These things can all be true, sure. What’s also true is what the GP points out: the only time the preemptive doubt rolls out is for accusations of sexual impropriety, which can’t be disentangled from the fact that most accusations against the powerful of sexual impropriety come from women.

            And given how abysmally low the rate of false allegations is maybe we should all do a bit better and stop running interference for our oligarch class, especially since sexual impropriety seems to be how they operate in a lot of domains, not just with adult women.

            1. cthalupa · 1790344792 · focus · HN ↗

               > These things can all be true, sure. What’s also true is what the GP points out: the only time the preemptive doubt rolls out is for accusations of sexual impropriety, which can’t be disentangled from the fact that most accusations against the powerful of sexual impropriety come from women.

               Sure. But there's a variety of tones discussing this - there are some that are quite expressly political in nature of a certain bent, and those I would be skeptical of. There's more than one comment in here that gives me the ick. But that's not everyone, and lumping them in together isn't productive.

               > And given how abysmally low the rate of false allegations is maybe we should all do a bit better and stop running interference for our oligarch class, especially since sexual impropriety seems to be how they operate in a lot of domains, not just with adult women.

               How low do you think the rate is? Because its' hard to pin down, but ~10% seems to be a pretty defensible number based on the data we do have. That's definitely a minority, but 10% is enough that I am going to consider it every time. If 1 out of 10 times I lit my stove it would explode if not examined, I am still checking my stove every single time I use it.

               I don't disagree that we have a lot of sick fuck oligarchs. I don't disagree that sexual assault is one of the things the ultra rich and powerful turn to for a variety of reasons.

               But a rational position is a rational position. I'm not going to abandon it because some people will misuse it to cast aspersions on people. I don't think women are inherently more moral than men, and we have many many many examples of men using deception to harm others for their own advantage. I don't think women are incapable of doing the same.

               I would also never suggest that the default is to assume every accusation is a lie. My general assumption is that any given accusation is probably true, but that if you're going to have an opinion on which way the outcome is, it's best to have as informed of an opinion as you can, rather than just assuming anything one way or the other. And in a court of law, presumed innocent, because that's a whole different thing than public opinion.

               1. ToucanLoucan · 1790345507 · focus · HN ↗

                  I mean you’ll never fully remove politics from the powerful conceptually, it’s just not possible, they’re too close to the levers of power. That said I think it’s a cop out of sorts to say because people “have political opinions” about the subject of an SA accusation that that would necessarily bias judgement. The real problem is the lack of investigative resources for these accusations, which itself leads to lists like these being published: when people can’t seek justice from the justice system they will do so in other ways.

                  We’ve had the Epstein lists for how long now? And how many on it have seen justice?

                  1. cthalupa · 1790345798 · focus · HN ↗

                     I mean, I'd argue that one party pretty expressly wants to protect the interests of these people. Largely the one that has been sitting on the Epstein lists despite campaigning on releasing them. Meanwhile, I can go read hundreds of pages of investigation on Clinton getting a blowjob. And yeah, he's a scumbag for that too, obvious power imbalance, etc., but it's pretty telling what gets released and what doesn't. I'd also argue there's one side that just generally gives less of a fuck about the rights of women.

                     But yes, if we could actually make going to the police an effective, safe, and as painless as can be process for the victims, it would solve a whole whole lot of this, and we really could go 'well why are you putting it on a list instead of going to the police and getting the scumbag put behind bars,' whereas there's a billion and a half legitimate reasons someone might not want to go to the police today.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.