[gizmomagico]

Yeah I bet Assange feels like he's been able to move way too freely until now, so he decided to start raping women!

He'll probably tour all Western countries, and rape a couple of women in each to make things a little more exciting.

Edit: Wow, what was fast! You really believe this is not bullshit?

Edit2: Or are we just not allowed to discuss reality on HN? Rainbows & Unicorns are much nicer.

[allenbrunson]

You are allowed to discuss reality here. What you are not allowed to do is make jokes about something as repulsive as rape.

If you are civil and respectful, you can make any point you want here. You failed that first test, though.

[eof]

I don't think he was buried due to his joke about rape. Or at least I hope not. He wasn't pulling rape out of thin air, as it's obviously the context of thread.

I imagine he was down modded for his weak use of sarcasm and abrasive way of making a weak point.

Gizmomagico seemed to be saying 'assange wouldn't have committed what he allegedly did; as it would retard his ability to move freely and he is too smart for that' -- which may or may not be true, and is irrelevant as evidence.

As a side note; getting offended about the content of a joke is really sort of silly. People seem to act like joking about something is somehow akin to 'doing' the thing. I don't think an argument can be made that a joke about rape makes rape any more likely; and while it may be crude and unfunny: making the claim that something is 'off limits' is really weak.

For example: 'statistically 9/10 people enjoy gang rape'

[allenbrunson]

are you really going to try to tease out a scenario where it might be okay to make a rape joke? because even if you succeed, i am calling that a pyrrhic victory, at best. maybe you can do that among friends, but not on a global message board with thousands of readers.

the more sensitive the topic under discussion, the more careful you have to be to avoid offense.

[gloob]

Given that we have already had two rape jokes in this thread, you might want to reconsider your notions of what people "can" and "cannot" do here.

Additionally, I need not "tease out a scenario" where it "might be okay" to make a rape joke. I am knee deep in such scenarios (unless you actually believe jokes about rape to be morally wrong, rather than merely distasteful; I know I don't). Less common are scenarios where I can make a rape joke without negative social consequences, but there's still no shortage of those, either.

[roel_v]

"the more sensitive the topic under discussion, the more careful you have to be to avoid offense."

You assumption is that one would want to avoid offense. (note that I don't mean 'not cause deliberate offense') Western newspapers were told to not run the Mohammed cartoons, so as to 'not cause offense'. Feel free to defend the position that people shouldn't make rape jokes, but basing that on 'you shouldn't cause offense' is not an argument.

[gizmomagico]

Gizmomagico seemed to be saying 'assange wouldn't have committed what he allegedly did; as it would retard his ability to move freely and he is too smart for that'

The idea was just to point out the ridiculousness of the bullshit political maneuvering, not to imply that the only reason why he would not rape someone is because it would hinder his movement.

[gizmomagico]

Yes, rape is terrible, and judging by your reaction, you're probably American. Was that a racist slur or just an observation?

Would it also be terrible to be falsely accused of rape, in an internationally public manner?

The problem here is that mine was the first comment to allude to the whole debacle being disgusting bullshit.

There weren't almost any comments in the thread, possibly because if you really wanted to discuss this, you'd have to discuss the whole thing being bullshit, and facing the bullshit-laden reality we live in is unpleasant.

HN doesn't want to discuss unpleasant realities.

That may actually be a good thing for maintaining the high quality of discussions on other, more pleasant subjects - who knows. But on the other hand, spreading awareness of bullshit being bullshit would do us all good in our role of ordinary citizens of various governments.

[allenbrunson]

You are showing no evidence that you heard what I said. This has nothing to do with my nationality, and a lot to do with this site's conventions. pg has worked really hard to keep news.yc from going down in flames, the way every other discussion site in the history of the internet has done, eventually.

You are not the first person here to suspect that Assange may be falsely accused. If you'd put it that same way, like I just did, you would have likely generated some discussion on the topic. As it is, you merely said something inflammatory and inappropriate.

A couple of weeks ago, this site featured a story about a woman who accused a man of groping her at ApacheCon. If there is a more loaded topic for discussion than that, I can't think of it. Yet this community managed to have a very civil discussion about it, due to those rules you are disparaging.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875718

[gizmomagico]

You are showing no evidence that you heard what I said. This has nothing to do with my nationality, and a lot to do with this site's conventions. pg has worked really hard to keep news.yc from going down in flames, the way every other discussion site in the history of the internet has done, eventually.

I did acknowledge the potential quality issue, which is what you spent your message talking about. You didn't really address anything I said. I bet I guessed your nationality right, though, didn't I?

> You are not the first person here to suspect that Assange may be falsely accused.

As I said, I was the first one to hint at that quite likely possibility.

> a woman who accused a man of groping her at ApacheCon. If there is a more loaded topic for discussion than that, I can't think of it. Yet this community managed to have a very civil discussion about it, due to those rules you are disparaging.

That's nice, but what did you think the civil discussion might have devolved into? Hypersensitive overreacting about "assault"?

This Assange -story, on the other hand, is not only about alleged rape, but also about the place where conspiracy-theories and reality meet.

[ugh]

Do you have any evidence at all for your allegations?

[gizmomagico]

What allegations?

[ugh]

Your allegations that Assange is falsely accused because of some sort of conspiracy.

[gizmomagico]

Where's your proof that he isn't?

Also: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=1917913

Shouldn't you go demand more "proof" from him too, or is it just easier to pile on the heavily downvoted guy?

It shouldn't be too hard to see this is all bullshit, and that's what I originally got downvoted for trying to point out (in a less-than-HNesquely-eloquent manner).

[Erwin]

Hans Reiser was, by any account, pretty smart. His journaling filesystem was quite a technological leap over ext2 at the time.

Yet he did murder his wife. Some hardcore fans denied his guilt up (some claiming his mild autism was exploited by the prosecution to make him appear guilty) until the very point where he lead the authorities to where he buried the corpse of his wife.

[grandalf]

Do you realize that Assange had nonviolent, consensual sex with those two women and it's only a quirk of the Swedish legal system that the word "rape" being used in relation to the charges against him?

Assange's actions would not be a crime under US law, and would by no means be described by anything close to the word rape.

[nollidge]

> and it's only a quirk of the Swedish legal system

Source? The NYT article says nothing about the legal criteria here.

[grandalf]

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/71lsqt

[roel_v]

So, your authoritative source on the merit of a case is the lawyer of the very same guy who is being accused? I hope you see the error in that.

[grandalf]

There has been coverage of this elsewhere. I didn't have time earlier to find it so I just pasted in the link other had posted which explains the distinction.

Assange did not force anyone to have sex or physically violate anyone. Swedish law calls it "rape" when a woman has regrets about sex later on.

[nollidge]

I'm afraid I'm misunderstanding something. I read the whole press release, and see nothing in there about any Swedish legal "quirks" regarding the definition of rape. In fact, it takes the position that Assange's actions have not met any possible definition of rape: "the allegations...do not constitute what any advanced legal system considers to be rape".

[grandalf]

In Sweden, the definition of "rape" is when a woman has any regrets about having had sex. In this case, the women found out Assange had slept with both of them, decided to file the complaint.

They have both stated that the sex was consensual.

[drivebyacct2]

Wait, you mean they assumed he was innocent until he was proven guilty. That IS shocking. How dare they.

[gizmomagico]

And Reiser's case proves that Assange is a rapist, no doubt?

[crocowhile]

I don't see why you are being downvoted. The allegation of rapes, both filed on the same day, sound like the cheapest way to get an international mandate for him indeed.

[roel_v]

The question is, is there any factual proof that the claim is a fabrication, or is it all a big conspiracy theory? If Assange commits a crime, is it always made up because he ticked off the government? Merely claiming it's a trumped up charge for the sole reason that he's the Wikileaks guy is not a strong argument. (it's not a valid argument at all, I'd say).

[noarchy]

"The question is, is there any factual proof that the claim is a fabrication, or is it all a big conspiracy theory?"

That's not how most legal systems work. The prosecution is the one with the burden of proof. That said, for all I know, Assange may indeed be guilty. Perhaps we'll find out.

[roel_v]

Well yeah legal system, but the burden of proof for the public opinion is different. If a rapist is acquitted because of a legal procedural error, did he not do it? Of course not, he's still a rapist. He's not send to jail for it though. Those are different things. 'innocent until proven guilty' is a purely legal axiom, not more. Not being proven guilty by the standards set by law doesn't make someone not guilty.

The OP was, as I understood it, not making a legal claim, but merely stating his opinion on whether or not what he is accused of did or did not happen. Proof on this position can come from both sides, but claiming that it must not have happened because the government is after him does not pass Ockham's razor.

[drivebyacct2]

The legal system works that way for a reason and in a perfect world, the court of public opinion would work similarly. It's an all too common occurence to find out that all sorts of allegations of crimes turn out to be false and that the accused is permanently, materially harmed due to the allegation.

I have to say, high profile person embarassing a lot of people... I'm a little more skeptical than usual. I'm not dumb enough to give him a free pass just because of who he is, but I'm sure as hell not defaulting to assuming guilt.

[Alex3917]

The last two biggest enemies of the U.S. government had wars started against them based on made up evidence. How many more times does this have to happen before the default position is assuming that the charges are trumped up?

[DuncanIdaho]

Probably there is no proof therefore it is a conspiracy theory.

However - pitting women against enemies - either to seduce them or to just get them out of the way (via extortion) has happened before.

[gizmomagico]

I can see why you're being downvoted though..

[jhrobert]

Looks like a loss/loss deadloop

[jhrobert]

OMG! I got trapped in the loop! -4