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by hacksnewer 1679 days ago
This comes off as naive. I saw the domestic abuse allegations again him and decided to read up.

He had multiple allegations from both exes. He lightly joked about rape, domestic abuse etc. Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny, you can still see him making these jokes int interviews about his situation.

You've got people on HN today that believe that metoo is just made up. Those victims were mocked and denied justice for years because a lot of socially awkward dudes make the mistake of assuming that cause they're nice other guys are, too.

I know nothing bout him other than the public forum that he himself put in. There's no other way to judge him. I think it's telling that you've flipped this around into tropes about gender and being scorned.

5 comments

The problem with metoo is that the solution it envisioned for the problem, was to attempt to undermine the justice portion of the justice system as much as it could, and to create as many avenues for extrajudicial punishment as it possibly could. The entirely inevitable outcome of this is that these new systems were put to use by people to enact personal agendas, in any venue where interpersonal politics was relevant. Which is why we have a growing cohort of people who now reactivity think that any accusation is more likely to be false than true.

Sure, these accusations can be very hard to prove. But an accusation of a false accusation is even harder to prove. Yet most people will be inclined to reactively put their faith in one of those accusations, but not the other. The idea we’ve come up with to resolve this tension is the presumption of innocence, and that accusations must be proven for justice to be carried out. This is one of the foundational moral and legal principles of all liberal democracies. While people might end up frustrated by the unavoidable outcome that sometimes, some conflicts can’t be satisfactorily resolved, throwing out the core principles of justice seems like a bad solution to some people.

#metoo was literally about bringing the attention to the scale of the problem and raising awareness, and normalize talking about abuse, so that it wouldn't continue in silence.

The court of public opinion has existed before and after #metoo. Let's not pretend that #metoo invented it. If twenty people were to go public and say that Justin Bieber beat each of them with a crowbar, Justin Bieber would have some 'splainin to do, whether or not there's a court case.

If twenty people gave interviews and said that Martha Stewart personally fed them poisoned pies for shits and giggles, Martha would be affected by that, whether these people decide to sue or not.

But the society made an exception for sexual abuse. Rape and drugging in particular. #metoo simply made it count just as much.

Yes, and that's why we have libel laws: to stop these kinds of things from being "judged" in the court of public opinion. Raising awareness and providing support are all fine and very necessary, but the extrajudicial punishments is where the movement lost my support. Still, extrajudicial punishment is what we're left with if the judicial system fails to do justice.
Why did the movement lose your support? It didn't advocate removal of libel laws, did it?

And "extrajudicial punishment" is a stretch for "I have a right to tell people what happened to me without shame and harrasment".

Did #metoo make a call to burn people at stakes that I missed?

You're kidding, right? You think that all of the things listed below are instances of "I have a right to tell people what happened to me without shame and harrasment", and none are instances of virtual stake burning? Note: this is the result of just five minutes of keyword searches, I have no opinion on the actual merits of these cases, just disproving your claim that there is no extrajudicial punishment associated with the movement:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenrobinsonjacobs/2020/06/30/...

https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/2017/10/31/house-of-car...

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/brendan-eich-steps-down-...

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-cancelling-of-j...

https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/the-wing-ceo-audrey-gelman-res...

https://pagesix.com/2020/07/01/essence-ceo-richelieu-dennis-...

https://www.distractify.com/p/tyler-joseph-canceled

https://www.rt.com/news/535587-depp-cancel-culture-festival/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57426579

The things you listed look like a random collection of things that happened where there was some controversy.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, looks like you attribute all scandals to #metoo agenda.

> This comes off as naive. I saw the domestic abuse allegations again him and decided to read up.

Indeed, reading allegations and treating that as research does come off as naive.

> Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny, you can still see him making these jokes int interviews about his situation.

It’s cool that your sense of humor about that changed during adolescence. That’s not true for many people around the world, especially people who are now in their 40s+. Mainstream standup comedians were joking about domestic abuse in the 2000s still. People joke about dark and inappropriate shit all of the time. Real life isn’t like the workplace or campuses where everything is politically correct.

Society is really confused about right and wrong. Wendy Williams (a talk show host) asked her audience if one of her guests, who wanted a baby, should trick her boyfriend into fathering a child. The audience laughed and said yes -- Wendy laughed too, and agreed.

This is called paternity fraud, because once pregnant the father will have no say in the disposition of the child, AND will be on the hook for child support. That's 18 years of free money for the mom! To quote Lynch's Dune, "And for the father, nothing."

> if one of her guests, who wanted a baby, should trick her boyfriend into fathering a child

> This is called paternity fraud

It's called rape. He consented to sexual activity under the impression birth control was being used. If it wasn't, the consent was invalid.

It's both, really.
At this point in the thread, it seems clear you're talking about personal issues and not about anything to do with Richard Kyanka or the detailed allegations, police reports, etc.
The guy killed himself and posters are mentioning "credible DV allegations" to imply "good, glad he's dead, he (probably) deserved it." This is the concrete outcome of a much broader consequence of exempting women from ordinary standards of evidence around DV allegations. It's a big problem, worth pointing out, and I strongly suspect that Kyanka would appreciate the discussion.
I don't think anybody has said he (probably) deserved it. They've suggested he was a complicated character whose suicide appears to be the culmination of an unfortunate pattern of self-destructive behaviour, not a hero or victim.

And I'm not sure what you consider to be "ordinary standards of evidence", but you started this subthread by insisting that we should automatically assume allegations were not credible, even in a case where multiple people have independently testified to the same pattern of behaviour and a court has ruled them to be credible, and then went off on an entirely irrelevant tangent about how a half-jokey comment some trashy talk show host made about how to have a second baby with a partner who changed his mind about more kids could, in theory, lead to "18 years free money for the mom". I'm struggling to understand any connection at all between the points you're bringing up other than the repeated insinuation that women are inherently untrustworthy...

How to put this. Not all suicides are created equal. I think some have more of a point than others. It is a final, powerful shout of hopelessness, an expression of resistance against a society that has thoroughly abandoned you. And, in the case of a parent forcibly separated from their children, a statement that if you're going to have your children taken away, you might as well be dead.

But of course we attack the victim here. Because he's a man. Because he's been accused of DV. Because he's a wimp and couldn't take it. Because he's selfish, self-destructive, and abandoned his kids. Right?

Well, if I had my way I'd investigate each and every suicide that was a result of a justice system action. I would take a microscope the proceedings and to the allegations. This man spent his life to say something, to warn us, and I think we could at least take his last, most serious complaint, seriously. (And by implication, don't use the act of despair to further heap blame and abuse on the man.)

And make no mistake, it IS a warning, to the ~10% of marriages that will end in a high conflict divorce, and our concept of right and wrong, just and unjust, is not reflected in the family court system. It is arbitrary, personal and extraordinarily biased for the mother. For those women willing to take it, the high-conflict divorce DV allegation is a super-weapon that you can use to utterly destroy your opponent - not just win, but take all his tools away for fighting, and take all public support for him and his rights. It's extraordinary.

I make the worst joke and I hope you wouldn't consider me a domestic abuser.

Given how our judicial system works, if I had an public known history for jokes about rape, it would be even easier to mount a case of domestic abuse on me.

If a divorce will grant me unique custody of my children or money and get rid of my ex, I would be ready to lie my way out.

Unless there is proof, these are just allegations. And if I were to lose my children due to the court system being biased, I'd be pretty devastated as well.

Every one of my ex-wives is a crazy bitch.

Every judge has it out for me.

It's not my fault my kids don't like me; their mom keeps poisoning them against me with lies and my visitation schedule makes it impossible for me to be in their lives.

No one ever believes me, they all just want to think I'm the bad guy.

You don't need to construct hypotheticals here because we're talking about a specific person. He pretty much sounded like what I just wrote. How many years can you listen to someone give the same excuses over and over - it's never their fault, it's because X, Y or Z - before you figure out that they're not the unluckiest person in the world but just an asshole?

Sometimes participants in a discussion can't get a particular scenario out of their head to the point they literally can't accept even a hypothetical scenario that differs.

You seem stuck on the scenario where, by construction, an actually guilty person is accused, and then claims the allegations are false.

But you haven't really engaged, it seems to me, with another scenario where, by construction, an actually innocent person is falsely accused, and then claims the allegations are false. Is your position that this just never happens, and never could happen? Or it happens so infrequently it can be ignored?

My dad says all of those things, but he never abused anyone. My mother told people a lot of lies about him, said he abused us etc. He was just naive, socially unaware and had money, and that somehow attracts horrible women like a lantern attracts flies.

Now I wouldn't say that my dad was a good dad, but he wasn't an abuser.

> It's not my fault my kids don't like me; their mom keeps poisoning them against me with lies and my visitation schedule makes it impossible for me to be in their lives.

I wouldn't doubt that. This is called parental alienation and it happens extremely often if my lawyer friends are to be believed.

That’s been a feature of nearly every divorce I’ve been personally adjacent to.
Happened in my extended family as well. The woman and her mother took the kid away and I never saw them again. I was told it took court officials and police for the father to be able to see his son.

At work, a female colleague described similar situation. A family member had a child with her husband, divorced him and took the child to the United States so they'd be out of his reach. Apparently it's easier to illegally enter the country if you have a child with you. Now she sends my colleague and her family threatening messages using fake instagram accounts, taunting them with the fact they will never be able to "ruin her life" now that she's in the USA. She's supposed to be arrested for kidnapping and lose custody of the child if she ever steps foot in my country again.

> Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny

Autists often don't pick up on that and continues to make unfunny or cringe jokes year after year. That makes them prime targets for false accusations, since the world is full of people like you who will assume they are guilty just because they are socially unaware.

As an autistic: no.

Lack of social awareness isn't an excuse for rape and abuse jokes. You don't need any social awareness to figure out that you shouldn't do that. The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind.

Autism is not stupidity. You are not doing "autists" any favor by trying to excuse this behavior.

(Also, for some reason, autistic women aren't seen joking about rape and domestic abuse. Perhaps autism isn't the reason why someone may feel comfortable making these jokes, huh.)

“Jokes at someone else’s expense = bad” seems to me like it literally* requires some social awareness.

* in its original definition

What definition are you using? The idea that autistics don't empathize is, put it simply, false.

And difficulty reading social cues doesn't apply in cases where many, many, many people openly and directly explain why jokes at someone else's expense are bad (and correlate with the people being the butt of the joke being mistreated).

I have deconstructed the rape joke in another comment. Maybe to you immediately feel why it's not an OK thing to say. I go through the analysis. We both arrive at the same destination by different means.

> What definition are you using?

Literally to mean “in a literal sense; exactly” not the novel accepted usage to include meaning “figuratively, not literally”.

facepalm

What definition of social awareness are you using to make that assertion?

Look, autistic people don’t get a pass for being socially awkward, nor are we entitled to one. The internet autism communities (particularly the edgelordy ones) often enable this nonsense because “fuck you I don’t want to change”.

Social skills therapy exists and you can learn these things. Poor social awareness does not make up for contributing to a hostile work environment, full stop. Autism means you have to work on yourself and understand your emotional triggers to a degree non-autistic people just don’t. That’s just our lot in life.

Right, we shouldn't exempt autistic people who make bad jokes. But you shouldn't assume that those people are rapists or domestic abusers just because they make those jokes.
I’m sorry, but a cavalier attitude around rape and domestic abuse absolutely contribute to a hostile work environment which both from a legal and simple fairness perspective is a problem. Sexual assault and domestic abuse are unfortunately quite common — when you make that joke, there’s a very real chance that someone within earshot has been raped or abused. And it’s not just women who are the victims, so they’re not ok around “just the boys” either.

Autistic people aren’t dumb. We do understand when actions have consequences. The reasons why may seem arbitrary to us, but again, it doesn’t mean the consequences aren’t real or that we can violate the psychological safety of others with impunity. Yeah, that may mean getting fired for telling edgy jokes to understand you don’t make edgy jokes at work. I’m 100% ok with that as an autistic person.

>But you shouldn't assume that those people are rapists or domestic abusers just because they make those jokes.

No such assumption is made. However, rape jokes are a signal that gives some credibility to such accusations.

Just like the knowledge of someone making constantly jokes about murdering a particular person (say, Jensson) would be very much on the radar as a suspect in case Jensson accuses that person of attempted murder.

There's (famously) a spectrum for autism, and individual differences in any case. You can't speak for the whole spectrum just for placing somewhere on it.
Oh, but the parent comment gets to speak for the whole spectrum by saying that autistic people wouldn't know that they shouldn't make rape jokes in public because they are autistic? Without citing any sources, or having any qualifications to do so, or even claiming to speak from personal experience?

Perhaps you should direct your comment to them.

> gets to speak for the whole spectrum

I don't see any claim that they speak for the spectrum, i.e. no appeal to authority/identity. Sure, it means they don't provide a basis for their claims, but in this case I am attacking what I see as an invalid basis.

Also:

> by saying that autistic people wouldn't know that..

They said "Autists often don't.." i.e they aren't speaking about all/any/every, but some. They are talking about some subset of the population.

> Perhaps you should direct your comment to them.

What I feel is worth spending time criticising is my business. Given the hedge of talking about some autistic people it's almost certainly true without qualification.

> or even claiming to speak from personal experience

OP didn't talk from PE of other autistic people, but purely from their own behaviour, i.e. an n=1 generalisation.

Look, the OP implied that autism maybe be a likely reason why someone could be observed regularly making denigrating jokes like "9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape", because we lack "social awareness" to tell otherwise.

As an autistic person, who knows other autistic people, and is a part of online community of autistic people, I'll go out on limb and say that the OP is talking out of their ass, and I can comfortably speak on the behalf of the community on this topic. Other people who identified as being on the spectrum in this thread agreed.

OP never said they were autistic. It's just what they think autistic people would do.

It's an n=√-1 generalization: purely imaginary, and on top of it, insulting, because figuring out why a joke like "9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape" is bad doesn't take that much.

Particularly because so much has been written about it. Go ahead and read [1], it's an excellent article. Or my comments elsewhere.

TL;DR: portraying the condition of "being a jerk" as an autistic trait is a jerk move.

>What I feel is worth spending time criticising is my business.

Then perhaps you should spend less time criticizing, and more time getting a clue — though again, I'm sure you have different plans regarding that too.

[1] https://theconversation.com/psychology-behind-the-unfunny-co...

Richard Kyanka was many things but I'd have a very hard time believing 'autistic' was one of them.
I fail to see how the parent is insinuating that they believe making distasteful jokes implies guilt.
You fail to see this because they don't :)

They say that the history of making such jokes makes the accusations more weight, which is a reasonable thing to say. We are not putting someone behind the bars for making a joke.

It’s like you’re saying that someone who makes rape jokes is more likely to be a rapist.
Welcome to the world of Bayesian priors, and our star witness, the OJ Simpson murder trial.

There was a comment which didn't get enough attention during that trial: the defense claimed that fewer then 1 in 1000 women who suffer domestic abuse are killed by their domestic partners and therefore allegations of spousal abuse by OJ Simpson did not constitute supporting evidence.

But: this is wrong. Because once a woman has been killed, if her domestic partner was an abuser then almost 80% of the time the abuser did it (given reasonable other factual assumptions - i.e. pretty obviously if they weren't in the same state at the time then we can exclude it etc..)

The key part of the issue is that once an event has occurred, the Bayesian prior has changed: we are no longer evaluating the same initial probability.

[1] https://math.temple.edu/~paulos/oldsite/oj.html