7 ms·

Alison Macrina: I’m one of the people Jake Appelbaum sexually assaulted

84 points by dogecoinbase 10y ago

notaharvardmba 10y ago
I don't know anything about any of this, none of the people involved, and haven't even used Tor...but just based on the language used in this post, it has "witchhunt" written all over it. Sometimes you just get the feeling from a certain way things are written that it's a bunch of people ganging up linguistically on one person. Probably more likely, this is a charming guy who a lot of people liked and wanted to be with and got his way a little too much and now the scorned are coming out of the woodwork. There's a spectrum of rape that never seems to get discussed, and since there's no context and everything in this post is weighted towards making it seem like it was all aggravated rape, e.g. violence vs. just "not full consent" or things getting out of hand makes it feel like a witchhunt and high-school-level drama. I mean, from the sounds of it, a lot of the people complaining are willing parts of a weird group sex BDSM community where stuff like this is easily misconstrued. Again, I know nothing so I could be totally out of line here, but the language of the post makes me feel it's a witchhunt more than a real problem person. There are definitely douchebags everywhere, and I don't want this to come off as like, accepting of rape or violence. Just that a lot of times things get overblown, especially when people get their feelings hurt in non-illegal ways and want some kind of revenge. Again, to be really clear, I don't know anything, but I'd personally like to see discussion from both sides and not just have it be a witch hunt thing.
- yuvadam 10y ago
  > I don't know anything about any of this > I know nothing so I could be totally out of line here > I don't want this to come off as like, accepting of rape or violence Nice case you're making there.
  - notaharvardmba 10y ago
    Well, I'm pretty clearly not making a case for anything other than my own opinion about the language used. Since I have no emotional attachment to this at all, I'm merely pointing out my initial interpretation, based on the language used, is that this is probably a witch hunt.
    - tn13 10y ago
      Looks like your original comment was flagged. Unable to see why it was flagged. Sexual harassment is crime we all must take seriously especially the tech industry which is struggling get in more women. But at the same time open blogs like these must be taken with a bit of skepticism too because it is one person's story. We must question if not assign malicious motives to the victim. P.S. What can we do about such cases ? I think entire tech industry can create a fund specially for victims of sexual abuse so vulnerable women could consult a lawyer for a very low price who will be specialized in handling such cases. The hammer of justice must be brought into picture as soon as possible. It is unfair that some women has to live with this burden for so many years.
      - sethish 10y ago
        Did you miss the link to http://jacobappelbaum.net/ http://jacobappelbaum.net/ where the rest of the testimonies are collected? Or read any of the other blogposts on the subject like this one? https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.html https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.... It isn't a single 'open blog'. Alison is a widely respected member of the infosec, internet freedom and librarian communities.
      - notaharvardmba 10y ago
        Clearly people are personally upset with my interpretation and are voting me down. But that's the mob mentality at work. Alleged victims now silence THEIR critics, it's a case of black kettle pot things. This is a textbook witchhunt, and now that I've heard from other comments how they don't care for the police either the whole thing just seems like some online teleplay and not "news" at all. I also feel that it's not that we all need or want more women in tech, it's that we need and want fewer men. It's weird that a good chunk of the women trailblazing back into tech (after all, programming was primarily a women's occupation as late as the 70's) are hyper feminists who maybe want to be programmers but also really want to just do something that most people now perceive as a "male" occupation, for personal or gender pride or whatever. Hear me out, before you flag this one too. This (programming is a male occupation) is a horrible fallacy that is running through our society, especially in the most common female mindsets. Programming is not a classically male occupation, and programming ability has nothing to do with gender. It's not something where physical strength is valuable and thus statistically more likely that a male is the best candidate available in the labor pool to work it. And when you think about it, programming is really the perfect job for a woman who also wants to take time off or have flexible hours for having a baby and raising a family (common reasons for the most common choices for female degrees, education and social work). A good chunk of women plan their careers around their desire to have a family, you see. This is out of choice and it's not something where there's a guy in HR who is looking at a file of a man and a file of a woman and giving the man a raise (on average). I don't know why more women aren't clamoring to get trained and get jobs in programming, but from what I've seen first hand, it's not discrimination by men, or sexual harassment or any of that. I think it's due to other women shaming women programmers for working in a male industry when it's not and being male provides no advantage. It's women on women that's the main problem. I think it's due to women not getting college degrees in the right areas and that's something pretty easy to fix. The industry as it is now is still pretty new and I think that most educated women have set out and dominated the other areas (law, medicine, accounting, business management) and tech just hasn't had the social appeal that strong women want in a career. It's not fun or socially awesome to sit and program all day. Why would you do that to your life when you could be in meetings or selling stuff or curing cancer or fighting a court battle? I think once everyone realizes that programming ability is maybe something socially desirable (who knows if that will ever happen), women will flow back in and probably dominate this world also, just naturally. So, anyway, I personally don't feel that bad for today's women programmers. It's not men's fault the majority of your peers went into a soft social science, nursing, education or business degree and are now leading fun, awesome lives in really fun, socially important careers. I am sorry that the rest of your gender has let you down and now you are working alone in a really bad line of work that's hard on your body and is mostly dominated by weird shut-ins and people unable to communicate. Teach your daughters to program, teach them that making computers do things is as cool as making a recipe or whatever, and teach their friends also. And I think that this is already happening and in about 10 years the problem will resolve itself. In the meantime, you are going to have an industry dominated by 90% mostly socially awkward men and 10% mostly hyper-fem women and that's just a recipe for all kinds of mudslinging, misunderstandings, sexual misconduct and agenda-beating, and I feel this is yet another case.
- sethish 10y ago
  Tell me, how would you prefer victims to speak?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - FunctionalMan 10y ago
    To the police, as soon as possible after the incident occurs.
- jordigh 10y ago
  > get their feelings hurt in non-illegal ways Since the victims have very little trust[1] in the ability of the judicial system to handle this properly, the question about whether what Jacob did is legal or not is entirely unimportant. What matters is if there are victims who are hurt in more than just "their feelings". Given the number of credible people who have voiced concerns, and given that most of them also think that Jacob should get help, not go to jail, it seems very safe to believe the victims. The alleged damage done to them outweighs the possible damage that Jacob could face for being falsely accused by so many people. Anyway, it's not like Jacob has any shortage of advocates in the public. He's charismatic, smart, likable. He'll be able to surround himself with supporters far more easily than his vulnerable victims can. --- [1] Very justifiably, as recent high-profile cases like Brock Turner or Jian Ghomeshi demonstrate.
  - thegp 10y ago
    Might not want to cite ghomeshi as an example of an unfair justice system: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/christie-blatchford-the-ghomeshi-sex-assault-case-started-falling-apart-right-from-the-start http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/christie-blatchford... http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/a-good-day-for-justice-watch-christie-blatchford-break-down-the-ghomeshi-verdict http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/a-good-day-for-jus...
    - jordigh 10y ago
      The judge himself acknowledged that the evidence in this case raising a reasonable doubt is not the same as saying these events did not take place. This is where the law fails. Under intense scrutiny and a barrage of questions of details that happened many years ago, anyone can "lie" or have "inconsistencies". A victim can try to befriend the assailant in an attempt to reclaim or recontextualise what happened to her. The law is ill-equipped to handle this situation.
      - thegp 10y ago
        So what should you do? Not apply scrutiny? Remember, in dubio pro reo
yuvadam 10y ago
Tor developer Isis Agora Lovecruft has just come forward as well, as one of Jake's victims - https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.html https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees....
- labrador 10y ago
  Call me old fashioned (I'm old) but in my day a man and a woman who were each attracted to the opposite sex and were not related were advised not to sleep in the same bed. I am not defending Jake and believe the victims, but just wanted to make the point that some of the older conventions were there for a reason.
  - exolymph 10y ago
    I promise you, men and women can sleep in the same bed without either one of them committing sexual assault. Saying that this is inherently dangerous implies that men can't control themselves, which is ridiculous and absolves rapists of responsibility.
    - capote 10y ago
      I can attest to the truth in this statement: I have slept in the same bed as many people and have not sexually assaulted any of them.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - theorique 10y ago
      They can, but experience suggests that it's a high-risk situation: risk of one or both people misunderstanding or poorly communicating their intentions, risk of one party "trying something" and crossing the line with the other, and so forth. It's better for straight, platonic friends of the opposite sex to sleep in different beds to avoid misunderstandings (or predatory "misunderstandings", for that matter).
oh_sigh 10y ago
Why don't people report/blog about these things immediately? It's hard to tell what can be true or what is just piling on someone who their ingroup decided to hate. > They included first-person accounts of Jake deliberately intimidating and shaming people, not taking no for an answer, undressing and sexually touching a person who was sleeping, and having sex in front of a group with a person who had repeatedly said no. So...we're supposed to believe that this guy decided to have sex in front of a group of people with a person who repeatedly said no and gave no consent, and the group just sits there and watches it, and then blogs about it months/years later? What kind of people are these that just stand around and watch an obvious rape go on? Are they accomplices? Liars? People suffering from bystander effect?
- exolymph 10y ago
  Why would you not believe that? Bystanders allow heinous things to happen all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Richmond_High_School_gang_rape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Richmond_High_School_gang...
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    The question is whether the bystander effect really happened or not. I'd like to ask all the people that claim that he raped a random person in front of a group of people: How do you feel about your own involvement in it? Do you feel any guilt at all for letting this guy just rape someone right in front of you? Also, with your example, the power differential is drastically different. If you have 7-8 people, you can easily coerce a slightly larger crowd to not do anything under threat of violence. If you have one guy raping someone and 20 people standing around, that is completely different from 1 guy raping, 6-7 threatening people, and 20 watching.
thegp 10y ago
As a contrast see https://mobile.twitter.com/cfarivar/status/741634572673110016 https://mobile.twitter.com/cfarivar/status/74163457267311001.... If the allegations true, they should prosecute, and should have prosecuted immediately. As well as all the other people who knew of it. And we should continue to work towards a world where that is a no brainer. Most people are nice. It's only a few people, mostly with unfortunate backgrounds or fates that are not. Let's work towards institutions which handle this efficiently, without the need for mobs
- zorpner 10y ago
  "As contrast see" someone who wasn't abused state that they know he's a nice guy? That's not convincing to anyone who doesn't disbelieve victims by default. The idea that people who suffer abuse are in the wrong by not going to authorities who typically also disbelieve them is poisonous.
  - thegp 10y ago
    Contrast as in "here is a different opinion by people who also know him better than most of us". Truth will be found (hopefully) by a criminal investigation, not by by the court of public opinion. You are right, victim blaming is horrible. That's why I didn't say "they should have said something immediately, now they have lost credibility" I understand why they might not go immediately and don't blame them for it. I still think the right thing is immediate prosecution. If they don't feel like they will be helped by the authoritiesthat is a problem, which needs to be addressed both on the sides of the authorities (with proper training and procedures) and education (teaching people to prosecute immediately instead of shutting up)
    - zorpner 10y ago
      The whole point of this type of abuse stemming from authority is to make the abused discredited, typically by recruiting people into one's defense (and, in fact, Alison cites a specific instance where she was recruited into defending). What would be unusual in a case of systemic abuse would be to find no one who stepped up to defend the abuser who had no direct knowledge of the abuse. Their opinion is clearly irrelevant to the question of whether abuse occurred, and that they would offer such an irrelevant opinion is neutral evidence at best. Also re authorities, you're talking about people on the Tor project, and most systemic abusers are pretty careful to not provide a clear chain of evidence. So you're asking someone to go to an authority they likely specifically distrust to blow up their relationship with their community likely for no gain, since there will almost certainly not be a successful prosecution. I'm sure you can see how this might not be an appealing option.
woodcut 10y ago
I think it's immensely positive that she came forward, although all of this too late, it would have taken a vastly better environment for the people involved to be open from the beginning. Abuse shouldn't fester like this.
- sethish 10y ago
  The outright denials in this thread are one of the many reasons why people don't come forward immediately.
peterwwillis 10y ago
> Jake’s behavior is representative of a systemic problem, grounded in a star culture that has allowed individual fame to overpower the ability of the community to recognize its collective needs. This is basically personal power in group dynamics. It's found in many in-groups where a person has the power to do whatever they want, yet still remain a vital part of the group. There's also a fallacy here that a "community" is what people think it is: a group of people who work together in each others' best interests. More often, communities are groups of individuals who sometimes cooperate, but whose priority is still their own position in the group. This is partly why a critical mass of community members coming forward at once is needed to challenge power. (The other aspect is that a challenge to a person in power is also implicitly a challenge to the other group members who have given them power, which is why you see people either ignore or react personally when a person with power is attacked) > Calls for police intervention are particularly alarming to hear from a community in which so many advocate for a stateless society. We do not live in a stateless society. We live in a society that makes people feel shame, fear and indecision for reporting certain crimes. If you believe in transformative justice, design your education to help people feel comfortable going to the police immediately. No lovey-dovey non-violent community action is going to substitute the fear of repercussions for crimes, such as jail time. > 1. We must believe victims, and continue to foster an environment where they feel safe to report their stories of abuse. I agree with the second part. The first part implies that anyone who claims to be a victim is a victim, and completely defeats points 2.1 and 2.3. If Jake decried being a victim first, we would be forced to believe him (unless you're going with either gender stereotype or bandwagon fallacy as the determining factor, the latter of which could also end in Jake's favor). Communities are not impartial and can not police themselves impartially. There's a reason that there are police that police the police.
jbob2000 10y ago
I flagged this because, aside from the connection to the Tor community, there's really nothing relevant here to the Hacker News community. This seems to be a developing issue with no hard facts and lots of he-said-she-said. No positive comments will come from this post.
- labrador 10y ago
  I disagree. Many want to get more women into tech and this is one of the issues that we need to confront and talk through to come to some sort of consensus on appropriate behavior so women feel welcome and safe.
  - jbob2000 10y ago
    I agree with you, but this post is not helping that. There's nothing here discussing how women can get into tech. It's incredibly disingenuous to scream "but women in tech!!" every time an issue like this crops up. This is an account of one person's experience with another person, not an objective look at sexual harassment in tech.
    - sethish 10y ago
      Instead of discussing the issues that prevent women from joining the tech community, you want blogposts about how to get women into tech. Is that accurate?
      - jbob2000 10y ago
        No, we should discuss issues, but it needs to be done constructively and objectively. Maybe someone writes an article that gathers all of these stories and analyzes them? If an article like that was posted, we would have something concrete to discuss. There's nothing to discuss here except the finer points of how this one particular person sexually harassed this other person.
        sethish 10y ago
throwaway19777 10y ago
If there's one thing Jacob can be found guilty of, it's ungentlemanly behavior. Jake needs to be a lot smoother, and make sure that the women he's involved with don't feel ashamed after their interactions with him. To put it simply, he's creepy. Basically what you've got here is a classic botched seduction. It probably stems from the fact that Jacob has a poorly developed sense of empathy with women, possibly dating back to a messed-up childhood. The facts are though: 1. Alison has a "minor romantic interest" in Jake, and he invites her back to his apartment. 2. He proceeds to invite her into the bathroom and gets naked. This is moving too fast, but she still likes him, so she sits with him. 3. He convinces her to strip down to her t-shirt and panties. Again, she is uncomfortable. 4. He "nonconsentually washes" her. Now the creep factor has gotten too intense. She's being drug along instead of gently whisked through the seduction. She starts to cry and leaves. What we are having a problem with as a society is how we view women's agency. In the past, we viewed women as mentally weaker than men, and so there were rules of conduct, such as, don't go into a man's apartment alone if you don't want to be seduced. What we have now is this strange hybrid where a woman can voluntarily go alone in the evening into a man's apartment, talk to him while he's naked in the tub, strip down to a t-shirt and panties, and when he starts to wash her, call this sexual assault and ruin his career.
- sethish 10y ago
  You are skipping the whole section where he asked and she said no. Do you not find /consent/ a relevant part of the conversation?
  - throwaway19777 10y ago
    Of course consent is relevant. According to her narrative though, she said she didn't want to get into the bath, and then after talking more, started taking off her clothes and put her feet in the water. Then Jake "kind of pulls her into the tub halfway" and starts to "nonconsentually wash" her. It's not clear from the story whether her shirt is still on at this point. Jacob is certainly guilty of ungentlemanly behavior, lack of smoothness, and pushiness, assuming that her story is accurate and complete, but to call this sexual assault is crazy. All you nerdy guys out there, if you don't want something like this to happen to you, learn the dance -- there is a sequence and a pace to these things if you want a woman to feel good.
tzs 10y ago
(The following is not specific to this case or the Applebaum situation. It is more of a general observation based on many current and past cases) It's disturbing how many stories of alleged or actual sexual harassment/assault involve alcohol. We've figured out that we cannot handle mixing alcohol and driving, and so make an effort to have a "designated driver" so that those drinking won't have to drive. Is it perhaps time to extend this beyond driving? When interacting with people you might be sexually attracted to in situations where you are going to be drinking, have some designating non-drinkers around to watch over those who imbibe and stop them from making alcohol induced mistakes? Alcohol is problematic in sexual situations for a couple reasons: • It impairs the ability to give informed consent, so people who have been drinking often agree to do things that they would not have agreed to had they not been drinking. • It impairs the ability to recognize that someone else is too impaired to give consent. This can lead to truly bizarre situations, such as two people each thinking that they are willingly having sex with the other but legally they are actually each raping the other. I suspect that most people also greatly underestimate how much alcohol it takes to impair their judgement sufficiently for them to get into problematic situations that they would normally easily avoid. So what can be done about this? No way are people going to give up alcohol, or even give up getting smashed at social events. Can something be done to help those people at least not abuse people while smashed or become easy victims while smashed?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
antisthenes 10y ago
Regardless of what you think about the events that transpired, this thread is a perfect example of censorship and self-censorship. There's a clear trend here among the posts that get downvoted, and while it is within the rules and spirit of the site to do so, it is at the very least ironic that supposed anarchists and libertarians, who so vehemently oppose centrally mandated censorship are perfectly fine when that happens to advance a narrative they agree with, through an echo-chamber which essentially works as the central authority. That certainly takes away what little credence there was left to their idea about a stateless society and doesn't paint a pretty picture to the magnitude of a delusion required to somehow, in one's mind, to convince themselves that mob justice is better than the rule of law. How many people are afraid to speak out here, despite disagreement?
- nkurz 10y ago
  There's a clear trend here among the posts that get downvoted, and while it is within the rules and spirit of the site to do so, it is at the very least ironic that supposed anarchists and libertarians, who so vehemently oppose centrally mandated censorship are perfectly fine when that happens to advance a narrative they agree with, through an echo-chamber which essentially works as the central authority. Quoting the punchline of a common joke, "No, we can only conclude that there is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black." What evidence leads you to conclude that the self-described anarchists and libertarians approve of centrally mandated censorship? Unless you have non-public knowledge of individual HN voting patterns (and are willing to assume that downvotes accurately reflect a desire to censor) it seems like an unwarranted leap to go from a handful of anonymous internet downvotes to decrying the hypocrisy of both movements.
- zorpner 10y ago
  How many people are afraid to speak out here, despite disagreement? What, with the horrible consequence of being downvoted looming over them? Probably a lot fewer than are afraid to speak out about charismatic abusers who have threatened to ruin their personal and professional lives if they speak out. This is a pretty classic example of a common phenomenon -- to paraphrase Alana Massey, people often mistake the discomfort of being confronted with their own violence for the suffering they caused by it. Appelbaum's "victimization" isn't remotely close to the suffering of the his victims.

84 points by dogecoinbase 10y ago

I don't know anything about any of this, none of the people involved, and haven't even used Tor...but just based on the language used in this post, it has "witchhunt" written all over it. Sometimes you just get the feeling from a certain way things are written that it's a bunch of people ganging up linguistically on one person. Probably more likely, this is a charming guy who a lot of people liked and wanted to be with and got his way a little too much and now the scorned are coming out of the woodwork. There's a spectrum of rape that never seems to get discussed, and since there's no context and everything in this post is weighted towards making it seem like it was all aggravated rape, e.g. violence vs. just "not full consent" or things getting out of hand makes it feel like a witchhunt and high-school-level drama. I mean, from the sounds of it, a lot of the people complaining are willing parts of a weird group sex BDSM community where stuff like this is easily misconstrued. Again, I know nothing so I could be totally out of line here, but the language of the post makes me feel it's a witchhunt more than a real problem person. There are definitely douchebags everywhere, and I don't want this to come off as like, accepting of rape or violence. Just that a lot of times things get overblown, especially when people get their feelings hurt in non-illegal ways and want some kind of revenge. Again, to be really clear, I don't know anything, but I'd personally like to see discussion from both sides and not just have it be a witch hunt thing.

yuvadam 10y ago
> I don't know anything about any of this > I know nothing so I could be totally out of line here > I don't want this to come off as like, accepting of rape or violence Nice case you're making there.
- notaharvardmba 10y ago
  Well, I'm pretty clearly not making a case for anything other than my own opinion about the language used. Since I have no emotional attachment to this at all, I'm merely pointing out my initial interpretation, based on the language used, is that this is probably a witch hunt.
  - tn13 10y ago
    Looks like your original comment was flagged. Unable to see why it was flagged. Sexual harassment is crime we all must take seriously especially the tech industry which is struggling get in more women. But at the same time open blogs like these must be taken with a bit of skepticism too because it is one person's story. We must question if not assign malicious motives to the victim. P.S. What can we do about such cases ? I think entire tech industry can create a fund specially for victims of sexual abuse so vulnerable women could consult a lawyer for a very low price who will be specialized in handling such cases. The hammer of justice must be brought into picture as soon as possible. It is unfair that some women has to live with this burden for so many years.
    - sethish 10y ago
      Did you miss the link to http://jacobappelbaum.net/ http://jacobappelbaum.net/ where the rest of the testimonies are collected? Or read any of the other blogposts on the subject like this one? https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.html https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.... It isn't a single 'open blog'. Alison is a widely respected member of the infosec, internet freedom and librarian communities.
    - notaharvardmba 10y ago
      Clearly people are personally upset with my interpretation and are voting me down. But that's the mob mentality at work. Alleged victims now silence THEIR critics, it's a case of black kettle pot things. This is a textbook witchhunt, and now that I've heard from other comments how they don't care for the police either the whole thing just seems like some online teleplay and not "news" at all. I also feel that it's not that we all need or want more women in tech, it's that we need and want fewer men. It's weird that a good chunk of the women trailblazing back into tech (after all, programming was primarily a women's occupation as late as the 70's) are hyper feminists who maybe want to be programmers but also really want to just do something that most people now perceive as a "male" occupation, for personal or gender pride or whatever. Hear me out, before you flag this one too. This (programming is a male occupation) is a horrible fallacy that is running through our society, especially in the most common female mindsets. Programming is not a classically male occupation, and programming ability has nothing to do with gender. It's not something where physical strength is valuable and thus statistically more likely that a male is the best candidate available in the labor pool to work it. And when you think about it, programming is really the perfect job for a woman who also wants to take time off or have flexible hours for having a baby and raising a family (common reasons for the most common choices for female degrees, education and social work). A good chunk of women plan their careers around their desire to have a family, you see. This is out of choice and it's not something where there's a guy in HR who is looking at a file of a man and a file of a woman and giving the man a raise (on average). I don't know why more women aren't clamoring to get trained and get jobs in programming, but from what I've seen first hand, it's not discrimination by men, or sexual harassment or any of that. I think it's due to other women shaming women programmers for working in a male industry when it's not and being male provides no advantage. It's women on women that's the main problem. I think it's due to women not getting college degrees in the right areas and that's something pretty easy to fix. The industry as it is now is still pretty new and I think that most educated women have set out and dominated the other areas (law, medicine, accounting, business management) and tech just hasn't had the social appeal that strong women want in a career. It's not fun or socially awesome to sit and program all day. Why would you do that to your life when you could be in meetings or selling stuff or curing cancer or fighting a court battle? I think once everyone realizes that programming ability is maybe something socially desirable (who knows if that will ever happen), women will flow back in and probably dominate this world also, just naturally. So, anyway, I personally don't feel that bad for today's women programmers. It's not men's fault the majority of your peers went into a soft social science, nursing, education or business degree and are now leading fun, awesome lives in really fun, socially important careers. I am sorry that the rest of your gender has let you down and now you are working alone in a really bad line of work that's hard on your body and is mostly dominated by weird shut-ins and people unable to communicate. Teach your daughters to program, teach them that making computers do things is as cool as making a recipe or whatever, and teach their friends also. And I think that this is already happening and in about 10 years the problem will resolve itself. In the meantime, you are going to have an industry dominated by 90% mostly socially awkward men and 10% mostly hyper-fem women and that's just a recipe for all kinds of mudslinging, misunderstandings, sexual misconduct and agenda-beating, and I feel this is yet another case.
sethish 10y ago
Tell me, how would you prefer victims to speak?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- FunctionalMan 10y ago
  To the police, as soon as possible after the incident occurs.
jordigh 10y ago
> get their feelings hurt in non-illegal ways Since the victims have very little trust[1] in the ability of the judicial system to handle this properly, the question about whether what Jacob did is legal or not is entirely unimportant. What matters is if there are victims who are hurt in more than just "their feelings". Given the number of credible people who have voiced concerns, and given that most of them also think that Jacob should get help, not go to jail, it seems very safe to believe the victims. The alleged damage done to them outweighs the possible damage that Jacob could face for being falsely accused by so many people. Anyway, it's not like Jacob has any shortage of advocates in the public. He's charismatic, smart, likable. He'll be able to surround himself with supporters far more easily than his vulnerable victims can. --- [1] Very justifiably, as recent high-profile cases like Brock Turner or Jian Ghomeshi demonstrate.
- thegp 10y ago
  Might not want to cite ghomeshi as an example of an unfair justice system: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/christie-blatchford-the-ghomeshi-sex-assault-case-started-falling-apart-right-from-the-start http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/christie-blatchford... http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/a-good-day-for-justice-watch-christie-blatchford-break-down-the-ghomeshi-verdict http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/a-good-day-for-jus...
  - jordigh 10y ago
    The judge himself acknowledged that the evidence in this case raising a reasonable doubt is not the same as saying these events did not take place. This is where the law fails. Under intense scrutiny and a barrage of questions of details that happened many years ago, anyone can "lie" or have "inconsistencies". A victim can try to befriend the assailant in an attempt to reclaim or recontextualise what happened to her. The law is ill-equipped to handle this situation.
    - thegp 10y ago
      So what should you do? Not apply scrutiny? Remember, in dubio pro reo

yuvadam 10y ago

Tor developer Isis Agora Lovecruft has just come forward as well, as one of Jake's victims - https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.html https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees....

labrador 10y ago
Call me old fashioned (I'm old) but in my day a man and a woman who were each attracted to the opposite sex and were not related were advised not to sleep in the same bed. I am not defending Jake and believe the victims, but just wanted to make the point that some of the older conventions were there for a reason.
- exolymph 10y ago
  I promise you, men and women can sleep in the same bed without either one of them committing sexual assault. Saying that this is inherently dangerous implies that men can't control themselves, which is ridiculous and absolves rapists of responsibility.
  - capote 10y ago
    I can attest to the truth in this statement: I have slept in the same bed as many people and have not sexually assaulted any of them.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - theorique 10y ago
    They can, but experience suggests that it's a high-risk situation: risk of one or both people misunderstanding or poorly communicating their intentions, risk of one party "trying something" and crossing the line with the other, and so forth. It's better for straight, platonic friends of the opposite sex to sleep in different beds to avoid misunderstandings (or predatory "misunderstandings", for that matter).

oh_sigh 10y ago

Why don't people report/blog about these things immediately? It's hard to tell what can be true or what is just piling on someone who their ingroup decided to hate. > They included first-person accounts of Jake deliberately intimidating and shaming people, not taking no for an answer, undressing and sexually touching a person who was sleeping, and having sex in front of a group with a person who had repeatedly said no. So...we're supposed to believe that this guy decided to have sex in front of a group of people with a person who repeatedly said no and gave no consent, and the group just sits there and watches it, and then blogs about it months/years later? What kind of people are these that just stand around and watch an obvious rape go on? Are they accomplices? Liars? People suffering from bystander effect?

exolymph 10y ago
Why would you not believe that? Bystanders allow heinous things to happen all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Richmond_High_School_gang_rape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Richmond_High_School_gang...
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  The question is whether the bystander effect really happened or not. I'd like to ask all the people that claim that he raped a random person in front of a group of people: How do you feel about your own involvement in it? Do you feel any guilt at all for letting this guy just rape someone right in front of you? Also, with your example, the power differential is drastically different. If you have 7-8 people, you can easily coerce a slightly larger crowd to not do anything under threat of violence. If you have one guy raping someone and 20 people standing around, that is completely different from 1 guy raping, 6-7 threatening people, and 20 watching.

thegp 10y ago

As a contrast see https://mobile.twitter.com/cfarivar/status/741634572673110016 https://mobile.twitter.com/cfarivar/status/74163457267311001.... If the allegations true, they should prosecute, and should have prosecuted immediately. As well as all the other people who knew of it. And we should continue to work towards a world where that is a no brainer. Most people are nice. It's only a few people, mostly with unfortunate backgrounds or fates that are not. Let's work towards institutions which handle this efficiently, without the need for mobs

zorpner 10y ago
"As contrast see" someone who wasn't abused state that they know he's a nice guy? That's not convincing to anyone who doesn't disbelieve victims by default. The idea that people who suffer abuse are in the wrong by not going to authorities who typically also disbelieve them is poisonous.
- thegp 10y ago
  Contrast as in "here is a different opinion by people who also know him better than most of us". Truth will be found (hopefully) by a criminal investigation, not by by the court of public opinion. You are right, victim blaming is horrible. That's why I didn't say "they should have said something immediately, now they have lost credibility" I understand why they might not go immediately and don't blame them for it. I still think the right thing is immediate prosecution. If they don't feel like they will be helped by the authoritiesthat is a problem, which needs to be addressed both on the sides of the authorities (with proper training and procedures) and education (teaching people to prosecute immediately instead of shutting up)
  - zorpner 10y ago
    The whole point of this type of abuse stemming from authority is to make the abused discredited, typically by recruiting people into one's defense (and, in fact, Alison cites a specific instance where she was recruited into defending). What would be unusual in a case of systemic abuse would be to find no one who stepped up to defend the abuser who had no direct knowledge of the abuse. Their opinion is clearly irrelevant to the question of whether abuse occurred, and that they would offer such an irrelevant opinion is neutral evidence at best. Also re authorities, you're talking about people on the Tor project, and most systemic abusers are pretty careful to not provide a clear chain of evidence. So you're asking someone to go to an authority they likely specifically distrust to blow up their relationship with their community likely for no gain, since there will almost certainly not be a successful prosecution. I'm sure you can see how this might not be an appealing option.

woodcut 10y ago

I think it's immensely positive that she came forward, although all of this too late, it would have taken a vastly better environment for the people involved to be open from the beginning. Abuse shouldn't fester like this.

sethish 10y ago
The outright denials in this thread are one of the many reasons why people don't come forward immediately.

peterwwillis 10y ago

> Jake’s behavior is representative of a systemic problem, grounded in a star culture that has allowed individual fame to overpower the ability of the community to recognize its collective needs. This is basically personal power in group dynamics. It's found in many in-groups where a person has the power to do whatever they want, yet still remain a vital part of the group. There's also a fallacy here that a "community" is what people think it is: a group of people who work together in each others' best interests. More often, communities are groups of individuals who sometimes cooperate, but whose priority is still their own position in the group. This is partly why a critical mass of community members coming forward at once is needed to challenge power. (The other aspect is that a challenge to a person in power is also implicitly a challenge to the other group members who have given them power, which is why you see people either ignore or react personally when a person with power is attacked) > Calls for police intervention are particularly alarming to hear from a community in which so many advocate for a stateless society. We do not live in a stateless society. We live in a society that makes people feel shame, fear and indecision for reporting certain crimes. If you believe in transformative justice, design your education to help people feel comfortable going to the police immediately. No lovey-dovey non-violent community action is going to substitute the fear of repercussions for crimes, such as jail time. > 1. We must believe victims, and continue to foster an environment where they feel safe to report their stories of abuse. I agree with the second part. The first part implies that anyone who claims to be a victim is a victim, and completely defeats points 2.1 and 2.3. If Jake decried being a victim first, we would be forced to believe him (unless you're going with either gender stereotype or bandwagon fallacy as the determining factor, the latter of which could also end in Jake's favor). Communities are not impartial and can not police themselves impartially. There's a reason that there are police that police the police.

jbob2000 10y ago

I flagged this because, aside from the connection to the Tor community, there's really nothing relevant here to the Hacker News community. This seems to be a developing issue with no hard facts and lots of he-said-she-said. No positive comments will come from this post.

labrador 10y ago
I disagree. Many want to get more women into tech and this is one of the issues that we need to confront and talk through to come to some sort of consensus on appropriate behavior so women feel welcome and safe.
- jbob2000 10y ago
  I agree with you, but this post is not helping that. There's nothing here discussing how women can get into tech. It's incredibly disingenuous to scream "but women in tech!!" every time an issue like this crops up. This is an account of one person's experience with another person, not an objective look at sexual harassment in tech.
  - sethish 10y ago
    Instead of discussing the issues that prevent women from joining the tech community, you want blogposts about how to get women into tech. Is that accurate?
    - jbob2000 10y ago
      No, we should discuss issues, but it needs to be done constructively and objectively. Maybe someone writes an article that gathers all of these stories and analyzes them? If an article like that was posted, we would have something concrete to discuss. There's nothing to discuss here except the finer points of how this one particular person sexually harassed this other person.
      - sethish 10y ago

throwaway19777 10y ago

If there's one thing Jacob can be found guilty of, it's ungentlemanly behavior. Jake needs to be a lot smoother, and make sure that the women he's involved with don't feel ashamed after their interactions with him. To put it simply, he's creepy. Basically what you've got here is a classic botched seduction. It probably stems from the fact that Jacob has a poorly developed sense of empathy with women, possibly dating back to a messed-up childhood. The facts are though: 1. Alison has a "minor romantic interest" in Jake, and he invites her back to his apartment. 2. He proceeds to invite her into the bathroom and gets naked. This is moving too fast, but she still likes him, so she sits with him. 3. He convinces her to strip down to her t-shirt and panties. Again, she is uncomfortable. 4. He "nonconsentually washes" her. Now the creep factor has gotten too intense. She's being drug along instead of gently whisked through the seduction. She starts to cry and leaves. What we are having a problem with as a society is how we view women's agency. In the past, we viewed women as mentally weaker than men, and so there were rules of conduct, such as, don't go into a man's apartment alone if you don't want to be seduced. What we have now is this strange hybrid where a woman can voluntarily go alone in the evening into a man's apartment, talk to him while he's naked in the tub, strip down to a t-shirt and panties, and when he starts to wash her, call this sexual assault and ruin his career.

sethish 10y ago
You are skipping the whole section where he asked and she said no. Do you not find /consent/ a relevant part of the conversation?
- throwaway19777 10y ago
  Of course consent is relevant. According to her narrative though, she said she didn't want to get into the bath, and then after talking more, started taking off her clothes and put her feet in the water. Then Jake "kind of pulls her into the tub halfway" and starts to "nonconsentually wash" her. It's not clear from the story whether her shirt is still on at this point. Jacob is certainly guilty of ungentlemanly behavior, lack of smoothness, and pushiness, assuming that her story is accurate and complete, but to call this sexual assault is crazy. All you nerdy guys out there, if you don't want something like this to happen to you, learn the dance -- there is a sequence and a pace to these things if you want a woman to feel good.

tzs 10y ago

(The following is not specific to this case or the Applebaum situation. It is more of a general observation based on many current and past cases) It's disturbing how many stories of alleged or actual sexual harassment/assault involve alcohol. We've figured out that we cannot handle mixing alcohol and driving, and so make an effort to have a "designated driver" so that those drinking won't have to drive. Is it perhaps time to extend this beyond driving? When interacting with people you might be sexually attracted to in situations where you are going to be drinking, have some designating non-drinkers around to watch over those who imbibe and stop them from making alcohol induced mistakes? Alcohol is problematic in sexual situations for a couple reasons: • It impairs the ability to give informed consent, so people who have been drinking often agree to do things that they would not have agreed to had they not been drinking. • It impairs the ability to recognize that someone else is too impaired to give consent. This can lead to truly bizarre situations, such as two people each thinking that they are willingly having sex with the other but legally they are actually each raping the other. I suspect that most people also greatly underestimate how much alcohol it takes to impair their judgement sufficiently for them to get into problematic situations that they would normally easily avoid. So what can be done about this? No way are people going to give up alcohol, or even give up getting smashed at social events. Can something be done to help those people at least not abuse people while smashed or become easy victims while smashed?

deleted 10y ago
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antisthenes 10y ago

Regardless of what you think about the events that transpired, this thread is a perfect example of censorship and self-censorship. There's a clear trend here among the posts that get downvoted, and while it is within the rules and spirit of the site to do so, it is at the very least ironic that supposed anarchists and libertarians, who so vehemently oppose centrally mandated censorship are perfectly fine when that happens to advance a narrative they agree with, through an echo-chamber which essentially works as the central authority. That certainly takes away what little credence there was left to their idea about a stateless society and doesn't paint a pretty picture to the magnitude of a delusion required to somehow, in one's mind, to convince themselves that mob justice is better than the rule of law. How many people are afraid to speak out here, despite disagreement?

nkurz 10y ago
There's a clear trend here among the posts that get downvoted, and while it is within the rules and spirit of the site to do so, it is at the very least ironic that supposed anarchists and libertarians, who so vehemently oppose centrally mandated censorship are perfectly fine when that happens to advance a narrative they agree with, through an echo-chamber which essentially works as the central authority. Quoting the punchline of a common joke, "No, we can only conclude that there is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black." What evidence leads you to conclude that the self-described anarchists and libertarians approve of centrally mandated censorship? Unless you have non-public knowledge of individual HN voting patterns (and are willing to assume that downvotes accurately reflect a desire to censor) it seems like an unwarranted leap to go from a handful of anonymous internet downvotes to decrying the hypocrisy of both movements.
zorpner 10y ago
How many people are afraid to speak out here, despite disagreement? What, with the horrible consequence of being downvoted looming over them? Probably a lot fewer than are afraid to speak out about charismatic abusers who have threatened to ruin their personal and professional lives if they speak out. This is a pretty classic example of a common phenomenon -- to paraphrase Alana Massey, people often mistake the discomfort of being confronted with their own violence for the suffering they caused by it. Appelbaum's "victimization" isn't remotely close to the suffering of the his victims.