6 ms·

Do you think it's reasonable to destroy his reputation before an investigation has occurred? I'm genuinely curious, and the question is in good faith.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Do you think it's reasonable to destroy his reputation before an investigation has occurred? I think people should be conscious of the uncertainty in the facts when commenting based on limited information, but that he is entitled to no more deference from private actors than, essentially, avoiding libelous statements (those known to be false or made with with reckless disregard for truth.) General private commentary is not, morally or ethically, dependent on an investigation. And, in any case, an investigation has occurred, preceding publication of the story.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Your response changed my mind on the matter, so thank you. It's especially relevant given how all of this played out. (See the other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621765 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621765 and subsequent admission https://www.axios.com/justin-caldbeck-takes-indefinite-leave-of-absence-from-binary-capital-2446988189.html https://www.axios.com/justin-caldbeck-takes-indefinite-leave...) Any ideas for recognizing situations where a bit of skepticism is warranted vs situations like this? In this case, I'm a little saddened that my comments caused some more stress for the founders. One of them personally came to correct me upthread. I think it's still important in general to reserve judgement and to wait for due process, but is there much reason to hold so fast to those views anymore? The speed at which accusations can be confirmed or denied seems to have increased to the point where it might not be so bad to just assume that the truth will usually come out. I don't know.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Any ideas for recognizing situations where a bit of skepticism is warranted vs situations like this? Skepticism is always warranted, this situation was no exception (even though the admission that has since emerged seems to implicitly confirm the reports.) But skepticism doesn't mean don't form and express a view on the facts based on what information you do have, it means be aware that you don't have the whole picture and refrain from action that is too extreme for the information you have, and remain willing to revise your opinion as more information becomes available. The last bit takes active effort to counter confirmation bias and the desire to avoid having to admit error. > I think it's still important in general to reserve judgement and to wait for due process, Even in government, “due process” isn't a binary thing; what process is due varies based on the action being taken and other elements of context. Even if we extend the concept to include private action, things like posting a comment expressing concern would have much less process due than any substantive government action. Even a government agent acting in their official capacity doesn't have to wait for a conviction to say that they believe someone is guilty.
  - jonstewart 9y ago
    What due process are you looking for, precisely? Is it a practical standard to apply? Sexual harassment is not itself a crime, so it's unlikely he'll be indicted and tried. Also, "due process" has a broad meaning that goes beyond "jury trial". A good faith investigation by a journalist with six sources, three on the record, could certainly be viewed as due process.
    - pyre 9y ago
      > A good faith investigation by a journalist with six sources, three on the record, could certainly be viewed as due process. But @sillysaurus3 basically said that there is no amount of evidence that could satisfy "reasonable doubt" with this statement: > When it involves rich or powerful people, the ability to get many she-said's becomes easier. This statement basically says that gathering multiple claims and multiple accounts/allegations cannot be proof against a rich or powerful person because of some inherent propensity of women to come out of the woodwork to lodge harassment/assault claims against rich/powerful/famous people. So once you are rich and powerful you immediately win all he-said/she-said situations because people have to give you the "benefit of the doubt." (not that I agree with this statement)
      - sillysaurus3 9y ago
        No, it had nothing to do with women, and I resent that implication. I notice you saw the subthread where I articulated that it had nothing to do with women yet still posted a comment insinuating it does: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621640 It's not a controversial observation that rich and powerful people can acquire enemies, and some of them have been slandered by the press. It was difficult to separate that situation from this one. I assure you, I'm a reasonable and thoughtful person and it's not fair to say that I basically said there's no amount of evidence that can satisfy a claim against a powerful person. The original comment was "Maybe we should wait to see how this plays out before making any judgements." Nothing more. This whole conversation was a request for more information, so if you're going to throw me under the bus for it, you'll just push those who want to ask harmless questions further into the camp of "I shouldn't say a word." And when people have beliefs that seem reasonable to them, this can be a harmful situation when those beliefs are false. For example, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that a journalist shouldn't wield the power to destroy someone's reputation without any independent oversight. It's a simple proposition with simple, obvious consequences. But pointing out that no investigation is going to occur helped me realize that it's an absurd standard. EDIT: Also, most of my comments received around 8 upvotes. They've been bouncing up and down, but the point is, clearly a lot of people felt similarly. So by voicing these concerns, it probably changed a lot more minds than my own. Talking this out and being open with it seems like a good thing.
  - dgacmu 9y ago
    Since you're asking seriously, I have a hypothesis that probably applies to a lot of the well-meaning skeptical responses in this thread: Most of the men replying in this thread have an incorrect "prior" (in the statistical sense) of the odds that a woman will experience serious sexual harassment in the workplace. This prior emerges, one presumes, because we look at ourselves as the model for estimating that behavior, think "there's no way in hell I'd behave that way, so this must be really rare", and assign a relatively low probability to the occurrence. That prior is incorrect. There are enough harassers out there, each of whom harms multiple people, that, in fact, the average experience is of having been inappropriately approached, harassed, or outright assaulted, to the point where [1] a woman has a lifetime 1 in 6 chance of being the victim of rape or attempted rape, and in one survey, 1 in 3 women reported having experienced workplace sexual harassment. [2] Those numbers may be wrong a bit in either direction, but the decimal point is probably in the right place. When we hear a claim like "X was sexually harassed by Y", we evaluate the likelihood of that statement in light of our own experience and prior - and assign to it a much lower likelihood of it being true than the true probability. In other words, you mentally calculate: P(harassed | X says harassed). By bayes rule, that's equal to P(X says harassed | harassed) * P(harassed) / P(X says harassed). So when our mental model of P(harassed) is too low, our estimate of P(harassed | X says harassed) is too low. And thus arises excessive disbelief in claims that are more likely to be true. So, my very geeky suggestion for this is: Be very precise about the question you're asking about and the assumptions that go into it. You can often find a way to validate those assumptions to check what you're asking about. [1] https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/19/1-in-3-women-sexually-harassed-work-cosmopolitan_n_6713814.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/19/1-in-3-women-sexual...
    - whataretensors 9y ago
      -
      - dgacmu 9y ago
        [edited to add - I think this is a fair point, and it certainly doesn't hurt to substantiate that more than I had time to last night. Here you go.] https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/task_force/harassment/upload/report.pdf https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/task_force/harassment/upload/repor... pdf page 15 (document internal page 8): "Based on testimony to the Select Task Force and various academic articles, we learned that anywhere from 25% to 85% of women report having experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. ... We found that when employees were asked, in surveys using a randomly representative sample (called a “probability sample”), if they had experienced “sexual harassment,” without that term being defined in the survey, approximately one in four women (25%) reported experiencing “sexual harassment” in the workplace. This percentage was remarkably consistent across probability surveys. When employees were asked the same question in surveys using convenience samples (in lay terms, a convenience sample is not randomly representative because it uses respondents that are convenient to the researcher (e.g., student volunteers or respondents from one organization)), with sexual harassment not being defined, the rate rose to 50% of women reporting they had been sexually harassed." The cited EEOC report has fairly extensive citations backing up its claims. As I said - I have no specific numbers I believe are The One True Answer, but it's fairly clear from a variety of sources that the decimal points are in approximately the right place. For the purpose of what I was discussing, 25% and 85% are approximately the same ("Very much higher than one might guess if we use our own behavior as a model").

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Do you think it's reasonable to destroy his reputation before an investigation has occurred? I think people should be conscious of the uncertainty in the facts when commenting based on limited information, but that he is entitled to no more deference from private actors than, essentially, avoiding libelous statements (those known to be false or made with with reckless disregard for truth.) General private commentary is not, morally or ethically, dependent on an investigation. And, in any case, an investigation has occurred, preceding publication of the story.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Your response changed my mind on the matter, so thank you. It's especially relevant given how all of this played out. (See the other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621765 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621765 and subsequent admission https://www.axios.com/justin-caldbeck-takes-indefinite-leave-of-absence-from-binary-capital-2446988189.html https://www.axios.com/justin-caldbeck-takes-indefinite-leave...) Any ideas for recognizing situations where a bit of skepticism is warranted vs situations like this? In this case, I'm a little saddened that my comments caused some more stress for the founders. One of them personally came to correct me upthread. I think it's still important in general to reserve judgement and to wait for due process, but is there much reason to hold so fast to those views anymore? The speed at which accusations can be confirmed or denied seems to have increased to the point where it might not be so bad to just assume that the truth will usually come out. I don't know.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Any ideas for recognizing situations where a bit of skepticism is warranted vs situations like this? Skepticism is always warranted, this situation was no exception (even though the admission that has since emerged seems to implicitly confirm the reports.) But skepticism doesn't mean don't form and express a view on the facts based on what information you do have, it means be aware that you don't have the whole picture and refrain from action that is too extreme for the information you have, and remain willing to revise your opinion as more information becomes available. The last bit takes active effort to counter confirmation bias and the desire to avoid having to admit error. > I think it's still important in general to reserve judgement and to wait for due process, Even in government, “due process” isn't a binary thing; what process is due varies based on the action being taken and other elements of context. Even if we extend the concept to include private action, things like posting a comment expressing concern would have much less process due than any substantive government action. Even a government agent acting in their official capacity doesn't have to wait for a conviction to say that they believe someone is guilty.
- jonstewart 9y ago
  What due process are you looking for, precisely? Is it a practical standard to apply? Sexual harassment is not itself a crime, so it's unlikely he'll be indicted and tried. Also, "due process" has a broad meaning that goes beyond "jury trial". A good faith investigation by a journalist with six sources, three on the record, could certainly be viewed as due process.
  - pyre 9y ago
    > A good faith investigation by a journalist with six sources, three on the record, could certainly be viewed as due process. But @sillysaurus3 basically said that there is no amount of evidence that could satisfy "reasonable doubt" with this statement: > When it involves rich or powerful people, the ability to get many she-said's becomes easier. This statement basically says that gathering multiple claims and multiple accounts/allegations cannot be proof against a rich or powerful person because of some inherent propensity of women to come out of the woodwork to lodge harassment/assault claims against rich/powerful/famous people. So once you are rich and powerful you immediately win all he-said/she-said situations because people have to give you the "benefit of the doubt." (not that I agree with this statement)
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      No, it had nothing to do with women, and I resent that implication. I notice you saw the subthread where I articulated that it had nothing to do with women yet still posted a comment insinuating it does: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621640 It's not a controversial observation that rich and powerful people can acquire enemies, and some of them have been slandered by the press. It was difficult to separate that situation from this one. I assure you, I'm a reasonable and thoughtful person and it's not fair to say that I basically said there's no amount of evidence that can satisfy a claim against a powerful person. The original comment was "Maybe we should wait to see how this plays out before making any judgements." Nothing more. This whole conversation was a request for more information, so if you're going to throw me under the bus for it, you'll just push those who want to ask harmless questions further into the camp of "I shouldn't say a word." And when people have beliefs that seem reasonable to them, this can be a harmful situation when those beliefs are false. For example, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that a journalist shouldn't wield the power to destroy someone's reputation without any independent oversight. It's a simple proposition with simple, obvious consequences. But pointing out that no investigation is going to occur helped me realize that it's an absurd standard. EDIT: Also, most of my comments received around 8 upvotes. They've been bouncing up and down, but the point is, clearly a lot of people felt similarly. So by voicing these concerns, it probably changed a lot more minds than my own. Talking this out and being open with it seems like a good thing.
- dgacmu 9y ago
  Since you're asking seriously, I have a hypothesis that probably applies to a lot of the well-meaning skeptical responses in this thread: Most of the men replying in this thread have an incorrect "prior" (in the statistical sense) of the odds that a woman will experience serious sexual harassment in the workplace. This prior emerges, one presumes, because we look at ourselves as the model for estimating that behavior, think "there's no way in hell I'd behave that way, so this must be really rare", and assign a relatively low probability to the occurrence. That prior is incorrect. There are enough harassers out there, each of whom harms multiple people, that, in fact, the average experience is of having been inappropriately approached, harassed, or outright assaulted, to the point where [1] a woman has a lifetime 1 in 6 chance of being the victim of rape or attempted rape, and in one survey, 1 in 3 women reported having experienced workplace sexual harassment. [2] Those numbers may be wrong a bit in either direction, but the decimal point is probably in the right place. When we hear a claim like "X was sexually harassed by Y", we evaluate the likelihood of that statement in light of our own experience and prior - and assign to it a much lower likelihood of it being true than the true probability. In other words, you mentally calculate: P(harassed | X says harassed). By bayes rule, that's equal to P(X says harassed | harassed) * P(harassed) / P(X says harassed). So when our mental model of P(harassed) is too low, our estimate of P(harassed | X says harassed) is too low. And thus arises excessive disbelief in claims that are more likely to be true. So, my very geeky suggestion for this is: Be very precise about the question you're asking about and the assumptions that go into it. You can often find a way to validate those assumptions to check what you're asking about. [1] https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/19/1-in-3-women-sexually-harassed-work-cosmopolitan_n_6713814.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/19/1-in-3-women-sexual...
  - whataretensors 9y ago
    -
    - dgacmu 9y ago
      [edited to add - I think this is a fair point, and it certainly doesn't hurt to substantiate that more than I had time to last night. Here you go.] https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/task_force/harassment/upload/report.pdf https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/task_force/harassment/upload/repor... pdf page 15 (document internal page 8): "Based on testimony to the Select Task Force and various academic articles, we learned that anywhere from 25% to 85% of women report having experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. ... We found that when employees were asked, in surveys using a randomly representative sample (called a “probability sample”), if they had experienced “sexual harassment,” without that term being defined in the survey, approximately one in four women (25%) reported experiencing “sexual harassment” in the workplace. This percentage was remarkably consistent across probability surveys. When employees were asked the same question in surveys using convenience samples (in lay terms, a convenience sample is not randomly representative because it uses respondents that are convenient to the researcher (e.g., student volunteers or respondents from one organization)), with sexual harassment not being defined, the rate rose to 50% of women reporting they had been sexually harassed." The cited EEOC report has fairly extensive citations backing up its claims. As I said - I have no specific numbers I believe are The One True Answer, but it's fairly clear from a variety of sources that the decimal points are in approximately the right place. For the purpose of what I was discussing, 25% and 85% are approximately the same ("Very much higher than one might guess if we use our own behavior as a model").