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What makes you think that the women liked him, or that he thought they liked him? They were pitching to him, that's a business transaction. He himself said he l

What makes you think that the women liked him, or that he thought they liked him? They were pitching to him, that's a business transaction. He himself said he leveraged a position of power in exchange for sexual gain, and the linked article mentions groping and harassment with unwanted sexual propositions. Now the question is, what motivates you to seek out a relatively far-fetched justification for this man's possible innocence?

ddoolin 9y ago
Perhaps they see a trend of knee-jerk reactions to these kinds of cases where the defendant is presumed guilty before the entire story or evidence is out, or before any sort of due process occurs. I can see why someone would at least try, even weakly, to counteract this type of community pressure. I realize this isn't a legal matter at this point but I'm speaking of the principle(s) on which those features are based. It almost always seems to become a case of "you're either with us or you're against us," so let's try to steer clear of that.
- mejari 9y ago
  The "defendant" has already admitted to the accusations and stepped down.
  - ddoolin 9y ago
    In this case, I agree in the sense it defeats the point I made above, but for various reasons others may continue to push back on that pressure on principal rather than on the facts of the matter.
anothercomment 9y ago
First, his initial statement sounds like that (like he is genuinely shocked that he is part of the problem after all). His updated statement might reflect his realization of the reality of what went down. He looks pretty attractive - maybe there were other cases were the women were also attracted to him. Maybe women also unconsciously flirted to make him more likely to give him money, and he misinterpreted. (No, women would never do that - they would never take advantage of their attractiveness, whereas men will usually take advantage of their "position of power", right?). Pressuring women for sex is not generally that much fun, much better if they are actually into you. I would expect only a low number of psychopaths would enjoy sex with a woman who isn't into it. Therefore it seems more likely he expected them to be into it. It seems pretty normal to develop attraction after a while of intensive talking. What makes you think my "justification" is more far-fetched than your interpretation? Your prejudice that in general, "men are pigs"? In general, people want to feel good - so he may have convinced himself that the women were into him. Edit: well I am not trolling, but HN doesn't want me to comment further (as in, it doesn't allow me to). I think as long as people are not willing to have a honest discussion about the issue, and rather cling to their prejudices, it will never change. But as you wish, I will go away. Enjoy your circle-jerking.
- dang 9y ago
  Whether you mean to or not you're trolling this thread hard. Please stop now.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - nickrivadeneira 9y ago
    Just out of curiosity, what about his comment is trolling other than it being a contrarian opinion in this forum?
    - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
      That is sufficient to qualify here, unfortunately.
      - braveo 9y ago
        and now dang is going to harass him in an attempt to get him off the site. Dang doesn't appreciate being called out for his bullshit.
        tomlock 9y ago
        >It makes those of us who are a bit more moderate start to distrust everything we hear in terms of these loaded words. I've said this many times, but when you start using these words for every little thing, you do a disservice to those who are ACTUALLY being sexually harassed, raped, etc. >and now dang is going to harass him in an attempt to get him off the site. lol
    - dang 9y ago
      That's a legit question (especially out of curiosity) but one that takes a surprising amount of energy to answer precisely. I might be able to do that tomorrow, but in the meantime here are some answers in the same vein. It's all the same principle, but the details vary. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20troll%20effects https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=... Edit: I wrote some more downthread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14627388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14627388, if anyone wants more to read about how we approach this.
khazhoux 9y ago
> Now the question is, what motivates you to seek out a relatively far-fetched justification for this man's possible innocence? You're implying he supports sexual harassment. He's bringing up a perfectly valid question for discussion: what if the person has an outsized opinion of his attractiveness, and also happens to be a VC -- is that still sexual harassment or just stupidity? Well, the answer is that in this case it's still harassment. And so now there's question, answer, discussion, etc. No need to accuse the poster of being complicit himself in harassment.

ddoolin 9y ago

Perhaps they see a trend of knee-jerk reactions to these kinds of cases where the defendant is presumed guilty before the entire story or evidence is out, or before any sort of due process occurs. I can see why someone would at least try, even weakly, to counteract this type of community pressure. I realize this isn't a legal matter at this point but I'm speaking of the principle(s) on which those features are based. It almost always seems to become a case of "you're either with us or you're against us," so let's try to steer clear of that.

mejari 9y ago
The "defendant" has already admitted to the accusations and stepped down.
- ddoolin 9y ago
  In this case, I agree in the sense it defeats the point I made above, but for various reasons others may continue to push back on that pressure on principal rather than on the facts of the matter.

anothercomment 9y ago

First, his initial statement sounds like that (like he is genuinely shocked that he is part of the problem after all). His updated statement might reflect his realization of the reality of what went down. He looks pretty attractive - maybe there were other cases were the women were also attracted to him. Maybe women also unconsciously flirted to make him more likely to give him money, and he misinterpreted. (No, women would never do that - they would never take advantage of their attractiveness, whereas men will usually take advantage of their "position of power", right?). Pressuring women for sex is not generally that much fun, much better if they are actually into you. I would expect only a low number of psychopaths would enjoy sex with a woman who isn't into it. Therefore it seems more likely he expected them to be into it. It seems pretty normal to develop attraction after a while of intensive talking. What makes you think my "justification" is more far-fetched than your interpretation? Your prejudice that in general, "men are pigs"? In general, people want to feel good - so he may have convinced himself that the women were into him. Edit: well I am not trolling, but HN doesn't want me to comment further (as in, it doesn't allow me to). I think as long as people are not willing to have a honest discussion about the issue, and rather cling to their prejudices, it will never change. But as you wish, I will go away. Enjoy your circle-jerking.

dang 9y ago
Whether you mean to or not you're trolling this thread hard. Please stop now.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- nickrivadeneira 9y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what about his comment is trolling other than it being a contrarian opinion in this forum?
  - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
    That is sufficient to qualify here, unfortunately.
    - braveo 9y ago
      and now dang is going to harass him in an attempt to get him off the site. Dang doesn't appreciate being called out for his bullshit.
      - tomlock 9y ago
        >It makes those of us who are a bit more moderate start to distrust everything we hear in terms of these loaded words. I've said this many times, but when you start using these words for every little thing, you do a disservice to those who are ACTUALLY being sexually harassed, raped, etc. >and now dang is going to harass him in an attempt to get him off the site. lol
  - dang 9y ago
    That's a legit question (especially out of curiosity) but one that takes a surprising amount of energy to answer precisely. I might be able to do that tomorrow, but in the meantime here are some answers in the same vein. It's all the same principle, but the details vary. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20troll%20effects https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=... Edit: I wrote some more downthread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14627388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14627388, if anyone wants more to read about how we approach this.

khazhoux 9y ago

> Now the question is, what motivates you to seek out a relatively far-fetched justification for this man's possible innocence? You're implying he supports sexual harassment. He's bringing up a perfectly valid question for discussion: what if the person has an outsized opinion of his attractiveness, and also happens to be a VC -- is that still sexual harassment or just stupidity? Well, the answer is that in this case it's still harassment. And so now there's question, answer, discussion, etc. No need to accuse the poster of being complicit himself in harassment.