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Some excerpts: > Talking specifically about Brianna Wu, Loni Reeder said, “based on her political aspirations, personal assumptions, and libelous accusations a

Some excerpts: > Talking specifically about Brianna Wu, Loni Reeder said, “based on her political aspirations, personal assumptions, and libelous accusations against a man [Nolan Bushnell] where no complaints have been raised or filed — she made a big, unfounded noise against Nolan — and the Pioneer Award honor was withdrawn.” > ... > To Summarize… > •Activists expressed prior desire to bring the #MeToo movement to the video game industry. > •No one who has worked with Nolan Bushnell has complained of any impropriety. > •Several past employees, including women, have come forward to speak in Bushnell’s defense. > •Al Alcorn directly refutes Brianna Wu’s interpretation of his story. > •All former Atari employees are telling stories that are consistent with one another. > There were drugs, there were hot tubs, there were relationships, and none of that would fly today. But none of it indicates a culture that was hostile to women. > Indeed, Loni Reeder and other former Atari employees recently worked on a spreadsheet in order to contradict the sexism claims being lobbed at Nolan Bushnell. According to their research, in those pre-Warner days of Atari, 36% of the workforce were women. It's sounds like the accusations are basically a twitter political hit-job with little grounding in fact. Social media was a mistake.

digi_owl 9y ago
I was waiting for something like this to happen ever since the whole hashtag started rolling...
peterwwillis 9y ago
All of the people (edit: one of the people) who were interviewed admitted that there was sexist behavior at the company (Uh, a game where you grab a woman's tits? What?). But the women who worked there don't seem bothered by it. So the point of this whole situation should really be two questions. The first question would be: is sexism okay if nobody minds? The immediate, modern answer has become "No." A zero-tolerance policy is being adopted by most organizations in the world, due to mounting pressure to hold people accountable for unacceptable behavior. But it's clear that has not always been the case. If we rigidly judge all past behavior based on modern standards, we end up with cases like this. And maybe that's fine? Maybe we should judge all old actions based on modern standards, because we should continue to live by our current standards. But is this fair to the people who lived decades ago? Should we just say, they should have known better? This second question is how other controversies have developed recently, such as the tearing down of monuments depicting people who represent injustice. We are judging their former actions based on modern-day standards. And again: maybe this is fine. But I don't think our society has come to a definite conclusion. In any of these cases, a moderate person would perhaps try to find a common understanding and seek the best solution that weighs all the merits of each individual case. But society is not shaped by moderation. Emotional exuberance is how human society is guided, and the silent consent of the majority drives it forward. So expect more controversy for quite some time to come.
- geofft 9y ago
  > All of the people who were interviewed admitted that there was sexist behavior at the company ... But the women who worked there don't seem bothered by it. Yeah, that's what it sounds like the whole truth is - there were serious problems, and those who worked at the company weren't bothered by it. #NotNolan focuses on the former, Glasgow on the latter, but the whole truth is a combination of the two. (And the Kotaku article attempts to convey both of those.) So I'm particularly curious if there were women who weren't okay with the culture, felt uncomfortable or threatened, and left. Selecting for people who worked somewhere for a long time is naturally going to select for people who didn't have serious problems with the work culture / convinced themselves they were okay with it.
  - peterwwillis 9y ago
    > I'm particularly curious if there were women who weren't okay with the culture, felt uncomfortable or threatened, and left. Why? Assuming the answer is 'yes', what does this change? Assuming the answer is 'no', what does this change?
    - geofft 9y ago
      If the answer is "yes," it changes my belief in the narrative told in the Glasgow post, that everyone was okay with it and the only people who have problems are present-day outsiders trying to retrofit an agenda where it didn't fit. (In particular, it changes my opinion of the outsiders - if they were observing an actual problem that other people weren't noticing, and it holds up to scrutiny, that's now a credit to them.) If the answer is "no," that changes my belief about whether today's cultural norms against sexist workplaces are an objective good. (Both of these changes would be small but measurable updates.)
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    > there were serious problems, and those who worked at the company weren't bothered by it Is something a problem, let alone a serious one, if it doesn't bother those who are affected by it?
ceejayoz 9y ago
While making no statements either way on these particular allegations, a few notes: > Activists expressed prior desire to bring the #MeToo movement to the video game industry. I'm not sure why this is highlighted as a bad thing. People should be free to speak up about these sorts of thing in any industry, and there's not going to be any industry totally free of incidents. > No one who has worked with Nolan Bushnell has complained of any impropriety. As we've seen with Weinstein, some abusers have decades of misbehavior they've managed to successfully cover up with NDAs, legal threats, and other forms of coercion. > Several past employees, including women, have come forward to speak in Bushnell’s defense. Again, frequently seen in cases of abusers. People spoke in defense of Weinstein, too. Trump trots out female friends and employees. Some settlements require the victims to issue a statement that they're retracting the claims. etc.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > > Activists expressed prior desire to bring the #MeToo movement to the video game industry. > I'm not sure why this is highlighted as a bad thing. People should be free to speak up about these sorts of thing in any industry, and there's not going to be any industry totally free of incidents. It's not a bad thing to have the video game industry able to call out sexual harassment when it occurs. It is a bad thing to paint something as harassment that wasn't perceived as harassment by the "victims", in the name of getting #MeToo rolling in the video game industry. Essentially, it's false accusation in order to advance the movement. That's not going to end well.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    Again, making no statement about the merits of this particular allegation... The victims in the Nassar gymnastics case were largely convinced as part of the abuse that the "treatments" they were normal and legitimate. It's entirely possible for victims to become inured to mistreatment. It's not necessarily bad for an outside person to say "hey, that sounds like it was harassment/misconduct/rape/etc. and not OK." Again, I don't know the players here, the history, and can't evaluate either side of things. I do object to the "if the victims don't complain it can't have happened" line of thinking.

digi_owl 9y ago

I was waiting for something like this to happen ever since the whole hashtag started rolling...

peterwwillis 9y ago

All of the people (edit: one of the people) who were interviewed admitted that there was sexist behavior at the company (Uh, a game where you grab a woman's tits? What?). But the women who worked there don't seem bothered by it. So the point of this whole situation should really be two questions. The first question would be: is sexism okay if nobody minds? The immediate, modern answer has become "No." A zero-tolerance policy is being adopted by most organizations in the world, due to mounting pressure to hold people accountable for unacceptable behavior. But it's clear that has not always been the case. If we rigidly judge all past behavior based on modern standards, we end up with cases like this. And maybe that's fine? Maybe we should judge all old actions based on modern standards, because we should continue to live by our current standards. But is this fair to the people who lived decades ago? Should we just say, they should have known better? This second question is how other controversies have developed recently, such as the tearing down of monuments depicting people who represent injustice. We are judging their former actions based on modern-day standards. And again: maybe this is fine. But I don't think our society has come to a definite conclusion. In any of these cases, a moderate person would perhaps try to find a common understanding and seek the best solution that weighs all the merits of each individual case. But society is not shaped by moderation. Emotional exuberance is how human society is guided, and the silent consent of the majority drives it forward. So expect more controversy for quite some time to come.

geofft 9y ago
> All of the people who were interviewed admitted that there was sexist behavior at the company ... But the women who worked there don't seem bothered by it. Yeah, that's what it sounds like the whole truth is - there were serious problems, and those who worked at the company weren't bothered by it. #NotNolan focuses on the former, Glasgow on the latter, but the whole truth is a combination of the two. (And the Kotaku article attempts to convey both of those.) So I'm particularly curious if there were women who weren't okay with the culture, felt uncomfortable or threatened, and left. Selecting for people who worked somewhere for a long time is naturally going to select for people who didn't have serious problems with the work culture / convinced themselves they were okay with it.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  > I'm particularly curious if there were women who weren't okay with the culture, felt uncomfortable or threatened, and left. Why? Assuming the answer is 'yes', what does this change? Assuming the answer is 'no', what does this change?
  - geofft 9y ago
    If the answer is "yes," it changes my belief in the narrative told in the Glasgow post, that everyone was okay with it and the only people who have problems are present-day outsiders trying to retrofit an agenda where it didn't fit. (In particular, it changes my opinion of the outsiders - if they were observing an actual problem that other people weren't noticing, and it holds up to scrutiny, that's now a credit to them.) If the answer is "no," that changes my belief about whether today's cultural norms against sexist workplaces are an objective good. (Both of these changes would be small but measurable updates.)
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > there were serious problems, and those who worked at the company weren't bothered by it Is something a problem, let alone a serious one, if it doesn't bother those who are affected by it?

ceejayoz 9y ago

While making no statements either way on these particular allegations, a few notes: > Activists expressed prior desire to bring the #MeToo movement to the video game industry. I'm not sure why this is highlighted as a bad thing. People should be free to speak up about these sorts of thing in any industry, and there's not going to be any industry totally free of incidents. > No one who has worked with Nolan Bushnell has complained of any impropriety. As we've seen with Weinstein, some abusers have decades of misbehavior they've managed to successfully cover up with NDAs, legal threats, and other forms of coercion. > Several past employees, including women, have come forward to speak in Bushnell’s defense. Again, frequently seen in cases of abusers. People spoke in defense of Weinstein, too. Trump trots out female friends and employees. Some settlements require the victims to issue a statement that they're retracting the claims. etc.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
> > Activists expressed prior desire to bring the #MeToo movement to the video game industry. > I'm not sure why this is highlighted as a bad thing. People should be free to speak up about these sorts of thing in any industry, and there's not going to be any industry totally free of incidents. It's not a bad thing to have the video game industry able to call out sexual harassment when it occurs. It is a bad thing to paint something as harassment that wasn't perceived as harassment by the "victims", in the name of getting #MeToo rolling in the video game industry. Essentially, it's false accusation in order to advance the movement. That's not going to end well.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Again, making no statement about the merits of this particular allegation... The victims in the Nassar gymnastics case were largely convinced as part of the abuse that the "treatments" they were normal and legitimate. It's entirely possible for victims to become inured to mistreatment. It's not necessarily bad for an outside person to say "hey, that sounds like it was harassment/misconduct/rape/etc. and not OK." Again, I don't know the players here, the history, and can't evaluate either side of things. I do object to the "if the victims don't complain it can't have happened" line of thinking.