8 ms·

An underlying theme I've noticed to this article and the response here is that of people's attitudes towards ex felons. It's as if you believe that they are per

An underlying theme I've noticed to this article and the response here is that of people's attitudes towards ex felons. It's as if you believe that they are permanently lesser people; that their moral fibre is beyond redemption and they should never be allowed to enjoy the comforts of life, let alone pursue life, liberty, and happiness. You either punish and forgive your citizens, or else you admit that you're going to oppress them forever.

jakelazaroff 8y ago
I think a huge part of why we so strongly censure these people socially is that most of them skipped the justice system entirely. For every Cosby or Weinstein who does face the music, there are a thousand Louis C.K.s, who — even when they admit to masturbating in front of multiple women! — are never charged with anything. I agree that the stigma around committing crimes is too strong and that we need to allow pathways to redemption. But people need to be brought to justice before they can be redeemed, and what we see now is a reaction to that mostly not happening.
- kstenerud 8y ago
  So, then, you believe that your justice system fails to punish these people, and therefore you must take it upon yourself to punish them instead? I don't like where this is going
  - intertextuality 8y ago
    If the justice system were perfect, and people actually received their due punishments, then societal stigma wouldn't need to exist. Judgment from the Court of Public Opinion theoretically shouldn't exist but many people get away with things that they shouldn't. Especially wealthy and famous individuals who can have things swept under the rug. So, yes, people take it on themselves instead to call people names, and yes it gets abused.
    - kstenerud 8y ago
      Calling people names is one thing. But when you have the collective power to turn people into such pariahs that they can't even get a job anymore, you're playing with a very dangerous, and readily abuseable power. And unfortunately, this is how it always goes. A group, heady on their newfound power, decides to take it a little further, and then a little further, dialing back the threshold to provoke their righteous fury. And this is why anti-vigilante laws exist.
      - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
        Sorry, I’m on mobile so I may not be reading the thread correctly, but is the logic here that there needs to be laws against public backlash to admitting sexually assaulting people (louis ck)? Edit: what I took literally here is that if you knew someone admitted to sexually assaulting their direct reports within the past year or two, and you didn’t hire them, you are personally on the hook unless you can prove you didn’t hire them for another reason?
        kstenerud 8y ago
        No. What I'm referring to is systematic pressure brought to bear upon organizations such that they are afraid to hire someone who has been designated a pariah (for whatever reason). In a tangentially related issue, as I've stated before, there is a definite problem in America with regards to ex felons who are treated like second class citizens for the rest of their lives. But that's a more complicated social attitudinal problem to solve.
        SolaceQuantum 8y ago
        Right, but in this case we're talking about louis CK, not a felon, recieved no jail time for sexually assaulting people. Should the origanizations who did not hire him be charged? Should it be illegal to crow 'how dare XXX company hire lous CK' on Twitter or the general blogosphere? I'm trying to understand your exact point that there should be laws against this phenomenon where someone has been designated a pariah. Who should be punished, and for what behaviors should they be punished for, and what is the appropriate punishment for it?
- mcny 8y ago
  I'm sorry but I think it is horrible to put Louis CK in the same sentence with Bill Cosby. Maybe I don't fully understand the situation, but there have been no reports as far as I know that Louis CK drugged anyone or physically forced himself on anyone. The case against Louis CK is purely that of abuse of power which is seen as a "white" crime as opposed to physically restraining someone. The distinction is important because "white" crimes are generally seen as better crimes and indeed when I started writing this comment I too felt it was ridiculous to hold Louis CK to the same standard as Bill Cosby. I'll end like a broken record though. We in the software industry like to do "blameless postmortems" add they like to say in devops culture. However, as soon as we walk away from our jobs, we become the same primate as everyone else. Maybe we shouldn't blame the abuser. Maybe we should not blame individual district attorneys or prosecutors for failing to prosecute cases or for acting tough on cases that simply had no common sense not. Maybe we should not blame individual police officers for waking into someone's apartment and shooting to kill claiming they thought they were in their apartment and the person was an intruder. Maybe we ought to treat the root cause of the problem — huge inequalities of power. But how?
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    Making Election Day a federal holiday, or at least moving Veteran's Day to be concurrent, would be a good move. Removing the Electoral College would be a good move. Increasing and broadening the base of the estate tax would be a good move. Increasing the highest bracket of the income tax would be a good move. This isn't intended to be political, those are very specific policy actions clearly designed to reduce the inequalities of power by a) giving citizens more power, and b) taking power from the rich, and particularly from the rich who believe there is profit in supressing the people.
    - maceurt 8y ago
      > Increasing and broadening the base of the estate tax would be a good move. > Increasing the highest bracket of the income tax would be a good move. How many times do we have to go over this? This would just make more companies and very wealthy individuals move their operations overseas or evade taxes. Income inequality is often a natural part of a large, growing economy like the United States. Furthermore, I don't even view income inequality as a problem. Poverty is a problem. People having more money than other people isn't. We should focus on eliminating poverty, not eliminating rich people.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Bill Cosby drugged and raped women. Louis CK asked if he could masturbate in front of them and if they said yes, did so. To put them in the same category at all is odious. It cheapens the suffering of anyone who’s everyone who’s ever been raped.
- j16sdiz 8y ago
  The justice system is not working as expected. It is unnecessarily long, expensive and dreadful.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > I think a huge part of why we so strongly censure these people socially is that most of them skipped the justice system entirely. And some of them are charged, convicted, even sentenced, but then get to escape their punishment anyway. See Roman Polanski as a case in point. (What's even weirder in that case is the sheer amount of people in the movie industry who used to support the guy quite overtly, even strenuously-- it's only very recently that they've had to change their tune. I guess this goes to show how cliquish instincts and dynamics can totally overwhelm our shared sense of justice.)
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Is it illegal to masturbate in front of someone? Social suicide, yes, but illegal?
IAmEveryone 8y ago
You are not an “ex” felon until you have served our time. These people are currently just “criminals”. I’m perfectly willing to give Weinstein and Cosby another chance once they have served their time.
pluma 8y ago
The question is why you punish. I couldn't give a rat's ass about how harsh and cruel someone's punishment may be (in fact, I'd argue that harsh and cruel punishments don't even work), all I care about is whether that person has changed. Louis CK for example shows no change of character whatsoever since the allegations have come out. His abuse wasn't a single "misstep", he routinely mistreated others and objectified them to the extent that he forced his sexuality on them. It's disturbing to see him return to the same comedy routine of punching down and making sexual jokes after these confirmed allegations. I don't demand punishment, I demand rehabilitation. And if he seriously understood the full extent of his past actions, he wouldn't just carry on. Imagine a child abuser wanting to work as a kindergardener after coming out of prison. Sure, he may have changed but not only is the US prison system not set up in any way to actively support personal change (wardens are not therapists, the change is expected to come from within or out of fear alone) but also if he has a past of sexually abusing children and understood that, you'd expect him to not ever want to risk slipping into the old habits again that led him down that path. So in other words, abuse allegations need not be a career-ending event, but if the allegations are truthful and you claim to seek to change your behavior, don't complain if people don't trust you when you carry on like nothing happened -- especially if your abuse was enabled by a position of power.
- pnutjam 8y ago
  True, I have no problem with past works being pulled because they are income. In the clearest sense, companies are supporting these people when they carry their works. If they don't want to, that's totally fair.
tracker1 8y ago
Especially since nearly 1% of the U.S. population is currently in prison, and probably a multiple of that being ex convicts. That's a huge number. I know a couple people that were somewhat maliciously prosecuted that still have trouble because of it. One was 18yo dating a 17yo (later married). The other was convicted of illegal gambling (had a poker club with people kicking in enough to cover appetizers).

jakelazaroff 8y ago

I think a huge part of why we so strongly censure these people socially is that most of them skipped the justice system entirely. For every Cosby or Weinstein who does face the music, there are a thousand Louis C.K.s, who — even when they admit to masturbating in front of multiple women! — are never charged with anything. I agree that the stigma around committing crimes is too strong and that we need to allow pathways to redemption. But people need to be brought to justice before they can be redeemed, and what we see now is a reaction to that mostly not happening.

kstenerud 8y ago
So, then, you believe that your justice system fails to punish these people, and therefore you must take it upon yourself to punish them instead? I don't like where this is going
- intertextuality 8y ago
  If the justice system were perfect, and people actually received their due punishments, then societal stigma wouldn't need to exist. Judgment from the Court of Public Opinion theoretically shouldn't exist but many people get away with things that they shouldn't. Especially wealthy and famous individuals who can have things swept under the rug. So, yes, people take it on themselves instead to call people names, and yes it gets abused.
  - kstenerud 8y ago
    Calling people names is one thing. But when you have the collective power to turn people into such pariahs that they can't even get a job anymore, you're playing with a very dangerous, and readily abuseable power. And unfortunately, this is how it always goes. A group, heady on their newfound power, decides to take it a little further, and then a little further, dialing back the threshold to provoke their righteous fury. And this is why anti-vigilante laws exist.
    - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      Sorry, I’m on mobile so I may not be reading the thread correctly, but is the logic here that there needs to be laws against public backlash to admitting sexually assaulting people (louis ck)? Edit: what I took literally here is that if you knew someone admitted to sexually assaulting their direct reports within the past year or two, and you didn’t hire them, you are personally on the hook unless you can prove you didn’t hire them for another reason?
      - kstenerud 8y ago
        No. What I'm referring to is systematic pressure brought to bear upon organizations such that they are afraid to hire someone who has been designated a pariah (for whatever reason). In a tangentially related issue, as I've stated before, there is a definite problem in America with regards to ex felons who are treated like second class citizens for the rest of their lives. But that's a more complicated social attitudinal problem to solve.
        SolaceQuantum 8y ago
        Right, but in this case we're talking about louis CK, not a felon, recieved no jail time for sexually assaulting people. Should the origanizations who did not hire him be charged? Should it be illegal to crow 'how dare XXX company hire lous CK' on Twitter or the general blogosphere? I'm trying to understand your exact point that there should be laws against this phenomenon where someone has been designated a pariah. Who should be punished, and for what behaviors should they be punished for, and what is the appropriate punishment for it?
mcny 8y ago
I'm sorry but I think it is horrible to put Louis CK in the same sentence with Bill Cosby. Maybe I don't fully understand the situation, but there have been no reports as far as I know that Louis CK drugged anyone or physically forced himself on anyone. The case against Louis CK is purely that of abuse of power which is seen as a "white" crime as opposed to physically restraining someone. The distinction is important because "white" crimes are generally seen as better crimes and indeed when I started writing this comment I too felt it was ridiculous to hold Louis CK to the same standard as Bill Cosby. I'll end like a broken record though. We in the software industry like to do "blameless postmortems" add they like to say in devops culture. However, as soon as we walk away from our jobs, we become the same primate as everyone else. Maybe we shouldn't blame the abuser. Maybe we should not blame individual district attorneys or prosecutors for failing to prosecute cases or for acting tough on cases that simply had no common sense not. Maybe we should not blame individual police officers for waking into someone's apartment and shooting to kill claiming they thought they were in their apartment and the person was an intruder. Maybe we ought to treat the root cause of the problem — huge inequalities of power. But how?
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  Making Election Day a federal holiday, or at least moving Veteran's Day to be concurrent, would be a good move. Removing the Electoral College would be a good move. Increasing and broadening the base of the estate tax would be a good move. Increasing the highest bracket of the income tax would be a good move. This isn't intended to be political, those are very specific policy actions clearly designed to reduce the inequalities of power by a) giving citizens more power, and b) taking power from the rich, and particularly from the rich who believe there is profit in supressing the people.
  - maceurt 8y ago
    > Increasing and broadening the base of the estate tax would be a good move. > Increasing the highest bracket of the income tax would be a good move. How many times do we have to go over this? This would just make more companies and very wealthy individuals move their operations overseas or evade taxes. Income inequality is often a natural part of a large, growing economy like the United States. Furthermore, I don't even view income inequality as a problem. Poverty is a problem. People having more money than other people isn't. We should focus on eliminating poverty, not eliminating rich people.
barry-cotter 8y ago
Bill Cosby drugged and raped women. Louis CK asked if he could masturbate in front of them and if they said yes, did so. To put them in the same category at all is odious. It cheapens the suffering of anyone who’s everyone who’s ever been raped.
j16sdiz 8y ago
The justice system is not working as expected. It is unnecessarily long, expensive and dreadful.
zozbot123 8y ago
> I think a huge part of why we so strongly censure these people socially is that most of them skipped the justice system entirely. And some of them are charged, convicted, even sentenced, but then get to escape their punishment anyway. See Roman Polanski as a case in point. (What's even weirder in that case is the sheer amount of people in the movie industry who used to support the guy quite overtly, even strenuously-- it's only very recently that they've had to change their tune. I guess this goes to show how cliquish instincts and dynamics can totally overwhelm our shared sense of justice.)
Aeolun 8y ago
Is it illegal to masturbate in front of someone? Social suicide, yes, but illegal?

IAmEveryone 8y ago

You are not an “ex” felon until you have served our time. These people are currently just “criminals”. I’m perfectly willing to give Weinstein and Cosby another chance once they have served their time.

pluma 8y ago

The question is why you punish. I couldn't give a rat's ass about how harsh and cruel someone's punishment may be (in fact, I'd argue that harsh and cruel punishments don't even work), all I care about is whether that person has changed. Louis CK for example shows no change of character whatsoever since the allegations have come out. His abuse wasn't a single "misstep", he routinely mistreated others and objectified them to the extent that he forced his sexuality on them. It's disturbing to see him return to the same comedy routine of punching down and making sexual jokes after these confirmed allegations. I don't demand punishment, I demand rehabilitation. And if he seriously understood the full extent of his past actions, he wouldn't just carry on. Imagine a child abuser wanting to work as a kindergardener after coming out of prison. Sure, he may have changed but not only is the US prison system not set up in any way to actively support personal change (wardens are not therapists, the change is expected to come from within or out of fear alone) but also if he has a past of sexually abusing children and understood that, you'd expect him to not ever want to risk slipping into the old habits again that led him down that path. So in other words, abuse allegations need not be a career-ending event, but if the allegations are truthful and you claim to seek to change your behavior, don't complain if people don't trust you when you carry on like nothing happened -- especially if your abuse was enabled by a position of power.

pnutjam 8y ago
True, I have no problem with past works being pulled because they are income. In the clearest sense, companies are supporting these people when they carry their works. If they don't want to, that's totally fair.

tracker1 8y ago

Especially since nearly 1% of the U.S. population is currently in prison, and probably a multiple of that being ex convicts. That's a huge number. I know a couple people that were somewhat maliciously prosecuted that still have trouble because of it. One was 18yo dating a 17yo (later married). The other was convicted of illegal gambling (had a poker club with people kicking in enough to cover appetizers).