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This comes off as naive. I saw the domestic abuse allegations again him and decided to read up. He had multiple allegations from both exes. He lightly joked ab

This comes off as naive. I saw the domestic abuse allegations again him and decided to read up. He had multiple allegations from both exes. He lightly joked about rape, domestic abuse etc. Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny, you can still see him making these jokes int interviews about his situation. You've got people on HN today that believe that metoo is just made up. Those victims were mocked and denied justice for years because a lot of socially awkward dudes make the mistake of assuming that cause they're nice other guys are, too. I know nothing bout him other than the public forum that he himself put in. There's no other way to judge him. I think it's telling that you've flipped this around into tropes about gender and being scorned.

Jensson 5y ago
> Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny Autists often don't pick up on that and continues to make unfunny or cringe jokes year after year. That makes them prime targets for false accusations, since the world is full of people like you who will assume they are guilty just because they are socially unaware.
- romwell 5y ago
  As an autistic: no. Lack of social awareness isn't an excuse for rape and abuse jokes. You don't need any social awareness to figure out that you shouldn't do that. The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind. Autism is not stupidity. You are not doing "autists" any favor by trying to excuse this behavior. (Also, for some reason, autistic women aren't seen joking about rape and domestic abuse. Perhaps autism isn't the reason why someone may feel comfortable making these jokes, huh.)
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    “Jokes at someone else’s expense = bad” seems to me like it literally* requires some social awareness. * in its original definition
    - wayoutthere 5y ago
      Look, autistic people don’t get a pass for being socially awkward, nor are we entitled to one. The internet autism communities (particularly the edgelordy ones) often enable this nonsense because “fuck you I don’t want to change”. Social skills therapy exists and you can learn these things. Poor social awareness does not make up for contributing to a hostile work environment, full stop. Autism means you have to work on yourself and understand your emotional triggers to a degree non-autistic people just don’t. That’s just our lot in life.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        Right, we shouldn't exempt autistic people who make bad jokes. But you shouldn't assume that those people are rapists or domestic abusers just because they make those jokes.
        romwell 5y ago
        >But you shouldn't assume that those people are rapists or domestic abusers just because they make those jokes. No such assumption is made. However, rape jokes are a signal that gives some credibility to such accusations. Just like the knowledge of someone making constantly jokes about murdering a particular person (say, Jensson) would be very much on the radar as a suspect in case Jensson accuses that person of attempted murder.
        wayoutthere 5y ago
        I’m sorry, but a cavalier attitude around rape and domestic abuse absolutely contribute to a hostile work environment which both from a legal and simple fairness perspective is a problem. Sexual assault and domestic abuse are unfortunately quite common — when you make that joke, there’s a very real chance that someone within earshot has been raped or abused. And it’s not just women who are the victims, so they’re not ok around “just the boys” either. Autistic people aren’t dumb. We do understand when actions have consequences. The reasons why may seem arbitrary to us, but again, it doesn’t mean the consequences aren’t real or that we can violate the psychological safety of others with impunity. Yeah, that may mean getting fired for telling edgy jokes to understand you don’t make edgy jokes at work. I’m 100% ok with that as an autistic person.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind. Rape jokes aren't at anyone's expense. A joke at someone's expense would be making fun of someone, a rape joke is just something like "9 out of 10 enjoys gang rape" etc, that isn't what people mean when they say "joke at someone else's expense". So to me your post just shows that you lack the social awareness to understand these things, and if you grew up in a different environment you would have happily made rape jokes.
    - commoner 5y ago
      > So to me your post just shows that you lack the social awareness to understand these things Your first comment used autistic people as an example to advance your argument. When an autistic person used personal experience to counter your argument, you defended your argument by accusing the autistic person of lacking the social awareness needed to understand the point they just made. Frankly, your comments aren't making any sense.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        My point was that people who make rape jokes as young adults stops with it when they realize that other people gets disturbed by them. An autistic person who never made rape jokes isn't a counter example for anything, and that autistic person saying that other autistic people should just naturally understand that rape jokes are bad doesn't prove anything either.
        romwell 5y ago
        >An autistic that never made rape jokes isn't... Seems like you're referring to me here, and again, are making unsubstantiated assumptions. Is that a hobby of yours? I've told this particular joke, and didn't find it problematic in the past. I learned. See, it doesn't have to do with social aweareness. After thinking about it, I figured it's bad to think that way (as explained above). >other autistic people should just naturally understand that rape jokes are bad Never said that. Please don't lie. >doesn't prove anything either. Your claim that autistic people are more likely to make that joke because of their autism is 1) incorrect, as proven at least by this counterexample, plus the analysis above, and observation that autistic women aren't seen telling rape jokes at the same rate as all men; 2) offensive to autistic people, by implying that figuring this out is a-priori beyond their reach; 3) not a claim you are qualified to make. Please stop. Autism doesn't make people douchebags, making rape jokes does.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    There's (famously) a spectrum for autism, and individual differences in any case. You can't speak for the whole spectrum just for placing somewhere on it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - romwell 5y ago
      Oh, but the parent comment gets to speak for the whole spectrum by saying that autistic people wouldn't know that they shouldn't make rape jokes in public because they are autistic? Without citing any sources, or having any qualifications to do so, or even claiming to speak from personal experience? Perhaps you should direct your comment to them.
      - Chris2048 5y ago
        > gets to speak for the whole spectrum I don't see any claim that they speak for the spectrum, i.e. no appeal to authority/identity. Sure, it means they don't provide a basis for their claims, but in this case I am attacking what I see as an invalid basis. Also: > by saying that autistic people wouldn't know that.. They said "Autists often don't.." i.e they aren't speaking about all/any/every, but some. They are talking about some subset of the population. > Perhaps you should direct your comment to them. What I feel is worth spending time criticising is my business. Given the hedge of talking about some autistic people it's almost certainly true without qualification. > or even claiming to speak from personal experience OP didn't talk from PE of other autistic people, but purely from their own behaviour, i.e. an n=1 generalisation.
        romwell 5y ago
        Look, the OP implied that autism maybe be a likely reason why someone could be observed regularly making denigrating jokes like "9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape", because we lack "social awareness" to tell otherwise. As an autistic person, who knows other autistic people, and is a part of online community of autistic people, I'll go out on limb and say that the OP is talking out of their ass, and I can comfortably speak on the behalf of the community on this topic. Other people who identified as being on the spectrum in this thread agreed. OP never said they were autistic. It's just what they think autistic people would do. It's an n=√-1 generalization: purely imaginary, and on top of it, insulting, because figuring out why a joke like "9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape" is bad doesn't take that much. Particularly because so much has been written about it. Go ahead and read [1], it's an excellent article. Or my comments elsewhere. TL;DR: portraying the condition of "being a jerk" as an autistic trait is a jerk move. >What I feel is worth spending time criticising is my business. Then perhaps you should spend less time criticizing, and more time getting a clue — though again, I'm sure you have different plans regarding that too. [1] https://theconversation.com/psychology-behind-the-unfunny-consequences-of-jokes-that-denigrate-63855 https://theconversation.com/psychology-behind-the-unfunny-co...
- eptcyka 5y ago
  I fail to see how the parent is insinuating that they believe making distasteful jokes implies guilt.
  - romwell 5y ago
    You fail to see this because they don't :) They say that the history of making such jokes makes the accusations more weight, which is a reasonable thing to say. We are not putting someone behind the bars for making a joke.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  Richard Kyanka was many things but I'd have a very hard time believing 'autistic' was one of them.
havkd 5y ago
It’s like you’re saying that someone who makes rape jokes is more likely to be a rapist.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Welcome to the world of Bayesian priors, and our star witness, the OJ Simpson murder trial. There was a comment which didn't get enough attention during that trial: the defense claimed that fewer then 1 in 1000 women who suffer domestic abuse are killed by their domestic partners and therefore allegations of spousal abuse by OJ Simpson did not constitute supporting evidence. But: this is wrong. Because once a woman has been killed, if her domestic partner was an abuser then almost 80% of the time the abuser did it (given reasonable other factual assumptions - i.e. pretty obviously if they weren't in the same state at the time then we can exclude it etc..) The key part of the issue is that once an event has occurred, the Bayesian prior has changed: we are no longer evaluating the same initial probability. [1] https://math.temple.edu/~paulos/oldsite/oj.html https://math.temple.edu/~paulos/oldsite/oj.html
jokethrowaway 5y ago
I make the worst joke and I hope you wouldn't consider me a domestic abuser. Given how our judicial system works, if I had an public known history for jokes about rape, it would be even easier to mount a case of domestic abuse on me. If a divorce will grant me unique custody of my children or money and get rid of my ex, I would be ready to lie my way out. Unless there is proof, these are just allegations. And if I were to lose my children due to the court system being biased, I'd be pretty devastated as well.
- content_sesh 5y ago
  Every one of my ex-wives is a crazy bitch. Every judge has it out for me. It's not my fault my kids don't like me; their mom keeps poisoning them against me with lies and my visitation schedule makes it impossible for me to be in their lives. No one ever believes me, they all just want to think I'm the bad guy. You don't need to construct hypotheticals here because we're talking about a specific person. He pretty much sounded like what I just wrote. How many years can you listen to someone give the same excuses over and over - it's never their fault, it's because X, Y or Z - before you figure out that they're not the unluckiest person in the world but just an asshole?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    My dad says all of those things, but he never abused anyone. My mother told people a lot of lies about him, said he abused us etc. He was just naive, socially unaware and had money, and that somehow attracts horrible women like a lantern attracts flies. Now I wouldn't say that my dad was a good dad, but he wasn't an abuser.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Sometimes participants in a discussion can't get a particular scenario out of their head to the point they literally can't accept even a hypothetical scenario that differs. You seem stuck on the scenario where, by construction, an actually guilty person is accused, and then claims the allegations are false. But you haven't really engaged, it seems to me, with another scenario where, by construction, an actually innocent person is falsely accused, and then claims the allegations are false. Is your position that this just never happens, and never could happen? Or it happens so infrequently it can be ignored?
kortilla 5y ago
> This comes off as naive. I saw the domestic abuse allegations again him and decided to read up. Indeed, reading allegations and treating that as research does come off as naive. > Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny, you can still see him making these jokes int interviews about his situation. It’s cool that your sense of humor about that changed during adolescence. That’s not true for many people around the world, especially people who are now in their 40s+. Mainstream standup comedians were joking about domestic abuse in the 2000s still. People joke about dark and inappropriate shit all of the time. Real life isn’t like the workplace or campuses where everything is politically correct.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Society is really confused about right and wrong. Wendy Williams (a talk show host) asked her audience if one of her guests, who wanted a baby, should trick her boyfriend into fathering a child. The audience laughed and said yes -- Wendy laughed too, and agreed. This is called paternity fraud, because once pregnant the father will have no say in the disposition of the child, AND will be on the hook for child support. That's 18 years of free money for the mom! To quote Lynch's Dune, "And for the father, nothing."
  - davidgerard 5y ago
    At this point in the thread, it seems clear you're talking about personal issues and not about anything to do with Richard Kyanka or the detailed allegations, police reports, etc.
    - javajosh 5y ago
      The guy killed himself and posters are mentioning "credible DV allegations" to imply "good, glad he's dead, he (probably) deserved it." This is the concrete outcome of a much broader consequence of exempting women from ordinary standards of evidence around DV allegations. It's a big problem, worth pointing out, and I strongly suspect that Kyanka would appreciate the discussion.
AmericanChopper 5y ago
The problem with metoo is that the solution it envisioned for the problem, was to attempt to undermine the justice portion of the justice system as much as it could, and to create as many avenues for extrajudicial punishment as it possibly could. The entirely inevitable outcome of this is that these new systems were put to use by people to enact personal agendas, in any venue where interpersonal politics was relevant. Which is why we have a growing cohort of people who now reactivity think that any accusation is more likely to be false than true. Sure, these accusations can be very hard to prove. But an accusation of a false accusation is even harder to prove. Yet most people will be inclined to reactively put their faith in one of those accusations, but not the other. The idea we’ve come up with to resolve this tension is the presumption of innocence, and that accusations must be proven for justice to be carried out. This is one of the foundational moral and legal principles of all liberal democracies. While people might end up frustrated by the unavoidable outcome that sometimes, some conflicts can’t be satisfactorily resolved, throwing out the core principles of justice seems like a bad solution to some people.
- romwell 5y ago
  #metoo was literally about bringing the attention to the scale of the problem and raising awareness, and normalize talking about abuse, so that it wouldn't continue in silence. The court of public opinion has existed before and after #metoo. Let's not pretend that #metoo invented it. If twenty people were to go public and say that Justin Bieber beat each of them with a crowbar, Justin Bieber would have some 'splainin to do, whether or not there's a court case. If twenty people gave interviews and said that Martha Stewart personally fed them poisoned pies for shits and giggles, Martha would be affected by that, whether these people decide to sue or not. But the society made an exception for sexual abuse. Rape and drugging in particular. #metoo simply made it count just as much.
  - AmericanChopper 5y ago
    Society never made an exception for sexual abuse at all. If I accused Justin Bieber of beating me with a crowbar, but somehow I was unable to provide any evidence at all that I was ever even injured, people wouldn’t take me seriously. If I successfully started a rumour that Biebs was a serial crowbar assaulter, it’s possible that it might get some media traction, but publishing rumours like that (at least used to be) the exclusive domain of tabloid media. However, if somebody makes an accusation of sexual assault, it’s possible for that to become a national headline without even any evidence that the two people have ever met. I mean, the slogan of metoo was “believe women”, which is the exact opposite of “presume innocence”. It applied pressure to police to arrest without evidence, for prosecutors to prosecute without evidence, for juries to convict without evidence, for employers to fire without evidence, and for society to exclude without evidence. The core objective of the movement was to fundamentally undermine the most important principle of our system of justice. Now that’s a particularly indefensible proposition when you actually think about it, so most people don’t try to. They just attempt some variation of your comment, where you attempt to deny the plainly obvious fact that this is what it was about.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Jensson 5y ago

> Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny Autists often don't pick up on that and continues to make unfunny or cringe jokes year after year. That makes them prime targets for false accusations, since the world is full of people like you who will assume they are guilty just because they are socially unaware.

romwell 5y ago
As an autistic: no. Lack of social awareness isn't an excuse for rape and abuse jokes. You don't need any social awareness to figure out that you shouldn't do that. The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind. Autism is not stupidity. You are not doing "autists" any favor by trying to excuse this behavior. (Also, for some reason, autistic women aren't seen joking about rape and domestic abuse. Perhaps autism isn't the reason why someone may feel comfortable making these jokes, huh.)
- sokoloff 5y ago
  “Jokes at someone else’s expense = bad” seems to me like it literally* requires some social awareness. * in its original definition
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    Look, autistic people don’t get a pass for being socially awkward, nor are we entitled to one. The internet autism communities (particularly the edgelordy ones) often enable this nonsense because “fuck you I don’t want to change”. Social skills therapy exists and you can learn these things. Poor social awareness does not make up for contributing to a hostile work environment, full stop. Autism means you have to work on yourself and understand your emotional triggers to a degree non-autistic people just don’t. That’s just our lot in life.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Right, we shouldn't exempt autistic people who make bad jokes. But you shouldn't assume that those people are rapists or domestic abusers just because they make those jokes.
      - romwell 5y ago
        >But you shouldn't assume that those people are rapists or domestic abusers just because they make those jokes. No such assumption is made. However, rape jokes are a signal that gives some credibility to such accusations. Just like the knowledge of someone making constantly jokes about murdering a particular person (say, Jensson) would be very much on the radar as a suspect in case Jensson accuses that person of attempted murder.
      - wayoutthere 5y ago
        I’m sorry, but a cavalier attitude around rape and domestic abuse absolutely contribute to a hostile work environment which both from a legal and simple fairness perspective is a problem. Sexual assault and domestic abuse are unfortunately quite common — when you make that joke, there’s a very real chance that someone within earshot has been raped or abused. And it’s not just women who are the victims, so they’re not ok around “just the boys” either. Autistic people aren’t dumb. We do understand when actions have consequences. The reasons why may seem arbitrary to us, but again, it doesn’t mean the consequences aren’t real or that we can violate the psychological safety of others with impunity. Yeah, that may mean getting fired for telling edgy jokes to understand you don’t make edgy jokes at work. I’m 100% ok with that as an autistic person.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind. Rape jokes aren't at anyone's expense. A joke at someone's expense would be making fun of someone, a rape joke is just something like "9 out of 10 enjoys gang rape" etc, that isn't what people mean when they say "joke at someone else's expense". So to me your post just shows that you lack the social awareness to understand these things, and if you grew up in a different environment you would have happily made rape jokes.
  - commoner 5y ago
    > So to me your post just shows that you lack the social awareness to understand these things Your first comment used autistic people as an example to advance your argument. When an autistic person used personal experience to counter your argument, you defended your argument by accusing the autistic person of lacking the social awareness needed to understand the point they just made. Frankly, your comments aren't making any sense.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      My point was that people who make rape jokes as young adults stops with it when they realize that other people gets disturbed by them. An autistic person who never made rape jokes isn't a counter example for anything, and that autistic person saying that other autistic people should just naturally understand that rape jokes are bad doesn't prove anything either.
      - romwell 5y ago
        >An autistic that never made rape jokes isn't... Seems like you're referring to me here, and again, are making unsubstantiated assumptions. Is that a hobby of yours? I've told this particular joke, and didn't find it problematic in the past. I learned. See, it doesn't have to do with social aweareness. After thinking about it, I figured it's bad to think that way (as explained above). >other autistic people should just naturally understand that rape jokes are bad Never said that. Please don't lie. >doesn't prove anything either. Your claim that autistic people are more likely to make that joke because of their autism is 1) incorrect, as proven at least by this counterexample, plus the analysis above, and observation that autistic women aren't seen telling rape jokes at the same rate as all men; 2) offensive to autistic people, by implying that figuring this out is a-priori beyond their reach; 3) not a claim you are qualified to make. Please stop. Autism doesn't make people douchebags, making rape jokes does.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  There's (famously) a spectrum for autism, and individual differences in any case. You can't speak for the whole spectrum just for placing somewhere on it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - romwell 5y ago
    Oh, but the parent comment gets to speak for the whole spectrum by saying that autistic people wouldn't know that they shouldn't make rape jokes in public because they are autistic? Without citing any sources, or having any qualifications to do so, or even claiming to speak from personal experience? Perhaps you should direct your comment to them.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      > gets to speak for the whole spectrum I don't see any claim that they speak for the spectrum, i.e. no appeal to authority/identity. Sure, it means they don't provide a basis for their claims, but in this case I am attacking what I see as an invalid basis. Also: > by saying that autistic people wouldn't know that.. They said "Autists often don't.." i.e they aren't speaking about all/any/every, but some. They are talking about some subset of the population. > Perhaps you should direct your comment to them. What I feel is worth spending time criticising is my business. Given the hedge of talking about some autistic people it's almost certainly true without qualification. > or even claiming to speak from personal experience OP didn't talk from PE of other autistic people, but purely from their own behaviour, i.e. an n=1 generalisation.
      - romwell 5y ago
        Look, the OP implied that autism maybe be a likely reason why someone could be observed regularly making denigrating jokes like "9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape", because we lack "social awareness" to tell otherwise. As an autistic person, who knows other autistic people, and is a part of online community of autistic people, I'll go out on limb and say that the OP is talking out of their ass, and I can comfortably speak on the behalf of the community on this topic. Other people who identified as being on the spectrum in this thread agreed. OP never said they were autistic. It's just what they think autistic people would do. It's an n=√-1 generalization: purely imaginary, and on top of it, insulting, because figuring out why a joke like "9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape" is bad doesn't take that much. Particularly because so much has been written about it. Go ahead and read [1], it's an excellent article. Or my comments elsewhere. TL;DR: portraying the condition of "being a jerk" as an autistic trait is a jerk move. >What I feel is worth spending time criticising is my business. Then perhaps you should spend less time criticizing, and more time getting a clue — though again, I'm sure you have different plans regarding that too. [1] https://theconversation.com/psychology-behind-the-unfunny-consequences-of-jokes-that-denigrate-63855 https://theconversation.com/psychology-behind-the-unfunny-co...
eptcyka 5y ago
I fail to see how the parent is insinuating that they believe making distasteful jokes implies guilt.
- romwell 5y ago
  You fail to see this because they don't :) They say that the history of making such jokes makes the accusations more weight, which is a reasonable thing to say. We are not putting someone behind the bars for making a joke.
bigbillheck 5y ago
Richard Kyanka was many things but I'd have a very hard time believing 'autistic' was one of them.

havkd 5y ago

It’s like you’re saying that someone who makes rape jokes is more likely to be a rapist.

XorNot 5y ago
Welcome to the world of Bayesian priors, and our star witness, the OJ Simpson murder trial. There was a comment which didn't get enough attention during that trial: the defense claimed that fewer then 1 in 1000 women who suffer domestic abuse are killed by their domestic partners and therefore allegations of spousal abuse by OJ Simpson did not constitute supporting evidence. But: this is wrong. Because once a woman has been killed, if her domestic partner was an abuser then almost 80% of the time the abuser did it (given reasonable other factual assumptions - i.e. pretty obviously if they weren't in the same state at the time then we can exclude it etc..) The key part of the issue is that once an event has occurred, the Bayesian prior has changed: we are no longer evaluating the same initial probability. [1] https://math.temple.edu/~paulos/oldsite/oj.html https://math.temple.edu/~paulos/oldsite/oj.html

jokethrowaway 5y ago

I make the worst joke and I hope you wouldn't consider me a domestic abuser. Given how our judicial system works, if I had an public known history for jokes about rape, it would be even easier to mount a case of domestic abuse on me. If a divorce will grant me unique custody of my children or money and get rid of my ex, I would be ready to lie my way out. Unless there is proof, these are just allegations. And if I were to lose my children due to the court system being biased, I'd be pretty devastated as well.

content_sesh 5y ago
Every one of my ex-wives is a crazy bitch. Every judge has it out for me. It's not my fault my kids don't like me; their mom keeps poisoning them against me with lies and my visitation schedule makes it impossible for me to be in their lives. No one ever believes me, they all just want to think I'm the bad guy. You don't need to construct hypotheticals here because we're talking about a specific person. He pretty much sounded like what I just wrote. How many years can you listen to someone give the same excuses over and over - it's never their fault, it's because X, Y or Z - before you figure out that they're not the unluckiest person in the world but just an asshole?
- Jensson 5y ago
  My dad says all of those things, but he never abused anyone. My mother told people a lot of lies about him, said he abused us etc. He was just naive, socially unaware and had money, and that somehow attracts horrible women like a lantern attracts flies. Now I wouldn't say that my dad was a good dad, but he wasn't an abuser.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Sometimes participants in a discussion can't get a particular scenario out of their head to the point they literally can't accept even a hypothetical scenario that differs. You seem stuck on the scenario where, by construction, an actually guilty person is accused, and then claims the allegations are false. But you haven't really engaged, it seems to me, with another scenario where, by construction, an actually innocent person is falsely accused, and then claims the allegations are false. Is your position that this just never happens, and never could happen? Or it happens so infrequently it can be ignored?

kortilla 5y ago

> This comes off as naive. I saw the domestic abuse allegations again him and decided to read up. Indeed, reading allegations and treating that as research does come off as naive. > Yeah, they're jokes, but when I stopped being a child that stopped being funny, you can still see him making these jokes int interviews about his situation. It’s cool that your sense of humor about that changed during adolescence. That’s not true for many people around the world, especially people who are now in their 40s+. Mainstream standup comedians were joking about domestic abuse in the 2000s still. People joke about dark and inappropriate shit all of the time. Real life isn’t like the workplace or campuses where everything is politically correct.

javajosh 5y ago
Society is really confused about right and wrong. Wendy Williams (a talk show host) asked her audience if one of her guests, who wanted a baby, should trick her boyfriend into fathering a child. The audience laughed and said yes -- Wendy laughed too, and agreed. This is called paternity fraud, because once pregnant the father will have no say in the disposition of the child, AND will be on the hook for child support. That's 18 years of free money for the mom! To quote Lynch's Dune, "And for the father, nothing."
- davidgerard 5y ago
  At this point in the thread, it seems clear you're talking about personal issues and not about anything to do with Richard Kyanka or the detailed allegations, police reports, etc.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    The guy killed himself and posters are mentioning "credible DV allegations" to imply "good, glad he's dead, he (probably) deserved it." This is the concrete outcome of a much broader consequence of exempting women from ordinary standards of evidence around DV allegations. It's a big problem, worth pointing out, and I strongly suspect that Kyanka would appreciate the discussion.

AmericanChopper 5y ago

The problem with metoo is that the solution it envisioned for the problem, was to attempt to undermine the justice portion of the justice system as much as it could, and to create as many avenues for extrajudicial punishment as it possibly could. The entirely inevitable outcome of this is that these new systems were put to use by people to enact personal agendas, in any venue where interpersonal politics was relevant. Which is why we have a growing cohort of people who now reactivity think that any accusation is more likely to be false than true. Sure, these accusations can be very hard to prove. But an accusation of a false accusation is even harder to prove. Yet most people will be inclined to reactively put their faith in one of those accusations, but not the other. The idea we’ve come up with to resolve this tension is the presumption of innocence, and that accusations must be proven for justice to be carried out. This is one of the foundational moral and legal principles of all liberal democracies. While people might end up frustrated by the unavoidable outcome that sometimes, some conflicts can’t be satisfactorily resolved, throwing out the core principles of justice seems like a bad solution to some people.

romwell 5y ago
#metoo was literally about bringing the attention to the scale of the problem and raising awareness, and normalize talking about abuse, so that it wouldn't continue in silence. The court of public opinion has existed before and after #metoo. Let's not pretend that #metoo invented it. If twenty people were to go public and say that Justin Bieber beat each of them with a crowbar, Justin Bieber would have some 'splainin to do, whether or not there's a court case. If twenty people gave interviews and said that Martha Stewart personally fed them poisoned pies for shits and giggles, Martha would be affected by that, whether these people decide to sue or not. But the society made an exception for sexual abuse. Rape and drugging in particular. #metoo simply made it count just as much.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  Society never made an exception for sexual abuse at all. If I accused Justin Bieber of beating me with a crowbar, but somehow I was unable to provide any evidence at all that I was ever even injured, people wouldn’t take me seriously. If I successfully started a rumour that Biebs was a serial crowbar assaulter, it’s possible that it might get some media traction, but publishing rumours like that (at least used to be) the exclusive domain of tabloid media. However, if somebody makes an accusation of sexual assault, it’s possible for that to become a national headline without even any evidence that the two people have ever met. I mean, the slogan of metoo was “believe women”, which is the exact opposite of “presume innocence”. It applied pressure to police to arrest without evidence, for prosecutors to prosecute without evidence, for juries to convict without evidence, for employers to fire without evidence, and for society to exclude without evidence. The core objective of the movement was to fundamentally undermine the most important principle of our system of justice. Now that’s a particularly indefensible proposition when you actually think about it, so most people don’t try to. They just attempt some variation of your comment, where you attempt to deny the plainly obvious fact that this is what it was about.

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