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This is an odd take. > I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. If someone steals my phone at t

by IanCal 5y ago

This is an odd take. > I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a credible allegation. > This isn't against women. How many of us, given such an arbitrary and powerful weapon, would have the character not to use it, especially against someone we hate for personal reasons? Given the ability to you would falsely accuse someone and ruin their lives? Have you considered that you may be projecting that onto others? > Accusation is not guilt, Which is why we have different words to help explain the differences. > and we need to stop assuming that every accusation is credible. We don't. That's why it is reasonable to mark some of them as credible.

javajosh 5y ago
But yours is not an odd take, I'm afraid. You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible), an ad hominem (not projecting, but thanks for the baseless speculation), and another strawman (I did not and do not confuse meaning with definition). All in quick succession, all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. There's no argument to be made since you didn't make one. But I'd suggest stepping back and considering the overall point you're trying to make. You might start with a scenario which is, by construction unfair: a couple fights, she takes the kids, he shouts, she calls the police and claims abuse, he is beaten and arrested; during the divorce she uses the arrest as evidence of the abuse, and frames the beating as evidence of her husbands violent tendencies; the court accepts this argument and he loses the children, getting supervised visitation only 90 minutes once a week. Does that sound right, or fair to you? Do you think this scenario is physically impossible? Because this is what I'm arguing against, and I can't understand how or why anyone would want this to be how things work.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  This looks to me like you admonished GP for creating a hypothetical situation and drawing a conclusion from it one paragraph before you do the same. Both scenarios add to the conversation in different ways.
- claudiawerner 5y ago
  >You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible) Seeing something happen does make an allegation more credible; this is the whole point of, say, witness testimony. Why we are more likely to believe things which are attested to by others. Credibility is also an element of character and relation to the victim. If I told my parents I was mugged in an underpass on my way home, which explains why I don't have my cell phone, I'd be a little weirded out if they simply replied with "your allegations are not credible, that's a strawman." >we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. Guilt and innocence in which epistemic context? Consider that there are both very well known cases of public opinion being wrong (and overturned by a court or other method), or the findings of courts being wrong (and overturned by public investigation and revelations). Guilt in one arena does not necessarily equal guilt in another[0], and I think that's part of the point GP was trying to make. >a couple fights, she takes the kids, he shouts, she calls the police and claims abuse, he is beaten and arrested; during the divorce she uses the arrest as evidence of the abuse, and frames the beating as evidence of her husbands violent tendencies You can't seriously accuse GP of setting up a straw-man, then relay an idealized (for your point) situation which is, to my knowledge, not backed up by any statistical power. >Because this is what I'm arguing against, and I can't understand how or why anyone would want this to be how things work. You're arguing from a view-from-nowhere, that is, you have already relayed the facts of an unfair situation and the legal consequences of that situation, without taking into account that the situation you relayed is a failure of the justice system, not only of the allegation. Your depiction of how a single allegation snowballs like that isn't impossible - but you haven't done anything to show that this is the result of most (or even a significant number of) allegations of domestic abuse. [0] "In at least a wide variety of cases, our orientation toward testimony is a non-skeptical one: when someone tells us that P, we end up justified in believing that P. And ordinarily, if the speaker knows that P and tells us that P, we end up ourselves knowing that P. That testimonial knowledge is common is both commonsense and philosophical orthodoxy. But we do not always take this kind of stance. Sometimes we interrogate testimony; sometimes we explain it away or demand proof. As much recent literature in both social psychology and epistemic injustice has shown, social and cultural factors influence the degree to which testimony is considered credible."
  - javajosh 5y ago
- IanCal 5y ago
  > You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible) Multiple eye witnesses help make the allegation credible, yes. Which would go against the idea of no allegations being considered credible by the general public. That was your opening statement. > But I'd suggest stepping back and considering the overall point you're trying to make. It's very simple. Some allegations are credible, and it is entirely reasonable for the general public to thing some allegations are credible and others not. > You might start with a scenario which is, by construction unfair: a couple fights, she takes the kids, he shouts, she calls the police and claims abuse, he is beaten and arrested; during the divorce she uses the arrest as evidence of the abuse, and frames the beating as evidence of her husbands violent tendencies; the court accepts this argument and he loses the children, getting supervised visitation only 90 minutes once a week. > Does that sound right, or fair to you? It sounds like it has nothing to do with whether any allegation can be considered credible. It could be an argument against all allegations being considered credible and it can be an argument against people mixing up someone _alleging_ another is guilty and that person being _found_ to be guilty. > all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. Perhaps try reading my comment again, and if after that and this extra explanation you still think I am claiming somehow that all allegations should lead to convictions or that all allegations are credible or that guilt should be assumed, then I have no way of reaching a consensus with you as to what point I'm even trying to make.
- danparsonson 5y ago
  > You might start with a scenario which is, by construction unfair... So... you're countering one strawman with another? >I can't understand how or why anyone would want this to be how things work It's a hypothetical scenario, a strawman, so of course not. Is this actually how things work? Do you have any stats about wrongful accusations to back up your ideas? My personal experience from speaking to women who have actually suffered abuse at the hands of men is that the problem is very much the other way around - nobody believes them and brushes it off exactly as you are doing.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    >So... you're countering one strawman with another? A strawman is when you misrepresent another person's argument. What I've done is present a hypothetical situation, apply the GP's prescribed view to it, and asked if it's fair. It is basically a kind of "proof by contradiction" where you assume the opposite of what you want to prove, apply it to a situation and show a contradiction, and so it must be false. I think it's a pretty strong, argument, actually.
- monkey_monkey 5y ago
  If this is your own personal situation, I'd strongly advise you to get a decent lawyer and contest the allegations if they're so clearly wrong.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    What qualifies you to give advise, I wonder? What makes you think I haven't spoken to an attorney, or more than one?
    - monkey_monkey 5y ago
      You may well have spoken to an attorney. Good for you if you have, it's what I was advising you to do.
parineum 5y ago
> If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a credible allegation. This is a pretty good scenario for explaining why accounts like this can be not credible. A is at the table and "sees" B steal his phone. A accuses B of stealing his phone in front of C, D and E. Cop receives testimony from A, C, D and E that is all the same story. Eye witness testimony is not that valuable when people have conferred with each other.
- IanCal 5y ago
  I think you're mixing up credible and correct. Five matching witness testimonies can be both incorrect and credible. To say that they are not believable is, frankly, bizarre to me. The example is bereft of detail so you can obviously make up a situation which matches it and it is not believable but that would ignore the point here. A simple rephrasing is that you can make credible false allegations.
eigengrau5150 5y ago
> This is an odd take. No, it's presumption of innocence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence

by IanCal 5y ago

javajosh 5y ago

But yours is not an odd take, I'm afraid. You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible), an ad hominem (not projecting, but thanks for the baseless speculation), and another strawman (I did not and do not confuse meaning with definition). All in quick succession, all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. There's no argument to be made since you didn't make one. But I'd suggest stepping back and considering the overall point you're trying to make. You might start with a scenario which is, by construction unfair: a couple fights, she takes the kids, he shouts, she calls the police and claims abuse, he is beaten and arrested; during the divorce she uses the arrest as evidence of the abuse, and frames the beating as evidence of her husbands violent tendencies; the court accepts this argument and he loses the children, getting supervised visitation only 90 minutes once a week. Does that sound right, or fair to you? Do you think this scenario is physically impossible? Because this is what I'm arguing against, and I can't understand how or why anyone would want this to be how things work.

sokoloff 5y ago
This looks to me like you admonished GP for creating a hypothetical situation and drawing a conclusion from it one paragraph before you do the same. Both scenarios add to the conversation in different ways.
claudiawerner 5y ago
>You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible) Seeing something happen does make an allegation more credible; this is the whole point of, say, witness testimony. Why we are more likely to believe things which are attested to by others. Credibility is also an element of character and relation to the victim. If I told my parents I was mugged in an underpass on my way home, which explains why I don't have my cell phone, I'd be a little weirded out if they simply replied with "your allegations are not credible, that's a strawman." >we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. Guilt and innocence in which epistemic context? Consider that there are both very well known cases of public opinion being wrong (and overturned by a court or other method), or the findings of courts being wrong (and overturned by public investigation and revelations). Guilt in one arena does not necessarily equal guilt in another[0], and I think that's part of the point GP was trying to make. >a couple fights, she takes the kids, he shouts, she calls the police and claims abuse, he is beaten and arrested; during the divorce she uses the arrest as evidence of the abuse, and frames the beating as evidence of her husbands violent tendencies You can't seriously accuse GP of setting up a straw-man, then relay an idealized (for your point) situation which is, to my knowledge, not backed up by any statistical power. >Because this is what I'm arguing against, and I can't understand how or why anyone would want this to be how things work. You're arguing from a view-from-nowhere, that is, you have already relayed the facts of an unfair situation and the legal consequences of that situation, without taking into account that the situation you relayed is a failure of the justice system, not only of the allegation. Your depiction of how a single allegation snowballs like that isn't impossible - but you haven't done anything to show that this is the result of most (or even a significant number of) allegations of domestic abuse. [0] "In at least a wide variety of cases, our orientation toward testimony is a non-skeptical one: when someone tells us that P, we end up justified in believing that P. And ordinarily, if the speaker knows that P and tells us that P, we end up ourselves knowing that P. That testimonial knowledge is common is both commonsense and philosophical orthodoxy. But we do not always take this kind of stance. Sometimes we interrogate testimony; sometimes we explain it away or demand proof. As much recent literature in both social psychology and epistemic injustice has shown, social and cultural factors influence the degree to which testimony is considered credible."
- javajosh 5y ago
IanCal 5y ago
> You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible) Multiple eye witnesses help make the allegation credible, yes. Which would go against the idea of no allegations being considered credible by the general public. That was your opening statement. > But I'd suggest stepping back and considering the overall point you're trying to make. It's very simple. Some allegations are credible, and it is entirely reasonable for the general public to thing some allegations are credible and others not. > You might start with a scenario which is, by construction unfair: a couple fights, she takes the kids, he shouts, she calls the police and claims abuse, he is beaten and arrested; during the divorce she uses the arrest as evidence of the abuse, and frames the beating as evidence of her husbands violent tendencies; the court accepts this argument and he loses the children, getting supervised visitation only 90 minutes once a week. > Does that sound right, or fair to you? It sounds like it has nothing to do with whether any allegation can be considered credible. It could be an argument against all allegations being considered credible and it can be an argument against people mixing up someone _alleging_ another is guilty and that person being _found_ to be guilty. > all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. Perhaps try reading my comment again, and if after that and this extra explanation you still think I am claiming somehow that all allegations should lead to convictions or that all allegations are credible or that guilt should be assumed, then I have no way of reaching a consensus with you as to what point I'm even trying to make.
danparsonson 5y ago
> You might start with a scenario which is, by construction unfair... So... you're countering one strawman with another? >I can't understand how or why anyone would want this to be how things work It's a hypothetical scenario, a strawman, so of course not. Is this actually how things work? Do you have any stats about wrongful accusations to back up your ideas? My personal experience from speaking to women who have actually suffered abuse at the hands of men is that the problem is very much the other way around - nobody believes them and brushes it off exactly as you are doing.
- javajosh 5y ago
  >So... you're countering one strawman with another? A strawman is when you misrepresent another person's argument. What I've done is present a hypothetical situation, apply the GP's prescribed view to it, and asked if it's fair. It is basically a kind of "proof by contradiction" where you assume the opposite of what you want to prove, apply it to a situation and show a contradiction, and so it must be false. I think it's a pretty strong, argument, actually.
monkey_monkey 5y ago
If this is your own personal situation, I'd strongly advise you to get a decent lawyer and contest the allegations if they're so clearly wrong.
- javajosh 5y ago
  What qualifies you to give advise, I wonder? What makes you think I haven't spoken to an attorney, or more than one?
  - monkey_monkey 5y ago
    You may well have spoken to an attorney. Good for you if you have, it's what I was advising you to do.

parineum 5y ago

> If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a credible allegation. This is a pretty good scenario for explaining why accounts like this can be not credible. A is at the table and "sees" B steal his phone. A accuses B of stealing his phone in front of C, D and E. Cop receives testimony from A, C, D and E that is all the same story. Eye witness testimony is not that valuable when people have conferred with each other.

IanCal 5y ago
I think you're mixing up credible and correct. Five matching witness testimonies can be both incorrect and credible. To say that they are not believable is, frankly, bizarre to me. The example is bereft of detail so you can obviously make up a situation which matches it and it is not believable but that would ignore the point here. A simple rephrasing is that you can make credible false allegations.

eigengrau5150 5y ago

> This is an odd take. No, it's presumption of innocence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence