7 ms·

I have no idea who is telling the truth in this situation, and unless you are the person who has been accused or those who are the alleged victims, neither do y

I have no idea who is telling the truth in this situation, and unless you are the person who has been accused or those who are the alleged victims, neither do you. For situations like this where the allegations fall short of criminal misconduct, a thorough process run by someone independent of the situation needs to a) to evaluate the claims made b) determine whether they are justified c) issue a clear and open report on what took place for the benefit of the community involved. As far as I can tell no investigation has been carried out to verify or falsify claims made by the individuals concerned. But - it is worth stating very clearly that history is replete with examples of men who have used their senior position in communities to take advantage of women, and if what these women say is true, it would be utterly unsurprising to me. The High Court judgement in this situation is a civil matter; nobody has been "cleared" of anything. In the absence of an investigation, you can read the original statements made by the women who made the accusations of wrongdoing [here](https://medium.com/@yifanxing/my-experience-with-sexual-harassment-in-the-scala-community-9245b4a139de https://medium.com/@yifanxing/my-experience-with-sexual-hara...) and [here](https://killnicole.github.io/statement/ https://killnicole.github.io/statement/), and you can form your own opinion about who is telling the truth based on what little there is to go on. EDIT: s/judgement/opinion/

netcan 1y ago
Well... unfortunately the world does not come equipped with a "figure out the truth and report back" button. We have some truth-discovering methods... but they are hard, expensive, and often return empty handed. Science. Courts. Fact finding commitees. Etc. So... you can't have that. What we have is heresy, and a "how to act" dilemma in circumstances where truth isn't known and will not be known. Im going to encourage you not to form your own opinion on who is lying. Read the accusations of you want.. but don't pretend you are in a position to judge... only to execute.
postexitus 1y ago
The high court judgement is against part of the lynch mob, not the original accusers. Given their original statements are still up, I would assume they are still behind their words and neither the judgement nor his side of the story invalidates their experiences.
- Pxtl 1y ago
  What court judgement? In TFA he says they settled.
  - postexitus 1y ago
    You are right - here is the document: https://pretty.direct/consentorder.pdf https://pretty.direct/consentorder.pdf
    - Pxtl 1y ago
      Wait, the people who settled are signatories? Neither are the original women who made allegations against him? The post said "people in my jurisdiction" but it didn't click until now that this meant that he never formally challenged the original allegations. I guess that makes sense with the difficulty if international lawsuits... but still, it means his accusers have never actually been challenged in court.
      - stickfigure 1y ago
        It appears this was filed in Britain. The UK has famously expansive libel laws that place the burden of proof on the defense. I wouldn't read much into the settlement.
      - lawlessone 1y ago
        yeah, that's pretty weird. Why not challenge them?
cbeach 1y ago
If the women in question had gone to the actual courts, rather than the Scala community, they might have had an opportunity to see justice (assuming their allegations are true). But because they chose to make very public accusations that were widely circulated, they have now denied themselves the opportunity to use the legal system, because they have prejudiced the process. I don't know if they'd consider this a problem, though, given the life-destroying outcome meted out by the Scala community may actually exceed the punishment the legal system would have deemed appropriate.
- aidenn0 1y ago
  What specific advice would you give young women in such a situation? >I don't know if they'd consider this a problem, though, given the life-destroying outcome meted out by the Scala community may actually exceed the punishment the legal system would have deemed appropriate. Are you suggesting that if Pretty were found liable for sexual harassment against two different women that he would not have also faced similar negative social outcomes?
  - cbeach 1y ago
    > What specific advice would you give young women in such a situation? If you have been sexually harrassed, don't blog about it, report it to the correct authorities. The Government is literally campaigning against people to stop prejudicing the judicial process via social media: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/attorney-general-launches-new-campaign-to-combat-contempt-of-court-online https://www.gov.uk/government/news/attorney-general-launches... Everyone who hopes to seek justice needs to read this advice > Are you suggesting that if Pretty were found liable for sexual harassment against two different women that he would not have also faced similar negative social outcomes? My point is that the legal system might have weighed up the evidence and considered this case inadmissable, or ruled in Jon's favour. In which case he would have been exonerated in public view by the authorities, and he might have been able to piece his life back together. As it stands, he is in an awful limbo situation where hearsay prevents him getting any gainful employment.
    - 1y ago
praptak 1y ago
Maybe both sides are telling the truth. I mean that this fragment: "It was like reading a fiction about me concocted from benign fragments of reality, transplanted into new context to make them sound abominable." makes it sound like the accusations weren't based on totally made up facts. It was rather a biased (is the author's view) interpretation thereof.
- bagacrap 1y ago
  Not saying I know the truth here, but you are falling for the oldest trick in the book. Effective lies always work in little tidbits of truth (as externally known/validated by the audience).
  - praptak 1y ago
    I hadn't even read the original accusations when I wrote this, just this fragment, so I don't think I got exposed to any tricks by the accusers (except maybe indirectly by the author). I am only saying that even the person being accused does not directly confront the accusers about any facts.
    - bagacrap 1y ago
      You concluded that these "accusations" (your word) are perhaps "the truth" (your word) based only on the information that some facts are worked into the accuser's story (we can assume some details are factual as neither side disputes them). Fwiw I spent a few dozen seconds trying to read the primary source (accusations) but it was mostly a blow by blow of internal emotional state and my interest in this soap opera was quickly exhausted. No real lesson to be learned here unless you didn't already realize not to stick your ... in crazy.
      - praptak 1y ago
        No, that's not what I concluded. I used the word "perhaps" to indicate that accusers telling the truth is a possibility. And it's one that cannot be ruled out even if we believe 100% of what the author wrote in this article.
deltarholamda 1y ago
>you can form your own judgement about who is telling the truth based on what little there is to go on Therein lies the danger. An outsider with little knowledge cannot make a good judgement. Their judgement will be based on intangibles, such as "something similar happened to somebody I know, so I tend to believe X's account over Y's account". But that's not proof, or evidence, or anything really. It's just naked bias from a different situation applied to an unrelated one. Saying "history is replete with examples" is exactly that. If that is going to be used as a metric, then it is well worth it for men to consider that mentoring women carries with it a high degree of risk. No matter how you behave, a single accusation from somebody willing to lie or exaggerate--for whatever reason--will be supported and amplified using this same historical rationale.
- wulfstan 1y ago
  I do not accept that this is "naked bias". If the accusations are true, then this is yet another example of a pattern of behaviour played out so regularly, across cultures, centuries and communities, that it is boringly predictable: "Senior community member, almost always a man, sexually exploits vulnerable women seeking acceptance into that community." When a possible situation arises you should investigate it and, if there is reasonable evidence that it is true, do what you can to stamp it out and ensure it stops happening.
  - deltarholamda 1y ago
    In Jon Pretty's case, if his account is true, it wasn't investigated. It was simply decided in a court of public opinion, quite possibly because of the historical metric you brought up. The only way you can ensure that it stops happening is strict segregation by sex, but I don't think that's what you'd want.
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    If this was done bayesian style we could say the priors are man taking advantage of woman. 9 cases out of 10 if there is a rape case you can assume the perp is male and if you don't you are like a born yesterday idiot. And if you're a woman it's super important to keep it in mind, like you think of getting into elevator (or airbnb like in this case) alone with a random man you should not be like "let's not pre judge people". With wrong cancellation it's different because it's not an urgent situation and people should not ruin someone's life randomly. It would be stupid to force us to think "really there's a 50/50 chance if the rapist is that man or that woman" but if you say "there's a 50/50 chance if the guy is a creep or that woman is scheming something" then it can be not that wrong (depending on country) But in this case we still don't know who is wrong. This is the original letter https://medium.com/@yifanxing/my-experience-with-sexual-harassment-in-the-scala-community-9245b4a139de https://medium.com/@yifanxing/my-experience-with-sexual-hara... and it was not shown false. All that the courts said was "no evidence was provided". And the guy didn't clearly deny it in the letter as I understand it
ghusto 1y ago
> I have no idea who is telling the truth in this situation, and unless you are the person who has been accused or those who are the alleged victims, neither do you Almost sounds like there'd be a long established fair-as-possible process for dealing with these situations, doesn't it? > But - it is worth stating very clearly that history is replete with examples of men who have used their senior position in communities to take advantage of women And now history is replete with examples of woman destroying the lives of men with no process or consequence.
- maeln 1y ago
  > > I have no idea who is telling the truth in this situation, and unless you are the person who has been accused or those who are the alleged victims, neither do you > Almost sounds like there'd be a long established fair-as-possible process for dealing with these situations, doesn't it? A fair-as-possible process that is only fair if you have enough money to afford a lawyer, the time to fight for your case, are not part of a community that has been systematically discriminated against by the people enforcing the process, that the laws are in your favor, that you are not victim of a difficult to prove crime, ... I will never advocate for vigilante justice, but let's not kid ourselves, the justice system has many, many flaws and bias, and acting as if it should be the only source of truth, and that no personal judgment should be made without, is very naïve.
  - akoboldfrying 1y ago
    The justice system is pretty terrible, but it's still better than mob justice. > and that no personal judgment should be made without I think it's fine to make personal judgements about things that have little impact on other people. For things that have a big impact, a more formal approach is called for. I think TFA makes a strong case that the impact here is big.
    - maeln 1y ago
      > The justice system is pretty terrible, but it's still better than mob justice. Absolutely, but there is a space between mob justice and the legal system. Most community do self police in some form or another. It is also far from perfect, and mistakes happen just like in the other system. But it is a middle ground between the heavier burden of proof and long process used by the legal system, and the lack of usually any proof and visceral reaction of mob mentality. Member of a community usually have more information about the other member of the community, which inform their judgment. They have also more at stakes. > I think it's fine to make personal judgements about things that have little impact on other people. For things that have a big impact, a more formal approach is called for. I think TFA makes a strong case that the impact here is big. If we choose to believe him. If we choose to believe the accuser, then we could reason that by "exposing" him they may have prevented other victim. Something a long and legal process might not have prevented. I am not saying this is the case. I know personally neither the accuser nor the accused, and have no real way to make an informed decision in this case.
arp242 1y ago
> it is worth stating very clearly that history is replete with examples of men who have used their senior position in communities to take advantage of women Which doesn't really say anything about this specific scenario. History is also replete with theft, arson, and murder but that doesn't mean it's a good argument when accusing a specific person of a specific instance of theft. Two things can be true at the same time: - many women have been, and continue to be, sexually abused and often fail to get justice, and - sometimes some accusations are made by bad faith actors and/or confused people are not in conflict. They can both be true at the same time. I also have no idea who is telling the truth here; just saying that "these things happen" is not really an argument here. Actually, because these things actually do happen makes the accusations so powerful. History is also replete with false accusations; remember the whole "Satanic panic" from the 80s and 90s where everyone and their dog was engaging in sexual Satanic rituals? Or QAnon today.
the_real_cher 1y ago
Maybe there's mismatched expectations of a women going alone to hotel rooms with the men they later accuse of assault. The man gets the wrong idea that the woman is interested in sleeping with him, whereas the woman just wants to have a nice conversation in the enjoyable environment of a hotel room.
- hollerith 1y ago
  Most women can tell fairly easily when the man they are talking to is sexually attracted to them (and signs of attraction is something almost all women watch for whenever they talk to a man they don't know very well). If the man then invites the woman to a hotel room, 99.9% of women will strongly assume that the man is trying to advance a sexual agenda if the most likely alternative motivation for the invitation is that the man "just wants to have a nice conversation in the enjoyable environment of a hotel room."
  - anonymars 1y ago
    Is that how you would characterize the situation as described by one of the women? (Yet, perhaps that type of mismatched set of assumptions is at the core of this situation in the first place) > In our conversations, he also mentioned a few times where he helped other women to attend conferences that they otherwise couldn’t have attended by sharing Airbnbs with them to reduce their travel costs. He asked if I wanted to share an Airbnb on my trip to the Typelevel conference in Berlin. He also mentioned that he planned to invite others. As a student with limited financial resources, I accepted the tempting offer and felt grateful that, once again, he helped me. At first, he mentioned that I could invite others to join our Airbnb. Having attended only two conferences, I did not know many people at the time. When I thought of a person to invite, he stopped me and asked if I was not feeling comfortable sleeping in the same apartment as him, and if I was trying to get a chaperone for us. I felt bad that I made him feel untrusted and stopped asking others to join.
    - hollerith 1y ago
      I read the parent of the comment I replied to, but I didn't read the OP, and maybe everyone who writes a comment should read the OP. Having not read the OP (still), I believe that most women -- most extremely young women even -- would expect a sexual advance in the situation described in your quote. I'm not commenting in any way on whether the man deserves any consequences that might have befallen him for any sexual advance or sexual behavior after having made the invitation described in your quote. I'm commenting only on, "Maybe there's mismatched expectations," which I (still, after reading your quote, and not having read the OP) consider quite unlikely.
37824912238 1y ago
The thing is, /both people are telling the truth!/ If you read their accounts, they're not especially contradictory. It's not as if she's saying, "he raped me" and he's saying, "no I didn't." It's somewhat subjective, but if you read between the lines, it's clear, and sad all around: pretty.direct is borderline incel, incapable of forming meaningful romantic relationships. But he's not being malicious -- in his view, he's acting in good faith, trying to at least get some consensual action. yifanxing is young and not yet sure how to exist in the world. She believes what people tell her. They had sex, as humans do. She was friendly with him for a time thereafter, but eventually came to regret the act, and then came to see herself as a victim. This was understandably unforseen by him, and the whole episode, though unfortunate, is not really worth all the anguish it has caused everyone.
- wulfstan 1y ago
  If both people are telling the truth, then it sounds like you're saying that although very sad, a community "gatekeeper" sexually exploiting a vulnerable newcomer is just part of life and we should move past it. I'm not sure I agree with this, and I think we can and should do better.
  - 37824912238 1y ago
    Where exactly is the "sexual exploitation" part? He didn't blackmail her, he didn't force her, he didn't offer her favors/status in return for sex. She was not a child, she made her decisions, she regretted them. Yes, there's a power imbalance, but it's not as if this was some sort of Bill Cosby type of situation.
    - lotyrin 1y ago
      I'm not sure if you can't see the power imbalance posed here, or if you just can't see it as a problem, but I don't really care. You need to improve. Too many people (of all genders) see the value that men provide to their potential sex partners as being status and power, and therefore they believe that men should seek to acquire status and power and use these things to bargain for sex. This leads to all kinds of shitty problems like the potential (I don't want to assert that the proposed situation in this comment thread is the actual ground truth) miscommunication we're seeing here where a man has done what society expects of him and a woman comes to be abused and we can't even agree if that's a bad thing. We focus on her "regret" as if consent were ever possible in such a lopsided situation and she's retracted it after the fact. When people talk about the rape culture, this is exactly what they mean. If you see no problems here, you're lost in it.
ofjcihen 1y ago
If you’re reading this and wondering what the outcome was I implore you to go read the authors Twitter about it. There was in fact a judgement.
- OldfieldFund 1y ago
  can you tell us? Twitter is difficult to navigate.
  - ofjcihen 1y ago
    A Statement I am a Scala developer and speaker who was cancelled three years ago. Yesterday I attended the High Court in London to hear an apology from several prominent members of the Scala community for making untrue claims about me on 27 April 2021. I sued them for libel, and they admitted fault and settled, paying me costs and damages. Their allegations were sensational and squalid, but unfounded. Their source was the resentment of one woman following a relationship in 2018, which I ended against her wishes. She fabricated or was offered an alternative narrative, which developed into claims of a pattern of behaviour, and culminated in the defendants' publication of an open letter, which they now agree is defamatory. In two years of legal action, the defendants never presented any evidence to support their allegations, and admitted in court that they had no proper reason to make them. They have given undertakings to the court not to publish further or similar defamatory statements, or have anyone else do so on their behalf. No signatory contacted me about the allegations before publication. I received no warning, and had no knowledge of the claims' substance. I only discovered what I was accused of at the same time as I learned of my indefinite exclusion from the community; at the same time everyone else found out. I had no opportunity to defend myself. It is no coincidence that the absence of due process led tp an abject injustice. The experience of cancellation and enduring the online hysteria was traumatic, I responded by withdrawing from the life I knew. Its consequences hurt me and people close to me, and have been immiserating. My employment opportunities were obliterated. My charitable and educational projects, and my small business, could not continue. Despite my transferable skills, the allegations were a transferrable red flag recognised across programming communities and industries, and I have barely earned a living since. It has taken two years of legal action to receive fair scrutiny in a forum reliant on facts.
jimbokun 1y ago
History is also replete with examples of women who are attracted to men in senior positions in their community.
regularization 1y ago
I can't imagine not just one, but two women coming forward and making such accusations against me. People here are acting as if he is the victim, not them. Insofar as the letter signed - UK law has it so the letter worded as it was, with the burden of proof on the signers, could be held as libel if signed - so the UK signers got caught up in their country's law, due to the accused being litigious. One pleasing thing to me is, however casual some people's attitudes to all of this is, out of control behaviors can cause legal and PR problems for corporations, and that is a move forward that, despite ebbs and flows, will not be moved back in any substantial sense. Woe be the CEO or HR director who thinks they can ignore bad behavior.
lawlessone 1y ago
Looks like lady that wrote this brought up actual receipts. The OP article was so vague i didn't even realize i had already read about it.
12345hn6789 1y ago
What a dangerous comment. Hopefully you read this important blog post and either revise or remove your post.

netcan 1y ago

Well... unfortunately the world does not come equipped with a "figure out the truth and report back" button. We have some truth-discovering methods... but they are hard, expensive, and often return empty handed. Science. Courts. Fact finding commitees. Etc. So... you can't have that. What we have is heresy, and a "how to act" dilemma in circumstances where truth isn't known and will not be known. Im going to encourage you not to form your own opinion on who is lying. Read the accusations of you want.. but don't pretend you are in a position to judge... only to execute.

postexitus 1y ago

The high court judgement is against part of the lynch mob, not the original accusers. Given their original statements are still up, I would assume they are still behind their words and neither the judgement nor his side of the story invalidates their experiences.

Pxtl 1y ago
What court judgement? In TFA he says they settled.
- postexitus 1y ago
  You are right - here is the document: https://pretty.direct/consentorder.pdf https://pretty.direct/consentorder.pdf
  - Pxtl 1y ago
    Wait, the people who settled are signatories? Neither are the original women who made allegations against him? The post said "people in my jurisdiction" but it didn't click until now that this meant that he never formally challenged the original allegations. I guess that makes sense with the difficulty if international lawsuits... but still, it means his accusers have never actually been challenged in court.
    - stickfigure 1y ago
      It appears this was filed in Britain. The UK has famously expansive libel laws that place the burden of proof on the defense. I wouldn't read much into the settlement.
    - lawlessone 1y ago
      yeah, that's pretty weird. Why not challenge them?

cbeach 1y ago

If the women in question had gone to the actual courts, rather than the Scala community, they might have had an opportunity to see justice (assuming their allegations are true). But because they chose to make very public accusations that were widely circulated, they have now denied themselves the opportunity to use the legal system, because they have prejudiced the process. I don't know if they'd consider this a problem, though, given the life-destroying outcome meted out by the Scala community may actually exceed the punishment the legal system would have deemed appropriate.

aidenn0 1y ago
What specific advice would you give young women in such a situation? >I don't know if they'd consider this a problem, though, given the life-destroying outcome meted out by the Scala community may actually exceed the punishment the legal system would have deemed appropriate. Are you suggesting that if Pretty were found liable for sexual harassment against two different women that he would not have also faced similar negative social outcomes?
- cbeach 1y ago
  > What specific advice would you give young women in such a situation? If you have been sexually harrassed, don't blog about it, report it to the correct authorities. The Government is literally campaigning against people to stop prejudicing the judicial process via social media: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/attorney-general-launches-new-campaign-to-combat-contempt-of-court-online https://www.gov.uk/government/news/attorney-general-launches... Everyone who hopes to seek justice needs to read this advice > Are you suggesting that if Pretty were found liable for sexual harassment against two different women that he would not have also faced similar negative social outcomes? My point is that the legal system might have weighed up the evidence and considered this case inadmissable, or ruled in Jon's favour. In which case he would have been exonerated in public view by the authorities, and he might have been able to piece his life back together. As it stands, he is in an awful limbo situation where hearsay prevents him getting any gainful employment.
  - 1y ago

praptak 1y ago

Maybe both sides are telling the truth. I mean that this fragment: "It was like reading a fiction about me concocted from benign fragments of reality, transplanted into new context to make them sound abominable." makes it sound like the accusations weren't based on totally made up facts. It was rather a biased (is the author's view) interpretation thereof.

bagacrap 1y ago
Not saying I know the truth here, but you are falling for the oldest trick in the book. Effective lies always work in little tidbits of truth (as externally known/validated by the audience).
- praptak 1y ago
  I hadn't even read the original accusations when I wrote this, just this fragment, so I don't think I got exposed to any tricks by the accusers (except maybe indirectly by the author). I am only saying that even the person being accused does not directly confront the accusers about any facts.
  - bagacrap 1y ago
    You concluded that these "accusations" (your word) are perhaps "the truth" (your word) based only on the information that some facts are worked into the accuser's story (we can assume some details are factual as neither side disputes them). Fwiw I spent a few dozen seconds trying to read the primary source (accusations) but it was mostly a blow by blow of internal emotional state and my interest in this soap opera was quickly exhausted. No real lesson to be learned here unless you didn't already realize not to stick your ... in crazy.
    - praptak 1y ago
      No, that's not what I concluded. I used the word "perhaps" to indicate that accusers telling the truth is a possibility. And it's one that cannot be ruled out even if we believe 100% of what the author wrote in this article.

deltarholamda 1y ago

>you can form your own judgement about who is telling the truth based on what little there is to go on Therein lies the danger. An outsider with little knowledge cannot make a good judgement. Their judgement will be based on intangibles, such as "something similar happened to somebody I know, so I tend to believe X's account over Y's account". But that's not proof, or evidence, or anything really. It's just naked bias from a different situation applied to an unrelated one. Saying "history is replete with examples" is exactly that. If that is going to be used as a metric, then it is well worth it for men to consider that mentoring women carries with it a high degree of risk. No matter how you behave, a single accusation from somebody willing to lie or exaggerate--for whatever reason--will be supported and amplified using this same historical rationale.

wulfstan 1y ago
I do not accept that this is "naked bias". If the accusations are true, then this is yet another example of a pattern of behaviour played out so regularly, across cultures, centuries and communities, that it is boringly predictable: "Senior community member, almost always a man, sexually exploits vulnerable women seeking acceptance into that community." When a possible situation arises you should investigate it and, if there is reasonable evidence that it is true, do what you can to stamp it out and ensure it stops happening.
- deltarholamda 1y ago
  In Jon Pretty's case, if his account is true, it wasn't investigated. It was simply decided in a court of public opinion, quite possibly because of the historical metric you brought up. The only way you can ensure that it stops happening is strict segregation by sex, but I don't think that's what you'd want.
- throwaway290 1y ago
  If this was done bayesian style we could say the priors are man taking advantage of woman. 9 cases out of 10 if there is a rape case you can assume the perp is male and if you don't you are like a born yesterday idiot. And if you're a woman it's super important to keep it in mind, like you think of getting into elevator (or airbnb like in this case) alone with a random man you should not be like "let's not pre judge people". With wrong cancellation it's different because it's not an urgent situation and people should not ruin someone's life randomly. It would be stupid to force us to think "really there's a 50/50 chance if the rapist is that man or that woman" but if you say "there's a 50/50 chance if the guy is a creep or that woman is scheming something" then it can be not that wrong (depending on country) But in this case we still don't know who is wrong. This is the original letter https://medium.com/@yifanxing/my-experience-with-sexual-harassment-in-the-scala-community-9245b4a139de https://medium.com/@yifanxing/my-experience-with-sexual-hara... and it was not shown false. All that the courts said was "no evidence was provided". And the guy didn't clearly deny it in the letter as I understand it

ghusto 1y ago

> I have no idea who is telling the truth in this situation, and unless you are the person who has been accused or those who are the alleged victims, neither do you Almost sounds like there'd be a long established fair-as-possible process for dealing with these situations, doesn't it? > But - it is worth stating very clearly that history is replete with examples of men who have used their senior position in communities to take advantage of women And now history is replete with examples of woman destroying the lives of men with no process or consequence.

maeln 1y ago
> > I have no idea who is telling the truth in this situation, and unless you are the person who has been accused or those who are the alleged victims, neither do you > Almost sounds like there'd be a long established fair-as-possible process for dealing with these situations, doesn't it? A fair-as-possible process that is only fair if you have enough money to afford a lawyer, the time to fight for your case, are not part of a community that has been systematically discriminated against by the people enforcing the process, that the laws are in your favor, that you are not victim of a difficult to prove crime, ... I will never advocate for vigilante justice, but let's not kid ourselves, the justice system has many, many flaws and bias, and acting as if it should be the only source of truth, and that no personal judgment should be made without, is very naïve.
- akoboldfrying 1y ago
  The justice system is pretty terrible, but it's still better than mob justice. > and that no personal judgment should be made without I think it's fine to make personal judgements about things that have little impact on other people. For things that have a big impact, a more formal approach is called for. I think TFA makes a strong case that the impact here is big.
  - maeln 1y ago
    > The justice system is pretty terrible, but it's still better than mob justice. Absolutely, but there is a space between mob justice and the legal system. Most community do self police in some form or another. It is also far from perfect, and mistakes happen just like in the other system. But it is a middle ground between the heavier burden of proof and long process used by the legal system, and the lack of usually any proof and visceral reaction of mob mentality. Member of a community usually have more information about the other member of the community, which inform their judgment. They have also more at stakes. > I think it's fine to make personal judgements about things that have little impact on other people. For things that have a big impact, a more formal approach is called for. I think TFA makes a strong case that the impact here is big. If we choose to believe him. If we choose to believe the accuser, then we could reason that by "exposing" him they may have prevented other victim. Something a long and legal process might not have prevented. I am not saying this is the case. I know personally neither the accuser nor the accused, and have no real way to make an informed decision in this case.

arp242 1y ago

> it is worth stating very clearly that history is replete with examples of men who have used their senior position in communities to take advantage of women Which doesn't really say anything about this specific scenario. History is also replete with theft, arson, and murder but that doesn't mean it's a good argument when accusing a specific person of a specific instance of theft. Two things can be true at the same time: - many women have been, and continue to be, sexually abused and often fail to get justice, and - sometimes some accusations are made by bad faith actors and/or confused people are not in conflict. They can both be true at the same time. I also have no idea who is telling the truth here; just saying that "these things happen" is not really an argument here. Actually, because these things actually do happen makes the accusations so powerful. History is also replete with false accusations; remember the whole "Satanic panic" from the 80s and 90s where everyone and their dog was engaging in sexual Satanic rituals? Or QAnon today.

the_real_cher 1y ago

Maybe there's mismatched expectations of a women going alone to hotel rooms with the men they later accuse of assault. The man gets the wrong idea that the woman is interested in sleeping with him, whereas the woman just wants to have a nice conversation in the enjoyable environment of a hotel room.

hollerith 1y ago
Most women can tell fairly easily when the man they are talking to is sexually attracted to them (and signs of attraction is something almost all women watch for whenever they talk to a man they don't know very well). If the man then invites the woman to a hotel room, 99.9% of women will strongly assume that the man is trying to advance a sexual agenda if the most likely alternative motivation for the invitation is that the man "just wants to have a nice conversation in the enjoyable environment of a hotel room."
- anonymars 1y ago
  Is that how you would characterize the situation as described by one of the women? (Yet, perhaps that type of mismatched set of assumptions is at the core of this situation in the first place) > In our conversations, he also mentioned a few times where he helped other women to attend conferences that they otherwise couldn’t have attended by sharing Airbnbs with them to reduce their travel costs. He asked if I wanted to share an Airbnb on my trip to the Typelevel conference in Berlin. He also mentioned that he planned to invite others. As a student with limited financial resources, I accepted the tempting offer and felt grateful that, once again, he helped me. At first, he mentioned that I could invite others to join our Airbnb. Having attended only two conferences, I did not know many people at the time. When I thought of a person to invite, he stopped me and asked if I was not feeling comfortable sleeping in the same apartment as him, and if I was trying to get a chaperone for us. I felt bad that I made him feel untrusted and stopped asking others to join.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    I read the parent of the comment I replied to, but I didn't read the OP, and maybe everyone who writes a comment should read the OP. Having not read the OP (still), I believe that most women -- most extremely young women even -- would expect a sexual advance in the situation described in your quote. I'm not commenting in any way on whether the man deserves any consequences that might have befallen him for any sexual advance or sexual behavior after having made the invitation described in your quote. I'm commenting only on, "Maybe there's mismatched expectations," which I (still, after reading your quote, and not having read the OP) consider quite unlikely.

37824912238 1y ago

The thing is, /both people are telling the truth!/ If you read their accounts, they're not especially contradictory. It's not as if she's saying, "he raped me" and he's saying, "no I didn't." It's somewhat subjective, but if you read between the lines, it's clear, and sad all around: pretty.direct is borderline incel, incapable of forming meaningful romantic relationships. But he's not being malicious -- in his view, he's acting in good faith, trying to at least get some consensual action. yifanxing is young and not yet sure how to exist in the world. She believes what people tell her. They had sex, as humans do. She was friendly with him for a time thereafter, but eventually came to regret the act, and then came to see herself as a victim. This was understandably unforseen by him, and the whole episode, though unfortunate, is not really worth all the anguish it has caused everyone.

wulfstan 1y ago
If both people are telling the truth, then it sounds like you're saying that although very sad, a community "gatekeeper" sexually exploiting a vulnerable newcomer is just part of life and we should move past it. I'm not sure I agree with this, and I think we can and should do better.
- 37824912238 1y ago
  Where exactly is the "sexual exploitation" part? He didn't blackmail her, he didn't force her, he didn't offer her favors/status in return for sex. She was not a child, she made her decisions, she regretted them. Yes, there's a power imbalance, but it's not as if this was some sort of Bill Cosby type of situation.
  - lotyrin 1y ago
    I'm not sure if you can't see the power imbalance posed here, or if you just can't see it as a problem, but I don't really care. You need to improve. Too many people (of all genders) see the value that men provide to their potential sex partners as being status and power, and therefore they believe that men should seek to acquire status and power and use these things to bargain for sex. This leads to all kinds of shitty problems like the potential (I don't want to assert that the proposed situation in this comment thread is the actual ground truth) miscommunication we're seeing here where a man has done what society expects of him and a woman comes to be abused and we can't even agree if that's a bad thing. We focus on her "regret" as if consent were ever possible in such a lopsided situation and she's retracted it after the fact. When people talk about the rape culture, this is exactly what they mean. If you see no problems here, you're lost in it.

ofjcihen 1y ago

If you’re reading this and wondering what the outcome was I implore you to go read the authors Twitter about it. There was in fact a judgement.

OldfieldFund 1y ago
can you tell us? Twitter is difficult to navigate.
- ofjcihen 1y ago
  A Statement I am a Scala developer and speaker who was cancelled three years ago. Yesterday I attended the High Court in London to hear an apology from several prominent members of the Scala community for making untrue claims about me on 27 April 2021. I sued them for libel, and they admitted fault and settled, paying me costs and damages. Their allegations were sensational and squalid, but unfounded. Their source was the resentment of one woman following a relationship in 2018, which I ended against her wishes. She fabricated or was offered an alternative narrative, which developed into claims of a pattern of behaviour, and culminated in the defendants' publication of an open letter, which they now agree is defamatory. In two years of legal action, the defendants never presented any evidence to support their allegations, and admitted in court that they had no proper reason to make them. They have given undertakings to the court not to publish further or similar defamatory statements, or have anyone else do so on their behalf. No signatory contacted me about the allegations before publication. I received no warning, and had no knowledge of the claims' substance. I only discovered what I was accused of at the same time as I learned of my indefinite exclusion from the community; at the same time everyone else found out. I had no opportunity to defend myself. It is no coincidence that the absence of due process led tp an abject injustice. The experience of cancellation and enduring the online hysteria was traumatic, I responded by withdrawing from the life I knew. Its consequences hurt me and people close to me, and have been immiserating. My employment opportunities were obliterated. My charitable and educational projects, and my small business, could not continue. Despite my transferable skills, the allegations were a transferrable red flag recognised across programming communities and industries, and I have barely earned a living since. It has taken two years of legal action to receive fair scrutiny in a forum reliant on facts.

jimbokun 1y ago

History is also replete with examples of women who are attracted to men in senior positions in their community.

regularization 1y ago

I can't imagine not just one, but two women coming forward and making such accusations against me. People here are acting as if he is the victim, not them. Insofar as the letter signed - UK law has it so the letter worded as it was, with the burden of proof on the signers, could be held as libel if signed - so the UK signers got caught up in their country's law, due to the accused being litigious. One pleasing thing to me is, however casual some people's attitudes to all of this is, out of control behaviors can cause legal and PR problems for corporations, and that is a move forward that, despite ebbs and flows, will not be moved back in any substantial sense. Woe be the CEO or HR director who thinks they can ignore bad behavior.

lawlessone 1y ago

Looks like lady that wrote this brought up actual receipts. The OP article was so vague i didn't even realize i had already read about it.

12345hn6789 1y ago

What a dangerous comment. Hopefully you read this important blog post and either revise or remove your post.