4 ms·

I hate mobbings as much as anyone, but I have to say, this is one lousy character the tech scene could do without. His self-defence post earlier today, includin

by swombat 13y ago

I hate mobbings as much as anyone, but I have to say, this is one lousy character the tech scene could do without. His self-defence post earlier today, including gems like: > The situation that resulted in my legal case began when I discovered that my girlfriend was having unprotected sex for money with other people. ( http://recode.net/2014/04/27/gurbaskh-chahal-says-he-didnt-do-it-i-didnt-hit-her-117-times/ http://recode.net/2014/04/27/gurbaskh-chahal-says-he-didnt-d... ) ...really drove home the point that this guy shows no guilt or remorse for anything and was still, until today, thinking he could get away with it. Some people are worth using the court of public opinion to attack. People like Tom Preston-Werner or Brendan Eich, imho, didn't deserve the level of attack they got, particularly considering the case was not so clear in their cases (lack of reliable data in Tom's case, distance from the guilty event in Brendan's). But this guy deserved it and I'm glad he got it in the end. It would have been a terrible misallocation of outrage if Tom and Brendan lost their jobs for their actions, but this guy didn't. Good riddance.

rohamg 13y ago
Good riddance indeed. The guy's blog post was a goldmine for psychoanalysis. Not just the quote you mentioned - the entire post is written in a very aggressive, martial style. Re: the other folks you mentioned, it sounds like you're letting personal biases cloud your perspective. We (the public) don't know the details of any of these cases: if the details were not damning then they should be clearly explained. If they're not clearly explained, it's natural to assume they're damning.
- buro9 13y ago
  > If they're not clearly explained, it's natural to assume they're damning. Guilty until proven innocent. Edit: But downvoted... although we all have the right to remain silent without it inferring guilt. And my point is that whilst it may be natural to judge we should refrain from doing so. We knew the details in the Eich case as he made a donation that was public record, and we knew the details in this case as he pled guilty to two charges. I wouldn't presume any guilt just because someone didn't explain something. But downvotes suggest I'm in the minority on that.
  - jmount 13y ago
    Obviously I (and most people here) are not privy to the the truth (and you can't find the truth by sharing opinions or taking opposition to opinions). But he hasn't been "silent." He pled guilty to related charges, he claims the woman took photos for him to help prove his innocence, he said the woman "was having un-proteced sex for money" (which is a clever way of publicly calling her a whore).
  - foolrush 13y ago
    Caught on video hitting someone 117 times[1]. This apologetic idea that when men are accused of violence or sexism the “innocent until proven guilty” roll out rubbish is part of the problem. “Guilty until proven innocent” in light of documented video evidence, has an implicit assumption that the other, here a woman, is lying. Junk ideology. Junk ethics. There is rampant discrimination, violence, and bias toward the “other” in the culture. Given the patriarchy of technology with its absolutely warped gender statistics, we could do less with peddling the status quo, doubly so when it concerns a sociopathic violent act. [1]http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5201334 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5201334
- swombat 13y ago
  > if the details were not damning then they should be clearly explained. The details of the Brendan Eich were pretty clearly explained. He donated some money to a bad cause, he refused to publicly apologise for it, so he got ousted. I'm neither for nor against that choice - I think it was up to the people at Mozilla to make their choice, and they did. The details of the Github case are far more vague. We have a he-said-she-said with, apparently no evidence beyond that. And we have plenty of character witnesses in favour of Tom, who really doesn't come across as the aggressive character that his accuser depicted him as. Finally, there is no accusation of physical violence here (otherwise there'd be evidence). It's a poor situation, and I can see the case for Tom stepping down as well as the case for him remaining in charge. In the end, they made their choice in order to minimise the damage to Github. Seems sensible, though could really have gone either way, and the point is, we don't know what the real deal is. In this case, we have police and prosecutors basically with hard evidence of physical abuse on file, but it being rejected due to 4th amendment violations. That's fair enough - that's how the law should function. However, when it comes to the court of public opinion, it doesn't matter how the evidence was seized. It is pretty incontrovertible that the guy did beat up his girlfriend for a solid chunk of time. The only plea to the contrary is in this blog post and a few tweets, all of which are just so wrong. I mean, he actually uses the "and she's a whore anyway" approach to trying to garner sympathy. What world does this guy live in to think that that's a useful argument? So, I don't disagree about the result of the previous two cases, though I sided with Tom in the second. What I'm saying is, if the first two, where both sides had at least some merit, resulted in the removal of said figures, and this third one, where the situation is much clearer and much harsher, did not, well, that would be a really shameful outcome. Is that clearer?
  - rohamg 13y ago
    Absolutely, I generally agree with you.
  - a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
    You consider a cause the overwhelming majority of Americans support "bad"?
tzs 13y ago
From the article cited above: > In perhaps the most problematic part of the post, he also claimed he lost his temper because his girlfriend, Juliet Kakish, was “having unprotected sex for money with other people.” (Presumably, there are PR people who objected to this she’s-loose-and-it-made-me-real-angry meme, because calling a woman a whore while saying you abhor violence against women is a rather large disconnect.) The author is assuming that the "sex for money" part is what set him off. How does she know it was not the "unprotected sex...with other people" part that set him off, due to the risk of disease?
- swombat 13y ago
  I think the assumption is that any guy who uses the "oh btw she's a whore" as an excuse to defend himself against accusations of serious domestic violence is saying far more about his own extremely dubious character than anything else. If he didn't want to accuse her of being a whore, he wouldn't have said "for money".
- neurobro 13y ago
  "With other people" is the part of that quote that stands out the most to me. Usually that part would be clear from context.
- leothekim 13y ago
  The problematic part of “having unprotected sex for money with other people" is that the bully is blaming the victim for his behavior. This is typical "rationale" behind most sexual and physical assaults on women, that "she had it coming, therefore you can see why I did what I did." It's barbaric and disgusting, and underscores why this monster needs to be removed from a position of power immediately.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - swombat 13y ago
      > She had a good lucking, smart and extremely rich boyfriend but still she decided to deceive and ruin him emotionally by practicing prostitution all this time That's just stupid. Why would anyone "decide to be a prostitute" if they're well off? It's not like taking up the piano or something.
michaelochurch 13y ago
The situation that resulted in my legal case began when I discovered that my girlfriend was having unprotected sex for money with other people. I have no idea if any of the garbage he is saying is true, but if it is true (which I doubt) it would be quite possible that she did it on his behalf. Many of the Valley "power couples" have a dynamic where the female sleeps around (and the male knows this) to make business contacts for the male. It's unclear, in many of those cases, whether it's a true relationship or a business partnership. Where it gets nasty is that expectations sometimes change. That may or may not have anything to do with what he's saying about her, and given his history of abuse, it's quite possible that nothing he's saying is true. People like Tom Preston-Werner or Brendan Eich, imho, didn't deserve the level of attack they got, particularly considering the case was not so clear in their cases (lack of reliable data in Tom's case, distance from the guilty event in Brendan's). I agree with you on Tom. He seems to be better than 95+ percent of startup founders, and had to fall on the sword largely because of Github's sterling reputation (which, one presumes, he helped it earn). If I had to guess, his actual failure was letting the wife involve herself in the business. There seems to be an objective record of that. It's not necessarily scandalous, but it is a mistake that one can't afford to make at that scale. Companies reach a point where informality (i.e. boss's spouse can come into the office freely) isn't allowable anymore. As for Brendan, it isn't his political leanings that are at issue. The secret ballot is, in my opinion, sacred and if somehow it had been exposed that he'd voted for Prop 8 or Bush or whatever, I'd be the first to oppose people using that against him in his work. However, political donations are public activity (and should be). He also had the opportunity to come out and say, "That was 6 years ago and I made a mistake, and here's what I've done and will do since then." He'd probably be forgiven. However, neither of them are remotely in the same category as this turd.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
gorbachev 13y ago
That response from him is a textbook example of a sociopath in action. Despicable.

by swombat 13y ago

rohamg 13y ago

Good riddance indeed. The guy's blog post was a goldmine for psychoanalysis. Not just the quote you mentioned - the entire post is written in a very aggressive, martial style. Re: the other folks you mentioned, it sounds like you're letting personal biases cloud your perspective. We (the public) don't know the details of any of these cases: if the details were not damning then they should be clearly explained. If they're not clearly explained, it's natural to assume they're damning.

buro9 13y ago
> If they're not clearly explained, it's natural to assume they're damning. Guilty until proven innocent. Edit: But downvoted... although we all have the right to remain silent without it inferring guilt. And my point is that whilst it may be natural to judge we should refrain from doing so. We knew the details in the Eich case as he made a donation that was public record, and we knew the details in this case as he pled guilty to two charges. I wouldn't presume any guilt just because someone didn't explain something. But downvotes suggest I'm in the minority on that.
- jmount 13y ago
  Obviously I (and most people here) are not privy to the the truth (and you can't find the truth by sharing opinions or taking opposition to opinions). But he hasn't been "silent." He pled guilty to related charges, he claims the woman took photos for him to help prove his innocence, he said the woman "was having un-proteced sex for money" (which is a clever way of publicly calling her a whore).
- foolrush 13y ago
  Caught on video hitting someone 117 times[1]. This apologetic idea that when men are accused of violence or sexism the “innocent until proven guilty” roll out rubbish is part of the problem. “Guilty until proven innocent” in light of documented video evidence, has an implicit assumption that the other, here a woman, is lying. Junk ideology. Junk ethics. There is rampant discrimination, violence, and bias toward the “other” in the culture. Given the patriarchy of technology with its absolutely warped gender statistics, we could do less with peddling the status quo, doubly so when it concerns a sociopathic violent act. [1]http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5201334 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5201334
swombat 13y ago
> if the details were not damning then they should be clearly explained. The details of the Brendan Eich were pretty clearly explained. He donated some money to a bad cause, he refused to publicly apologise for it, so he got ousted. I'm neither for nor against that choice - I think it was up to the people at Mozilla to make their choice, and they did. The details of the Github case are far more vague. We have a he-said-she-said with, apparently no evidence beyond that. And we have plenty of character witnesses in favour of Tom, who really doesn't come across as the aggressive character that his accuser depicted him as. Finally, there is no accusation of physical violence here (otherwise there'd be evidence). It's a poor situation, and I can see the case for Tom stepping down as well as the case for him remaining in charge. In the end, they made their choice in order to minimise the damage to Github. Seems sensible, though could really have gone either way, and the point is, we don't know what the real deal is. In this case, we have police and prosecutors basically with hard evidence of physical abuse on file, but it being rejected due to 4th amendment violations. That's fair enough - that's how the law should function. However, when it comes to the court of public opinion, it doesn't matter how the evidence was seized. It is pretty incontrovertible that the guy did beat up his girlfriend for a solid chunk of time. The only plea to the contrary is in this blog post and a few tweets, all of which are just so wrong. I mean, he actually uses the "and she's a whore anyway" approach to trying to garner sympathy. What world does this guy live in to think that that's a useful argument? So, I don't disagree about the result of the previous two cases, though I sided with Tom in the second. What I'm saying is, if the first two, where both sides had at least some merit, resulted in the removal of said figures, and this third one, where the situation is much clearer and much harsher, did not, well, that would be a really shameful outcome. Is that clearer?
- rohamg 13y ago
  Absolutely, I generally agree with you.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
  You consider a cause the overwhelming majority of Americans support "bad"?

tzs 13y ago

From the article cited above: > In perhaps the most problematic part of the post, he also claimed he lost his temper because his girlfriend, Juliet Kakish, was “having unprotected sex for money with other people.” (Presumably, there are PR people who objected to this she’s-loose-and-it-made-me-real-angry meme, because calling a woman a whore while saying you abhor violence against women is a rather large disconnect.) The author is assuming that the "sex for money" part is what set him off. How does she know it was not the "unprotected sex...with other people" part that set him off, due to the risk of disease?

swombat 13y ago
I think the assumption is that any guy who uses the "oh btw she's a whore" as an excuse to defend himself against accusations of serious domestic violence is saying far more about his own extremely dubious character than anything else. If he didn't want to accuse her of being a whore, he wouldn't have said "for money".
neurobro 13y ago
"With other people" is the part of that quote that stands out the most to me. Usually that part would be clear from context.
leothekim 13y ago
The problematic part of “having unprotected sex for money with other people" is that the bully is blaming the victim for his behavior. This is typical "rationale" behind most sexual and physical assaults on women, that "she had it coming, therefore you can see why I did what I did." It's barbaric and disgusting, and underscores why this monster needs to be removed from a position of power immediately.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - swombat 13y ago
    > She had a good lucking, smart and extremely rich boyfriend but still she decided to deceive and ruin him emotionally by practicing prostitution all this time That's just stupid. Why would anyone "decide to be a prostitute" if they're well off? It's not like taking up the piano or something.

michaelochurch 13y ago

The situation that resulted in my legal case began when I discovered that my girlfriend was having unprotected sex for money with other people. I have no idea if any of the garbage he is saying is true, but if it is true (which I doubt) it would be quite possible that she did it on his behalf. Many of the Valley "power couples" have a dynamic where the female sleeps around (and the male knows this) to make business contacts for the male. It's unclear, in many of those cases, whether it's a true relationship or a business partnership. Where it gets nasty is that expectations sometimes change. That may or may not have anything to do with what he's saying about her, and given his history of abuse, it's quite possible that nothing he's saying is true. People like Tom Preston-Werner or Brendan Eich, imho, didn't deserve the level of attack they got, particularly considering the case was not so clear in their cases (lack of reliable data in Tom's case, distance from the guilty event in Brendan's). I agree with you on Tom. He seems to be better than 95+ percent of startup founders, and had to fall on the sword largely because of Github's sterling reputation (which, one presumes, he helped it earn). If I had to guess, his actual failure was letting the wife involve herself in the business. There seems to be an objective record of that. It's not necessarily scandalous, but it is a mistake that one can't afford to make at that scale. Companies reach a point where informality (i.e. boss's spouse can come into the office freely) isn't allowable anymore. As for Brendan, it isn't his political leanings that are at issue. The secret ballot is, in my opinion, sacred and if somehow it had been exposed that he'd voted for Prop 8 or Bush or whatever, I'd be the first to oppose people using that against him in his work. However, political donations are public activity (and should be). He also had the opportunity to come out and say, "That was 6 years ago and I made a mistake, and here's what I've done and will do since then." He'd probably be forgiven. However, neither of them are remotely in the same category as this turd.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

gorbachev 13y ago

That response from him is a textbook example of a sociopath in action. Despicable.