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posted by Fnord666 on Monday September 23 2019, @01:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the axe-to-grind dept.

Thomas Bushnell, former maintainer of GNU Hurd until his dismissal by Richard Stallman, has opined in a biased blog post that the forced resignation of Stallman from MIT and the Free Software Foundation is deserved.

https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84

So Richard Stallman has resigned from his guest position at MIT and as President of the Free Software Foundation. You can easily find out all you need to know about the background from a web search and some news articles. I recommend in particular Selam G's original articles on this topic for background, and for an excellent institutional version, the statement from the Software Freedom Conservancy.

But I'll give you a personal take. By my reckoning, I worked for RMS longer than any other programmer.

[...]4) RMS's loss of MIT privileges and leadership of the FSF are the appropriate responses to a pattern of decades of poor behavior. It does not matter if they are appropriate responses to a single email thread, because they are the right thing in the total situation.

5) I feel very sad for him. He's a tragic figure. He is one of the most brilliant people I've met, who I have always thought desperately craved friendship and camaraderie, and seems to have less and less of it all the time. This is all his doing; nobody does it to him. But it's still very sad. As far as I can tell, he believes his entire life's work is a failure.

6) The end result here, while sad for him, is correct.

The free software community needs to develop good leadership, and RMS has been a bad leader in many ways for a long time now. He has had plenty of people who have tried to help him, and he does not want help.

MIT needs to establish as best it can that paramount are the interests of women to have a safe and fair place to study and work. It must make clear that this is more important than the coddling of a whiny child who has never reached the emotional maturity to treat people decently.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday September 23 2019, @03:51PM (42 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday September 23 2019, @03:51PM (#897620)

    A lot of men feel like the metoo movement is not one for *equality* but an attempt to belittle and demean men.

    And that's because they've fallen for a trick.

    Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're a man who has never sexually harassed or sexually assaulted a woman in his life. You're completely innocent. And then some woman who you worked with a while back accuses you of doing terrible things to her. What do you think happens in the wake of #metoo? Well, this has happened, and what has happened as a result is that they were investigated, lots of people came forward to tell the world how he was actually one of the good guys, and eventually the accusations are dropped and/or fade from memory.

    Contrast that to the experience of guys with a habit of behaving badly: 1 woman accuses them of bad behavior. In fairly short order, a few more say "he did that to me too". And a few more, and a few more, and usually it doesn't take long until 20+ women are describing a consistent pattern of a man using some combination of money, organizational power, and force to do things they know they should not have done.

    If you're one of the good guys, you have little or nothing to fear, especially because this is helping any women you care about (and you do have women you care about, right?). If you're one of the bad guys, you have a lot to fear, but that's called justice, and it is no way unfair that you should face it.

    And now we get to the point of the "OMG, #metoo is attacking men!" rhetoric. What that is is a way to convince good guys that they should be on the side of bad guys rather than on the side of the truth or fairness. Don't fall for it.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Monday September 23 2019, @04:08PM (17 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday September 23 2019, @04:08PM (#897633)

    It's great if metoo sorts out the bad guys from the good guys. I think that's fantastic. I was reacting to this statement

    > "MIT needs to establish as best it can that paramount are the interests of women to have a safe and fair place to study and work."

    The quote is slightly taken out of context, but the strong implication, also I think seen by GGP, is that the interests of men to have a safe and fair place to study and work is not paramount. This is unfortunate. Probably it was just a careless word by the author, but it is quite correct to call out the careless word.

    • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday September 23 2019, @04:39PM

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday September 23 2019, @04:39PM (#897650)

      > is that the interests of men to have a safe and fair place to study and work is not paramount

      I should have written "equally paramount" or somesuch.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @04:42PM (12 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @04:42PM (#897652)

      No, it is recognizing the reality that for a very, VERY long time the system has been such that men have already had more than a safe and fair place to study and work. Where women have not.

      You can change that to "interests of all people" when it becomes equal. Until then the power disparity can be recognized for what it is.

      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday September 23 2019, @05:17PM (3 children)

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday September 23 2019, @05:17PM (#897681)

        > such that men have already had more than a safe and fair place to study and work.

        Is that really true? Even if the men are Muslims? Jewish? Christians outside the West? Democrats outside the West?

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Monday September 23 2019, @11:15PM (2 children)

          by dry (223) on Monday September 23 2019, @11:15PM (#897867) Journal

          It's all relative. My wife can't even walk down the street without getting harassed. Most of your list are invisible unless the men volunteer the info.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @09:52AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @09:52AM (#898048)

            Alternatively, if you don't look manly enough you can get your share of problems without volunteering anything whatsoever.

            • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday September 24 2019, @03:06PM

              by dry (223) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @03:06PM (#898166) Journal

              True, though the same thing happens with women, except it is looking too masculine. Too fat as well.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:06PM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:06PM (#897711)

        Not true. Considering how many places the women worked in the home and didn't get out much, it's the other way around. Men mostly didn't have safe places to work and study, but the women did.

        Afghanistan is a pretty good example, people make it sound like the women being prevented from leaving the house was a bad thing, but outside the house was where all the bombings and mayhem was going on. As oppressive as it was to be forced to stay home without an escort, it was far safer to be at home than not.

        Most of this bullshit about women being oppressed is spin. Women agreed to those terms because it was in their interest to do so. They didn't have the risk that the men had, but it meant having fewer rights as rights were granted primarily based upon what society needed people to be doing. Men were generally the ones expected to fight, so they generally wound up being the ones running the government. Women didn't usually get to run the government, but they were off the hook for numerous civic duties outside the home in most societies.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:53PM (6 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:53PM (#897734)

          Afghanistan is a pretty good example, people make it sound like the women being prevented from leaving the house was a bad thing, but outside the house was where all the bombings and mayhem was going on. As oppressive as it was to be forced to stay home without an escort, it was far safer to be at home than not.

          So, women should be systematically oppressed for their own good, even if they want to leave the house without escorts? Maybe give them a choice, at least? What you're advocating for here is literal patriarchy: Government-mandated oppression.

          Too bad you couldn't move to North Korea, as it seems like that government would be more in line with your values.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @07:27PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @07:27PM (#897747)

            Women over time gave up essential liberties for a little immediate safety, until eventually they had neither liberty nor safety except at the whim of a man.

            This is a warning all people should heed, whatever their background. Because the freedoms they are taking from others are not always the freedoms they themselves will retain. As soon as an excuse is given to categorize them in with the incels, the SJWs, the liberals, the rednecks, the fools, etc they will find themselves falling upon the very sword they gleefully tossed others upon.

          • (Score: 2) by Demena on Monday September 23 2019, @10:49PM (2 children)

            by Demena (5637) on Monday September 23 2019, @10:49PM (#897857)

            The situation in Afghanistan and other places is that BOTH sexes are oppressed. As has been the case for almost everywhere forever. Basically, you appareled to be entirely ignorant of the rights and responsibilities of the people in Afghanistan.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:27AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:27AM (#897884)

              The situation in Afghanistan and other places is that BOTH sexes are oppressed.

              Yeah, but that doesn't conflict with what I said. That person seemed to be advocating for oppression.

              • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Demena on Tuesday September 24 2019, @01:51AM

                by Demena (5637) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @01:51AM (#897904)

                It is arguable either way as to which sex is more oppressed in Afghanistan. The women "forced" to stay at one of the male children selling their butts to support all their female relatives because their elders have died, been killed or have gone off to fight?

                Feminism is past its use-by date as it has become a tool of oppression in and of itself.

                I am an equalitarian and I have distain for overt sexism. Idealism and realism have to be balanced.

                For example; "take back the night" - wonderful idea except for the fact that we never had the night in the first place. That is why we have street lights. So what are men being asked to do here? Hang around the streets at night looking for trouble (they will find it out of boredom)? Maybe there should always be a reliable man to escort a woman(polite society)? Not "let" women out without an escort (Current Islam)? Exactly what direction is this going and is it wise? For both men and women going out at night involves some risk and it always will, as there will always be hostiles out there. A safe world is an ideal, it can never be a reality. Safety can be improved by more police, more lights, more cameras, curfews, more tracking, more control. People are going to have to decide where they draw the lines. More safety is less freedom and more freedom is less safety.

          • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday September 24 2019, @05:41AM (1 child)

            by Mykl (1112) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @05:41AM (#897978)

            My view is that both men and women were being oppressed in this scenario. It's not like the men could choose to stay home either.

            To play Devil's Advocate, you _could_ argue that the men are being treated as expendable (heading out into the warzone outside), while the women are too valuable to risk.

            GP has a point - in older times there was a logic borne out of necessity when most 'out of the home' jobs were dangerous and better suited to male physiology (i.e. brute strength). That isn't the case any more, so it no longer makes sense to have 'male' and 'female' roles in society.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @03:29PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @03:29PM (#898174)

              When you are a man, and one day you have children, you discover that babies and toddlers crave for a female for everything care-related, and for a male for stimulation.

              There ARE male and female roles.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday September 23 2019, @05:58PM (2 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday September 23 2019, @05:58PM (#897709)

      The quote is slightly taken out of context, but the strong implication, also I think seen by GGP, is that the interests of men to have a safe and fair place to study and work is not paramount.

      I agree that they left out the "... while maintaining the safety and fairness most men already have."

      I'm going to take some educated guesses here:
      1. You're a cisgender man.
      2. You don't regularly make plans regarding how to escape situations you are in or how to get from one place to another safely, and have never really tried.

      Because every woman I've ever known well enough to have serious conversations regularly takes personal security into account with just about everything she does. For instance, one major reason women tend to go into bathrooms in groups of friends is to protect themselves in case a creep is waiting in there to attack them, which happens often enough that it's a real and worthwhile consideration. The vast majority of women alone with almost any man that she does not have really good reason to trust completely (yes, that includes you), has in the back of her mind a plan for what she'll do if you try to attack and/or rape her, again because it happens often enough that she needs to think about it if she wants to be safe. There is a level of constant fear that a lot of men just don't understand. If you have a sister ask her, or ask your mom, and if you can't have these conversations with either of them you need to ask yourself why you can't or don't understand the lives of the women you've known your whole life.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Demena on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:35AM

        by Demena (5637) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:35AM (#897923)

        I think that you have some misconceptions about men.

        I agree that they left out the "... while maintaining the safety and fairness most men already have."

        You have to be kidding me. You honestly believe that most men have safety and fairness in their daily lives? For the majority of men life is safe and fair? That has never, ever been true and is still not so today. To believe so is being in defiance of history and flies in the face of current affairs. Men are expendable and always have been. In the UK, of the men alive a thousand years ago only a few per cent (the elites) passed their genes through to today. Women may feel vulnerable to their core but men feel expendable to their core. Mostly they don't even mind being expended as long as the reason is good.

        I'm going to take some educated guesses here:
        1. You're a cisgender man.
        2. You don't regularly make plans regarding how to escape situations you are in or how to get from one place to another safely, and have never really tried.

        What qualifies your guesses as "educated"? You are asserting inherent knowledge. Always a sign of a weak argument and unclear thinking.

        Because every woman I've ever known well enough to have serious conversations regularly takes personal security into account with just about everything she does. For instance, one major reason women tend to go into bathrooms in groups of friends is to protect themselves in case a creep is waiting in there to attack them, which happens often enough that it's a real and worthwhile consideration. The vast majority of women alone with almost any man that she does not have really good reason to trust completely (yes, that includes you), has in the back of her mind a plan for what she'll do if you try to attack and/or rape her, again because it happens often enough that she needs to think about it if she wants to be safe. There is a level of constant fear that a lot of men just don't understand. If you have a sister ask her, or ask your mom, and if you can't have these conversations with either of them you need to ask yourself why you can't or don't understand the lives of the women you've known your whole life.

        Do you actually know any men? What you are talking about is called situational awareness. It is the difference between life and death. Have you ever watched how men enter a men's room? From my observation it is usually carefully and slowly unless there is a crowd. I don't think you should be questioning how well a guy knows women without ascertaining that you do not have the same issue.

        Remember that a liar will always suspect your veracity, a thief will always suspect your honesty. When someone suspects something about someone else it often is an indication of how that someone thinks.

        Regards, Demena

      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday September 24 2019, @01:50PM

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @01:50PM (#898111)

        > "... while maintaining the safety and fairness most men already have."

        Unless they are gay, or muslim, or...

        > fairness

        Why is male life expectancy so much lower than female life expectancy?

        Why is male suicide rate so much higher than female suicide rate?

        Note, I'm not discounting what you say, rather I agree with the thrust of your argument. I just think we should strive for *equality*. Sometimes it sucks to be a woman, sometimes sucks to be a guy, let's make it better for *everyone*.

        > fairness

        If we do not strive for *equality* then we alienate the men (or whatever group we exclude) who we need to achieve "fairness". That's rather shooting ourselves in the foot.

        > educated guesses

        That's ad hominem; you should be ashamed.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 23 2019, @05:35PM (13 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday September 23 2019, @05:35PM (#897689)

    What do you think happens in the wake of #metoo? Well, this has happened, and what has happened as a result is that they were investigated, lots of people came forward to tell the world how he was actually one of the good guys, and eventually the accusations are dropped and/or fade from memory.

    That's what happens in the good cases. If the guy, completely innocent of all charges, has somehow or another upset or otherwise alienated the #metoo interviewees, or maybe just never made any impression on them at all, they can still pile on with stories of what they remember from years ago - memories which can, in point of fact, be manufactured by the interviewer - whether intentionally or not.

    How can you tell the innocent victims from the true criminals when the proof is all eyewitness testimony? You can't, ever. You can hope to get it right most of the time, but, depending on the method of interview, that success rate can be astonishingly low - well below 50% if you just let Bubba from the local PD do the questioning.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2, Disagree) by Thexalon on Monday September 23 2019, @06:20PM (12 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday September 23 2019, @06:20PM (#897721)

      How can you tell the innocent victims from the true criminals when the proof is all eyewitness testimony? You can't, ever.

      1 convenience store accuses somebody of stealing from them, but the only evidence they can supply is the clerk's testimony. The cops investigate, and 3 other convenience stores in the area accuse the same person of doing the same thing to them, again only offering the testimony of store clerks. Hearing about the case, 20 more clerks point out that the dude in question did the same thing to them. There's no security footage available, but there are now lots of people describing the same bad behavior from the same person. Now which is more likely: (a) That person has done a lot of shoplifting, or (b) That person is a victim of a conspiracy by a bunch of clerks who hadn't really talked to each other until they realized they'd all been robbed by the same dude? There has to be some n > 0 such that n eyewitness reports of criminal acts by somebody puts you beyond a reasonable doubt without evidence that this is some sort of conspiratorial frame job.

      And on that same principle, there's absolutely no reason why accusations of sexual misconduct should be any different. And the reason that the "pile-on" effect is so common isn't due to some sort of feminist conspiracy, it's because the available evidence suggests that the average bad guy in this regard rapes about 4 women, sexually assaults 6, and does skeezy-but-legal things to many more.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @07:15PM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @07:15PM (#897743)

        No, its because many women like the attention, and want to pile on the "I'm a victim" bandwagon.

        For reference, see how blacks were treated in the 40s and 50s... one person makes an accusation, and then 10 others pile on, 'I saw him too!", later to be proven innocent / was in another city..etc..

        Its a witchhunt just the same.. just with a different name this time around..

        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 23 2019, @07:52PM (5 children)

          by Thexalon (636) on Monday September 23 2019, @07:52PM (#897761)

          No, its because many women like the attention

          "The attention" you're referring to frequently includes threats to rape and/or kill them and anyone who helps them from men who believe themselves to be defending manhood from a giant conspiracy of feminists in a very twisted "bros before hos" mentality. In what universe do you think people go through that because they like it?

          The dynamic that's really at stake here is the idea of a social hierarchy hinging on a person's identity at birth. People with that mindset basically walk around with the assumption that white men > white women > white children > non-white men > non-white women > non-white children, and that those who come higher up in that hierarchy have the right to rule over those further down, enforcing that rule with whatever means are necessary up to and including lethal force. In that mindset, using one example here, Christine Blasey Ford telling the world about what Brett Kavanaugh did is at best irrelevant because Kavanaugh should never have to answer to Ford no matter what he did, because he's a man and she's a woman, end of discussion. And following that same mindset, if she'd said exactly the same thing about, say, Samuel L Jackson, then that same social hierarchy mindset would demand that Samuel L Jackson's life or at least career would be forfeit. These are also exactly the same dudes that have a significant tendency to murder women because they tried to divorce them, because again these women are defying that social hierarchy.

          The people who believe in that social hierarchy also believe that their opposition wants to create the opposite social hierarchy, where the subjagated become the oppressors and vice versa. They're generally wrong about that: The most firm opposition to that social hierarchy wants to ultimately eliminate the power of identities entirely, and views all hierarchies with a bit of suspicion.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @11:24PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @11:24PM (#897871)

            threats to rape and/or kill them

            Everyone of any importance on the internet has death and rape threats, no matter the gender, orientation or operating system. In fact, anyone who hasn't received threats is a nobody, as far as the internet's concerned.

            People with that mindset basically walk around with the assumption that white men > white women > white children > non-white men > non-white women > non-white children

            That's the ladder of oppression. Tabulate your privilege points to find out which rung you're on today!

            Christine Blasey Ford telling the world about what Brett Kavanaugh did is at best irrelevant because Kavanaugh should never have to answer to Ford no matter what he did, because he's a man and she's a woman, end of discussion.

            Now you're just making shit up. Literally nobody in the world has ever unironically said or even implied such a thing.

            • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:07AM (1 child)

              by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:07AM (#897881)

              Christine Blasey Ford telling the world about what Brett Kavanaugh did is at best irrelevant because Kavanaugh should never have to answer to Ford no matter what he did, because he's a man and she's a woman, end of discussion.

              Now you're just making shit up. Literally nobody in the world has ever unironically said or even implied such a thing.

              In at least one poll [publitas.com], 1 in 5 people who think Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath about his past (including his response to Christine Blasey Ford's allegations) still wanted him to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. So yes, there is a significant number of people who have reached the conclusion that he could be guilty as all get-out, but that shouldn't matter.

              --
              The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
              • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:35PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:35PM (#898141)

                Guess the 4 in 5 had it then when her lawyer came out recently and said Ford was lying to protect abortion.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Demena on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:48AM

            by Demena (5637) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:48AM (#897930)

            I think you are being far too rigid in your social hierarchy. I agree there are hierarchies but they are multi faceted In your example I would think that Jackson would fare better than a white with a low income menial position. There are many factors that place people in the social hierarchy. Wealth, colour, job, looks, nationality, voice, manners. Probably a lot more too

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @09:24AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @09:24AM (#898043)

            > white men > white women > white children > non-white men > non-white women > non-white children

            Are you motherfucker aware of the fact that there is an evolution going on here, and the white man are pretty on top?

            And that, incidentalyl, is the job of any men, to put their own on top no matter the cost?

            We are not, like, fucking created by God, but ACTUALLY fucking evolved?

            Now, what the actual fuck are you complaining about, like honestly?

            But now you actually are free. Nobody firces you to marry, nobody forces you to have children.

            Despite all badness, you have this freedom handed to you.

            Now leave the dying white race to RIP, and go back fucking your muslim and negro slaveholders, cuz they are much better then the white man.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 23 2019, @07:32PM (3 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday September 23 2019, @07:32PM (#897749)

        (c) dude is (choose one: white, black, latino, asian, arab, xyz, whatever), clerks and/or cops in question have a prejudice against this particular race and open the line of questioning something to the effect of: "have you had any problems with shoplifting lately?" It's a convenience store, odds are really good that they have, so that's a yes... now, one side or the other mentions "some xyz dude came through here..." yeah, yeah, that's him, let's bust the bastard. What kind of confidence interval do you want? 99% confidence that you're getting the right guy 99% of the time? Still gonna suck being that 1/100 dude thrown in jail and having his entire future derailed for something he didn't do, and if your witnesses are only 50% reliable you're going to need a shockingly high N to establish 99% confidence that you're ONLY putting 1 innocent person in jail for every 99 guilty ones. And, if you're fighting an uphill battle against prejudice, that 50% reliability on the witnesses is beyond naively optimistic.

        If all you want it to be right "most" of the time, like more than 50%, then, sure, ask a handful of eyewitnesses and if you get 3 or 4 who agree, then, yeah, you'll be right more often than you're wrong. If you're destroying somebody's future, the odds that you are destroying the right person's future need to be, legally, beyond a reasonably doubt, and even if you consider 1/20 bad convictions to be acceptable, and you think that the 95/95 CI used in social statistics is somehow acceptable and meets this criteria of "beyond a reasonable doubt", and you think that your eyewitnesses are correct 50% of the time (they aren't), to meet that 95/95 CI with your flaky data you're going to need an N greater than 60.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by Bot on Monday September 23 2019, @08:35PM

          by Bot (3902) on Monday September 23 2019, @08:35PM (#897784) Journal

          d) all the shoplifters looked the same. Insert racist snark here.

          --
          Account abandoned.
        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 23 2019, @10:02PM (1 child)

          by Thexalon (636) on Monday September 23 2019, @10:02PM (#897833)

          By your logic, eyewitnesses should be completely barred from any courtroom because they are all not 100% reliable. Which means that anybody with the brains to commit their crimes when there isn't a machine watching can commit said crimes with impunity. For instance, if you see a teenager you recognize in your neighborhood going around smashing car windows, that's not something they should be punished for, because all the evidence we have that said teenager committed vandalism was you and the 4 other neighbors who saw them doing it.

          And remember, these are often instances where the people making the accusations know the person in question, making mistaken identity less likely.

          You start from the premise that 50% of all public allegations of bad behavior under oath are false. Even if we accept that, that means that if there are 2 accusations, there's a 1/4 chance that they're both false. Add in a third accusation, and there's now a 1/8 chance that they're false. By the time you're up to 20 people making similar accusations, you're now at a 1/2^20, or a little less than 1 in 1 million chance that they're all liars. And by the time we're up to 33 accusations, the odds that the person they are talking about is completely innocent is now greater than the human population.

          And of course if the numbers that organizations who study rape believe are more likely to be accurate, and it's more like 1 in 20 allegations are false, then the odds that you're talking about an innocent person go down even faster than that. As in, by the time you get to 7 people saying that somebody has committed sexual assault or rape, there's now a 1 in 1.2 billion chance that they're all lying.

          Is it possible an innocent man will be accused of rape? Absolutely. The odds of that happening go down dramatically as more people provide their testimony that the same person exhibited the same behavior. Which means either there's some point at which you accept the odds of getting it wrong are sufficiently low because we're in "getting hit by a meteor" territory, or you're arguing that sexual assault should not result in any consequences whatsoever to the perpetrators of sexual assault.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 25 2019, @09:06AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 25 2019, @09:06AM (#898420)

            Stop muddling your message with horrendous use of stats and probabilities.
            One: eyewitnesses do matter in court, but not all proof is created the same. The role of imperfect proofs (of which eyewitnesses and traits of character) is to weigh in but not to be the entirety of the proof.
            Two: witness reliability isn't only a product of lying, honest but mistaken witnesses exist and in fact abound.
            Three: when we take witness reliability at 50%, it's a statistical figure. You don't get your witnesses all at once like if you were throwing a handful of dice. Each witness, exists because of the context before they speak up. This means both honest witnesses and liars may come up because they see other witnesses appearing. You see what we have here? A lot of variance. Aka fucking poison when it comes to avoiding collateral damage.
            Four: organisations that study rape don't have meaningful numbers for the kind of sophism you're trying to pull and will never have them. Because they base their numbers on results of legal cases (in the best case scenario). That's third hand data. No one will ever have first hand data because that would require actual studies that include real rape and would be a fucking nightmare.

      • (Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Monday September 23 2019, @07:48PM

        by PocketSizeSUn (5340) on Monday September 23 2019, @07:48PM (#897758)

        True fact, only evil witches in were killed in salem. Any statement to the contrary is demonstrably false as Thexalon has so clearly demonstrated.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:37PM (#897724)

    Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're a man who has never sexually harassed or been sexually assaulted by a woman in his life.

    FTFY, and assume the position, you craven incel!!!

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday September 23 2019, @08:33PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday September 23 2019, @08:33PM (#897783) Journal

    If you're one of the good guys, you have little or nothing to fear

    That's pure unmitigated bullshit.

    #1: you turn due process on its head when you accept uncritically all accusations. This is the foundation of any authoritarian police state -- accusation == guilt.
    #2: even if after gargantuan effort and expense, you win in court, it doesn't matter to the MeToo authoritocracy. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-ghomeshi-was-acquitted-why-should-he-not-be-allowed-a-voice [nationalpost.com]
    #3: metoo is mostly a scam by elite white women to replace elite white men, it is not designed to help the average Josephine slaving away at two low paying jobs (or the average Joe doing the same thing) -- it is at its core, about power, about people as slimy and gross as those who they wish to replace.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @09:15PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @09:15PM (#897806)

    Except that in Stallman's case, instead of saying "Epstein is a good guy, he would never do that" and having himself branded an idiot; he decided to say "Pedophilia is not that bad, she was almost 18, and she was asking for it."

    No, just... No. No amount of Asperger's or geek anti-social excuses is going to cover that up.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @10:59PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @10:59PM (#897859)

      Except that's not at all what he said. It's not even a reasonable interpretation of what he said.

      You're talking out of your ass and it smells that way too.

      See for yourself:
      https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/09132019142056-0001.pdf [documentcloud.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:15AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:15AM (#897883)

        Heh. His attempt at virtue signalling while AC got him a -1 Troll.

        Anyway, yet another discussion of RMS and the future of the FSF derailed by useless invocations of Epstein and alleged victimhood and survivorship.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @11:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @11:27PM (#897872)

      He said nothing of the sort.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @11:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @11:09PM (#897862)

    and eventually the accusations are dropped and/or fade from memory

    Hah!

  • (Score: 1) by In hydraulis on Tuesday September 24 2019, @01:45AM (1 child)

    by In hydraulis (386) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @01:45AM (#897902)

    what has happened as a result is that they were investigated, lots of people came forward to tell the world how he was actually one of the good guys, and eventually the accusations are dropped and/or fade from memory.

    Sometimes they are allowed to fade—after the man has already been destroyed. [youtube.com]

    And sometimes they aren't. The Kavanaugh accusations show us that the enemy is organized and willing to strike again and again if the first blow misses the mark.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:19AM (#897913)

      It would be nice if "them" going after Kavanaugh repeatedly with half-baked baloney led to the end of cancel culture.

      But it won't. Cancel culture is really clickbait culture. It's a business proposition. People will always click, outlets will always amplify. Burning down a man's reputation is just another way to compete with viral cat videos.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 08 2019, @11:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 08 2019, @11:27AM (#904025)

    >If you're one of the good guys, you have little or nothing to fear, especially because this is helping any women you care about (and you do have women you care about, right?)

    Fuck you. Women are the enemy of men.
    Men should rule over females, not "care about" them.