Open Bar: Subpoenaed by Congress, but still refusing to testify

[Nibor the Priest]

Nobody in this forum, as far as I know, has the authority to convict anyone.

Yes we do, you don't know us.

Okay, slightly less cryptically: nobody in this conversation is convicting anyone. Believing victims and taking sexual assault seriously, even concluding that the guy probably did it, is not relevant to any legal shit that happens (and probably won't). Calling it a trial, or any consensus we reach (which we probably won't) a conviction is bizarre hyperbole, and ultimately benefits sexual predators by upholding ideas about women making fake accusations/asking for it/it's a grey area/etc.

By the way, "Discordia is not nice", just not in the 4-chan sense.

You don't need to explain Discordianism to me, thanks.

[Doktor Howl]

Okay, slightly less cryptically: nobody in this conversation is convicting anyone. Believing victims and taking sexual assault seriously, even concluding that the guy probably did it, is not relevant to any legal shit that happens (and probably won't). Calling it a trial, or any consensus we reach (which we probably won't) a conviction is bizarre hyperbole, and ultimately benefits sexual predators by upholding ideas about women making fake accusations/asking for it/it's a grey area/etc.

If you choose to live in a reality tunnel where an accusation in and of itself means guilt, you go right ahead and do that.  I mean, it has the moral sense of the Salem witch trials, but you do you.

Just don't expect most folks here to begin competing in the moral authority Olympics with you, or to have the response to the tumblr wave that you may be used to. 

If this board had a motto (aside from "fuck you, Jack"), it would be "See the world the way it really is," and blanket statements of who is guilty and who should be believed don't help in that.  You are in fact allowing yourself to be programmed to not think upon the receipt of certain data.  And THAT, my good man, is SIN.  And not the good kind of sin, either.  It's the kind of sin that informs people who decide that a populist is a good idea for a leader.  It's the kind of sin that leads to libertarianism and all other manner of isms.

[Cramulus]

Do you think I should have waited to hear Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby's take before I made up my mind?

[Doktor Howl]

Do you think I should have waited to hear Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby's take before I made up my mind?

Nope.  However, it would be good to hear evidence.  In the case of those two assholes, that evidence was forthcoming and they were convicted.

Not automatically assuming guilt does not mean NOT taking an accusation seriously.  It just means you examine the available evidence.

[Nibor the Priest]

Not automatically assuming guilt does not mean NOT taking an accusation seriously.  It just means you examine the available evidence.

Well, I agree. The difference seems to be that I consider the testimony of multiple women to be compelling evidence.

After all, it wouldn't be rational to AUTOMATICALLY ASSUME they're guilty of lying, would it

[Doktor Howl]

Not automatically assuming guilt does not mean NOT taking an accusation seriously.  It just means you examine the available evidence.

Well, I agree. The difference seems to be that I consider the testimony of multiple women to be compelling evidence.

After all, it wouldn't be rational to AUTOMATICALLY ASSUME they're guilty of lying, would it

I do not accept the testimony of an accuser in itself to be enough evidence for anything at all. 

And I don't automatically assume they're lying.  I assume that there is a possibility that any witness or even that a group of witnesses is lying or mistaken.  If you feel that isn't reasonable, I invite you to sit in the gallery during a felony trial of a person of color in Illinois.

Another example would be the point Faust brought up, that the alt-right learned years ago that they can cause the left to devour itself just by making a few accusations of sexual conduct about any given target.  And the left gallops right off to do exactly that.

Let's look at the example at hand.  Warren Ellis has been very loudly screaming about the dangers of fascism since 1996.  Now he stands accused of at the very least being a sociopathic user.

Is he?  Possibly.  He's an asshole, and he hasn't got much use for people in general.

Is it possible that he has been targeted in the same way George Takei was?  I would say that it is not likely, but possible.

So the jury is still out.


Another example would be the accusations against Biden by Tara Reid.  Reid is a grifter and a serial accuser, who has lied under oath.

Does this mean I think her accusations of Biden are false?  No.  I think they are most likely false, but just being a dishonest dirtbag doesn't mean she wasn't actually assaulted.  My gut tells me she would have accused Sanders if Sanders had won the primary in the same manner and at the same exact time as she accused Biden, but my gut isn't enough to either believe her or dismiss her.

[altered]

Not automatically assuming guilt does not mean NOT taking an accusation seriously.  It just means you examine the available evidence.

Well, I agree. The difference seems to be that I consider the testimony of multiple women to be compelling evidence.

After all, it wouldn't be rational to AUTOMATICALLY ASSUME they're guilty of lying, would it

Two things:

One, do we know these are real people? Are names attached? Has a trustworthy third party vetted them to see that at the bare minimum they're more than Nazi socks? Considering this is a real thing that's really happening, if I have to question the reality of a person's existence I cannot equally give their statements weight. Reality comes first.

Two, do we have anything to say, IF these people exist, that these people are specifically UNtrustworthy? Again, reality comes first: once people are proven to exist I believe them more. (And this is enough people that if they do indeed have independently verifiable existence the sheer numbers are worth more consideration than the possibility of any lies.)

I have not seen evidence of real people yet. I might be in a bubble of no-info, though, and I admit I haven't done the digging myself, kind of in a fucking crisis. If someone has evidence of real people rather than anonymous usernames on the Internet, my default switches from "probably fake" to "probably true".

Because in the end, reality comes first.


I think Howl, Faust and others disagree with me on this, but the fact is that it's my approach, it has a logical basis, and I've never had cause to regret it.

[Doktor Howl]

Not automatically assuming guilt does not mean NOT taking an accusation seriously.  It just means you examine the available evidence.

Well, I agree. The difference seems to be that I consider the testimony of multiple women to be compelling evidence.

After all, it wouldn't be rational to AUTOMATICALLY ASSUME they're guilty of lying, would it

Two things:

One, do we know these are real people? Are names attached? Has a trustworthy third party vetted them to see that at the bare minimum they're more than Nazi socks? Considering this is a real thing that's really happening, if I have to question the reality of a person's existence I cannot equally give their statements weight. Reality comes first.

Two, do we have anything to say, IF these people exist, that these people are specifically UNtrustworthy? Again, reality comes first: once people are proven to exist I believe them more. (And this is enough people that if they do indeed have independently verifiable existence the sheer numbers are worth more consideration than the possibility of any lies.)

I have not seen evidence of real people yet. I might be in a bubble of no-info, though, and I admit I haven't done the digging myself, kind of in a fucking crisis. If someone has evidence of real people rather than anonymous usernames on the Internet, my default switches from "probably fake" to "probably true".

Because in the end, reality comes first.


I think Howl, Faust and others disagree with me on this, but the fact is that it's my approach, it has a logical basis, and I've never had cause to regret it.

There are many cases that I believe are probably true.  Probably just isn't enough.

[Cramulus]

If this board had a motto (aside from "fuck you, Jack"), it would be "See the world the way it really is,"

I feel like this forum is about how whenever someone frames their personal position as "the way the world really is", they have their thumb in the shot.



Was there any evidence about Cosby & Weinstein that wasn't accuser testimony? All the evidence I read about was stuff like "this proves that on the night in question, he was at the same party as his accuser". But maybe I'm missing it, I didn't follow those trials at all. I mean, the common problem in these things is that there might not be any "hard, damning evidence" -- it becomes a he-said-she-said and we believe whoever we think is more trustworthy. And what we're talking about with Ellis isn't a criminal claim, it's that he's been an asshole to a lot of women. Which doesn't even seem that out of character. Maybe he'll respond and add some important missing context, maybe not.

With Tara Reid, there's reason to doubt her credibility. That's the "and verify" in "trust and verify". But if 20 people came forward about Biden, it would seem like less of a fluke. I probably wouldn't wait to hear all 20 stories, it's too much of a pattern.

[Doktor Howl]

If this board had a motto (aside from "fuck you, Jack"), it would be "See the world the way it really is,"

I feel like this forum is about how whenever someone frames their personal position as "the way the world really is", they have their thumb in the shot.

Not this kid.  My thumb is squarely up my arse where it belongs.

Was there any evidence about Cosby & Weinstein that wasn't accuser testimony? All the evidence I read about was stuff like "this proves that on the night in question, he was at the same party as his accuser". But maybe I'm missing it, I didn't follow those trials at all. I mean, the common problem in these things is that there might not be any "hard, damning evidence" -- it becomes a he-said-she-said and we believe whoever we think is more trustworthy. And what we're talking about with Ellis isn't a criminal claim, it's that he's been an asshole to a lot of women. Which doesn't even seem that out of character. Maybe he'll respond and add some important missing context, maybe not.

With Tara Reid, there's reason to doubt her credibility. That's the "and verify" in "trust and verify". But if 20 people came forward about Biden, it would seem like less of a fluke. I probably wouldn't wait to hear all 20 stories, it's too much of a pattern.

Cosby admitted, on the stand, that he fed women Quaaludes and then took a yes or a non-response as a yes.

Which sort of fits the very textbook definition of rape.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36371741

Weinstien convicted himself with his emails.

[Cramulus]

If this board had a motto (aside from "fuck you, Jack"), it would be "See the world the way it really is,"

I feel like this forum is about how whenever someone frames their personal position as "the way the world really is", they have their thumb in the shot.

Not this kid.  My thumb is squarely up my arse where it belongs.

*grunting, sweating*

Let me tell you the TRUTH .... about how the world ... really is ....

*hits the prostate*

Was there any evidence about Cosby & Weinstein that wasn't accuser testimony? All the evidence I read about was stuff like "this proves that on the night in question, he was at the same party as his accuser". But maybe I'm missing it, I didn't follow those trials at all. I mean, the common problem in these things is that there might not be any "hard, damning evidence" -- it becomes a he-said-she-said and we believe whoever we think is more trustworthy. And what we're talking about with Ellis isn't a criminal claim, it's that he's been an asshole to a lot of women. Which doesn't even seem that out of character. Maybe he'll respond and add some important missing context, maybe not.

With Tara Reid, there's reason to doubt her credibility. That's the "and verify" in "trust and verify". But if 20 people came forward about Biden, it would seem like less of a fluke. I probably wouldn't wait to hear all 20 stories, it's too much of a pattern.

Cosby admitted, on the stand, that he fed women Quaaludes and then took a yes or a non-response as a yes.

Which sort of fits the very textbook definition of rape.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36371741

Weinstien convicted himself with his emails.

fair enough! I wonder if/when the Ellis accusers will release the text logs they claim to have

[Doktor Howl]

If they do, and any actual coercion has taken place, I guess he will join Hunter Thompson on the list of "writers I used to read."

But let me ask you this, concerning looking at the world:

If you were accused of crimes you didn't commit, would you prefer jurors who believe the victim, or jurors who demand that the prosecution produce actual evidence of your alleged crimes?

Because looking at this conversation as a guide to how people would react on that jury, you're going to prison any which way.

[Faust]

Do you think I should have waited to hear Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby's take before I made up my mind?

To me that gets into the horrible subjective severity of what happened, serial rape. In those cases with the number of women  the multiple rapes, the drugs, the ruining of lives, I was still interested in what they have to say, but you have to err on the side of caution with such awful accusations.
No one is accusing ellis of being a rapist from what I can see. As you said on the scale its closer to luis ck than crosby, neighter ellis or luis are accused of being rapists, everything was concentual, but tainted by manipulation and use and discard dirtbagness

And its not just about the day in court either, I can draw my own conclusions from the persons statement.
For instance prince Andrew, before the interview I thought maybe he could have just been swept up in epstiens mess. Then I watched the interview and I was like "he did that shit"

[Doktor Howl]

Do you think I should have waited to hear Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby's take before I made up my mind?

To me that gets into the horrible subjective severity of what happened, serial rape. In those cases with the number of women  the multiple rapes, the drugs, the ruining of lives, I was still interested in what they have to say, but you have to err on the side of caution with such awful accusations.
No one is accusing ellis of being a rapist from what I can see. As you said on the scale its closer to luis ck than crosby, neighter ellis or luis are accused of being rapists, everything was concentual, but tainted by manipulation and use and discard dirtbagness

And its not just about the day in court either, I can draw my own conclusions from the persons statement.
For instance prince Andrew, before the interview I thought maybe he could jave just been swept up in epstiens mess. Then I watched the interview and I was like "he did that shit"

If he used actual coercion, I don't make any distinction.

If they felt that, as one put it, "He could help my career, how could I say no?" , that isn't coercion.

If he told them "Go along with this or you can forget headlining at that con," then he's a rapist.



I have read enough of his nonfiction writing to believe that he is an arrogant shithead who happens to be a good writer.  I also believe that he'd run around on his SO, because I recognize the type...But those aren't felonies.  They're just the regular fucked up behaviors of dumbass primates, and I am neither qualified nor paid to judge them.

[Faust]

Yeah, hence my distinction, coersion as a writer, or manipulative deadbeat person.

The first means he shouldnt work again, the second does not