Is it that you feel insufficient attention was paid to this person’s misdeeds and you want to focus attention on it?
Or is it that you feel uncomfortable with mentioning this person in a way that reinforces their status as a person in good standing on less wrong?
If the former, I would create a question post in the form “Why are we ignoring what X did?”, linking to the original post bringing up their misdeeds.
If the latter it’s more tricky. I don’t think it’s worth derailing your post for that purpose. If it’s possible to avoid mentioning them without stealing credit I would. Alternatively you could consider making their name a hyperlink to the post bringing up their misdeeds, but not actually say anything accusatory in the post itself.
I’m not really happy about either of those options, but I don’t have any better ideas.
I think I want to be the kind of person who wouldn’t collaborate on a movie with Roman Polanski. Which is not to say “it is the job of director’s guilds to punish members when they believe the legal system has failed to do so effectively”. It’s not to say “I’m going to punish anyone who collaborates on a movie with Roman Polanski”. But I think that’s the kind of person I want to be.
And if I were on a forum for aspiring movie directors, and talking about one of Roman Polanski’s movies, I think mentioning his irrelevant-to-movies actions would a) help me be that kind of person; and b) help others who want to be that kind of person, be that kind of person.
Which is related to the second, but felt worth bringing out explicitly.
Alternatively you could consider making their name a hyperlink to the post bringing up their misdeeds, but not actually say anything accusatory in the post itself.
Hm, yeah. That does feel less likely to cause drama, but...
I think my model for how that works is that by doing that, I’m giving myself kind of a plausible-deniable out where if someone talks about it I can be like “why are you bringing this up? I didn’t say anything I just gave a link”. And people recognize that I have that, and that I can make it frustrating for them if they say anything, and are less likely to say anything? I dunno, low confidence on this. (And not described very well.) But it feels like something is going on there that I don’t love.
Also I think as a reader I’d prefer to know what I’m clicking before I click it.
It’s not to say “I’m going to punish anyone who collaborates on a movie with Roman Polanski”. But I think that’s the kind of person I want to be.
What’s wrong with doing this is that you’re causing harm, not that you’re “punishing”. Ruining someone’s reputation out of pure motives with no explicit desire to cause harm still does cause harm, and needs to be judged on that basis. “The harm I do is not punishment” doesn’t change whether you should do it.
And the Polanski comparison doesn’t work, even in a directors’ forum, because in a situation where Polanski’s bad deeds are not well known so you need to tell people about him, as far as you know he could be innocent and the victim of a smear campaign. Now you know otherwise, but that’s hindsight.
I also find your original question to be the wrong question. Before asking whether it’s okay to mention the accusation in an irrelevant context, you need to establish that it’s okay to mention it at all.
A culture of “we can’t accuse anyone of anything until it’s been proven in a court of law” causes harm too.
I get the impression you’re very aware of the harms of going too far in one direction, and completely insensitive to the harms of going too far in the other direction.
You are trying to hedge by saying “it’s not punishment”, which implies that you think that there’s some chance that he’s innocent and because you’re not punishing him, what you’re doing wouldn’t be too bad when done to an innocent person. If you’re uncertain enough about him that you’re going to hedge, you shouldn’t be doing anything to him at all.
I get the impression you’re very aware of the harms of going too far in one direction, and completely insensitive to the harms of going too far in the other direction.
You’re not telling us what the accusation or the evidence are. Which means that I can’t decide for myself what the risks are of erring in either direction. And it would be a bad idea to assume they work in the way most favorable to you when you don’t tell us what they are.
You are trying to hedge by saying “it’s not punishment”, which implies
I have said no such thing. I did a ctrl+f for “punish” on this page to check. The only paragraph I’ve used that word is one where I’m not remotely saying this, and I have no idea why you’re reading it this way.
Even if I had said that, it would not imply what you say it would.
You’re not telling us what the accusation or the evidence are.
Right. That’s in part because I’m sensitive to the potential harms of doing so.
Which means that I can’t decide for myself what the risks are of erring in either direction.
Obviously you can’t decide what they are in this specific situation. But then I would think the thing to do would be to hold uncertainty. You don’t need to either assume that the harms work out one way, or that they work out another. You can say “I don’t know which way they work out, but some things that would make me think they work out one way are… and some things that would make me think they work out the other way are...”. Recall the paragraph I closed with:
Note that a blanket “do/don’t mention”, based on what I’ve said so far, feels unlikely to be very helpful here. I think there are probably situations compatible with what I describe where mentioning is good, and situations compatible with what I describe where mentioning is not good. The question is how we decide which is which.
This coversation is frustrating. Going forward I’m going to try to avoid putting effort into replying to you, on this post.
You compared what you would do to this guy to what you’d do to Polanski, and what you’d do to Polanski would be to badmouth him but not to “punish” him.
But then I would think the thing to do would be to hold uncertainty. You don’t need to either assume that the harms work out one way, or that they work out another.
There are situations where I need to have definite information in order to choose one side, and where significant uncertainty makes it appropriate to choose the other side. “Is it okay to harm this person?” is such a situation. If I’m uncertain about whether you have good reason to harm him, especially if it’s your own choice not to explain why, I’m going to say “no”, not be neutral about it.
You are not a robot and you don’t follow the first law of robotics. Actively hurting someone requires better justification than not doing so and allowing harm by inaction.
The question is how we decide which is which.
This is literally true, but the answer includes such things as “how good is your judgment about this person?” And that’s something you probably aren’t good at answering (because humans in general aren’t good at assessing their own ability to judge).
So looking back at this thread I realize I owe you a (limited) apology: I thought it had been you who told me to consult a lawyer, but that was a different user whose name also starts with a J.
It remains the case that you are misreading me, in a way that I don’t even see how you could be doing it, and that that’s frustrating. I don’t think I retract anything that I’ve said to you, and I still don’t want to put effort into replying to you, partly because you’re accusing me of saying things I did not say (even after I pointed out that I didn’t say them!) and believing things I do not believe.
But it’s possible that if I’d realized sooner that you were someone new, I would have put more effort into my earlier replies and we’d be in a better position now? Or maybe not. But in any case, I think you had not at the time earned the kind of reply that I started out giving you. So I’m sorry about that.
Most of this would take more effort to reply to than I want to, but this bit is easy:
You compared what you would do to this guy to what you’d do to Polanski, and what you’d do to Polanski would be to badmouth him but not to “punish” him.
This is simply false. You are wildly misreading me.
What are you trying to achieve?
Is it that you feel insufficient attention was paid to this person’s misdeeds and you want to focus attention on it?
Or is it that you feel uncomfortable with mentioning this person in a way that reinforces their status as a person in good standing on less wrong?
If the former, I would create a question post in the form “Why are we ignoring what X did?”, linking to the original post bringing up their misdeeds.
If the latter it’s more tricky. I don’t think it’s worth derailing your post for that purpose. If it’s possible to avoid mentioning them without stealing credit I would. Alternatively you could consider making their name a hyperlink to the post bringing up their misdeeds, but not actually say anything accusatory in the post itself.
I’m not really happy about either of those options, but I don’t have any better ideas.
To some extent both of those, but also...
I think I want to be the kind of person who wouldn’t collaborate on a movie with Roman Polanski. Which is not to say “it is the job of director’s guilds to punish members when they believe the legal system has failed to do so effectively”. It’s not to say “I’m going to punish anyone who collaborates on a movie with Roman Polanski”. But I think that’s the kind of person I want to be.
And if I were on a forum for aspiring movie directors, and talking about one of Roman Polanski’s movies, I think mentioning his irrelevant-to-movies actions would a) help me be that kind of person; and b) help others who want to be that kind of person, be that kind of person.
Which is related to the second, but felt worth bringing out explicitly.
Hm, yeah. That does feel less likely to cause drama, but...
I think my model for how that works is that by doing that, I’m giving myself kind of a plausible-deniable out where if someone talks about it I can be like “why are you bringing this up? I didn’t say anything I just gave a link”. And people recognize that I have that, and that I can make it frustrating for them if they say anything, and are less likely to say anything? I dunno, low confidence on this. (And not described very well.) But it feels like something is going on there that I don’t love.
Also I think as a reader I’d prefer to know what I’m clicking before I click it.
What’s wrong with doing this is that you’re causing harm, not that you’re “punishing”. Ruining someone’s reputation out of pure motives with no explicit desire to cause harm still does cause harm, and needs to be judged on that basis. “The harm I do is not punishment” doesn’t change whether you should do it.
And the Polanski comparison doesn’t work, even in a directors’ forum, because in a situation where Polanski’s bad deeds are not well known so you need to tell people about him, as far as you know he could be innocent and the victim of a smear campaign. Now you know otherwise, but that’s hindsight.
I also find your original question to be the wrong question. Before asking whether it’s okay to mention the accusation in an irrelevant context, you need to establish that it’s okay to mention it at all.
A culture of “we can’t accuse anyone of anything until it’s been proven in a court of law” causes harm too.
I get the impression you’re very aware of the harms of going too far in one direction, and completely insensitive to the harms of going too far in the other direction.
You are trying to hedge by saying “it’s not punishment”, which implies that you think that there’s some chance that he’s innocent and because you’re not punishing him, what you’re doing wouldn’t be too bad when done to an innocent person. If you’re uncertain enough about him that you’re going to hedge, you shouldn’t be doing anything to him at all.
You’re not telling us what the accusation or the evidence are. Which means that I can’t decide for myself what the risks are of erring in either direction. And it would be a bad idea to assume they work in the way most favorable to you when you don’t tell us what they are.
I have said no such thing. I did a ctrl+f for “punish” on this page to check. The only paragraph I’ve used that word is one where I’m not remotely saying this, and I have no idea why you’re reading it this way.
Even if I had said that, it would not imply what you say it would.
Right. That’s in part because I’m sensitive to the potential harms of doing so.
Obviously you can’t decide what they are in this specific situation. But then I would think the thing to do would be to hold uncertainty. You don’t need to either assume that the harms work out one way, or that they work out another. You can say “I don’t know which way they work out, but some things that would make me think they work out one way are… and some things that would make me think they work out the other way are...”. Recall the paragraph I closed with:
This coversation is frustrating. Going forward I’m going to try to avoid putting effort into replying to you, on this post.
You compared what you would do to this guy to what you’d do to Polanski, and what you’d do to Polanski would be to badmouth him but not to “punish” him.
There are situations where I need to have definite information in order to choose one side, and where significant uncertainty makes it appropriate to choose the other side. “Is it okay to harm this person?” is such a situation. If I’m uncertain about whether you have good reason to harm him, especially if it’s your own choice not to explain why, I’m going to say “no”, not be neutral about it.
You are not a robot and you don’t follow the first law of robotics. Actively hurting someone requires better justification than not doing so and allowing harm by inaction.
This is literally true, but the answer includes such things as “how good is your judgment about this person?” And that’s something you probably aren’t good at answering (because humans in general aren’t good at assessing their own ability to judge).
So looking back at this thread I realize I owe you a (limited) apology: I thought it had been you who told me to consult a lawyer, but that was a different user whose name also starts with a J.
It remains the case that you are misreading me, in a way that I don’t even see how you could be doing it, and that that’s frustrating. I don’t think I retract anything that I’ve said to you, and I still don’t want to put effort into replying to you, partly because you’re accusing me of saying things I did not say (even after I pointed out that I didn’t say them!) and believing things I do not believe.
But it’s possible that if I’d realized sooner that you were someone new, I would have put more effort into my earlier replies and we’d be in a better position now? Or maybe not. But in any case, I think you had not at the time earned the kind of reply that I started out giving you. So I’m sorry about that.
Most of this would take more effort to reply to than I want to, but this bit is easy:
This is simply false. You are wildly misreading me.