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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32438 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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I reckon there was a lengthy discussion here about Elevatorgate a couple of weeks ago. I don’t remember if anyone raised this issue and frankly I can’t be bothered to look it up, but surely I’m not the only one who finds it suspicious that the harasser / sex-seeker man in the story was never identified, am I?

Supposedly, he initially approached Rebecca Watson at the hotel bar after an atheist conference held there; he then followed her to the elevator. On one hand, I’m sure this wasn’t a really huge event, on the other hand, I find it unlikely that no other attendees who could or would have later confirmed her story were at the bar. Was there really nobody who confirmed her story and/or gave any information about the man? Because as far as I know, there wasn’t. There were no eyewitnesses at all who even saw them together, and no CCTV footage of the incident or the hotel bar, as far as I know. And I didn’t find any evidence anywhere that his man was ever doxxed, or even attempted to be doxxed. Nobody ever even tried identifying him. Right? I know doxxing wasn’t really as popular a method of culture-warring in 2011 as in later years, but still. And he never came forward to apologize or to explain/excuse himself, even though what he did wasn’t a crime by any means. (Maybe he was married?)

I think there’s a strong possibility that he never existed, and that the entire incident was fabricated as prime culture war fodder.

But surely I’m not the only one who finds it suspicious that the harasser / sex-seeker man in the story was never identified, am I?

Nah, not identifying the guy is the most decent thing she did in that entire kerfuffle. It was before cancel culture really took off, but the last thing we need is for the bloke to get cyberstalked by precursor me-tooers. What she described is hardly beyond the realm of possibilities in the context, and didn't even make the guy look bad, so I see no reason to doubt her.

Yes, but that wasn't my point.

I feel like it's more of an issue of being unable to doxx him, than unwilling to.

Nah, not identifying the guy is the most decent thing she did in that entire kerfuffle.

Well, exactly. The level of decency required to respect the anonymity of someone she saw as a sex pest is incongruous with the absence of decency required to try derailing her own entire movement for the sake of a humblebrag that she's so hot she gets hit on inappropriately.

It's what makes me, also, suspicious that the entire interaction was made up out of whole cloth. The ratio of flattery to evidence is too high.

Indeed. It seems obvious in retrospect that multiple actors involved were really committed to turning the whole incident into as big of a culture war event as possible, which makes it all the more surprising that the instigator of it all was never doxxed.

I'm not surprised that she didn't doxx him - it's not like she even knew him, probably. But I'm surprised that nobody else ever provided any real or probable pieces of information about him.

Not doxxing does seem to be the right thing to do. The problem with not doxxing is fabricated complaints can’t be disproven

This is sort of the opposite case where a NHL player was accused anonymously of a bunch of sexual misconduct things on twitter. Seems like he’s fine with a reputational hit but he was suspended https://triblive.com/sports/former-penguins-defenseman-ian-cole-suspended-by-lightning-following-sexual-assault-allegations/

In this case she went after broader rationalist community. Since there was no-doxxing there’s no ability to refute.

The whole accusation is so mundane that I don't see the need to refute it. In fact wanting to refute it feels like conceding that something inappropriate happened.

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