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June 22 2020, PCGamer - Chris Avellone accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women
June 29 2021, PCGamer - Chris Avellone files libel suit over last year's sexual misconduct allegations
March 25 2023, Chris Avellone's blog - JOINT STATEMENT FROM KARISSA BARROWS, KELLY BRISTOL, AND CHRIS AVELLONE
March 25 2023, PCGamer - crickets
March 25 2023, Kotaku - crickets
It's remarkable that rpgcodex had the coverage that aged best.
Erik Kain working his beat as a based games journalist as well.
I'm not sure what more to add to this that hasn't already been said. Mostly I felt like summing up the entire event from primary sources for posterity and clarity, so that it's obvious who the liars are, and who the good faith actors are.
Question for the Motte:
What are your priors for whether an accusation is true or false, particularly with regard to the status of the man? Most people in practice seem to drop the "believe all women" pretense when the male status is high enough (see the accusations against Biden and Clinton), and that makes sense. Absent strong corroborating evidence, there's a point of public renown where there's enough benefit and enough bad actors who know about your existence that unverifiable false accusations will eventually outnumber unverifiable true accusations.
How far does this extend all the way down the status pole, though? To well-known video game journalists? To line level managers at a F500? To a coworker at a Walmart? To a homeless dude? And how does this interact with the status of the woman involved?
Depends on what the man is known for. Prominent athletes and actors seem to legitimately have more than their fair share of date rapists, for example, while judges don't. Secondly look at who's doing the accusing. A minor league liberal activist making accusations of a conservative nominee for the supreme court is a different ballgame than a party-hearty coed accusing a runningback.
As far as "everyone acknowledges they had sex, but he-says-she-says on the consent" situations which are the vast majority of accusations leveled against lower status men, I'm perfectly prepared to adopt a "you had casual sex, you knew the risks" attitude but I do think it goes both ways; I credit that accusation from a known loose woman, for example, as needing a bit more supporting evidence, and my prior for a case where a woman willingly meets a man alone in his apartment/hotel room is that she wanted to sleep with him.
Prominent athletes have more opportunities for sex - which means more opportunities for any one woman to claim abuse (especially given that many of them are used as casual sex partners and have no cause for loyalty).
They're also more prominently covered (barring some disaster or OJ situation) than judges. It seems like the entire societal backlash against sexual abuse was aimed at Hollywood actors and producers.
Those things muddy the waters.
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