Accusers Must be Embraced

On handling sexual (or other assault) claims in civil society.

(Coincidentally, Facebook has recently released a hug emoji.)

We have to encourage people to make accusations without fear of being derided as makers of baseless accusations. We also have to encourage people to continue engaging with society despite any number of accusations (based, or unbased) which stand against them. What we are working here is merely a traditional system of of distributed claims, and what we traditionally aim for is a set of eventually consistent outcomes.

At the end of the day, it may be possible that not every victim will see justice. And it is quite likely that not everyone who is punished will have actually been an abuser. I expect it means we will get into a norm of seeing public figures shrug off accusations, and some public figures will simply find their entire careers besieged with complaints. And that is to be expected, and embraced.

I think, if I wanted to become a leader in society, I would have to do so given this sort of expectation in mind. Any less tolerance for dissent would result in too much silence.

The Virtue of Ignorance

Seasonal humanitarian crises are a painful distraction. Some people will spend their time establishing equality and happiness for all conscious beings. It placates their sense of anxiety about the suffering of other people. Other people will focus on other things, because they are not predisposed to the same anxieties. We can argue about the morality of either tribe, but ultimately all tribes are only human. And humanity is a temporary affair. So my hope is that, in all their trade in anxieties, whether they favour empathy or ignorance, each party will succeed in fulfilling their own ambitions for existence. It is also an ambition to have no ambitions, but in order to achieve that, one has to be truly careless about existing. So in this season, I hope for more careless people.