I wouldn't have commented on this blog if I didn't want to see you reply to my post! I do believe you are sharing your views in good faith, which is why I wanted to comment to give my own context on this subject. I also commented in part because it's a subject I see often and sometimes it's good to get one's thoughts spelled out to solidify them.
I've actually been playing West of Loathing, which is made by the same team as Kingdom of Loathing as one's suspect, and when googling it I did come across more stuff about that incident that got you to write that part of the blog in the first place.
Two things about that particular instance is that it's not just some random solo indie dev, but a developer who is part of a rather accomplished team of developers, whose allegations were in part corroborated by other people on the team. It's fundamentally different from your own situation in many ways, I think.
I do think there is a difference between bad and rocky relationships and outright abusive relationships that get people accused with allegations and such. When someone makes allegations of being a victim, it paints a huge target on their back too, internet crusades target these people as well, following them around and calling them liars, sending them death threats and the like. Those hate mobs are also pursuing their ideal of social justice, though they would obviously never call it that. Anyway, I don't think it's something someone will do unless the situation was that bad or they're mentally unfit to estimate the results of their actions.
I can't comment much on what went on with that 'best friend', I vaguely recall your blogs from the time, but it was never clear to me what exactly happened and I suspect neither you nor her want to publicly talk about specifics.
When it comes to sexual assault, I see it as somewhere between sexual harassment and outright rape. For me the border between harassment/assault is physical contact and assault/rape is penetration (be that forcefully penetrating or forcing someone to penetrate). I'm sure different people would put the boundaries in different places though. One person's harassment might be another's assault while someone else might say it's completely innocuous. I'd like to think nothing you did constituted as harassment, let alone assault.
I think you are inserting your own narrative a lot into this matter. I think we all do, to varying extents, as I often find myself annoyed at presumed heteronormativity in these discussions, being gay. That's something that always strongly colours my perspective on these matters. For example, these allegations aren't even always about people of opposite sexes, I've seen men accused of grooming boys as well! And a lot of these stories don't necessarily involve any sexual misconduct at all, there's many different forms of abuse after all.
I think a lot of those public figures were probably quite popular with both sexes growing up, they're often magnetic and charismatic people, which makes it so difficult for people to know what to think when an allegation is made, since it conflicts heavily with people's image of them.
Anyway, I don't think you need to say it's just probable that some of these people are just that bad, history is full of terrible atrocities and humans horribly mistreating and dehumanizing other humans with the flimsiest of self-rationalizations, so it'd be hard to believe that didn't happen anymore.
Many Germans did become Nazis, as did many people outside of Germany. And on the flipside, a lot of people in similar circumstances, both German and not German, decided to resist. I won't say those who became Nazis are innately evil, but everyone who has ever become or ever will become a Nazi is making a terrible mistake.
If it happened to me under whatever circumstances then I'd also be making a mistake, and I can only hope it never comes to that. It reminds me of someone I saw while sitting in the train wearing a jacket with the text "Nazi punks fuck off" on it, and I couldn't do anything but appreciate the sentiment.
It's good to understand how people get to those sorts of places to prevent it from happening to other people and, where possible and feasible, deradicalize them. But it's also important to have people who are willing to stand up and do something about it when these people are victimizing others. I'll gladly cheer for a Nazi getting punched in the face regardless of how they got to be a Nazi, because I know Nazis would be happy to put a bullet in my and your heads in their ideal world if people let them get away with it.
And of course the role of victims in this shouldn't be understated either, it's important that there's also people who tend to their feelings and needs, to have systems in place to help them recover. I often see it happen that people will focus on deradicalizing while ignoring all the things they can do to help the people the radicals they're focusing on are hurting.
Of course with most abusers it nowhere near that extreme, but I still believe it's good for people to call out abuse. Overall I think we should all be more worried about the people those monster hunters are going after than the monster hunters themselves.
I wouldn't have commented on this blog if I didn't want to see you reply to my post! I do believe you are sharing your views in good faith, which is why I wanted to comment to give my own context on this subject. I also commented in part because it's a subject I see often and sometimes it's good to get one's thoughts spelled out to solidify them.
I've actually been playing West of Loathing, which is made by the same team as Kingdom of Loathing as one's suspect, and when googling it I did come across more stuff about that incident that got you to write that part of the blog in the first place.
Two things about that particular instance is that it's not just some random solo indie dev, but a developer who is part of a rather accomplished team of developers, whose allegations were in part corroborated by other people on the team. It's fundamentally different from your own situation in many ways, I think.
I do think there is a difference between bad and rocky relationships and outright abusive relationships that get people accused with allegations and such. When someone makes allegations of being a victim, it paints a huge target on their back too, internet crusades target these people as well, following them around and calling them liars, sending them death threats and the like. Those hate mobs are also pursuing their ideal of social justice, though they would obviously never call it that. Anyway, I don't think it's something someone will do unless the situation was that bad or they're mentally unfit to estimate the results of their actions.
I can't comment much on what went on with that 'best friend', I vaguely recall your blogs from the time, but it was never clear to me what exactly happened and I suspect neither you nor her want to publicly talk about specifics.
When it comes to sexual assault, I see it as somewhere between sexual harassment and outright rape. For me the border between harassment/assault is physical contact and assault/rape is penetration (be that forcefully penetrating or forcing someone to penetrate). I'm sure different people would put the boundaries in different places though. One person's harassment might be another's assault while someone else might say it's completely innocuous. I'd like to think nothing you did constituted as harassment, let alone assault.
I think you are inserting your own narrative a lot into this matter. I think we all do, to varying extents, as I often find myself annoyed at presumed heteronormativity in these discussions, being gay. That's something that always strongly colours my perspective on these matters. For example, these allegations aren't even always about people of opposite sexes, I've seen men accused of grooming boys as well! And a lot of these stories don't necessarily involve any sexual misconduct at all, there's many different forms of abuse after all.
I think a lot of those public figures were probably quite popular with both sexes growing up, they're often magnetic and charismatic people, which makes it so difficult for people to know what to think when an allegation is made, since it conflicts heavily with people's image of them.
Anyway, I don't think you need to say it's just probable that some of these people are just that bad, history is full of terrible atrocities and humans horribly mistreating and dehumanizing other humans with the flimsiest of self-rationalizations, so it'd be hard to believe that didn't happen anymore.
Many Germans did become Nazis, as did many people outside of Germany. And on the flipside, a lot of people in similar circumstances, both German and not German, decided to resist. I won't say those who became Nazis are innately evil, but everyone who has ever become or ever will become a Nazi is making a terrible mistake.
If it happened to me under whatever circumstances then I'd also be making a mistake, and I can only hope it never comes to that. It reminds me of someone I saw while sitting in the train wearing a jacket with the text "Nazi punks fuck off" on it, and I couldn't do anything but appreciate the sentiment.
It's good to understand how people get to those sorts of places to prevent it from happening to other people and, where possible and feasible, deradicalize them. But it's also important to have people who are willing to stand up and do something about it when these people are victimizing others. I'll gladly cheer for a Nazi getting punched in the face regardless of how they got to be a Nazi, because I know Nazis would be happy to put a bullet in my and your heads in their ideal world if people let them get away with it.
And of course the role of victims in this shouldn't be understated either, it's important that there's also people who tend to their feelings and needs, to have systems in place to help them recover. I often see it happen that people will focus on deradicalizing while ignoring all the things they can do to help the people the radicals they're focusing on are hurting.
Of course with most abusers it nowhere near that extreme, but I still believe it's good for people to call out abuse. Overall I think we should all be more worried about the people those monster hunters are going after than the monster hunters themselves.