Disappointed to hear this after I just finished reading Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull (Pixar's main founder and graphics pioneer) which attributes Pixar's continued success mostly to a culture of extreme candor and honesty... Considering how long this was an issue I guess some things are too good to be true.
I worked at Pixar for three years back in the early 2010s, and that book is mostly hot air. There was not a culture of extreme candor or honesty, at least not in the department that writes all the core software.
I still haven't read it, but I really need to. I was in the Studio Tools group in the late 90s and thought that group functioned pretty well. I also never heard anything about John behaving badly, although it was generally acknowledged that he was a big kid and had to be tutored on things like good female characters. Reading this news about John has made me very sad. I wonder now if any of my female former coworkers were the subjects of unwanted attention from John. Sigh...
I (mostly) loved working at Pixar. They have some of the smartest people I've ever met there. I'd love to say I worked on some amazing, cutting edge features of the animation software, but honestly, I think the most important thing I did was to update the code base from K&R C to ANSI C. It was excruciatingly tedious work and took forever, but it was a necessary pre-condition to using C++ in future components.
i haven't read the book yet, but it has been on my list. do you think that it's useful as something to shoot for? say everything in the book isn't truthful in reference to actual pixar conditions, but is it useful as an "idea of what could be"?
As part of the settlement, the judge should have required the boards of these companies to explain exactly how these employees were reprimanded. At the least they all should have been fired or forced to take a provable leave of absence for 2 years.
I once worked as the assistant knowledge manager for US Army Afghanistan Logistics. The whole point of that job was the evaluate and expose candor and honesty in the management.
I can tell from experience there is very little candor or honesty unless there is a convention to specifically address that concern and that convention is continually supervised by a dedicated staff. The more challenging or bad things get the more true this becomes.
The only staffs that doesn't have an honesty problem are those few rare groups who have largely automated away most of their daily work and fully exposed those automation processes for open evaluation.
I suppose it is human nature that the more incompetent and lower confidence a staff section becomes the less honest and transparent they try to be. In reflection, candor is actually a really great measure of confidence and competence.
The reason you need a dedicated convention and dedicated staff to solve this problem is because the boss never sees what the minions are hiding or what they fail to report unless somebody does a deep dive into their work and fully documents their efficiency and qualifies their quality of work.
Yes that book is one of my favourites. It really made me believe that you can build something big while maintaining a great culture for everyone. I thought the mostly awesome films were proof of this - what a fallacy. This news is very sad indeed.
Either looking up to someone or holding them in contempt are very binary positions. People are complex. One can admire a person for the good they do and criticise and oppose them for the deliberate bad things they indulge in. I mean... none of us are purely black or white...
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I'm reminded of this quote every time another one of these scandals breaks.
Come on. Even finding a definition of sexual harassment which people can agree on is notoriously difficult. Add to that the fact our society continues to push the idea that the men which women 'really want' are aggressive in initiating sexual situations. A man who does something as timid as asking whether he may kiss a girl can assure himself of inadequacy. (Not that there aren't plenty of exceptions to our media supporting this idea—but it's still implied pervasively. And some of it probably is just human nature.)
That said, even if it's not clear exactly where the line is—it's pretty easy to see that certain actions would be far across it, and that's largely what's come up in recent allegations. Though I don't think all of them have been super clear cut. 'Simple' is too strong here.
> Add to that the fact our society continues to push the idea that the men which women 'really want' are aggressive in initiating sexual situations
This is a big part of the problem. These sexual harassment allegations are almost entirely arising in contexts where sex should be off the table. Society’s expectations of aggressive male behavior are entirely irrelevant.
>These sexual harassment allegations are almost entirely arising in contexts where sex should be off the table.
Humans are not Vulcan-style compartmentalizing creatures, and no rule can stop love (and lust, contrary to puritanical religious-derived beliefs, lust is also ok), etc 100% from emerging. Tons of very happy marriages and relationships started in professional settings.
The charge of puritanism is off-base. Just because I hate people soliciting me to buy things doesn't mean I hate shopping. I love shopping! But Amazon exists and I'll buy what I want when I want!
You can ban sexual advances in professional contexts, and achieve substantial compliance, and we should, just like we've done for racist statements. (There are things that Nixon or LBJ said that even Trump won't say!) The opposite viewpoint serves men to the detriment of women. I've never met a woman who said to me "you know, I just wish I could date more guys from work." The truth is (especially in the age of Tinder), most women don't really have to try very hard to get a date. So there is little benefit to them from social rules that make it okay to solicit sexual relationships in professional settings.
In exchange for those sparse benefits, there's real burdens. You're right about the puritanism in one sense: in America, work isn't just something women do to keep themselves busy. Today, work is their livelihood. It determines whether they have healthcare, where they can live, what schools they can send their kids to. Men get to go through their professional lives focused on work. They make work friends and establish mentoring relationships, and they can simply assume that those relationships are about work. Women don't get to do that. That coworker you're friendly with because you share similar ideas about TDD? Oh, he's actually just being friendly because he wants to have sex with you. That meeting with an investor that might be able to introduce you to people you want to know to launch your startup? Oh, he thinks it's a date.
Parent wrote sex, not love. You can't stop love (or lust), but you can choose how you act on them. For example, by removing yourself from the context where that is inappropriate.
One of the parent posts mentioned that it is difficult to even agree what constitutes sexual harassment, so difficult to know what to act on or how to act in all circumstances.
Some consider a hug sexual harassment, some consider touching a knee. What about putting your hand on a person's back? Does it make a difference what part of their back, if so exactly how and where?
Sexual harassment should be far more about intention rather than the specific part of the body touched (excluding the obvious no-go areas of genitals and breasts). Generally you should be allowed 1 strike, for mis-reading signals.
In a society where men are expected to initiate contact, this is a fraught situation.
No, sorry, I don't get it at all. Stop trying to read "signals" and get people's actual consent before touching them. It's not difficult or complicated.
Not sure what you mean - I have been touched by male and female colleagues numerous times. Not once was it sexual, it was just people being people. Are you suggesting that they ask my permission every time before touching my arm or shoulder or slapping me on the back?
Can you imagine the following scene:
"Gee John, you did a great job there, I would like to shake your hand, or even pat your back (only near the shoulder mind you and no lower than a line formed by the bottom of your shoulder blades). Do you think that would be permissible? I want to reassure you that this touch will not be sexual in any way."
A handshake is a good example: when you go give one to someone, you don't actually touch them, you extend your hand and wait for their explicit (if non-verbal) consent.
As for patting backs, do avoid doing so. Many of us don't like it even if it's totally non-sexual.
> "As for patting backs, do avoid doing so. Many of us don't like it even if it's totally non-sexual."
...and many of us do like being patted on the back (non-condescending of course).
Perhaps in the future, we will all have to work in an environment where no touching of any sort is allowed, ever, but I can't help thinking that would be a step backwards.
The whole point is that it's not inappropriate in absolute terms.
The couples who found sex and/or love (and even marriage) in the workplace, would argue that it's appropriate.
It's only when it happens against the other's will that's inappropriate.
Merely some office decree saying it's not appropriate doesn't make it so (and if two people click, it won't fight human nature to connect, including in this way, anyway, people will do what they do).
Sure, that makes the formal legal aspect of it simpler (though still not simple—which is my only point here), but consider this: do you think these people in positions of power have ever run into situations where their inferiors desire the same thing? Obviously that's not the case for those making allegations—but don't you suppose there were also situations where these folks were involved in fully consensual situations which crossed the power line? The rules are there to protect the inferiors, but what if in some situations they do not want that protection at all? To say otherwise is to say that no one ever desires their boss, which is obviously wrong. 'Simple' is just not the right word for it.
Think about it logically rather than emotionally. It’s pretty safe to say that #(women who just want to work and build professional relationships without being propositioned for sex) >> #(women who want to have sex with their boss). Drawing bright-line rules that take sex categorically out of the professional context makes life vastly easier for the former group of women.[1] At slight inconvenience to the latter group. It optimized for the common case.
[1] People hate being solicited so much that we created a nationwide donotcall registry for it! And that’s with no power dynamics in play!
I'm not sure that you did optimize, actually. Part of the problem is that professional and social lines are regularly blurred, and indeed most workplaces encourage it. I have never worked at a workplace where at least some people did not socialize outside of that workplace and at least a few times, romantic relationships emerged from that. And these situations will have misunderstandings and hurt feelings, but to simply tell a bunch of adults that they cannot pursue social or romantic relationships is impossible. This isn't just true for workplaces, but for clubs, industry groups, etc. etc.
Therein lies the problem with these situations and why it's so important to have these discussions and for people to be honest. It's entirely possible I have sexually harassed someone and didn't realize it (though I doubt it, since I've never romantically pursued someone I worked with), simply by expressing interest in them. To not have the discussion is to remove agency from some parties and freedom from others.
You can socialize without bringing sex into the equation (which is how guys interact with each other). Talking about “removing agency” is disingenuous. It’s like saying that banning telemarketing calls is “removing agency” from people who really do want to be solicited. Women aren’t sitting around wishing their boss (or guys from work generally) would hit on them. We don’t need to construct the rules with an eye toward maximizing the contexts in which men can pursue sexual relationships.
> You can socialize without bringing sex into the equation
Of course. This is the safest policy for men in the workplace, for sure.
> (which is how guys interact with each other).
Well, not really? Even assuming no attraction, some guys in all-male social settings bring sex into things fairly frequently, both in general conversation, and in teasing each other. The latter of these is even intended to cause discomfort, and that often happens among friends.
I think it's a really bad idea to say to men: just act the way you would if there was no sexual attraction. That's a good way to guarantee a relatively high perception of sexual harassment, even where none was consciously intended. It's not enough to avoid intentional sexual harassment. Men must not even come close to anything we see as a line not to be crossed. If there is a power imbalance, the line seems to blur for a lot of people, meaning that men must then restrict their behavior near it to continue to be clearly on the non-harassing side.
Good news, though: the vast majority of the behavior that is being called out in the last few months seems so clearly on the harassing side of the line that a bit of caution would seem to go far in keeping clearly on the non-harassing side. For the most part, I assume these men were not surprised that they were seen as harassing. I don't think we're at the point where men have to go full Pence to avoid perceptions or accusations of sexual harassment.
> We don’t need to construct the rules with an eye toward maximizing the contexts in which men can pursue sexual relationships.
Nor do we need to minimize them. You're talking as if men are the only people who might want to pursue romantic relationships. You are also proposing a world in which we limit the pursuit of romantic relationships to select places. You can't do it in a professional environment, nor any clubs where there is a strata of levels (say sports clubs or martial arts, for example), nor trade or professional organizations. You can do it at the bar, using online dating or in designated areas. Even if people thought that would be a good idea, there's no way it could ever work. It's entirely natural for people in the same profession to pursue romantic relationships and they are adults who have a right to do so.
Furthermore, sexual harassment doesn't just exist in the workplace. Women are harassed everywhere: walking down the street, in bars, online, everywhere. Saying "no harassment in the workplace" doesn't even come close to addressing the issue. An open discussion does far more than that.
This isn't to say I don't believe there isn't inappropriate behaviors for the workplace; taking your pants down or kissing someone unsolicited is never appropriate. Nor would it be appropriate outside of work. But sexual harassment can be far more subtle and the line can only be drawn with communication.
What a weird example. Steve Jobs wasn't a coworker or had any position of power over her, he just gave a lecture she attended. Sounds perfectly compatible with rayiner's position.
I disagree. I think guest lecturer still are a position of authority, but there are degrees. HP CEO was fired for dating a contractor or something like that. Where is the line?
Also Bill Gates.
Anyway, my personal wish is coworkers should never, ever date. There are so many options, why take one that has the potential to blow up? Yet, it's one of the common ways people meet. I even knew one who married a woman he interviewed and hired. If only we could all be more logical about relationships. :/
> It’s like saying that banning telemarketing calls is “removing agency” from people who really do want to be solicited.
This is pretty disingenuous. You are assuming famous people with lots of money and power don't have anyone they work with who want, like, pretty badly, to be 'solicited'. In other words, those who desire solicitation aren't going to be just indifferent about it, as one would be if they for some reason opted out of a do-not-call list. Or were you imagining those folks lusting over the prospect of telemarketing calls? ;)
>You can socialize without bringing sex into the equation
Why though?
Do you also think that all romances/marriages that started in office/professional settings are bad, and should be stopped?
Else, why would socializing (in other aspects, like being friends, drinking, talking etc) is OK, but "bringing sex into the equation" is not? How is sex different?
Is it just because a puritanical society considers it different than being social in other ways, a leftover from when it was considered dirty/sin?
Or because of the potential to mess it up? Well, socializing otherwise can mess up too (can turn into extreme hate, bloody office politics, etc). Nothing is perfect.
Though, "don't grope people who don't want it" and "don't masturbate in front of others that didn't ask you for it" sounds pretty easy to attain without banning all romantic/sexual relationships from a professional environment.
After all, we don't want those things happening in singles bars either -- it's not like work is something different in that regard.
The good stuff though, e.g. too people falling in a romantic relationship (or fucking like rabbits in an office closet) why not?
>Women aren’t sitting around wishing their boss (or guys from work generally) would hit on them.
Women in general not, but SOME women do. And that's for boss. If you take it to "guys from work" that's an ever bigger percentage.
Is it just because a puritanical society considers it different than being social in other ways, a leftover from when it was considered dirty/sin?
So what if it is? It's completely unacceptable to cause harm to others just because in a better society that harm wouldn't happen. We're responsible for the consequences of our actions in the real world, not in what we wished the world was.
>It's completely unacceptable to cause harm to others just because in a better society that harm wouldn't happen.
The above doesn't parse. What's the "harm to others" you imply?
What I'm saying is sex itself is not harmful/sinful (assuming both parties are consenting), so having sex with a coworker is not much different (or "bad") than having beers with them.
>We're responsible for the consequences of our actions in the real world, not in what we wished the world was.
You got it backwards: mere thinking/religious belief/whatever that something is bad/sinful/whatever doesn't make it bad in the real world.
> Think about it logically rather than emotionally.
If there was part of my above comment which seemed to you emotionally rather than logically motivated, I'd be happy to clarify it.
It seems from your response that you think I'm arguing against having that line drawn (the one which takes sex categorically out of the professional context). So to clarify: that is very very far both from what I have said and how I feel about things. I think that line is very important and absolutely should be in place.
But that question is unrelated to the matter of complexity and simplicity which I intended to discuss (though my interlocutors so far have insisted on skirting the subject). For instance—as I already covered in my first comment—is it 'simple' how to define that line?
People might disagree on the line itself, but many of these cases that are publicized are... if you read the details of the interactions they are clearly way over many reasonable people's lines.
We might not need a hard line. An acknowledgement of those that went way over the line is proving to be a huge step forward for society. Hopefully we can be left _only_ with ambiguous cases when they occur.
It's not normal for someone known by everyone around them to be a harasser to be able to continue their acts.
This case describes a boss trying to kiss his female coworkers and touch their legs. It's not difficult. It's not the appropriate environment to do that and the power dynamic is wrong, too. People know better.
You're commenting on a discussion of general principles related to the article's content, and not a sanctioning of nor condemnation of Lasseter's specific behavior. The question is whether the general issue is 'simple' or 'complex'.
I was stating that not doing what is claimed in this case (kissing, touching - sexual harassment) is simple, and it is. That's obviously not appropriate behavior. Most of these recent scandals include behavior that either isn't appropriate in a work environment or isn't appropriate ever. There's no discussion to be had, not being Harvey Weinstein is easy.
Add to that the fact our society continues to push the idea that the men which women 'really want' are aggressive in initiating sexual situations. A man who does something as timid as asking whether he may kiss a girl can assure himself of inadequacy. (Not that there aren't plenty of exceptions to our media supporting this idea—but it's still implied pervasively. And some of it probably is just human nature.)
You got into "general principles", which as someone pointed out isn't relevant to a work environment. Superiors don't need to be worried about sexual inadequacy in relation to coworkers. We can say that sexual harassment is is complicated issue, and it is, but there's also behavior that shouldn't be happening by any standard and isn't difficult to avoid.
Oops, didn't realize you were the same person, and I would've phrased it differently in that case.
That said, your statement, "With these scandals, it really is simple: don't sexually harass or assault others." was about the general issue, not the particular one. Additionally, both the parent and grandparent comments are general.
> We can say that sexual harassment is is complicated issue, and it is, but there's also behavior that shouldn't be happening by any standard and isn't difficult to avoid.
Here's the deal; if you're (a) at work and (b) dealing with subordinates, the correct amount of sex to bring to the relationship is zero. Figuring out "where to draw the line" is no more complicated than deciding how much flirting with your own daughter is appropriate. Seriously, when you're in a position like Lasseter's, the math is SUPER simple.
And when you are rich and famous, do you suppose the initiation doesn't occasionally start on the side of the subordinate? In that case, they may have some complex thoughts like, "what is the morality behind this rule if we both clearly desire one another, and they've already told me so first?" So now the complexity is at least similar to: do you still follow rules whose spirit seems not to apply to some present case?
If the situation actually matched the father/daughter analogy you gave, it would be super simple. Unfortunately it doesn't look like that analogy works.
If one person can promote, demote and fire the other, that's a potentially huge can of worms even when the manager isn't starting the relationship off with casual abuse of power. Maybe some of the other complex thoughts should be like, "Can the manager be trusted not to play favorites with their lover?" and "How will the rest of the team react?" and "If this relationship goes south, can they avoid the appearance--and actuality--of retaliation?" There's a reason a sizable minority of companies have HR policies prohibiting office romances between two people in the same reporting chain, and it's not (solely) because HR professionals are big jerky jerk stick-in-the-muds.
Why does it matter who initiated it? The correct answer either way is To not get sexually involved with subordinates. There is no moral ambiguity here. It is wrong to abuse a position of power.
If you reason for not getting sexually involved with a subordinate is that it is wrong to abuse a position of power, how is there not an ambiguity there - or the rule goes out the window - if the subordinate is initiating?
To pretend that the "correct answer" is always so straightforward is to assume that people never make it messy by addressing your assumptions and actively trying to change your mind about it.
Like all moral questions, at its base it's really aesthetics or even "taste". Some managers are not attracted to those who are willing to exchange romance for career advancement. (...they got a name for that.) Other managers are attracted to that sort of person. The former group of managers has less difficulty with this situation than the latter group has, so one might say they have better taste; YMMV.
Like I said, YMMV. This is not an assumption so much as an observation of dozens of couples in various industries, with both men and women in the superior position. This isn't necessarily a conscious motivation on the part of the subordinate, but it exists. Like other temporary motivations (e.g. beauty, wealth, vigor, etc.) this one sets up the relationship for a transition when the motivator no longer exists. Many relationships survive such transitions; many do not.
It's a simple rule. Judging from the number of relationships I see spring up in my workplace, I wouldn't say that it's an easy rule to follow (for some people, anyhow).
> I wouldn't say that it's an easy rule to follow (for some people, anyhow).
I stick by the same rule, but other people have not been so smart. Most famous case is Bill Gates, who's now not-happily married to Melinda Gates. Or not. Case in point, it is all debatable and depending on context, like all human interactions, but with witch-hunts like these the context gets totally lost.
Which witch-hunt? The only people being accused seem to have been obviously over all reasonable limits. A side discussion about workplace relationships, without mentioning any names, is not a witch-hunt.
Ha, should've known this would devolve into ad hominem. The discussion is about simplicity vs. complexity, not 'difficulty'. Address any of the points I've made and I'd be happy to discuss.
I'm sorry, but their post is still bullshit. It is incredibly easy to not harass and to not assault people. Claiming that things are "tricky" or "unclear" when they're not doesn't help anyone.
You'd be amazed how many of the accused said things very similar to what you're saying, right up until the point when they themselves were accused. It's not simple at all, people who claim it is are missing a great deal of nuance and, oftentimes, merely projecting this attitude in the hopes of masking their own transgressions.
Can you point to any of the recent high profile allegations where the accusations are of behavior that was ambiguous? They almost all seem to be totally clear cut cases of inappropriate actions or worse. These aren't mild flirting with a colleague.
No, it’s not simple. It is incredibly complicated, and moreso than I can address in thiscomment. But, for one, these are not court trials. These are public relations events.
You have assumed that the parents' motivation is to 'make it more right'—there's nothing they've written which expresses that. The comment seems to me to be a much more interesting statement on how we understand the notions of right and wrong in general.
People need to be able to discuss this on a philosophical level without automatically being accused of taking one side or the other.
Remembering that people are complex and nuanced is a thought terminating truism; this is built into the definition of people. The _italics_ doesn't make your comment more poignant.
What the quote was eliciting is the idea that we are, "all flawed" and you should look at yourself before you judge, which is utter bullshit. I am flawed (a person), but I can still judge the others and what is acceptable socially to a higher standard than my own (assumed) actions. To not do so is to enter in a pact where we race to the bottom lest be judged to a higher standard.
We each embody multiple simultaneous facets that don't always agree, but they all need to hold society accountable while being individually flawed. And we cannot turn an eye against the flaws for the protection of our selves.
You are adding too much of your own uses and interpretations to the quote. The compartmentalization of an individual's moral actions is an interesting thing to just know about human nature, and it's not as well known as you might think (your simplification to "people are complex and nuanced" is another matter, and I'd agree wouldn't need to be said). I'd wager the typical opinion on the whole lot of recently accused is that we found some 'evil people'—which presents serious difficulties to those who've found their heroes accused, as has probably come up a number of times in connection with Lasseter, for example.
> The _italics_ doesn't make your comment more poignant.
Not sure why you thought I was shooting for poignance. I was drawing attention to the fact that your statement was based on an assumption, since that was the most important thing and people like to skim.
It's only binary because the actions they've done are so egregious that we have no other choice but to condemn them. Most people are able to stop themselves at the mere thought of committing actions such as these. And yes, while everyone makes mistakes there is a huge difference between mistakes that might hurt someone a bit and mistakes that make people feel violated. I've never made anyone feel violated and I'm sure most other people can say the same. Here's a 3 step process for anyone who finds it difficult and if at any point you answer no, stop what you are doing:
1. Do you know this person well and do they respond enthusiastically positive toward you?
2. Have you discussed your feelings towards them and have they responded enthusiastically positive towards them?
3. Have you discussed the things you want to do and have they responded enthusiastically positive towards them?
As an average looking guy who has had no trouble finding many romantic partners, let me say this, if your success hinges upon overwhelming surprise then you are doing something VERY wrong. If you are worried about it no longer feeling in the moment after asking for consent, let me assure you that if they want you as bad as they should, it won't be given a second thought.
> If you are worried about it no longer feeling in the moment after asking for consent, let me assure you that if they want you as bad as they should, it won't be given a second thought.
This is a phenomenal point. If the "moment" is so fragile, that it can be totally destroy by asking for consent, then it's also very likely too fragile to take any action.
If you think "if I ask, then it might ruin the moment", then you also have a huge chance of making someone very uncomfortable.
Aren't the actions egregious on a case by case basis? Do we actually know what he's been accused of? It sounds like he's a little bit overly friendly...and that does not push somebody into a binary 0 for me. Dude makes good movies.
Based on what I read about the details, if the boss of your company was making unwanted sexual advances to the people that worked for him/her, most people to whom this happened would think "Eww".
From the news -
A former Pixar employee requesting anonymity says Lasseter's leave of absence statement is "ridiculous" and "trivializing this behavior." The employee adds, "To sum this up as unwanted hugs is belittling and demeaning. If it was just unwanted hugs, he wouldn't be stepping down."
Yes, we do, in the linked articles. The Polanski Standard is a bad one. Someone can make great movies but if they are a creep, they're a creep. If he made bad movies would it be okay to judge him?
I've gotta believe you can be a decent person and still do great things. Otherwise, what's the point? No need to excuse bad behavior, maybe by excusing it, we make it possible.
If predators got run out of industries instead of being allowed to stick around for decades (Hastert, Weinstein, Paterno, Spacey, Trump, the media is even starting to turn on Bill Clinton), then we wouldn't have to be so disappointed. It's not acceptable.
Paterno isn't accused of being a predator. You're probably thinking of Jerry Sandusky.
But ironically, you might accidentally have come across the reason this doesn't happen. Things that "everyone knows" aren't actionable until there's hard evidence and accusers on the record, and then afterwards, we all pretend like "everyone knew" and chose to do nothing.
“Grabbing” and “kissing” coworkers is more than “a little overly friendly.” Legally, it’s battery. (Fun fact: it was defined that way at common law, long before feminism.)
Wiki page on battery? [1] Or any legal text on it...
Battery in common law is basically any unlawful offensive/unwanted physical contact, though various jurisdictions limit or define this very differently.
So it's not that kissing or grabbing is specifically called out, but that any physical contact to the extent that it is unwanted (battery and assault both depend on the recipients subjective views in common law; in codified versions this may be different) and/or seen as insulting or offensive in the relevant jurisdiction is likely to be battery unless specific other criteria comes into play.
A challenge is that in some instances you may be thought to "silently consent". E.g. in the UK this very explicitly comes into play with ordinary contact in a crowd, and presumably all jurisdictions will recognize this in some form or other. But absent codified rules, precisely what/how/when you may be considered to "silently consent" to may vary wildly in different common law jurisdiction depending on details of precedent setting case law up through the ages and changing social expectations.
E.g. a lot of people would likely have expectations of a higher level of "silent consent" on a night club dance floor, for example - but conversely because battery is largely down to the subjective judgement of the victim, my ex is due in court tomorrow because some guy grabbed her ass in a night club and refusing to apologize (admittedly "helped" massively by the guy lying to the police about it once things escalated)
"We feel like we have been put in a position where we need to speak for ourselves. The break neck speed at which journalist have been naming the next perpetrator renders some reporting irresponsible and, in fact counterproductive for the people who do want to tell their stories.
In this instance, the Hollywood Reporter does not speak for us. We did not leave Pixar because of unwanted advance. That is untrue. We parted ways because of creative and, more importantly philosophical differences."
It looks like The Hollywood Reporter didn't follow through by talking to the original victims.
I'm holding on to this single strand of hope that Tom Hanks is above these recent allegations.
If it comes out that he was also a sleaze bag along with Charlie Rose, Al Franken, Jeffrey Tambor, (along with an incredible family movie director in the rumor circles) I don't know what to think of Hollywood and my childhood heroes anymore.
Tom Hanks, if you have to say anything, do so now rather than later!
charlie rose was awful at interviewing people. he constantly interrupted interesting thoughts. he just had to get a word in at a set rate.
yet somehow they consistently booked very interesting guests. i'll give you that, but that's what the show had going for it, not the eponymous interviewer.
I generally agree with you, but his interview with the Chicken Connoisseur was embarrassingly bad, starting with the choice of setting and the small talk he opened with...
nah, he was really good at interviewing people and directing interesting longform discussion on a huge variety of topics. better than pretty much anyone else.
No, he was really good at getting great guests onto his show, with a long-enough format to have some time for conversation.
He was absolutely atrocious at the actual interviewing part.
He would constantly make stupid paragraph-long statements and then at the end ask “don’t you agree?”, then when the guest started to explain that no the statement was wrong or oversimplified, he would interrupt them and repeat his point again. He was constantly shitting all over guests who he disagreed with or didn’t think were cool enough, telling them they were wrong and trying to get them to repeat whatever he happened to think, even if they were world-class experts on some topic he didn’t know anything about. He was constantly kissing up like crazy to anyone he thought was rich or famous or powerful, in a way that was really uncomfortable to watch (his numerous sycophantic interviews with Tom Friedman make my skin crawl). He never seemed to listen very closely to what anyone was saying: I don’t think I ever heard a poignant or insightful follow-up question in the hundreds of his interviews I have seen. Instead he would often interrupt right in the middle of some complicated interesting thought, and throw in a non-sequitur, jolting the conversation to a new (often stupid) topic.
My favorite Charlie Rose moment was sometime like 15 years ago when he had on (if I recall correctly) Bill Joy. Charlie made some incredibly banal and obvious paragraph-long statement with a question mark at the end, and then looked at the guest, who was just staring at him. There was a long uncomfortable pause, after which the response was, “well, duh.”
If you want to see a stark comparison, find any week where the same guest was interviewed by both Charlie Rose and Terry Gross, and listen to the two interviews back to back.
I'm sorry, but I disagree and find you to be twisting and exaggerating a huge volume of work. There are miles and miles of treasure in his archive from people that never spoke for long unstructured amounts of time with anyone else.
Terry Gross has big flaws, the biggest of which is how she approaches her interviews much more from a political activist's lens, to the point of being absolutely obnoxious about certain topics or people. There are a wide array of issues I would never want to hear her interview someone about.
There are many treasures in Charlie Rose’s archives because of the guests. Again, his show was often worth watching despite him. I’m not just cherry-picking examples though. He did that crap constantly. Almost every interview of his I’ve ever seen was at least mildly frustrating, and often I want to throw my shoe at the screen and tell him to SHUT UP AND LET THE GUEST TALK. Try watching a few of them now, and paying attention to the times that Rose interrupts the guest, makes some sycophantic flattering comment, or repeats his point multiple times after being told it is wrong.
The nature of interview shows is that often topics are inherently political (e.g. interviewing a politician, a journalist, an economist, or a political biographer), but Terry Gross is one of the least political interviewers in the media (apart from maybe some late-night comedy hosts who do 5-minute bits), and frequently gets her guests to talk deeply about their lives and families and hobbies even when they originally came to discuss some political topic or shill their latest book or whatever.
She approaches her interviews with careful preparation every time (e.g. she actually reads the books), universal politeness, and close listening, and responds to what her guests are saying with interesting topical follow-up questions rather than sticking with a canned script.
You might be misinterpreting knowing something about the topic (as Rose typically does not) as “political activism”.
You’re getting downvotes for no good reason (disagreement is a bad reason).
I quite strongly agree with you btw. The fact that Charlie Rose is held up as some high standard of interviews should be an inditement of the entire profession in the US because he - compared to actual maters like David Frost, Louis Theroux, and so on - is quite poor.
He pioneered that format, pursued great guests, gave them the space to convey their thoughts in long form, structured the arc of the interviews to pull good stuff out of people over time, and worked relentlessly.
And unlike Gross, he kept his own politics closer to his chest, which, in combination with everything else, gave him access to everyone.
Who else is out there from a younger generation on the way up? Weirdly enough, like the other person said, the Hot Ones guy is the closest I can think of. Maybe someone from the podcast realm, but it's hard to think of someone with the range and intellect. I guess it will be a more fractious world.
I'm with you on Friedman, and Rose's railroading of guests, but you lost me at Terry Gross. She always prefers to talk about why her guests felt a certain way and how that might have affected their work, rather than their interesting work itself. The only time I can listen to her show is when there is a guest host. After all, she does get good guests.
As a die-hard fan of the Charlie Rose show, I've been thinking a lot about this the last couple days. This is a post-hoc rationalization, but I don't think my love for the show had to do with the host, but rather with two things: 1. (obviously) The consistently interesting guests, and 2. The format - dark, quiet, free of distractions, it was a respite from all the different kinds of noise constantly around us.
I fear that it will be difficult for anybody to re-create this atmosphere and find enough of an audience to remain on air (I was always surprised Charlie Rose was able to stay on air, honestly), and I doubt that anybody will even try. But I believe there are many great podcasts that can fill the void - I'll just have to create my own dark, quiet, distraction free place to listen to them in.
We are witnessing cultural norms shift right before our eyes. The line went past a lot of powerful people in the shift and now they're scurrying like roaches. In the old days this was borderline behavior, but not something that would typically get them in trouble. A little butt slap here or innuendo laced comment there was tolerated and sometimes even expected, but those days suddenly ended when even the powerful and influential Harvey Weinstein could fall. One can argue that it might even be blowback from the election of a man who boasted on camera about showing dominance through sexual assault.
I'm actually excited about what the housecleaning of the old guard means for the future. Many of the men implicated in these cases should have retired years ago to give the fresh faces some breathing room. The message is coming out loud and clear now: If you sexually harassed your coworkers/secretary/etc... back in the 60s or 70s as was the custom your day of reckoning is coming. Get out now before the scandal hits.
So many stories are going to come out over the next few weeks that it will get to a point where none of it sticks. If everyone's a pervert, then nobody is.
Charlie Rose was fired, so it's clearly still sticking. And the fact Roy Moore might win doesn't matter so much. At this point he's literally running on "would you rather elect a pedophile or an abortionist?" That might fly in Alabama. Is it going to fly in board rooms in New York or San Francisco? That's the more relevant question to your typical HN reader.
>Is it going to fly in board rooms in New York or San Francisco?
Yes, because it was clearly known internally at CBS and PBS for years before becoming public. And yet Charlie Rose only gets fired--near instantly--after the Washington Post publishes a piece about him.
Right, but what about the next (would-be) Charlie Rose? Stuff is accepted until it isn't. There's lots of stuff that wouldn't cause people to bat an eye in the 1960s, that would be met with silent disapproval in the 1980s, and would get you straight up fired today.
No, Roy Moore will win (if he does) because of political tribalism; to the extent the flood of accusations against others is relevant, the “lots of allegations but who could know the underlying reality” thing will be part of how people voting for Moore rationalize their vote more than a key factor in the actual decision.
Makes me wonder where the next "shift" will be. A lot of things that are unambiguously bad today were not yesterday, and there is no guarantee that something you do today will not be seen as taboo tomorrow.
I've had conversations at work in the distant past that I'd probably get fired over today. What about 20 years from now? I've recently mentioned in co-worker chit chat that I like to go the the range every now and again to shoot clays and targets. How do I know at some point in the future I won't be forced to resign for a "history of discussing weapons in the workplace," after those cultural norms shift again?
Maybe it's because I'm not in the US, but I find this concern overblown.
For the most part, we're not talking about perfectly innocent things suddenly shifting into unacceptable. We're talking about behavior that was merely tolerated from people in positions of power. And 20 years ago most of these were probably already covered in sexual harassment advisories. As far as I'm concerned, the change took too long, not the other way.
Who do you see having been fired for stuff done 20 years ago and that was completely acceptable back then?
> We are witnessing cultural norms shift right before our eyes.
I wonder how long until we see folks like Mick Jagger getting forced to resign their jobs due to using their status as rockstars to pick up women. Especially since most rockstars are also producers or executive producers, i.e. the same job that Harvey Weinstein or VCs have.
There's a critical difference between using your status as a public celebrity to pick up partners (which is fairly noncontroversial) and using your power as someone who can open and shut career doors to pressure people to accede to or keep quiet about your sexual advances.
Someone like Jagger or Weinstein may have both kinds of status, but there is still a difference.
There are plenty of types of relationships that are consensual, but that are still either illegal or else forbidden by the ethics standards for various industries. Just because something is widely accepted today, doesn't mean that it will be acceptable in the future as long as there is consent.
Ethical standards are shaped by the conflict between the world as it exists currently and the type of society we'd like to have. They're not immutable, nor are they guaranteed to move in any particular direction. E.g. if the human population outstrips the supply of cheap natural resources, liberal western values may go out the window very quickly around the world, just like they did in Iran.
So are you making some kind of slippery slope argument then? The common thread with all of the housecleaning that's currently going on is that it's been harassment/assault/rape, i.e. non-consensual. I don't really understand what you're worried about? Is your argument that by allowing people to face punishment for non-consensual sexual behavior (i.e. harassment/assault/rape), we're opening the door in the future for people to be punished for consensual sexual behavior?
History has also been going the opposite direction of what you're claiming anyway. Promiscuous consensual sexual behavior was much more heavily penalized in the past than in the present. It's going the other way. Many people were calling for rock music to be banned back in the day because of this kind of behavior they said that it idolized. Now, if anything, it's celebrated.
As far as I know the only person in the current wave of scandals who is being raked over the coals for consensual behavior is Bill Clinton. Every single other case involved men forcing themselves on women sexually.
"A little butt slap here or innuendo laced comment there was tolerated and sometimes even expected, but those days suddenly ended when even the powerful and influential Harvey Weinstein could fall."
That's the thing - 'what is it'?
A 'slap on the butt' is point blank harassment and never really accepted in any culture. You could 'get away with it' but it was not ever considered perfectly ok.
'Sexual innuendo' - that is normal in many places in the world,
'Commenting on a woman's appearance' is a positive trait in many places in the world.
'Showing up at your door in a bathrobe' - is not unethical behaviour. There has to be a lot added onto that to make it inappropriate.
And there are huge levels of inappropriate.
What if you are out drinking with a co-worker, then back at your place drinking, you're both flirting - and then you go in for the kiss?
A sales lady jumped in the pool naked at a hotel where we were staying. Nobody cared, we were drinking, it was funny. But if it's a dude - it's wrong?
Putting drugs in a girls drink and then raping her ... well that's beyond immoral and very illegal.
The problem I think - is that a lot of this stuff is getting lumped together.
A lot of this behaviour is really only 'no acceptable' wherein there are very high bars for behaviour.
You don't put your hand on a woman's knee at the office.
You can put your hand on a woman's knee if you're out on a date with her.
What if you are co-workers? What if one works for the other.
...
This is all complex and nuanced stuff, I don't think we can just lump it all together.
FYI - it was 'progressives' in the 1960's pushing for sexual liberation - and 'consent' is in the vast majority of even positive cases, not exactly given verbally.
So there is a 'new set of norms' but a lot of it is based in fear.
Have you seen the 3 second video of Gigi Hadid who received a 'buddha doll' (possibly not buddha, just a fat man), it's really cute. She makes a face, puts the doll next to her, and smiles like the doll. It's just fun, I don't think racist at all - and yet the Chinese government got involved.
The smallest mis-step - one person - in one place - can say something - and it blows up.
The 'new order' will not be a 'moral order' - it will be a 'sanitized order' - wherein every word - every action - every thought - will be scrutinized so intensely that I'm weary we're giving up a lot for this.
So yes - the 'new norm' of 'don't harass your interns and grab their asses' is really good - but I fear it won't just create a 'safe place' for people, it may ultimately create a hostile place where we can't just be human.
I stayed at a friends house in SF recently, she came out of the kitchen naked, and went into her bedroom - just as I was falling asleep on the couch. She was giggling. She was not flirting with me - just kidding. And I laughed because it was funny. We work in the same industry. Should I charge her with sexual assault?
Anyhow - it's complicated. A few steps forward a few steps back.
A friend is an extremely high achiever and has been promoted rapidly in a ~1000 person company based on their work and reputation alone. Recently, as they have had to begin participating in more and more high level functions with directors/executives, unwanted touching has occurred more than once. Despite every effort to physically move away from the situation and send clear signals it continues.
You can bet they are in a position where not only are they uncomfortable saying anything, they are also is absolutely looking to jump ship to a company where this does not occur. I can guarantee you that allowing these people to continue these actions without punishment will certainly hurt the long term success of these organizations.
Anyone with half a brain knows these actions are unacceptable, the problem is those with more than half a brain realized they were able to get away with it previously and chose to continue acting in a way that provides them a sense of power and satisfaction as up to this point they simply could. This is no longer the case and a lot of people who aren't all bad and simply thought they could get away with it will (and should) lose everything for this.
I didn't imply that people doing inappropriate things should be able to get away with it. Just saying it can be complicated in some cases, though obviously not in others.
Also not trying to imply you think they should get away with it. I had a really touchy situation with the person and 2 others, one of which knew what was going on and one who did not, discussing what is and isn't acceptable anymore. Unfortunately it ended with everyone thinking I'm crazy and the actions will continue towards them and they have no recourse to change it. I really hope for all of their sake that they soon realize they do have the power and if they fired everyone who had been treated that way for speaking up there would be no one left based on what I heard from them.
it's happening right before our eyes. your comment gets downvoted because it openly reveals the shift as a double-edged sword. anything but leftist groupthink consensus is punished. it's the same behavior you see on any subreddit.
binary values of up and down ought to be taken to the slaughterhouse and replaced. society has become a public-shaming gladiator ring. i'm sick of it.
I completely disagree with the public shaming aspect, it's unnecessary. This should be handled behind within the organization and employees should be aware but the public doesn't need to know.
However, if the insinuations we are hearing is true about unwanted kissing in the workplace to the point women have to turn their head when they pass him that goes beyond a double standard. That would be unnaceptable if a woman did it.
Speaking of which, Janet Nepolitano is a clear example of abusing power wrt gender who needs to be fired.
The term "witch hunt" doesn't apply just because there are many bad actors being exposed. It applies when innocent people are caught up in a frenzy of accusations.
Sometimes a frenzy of outrage is earned and deserved.
Lasseter's crime is apparently hugging people. That's not a "bad actor". This is far beyond witchhunt territory. Damn I'm glad I don't work in Hollywood. The entire industry appears to be disappearing up its own backside.
Sources say some women at Pixar knew to turn their heads quickly when encountering him to avoid his kisses. Some used a move they called “the Lasseter” to prevent their boss from putting his hands on their legs. A longtime insider says he saw a woman seated next to Lasseter in a meeting that occurred more than 15 years ago.
“She was bent over and [had her arm] across her thigh,” he says. “The best I can describe it is as a defensive posture ... John had his hand on her knee, though, moving around.” After that encounter, this person asked the woman about what he had seen. “She said it was unfortunate for her to wear a skirt that day and if she didn’t have her hand on her own right leg, his hand would have travelled.”
So a hand that might have travelled but didn't 15 years ago and the fact that he likes hugging is proof of what, exactly? Only the insanity of our era. Don't research how the Queen of England met her husband or your head might explode.
A witch hunt is a definite possibility, but I haven't seen any evidence of it yet. I think we're seeing a lot of people who had to bottle up their experiences because the climate wasn't right for trying to bring them out in public. The climate has definitely shifted, so a lot of people who faced possible retaliation before can now safely air their grievances. This is a good thing. It will be overplayed when people start using it as an excuse to take down people they don't like or to make a quick buck. I don't think we're there yet, but if you have seen instances of that, please let me know.
> I'm making a point that innocent until proven guilty does not hold true anymore. Once the media or social media writes a story, in the eyes of the "general" public... You're done.
That's been true forever. Innocent until proven guilty has only ever been a legal standard.
I hope you are not implying that poorer people do not get in trouble for sexual harassment or worse.
This recent uptick in wealthy people being brought down by it is only newsworthy because they were previously seemingly immune to the normal rules everyone else lives by.
> I'm making a point that innocent until proven guilty does not hold true anymore. Once the media or social media writes a story, in the eyes of the "general" public... You're done.
You make it sound like this is a recent phenomenon. When, in history, has public opinion been subject to a legal standard like 'innocent until proven guilty'?
> One longtime Pixar employee says Lasseter, who is well-known for hugging employees and others in the entertainment community, was also known by insiders for "grabbing, kissing, making comments about physical attributes." Multiple sources say Lasseter is known to drink heavily at company social events such as premiere parties, but this source says the behavior was not always confined to such settings.
Seems like it doesn't. It may be that I'm from Eastern Europe, where the social aspects are a little bit more pronounced compared to more puritan countries like the United States, but wtf is wrong with hugging? Honest question. Also, I know I used to drink heavily at "company social events" and thank God I was not let go because of that. Well, to be honest almost all of my co-workers should have been let go if I were to judge them based on their drinking outside of working hours.
I'm French (and we're not exactly puritan about sexual undertones in the social context) and I guess it all boils down to whether or not the huggee actually wants to be hugged by the hugger.
Hugging by itself is harmless, but when you're physically embracing someone and forcing a hug on them (especially if you're in a position of power) you're basically robbing them from their chance to exercise free will, which is of course problematic.
Wow, what a shitty non apology. A longer version of "I'm sorry you felt offended."
“That was never my intent,” he wrote. “Collectively, you mean the world to me, and I deeply apologize if I have let you down. I especially want to apologize to anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of an unwanted hug or any other gesture they felt crossed the line in any way, shape, or form.”
Lasseter says : " No matter how benign my intent, everyone has the right to set their own boundaries and have them respected."
It's dead wrong. The boundaries are defined by society as a whole. The way he puts it basically says that if you don't set your boundaries, then don't complain if you are hurt.
No actually, whether certain behaviour or moves are acceptable or not depends entirely on the individual. Sales people and socially awkward people are told to reach out and touch people on the shoulder and such, for example; I don't like people touching me, but apparently it should be socially acceptable. I could make it a battery or sexual intimidation case if I wanted to.
Then there's people that actually like being touched, especially by close friends which, yes, can be colleagues, and can be people above them in the chain of command.
TL;DR it's a minefield, best to do nothing and stay away from people.
How do you deal with the fact that for some behaviors, most of the people who disagree with it just stay silent. Since nobody complains individually, does it make the behavior acceptable ?
Ask yourself why you considered him a hero. You don't know this person. He's a person, just like you. I went through a similar process a couple years ago.
Relevant quote regarding Feynman:
…in many ways Richard was a sexist. Whenever it came time for his daily bowl of soup he would look around for the nearest "girl" and ask if she would fetch it to him. It did not matter if she was the cook, an engineer, or the president of the company. I once asked a female engineer who had just been a victim of this if it bothered her. "Yes, it really annoys me," she said. "On the other hand, he is the only one who ever explained quantum mechanics to me as if I could understand it." That was the essence of Richard's charm.
It's complex. You can respect their achievements while separating the other half. And until you really know someone, it's not good to lump the two halves together in your mind.
> Even people without famous achievements have good and bad aspects.
Exactly! Is there a single person who doesn't have good and bad aspects? Nope. The balance isn't the same between everyone, sure, but 'no one is perfect'.
But the point isn’t the individual. The questions we need to ask are - why did people feel empowered to do what they did? Why wasn’t there anything in place to hold these people accountable for their actions? And what are the larger patterns and their consequences (e.g. widespread sexism and sexual harassment pushes women out of the workforce/positions of power)
Usually the answers are the same. People feel empowered most often by the prevailing attitude of their societies. If we want to see less of something then we (all) need to speak up against it. Can we raise our hands when someone asks us if we ever went against prevailing culture and stood up for someone (or ourselves), even at a grave cost?
Also some are psychologically disturbed due to various reasons and those people need therapy and mere reactionary punishment will not improve matters in the long run (for society).
Seems like the same question as that religious one about what would keep a person honest in lieu the wrath of a higher power/promise of eternal life/whatever external motivator.
Wow, I wasn't aware. I did some searching and his own writing is even more damning (the chapter "You Just Ask Them?" in "Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!")
> Well, someone only has to give me the principle, and I get the idea. All during the next day I built up my psychology differently: I adopted the attitude that those bar girls are all bitches, that they aren’t worth anything, and all they’re in there for is to get you to buy them a drink, and they’re not going to give you a goddamn thing; I’m not going to be a gentleman to such worthless bitches, and so on. I learned it till it was automatic.
He was a product of his time. That section (unsurprisingly) is preceded by him acting gentlemanly, as he always had, and failing to attract anyone. Gender roles work both ways, and that was apparently how society there and then in that social context expected men to act.
He was not really gentlemanly before, he was slimy. He attempted to play innuendo and manipulation game, but he was bad at it. He was not nice guy as in "polite helpful man nice to people around indiscriminately". He was a guy that buys drinks to random women he just met hoping they will have sex with him afterwards. The actual 1950 gentlemen was supposed to buy stuff to show how good potential provider he is, then girl supposedly falls in love, then they marry and he provides while she cares about house, children and him. There was no such intention in these interactions.
Then he moved on to directly state his intentions, which actually worked, because those women were actually open to having one night stands. But that move was not possible for him unless he convinced himself that women in question is worth less then nothing.
But, if his nice guy play would work and they would really fall in love with his nice guysness and then had sex with him, they would be really hugely disappointed next morning cause he was in it for sex only. So I guess it is very good thing all players except him were experienced enough to recognize the situation and seen through his nice guy act.
I'd argue that is still the case. As long as people working at bars don't earn a fair wage and as long as tipping culture remains a thing, I won't trust anyone's kindness over there as genuine, and more as a tool to get more tip money.
I remember when The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists came out and was a fairly big deal, as far as those things go. All I could think was, didn't Feynman write about this 20 years ago?
The fact that he said "during the next day" makes it sound like the rest of the story might change the situation. Can someone who has read the book please weigh in?
The context of the story is that he keeps buying drinks for women who flirt with him at nightclubs (e.g. one or another traveling singer) who then near the end of the night make some excuse why they can’t spend more time with him and leave.
He notices one of the women who made some excuse about a party that night has been talking with the MC frequently, and surmises correctly that they are married – turns out the woman wasn’t actually looking for romance and was just leading Feynman on to get free drinks out of him. The permanent singer at the club had been introducing women to him after first telling the women he was a big spender.
Feynman befriends the couple (singer and MC), and they talk about how plenty of rich men at the bar keep spending money on the girls there without getting anywhere romantically. The MC tries to teach Feynman about the social roles people take on at a bar. The key lesson is that a man who buys a woman a drink up front is unlikely to end up getting the one night stand he wants, but if he refuses to buy her anything, his chances will be better. Feynman tried it out by getting a girl to pay him back for a sandwich, and a few hours later she came by at the end of the night and invited him to her room, so the lesson apparently worked.
The “bitches” part is some kind of temporary psychological reprogramming he’s doing on himself for a day or two so that he can bring himself to objectify people against his usual inclination, so that he can try the experiment. It’s clear in context that he doesn’t think all women are “bitches”.
Feynman tried it one more time some while later on someone who wasn’t a traveling singer, flirting a bit with a girl but then asking if she would sleep with him before he would buy her a drink. She agreed.
His conclusion at the end is: “So it worked even with an ordinary girl! But no matter how effective the lesson was, I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way. But it was interesting to know that things worked much differently from how I was brought up.”
Note: I’m not making any value judgments here, just recounting the story.
Again, he spent one day amping himself up so that he could spend one evening play-acting as a misogynist jackass, including throwing this single (offensive but also somewhat jokey sounding) line at a woman after she suggested that he buy her a sandwich so they could eat together at her place, but then took the sandwiches he bought and was about to leave without him. She can’t have been that offended by the line, considering she came back a few hours later and invited him to her room.
The point of the story is that misogynist jackasses can be successful at finding one-night stands a bar but he didn’t enjoy it, so he only ever tried it twice.
Maybe you think that is damning evidence of some inherently irredeemable character flaw, but let he/she who hasn’t ever once spent an evening being an asshole (intentionally for an amateur sociology experiment or otherwise) cast the first stone.
Feynman initially assumed that if a man bought drinks for a woman, she owed him sex. After these experiences, he assumed that if a man “disrespected” a woman by not buying her anything, she provided him with sex because she was stupid or masochistic.
Sadly, in both these cases, he never considered the possibility that a woman’s sexual consent and worth should not be monetized in the first place.
(a) Feynman never claims anyone owed him sex. All he said was that the men buying women drinks out of an unrealistic hope of getting a one-night stand out the other end were fools.
(b) Feynman never said that not buying her something was “disrespectful” (though the MC did say that the man should (1) be disrespectful and also (2) not buy a woman anything up front). The “disrespectful” part was insulting someone or directly propositioning a stranger for sex in return for a drink.
You are reading a whole lot more into the story about Feynman’s “assumptions” and “considerations” than is supportable by the text. Overall I would say your comment is considerably more condescending and offensive than the story.
If you want to give Feynman crap about his other treatment of women throughout his life, so be it, but this story is pretty thin evidence for whatever case you’re trying to make.
That comment is from the post, which again, I'd suggest people read instead of a paraphrase.
This is the advice offered to him:
“Therefore,” he continued, “under no circumstances be a gentleman! You must disrespect the girls. Furthermore, the very first rule is, don’t buy a girl anything –– not even a package of cigarettes — until you’ve asked her if she’ll sleep with you, and you’re convinced that she will, and that she’s not lying.”
The master of ceremonies was right, as in: acting disagreeable, pushy, socially superior, insulting, etc., and then directly propositioning someone for sex before paying for anything was effective in practice (at least twice) at getting women at a bar to agree to a one-night stand.
Edit: I read “the post”. Either the author has poor reading comprehension and largely failed to understand the content of the story (maybe Feynman can be blamed for not having written it in a clearer way), or she is being disingenuous.
I think the right phrase here might have passed out of our vocabulary during a long recent period of extreme permissiveness. It's ungentlemanlike to speak of such things.
It sounds like whoever told him the buying drinks doesn't work theory was the original PUA, and then he tried it thought there was something to it but didn't care to continue?
He creates many many good movies. Yes, his bad behavior doesn't nullify his achievements. Many famous/talented people are jerks in history, and 99% won't survive under today's moral microscope. The achievements wouldn't cover what they did personally to other people, however, the reverse is also true.
I think it's important to separate different types of harassment. Yes, Feynman was probably sexist and viewed women in terms of stereotypical gender roles, but so did probably 70% plus of people in the 60s.
I specifically contrast that with the many recent reports of deliberate abuses of power or outright assault. There was still a knowledge, even back in the not too distant past, that those things were wrong, as evidenced by the fact that so many men tried to keep their behavior hidden.
I think there is a difference between "grabbing, kissing, making comments about physical attributes" and "looking around for the nearest 'girl' and asking if she would fetch it to him".
Of course, but they're talking about the risks/results of holding the entirety of a person up as hero when you may not know everything about them. Then they used an example they felt was relevant to them and possibly relevant to many HN readers. There was no suggestion that the actions were as bad.
I mean even after you think you know somebody it’s useful to recognize they have good parts and bad, separately. Lasseter can still be a hero for his work as a director (writer? Creator? Honestly not sure about his title.) without looking up to his social behavior at all.
It would be weird in any case to assume that, erm, career people are just as heroic in other spheres of their life.
I absolutely think that way, that we can and should separate the person from the achievements (case in point: I love Roman Polanski's films). Nevertheless, it's a natural reaction to be sad when a person you hold in high esteem is revealed to have negative aspects in other areas.
> You can respect their achievements while separating the other half
Agree to disagree. If people would tell them to go to hell from the beginning, their achievements would go to someone else and we would all be better for it.
This would require a very strong assumption that geniuses are a commodity. That all it takes is to be in the right place and be given the right opportunity and anyone could have done what he did.
It's probably true. Given enough time and people, someone's going to do it. You just gotta look at ancient civs and how they often would independently come up with really complex stuff. Given the spread of knowledge since that time, some discoveries might be easier.
Billions of people over hundreds of years produces lots of opportunities.
This was not OP's argument. The argument is that we could have replaced Feynman with whoever was second-best-yet-not-a-chauvinist-pig, and we would get exactly the same outcome, sans sexism.
The iPhone wasn't invented by Apple, they just had a great combination of timing on manufacturing processes, great marketing and a decent UI to start with.
There is no doubt in my mind that we would've made the same progress with any other company, albeit perhaps cosmetic differences.
I think this is translatable to most other advancements. It's nearly always iterational, and either someone's first, different people discover something independently or it's a mashup of separate discoveries.
History makes geniuses, smart people exist everywhere.
You can tell people that their behavior in one area is wrong without failing to respect their achievements in another area, so your statement (as well as manifestly being false; disrespecting Feynman doesn't magically create another equally-talented physicist) is a non-sequitur.
Huh? General Lee was the Commander of the Confederate States Army. No one is stripping him from the history books; he had an important role in history. It's the monuments glorifying him that are being removed from public spaces.
Feynman similarly was responsible for actual important works in physics. He won't be stripped from history books.
Robert E. Lee is still in history books. He may have a few less monuments than he did a few years ago, but then those who read history books rather than just worshipping graven images of historical figures out of context might realize that Lee himself was opposed to such monuments to either side of the Civil War as barriers to national reconciliation and progress.
I mean frankly who gives a damn what Lee thought; the issue is the same with feynman in theat it is their fans who romanticize them.
That said, it’s not exactly uncommon knowledge that Feynman was terrible to women, especially all the ones who followed his first wife, including his second. People aren’t exactly building statues to him so much as his lectures and story telling ability.
Rewriting history is worse than these guys' behaviour. Future generations need to read about both the good and the ugly, if only to avoid repeating the latter.
It's rewriting history and the present to claim that Robert E Lee is being stripped from any history books. That's just bullshit. So's the idea that rewriting history is worse than fighting for slavery.
He's trying to say that he's the victim here, a white man suffering from reverse discrimination, sick and tired of having to tolerate people writing bad facts about Robert E Lee and tearing down his statues, which deeply effects him every day of his life, because tradition. We've heard it all before.
This is an easy trap to fall into. Try to think from the victim's perspective. Countless women had to suffer mental and emotional distress due to Lasseter. Who knows, without such stress, some of these women could have been even bigger than Lasseter himself.
I think it’s probably an exaggeration to say that ‘countless’ women were personally harassed by Lassiter personally, but countless women have been harassed by people like him and continue to be today.
I think people are focusing too much on individuals and missing a very important question: Why are we relying on journalists for this? Presumably all of these people work at corporations with HR departments. Why weren’t there consequences sooner?
Something is fundamentally broken with the incentives around harassment in the work place — HR departments exist to protect the company and its executives from lawsuits. They don’t exist to protect employees from the company. Until there are serious financial consequences for failing to act on harassment complaints sooner, nothing is going to change.
Every newspaper on earth can’t exclusively commit itself to uncover sexual harassment. Eventually this is going to die down— and then what? If Jane Engineer is harassed by Joe Manager today— where does she go? The media only cares about celebrities. Are HR departments changing their policies to stop the ongoing harassment today? I seriously suspect not.
In another ten years we’ll be seeing another round of these stories.
You're violating the guidelines by commenting like this. If you won't start posting civilly and substantively we'll ban the account. That means—especially on controversial topics—cleaving to the subject at hand and not fighting some secondary ideological battle.
> I don't believe any mental or emotional distress was suffered
I don't believe a grown up adult human being with an ounce of empathy could hold the beliefs that you hold. And yet, you exist and hold those beliefs. I presume you're an adult human and that you do have empathy for others.
Sometimes things happen that challenge our beliefs. Maybe a better approach would be to ask why your beliefs don't seem to line up to reality, instead of ignoring the evidence in front of you.
If you keep denying this social change, you're going to sound exactly like the old family member at Thanksgiving that says racist things. Society will have moved on and left you behind.
> Someone who can't tolerate the "stress" of being hugged is never going to be able to pull together Toy Story.
As someone who worked in Hollywood, you cannot be farther from the truth.
Movies are not produced by aliens. They are done by people like you and I. Similar to people who work at Uber, or Google, or Goldman Sachs. Or at your employer. There isnt a "hollywood" type.
Definition of rape culture: a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.
This smacks of damage minimisation and failure to take responsibility. While we shouldn't be applauding these guys, I found that at least Louis C.K.'s confession seemed genuine (after the denials).
