[QuickTidal]

Morgoth, on 26 June 2020 - 12:51 PM, said:

That seems overly conspiratorial I'd say. Bear had a whole gaggle of friends prepped and ready in case Rowland said something years after the fact? Or are you thinking she spendt the last 12 or so hours calling everyone getting them to agree on a shared narrative?

This is the type of stuff that happened all the time in high school, and is very common. So yes? Rowland even indicates that this seemingly what she was expecting to occur. And honestly, having a parent who raged about this stuff around her own marriage breaking down...my mom is one of the most vindictive people I know. I love her, but when it comes to my dad and stepmom, she was capable of some heinous shit in the name of being/feeling slighted by my dad...all aimed at my stepmom and not my dad.

Morgoth, on 26 June 2020 - 12:51 PM, said:

The original post from Rowland did not paint a picture of abuse to me, and that was from her own description of events. Now we have Bears side, which paints a very different picture, and which has been corroborated by three people so far from what I can see, including a former friend of Rowland.

Again, I'm weighing this against what happened with Bear during racefail, because it's what I immediately thought of. I don't have similar things to lay against Rowland...but as it stands right now, I'm more willing to believe Rowland...if that turns out to not be the case, I'll happily change my tune. But I just keep asking myself why a young author would lie about this stuff...what on earth would she have to gain? Would she not stand to lose WAY more by being vocal about it?

Morgoth, on 26 June 2020 - 12:51 PM, said:

Sure, Lynch doesn't come out of this smelling of roses. I am assuming there was an affair, and that's sad, but also entirely a private matter. Affairs happen, it is cruel and mean and rarely deserving of the public spotlight.

The problem arises from the fact that Bear supposedly knew about the relationship and let it occur. That's where I stumble here.

And yeah, I could be totally wrong, but that's how I'm seeing it right now.

[Tsundoku]

QuickTidal, on 26 June 2020 - 01:02 PM, said:

But I just keep asking myself why a young author would lie about this stuff...what on earth would she have to gain? Would she not stand to lose WAY more by being vocal about it?

Notoriety/raised profile
Victimhood/sympathy - which 10 years ago meant not a whole lot, but these days it's almost a form of status and currency ... it's bizarre.
The old "climbing the ladder by knifing those above you" which has long been established in almost all hierarchies since the dawn of time.
Revenge - hell hath no fury after all ...
EDIT: there's less of a downside these days for a woman speaking out like there used to be as well. Whatever industry she was in would be seriously old-fashioned and almost suicidal to blacklist her.
Hell, some might even try to use her to raise their own profiles, like a bunch of companies have been doing recently.

And that's just off the top of the head.

The last 5 years has seen a real rise in the twitter demagogues using mobs to achieve their own ends like was done back in the old days. It builds its own momentum even.
I'm sure if there aren't already there will be some very interesting studies done of the positives and negatives of the social media groupthink et al ... from the Arab Spring right through to #metoo and so on and so forth.
I always remember that old maxim though about the mob being fickle.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 26 June 2020 - 01:25 PM

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

But wait, what's the deal with Mieville?

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 26 June 2020 - 01:12 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 26 June 2020 - 01:02 PM, said:

But I just keep asking myself why a young author would lie about this stuff...what on earth would she have to gain? Would she not stand to lose WAY more by being vocal about it?

Notoriety/raised profile
Victimhood/sympathy - which 10 years ago meant not a whole lot, but these days it's almost a form of status and currency ... it's bizarre.
The old "climbing the ladder by knifing those above you" which has long been established in almost all hierarchies since the dawn of time.
Revenge - hell hath no fury after all ...

And that's just off the top of the head.

The last 5 years has seen a real rise in the twitter demagogues using mobs to achieve their own ends like was done back in the old days. It builds its own momentum even.
I'm sure if there aren't already there will be some very interesting studies done of the positives and negatives of the social media groupthink et al ... from the Arab Spring right through to #metoo and so on and so forth.
I always remember that old maxim though about the mob being fickle.

Right, but the problem is that false accusations of anything are SUPER slim compared to real/truthful ones. So if 98% of the time the people coming forward are being truthful and 2% of the time they are friggin Amber Heard....then are we doing the right thing by questioning every single incident and giving the benefit of the doubt to the accused instead of the accuser?

Like that's my point. If anything Rowland would be exposing herself to HUGE repercussions for coming forward if she's lying...you'd have to be certifiable to do that and think you would not be caught out.

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 26 June 2020 - 01:18 PM, said:

But wait, what's the deal with Mieville?

From what I can glean, whatever it was went away with heavy hitter lawyers....but people called him a "monster"....so I have no idea.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 26 June 2020 - 01:26 PM

[amphibian]

Morgoth, on 26 June 2020 - 07:09 AM, said:

polishgenius, on 26 June 2020 - 06:21 AM, said:

Now Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear are accused.


And older accusations against China Mieville for doing something very similar to Warren Ellis but then lawyering up and threatening the person who brought it up publicly are surfacing.

What is this exactly though? Reading it sounds like Lynch had an affair with this woman, and when Bear found out she got furious. Back and forth marriage crisis and eventually Bear manages to get Lynch to cut contact? I don't get the grooming accusations to be honest. The situation she writes sounds uncomfortable, but also rather ordinary.

I think the grooming part was left somewhat vague and that Rowland is saying Lynch was doing it constantly to her.

I tend to think that Rowland was a bit more active in the whole dating Lynch thing than her post states.

However, I'm reading this RaceFail stuff from 2009 and this is just a "holy shit, this woman has problems". There's some accounts of her doing small acts of rude behavior at conventions. I've had some personal Twitter interactions with Bear over some ludicrously venomous things she said about Bernie Sanders being anti women (long since deleted) and how everyone who supported Bernie past 2016 was a harassing Bernie bro, so I unfollowed her there a while ago.

I think Bear has likely done some shitty stuff to Rowland and maybe to others that Lynch brought into their orbit. I think Rowland likely did some shitty stuff to Bear and Lynch too. I doubt that Bear will take much if any responsibility for any of this.

It's becoming extremely obvious that the convention "rules" of interactions between creators and fans at conventions and at the bars afterwards are just a trash fire of hurt waiting to happen. I now have tremendous respect for those who go in, do their jobs with professionalism and respect for others at all times, don't hurt anyone, and then go home without any issues.

The conventions don't have to be corporate machines, but there's gotta be a change to how staff set the tone, push back on bad behavior, and act to avert disaster. That might mean staff attend the after party at the bar as staff rather than as regular people.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Ann Aguirre was both very, very brave to put those names in a tweet and probably mistaken to say them without some weeks of fact corroboration.

[Tsundoku]

QuickTidal, on 26 June 2020 - 01:26 PM, said:

Right, but the problem is that false accusations of anything are SUPER slim compared to real/truthful ones. So if 98% of the time the people coming forward are being truthful and 2% of the time they are friggin Amber Heard....then are we doing the right thing by questioning every single incident and giving the benefit of the doubt to the accused instead of the accuser?{

Because that's the basis of our justice system?

Quote

Like that's my point. If anything Rowland would be exposing herself to HUGE repercussions for coming forward if she's lying...you'd have to be certifiable to do that and think you would not be caught out.

What repercussions are you thinking of? Have you seen any examples recently of a (proven) false accuser copping any, or at least anything beyond a slap on the wrist?

BTW - what's this racefail thing I've seen referenced a few times?

Bed now, early start - very uncivilised for a weekend.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 26 June 2020 - 01:52 PM

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 26 June 2020 - 01:49 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 26 June 2020 - 01:26 PM, said:

Right, but the problem is that false accusations of anything are SUPER slim compared to real/truthful ones. So if 98% of the time the people coming forward are being truthful and 2% of the time they are friggin Amber Heard....then are we doing the right thing by questioning every single incident and giving the benefit of the doubt to the accused instead of the accuser?{

Because that's the basis of our justice system?

Yeah, this isn't about legality man. Like at all. We aren't discussing people being held legally responsible (unless they've done something that warrants that).

No one is taking anyone to court here...that doesn't mean that accusations should not have weight and we can't make preliminary judgements on what we know/have heard from a social and business angle.

Tsundoku, on 26 June 2020 - 01:49 PM, said:

What repercussions are you thinking of? Have you seen any examples recently of a (proven) false accuser copping any, or at least anything beyond a slap on the wrist?

I mean, a fledgling writer with 3 relatively unknown books under her belt...VS two heavy weights in the industry...seems like the repercussions for lying about them would spell dooming her career, and make her publisher poison.

And yes, Amber Heard is a false accuser and is currently reaping what might be a multi-million dollar repercussions for those accusations that will probably bankrupt her, and leave her without a viable career.

[amphibian]

I too had no idea what the RaceFail thing was until today.

It appears to be an extremely sprawling "conversation" among what was likely several thousand people with hundreds of posts and essays happening all over the internet about how SFF authors write people who aren't white or acting within the European model of society.

Bear kicked it into high gear with her post, which I'm not going to dig up and link. But what's important about the whole thing is that while a serious conversation was happening about much needed diversity in SFF about setting, characters, writing, and the history of SFF, there was a ton of harassment, verbal abuse, misunderstandings, and other forms of bad behavior by all kinds of people.

Some famous authors spoke up in a way that they eventually became ashamed of - Scalzi being one - while others like NK Jemison actually managed to come out stronger.

Beware of anyone saying Beejanun Sriduangkaew was harassed by anyone else though. Beejanun was Requires Only That You Hate and sent torrents of abuse to lots of people and especially the minority writers just starting out like she was (her competition). Beejanun has somewhat apologized and made friends with several writers today, but hasn't really made amends for the awful stuff she did as Requires Only That You Hate/Requires Hate/Winterfox. She was doing this mostly after Race Fail in the 2010-2013 time period, but much of what she built on was what happened in 2009.

https://quillette.co...-fantasy-world/

So it's a whole big thing and Bear's part in it wasn't good.

[QuickTidal]

So another few authors have chimed in to support Bear's version (Arkady Martine is one of them)...and some others have chimed in to support Rowland's version of events as well.

If I was a betting man, I would now say that Lynch is likely the middle pin of this whole thing, and it revolves around how he conducted himself.

So let me back down a bit from believing Rowland outright and disbelieving Bear outright....but I really do get vibes of Lynch cheated, lied, and Bear and Rowland are on either side of it with varying degrees of involvement and the truth is muddy and messy.

I'm really just trying to spend my life believing what people come out to say, because it makes so little sense to me for them to lie about it unless they can gain/get away with it. False accusations happen, as do overreactions...but yesterday we started the day with Myke Cole being mildly defended for behaviour he'd supposedly rectified in there intervening years since the original complaint...and then learning by days-end that he had not changed and was worse than we thought...and ditto Sykes who was initially caught up in "He didn't do anything about Myke"....to being accused of many things he did himself directly...

So it's hard not to want to side with the accusers...maybe that's my failing?

[polishgenius]

On Mieville, the initial posts are now gone, but I found this which goes into some of it. Basically it seems similar to what Ellis did but with added lawyerly threats.



On the people coming out in support of Bear, the power imbalance does still have to be borne in mind, though CD Covington in particular has screenshots that, while they don't disprove Rowland's story, do have them in their own words lay out a plan for publishing that involved targeting Scott Lynch.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 26 June 2020 - 02:31 PM

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 26 June 2020 - 02:30 PM, said:

On the people coming out in support of Bear, the power imbalance does still have to be borne in mind, though CD Covington in particular has screenshots that, while they don't disprove Rowland's story, do have them in their own words lay out a plan for publishing that involved targeting Scott Lynch.

Oof, yeah that paints a different picture at least.

Yeah, that certainly makes It look Like Rowland targeted at least Lynch to a business extent.

Sigh, why do people, have to muddy the waters of accusations like this?

Now I feel like a shit for believing her outright.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

QuickTidal, on 26 June 2020 - 02:16 PM, said:

I'm really just trying to spend my life believing what people come out to say, because it makes so little sense to me for them to lie about it unless they can gain/get away with it. False accusations happen, as do overreactions...but yesterday we started the day with Myke Cole being mildly defended for behaviour he'd supposedly rectified in there intervening years since the original complaint...and then learning by days-end that he had not changed and was worse than we thought...and ditto Sykes who was initially caught up in "He didn't do anything about Myke"....to being accused of many things he did himself directly...

So it's hard not to want to side with the accusers...maybe that's my failing?

I had a similar conversation on this point with someone re J K Rowling's claims about her ex-husband.

I know people can lie... but having experienced being a survivor of abuse and the sheer number of people who didn't believe me because my abuser is "such a nice person" etc, I try and extend the benefit of the doubt to accusers until given reason to stop doing so - because I am acutely aware how painful the disbelief is. I also think it's a fair point that beyond perhaps attention (and true, some sick people want attention at any cost and won't rule out any means of getting it), I don't see what's to be gained by lying about someone more powerful than you. The likelihood is many will not believe you and you're going to come in for a pile of abuse (as Scott Lynch himself noted on Twitter this week).

That isn't to say I'll go broadcasting "X is definitely an abuser" in the wake of an accusation.... but I know where I'd generally choose to put my money, were I a betting lady.

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 26 June 2020 - 02:42 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 26 June 2020 - 02:16 PM, said:

I'm really just trying to spend my life believing what people come out to say, because it makes so little sense to me for them to lie about it unless they can gain/get away with it. False accusations happen, as do overreactions...but yesterday we started the day with Myke Cole being mildly defended for behaviour he'd supposedly rectified in there intervening years since the original complaint...and then learning by days-end that he had not changed and was worse than we thought...and ditto Sykes who was initially caught up in "He didn't do anything about Myke"....to being accused of many things he did himself directly...

So it's hard not to want to side with the accusers...maybe that's my failing?

I had a similar conversation on this point with someone re J K Rowling's claims about her ex-husband.

I know people can lie... but having experienced being a survivor of abuse and the sheer number of people who didn't believe me because my abuser is "such a nice person" etc, I try and extend the benefit of the doubt to accusers until given reason to stop doing so - because I am acutely aware how painful the disbelief is. I also think it's a fair point that beyond perhaps attention (and true, some sick people want attention at any cost and won't rule out any means of getting it), I don't see what's to be gained by lying about someone more powerful than you. The likelihood is many will not believe you and you're going to come in for a pile of abuse (as Scott Lynch himself noted on Twitter this week).

That isn't to say I'll go broadcasting "X is definitely an abuser" in the wake of an accusation.... but I know where I'd generally choose to put my money, were I a betting lady.

Yes. I agree. I'm sorry you went through what you went through. It's awful.

It's also why I (for example) have such feelings about the Depp/Heard situation because the audio revealed she gaslit and abused him...and the very words she used in that audio triggered the abuse I suffered at the hands of an ex girlfriend becuase they were so familiar and in some cases exactly the same....and as a guy I never told anyone until I met my wife about it...because I just assumed no one would believe that I was abused by a woman. It affected every relationship I had after that for a while where I simply could not open up and trust the other person, an everything read like a red flag to me, even when it wasn't.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I'm sorry to hear your experiences too QT, it's horrible.

I also found the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp thing hard to take - but mostly from the point of view that I'd assumed she was telling the truth.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 26 June 2020 - 03:01 PM

[Cyphon]

Sigh. The they said/they said of this is really tiring. Like I want to know what is truth but wading through all of this is tiring. I feel I lack the required energy/ headspace to go through the layers if this.

I agree with TRBB. My default is to believe the victim and lesser in the power dynamic.

[polishgenius]

Sorry to hear about both of your experiences.


On the feeling conflicted about who to believe, well it's tough, of course, you don't ever want to end up having disbelieved a victim. I think the thing to remember is that what 'believe women/believe victims' really means is 'listen to women', ie take the allegation seriously and find out what's what. And even if there's no proof that the allegation is true, the person may still be genuinely hurting, so even if you don't believe them, don't dismiss them.
It's about the old culture of not dismissing or plain ignoring allegations out of hand, and we all need to be careful of finding the balance of yes, taking women and other victims seriously but also being prepared to go 'wait that's not right, she cut his finger off' if need be.

Like others are saying, the balance of probability does say the alleger is more often telling the truth, and finds actual proof harder to find, especially in cases of manipulative relationships.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 26 June 2020 - 03:21 PM

[End of Disc One]

Brandon Sanderson...I read a comment from someone on Reddit the other day who works at a Starbucks in Barnes & Noble. They said Brandon Sanderson was sometimes in a bad mood and came off as rude.

[Aptorian]

Can't tell if serious *squinty eyes fry pic*

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

polishgenius, on 26 June 2020 - 03:19 PM, said:

Sorry to hear about both of your experiences.


On the feeling conflicted about who to believe, well it's tough, of course, you don't ever want to end up having disbelieved a victim. I think the thing to remember is that what 'believe women/believe victims' really means is 'listen to women', ie take the allegation seriously and find out what's what. And even if there's no proof that the allegation is true, the person may still be genuinely hurting, so even if you don't believe them, don't dismiss them.
It's about the old culture of not dismissing or plain ignoring allegations out of hand, and we all need to be careful of finding the balance of yes, taking women and other victims seriously but also being prepared to go 'wait that's not right, she cut his finger off' if need be.

Thank you.

And I think you're spot on there.

[Aptorian]

Then why are you commenting?