While the FSF's vision for the GPL is clear, the GPL itself is not so powerful that it is more than a "gift" that has some terms if you want to do certain things you are not obligated to do. It is like a grant that enforces some reasonable conditions so the money isn't just misappropriated. I wouldn't give that to a friend for their birthday, but I think it's reasonable that powerful organizations should not be free to do whatever they want. Not that the GPL is perfect for that use, but it's good.

I assume you're talking about the "would you rather encounter a man or a bear?" thought experiment. I do think some people (presumably men) respond in disturbing ways to the women's responses that choose the bear. But I think choosing the bear is questionable at best, and involves ignorance and bad faith. I think, even if I'm wrong and the better answer is "the bear", there was more room for discussion and reflection so that the future answer is "the man". I guess such a simplistic hypothetical is not the best way to get mutually distrusting parties to come to an understanding.

I think this thread has not been so bad so far, but it is early.

The issue with moving topics elsewhere is that the most important part of a forum is the community. Forums are not interchangeable.

I don't think it's generally believed that a mentor has to come from outside. In fact, I think it's because mentors coming from close family is not prevalent that pushes these boys and men to find mentors elsewhere.

To be fair, no one person or even group defines "feminism", or "masculinity", or anything of the sort. It's a big cafeteria, and there's a lot of food to be flung around.

Abusers are not evenly distributed over all men, so the target group is not "men" but "men who we knew were probably sketchy anyways, and some we unfortunately didn't know about".

Do you have data on that?

All the abusers I've heard of by name were in the category of "some we unfortunately didn't know about" (with the exception of the Epstein clique, I imagine, which were more in the category of "some we collectively didn't want to know about").

No data, and I imagine there isn't much to say either way, since collecting the data is difficult at best.

I think part of the discrepancy is that you're talking about abusers you've "heard of by name". The other is that people like Weinstein and Epstein clearly have power, and by default the powerful are left to their own devices (of course their victims and many others around are aware, but don't speak up). I think that, knowing that, one can calibrate a more accurate predictor. I think, if one hangs around a crowd long enough, one can typically gauge who's who in that crowd.

I don't think it's that easy.

A friend of mine was sexually abused by a family member. To this day, the family refuses to believe it. I've heard of other stories among people I know. None of the abusers were flagged out as creeps until the story came out.

Almost all the only cases I've heard of easy-to-spot creeps doing the abuse are among the rich & powerful, and it's possible they might be considered easy-to-scope solely because it was already known that they were abusers.

The one case of abuse by easy-to-spot creep I've heard of among my circle was that that of a rape in a high school, by a 15yo who had been flagged as dangerous in his previous high school, and nobody acted upon it in the new high school because the file had apparently been lost in transfer (possibly at the behest of the parents).

So, my anecdata suggests that profiling is hard.

You may be right. I made too strong of a statement; there is too much variability even if some good predictive features are used. I believe that it is not too difficult to identify groups where one group has significantly higher risk of being abusive than another group. In particular, people tend to be sexually abused by people close to them[0]. Especially in the context of family, there are probably some people who know and cover up the abuse. I don't believe that most people can hide their inner selves from everyone. For instance, I sometimes hear that celebrities who are rotten on the inside were actually known to be so for years by staff and some ordinary people. If we could conduct honest interviews of people, I imagine a lot of not-so-secrets would come out.

[0] https://womens-safety.com/blog/rapists-often-familiar-faces-...

I agree in one sense, but in another, the extremes seen on Twitter are not where the madness ends. The Overton window shifts slowly.

I'm not sure if you're asking a rhetorical question, but I believe it's because (whether right or wrong) the linked thread is perceived as belonging to the "redpilled, conservative, traditional masculinity" subculture.

I'm not asking a rhetorical question.

The flagged thread is flagged, not downvoted. 45 points, 87 comments.

I doubt RAND[1] and IPSOS are in the redpilled subculture, that's quite the reach.

Not everything touching on men's problems in the current age is redpilled

[1] https://www.rand.org/about.html

>The RAND American Life Panel and the Ipsos KnowledgePanel are nationally representative probability-based survey panels of adults in the United States

Well, I was commenting on why I think the thread was flagged, not whether I think it should be. Also, the main content of an HN thread is typically in the comments, not the link.

>the main content of an HN thread is typically in the comments, not the link

this is what's killing HN (and everything else, tbh)

I disagree. The link is at best one data point, when the comments provide a whole body of content. Of course, the bulk of the comments should be productive, then, in order for the thread to be productive.

While HN is not great on politics, I'm not aware of any decently large (or small!) community that is.

In the instance of your simulator, I think this is moreso due to the popular idea that people in tech tend to be autistic and the cultural desire to be part of the ingroup, rather than a snub at autistic people/men.