You should put your reputation on the line when you make such vile comments.

Your profile says you're the "technical founder on a bootstrapping startup," I want to make sure I never use your product, do business with your company, or take calls from your recruiters.

Please tell me what is "vile" about saying "I believe Susan, but this blogpost strains credibility. If the author is being honest, I hope she speaks to an attorney".

My own.

I'm not making claims of a sexist, racist, and hostile environment in a company, so for what it's worth, where I work isn't relevant.

Well, you made a call for someone to deanonymize herself yet you are not willing to deanonymize yourself on that account, perhaps because you feel that it might hurt your reputation not because you are wrong, but just because the internet is the shitty place it is...

Clearly you understand the possible risks to putting your real name behind your words, regardless of their veracity. Medium isn't a court of law, they don't owe anyone any evidence and you pointing out that there isn't any is implying that they have a reason to hide their name that isn't justified.

> Medium isn't a court of law, they don't owe anyone any evidence and you pointing out that there isn't any is implying that they have a reason to hide their name that isn't justified.

You're right. And I don't have to trust what I read on Medium -- what I'm suggesting is that I don't believe _this particular anonymous author_ (and to be careful, I'm entirely willing to believe a culture of unacceptable behavior exists at Uber).

Very well, since you refuse to stand behind your words I assume you are an Uber shill, perhaps Travis himself, trying to cast dispersion on a story.

Agreed, they should stand behind their words.

> My default is "show me the evidence", but I believe Susan Fowler's account because she put her reputation on the line and I was willing to trust that she left, opposed to got fired, due to non-performance reasons based on being able to somewhat approximate/confirm her technical abilities.

... is a privileged viewpoint, and offensive to me. The author doesn't have to prove to your satisfaction that this happened to her to write this article.

Wanting evidence is privileged? Is everything but complete credulity now considered "privileged?"

She doesn't have to, but putting it that way, people don't have to believe her.

Has the word "privileged" so lost all meaning that it's privileged to merely want evidence? I reject that I'm somehow contributing to an oppressive patriarchy by wanting claims to be substantiated in the post-Enlightenment way: with proof. People do make things up.

I hear you re: evidence. My point being, we're not in a courtroom, the bar for evidence is difference. I personally think it's worth calling out that the viewpoint being echoed that "Sounds absurd, don't believe" is a problematic one.

I don't deny anyone wanting evidence that opinion, but I think it's also really easy for someone with the privilege of not having to deal with the things women in the tech workplace have to deal with to shut down articles like this one.

Fair enough, and further to your point, apparently men do react with disproportionately more shock than women in response to stories like these.

I think your point would've been better made if you'd written this comment first, instead of the privilege thing.

It's pretty typical male privilege to enter this discussion to say "Nope, don't believe it, because it sounds unreasonable to me". It has a chilling effect.

There's obviously no way to be sure of the story, but the speed with which people just presume it's fake speaks the overall lack of understanding of sexual harassment in the workplace. It's willfully ignorant to make that the basis for a discussion on this article.

As it happens, I disagree with mjolk on this, in that I'm inclined from my experience to find Amy's story pretty believable.

However, HN has lost its mind if merely saying you don't believe a story is now flag-worthy. Why should the odiousness of a claim influence our evaluation of whether or not it's true?

Fair point. I think discussion is the best response. TBH, I don't really understand the HN flag system, so I can't comment very much on it.

> ... is a privileged viewpoint, and offensive to me.

"Privileged"?

I'm not sure how or why you chose to take offense, but I'm surprised that anything about that was even slightly controversial.

> The author doesn't have to prove to your satisfaction that this happened to her to write this article

You're right, but that doesn't mean I have to believe what the author claims and doesn't mean I can't respond to it. The comment section doesn't exist to serve as an echo chamber.

I feel like you're getting downvoted to death for the same reason atheists are more disliked than agnostics: "there is no god" is more offensive than "there's insufficient evidence that there is a god." Personally I agree with what I think is your view, that in the absence of sufficient evidence, we should disbelieve (rather than neutrally suspend judgment) proportionate to the strength of the claim itself.

If you'd said "we lack sufficient evidence to believe Amy," I think you would've just been yelled at, not flagged.

>If the culture at Uber was as rampantly ridiculous as described in this blogpost, men and women would be falling over themselves to tell their stories.

Is this post not proof of that? Especially so soon after Ms. Fowler's account. Perhaps the floodgates are now open.

Are you a female engineer at Uber? I would think that would be a reasonable baseline for criticizing the credibility of this story.

Sorry, try again. We're talking about a company being criticized (in part) for the treatment of female engineers. You're making assertions that this article isn't believable. The author is a female.

Pretty big stretch to say I'm being sexist by suggesting you have _no clue_ what is or isn't a believable experience for a female engineer at Uber.

I'm not playing identity politics. And I didn't mention racism and homophobia because that's not the perspective the author wrote from.

Look, I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I understand your doubts about the story. Really. I'm just calling attention to the way you chose to raise them. Claiming they're "absurd" as a way to present your argument that we should be skeptical is hard to take to seriously unless you're willing to say you worked on her team, or were another female engineering at Uber.

And yes, I probably escalated things talking about privilege, but I think this is a good example of how we don't always realize the ways our viewpoints affect our opinions. I personally have no basis with which to offer an opinion about the validity of the story. I welcome someone that reminds us to be skeptical because everything written was written anonymously.

And to be clear, I'm not talking about allowing anyone an opinion. I'm talking about how we discuss these things productively in public forums.

> I'm not playing identity politics. And I didn't mention racism and homophobia because that's not the perspective the author wrote from.

You suggested I'm not qualified to decide if the claims are believable (to me) and suggested that I would be if I was a woman that worked at Uber. "You don't understand X because you're not a Y" is a textbook attempt to reframe an argument away from objective considerations.

> Claiming they're "absurd" as a way to present your argument that we should be skeptical is hard to take to seriously unless you're willing to say you worked on her team, or were another female engineering at Uber.

Please note that I didn't claim the author was a liar. I wasn't careful with my words, but: "This submission is just anonymous accusations. Absurd, unrealistic-sounding accusations."

It's truthful to say the accusations are anonymous. The level of misconduct described by the author is absurd and sounds unrealistic -- if these events were proven to have happened, they would still be _absurd_ and _sound unrealistic_.

> And yes, I probably escalated things talking about privilege, but I think this is a good example of how we don't always realize the ways our viewpoints affect our opinions.

It's not escalation; invoking claims of "privilege" is head's up that you want to talk in subjective terms ("he/she feels", "other group experiences"), which is fine, but not fitting when I'm suggesting that I have a hard time believing an anonymous author's claims (e.g. "guys" at work writing sexual fantasy stories in private chat that the author somehow read).

An an aside, from reading between the lines, we have similar wants for the future culture of tech, but we're working with different strategies.

What evidence do you have that it's absurd? Do you think men don't ever act like that in professional settings? Because I have know a ton of women who can assure you that they do.

> What evidence do you have that it's absurd?

None, which is exactly the level of evidence put forward in the blogpost that it even happened. Susan Fowler's account is a plausible account of a toxic environment; I default to believing her for various reasons. Claims of open/unguarded homophobia racism, sexism, fireable remarks, coworker-sexual-fanfiction are pretty severe as the consequences are steep and financial for the accused -- if this blogpost isn't hyperbole, I hope the author is reading this comment as she should be talking with a lawyer.

> Do you think men don't ever...Because I have know a ton of women...

Disproving absolutes is a fool's errand and I'm sure you know the way this is phrased, I can't argue against it.

put skin in the game by putting your name on your profile or rescind your allegations

> My default is "show me the evidence", but I believe Susan Fowler's account because she put her reputation on the line

I second this. Anyone can write a story online. I want accountability.

There is nothing in the article that I haven't personally witnessed from colleagues (not at Uber--I have no connection of any sort to that company) in the past, so I wouldn't call it "rampantly ridiculous." This is perhaps an extreme, but it certainly falls within the range of behaviors I've seen other men engage in, and that my wife and other female friends and acquaintances have described to me as having happened to them.