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.