Re:Microsoft Intern’s Rape Claim Highlights Struggle to Comb...
by AnthonyMouse on Sunday December 17, 2017 @01:07AM
(#15944443)
> For example, if we are self-aware in acknowledging that our bar for truth is lower than a court, can we find commonalities in reaction or public response that are generally unique to people who actually did do the things they’re accused of?
The underlying problem is how to calibrate your heuristic. To know if the heuristic is any good you would need to know which accusations are true to begin with, which is the original problem.
> I think that if you can find three unrelated accusations, that’s a reasonable degree of certainty for the public, especially when you consider that these accusers do not typically have an incentive to collude (they don’t get anything material from publicized accusations).
They get whatever motivates anyone to make a false accusation (revenge, blackmail, jealousy, attention), with the added incentive of knowing that a previous accusation provides false credibility.
The underlying problem is how to calibrate your heuristic. To know if the heuristic is any good you would need to know which accusations are true to begin with, which is the original problem.
> I think that if you can find three unrelated accusations, that’s a reasonable degree of certainty for the public, especially when you consider that these accusers do not typically have an incentive to collude (they don’t get anything material from publicized accusations).
They get whatever motivates anyone to make a false accusation (revenge, blackmail, jealousy, attention), with the added incentive of knowing that a previous accusation provides false credibility.