Activision Blizzard is a very large company (10,000+ employees in 196(!!) countries), and this suit claims that a proportionally small number of allegations over the course of many years is indicative of widespread corporate culture. meanwhile, like I said, it pulls in a suicide and dudes drinking and being hungover on the job, as well as pay issues and sexual harassment. notice that I did not claim any allegations were untruthful or lacked merit, merely that the overall picture being painted seems disingenuous. if the suicide connection was less tenuous (or omitted entirely), the drinking/hungover stuff wasn't mentioned, and the suit wasn't trying to paint the whole company's culture in a negative light, I would have no comment except, "cool, assuming these allegations are true, I wish the people filing the suit the best of luck in getting justice." it's the extrapolation of discrete events into a scathing indictment of the corporate culture and the tangential, tenuous things mentioned (as a means of bolstering the idea the the corporate culture is misogynistic) that gives me pause. I don't see a problem with this line of thinking. maybe the corporate culture really is as anti-woman as depicted here—that's for the courts to determine. meanwhile, I find it hard to believe 100% at face value, like many people here and elsewhere on social media are doing.

I don't understand what my sex has to do with this evaluation—you said you hated to "play that card," but you didn't play any card at all, you just pointed out my presumed sex based on my handle, and didn't connect it to anything.

Let me ask you this. What would you rate as sufficient evidence of systemic, deep-seated misogyny in a company? Or is your argument a company with 10000 employees can not display of systemic mysogyny, because there are just too many people? Is the argument then that a company of that size can not have any systemic behaviour or failures?

If that is not your argument, then I don't sure what you are trying to say. You specifically mentioned that the number of cases brought forward made you sceptical. So would have less cases of harassment been better evidence of systemic mysogyny? If not how many cases are needed to be sufficient?

> " it's the extrapolation of discrete events into a scathing indictment

How much evidence must we have, to make such an indictment?

Your position is basically unfalsifiable. It feels as if no matter how many people come forward, no matter how many women identify these issues, that you will just hand wave it all away.

When person after person after person comes forward, eventually that makes a pattern.

> that's for the courts to determine

No. It is also for all of us to determine. Everyone can look at the evidence, and decide for themselves if that is the kind of company that they want to answer recruiter calls from, or work for.

If you have some actual evidence to the contrary, that proves anything of value, then feel free to show it.

But don't just be a devils advocate, and ignore literally everything, that anyone ever brings up.

Eventually, if you see enough evidence, that proves a pattern.

please point out where I dismissed any allegations, and please keep your personal ad hominem attacks to a minimum

> why are people taking such strong issue with this position

Because you don't actually make any arguments at all, and provide no evidence to your position.

All you are doing is playing devil's advocate, and saying "I don't believe the narrative!", without actually providing any evidence of your own as to why it is wrong.

If you worked at blizzard at the past, or know people who have, and you know from talking to them, that they have different experiences, then that would be a different story.

But you don't have that. You aren't actually backing up any position at all, and you are just casting doubt, like a bad faith actor, without actually defending or justifying anything that you are saying, beyond "I don't believe the narrative!".

> what motives am I supposed to actually have

The motive would be the same motive that the "well acttualllyyy", devil's advocates have. You get to try to look smart, by going against the grain, and find irrelevant flaws in people's arguments, without actually backing anything up yourself, or subjecting your own argument to the same type of hyper, useless, deconstruction.

Happens all the time on hacker news.

You literally answer your own bafflement in what you typed. You said it’s a flimsy case for any systemic issues, indicating you believe this to be a collection of one-offs rather than systemic ones if you then believe the individual cases.

yes, so again:

> what motives am I supposed to have been pretending to have, and what motives am I supposed to actually have?

still baffled!

I’m saying your top level statement quoted below is harmful regardless of your motives because it works to minimize and excuse the impact and veracity of the accusations (which you yourself are not disputing individually). What your motives are for doing so is besides the point.

Your personal bar of it being “as broadly, uniformly terrible for all women in the company specifically” is irrelevant to just about anyone’s people’s definition of systemic harm, to the point that it’s very hard to take your argument as being in good faith.

> it's kind of off-putting how many different grievances are bundled together here—many different accusations about a wide variety of topics intended to paint a very broadly negative view of the company culture, everywhere from management to lower-level (male) employees. while I don't doubt that many of the grievances are true and merited, I have a hard time believing things could be as broadly, uniformly terrible for all women in the company specifically as the overall picture depicted here