nekmekbrek

Reading this genuinely frightens me.

Our legal system, with due process and "beyond reasonable doubt" and all the rest, regularly convicts people who are later found to be innocent. And, of course, regularly acquits people who are later found to have been clearly guilty. Even in countries with fewer complaints of bias and bad faith than the US, miscarriages of justice are not exceptional.

And here's this reply, suggesting that HR departments will simply get it right all the time. We're talking about people not trained in investigating anything, operating with minimal oversight under rules that have probably never been scrutinized, who in almost every case will face biases and incentives that would recuse any judge and strike any juror.

Discovering the truth is genuinely hard. If someone did something wrong, it will be "outstanding obvious"? What guarantees us a world so convenient and just that no one ever harasses in private and leaves only "he said, she said"? If someone did nothing wrong, investigations will find nothing? How have we gotten free from DARVO and coordinated dishonesty and all the other things that produce wrongful convictions (quite often of victims, on their attacker's word) in actual courts?

The certainty that every investigation will react a decisive conclusion, that official decisions are automatically trustworthy, that people who are found innocent are never harmed by public knowledge that they've been investigated. It's a display of faith in authority (any authority) that I truly don't understand - are people extending this same sort of blind confidence when police forces, churches, and politicians investigate themselves?