Considering the Epstein connections, why is it a shock that it is still happening? People in that position often feel they can do anything they want, including sexual assault. The fact so few end up being investigated is disgusting.

These kinds of things constantly come out. In the 1990s, (when I was a teenager,) and these scandals happened, everyone thought "never again, it's better now."

Then the me-too moment happened and everyone remembered the 1990s as a time where all kinds of nasty behavior was tolerated.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that a lot of the people involved were too young and/or not paying attention during the me-too movement.

Can we ever figure out how to break the cycle?

Maybe the answer is communism (trigger warning for the snowflakes). With a more equal distribution of wealth, there wouldn't be the rich and resourceful being able to build a fortress (with bought politicians, bought police, expensive lawyers) that would allow abuse against the less resourceful...

I was a bit older in the 90's.

Clarence Thomas had been appointed to the Supreme Court after a lengthy investigation into sexual harassment claims by Anita Hill. At the time, SNL seemed to think that the main problem was his lack of game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shkJfRpktGc

A few years later we found out that Clinton had been getting BJs from his interns. This time the Republicans wanted to make a big deal about it so Moveon.org was born. It started as a petition asking Congress to literally "move on" from the Clinton scandal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoveOn#Opposing_Clinton's_impe...

Neither Anita Hill nor Monica Lewinsky seem to consider either of those investigations remotely successful.

Sad that they feel this is necessary.

Also feels like something that could be life ruining if someone innocent finds themselves on the list by mistake/fluke. This is presumably crowdsourced which is not bulletproof

Interesting that every instance of sexual assault is preemptively doubted by default, whereas that's not a primary part of the conversation for accusations of other crimes like arson, theft, embezzlement, etc. False accusations of any crime could hurt the accused, that's more or less an unavoidable tautology of the legal system. There's just one kind of crime where public conversation obsesses about that, though.

Yes, all false accusations are bad.

But sexual assault is the one area that is almost always taking two parties at their word, and very very frequently, the only court is the court of public opinion. That makes it rife for abuse in both directions - people doing it believing they'll get away with it because it comes down to their word vs. someone else's if it ever even comes out, since so few people go to the police, and people know they can lob an accusation out there and do a lot of damage without having to prove anything.

I think the former happens far far more than the latter, but I'm also not going to wonder why people discuss the latter - it's real, and it happens. People discuss getting attacked by sharks whenever sharks come up, too, even though that's almost certainly not going to be something they need to worry about, either.

This sort of list is exactly the sort of place where those false accusations can be really easily inserted with minimal vetting. I'd also bet it is an almost entirely accurate list.

All these things can be true at once.

These things can all be true, sure. What’s also true is what the GP points out: the only time the preemptive doubt rolls out is for accusations of sexual impropriety, which can’t be disentangled from the fact that most accusations against the powerful of sexual impropriety come from women.

And given how abysmally low the rate of false allegations is maybe we should all do a bit better and stop running interference for our oligarch class, especially since sexual impropriety seems to be how they operate in a lot of domains, not just with adult women.

These things can all be true, sure. What’s also true is what the GP points out: the only time the preemptive doubt rolls out is for accusations of sexual impropriety, which can’t be disentangled from the fact that most accusations against the powerful of sexual impropriety come from women.

Sure. But there's a variety of tones discussing this - there are some that are quite expressly political in nature of a certain bent, and those I would be skeptical of. There's more than one comment in here that gives me the ick. But that's not everyone, and lumping them in together isn't productive.

And given how abysmally low the rate of false allegations is maybe we should all do a bit better and stop running interference for our oligarch class, especially since sexual impropriety seems to be how they operate in a lot of domains, not just with adult women.

How low do you think the rate is? Because its' hard to pin down, but ~10% seems to be a pretty defensible number based on the data we do have. That's definitely a minority, but 10% is enough that I am going to consider it every time. If 1 out of 10 times I lit my stove it would explode if not examined, I am still checking my stove every single time I use it.

I don't disagree that we have a lot of sick fuck oligarchs. I don't disagree that sexual assault is one of the things the ultra rich and powerful turn to for a variety of reasons.

But a rational position is a rational position. I'm not going to abandon it because some people will misuse it to cast aspersions on people. I don't think women are inherently more moral than men, and we have many many many examples of men using deception to harm others for their own advantage. I don't think women are incapable of doing the same.

I would also never suggest that the default is to assume every accusation is a lie. My general assumption is that any given accusation is probably true, but that if you're going to have an opinion on which way the outcome is, it's best to have as informed of an opinion as you can, rather than just assuming anything one way or the other. And in a court of law, presumed innocent, because that's a whole different thing than public opinion.

I mean you’ll never fully remove politics from the powerful conceptually, it’s just not possible, they’re too close to the levers of power. That said I think it’s a cop out of sorts to say because people “have political opinions” about the subject of an SA accusation that that would necessarily bias judgement. The real problem is the lack of investigative resources for these accusations, which itself leads to lists like these being published: when people can’t seek justice from the justice system they will do so in other ways.

We’ve had the Epstein lists for how long now? And how many on it have seen justice?

it comes down to their word vs. someone else's

Legal Eagle made a good video talking about how there's a bit more to it than that, it was about the Platner and Salwell allegiations: <https://nebula.tv/videos/legaleagle-she-said-is-evidence>.

We have this concept in the western world of being presumed innocent until proven guilty. Something like a sexual assault accusation is typically taken extremely seriously (As it should), but this can lead it to being weaponized. Maybe a manager who is a rival for a position you covet, well a sexual assault accusation may make them conveniently go away.

While we can easily find a ton of documented cases of sexual assault, cases of false accusations seem relatively sparse.

Sucks to be one of the 'relatively sparse' cases then.

Lots of cases are ultimately thrown out due to lack of evidence. Even Kevin Spacey was acquitted.

I wouldn't say "every instance" is is preemptively doubted, but there is a wikipedia page on false accusations for a reason. With most studies indicating double digit % of false accusations. (and some numbers far higher than I would have guessed [0])

I'd say a better phrasing is that innocent until proven guilty applies - just like with other crimes. Crowd sourced lists aren't that so treating them with some caution is warranted.

I can see how even an unreliable list may be of use practically to women though even if process wise it is quite dubious.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#Estim...

Your source doesn't really say what you're stating though. The ranges seem to be 4-13%, with the majority closer to 8. The one that was highest for the US (10%) was a self-reporting survey that asked people if they had been falsely accused -- surely not the most reliable method.

I was looking at the table further down - UK results. Even ignoring the studies marked dubious it's still averaging well into double digits

Shouldn't it be a good thing that we are presuming someone innocent rather than guilty?

Interestingly I have seen the opposite where if a guy is accused, it is automatically assumed he is guilty. Especially with sports players, which lead to the Duke Lacrosse false accusations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_rape_hoax

This is assume SHE is guilty of a massive lie. The assumption is that she is trying to baselessly destroy him. Otherwise said, the benefit of the doubt is not symmetrical.

Yes we give the accused the benefit of the doubt and require the prosecution to meet a high burden of proof to overturn that. It is not symmetric by design.

1.) There is no prosecution involved here.

2.) The actual prosecution of a crime does not start with the assumption that whoever is reporting the crime is lying.

There will of course be a secret mirror blacklist: anyone who does report sexual assault to the authorities will find it much harder to get a job and impossible to access the inner circle.

(Famously, Weinstein did this to actresses)

Epstein sponsored lawsuits against women who accused others of sexual assaults.

And also based on the emails, because convinced made Epstein more respected in his circles.

Also feels like something that could be life ruining if someone innocent finds themselves on the list by mistake/fluke.

Not as likely as you think. The reason a list like this feels necessary to many (presumably mostly) women is that in SV culture there's a presumption that these sorts of claims are almost always baseless. That these women engaged in consensual activities and either regretted it after the fact or were trying to make a buck.

Also feels like something that could be life ruining if someone innocent finds themselves on the list by mistake/fluke.

Life-ruining? No, not at all. Not even close.

Putting names on the list and releasing it publicly like this can have very serious consequences.

"Media Men Lawsuit Ends in Settlement"

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/style/media-men-list-sett...

Ok can we see the list? And then prosecute the people? Or it’s a secret for some reason?

I think the question is: Does this list work better in secret, where the perpetrators don't know they're on the list; or does it work better in public, where the general public learns that these kinds of problems continue to happen?

Is the system so broken that it is denying proper investigation to the victims? if not, i think this list will just waste a lot of time, energy and reputation.

Just read the article. Why are adults living in frat houses? Is this a thing now?

Because rent is expensive and options are limited, we've promoted the sigma grindset culture to an insane degree, and people like to cluster together socially, especially when doing something that scares them, like trying to launch a startup. Save on money, be around people experiencing the same things you are, potentially be able to collaborate if you end up working on the same thing, etc.

... but yes it's still weird from an objective standpoint and only makes sense when you insert yourself into the bizzaro world bubble of SV.

As an aside, this is the first I heard about [tech houses](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/technology/agi-house-ai-c...). So far, they don't. . . sound great.

Sorry for writing from a throwaway account because there's still a lot of stigma to this, while I think it's a pretty average experience.

I had sex therapy to be able to understand where my fantasy ends, and where the real world starts, and how people in the real world aren't there to play the roles my fantasies give them.

It sounds obvious when I say it like this but there are many men like me, who didn't grow up emotionally, and having difficulty accepting the agency of others. Women had to be interested in me so that I could feel validated. I also had never stopped and asked myself "does she really want this or am I trying to manipulate her?".

You also see the same pattern with men who think it's their right to find a female partner and they feel wronged by the society when this doesn't automatically happen.

Try getting some help, fellow men. It takes a lot of weight from your shoulders and you become much less likely to end up getting on such lists.

are we talking about weird fantasies / bdsm or just "having a partner" here

WTF, I find it hard to believe that during a sexual assault, the perpetrator doesn't know what they are doing. WTF is this?

So how do we stop these lists?

Depending on who is asking, there is a different tang to that question.

If you see, hear, or think that one of your "bros" is abusing someone, fucking talk to them and tell them to stop. If they dont, cock block them so they can't abuse your friends.

This stuff continues on because its overtly, or covertly approved. Men dont cry or talk about feelings because "thats what girls do". Thats how powerful social pressure is.

"oh but women love a powerful man" they might, but they don't like being abused. All that shit you hear from pickup artists doesn't work. 90% of it is showering cash and cornering people to the point where they can't say no comfortably.

So many weird assumptions about men. Contrary to popular belief, we aren't all rapists or friends of rapists. And oh, by the way, some women do pretty awful stuff like this too.