Hardwick is added to the list.

[Paratus]

Whatever you say rapist. It’s been penned by me. You are guilty as charged by me.

Had you been drinking before it happened? What were you wearing? I mean what did you expect to happen?

 

[OutHouse]

How do you spit/spill food on someone

100% true story. a few years ago we had a catered holiday party for my department. Large round tables were setup with assigned seats. Our network guy was setting across from me and one of the tech support dudes was next to me. dinner is served and we are talking, eating, laughing and having a good time when the tech support guy starts coughing due to a piece of bread or meat or something stuck in his throat. he gave a big cough and it came flying out and landed directly in the mouth of our network guy who was laughing at some joke.

the look on the network guys face had me in stitches. omg so funny

 

[child of wonder]

How do you spit/spill food on someone and then "absent-mindedly" flick it off them? The latter 100% suggests that the former is something people just happen to do all the time and think nothing of it, which should be your first "this smells like bullshit" clue. I'd be embarrassed if I did that to someone, that would be my first thought in his alleged place. Beyond that there's not really much room for "absent-mindedness", because how does one "absent-mindedly" then consider damage limitation after such a embarrassing faux pas? Even if I was on as approximately familiar terms with that someone as I am my wife, I'd be apologising first. If it happened to my wife and I while we were in private I'd then probably remove it myself unless I thought it was going to leave a stain. In public I'd point it out discreetly and only assist if she asked me to. If the person was an acquaintance or a stranger I'd default to the most formal way of doing it I already described.

Frankly I'm amazed that you haven't critically thought through his excuse for yourself because IMO it's 100% bullshit for an adult without some kind of pretty obvious mental development issue to honestly act in the way he claimed.

You've never been talking and eating and a piece of food flew out of your mouth?

Did you know the process of chewing turns large bites of food into smaller, lighter pieces that are continually moved around your mouth until you swallow? Add to that speaking, in which air is pushed through the voice box and out the mouth to produce sound, and coupled with the movement of tiny food particles by chewing and some outgoing air could catch one of them?

Frankly I'm amazed that you haven't critically thought through this.

Regardless, I didn't "buy" his story. Even if what he said was 100% true, I'm in agreement with you that you don't just reach out and touch a female unless you're 100% sure she won't mind (close friend, girlfriend, etc.). That's why I supported giving him a warning and a reminder that our harassment policy says unwelcome physical contact falls under it. I was NOT in support of digging up his past and using accusations he was never convicted of to summarily destroy him and eject him from our community.

 

[mikeymikec]

You've never been talking and eating and a piece of food flew out of your mouth?

Did you know the process of chewing turns large bites of food into smaller, lighter pieces that are continually moved around your mouth until you swallow? Add to that speaking, in which air is pushed through the voice box and out the mouth to produce sound, and coupled with the movement of tiny food particles by chewing and some outgoing air could catch one of them?

Frankly I'm amazed that you haven't critically thought through this.

Regardless, I didn't "buy" his story. Even if what he said was 100% true, I'm in agreement with you that you don't just reach out and touch a female unless you're 100% sure she won't mind (close friend, girlfriend, etc.). That's why I supported giving him a warning and a reminder that our harassment policy says unwelcome physical contact falls under it. I was NOT in support of digging up his past and using accusations he was never convicted of to summarily destroy him and eject him from our community.

I have to say, I'm puzzled as to why you felt the need to erect a straw man, take the piss out of it, then agree with the actual point I made.

Anyway, since most people don't just suddenly decide to conspire to "destroy" a random person for shits and giggles, I'd say chances are that the women already strongly suspected he was a creeper, and once a load of anecdotes about his general behaviour (skirting lines of propriety in weird and unusual ways yet probably not breaking any rules) came out of the woodwork, someone googled him and found out something that he previously very likely did but didn't get nailed for. I'd likely act in a similar manner if a creepy person wanted to be near my kids and I felt I had adequate reason to be suspicious of their behaviour. I also suspect that your attitude towards him would be different if you were a likely target (or had already been) of his behaviour. You know why that organisation has such a policy in place even though there's a freaking mile between "unwelcome physical contact" and sexual harassment, yet you apparently wish to choose to interpret the womens' actions as pure malevolence.

 

[dainthomas]

Lol at the meninists in here sticking up for this guy. Definitely the wrong person to go to bat for, as by all accounts he's a huge a-hole (from people he's worked with men and women).

He's supposed to moderate the Doctor Who panel at SDCC (which I'm going to) next month with the new female Doctor. Guessing they're scrambling to find anyone else to replace him.

 

[Skel]

Lol at the meninists in here sticking up for this guy. Definitely the wrong person to go to bat for, as by all accounts he's a huge a-hole (from people he's worked with men and women).

He's supposed to moderate the Doctor Who panel at SDCC (which I'm going to) next month with the new female Doctor. Guessing they're scrambling to find anyone else to replace him.

He allegedly pulled himself out of SDCC this year.

 

[jackstar7]

It's nice to know you don't care about the american justice system. Bring on the wild wild west and lets hang this bastard at high noon in the town center for all to see without a trial.

This has nothing to do with the courts. He may not have committed a crime in the legal sense (though it sure sounds like he did). But based on her account and the accounts of others speaking up since she did, it sounds like he is a bad person and I'm happy for him to suffer consequences for being a bad person. Justice isn't reserved for the courts.

And because you like arguing from absurdity as your fallacy of choice, let me stop you before you start talking about vigilantism. Just don't bother.

 

[Commodus]

I was reminded of a good example of why the "I'll pretend he's innocent unless he's convicted" rhetoric is such a cop-out: think about other cases where the evidence was too strong to ignore.

For example, Theranos. There's no question at this point that Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos were running a scam -- they didn't have a product that lived up to promises, they knew it, and they tried their hardest to delay and avoid government scrutiny that would expose their fraud. But if we used sexual assault apologists' logic, we'd have to pretend it was a perfectly upstanding company up to the millisecond the DOJ secures a conviction.

And in both cases, you can see the danger of doing that. It not only asks you to defy logical reasoning and publicly available evidence, it's genuinely dangerous. You don't want to let Theranos rip people off, so why is it okay to act as if Hardwick hasn't harmed a fly? By all means avoid using certain language if the evidence isn't definitive, but don't just pretend the evidence doesn't exist, either. If it's substantial and credible, acknowledge that.

 

[Skel]

No clue if he did or did not do anything, but it seems no one really is speaking out in his defense..

 

[mikeymikec]

I was reminded of a good example of why the "I'll pretend he's innocent unless he's convicted" rhetoric is such a cop-out: think about other cases where the evidence was too strong to ignore.

For example, Theranos. There's no question at this point that Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos were running a scam -- they didn't have a product that lived up to promises, they knew it, and they tried their hardest to delay and avoid government scrutiny that would expose their fraud. But if we used sexual assault apologists' logic, we'd have to pretend it was a perfectly upstanding company up to the millisecond the DOJ secures a conviction.

And in both cases, you can see the danger of doing that. It not only asks you to defy logical reasoning and publicly available evidence, it's genuinely dangerous. You don't want to let Theranos rip people off, so why is it okay to act as if Hardwick hasn't harmed a fly? By all means avoid using certain language if the evidence isn't definitive, but don't just pretend the evidence doesn't exist, either. If it's substantial and credible, acknowledge that.

I wonder if the reason for this phenomenon is something I've seen in plenty of tech threads: "Such-and-such is my experience of this topic and therefore I logically consider my experience to be definitive (across a broader spectrum than the field of my own experience)". So for this thread for example, a naysayer doesn't consciously and personally know any sex offenders therefore logically what Hardwick has been accused of is likely false. I use the word logical because it is, up to a point: that point being that one's own experiences are merely anecdotes and on their own have little bearing on accounts that fall outside of one's field of experience.

Of course there are other possibilities and angles for naysayers' motivations, but this one strikes me as the most innocent.

 

[Commodus]

I wonder if the reason for this phenomenon is something I've seen in plenty of tech threads: "Such-and-such is my experience of this topic and therefore I logically consider my experience to be definitive (across a broader spectrum than the field of my own experience)". So for this thread for example, a naysayer doesn't consciously and personally know any sex offenders therefore logically what Hardwick has been accused of is likely false. I use the word logical because it is, up to a point: that point being that one's own experiences are merely anecdotes and on their own have little bearing on accounts that fall outside of one's field of experience.

Of course there are other possibilities and angles for naysayers' motivations, but this one strikes me as the most innocent.

That urge to go on anecdotal experience is part of it, but I wouldn't be too charitable. Many (not all) of these "don't make judgments until they've been convicted!" types are the ones who looked at the dozens of women accusing Cosby and Weinstein and still clung to the idea that we shouldn't make pronouncements about their culpability without a conviction. Hey, maybe it just happened that legions of women with perfectly consistent descriptions were lying.

Like it or not, I'd say there's still a mindset where protecting a man's reputation is frequently more important than taking women's accusations seriously, no matter how solid those accusations are. The insistence on a conviction is a kind of deferral. They don't have to accept the truth about a well-known man's history of sexually assaulting or harassing women until there's an official stamp on it -- they get to hold on to their image of a given man and avoid dealing with uncomfortable realities about abuse of power.

 

[mikeymikec]

That urge to go on anecdotal experience is part of it, but I wouldn't be too charitable.

Please note the part of my post about the most innocent explanation I personally subscribe to "never attribute to malice something that can be adequately explained by stupidity/incompetence".

Many (not all) of these "don't make judgments until they've been convicted!" types are the ones who looked at the dozens of women accusing Cosby and Weinstein and still clung to the idea that we shouldn't make pronouncements about their culpability without a conviction. Hey, maybe it just happened that legions of women with perfectly consistent descriptions were lying.

I suppose your Cosby example could be simple celebrity worship (with a nostalgia element for people like Cosby?).

Like it or not, I'd say there's still a mindset where protecting a man's reputation is frequently more important than taking women's accusations seriously, no matter how solid those accusations are. The insistence on a conviction is a kind of deferral. They don't have to accept the truth about a well-known man's history of sexually assaulting or harassing women until there's an official stamp on it -- they get to hold on to their image of a given man and avoid dealing with uncomfortable realities about abuse of power.

I agree at face value but I wonder what the basis for it is, since I doubt that naysayers will consciously acknowledge that they would rather not initially assume that the accuser probably is telling the truth even though that such an assumption will make no difference to the world at large on its own, then the vocal justification for rejecting such an assumption is to assume that the most extreme scenario absolutely will occur (lives / careers destroyed, online lynching, etc). Maybe it's a tribal form of thinking, to want to feel like one is in a large enough group of like-minded people? That would explain the apparent polarisation that inevitably occurs in such topics.

Other explanations include shades of incel'ism (opinions along the lines of if a woman has accepted such-and-such that they're obligated to provide sex as a reward etc), victim blaming (if a person puts themselves in such-and-such position that they should expect / deserve <horrible case scenario here>), or people who have done creepy things before (or think that such activities constitute reasonable behaviour) and the accusation skirts uncomfortably close to that person's past conduct (or wannabe conduct).

One behaviour I've seen before that has me puzzled though was (I'm pretty sure) on the Brock Turner / Stanford rape thread: Naysayer(s?) actively made things up and blamed the victim for those imagined events. One in particular IIRC was saying that the victim shouldn't have gotten drunk because she could have killed someone when she drove home from the party later... yet I'm pretty sure in that topic she didn't drive to the party in the first place. Such a thing is kind of like the "insanely unreasonable comparison", but based on an assertion so to give it more substance?

 

[UNCjigga]

No clue if he did or did not do anything, but it seems no one really is speaking out in his defense..

Again, what did those closest to him know...and if they were aware something was wrong then why did they stay silent?

I'm not trying to be judgemental... Just trying to figure out why this happens (Larry Nasser being the worst example in recent memory of what staying silent enables.)

 

[realibrad]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/a...return-talking-dead-amc-investigation-1129835

"Following a comprehensive assessment by AMC, working with Ivy Kagan Bierman of the firm Loeb & Loeb, who has considerable experience in this area, Chris Hardwick will return to AMC as the host of Talking Dead and Talking With Chris Hardwick," AMC said in a statement. "We take these matters very seriously and given the information available to us after a very careful review, including interviews with numerous individuals, we believe returning Chris to work is the appropriate step."

Turns out, she cheated on him, he broke up with her, and was trying to reach out to him 7 months later.

 

[Commodus]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/a...return-talking-dead-amc-investigation-1129835



Turns out, she cheated on him, he broke up with her, and was trying to reach out to him 7 months later.

Interesting. The problem, of course, is that it mainly means Dykstra is an unreliable witness, not necessarily that Hardwick is innocent of everything Dykstra accused him of doing. I wouldn't necessarily give Hardwick a free pass, but I'm not going to say he should get the boot if the claims against him aren't reasonably solid.

 

[jackstar7]

The cheating was in her piece. I'm not sure what these texts prove, but it's their business.

What do you make of this news, Brad? Do you think Hardwick is innocent and she made it all up? Or some middling non-opinion? Since you updated the thread and all.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

The cheating was in her piece. I'm not sure what these texts prove, but it's their business.

What do you make of this news, Brad? Do you think Hardwick is innocent and she made it all up? Or some middling non-opinion? Since you updated the thread and all.

Who knew relationships would be so complicated?

 

[dank69]

I stayed away from this topic because it had all the indications of a bullshit claim from a vindictive ex.

 

[realibrad]

The cheating was in her piece. I'm not sure what these texts prove, but it's their business.

What do you make of this news, Brad? Do you think Hardwick is innocent and she made it all up? Or some middling non-opinion? Since you updated the thread and all.

Here is more.

http://m.tmz.com/?viewer_country=US...chloe-dykstra-breakup-cheating-text-messages/

Why should those be the relevant questions. Yes, I think this establishes doubt for her side. It's not proof that she was lying, but, her texts 7 months later don't seem like they are from a victim.

She had been cheating, got caught, asked to stop, did not. He breaks it off, she pleads for him to talk to her. Then 7 months later says she probably did more bad?

So the justice you spoke of seem horrible. This is why people advocate for wanting more information.

He may still be a dirt bag, but AMC's investigation given the climate of metoo they must have felt pretty confident.

What do you make of this?

 

[UNCjigga]

Here's what I make of this...Hardwick has some shitty friends. I guess that's Hollywood for you...

 

[Younigue]

Here is more.

http://m.tmz.com/?viewer_country=US...chloe-dykstra-breakup-cheating-text-messages/

Why should those be the relevant questions. Yes, I think this establishes doubt for her side. It's not proof that she was lying, but, her texts 7 months later don't seem like they are from a victim.

She had been cheating, got caught, asked to stop, did not. He breaks it off, she pleads for him to talk to her. Then 7 months later says she probably did more bad?

So the justice you spoke of seem horrible. This is why people advocate for wanting more information.

He may still be a dirt bag, but AMC's investigation given the climate of metoo they must have felt pretty confident.

What do you make of this?

I never thought he should lose his job. I thought it likely Hardwick had some idiosyncrasies and insecurities and that she was in for them 100% for reasons her own, not his. I think there's truth in her words I just don't think she was a victim to him. I think Hardwick's needs in the relationship were likely something some women would find very unattractive (maybe even her) but she chose it.

It's possible in hindsight she is asking herself why she put up with his insecurities and neediness but that does not make him an abuser or a criminal.

 

[Jaskalas]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/a...return-talking-dead-amc-investigation-1129835

"Following a comprehensive assessment by AMC, working with Ivy Kagan Bierman of the firm Loeb & Loeb, who has considerable experience in this area, Chris Hardwick will return to AMC as the host of Talking Dead and Talking With Chris Hardwick," AMC said in a statement. "We take these matters very seriously and given the information available to us after a very careful review, including interviews with numerous individuals, we believe returning Chris to work is the appropriate step."

AMC clears him. Didn't expect that one. Will the proclamation of innocence ring louder than the accusation of guilt?
The company may officially give him a pass on this one, but will the public?

Betting in a year or two there will be stories on TWD and AMC's decline and they'll throw this incident onto the pile.

 

[jackstar7]

It's not proof that she was lying, but, her texts 7 months later don't seem like they are from a victim.

Firstly, I am carving out this part of your reply because holy shit are you biased. What would a victim's texts look like in your estimation?

What do I make of it? I put more stock in the collective responses of his former co-workers that supported the view of him as a person who was not easy to deal with. Taking that into a relationship with a much younger woman that basically worshiped him... I don't see her story as discredited. I can imagine he's been working on his behavior and probably changed a fair amount. But I'm still bothered by his non-apology.

 

[jackstar7]

AMC clears him. Didn't expect that one. Will the proclamation of innocence ring louder than the accusation of guilt?
The company may officially give him a pass on this one, but will the public?

Betting in a year or two there will be stories on TWD and AMC's decline and they'll throw this incident onto the pile.

I don't see that anyone has declared him as innocent, so much as declared him as not a corporate liability.

 

[jackstar7]

Side note: The firm that cleared Hardwick has financial ties to his wife.