If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights? - alephnullz
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neilk
And in the other timeline, they're saying "Phew! Can you imagine what would
have happened if we hadn't taken discrimination, bias, and harassment
seriously back in the 1960s and 1970s? We would never have had the brilliance
of Ricarda Feynmann or Jamal Watson."

Seriously though, I think Feynmann would have figured it out and adapted. Some
say he was notably nonsexist when it came to teaching or talking physics, but
horribly sexist when it came to everything else. Maybe he could just move some
of that from one column to another.

Interventions should be appropriate. People are complicated. There are some
high profile cases (usually involving "Twitter activism") that collapse all
that complexity, which may be good for awareness or motivating institutions,
but it's often bad for justice.

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imw
If the STEM disciplines weren't rife with sexual harassment, would we have
lost the insights of countless women?

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kevintb
Have you considered that sexual harassment has caused the loss of insights
from plenty of brilliant women?

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ardent_uno
Hopefully not.

In the heat of the moment certain people would have thought it necessary to
disregard everything he said, but over time cooler heads would remember that a
person is not a monolith. We can appreciate the good and dislike the bad.

~~~
alephnullz
Can we? It's not looking likely that Kevin Spacey may work again, despite his
clear talents as an actor. I wouldn't call Spacey's work life-changing, but it
does bring a level of satisfaction and happiness to a number of people. And
yet we'll now be deprived of that satisfaction. I'm saying that horrible
people can make meaningful, positive contributions, but in the current
politically charged environment we seem to be acting before we consider that.

~~~
romwell
>Can we? It's not looking likely that Kevin Spacey may work again, despite his
clear talents as an actor.

You seem to be surprised that a person in the business of selling his public
image can't sell it successfully once that image has been irreparably
tarnished. (You are aware that popular actors are celebrities, and what they
do off screen matters, right?)

> I'm saying that horrible people can make meaningful, positive contributions,
> but in the current politically charged environment we seem to be acting
> before we consider that.

Where's the evidence for that? It's always a business decision. Spacey has
been discarded because it is profitable to do so.

What a surprise, pissing off a <population group> that contains <the majority
of the population> has a negative impact on your career as a public person.
Who would have thunk?

~~~
alephnullz
Don't agree "profitable to do so." Where are your statistics to back up that
claim?

These aren't arguments; they're hypotheses. "Pissing off" huh? Because a few
jerkoffs Tweet they're upset doesn't mean most of America cares. That's the
problem.

~~~
romwell
>Don't agree "profitable to do so." Where are your statistics to back up that
claim?

"Profitable to do so" in the eyes of his employees. Do you really think these
decisions are made to appease Twitter commenters?

Even successful, loved series end up being canceled.

> Because a few jerkoffs Tweet they're upset doesn't mean most of America
> cares.

Because a few jerkoffs don't care doesn't mean that a lot of people (enough to
affect profit margins and public image of the employer) don't :)

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sykh
It depends on when in his life this hypothetical is supposed to have happened.
Given the era he did his important work it’d have to be rape that he was
accused of to have had a major impact on his employment as a professor. Sexual
harassment was rampant back then. Fortunately times have changed.

What is the purpose of the question? Is there some broader point you are
trying to make? The only thing that I can guess is that you are trying to
point out that people can make great contributions to human knowledge and also
be crappy people in certain respects. I don’t think anyone denies this as
being true.

EDIT: If it happened at the beginning of his career then he possibly wouldn't
have become a professor and thus not have made his discoveries. If it happened
at the end of his career then the discoveries would have already been made and
hence nothing lost.

~~~
ardent_uno
I think the point they are trying to make is that we should be careful to not
completely erase someone because of crimes they may commit, sexual or
otherwise.

~~~
sykh
It’s an odd way of trying to make that point. Wouldn’t it be better to just
directly say that? It doesn’t seem controversial. A better scenario to
contemplate would be the Nazi medical experiments. Absolutely horrific in
every way. Suppose they were beneficial to our understanding of some major
disease. Should we use the results?

~~~
alephnullz
I'd also say we should absolutely use the results in that case. But that's not
the hypothetical. I was asking whether to blacklist someone who might make
future contributions to humanity based on an accusation is really a reasonable
sacrifice.

~~~
lern_too_spel
In an era when there were few women scientists around for someone to harrass,
there is little risk employing the harrasser. Now that there are enough women
in the field, the harrasser will cause more damage to the scientific output of
the organization than he can contribute.

In this more enlightened age, people should call the harrasser out on their
behavior before it becomes a big problem, and the harrasser should have enough
awareness to stop the damaging behavior, which is not necessary for their
work.

