I read through the whole LW post, and think there's enough troubling evidence here that she shouldn't be dismissed. It certainly shouldn't be flagged.
I initially was leaning to this being a high possibility of a delusion springing from a mentally unstable person, for all the reasons other commentators are mentioning. But, two things in particular struck me that changed my mind:
1. She apparently mentioned the abuse to her mother as a child.
2. She describes childhood behaviour consistent with someone who has experienced sexual abuse (i.e. thoughts of suicide, weird night behaviour like taking baths, body issues as she got older).
A small child doesn't have any incentive to make accusations, or to pretend to have been assaulted. If true, this should be taken seriously. Her mother is still alive, and there may be doctors, relatives or others that would be able to substantiate these points.
Finally, why has this post (and previous related posts) been repeatedly flagged? It's very troubling, I expect this from some HN users, but would have thought the HN moderators would have unflagged (or reposted) it upon consideration of the seriousness, importance of the subject matter, and undeniable relevance to the tech industry. At minimum, you would think someone would have unflagged them to avoid the appearance of bias and favorable treatment to the former YC president. At this point HN looks really sleazy.
I share your opinion on the likely veracity of the allegations and would also like an explanation for the flagging of this post and the repeated deletions of similar posts.
It’s also a thing that I know for sure happens in families and gets swept under the rug. The trauma it causes is deep and complex and I don’t think as a society we have any idea how often it happens. My bet is it’s far more common than we know.
> behaviour consistent with someone who has experienced sexual abuse (i.e. thoughts of suicide, weird night behaviour like taking baths, body issues as she got older)
Can you link to something about it? That behavior rings a bell
> Finally, why has this post (and previous related posts) been repeatedly flagged? It's very troubling, I expect this from some HN users
I'm not too sure if it's concerning YC in some way or just the techbro crowd being itself. Downvotes are typical here with child abuse related topics in general and especially if it concerns tech. But also there's a possibility that's just a random person and not really his sister.
Lesswrong is a treasure. A scrupulously fair, highly detailed record. My verdict is that she's delusional. An example of this is her claiming she was shadow banned from all internet platforms except onlyfans and pornhub. That cannot be true.
Reminds me of a recent story of a college professor who claims another college professor has hacked her computer/phone/internet accounts and is constantly making coded references to her private conversations. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-harassment-case-that-h...
The definition of "shadowbanning" entails giving the shadowbanned user the false impression that his or her contributions to the site are being published.
I share my life with an abuse victim, and all of her claims, her nuanced view of the others involved (including the abusers) as well as coping mechanisms feel WAY too familiar. Just from that, I’m personally confident really bad shit happened.
Please be aware victims often live in constant paranoia and fear of their abuser(s) and others who resemble them.
So rather than discuss whether someone is actually shadowbanned or their WiFi hacked, maybe refocus on the obvious fear it displays of (still) being manipulated, threatened or harassed by their abuser(s).
it's really this. the constant showers at random hours of the night are probably her ptsd from the event manifesting into a ritual. she's trying to wash that filth off her.
True or not, there is something very clearly wrong with her and my heart goes out to her. If true, she's got one heck of an uphill battle if she desires anything from this other than ridicule.
Her current profession/circumstances would suggest some significant childhood sexual abuse.
She thinks Sam and Jack have been "Shadowbanning [her] across all platforms except onlyfans and pornhub. Also had 6 months of hacking into almost all my accounts and wifi when I first started the podcast"
More relevant, the core accusations are based entirely on "repressed memories", which are junk science. False memories are demonstrably very easy to create.
If there had been some more reasonable basis to the claims, "unhinged" should not count against them - abuse is one of the common causes of mental instability, and people with mental instability are often targets.
Unless I’m missing something she never mentions having repressed or reclaimed memories, and certainly in a quick skim of the linked article there’s nothing I can see where she specifically details recovering detailed repressed memories with the help and guidance of someone acting as a psychotherapist (the “junk science” associated with the Satanic Panic of the 80s, where “psychotherapists” of often dubious training and
always with an agenda guided children to the story the agenda demanded), she just describes some of the memories as things she “buried”. It’s not obvious that a single one or the accusations, much less the “core” ones, is based on the kind of Satanic Panic-style repressed memories you’re talking about.
Now, dismiss my 40+ years of living with CPTSD if it makes you more comfortable, but I never (once) “repressed” memories, and I certainly never had someone else walk me through memories I didn’t actively have to try and help me “recover” details… what I had was memories I really, really didn’t want to think about or give a lot of credence to, because doing so would push me into a flashback state, especially if I focused on the more horrifying details or tried too hard to establish a clear and consistent sequence. I tried, hard, to bury those memories — I still try hard to bury them, though nowadays more by trying to bury them with acceptance rather than bury them through avoidance — but memories I’ve always had and didn’t want is not the same as memories I didn’t have and after the intervention of another now do.
I don’t see a lot of reasons to see her claims as either unreasonable or unhinged… if they’re as consistently stated as presented in the linked post they should likely be presumed to be true, especially if stated in public, for exactly the same reason all such claims should be presumed true.
During the me too movement, accusations was all that was needed. At a lot of universities, an accusation is all that is needed against another student. Corroborating evidence is indeed needed but American needs to have a reckoning with its history of accusations without evidence.
This is not a court of law. No one is going to jail without a trial. If he can prove it is false, he can sue her for defamation. If he can’t, she has the freedom of speech to make her case.
Concur, she doesn't seem to be entirely stable or reliable. I know you're supposed to believe the victim and all, but I think I'd rather keep my beliefs evidence-based here.
Pretty much all of the evidence on survivors of CSA is that it’s entirely unreasonable to expect “stability” in someone who experienced sexualized trauma as a child, especially as that “stability” is relatively measured by someone without that particular lived experience.
Believe the victim, full stop, unless and until evidence actively contradicts their statements.
No, of course not, guilt and innocence is something that gets determined _after_ an accusation is investigated… in all other cases we presume the accuser is (or may be) telling the truth — “officer, that man stole my watch” should _always_ cause the officer to check if there was a watch and who is currently in possession of it, and if you had a watch and had reason to believe someone else stole it you’d expect exactly that — why not with people reporting sexual crimes?
The accused is still presumed innocent until proven guilty, but there’s no value in presuming the accuser is lying… doing so is just presuming the accuser is guilty of perjury / fraud before _they_ are proven guilty.
And that, right there, is why child molesters and rapists are rarely, if ever, caught on their _first_ offense… we assume the victims are lying. Which, oddly, we don’t do with pretty much any other kind of crime.
These accusations have been made for some time now and they have cycled through popularity several times. Each time I have yet to see any proof.
Of course, with the recent news they are getting more attention, and once again, we have it surface. I will admit it’s a little weird that he has not sued her for such ruinous claims, but this is a family issue, so I can understand not escalating the issue.
As the author concludes, "However, Annie has not yet provided what I would consider direct / indisputable proof that her claims are true. Thus, rationally, I must consider Sam Altman innocent.”
To those complaining that this topic keeps getting removed from YC, imagine if every random allegation (with no proof) against some CEO got discussed.
I personally flagged this post as I have seen the same allegations with no change in information posted so many times.
She wrote a letter to an EMDR therapist. The point was to criricize the therapist of dropping her as a patient for doing sex work. That aside, she spent a lot of the letter saying the therapist shamed her by suggesting ways to make the most of her health insurance without copays. She interpreted this as an attempt to shame her financial situation...
I've had doctors mention stuff like this to me before and I've never taken it as an insult. I appreciated the empathy for my having to deal with insurance. Am I weird for thinking this is not offensive at all?
Is lesswrong associated with Sama somehow? I thought it was a site for discussing rationalism. Long essays about how to make better decisions and such.
I'm not sure if there's any history of financial association, but I do know that all of these people generally travel in the same circles.
When I went to college in Berkeley I went to a couple rationalism adjacent events in the city and saw there was a huge overlap of that EA/Rationalism/Silicon Valley startups people. Never saw Sam Altman at those, but met a couple YC founders and other people who knew him and spoke generally well of him.
Less wrong is created by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Someone who is very outspoken against AI development, because of the fears around AI destroying humanity. Once went as far as calling for the bombing of AI researchers and/or data centers, if I remember correctly.
This makes it sound like he called for terrorist attacks.
He said something along the lines that countries should make an agreement to stop AGI research, and if a rogue nation starts developing advanced AGI anyway, other countries should be willing to call an airstrike on the datacenter. Because he believes AGI is that dangerous.
Unlikely since Greg has announced he's quitting OpenAI. If these allegations were the cause of Sam's firing, I don't see why Greg would pick such an ethically indefensible hill to die on.
I initially was leaning to this being a high possibility of a delusion springing from a mentally unstable person, for all the reasons other commentators are mentioning. But, two things in particular struck me that changed my mind:
1. She apparently mentioned the abuse to her mother as a child.
2. She describes childhood behaviour consistent with someone who has experienced sexual abuse (i.e. thoughts of suicide, weird night behaviour like taking baths, body issues as she got older).
A small child doesn't have any incentive to make accusations, or to pretend to have been assaulted. If true, this should be taken seriously. Her mother is still alive, and there may be doctors, relatives or others that would be able to substantiate these points.
Finally, why has this post (and previous related posts) been repeatedly flagged? It's very troubling, I expect this from some HN users, but would have thought the HN moderators would have unflagged (or reposted) it upon consideration of the seriousness, importance of the subject matter, and undeniable relevance to the tech industry. At minimum, you would think someone would have unflagged them to avoid the appearance of bias and favorable treatment to the former YC president. At this point HN looks really sleazy.