“The one moral CEO in America.” That's up there with Ken Lay's proclamation that Enron set the bar for corporate ethics (I can't find the exact quote, and obviously before the collapse).
'The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.' -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Anyhoo, I have no actual idea if the accusations against Price are founded or not. That's for the courts to decide. I'm not into the whole "trial by Twitter" thing.
"Innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt" is the gate for government violence, but as a society we operate on a very different standard, for very good reasons.
Multiple credible accusations, corroborated by contemporaneous accounts, collated by a reputable journalist is definitely enough to call the accusations founded.
Not enough to send people with guns to take away his freedom, maybe, but enough to form an opinion. Otherwise, are we supposed to involve the legal system in every assessment we make of anyone?
What is the value of forming an opinion about someone we will probably never interact with and has no influence on our lives? I can understand if you work for his company or know him in person. But for the rest of the internet, I don't see the purpose except to fuel outrage.
Because you've already formed an opinion (Maybe you've read articles saying "The one moral CEO in America" like the grandparent) and you want to correct it if your prior opinion was incomplete.
I mean… he’s the one out here in front of the press all the time. He was a CEO of a card processing company! There is a universe in which he wouldn’t be a household name.
Sure the “outrage” is just high level gossip for most people talking about it, but it’s a reaction to this person being a loud and vocal person who was trying to build a public persona of being a Good Guy.
There’s definitely a larger idea here about journalism in general looking for hero stories. But the guy is out there giving the interviews
You also answered the GP's question as to why we should care about this.
If you're reading and seeing multiple stories all over the media about what a wonderful, altruistic person someone is, the information as to whether that person is in fact a great guy, or whether he's a predatory scumbag who is exploiting the media to make himself look great is very valuable. It tells you something about how the media works.
There is essentially no such thing as "inherent qualities" distinct from their source. Or rather, you can never actually know all the inherent qualities.
Knowledge of the sources history, character, motivations, and intentions is itself one of those inherent qualities.
If someone presents you with an idea, you often don't know if it's a good idea or just looks like a good idea because it was crafted to look good, in service of some unknown ultimate goal that you would not voluntarily choose to support if you knew everything.
Every scam in history is based on convincing a victim to harm themselves. Apparently, inherent qualities can be unknown, unknowable, or hidden. It's too late to contest that. It's already been happening for all of human history, and on every possible scale.
Judging something because the source has a known evil character is not wrong or counterproductive or unfair the way it is judging something because the source has pleasing charisma or lacks it.
If a Nazi says something, it's automatically not a wonderful idea in the first place, even if someone else later says the exact same thing and we all agree it's a wonderful idea then.
It's not wrong or illogical. It's just a slight of hand used by the dishonest (or the merely misguided) to try to make it seem wrong or hypocritical by pointing out only the surface similarity between that and prejudice based on nothing that stands up to scrutiny, when those are actually two very different things.
It's like a less obvious version of crying about being ddnied the freedom to deny others freedom.
Nowadays, exactly the same process you describe, is used to cancel people without proper chance for them to defend themselves. So I would be double careful with "multiple accusations", amplified in mass media and/or social media bubble because this is exactly how mob virtually lynches people in 2022.
What do you mean by 'cancel', outside the context of blacklisting entertainers? How does that apply to a CEO? Presumably anyone considering employing or funding him is entitled (and likely competent) to read the facts and others' thoughts about them.
I think the point about 'multiple accusers' is fair. People will come out of the woodwork, especially when there's money at stake (from the press or from legal action). Michael Jackson is a good example: undoubtedly he did rape some of those kids, but not all of them. Still, I don't see why this provides an argument against forming an opinion, rather than one for forming opinions judiciously.
Also, look up Jesse Washington if you want to understand what lynching means.
Not "we", but people like you certainly. There is no "credibility" if there is no real evidence. History is full of journalists creating sensational articles and amplifying things out of proportion to sale news papers. They deliberately leave out the context just to create outrage. You feel entitled for being jury and the judge and punish a person because it all "feels" right - except if you would be on the receiving end.
Unfortunately, that approach leads to confimation bias, as well as other biases. The point being - the media and other nefarious characters knowing - once the seed of accusations are planted, for the most part we are wired *not* to let go of that. It lives on well after the real facts have surfaced.
Also, along the same lines, the human memory is fairly easy to manipulate. It's not the air tight SSD we all presume it to be.
As a rule of thumb "follow the money". The fact is there are plenty of CEOs and other champions of Crony Capitalism that would pay good money to see him fall. If Big Sugar can buy off Harvard profs and their research so they blame fat for America's failing health ...Price is definitely fair game. And look...sugar still gets a free pass from most people.
I'm not defending Price. He's got a lawyer for that. Simply pointing out that beneath the surface, the world is a dirty place. When money and the status quo is involved I'm far slower to jump to conclusions.
You may form opinions which are yours to keep. When you enable a hivemind with half the power of the legal system, you ought to bear half the responsibility of the legal system.
> Multiple credible accusations, corroborated by contemporaneous accounts, collated by a reputable journalist is definitely enough to call the accusations founded.
Journalists build a narrative and then find facts that fit their narrative. If you continue to form your opinions on accusation you will find yourself easily manipulated by those who know how journalism works.
Your take is that having sex with someone who you believe to be asleep is ok if that person has chosen to sleep in the same room as you and to take cannabis?
An online mob isn’t what put this guy’s behavior in the spotlight - it was the reporting done by a journalist who saw through his program and the actions of women who were willing to go to the police, to speak to each other, and to talk to reporters.
The power of social media that this story reveals is the degree to which presence and popularity can drown out important information. He just kept rooting his horn and everyone forgot what his wife said.
That's why you don't judge someone by what they say but what they actually do. Cutting his pay and giving hikes to his employees is commendable. The rest of the allegations against him, not so.
There has been plenty of those accusations like waterboarding his ex-wife and usually no smoke without a fire is pretty good thumb-rule about these things.
This is actual human beings approaching legitimate newspapers with fact checking departments and legal departments and risks of defamation lawsuits, providing their stories and attaching their names to it.
Everyone of the entities involved are at risk of being sued for defamation if they are lying in this situation. The fact that people can’t tell the difference between Twitter BS and actual news claims is a true indictment of modern society.
Some might see it as a true indictment of modern journalism, more concerned with generating clicks than reporting news. Also the bar for defamation is extremely high, spreading lies is not enough to qualify.
Defamation is a hard thing to prove. For one, the one who publishes must know that something isn't true. Newspapers have zero risk of that when they quote somebody's statement.
If one wanted to wage a dirt campaign against him the accusations would look exactly like they do now. He is obviously a controversial figure. Might have rustled the wrong feathers.
Many accusation are also very nebulous, hard to verify and avoiding anything concrete that could get the person making them get sued for defamation.
Of course, he also could just be an asshole and abuser. We simply can't know.
Exactly! Also the media should be sharing more of this. Than continue to push out stories that are already resolved. The brother Lucas ended up paying for all the lawyer fees after Dan won the case Interesting how the media continues to bring up the lawsuit but never share the real story and the outcome to the lawsuit. I guess it is more profitable to spread lies.
Here is one article sharing the details after the lawsuit with Dan and his brother. People should do more research before blasting opinions. It is terrible what the US is allowed to share and spread buyer to gain more article clicks!
Just curious if you have an opinion regarding Deshaun Watson or his accusers. For context, he is a high-profile quarterback who earlier today was suspended by the NFL, based on a series of mostly anonymous accusations of sexual misconduct.
The very concept of slander could be defined as "smoke without fire". Surely you agree that slander exists, whether or not it's the case in this particular situation?
Also, $70K is absolutely terrible in Seattle. I don't know why everyone applauded. He was massively underpaying most employees before and still did after.
Sure, but his company is a credit card processing company, so there are probably a lot of tech workers.
I mean, a quick look at Glassdoor will show that while they do pay their "minimum" wage workers (which is probably an incredibly small part of their employees given the industry it's in) way above market, they underpay the rest and it is mentioned in almost all the negative reviews.
Sounds like they/he decided to pay their workers more evenly across the different roles. That choice would be internally consistent and desirable for some.
'The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.' -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Anyhoo, I have no actual idea if the accusations against Price are founded or not. That's for the courts to decide. I'm not into the whole "trial by Twitter" thing.