Comment by weeblewobble | Hacker News Reader

Comment by weeblewobble | Hacker News Reader

For context, here's Freddie's contemporaneous apology, which he has not only deleted from his website but from the Wayback Machine as well (sorry for the weird site, only copy I could find): https://www.falserapetimeline.org/false-rape-5950.pdf

Some excerpts: "Crucially, despite my mental state at the time, I knew when I sent those tweets that they were untrue. I am responsible for having made those false allegations, and that makes me a liar, it makes me guilty of slander, and it makes me someone who undermined the profound seriousness of rape allegations."

". I have abandoned all social media permanently. I have stopped freelance writing. I have in general tried to permanently remove myself from online life and from the world of political writing in which Malcolm resides and I once resided. These changes are not attempts to make up for what I’ve done, really; they are just matters of self-preservation as I try to build a life where I do not cause harm to people anymore. I have fully committed to constant treatment, and I have fully committed to going away. I am so profoundly sorry"

I remember reading this at the time and feeling the pain through the screen. He seemed genuinely ashamed.

Here's Freddie's more recent explanation for why he tried to remove his apology from the internet: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/statement

He says he doesn't care if we find it on the wayback machine, but someone had to go out of their way to exclude it (https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://fredrikdeboer.com/2018...)

Here's Harris' contemporaneous reaction: https://twitter.com/bigmeaninternet/status/10471296316970475...

My feeling is that the initial apology has been undermined by a) trying to memory hole it and b) writing all these blog posts quasi-defending himself. Would be nice if Freddie and his IDW friends displayed such forbearance and grace for the college students and journalists they make their living attacking. Perhaps those people are going through some mental issues as well.

The good news is, Freddie seems to be doing better than ever. He got a fat advance from Substack and even just had an op-ed published in the liberal New York Times.

I love deBoers writing when it's about _something_, but the navel-gazing gets old really quick. Yikes!

If he truly feels sorry, he just needs to move on. He seems to understand what he did was foul. Well then, move forward, be a good man to all the new people in your life. Instead, he craves absolution (and, reading between the lines, acceptance). No human being can be cajoled into extending that. It's truly foolish to expect people can be argued into extending that.

In fact, what he really needs to do, is that he himself needs to forgive the people being mean to him, who have rejected him. When he can do that, only then he can free himself from this burden.

Good luck Freddie!

Can you hit me up with your favorite examples? I'm just hearing about the guy now and the first article of his that I found was kind of a pseudosciencey wall-o-text that I won't be finishing.

He's pretty passionate about education policy; this article is one of his better ones on that topic, IMHO: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-arent-actually-mad-... The discussion of Robertson et. al.'s 2010 paper is worth reading the article just for that.

But it's true that his writing seems to drift between extremes -- some sober, well-researched and very interesting, and others almost as if a different person was writing it.

> But it's true that his writing seems to drift between extremes -- some sober, well-researched and very interesting, and others almost as if a different person was writing it.

The article you linked is bizarre. He's actually arguing against himself in places. Interesting, and thanks for the link.

> Would be nice if Freddie and his IDW friends

You're wide of the mark there. De Boer was never part of the IDW. He might criticize some of the things they do, but he's coming from a different starting point entirely.

Fair enough, maybe anti-PC is a better label?

And here is Malcolm Harris now - he retweeted that recently.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/1372530096...

He is not appreciating what DeBoer does now and don't think he follows amends he promised.

Malcolm Harris doesn’t say what commitments DeBoer is breaking. He would be more credible if he did.

The linked Twitter thread includes Harris saying,

> I would def settle for never having to think about it again, but clearly Freddie isn't going to "go away" like he first promised he would, so I'm sorta stuck here with that while he cashes in on self-pity.

And, if you click on the 2018 link, Harris quotes DeBoer writing

> I have abandoned all social media permanently. I have stopped freelance writing. I have in general tried to permanently remove myself from online life and from the world of political writing in which Malcolm resides and I once resided. [...] I have fully committed to constant treatment, and I have fully committed to going away.

So, I mean, yes, Harris absolutely says what commitments deBoer is breaking. That you had to take the extra 60 seconds to follow the links is not a failure on Harris's part. :)

Now, there are all sorts of questions this raises about "how long of 'going away' is enough" and "is expecting permanent exile from public life reasonable." As near as I can tell, though, deBoer decided that the correct answer to "how long is enough" is "about 12 months." It doesn't seem unreasonable to me for Harris to be looking at that a bit askance.

It's worth emphasizing the specific commitment to "permanently remove myself from online life." Rather than live up to that commitment and allow Harris to move on, Freddie has decided not only to remain Extremely Online but to keep re-hashing the situation over and over again. It certainly undermines the original apology, and make Harris look like a chump for being so graceful about it.

> Rather than live up to that commitment

This is an unreasonable commitment for deboer to have made. Yes, he made it. No, that doesn’t make it realistic.

> make Harris look like a chump for being so graceful about it

There is nothing graceful about Harris expecting DeBoer to do this unreasonable thing.

It was a bad agreement. DeBoer should never have made it, and Harris should never have accepted it.

It’s absolutely a failure on Harris part.

It’s fairly obvious that expecting someone to exile themselves from public view for the rest of their life is absurd and unreasonable.

Even if DeBoer said he would do that, it doesn’t mean it’s reasonable for Harris to expect it.

If Harris thinks 12 months is not enough, he can say that.

That is what DeBoer promised back when he felt guilty and did not wanted Harris to sue him. Which he in fact could do. And maybe should do.

Now DeBoer is actively repeatedly bringing Harris thing up, doing opposite of getting away from Harris life.

DeBoer says he’s bringing the Harris thing up because other people keep using it to attack him.

He can’t control what other people do, and if they keep bringing it up, it’s not unreasonable for him to respond.

>> That you had to take the extra 60 seconds to follow the links is not a failure on Harris's part.

> It's absolutely a failure on Harris's part.

Let me be clearer: Harris stated exactly what you said he didn't state. You either failed to click the link or dismissed it. That you do not agree with what Harris said does not mean he didn't say it.

> If Harris thinks 12 months is not enough, he can say that.

It's obvious he thinks that, and I'm pretty sure you know that, even if he didn't use those literal words. You're implicitly criticizing Harris for an ungenerous reading of deBoer's commitment ("obviously it's absurd and unreasonable to expect he really meant 'permanently' when he wrote 'permanently'"), which I don't object to -- but I do object to you not in turn extending the same generosity to Harris.

For whatever it's worth, I doubt "permanent exile" is reasonable, either. But barely a year later deBoer was writing for the Washington Post and the New York Times, publishing a best-selling book, and starting a newsletter that now brings in a six-figure income. Barely two years on and deBoer is writing, in so many words, "I've already apologized, why won't all you cancel-culture jerks leave me alone".

So, yeah, sorry: if I was Harris, I would probably be tempted to make a few tweets questioning just how sincere deBoer was about the whole apology thing.

Deboer deleted his apology from the internet and then wrote this mealy mouthed drek of an article indicates that he hasn’t lived up to his commitment to move on.

He means to fool small minds with meandering language, confusing the herd so they let him regain the status he desperately craves.

> He means to fool small minds with meandering language, confusing the herd so they let him regain the status he desperately craves.

Believing you can read someone else’s mind is a diagnostic criterion for psychosis.

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