Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 218

Editor of Paris Review, Lorin Stein, resigns amid sexual misconduct investigation

Lorin Stein (Credit: Getty/Neilson Barnard)

Lorin Stein, editor of the influential and esteemed Paris Review, has resigned from the journal following a company investigation into possible misconduct toward the title’s female staff and freelancers. He had been with the publication since 2010.

As reported in the New York Times, the board of the Paris Review had launched an internal investigation into Stein’s behavior in October after various complaints filtered up from the writers and employees who work for the 60-year-old literary journal. The inquiry was conducted by attorneys under a board subcommittee that included testimony from “current and former employees, and also received complaints from at least two female writers who said they had negative encounters with Mr. Stein,” according to the Times. The magazine’s board was to meet Thursday to discuss its findings and plot a course of action.

Stein, 44 and married to writer Sadie Stein, first wrote a letter to the board in an attempt to secure his position early Wednesday, then tendered his resignation. He followed that in a message to the Paris Review staff.

“At times in the past, I blurred the personal and the professional in ways that were, I now recognize, disrespectful of my colleagues and our contributors, and that made them feel uncomfortable or demeaned,” Stein wrote in the letter. “I am very sorry for any hurt I caused them.”

The Times reports that he further admitted to romantically and sexually pursuing women at the Review, including writers and interns (“an abuse of my position,” he said) and having intercourse in the offices after work hours. He claimed whatever sex he had was consensual and before he was married even if, as he said, “the way I behaved was hurtful, degrading and infuriating to a degree that I have only begun to understand this past month.”

The Paris Review, whose past editors have included George Plimpton, Harold L. Humes and Peter Matthiessen and later Brigid Hughes and Philip Gourevitch, is perhaps the best-regarded literary publication of its kind in the English language. Over its six decades in existence, it has published the original work — and sometimes launched the careers — of writers such as  Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, Philip Roth, Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Jeffrey Eugenides, Ernest Hemingway, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Thornton Wilder, Vladimir Nabokov and many, many others. Who is — and isn’t — represented in the Review, and whether or not the publication is living up to its outsized legacy, is a frequent topic of discussion inside and outside New York’s literary circles.

Despite its position and influence, the Review itself is a small operation, with only a handful of staffers or interns working out of its austere, no-frills Chelsea loft space at any one time. The atmosphere, like the many gatherings it hosts in its offices, is reportedly informal and intimate. All this, and the central role the Review plays in the literary world, paints Stein’s alleged behavior in a particularly ugly light.

As of this writing, the Review has no comment on the matter.

 

Public-radio stars Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz suspended after sexual-misconduct claims

Leonard Lopate (Credit: Getty/Mark Sagliocco)

Just two days after it was revealed the WNYC’s John Hockenberry left his show, “The Takeaway” over claims of sexual harassment in August, two more staff members of the same public-radio organization are under fire in connection with sexual-misconduct allegations. Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz were suspended today after both staff members and guests of their radio shows said they were sexually harassed.

While details of any of the allegations against either broadcaster remain unrevealed at this time, Laura Walker, president and CEO of New York Public Radio said “NYPR is committed to taking all appropriate steps to ensure a respectful, equitable, inclusive and harassment-free workplace for everyone,” in announcement and that they take the allegations “very seriously.”

Lopate told the New York Times that he was “baffled” and “really quite shocked and upset” by the move. “It makes no sense to me,” he told the Times. “I am sure any honest investigation will completely clear me. That’s the only thing I’m concerned about — the damage to my reputation.”

He doubled down saying “I have never done anything inappropriate on any level — that’s not the way I conduct my job.” He added “This may just be the current environment, but this is kind of overkill.”

Audiences have been listening Lopate on NPR since the mid 1980’s when he debuted co-hosting a talk show with Pegeen Fitzgerald, before it evolved into “The Leonard Lopate Show.”

Schwartz first debuted on local radio in 1958 playing a Sinatra song on WBAI, leading to him becoming the cultural authority on the singer and, more broadly, jazz and pop standards. He also served as the artistic director of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook.

Mary Harris of WNYC will temporarily serve as host of “The Leonard Lopate Show.” There’s no plan for who will replace Schwartz as host of “The Jonathan Channel.”

Earlier this week, it was revealed that longtime WNYC host John Hockenberry left the station in August because of sexual harassment and harassment of women of color specifically. WNYC came clean after The Cut broke the story. No reason was given for his departure at the time he left the station.

All this follows what has been a rough season for public radio. In early November, National Public Radio chief editor Michael Oreskes resigned following a burst of sexual-harassment claims against him. Weeks later, Garrison Keillor, the legendary former host of “A Prairie Home Companion,” was fired from Minnesota Public Radio in connection to similar allegations. Subsequently, all reruns of “Home Companion” were pulled from the air and new episodes of the show will be broadcast under the title “Town Hall”.

Why Facebook’s new “Messenger Kids” might make kids even more depressed

(Credit: Getty/dolgachov)

Facebook rolled out a new feature this week, Messenger Kids, in what appears to be an effort to attract users younger than 13 — a group that was previously not allowed to join the social network.

The launch, which has been positively framed as a way to make parents feel better about their kids under 13 using the social media platform, embraces the idea of supervised security. “As a mom, I know how meaningful it can be when kids use technology to connect with family and friends, but I also know how important it is to make sure they’re safe whenever they go online,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says in the demo video.

It’s no secret the Internet can be a dark and dangerous place for children, filled with predators and bullies. While it’s nice to see that Facebook is taking steps to monitor and combat that, the tech conglomerate has failed to address the ever-accumulating and increasingly alarming research that suggests that an increase in social media and smartphone use can negatively impact the emotional and mental well-being of children and teens. Indeed, rather than improving the social lives of young ones, social media appears to be having the opposite effect, a theory supported by more and more studies.

In one study released in November in the Clinical Psychological Science journal, the authors drew a strong association between an increase in teen suicides from 2010 to 2015 and an increase in social media usage. According to the study, social media can incite cyberbullying and paint inaccurate depictions of their peers’ body images and overall lives. In 2015, according to the study, 36 percent of teens reported feelings of sadness, hopelessness, or suicidal ideation, a 32 percent increase from 2009 — when social media wasn’t as prominent in people’s lives. In the same study, there was a 70 percent increase, since 2009, in teens who spent an average of 5 hours a day on their smartphones.

Jean Twenge, a psychologist who studies social media behavior, wrote an article in The Atlantic recently about her findings. As she explained, “social-networking sites like Facebook promise to connect us to friends. But the portrait of iGen teens emerging from the data is one of a lonely, dislocated generation.” Teenagers who visit social media sites, she says, on a daily basis to see what their friends are up to are more likely to agree with statements like “I often feel left out of things,” and “I feel lonely.”

Yet if social media seems to be a magnet for lonely, disaffected teens and children, tech companies like Facebook — who have direct insight into their digital interactions — have failed to address how they’re going to save them. When we asked Facebook about the launch of Facebook Messenger Kids, and whether the company was aware of studies such as the one that appeared in Clinical Psychological Science, they told Salon it is better to be able to monitor what children and teens are already doing. As Loren Cheng, the Product Management Director at Facebook, told Salon:

“We know that kids are already using technology, and we want to help ensure their experiences are as safe and positive as they can be. We built Messenger Kids to be an app that encourages meaningful connections with friends and family versus other online activities like watching videos or scrolling through a feed. We think teaching kids how to use technology in a positive, healthy way early on will bring better experiences later as they grow and we understand the importance of approaching this work with thought and care.”

Up until this product launch, children under the age of 13 were unable to sign up for Facebook. While children still technically can’t create their own accounts—this must be done by their parents, who have to download the app to their child’s device — the company is encouraging, and welcoming, their participation.

Still, we’re left asking, why target kids? Alas, it makes sense when you look at studies showing that younger people are leaving Facebook for alternatives like Snapchat and Instagram. Though Instagram is owned by Facebook, having more active Facebook users drive the company’s revenues.

House approves GOP gun law, making it easier to carry concealed weapons between states

(Credit: AP/Alex Brandon)

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved a GOP-proposed bill, H.R. 38  – Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, that will make it easier for gun owners to legally carry concealed weapons across state lines. The bill passed with a 231-198 vote in the House, and is the first gun-related bill to be voted on in Congress since the mass shooting in Las Vegas in October. While the vote mostly ran along party lines, 14 Republicans voted no, and six Democrats voted yes.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) didn’t waste any time celebrating the approval of the bill, something they’ve long considered to be a “top legislative priority.” Shortly after it was passed, they took to Twitter to share the “victory,” decorating their celebratory tweet with childish emojis.

https://twitter.com/NRA/status/938534...

Democratic leaders, like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D.-Calif., had a different response. “Inviting violent criminals to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives,” Pelosi wrote on Twitter.

Inviting violent criminals to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives
Inviting domestic abusers to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives
Inviting convicted stalkers to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives

Yet the @HouseGOP just voted to do exactly that #StopCCR

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) December 6, 2017

The bill is not only alarming and threatening to the safety of Americans, it is also a slap in the face to Las Vegas shooting victims and their families. On October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock fired over 1,000 shots into a crowd of 22,000 people, killing 58 of them. Though Paddock was a Nevada resident, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives noted that many of his firearms had been purchased across state lines— in California, Texas and Utah.

Paddock was able to shoot more rapidly, and thus injure or kill more, by virtue of using a bump stock, a device that essentially converts a semi-automatic weapon into a fully automatic weapon. While bump stocks are legal, automatic weapons generally are not legal for U.S. civilians to own.

In the wake of the shooting, it briefly seemed as though bipartisan support for gun control reform might be possible. A few days after the shooting, Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R.-Fla., came out in favor of a ban in bump stocks. Later, the NRA, too, said that bump stock laws should be “reviewed.”

Ultimately, though, nothing happened legislatively — though the Las Vegas shooting now stands as the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Rather than attempt to enact legislation that might stop a future similar shooting, this new bill makes another shooting of a similar magnitude even easier to accomplish.

The philosophy behind federal interstate gun legislation such as H.R. 38 also makes a mockery of a common Republican ideological argument for states’ rights trumping federal law — as Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D.-N.H., noted in her press release: “I voted against the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act because it would undermine states’ rights,” she explained. “At a time when the majority of Americans want Congress to work on bipartisan solutions that address the national epidemic of gun violence, passing the NRA’s top legislative priority to loosen gun safety laws takes us in the wrong direction,” she continued.

Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future

(Credit: 123dartist/Shutterstock)

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been ignoring the bitcoin phenomenon for years — because it seemed too complex, far-fetched, or maybe even too libertarian. But if you have any interest in a future where the world moves beyond fossil fuels, you and I should both start paying attention now.

Last week, the value of a single bitcoin broke the $10,000 barrier for the first time. Over the weekend, the price nearly hit $12,000. At the beginning of this year, it was less than $1,000.

If you had bought $100 in bitcoin back in 2011, your investment would be worth nearly $4 million today. All over the internet there are stories of people who treated their friends to lunch a few years ago and, as a novelty, paid with bitcoin. Those same people are now realizing that if they’d just paid in cash and held onto their digital currency, they’d now have enough money to buy a house.

That sort of precipitous rise is stunning, of course, but bitcoin wasn’t intended to be an investment instrument. Its creators envisioned it as a replacement for money itself — a decentralized, secure, anonymous method for transferring value between people.

But what they might not have accounted for is how much of an energy suck the computer network behind bitcoin could one day become. Simply put, bitcoin is slowing the effort to achieve a rapid transition away from fossil fuels. What’s more, this is just the beginning. Given its rapidly growing climate footprint, bitcoin is a malignant development, and it’s getting worse.

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin provide a unique service: Financial transactions that don’t require governments to issue currency or banks to process payments. Writingin the Atlantic, Derek Thompson calls bitcoin an “ingenious and potentially transformative technology” that could the entire economy could be built on — the currency equivalent of the internet. Some are even speculating that bitcoin could someday make the U.S. dollar obsolete.

But the rise of bitcoin is also happening at a specific moment in history: Humanity is decades behind schedule on counteracting climate change, and every action in this era should be evaluated on its net impact on the climate. Increasingly, bitcoin is failing the test.

Digital financial transactions come with a real-world price: The tremendous growth of cryptocurrencies has created an exponential demand for computing power. As bitcoin grows, the math problems computers must solve to make more bitcoin (a process called “mining”) get more and more difficult — a wrinkle designed to control the currency’s supply.

Today, each bitcoin transaction requires the same amount of energy used to powernine homes in the U.S. for one day. And miners are constantly installing more and faster computers. Already, the aggregate computing power of the bitcoin network isnearly 100,000 times larger than the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers combined.

The total energy use of this web of hardware is huge — an estimated 31 terawatt-hours per year. More than 150 individual countries in the world consume less energy annually. And that power-hungry network is currently increasing its energy use every day by about 450 gigawatt-hours, roughly the same amount of electricity the entire country of Haiti uses in a year.

That sort of electricity use is pulling energy from grids all over the world, where it could be charging electric vehicles and powering homes, to bitcoin-mining farms. In Venezuela, where rampant hyperinflation and subsidized electricity has led to a boom in bitcoin mining, rogue operations are now occasionally causing blackoutsacross the country. The world’s largest bitcoin mines are in China, where they siphon energy from huge hydroelectric dams, some of the cheapest sources of carbon-free energy in the world. One enterprising Tesla owner even attempted to rig up a mining operation in his car, to make use of free electricity at a public charging station.



In just a few months from now, at bitcoin’s current growth rate, the electricity demanded by the cryptocurrency network will start to outstrip what’s available, requiring new energy-generating plants. And with the climate conscious racing to replace fossil fuel-base plants with renewable energy sources, new stress on the grid means more facilities using dirty technologies. By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses. By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.

This is an unsustainable trajectory. It simply can’t continue.

There are already several efforts underway to reform how the bitcoin network processes transactions, with the hope that it’ll one day require less electricity to make new coins. But as with other technological advances like irrigation in agriculture and outdoor LED lighting, more efficient systems for mining bitcoin could have the effect of attracting thousands of new miners.

It’s certain that the increasing energy burden of bitcoin transactions will divert progress from electrifying the world and reducing global carbon emissions. In fact, I’d guess it probably already has. The only question at this point is: by how much?

The Swedes are burning H&M clothing for energy

(Credit: maramicado via Shutterstock)

Right now, Sweden’s waste-to-energy program (WTE) seems that much more riot grrrl. After a stunning, country-wide drought in garbage, the city of Vasteras, lying north of Stockholm, was found to be burning unused H&M brand clothing in order to meet the country’s energy demands. Such knowledge paints an interesting picture: a season’s trends incinerated into fuel, and with them, a projected end to leftover synthetic fabrics and polka dots of human waste. Why would anyone hesitate to have their home heated by fashionable trash?

It’s estimated that H&M contributed 15 tons of clothes to the city’s programming in 2017. This is compared to the over 400,000 tons of garbage the town burns each year. Both are part of a country-wide move to divest from the fossil fuel industry, as a small percentage of homes still rely on coal and oil for heating. The program has become so successful that at one point Sweden actually had to start importing trash from nearby countries.

Such news could make Sweden appear like our junk’s martyr, but WTE programs do have their heretics. On their own and in open air, garbage fires are rich emitters of greenhouse gases, distributing a slurry of toxic matter, including 29% of global particulate matter and 40% of earth’s polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Noxious ash and gases like these are a global health hazard, contributing to lung and neurological diseases as well as cancers.

To prevent these health hazards, WTE systems use electric filters to give particles a negative electric charge, thereby ridding emissions of poisonous content and making smoke almost entirely composed of water and a clean form of carbon. The process is costly though, and some experts have questioned the design of WTE studies, which may embody the half-truths of a researcher’s desired answer.

Vasteras has been using H&M clothing and other trash with the intent to phase out its small reliance on nonrenewable resources like coal and natural gas entirely. Currently, WTE systems are classified as a renewable energy resource, even as the debate persists as to whether WTE programs play a positive role in atmospheric carbon reduction.

One EPA study estimated that 2,988 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour were produced by the burning of trash. This is in contrast with the 2,249 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour produced by coal and the 1,135 pounds produced by natural gas. This makes waste-to-energy programs seem like a larger emitter. However, it’s thought that most of what is burned during the WTE process is material like wood and paper, a part of which would release CO2 as part of the carbon cycle, allowing some to claim that the burning of trash would only produce 986 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour.

Studies like these give hopeful and intelligent, though hypothetical guesses. Leaving one to wonder whether trash burning is as much a solution as countries like Sweden make it seem. There is also the argument that methane released from landfills could be trapped and used as energy, instead of using WTE programs. Either way, there are many arguments for harnessing power from the inescapable mass of this planet’s waste.

At this stage, humanity has produced more waste than it can handle. As we face the disastrous effects of climate change, we have to ask ourselves what to do with all that trash, and it is likely we will see more waste-to-fuel programs. The fashion industry, as a proliferator of stylized waste, is only beginning to reckon with its habits. While burning H&M clothes may look like a win-win for the industry and, perhaps, the environment, it may be more important to ask what else can be done to eliminate the 15 tons of clothing that are being burned in a small town north of Stockholm, and how many more piles of unspent clothing are currently wasted in stores or closets worldwide.

Sophie Linden is an editorial assistant at AlterNet’s office in Berkeley, CA.

You don’t need to build rockets to prove the Earth isn’t flat

(Credit: AP/NASA)

Could 2,000 years of belief be wrong? Are we in fact living on a disc rather than a globe? One believer from the Flat Earth Society is determined to find out. “Mad” Mike Hughes is all set to build his own rocket to see for himself that the Earth is flat.

For the last 50 years, we’ve been able to view pictures of the Earth from space, which might seem like all the proof you need to see that our planet is in fact round. But the awareness of how easily images can be doctored and the growth of internet conspiracy theories appears to have fueled a resurgence of belief in a flat Earth.

At the same time, there’s a lack of understanding of the science that has long been used to demonstrate that we live on a globe, without the need to leave it. I wish Hughes well with his endeavour, as he has at least been willing to try and prove his theory. Perhaps if more people really could see for themselves the evidence, we might be able to reverse this worrying trend. A good place to start would be by making sure children have the chance to try out simple experiments in school.

One of the best documented methods for determining the Earth’s roundness was first performed (to our knowledge) by the ancient Greeks. This was achieved by comparing the shadows of sticks in different locations. When the sun was directly overhead in one place, the stick there cast no shadow. At the same time in a city around 500 miles north, the stick there did cast a shadow.

Cast no shadow.

Shutterstock

If the Earth were flat then both sticks should show the same shadow (or lack of) because they would be positioned at the same angle towards the sun. The ancient Greeks found the shadows were different because the Earth was curved and so the sticks were at different angles. They then used the difference in these angles to calculate the circumference of the Earth. They managed to get it to within 10% of the true value – not bad for around 250 BC.

Another piece of evidence for a globe is the difference between the night skies in the northern and southern hemispheres. The view is completely different because the Earth beneath you is pointing in a different direction. If the Earth were flat, the view should be the same. This can be made even easier by simply comparing when it is night and day in each country.

You can observe the planets as well. They all rotate, and watching over the course of a few days gives a clear picture they are spherical rather than flat. The chance that most of the planets are spherical but the Earth is flat seems very unlikely.

Fake science

But when science experiments are performed incorrectly they can appear to give the opposite result. If they are shared through social media, these false ideas can be spread quickly with no one to point out their flaws. One common example is the Bedford Level experiment, a form of which was first carried out in 1838 and used to “prove” the Earth was flat for over 30 years before an explanation was found.

This experiment involved placing a marker at a set height at either end of a canal about six miles long. If the Earth is round, then one marker should appear lower than the other when viewed at the same time through a telescope because the furthest marker would have fallen away with the curvature of the Earth. But it was reported that the markers are the same height, suggesting the Earth is actually flat. Modern day Flat Earth theorists still quote this experiment.

The problem is this doesn’t take into account the optical effect of the air over the intervening water, which bends or “refracts” the light as it travels from the marker to the telescope and makes it look like they are the same height. The solution is to use multiple markers along the length of the canal which, when observed, all appear to be at different heights.

Perhaps the most impressive experiment that even schools can do today is to send a camera up in a high-altitude balloon. The footage will show that from a high-enough vantage point you can see the curvature of the Earth. This is what Mike Hughes will find if he ever makes his rocket work.

Ultimately, arguing on the internet is not the best way forward for any scientific endeavour. We need to provide the means for people to test these theories themselves and to understand the results they get.

Ian Whittaker, Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University

Christmas lights combined with a charging cable

(Credit: Salon Marketplace)

As much as the practical stuff is needed, our everyday items are always more fun once you add a twist to them. This Glowing 2nd-Generation iOS Lightning Charging Cable is one part funk, one part charging necessity, adding a fun glow to help you get a sense of your charging speed.

This handy cable is perfect for syncing and charging your mobile devices. And just in case you’re in a rush, the speed of the light actually indicates your charging speed: the higher the charging current, the faster the light will move. Plus, the glow is perfect for finding your phone or iPad in the dark (because the last thing you need is to knock over your device for the millionth time).

Made to last and crafted out of quality cable, this Lightning cable is sure to last you for many future generations of iPhones — so feel free to switch up your charging routine and nab this cool cord.

Charge your device at the speed of light (literally): usually, this Glowing 2nd-Generation iOS Lightning Charging Cable is $25, but you can get it now for $12.99, or 48% off.

Why the new tax bill will make Americans less healthy

Protesters are seen outside the Senate Budget Committee hearing room. (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

The new tax bill, passed by the Senate early Saturday, is not just about taxes. It has significant consequences for the American health care system – especially for the most vulnerable of our citizens.

If the proposed tax bill comes to fruition, it will reduce the affordability of health care for many Americans. Without access to care, our sickest and most vulnerable – especially the the poor and elderly – will suffer an increasing chance of poorer health outcomes.

What’s more, the bill’s long-term outcomes will be bad for our economy, resulting in lost productivity, lost wages and increased health care costs. If Americans become less healthy and have less access to health care, then everyone loses.

This bill puts much of the health system reforms under the Obama administration in jeopardy. For example, the Senate tax plan includes a repeal of an important part of the Affordable Care Act, the individual mandate. This provision requires that most Americans buy health insurance, or pay a penalty.

Many health care experts see the mandate as the only way to bring healthy people into the insurance marketplaces. Gutting the mandate would result in 13 million more uninsured Americans over the next 10 years.

Additionally, the Senate bill is expected to trigger a US$25 billion annual cut to Medicare, including cuts to cancer care for older Americans covered by Medicare. The House plan also eliminates medical expense deductions, implying that catastrophic expenses will not be as deductible under the new tax proposal.

Many economists believe that the American population has a right to be healthy and productive. This has major implications for the income generated for society. A healthier population has a greater investment in human capital and is more productive in the workforce, yielding greater output and income.

By the same token, a less healthy workforce will work less and be less valuable in the labor market. Health care costs will also increase due to uncompensated care, as more of the population cannot afford basic health care services to prevent disease – let alone chronic or critical care.

Lack of access to care also lowers the productivity of lower income citizens. If health insurance is less affordable and available, then those already at risk for illness will become even more vulnerable. This segment of the population will be likelier to fall ill and lose work time.

Is the right to health only relevant for those with influence or affluence in the U.S.? If so, then we all will pay for the poorer health of our society in the long term. Hospitals and other providers will pass along bad debt and costs associated with charity care for uninsured people. Insurance companies will charge higher premiums to cover the expenses they incur for treating patients who skip preventive care and instead go to the doctor only when they are sick.

As the most vulnerable Americans rack up increasing medical expenses and decline in productivity due to sickness, everyone in the U.S. will have to pay the price.

Diane Dewar, Associate Professor of Health Policy, Management and Behavior, University at Albany, State University of New York

Why Silicon Valley treats predators differently

Shervin Pishevar (Credit: Getty/Patricia De Melo Moreira)

Ripples from the Weinstein Effect have touched one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent. Shervin Pishevar, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with a portfolio that includes high-profile companies like Uber and Airbnb, publicly announced this morning that he will be temporarily stepping down from venture capital firm Sherpa Capital to pursue a defamation lawsuit in the wake of multiple sexual assault allegations and one rape allegation — which Pishevar claims are all part of a “smear campaign.”

In a statement released via his lawyer, Pishevar says, “I have decided to take an immediate leave of absence from my duties at Sherpa Capital and Virgin Hyperloop One, as well as my portfolio company board responsibilities, so that I can pursue the prosecution of my lawsuit, where I am confident I will be vindicated. Through the discovery process, I hope to unearth who fabricated the fraudulent London ‘police report,’ and who is responsible for spreading false rumors about me.”

The so-called “false rumors” appear more serious than mere rumors. Five women have come forward to a Bloomberg reporter to share personal stories about times that Pishevar allegedly sexually assaulted or harassed them or those close to them. One of the women recalled that at Uber’s 2014 holiday party Pishevar allegedly assaulted a 30-year-old Uber executive, Austin Geidt, who declined to comment on the allegations.

All of the women who have come forward to Bloomberg asked not to reveal their identities, wary that Pishevar’s litigious reputation and his influence in the tech industry could harm their careers. Those fears are validated by Pishevar’s response to a May report — where a woman accused him of raping her at the Ned Hotel in London, which partly incited him to file a defamation lawsuit against a political opposition research firm.

If you thought Louis CK’s “apology” was bad, imagine your assaulter filing a defamation lawsuit to silence you.

The #MeToo movement has given many women the confidence to come forward and confront their abusers. In Hollywood and in the media industry, powerful perpetrators are being fired and/or suffering the consequences of their actions, setting a precedent that abuse of power and sexual harassment is unacceptable in their industry.

Can the same be said about Silicon Valley?

 

In the past few months, the way in which powerful men have faced sexual assault and harassment allegations in the tech industry has been different, and…  more lenient, frankly, than those in Hollywood. Venture Capitalist Justin Caldbeck resigned from his firm Binary Capital after six women said he reportedly made unwanted advances. While he publicly apologized, and stepped down from the firm, he has now moved on to another project: educating young men at Duke University, his alma mater, on the dangers of “bro culture.” His new mission, according to Bloomberg, is to “create positive change for women by educating young men about how to be better in the workforce.” Dave McClure, the founder of 500 Startups, a startup accelerator, resigned after women came forward and reported several unwanted advances from him. In a Medium post, he apologized and admitted he “f**ked up.” But according to his profile on Crunchbase, a LinkedIn clone for tech investors, he still sits on the board for a few companies.

Hollywood has been less forgiving. Harvey Weinstein was fired from his own studio, and it’s probably safe to assume he won’t be giving a talk about life after being a sexual harasser at his alma mater any time soon; his brand is far too toxic. After women came forward about Louis C.K.’s aggressive advances, C.K.’s pending movie “I Love You, Daddy” saw its release cancelled, along with his contract with FX. NBC fired “Today Show” host Matt Lauer after multiple women came forward with stories of him sexually harassing them at work, including one instance in which Lauer reportedly gifted a sex toy to an employee in his office.



In the tech industry — long a bastion of gender inequality and bro culture — if you sexually harass someone, you’re still respected. Your career can turn around. You can become an advocate for change. But the message in Hollywood is different. In Hollywood, if you sexually assault or harass someone, your career is over.

What message does this send to future predators in Silicon Valley?

Pishevar’s response to these allegations is another reflection of a symptomatic problem in Silicon Valley: The sense of entitlement that the industry collectively holds, evidenced by companies that think they’re above the law, founders who think their app is “changing the world,” and techies who have fallen for Ayn Rand’s hyper-individualistic libertarian ethos. The I’m-above-you, your rules don’t apply to me attitude is what makes Silicon Valley so seductive yet so dangerous at the same time.

Tech companies are content with this ideological view of their industry, as many buy into the hype: It drives investors to invest and helps them acquire talent. Startups have been famous for rebelling against traditional corporate work culture. But when it’s time to face the industry’s issues with sexism, abuse of power, sexual harassment, and assault, how does their failure to set industry standards bode for the future? For an industry that has made billions of dollars off of the noble idea of changing the world and building the future, it doesn’t seem to want to be a part of the movement to make life better for women in the workplace.