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Official - Michael Jackson was scum

All people involved in this discussion here are faced with a situation where certain knowledge is impossible and must make a “faith” judgment, being of a standard of evidence much less than we would hold scientific claims to. For me the cost of denying the testimony of an accuser is much greater.

Does God exist? If you're willing to guess on "faith" in criminal matters, why not theological ones? I assume you don't require any more proof for God's existence than you do for Jackson's guilt. Or do you? Do you pick and choose which assertions you believe without evidence?
 
Does God exist? If you're willing to guess on "faith" in criminal matters, why not theological ones? I assume you don't require any more proof for God's existence than you do for Jackson's guilt. Or do you? Do you pick and choose which assertions you believe without evidence?

We all pick and choose in situations like this, including on God. #existentialism

ETA: And not in an absence of evidence either. We choose from competing narratives. i have suggested before that the cost of disbelief in an victims testimony comes with a higher cost.

In addition, pointing out the accusations were once retracted or cynical assertions that the accusations have been made for financial gain are no evidence at all to not belive the accusers. It wont stop them being used here or by those interested in his estate or reputation.
 
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We all pick and choose in situations like this, including on God. #existentialism

No, we don't all do that. Some of us have no problem admitting we do not know something. If there isn't evidence for something of importance I don't guess whether it's true or false, I withhold judgment until evidence becomes available. I would have thought that would be the natural skeptical position. And that claiming knowledge where one doesn't have it is intellectually dishonest.

Guessing based on feelings is as valid as flipping a coin.
 
No, we don't all do that. Some of us have no problem admitting we do not know something. If there isn't evidence for something of importance I don't guess whether it's true or false, I withhold judgment until evidence becomes available. I would have thought that would be the natural skeptical position. And that claiming knowledge where one doesn't have it is intellectually dishonest.

Guessing based on feelings is as valid as flipping a coin.

We do. Not one of us in this discussion has any privileged knowledge that could answer the question of his innocence or guilt with “certainty”. I do think accusations should carry a great deal of weight in circumstances like this. Rapists and abusers, particularly those greatly advantaged by social power differencials (child/adult, wealthy celebrity/ordinary public), thrive in the doubt set by an environment of an evidence bar that can never be reached.

The varying standards of evidence we demand for belief are contextual in practice and necessarily.
 
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We do. Not one of us in this discussion has any privileged knowledge that could answer the question of his innocence or guilt with “certainty”. I do think accusations should carry a great deal of weight in circumstances like this. Rapists and abusers, particularly those greatly advantaged by social power differencials (child/adult, wealthy celebrity/ordinary public), thrive in the doubt set by an environment of an evidence bar that can never be reached.

The varying standards of evidence we demand for belief are contextual in practice and necessarily.

I see. Evidence doesn't matter if the accusation is dreadful enough. Ever read "The Crucible"? Lies thrive in the doubt set by an environment of an evidence bar that is nonexistent.
 
I see. Evidence doesn't matter if the accusation is dreadful enough. Ever read "The Crucible"? Lies thrive in the doubt set by an environment of an evidence bar that is nonexistent.

I think these kind of restatments of your interlocutor’s opions traditionally start with “so” around here.
 
One of the problems with this whole story now is that so much has been written and said it's hard to weed through it all now to make a cogent case.

Here is a page fairly succinctly detailing many problems with the claims being made in the documentary (which I still haven't seen) that are being repeated all over the internet.
https://www.lipstickalley.com/threa...edibility-issues-of-robson-safechuck.2212533/

I'm not sure how many hours I really want to devote to trying to reacquaint myself with the facts of the case, or the newest allegations. I do have a few links I'll try to read through, and I will try to watch the show (I don't have HBO anymore), and then decide if anything really causes me new doubts.
 
Here’s where I stand. I think that the two men in the documentary lay out a pretty credible story of a relationship they had with Michael Jackson. I cannot know for sure that MJ abused them. What I can say is that he was allowed to have a highly unusual and intimate relationship with prepubescent boys. It’s a pattern he repeated over and over. It’s true that he has been accused and acquitted. But so was OJ.

MJ had creepy relationships with boys that were only possible because he was MJ. I believe that the nature and frequency of those relationships makes it more likely than not that his accusers were actually telling the truth. I think the details and documentation of this particular documentary make it even more likely.


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I don't think repeating something over and over makes it any more -or less- likely to be true.

There are two sides to every story, each just as credible as the other.
 
I don't think repeating something over and over makes it any more -or less- likely to be true.

There are two sides to every story, each just as credible as the other.
I find it hard to think that anything Michael Jackson said in his later years was credible. The man was a drug addled fantasist surrounded by grifters who fawned over him.
 
I'm of two minds about this. We can certainly say that MJ was very odd, and suspect many things. And he would not be the first person to get away with outrageous behavior through a combination of money, litigiousness, bravado, lies and confusion. But one can also imagine variations. Imagine for example that you're MJ. You're surpassingly, flamboyantly peculiar, rich, so popular you can do almost anything you want, immature, emotionally needy, etc. etc. - definitely not an ordinary guy. You might even be a pedophile, in your inner self, and wish like anything that you could get away with having sex with boys. But you also might know you can''t, and know where the boundaries are, and figure that it's enough not to cross them even if you come close, and to be fairly open and public about what you're doing. Unfortunately for him, his situation makes things look different. I think it remains possible that the reason no charges stuck is that he did not actually cross the line, even though outside observers might easily be right in believing that he would have liked to.

It's not that far fetched. We judge much behavior by our assumptions. Often our fears are warranted, and our assumptions reasonable or at least forgiveable even if they turn out to be wrong.

It's a well trodden path, for example, in the literature of psychology, where the behavior of a person is seen entirely differently when that person is first presumed to be insane. Things we normally do are interpreted as symptomatic of abormality.

When a mother acts in a certain way with a child, it's seen differently from when a strange man does the very same thing, and we're well advised to be suspicious, but every once in a while it's not what it seems.

I still wouldn't let any kid of mine spend the night in Michael Jackson's bedroom, and I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be a just plain child molester and as awful as many believe. But I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he was not.
 
I still wouldn't let any kid of mine spend the night in Michael Jackson's bedroom,

I think, no matter which side of this debate one is on, it all starts right there. None of this would be under discussion if parents had insisted on drawing reasonable limits and prevented the kids from spending time alone with a man they did not know.
 
I read a bit and glanced through the site. It uses ample and cited documents pointing out at least some troubling inconsistencies in the men’s stories.

I'm reading through that page now. It's actually part of a much larger site, with a LOT of information about all the different cases.

It does seem to only present the one side (pro Jackson).
 
I think, no matter which side of this debate one is on, it all starts right there. None of this would be under discussion if parents had insisted on drawing reasonable limits and prevented the kids from spending time alone with a man they did not know.

Why do you think they didn’t?
 
Why do you think they didn’t?


Well, the human in me says they might have just been star struck. I'm not, really, so I can't speak to how that might feel or cause one to behave, but can imagine it might lead to poor judgement.

The parent in me says it was because the kids begged to be allowed to stay, there were other people in the room, and pedophiles are pretty rare despite constantly being in the news.

The cynic in me says they saw the potential for a golden goose egg in the future.

Why do YOU think they did that?
 
On the other hand, it looks like people are taking some leaps of faith to declare he likely, or even certainly, did abuse children. Because what evidence there is points the other way.

I can't agree with that. What evidence there is heavily suggests that Jackson was a pedophile who knowingly crossed many boundaries and engaged in textbook grooming behavior with his alleged victims. It is a fact that molestation couldn't be proven to a court standard, but it's a stretch to go from that to "the evidence points the other way". It doesn't - it points right at Jackson being an abuser, it was just too circumstantial to support a conviction.
 

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