I am willing to attempt a separate Discussion post that attempts to put together specific, practical, measurable "do this (and here's why)" techniques from a rationalist approach. (Or as close as possible; there won't be a lot of peer-reviewed scholarly research here, but there is some.)

If there's interest in this, I'd welcome assistance and critiques. I'm not stonewalling but I'm feeling we've wandered a bit too far from the OP.

(you wouldn't even have thought to make this accusation here if SilasBarta was female and Eliezer was the target)

Agreed, and I think that says something interesting and useful. Symmetry is not a useful tool here.

If there's broader interest in seeing some attempt at a rationalist view of privilege I'm keen to get whatever help is available, and take it to a separate Discussion.

Just confirming: are you disagreeing because link posited risk of escalation to assault which I agree seems impossible in a purely online context?

I drew the analogy because it called out the toxic effects on a community, and that in many ways the toxicity is not that there was a creeper, but that there is much signalling in their support that has follow-on effects.

Assuming those claimed signalling secondary losses are correct, I don't see anything specific to an online context that would be immune. The "risk of escalation" discussed there seems severable from its other points.

I suspect if I were LW-high-status, I could politely point out that while we've both argued from assertions, one of us has expanded on their assertion, and one of us has not.

Unless you mean "that linked post does not discuss LW or any of the individuals you reference, so claiming it specifically discusses exactly this scenario is trivially false"? I have no objection to curbing my hyperbole with an edit.

I take from your vehemence that your disagreement is more fundamental though. Do you have more words there you're willing to add, here or in PM?

Oh the irony. The last link in the OP specifically discusses exactly this scenario.

While the outcome for a woman targeted by a man like this is poor, the damage done to the group by all the other men staying silent (or outright supporting him) is huge. Really, this isn't even buried in the comments, this is the whole point of the two letters discussed in that link.

I can't speak to whether there are problems of this sort in LW meetups, but right here is our evidence of it here in LW comments.

I understand concerns about censorship, arbitrary moderation, special treatment, etc, but everyone who downvoted Alicorn and upvoted wedrifid here has also sent a message of tacit support for SilasBarta and a very clear message to any other woman here.

From my link above, edited:

Step 1: A creepy dude does creepy, entitled shit and makes women feel unsafe {in LW}

Step 2: The women speak up about it {in LW}

Step 3: It gets written off as “not a big deal” or “he probably didn’t mean it” or “he’s not a bad guy, really.” {...}

Step 4: Everyone is worried about hurting creepy dude’s feelings or making it weird for creepy dude. Better yet, everyone is worried about how the other dudes in the friend group will feel if they are called out for enabling creepy dude. Women are worried that if they push the issue, that the entire friend group will side with creepy dude or that they’ll be blamed for causing “drama.” {...}

Step 5: Creepy dude creeps on with his creepy self. He’s learned that there are no real (i.e. “disapproval & pushback from dudes and dude society”) consequences to his actions. Women feel creeped out and unsafe. Some of them decide to take a firm stand against creeping and not {participate in LW} anymore. {...} Some of the woman decide to just quietly put up with it, because they’ve learned that no one will really side with them and it’s easier to go along than to lose one’s entire community. The whole group works around this missing stair.

The Geek Social Fallacies seem rather apt here, too.

(Edit to fix square bracket use)

Actually that's a very useful and powerful analogy because it also references ingroup vs. outgroup asymmetry, and how that is a driver for power imbalance and perceptions.

This could be something that's kicked around in Discussions for a while perhaps?

Related, I'd like to see defensiveness discussed through the lens of cognitive bias. It has wide impact; it can be improved; improving it likewise has wide impact on one's life. I think it's one of those meta-levels of improvement where upgrades significantly affect our ability to upgrade many other things.

I find I agree with everything you've said, yet I'm still wondering what happens to the poor person whose foot has been stood on.

Perhaps I'm just restating and agreeing with "no obligation to fix others", but the comments in the CaptainAwkward link address this specifically: the approach you describe still makes the person transgressing boundaries the focus of our attention and response. I find that caring about why someone routinely steps on feet is quite low on my list, and (perhaps this is my main point) something I'm only willing to invest resources in once they (1) stop stepping on people's feet and (2) agree and acknowledge they shouldn't be stepping on feet.

I'm also a bit skeptical of the idea you peripherally touch on, but we're seeing in a lot of the comments in this post, that avoiding the "creeper" equivalent on stepping on toes is a tough bar to clear and is unfair to ask of someone with deficits in social/people/communication skills. I think it's very telling that such people seldom seem to get into boundary-related trouble with anyone they recognise as more powerful than them (law enforcement; airport security; workplace bosses).

There was that study about (average, neurotypical) men's supposed deficits in reading indirect communication compared to women that found that it's basically rubbish - they can do it when they think they have to, and they don't with women because they think they don't have to. (Link is to non-academic summary, but has the links to the journal articles.)

I'm wandering well past your point here but you reminded me of this. :)

Thank you, I'll take a look.

EDIT: Have read those links several times and digested them over the last few days. I am poking at why the third one bothers me (I think it's the "it's in their nature" statement).

Certainly the first two are good counter-examples to my earlier impressions. Thank you again.

I do agree with everything you say here.

I say in another reply here that I'm a fan of reframing for active consent and opt-in. I don't ask "can I give you a hug" for precisely the reasons you say.

If it's not clear to me if we're on hugging terms or not, then I assume we're not. Cost to me if wrong about that = low.

If I have high confidence that we're on hugging terms, but I don't know if you feel like it right now, and I have high confidence that we're on terms where asking this is ok, I'll ask "would you like me to hug you?" That's an implied "at this particular time", and not used for escalating from non-hugging to hugging. If I have doubt on any of these points, I don't ask. Cost to me if I'm wrong about that = low.

Perhaps it asks a lot in terms of social/people/communication skills to model if processing the question will be costly, or if the cost to them is high for me asking when perhaps I shouldn't have. It doesn't particularly seem so, to me.

TL;DR : costs to you in me asking when I shouldn't are higher than the costs to me of not asking when it would've been ok. I'm ok with that asymmetry - privilege is profoundly asymmetric.