First of all, let me just say I don't think your comment reflects poorly on you as a person. Your perspective is very common, and it's easy to accept it uncritically. It's interesting that you mention khazhoux's comment, because I think they come from largely the same place, and I flagged both of them for similar reasons.

I flagged these comments because, though you probably don't realize you're doing this, you're providing tools for abusers to justify and minimize their abuse. Obviously flagging isn't going to solve the problem on its own, but maybe if I go into more detail it will help a little more.

Both comments focus on what their authors imagine themselves doing in a similar situation:

> …I never drink more than a wee amount (one glass max) when I'm with co-workers in any sort of work setting.

> …I can't imagine it haunting anyone for years, especially not someone who has the strength of will to start a company.

Then they generalize their imagined behavior to what all people should do or should be able to do:

> But on general principle, he shouldn't have gotten drunk (which I assume he was??), nor she.

> Just because someone else did something wrong is no reason to carry it with you for years.

Who are these comments being written for? In both cases, the person being imagined is the person being abused. It's possible to read these as advice for people potentially facing abuse: don't drink, don't dwell on the past.

There are a few problems with this interpretation. First of all, they take abuse as a fixed part of the world that we just need to deal with: "Because in my world people do that." The conclusion is that people being abused need to change their behavior to avoid it. But the truth is that the abusers are the ones who need to change their behavior.

The second problem is that the advice doesn't work. People are abused whether they drink or not. Memories and thoughts have a way of surfacing whether you intentionally dwell on them or not. If you can't imagine an event haunting Cheryl for years after she has explicitly told you that one has, the problem is with your imagination, not her experiences.

So as advice, these comments are relatively weak. Is there a sense in which they have a stronger function? Let's see:

"I never drink more than a wee amount" isn't excusing Dave's behavior directly. But it makes a strong implication -- if you do drink more than that, you're less responsible for what happens. Do you think Dave kept pouring scotch into her glass on accident? He knows society has a tendency to excuse behavior from a drunk person that they'd never accept from someone sober.

"I can't imagine it haunting anyone for years" doesn't mean Dave's behavior was inconsequential. But it makes a strong implication -- that the consequences of his behavior would be much less if Cheryl didn't make such a big deal out of it.

Both of these perspectives enable abuse. Abusers intentionally use alcohol to provide cover for their behavior. Even when they were planning to do it all along. Dave McClure abused his power to put Cheryl Yeoh into a position she "shouldn't" be in -- so he could turn around and use the very fact she was in such a position to minimize people's reaction to his abuse!

Then, when she admits how much the abuse affected her, he relies on comments like yours to remind us that his role in this was incredibly minor -- just one event that probably lasted less than a minute. The real abuse was just in her head. I don't think you would put it this bluntly, but that's the story the abuser is hoping you take away.

That is to say, the primary function of comments like these is not actually providing advice to people who might be abused. Following this advice will not help them. Whether intentionally or not, their primary function ends up as tools that abusers use to justify and minimize their abuse. That's why I flagged them -- to take these tools out of abusers' hands in whatever small way I can.

So the mere idea of avoiding drinking, or that different people will react to an event in different ways is so dangerous and empowering to potential abusers that the entire HN readership needs to be protected from seeing it? Are we adults here? Sorry to be critical, I'm sure you meant well. For a weak comment though, "flagged" seems like a really extreme reaction.

It's not the idea of avoiding drinking: it's the creation of a situation (being drunk with coworkers) which you shouldn't be in. Once an abuser can get you into such a situation, they have an excuse for their abuse -- you shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place.

And it's not that different people will react to an event in different ways: it's the idea that you could always have reacted to an event in a certain way. If you didn't react to it that way, that's on you -- it's not the abuser's fault.

Put enough of these "mere ideas" together and you get the culture responsible for this environment of abuse that women are facing. We should try to chip away at as many bad ideas as we can!

You're right that flagging may not be the right tool to use here, though. Everyone says they want a reply, but in practice that tends to produce long discussions that rarely end up anywhere useful. What would you suggest? Maybe a mod could weigh in?

Agreed, ideas create culture - I guess I've found personally that respectful discussion with those of opposing viewpoints is more productive than 'fighting' them or shutting them down entirely, which flagging kinda seems like. Those have the paradoxical effect of making the person more defensive and angry and work harder to promote their point. So a downvote and a reply with a more convincing argument seems reasonable. I don't know the HN systems that well though, I only post occasionally. And yeah, the discussions may not go anywhere. That's democracy :)