Reassessment of Joe Biden and Tara Reade

A couple of weeks ago, I posted something on Tara Reade's accusations against Joe Biden.  I stated that I would adhere to my standard method of assessing accusations of sexual assault, and using that method, I came to an assessment that Joe Biden probably did it.

I always begin with the baseline probability that any given accusation is true.  That's high, but I draw no conclusions simply because an accusation is made.  I updated my probability, in Bayesian fashion, when it was revealed that Reade had informed others contemporaneously, including to a sufficient degree that her mother called into Larry King Live making implications about Biden.  That was sufficient for me to come to an assessment that Biden probably did it.  The post was more elaborate, and crass, because I'm me, but you can read or re-read it for yourself.

However, here's the thing about Bayesian thinking.  A Bayesian probability is an assessment of the quality of information you possess, and you update a probability upward or downward as you incorporate new information, and new information of a sort has become available.  That requires some Bayesian updating.

Careful Bayesian updating.

And here's why.  One of the unfortunate things that happens in a sexual assault case is that whoever makes the accusation is investigated not just as thoroughly, but far more aggressively than whoever is accused.  It can get very ugly.  You don't want to fall into that trap.

But... and as they say, everything before the "but" is irrelevant...

In the absence of direct corroboration, everything rests on the credibility of the accuser.  Where investigations of the accuser get ugliest are investigations of their sexual histories.  Honesty does matter.  No one is perfect, and a defense attorney will always seek to find any moment of weakness the accuser has ever had in her life to claim that she isn't honest, and that she should therefore not be trusted, so this is still fraught, as you can see, but honesty does matter.

And some people are more honest than others.  Some are less.  Far less.

Tara Reade?

This gets complicated.  If you are busy paying attention to coronavirus news, the economy and everything else, congratulations.  You have your priorities straight.  If you are detached and enjoying some escapist books in quarantine, well... sorry about quarantine, but at least you are doing the right thing in quarantine, and I'll get back to the book recommendations soon.  Either way, you may have missed the inevitable investigations into Tara Reade.

Her lawyer dropped her as a client.  Why?  Short version:  not honest.  She lies stupidly.  She lied on her resume about getting a BA from Antioch University in Seattle.  This is actually causing a big mess because she has used that non-existent degree to act as an "expert witness" in court cases, herself.  And... there's more.  I'm not a big fan of Politico's gossip-y, insiders-know-all approach to reporting, as I have written before, but... oy.  This is pretty devastating.  And it is devastating on the point of honesty.

That integrity point is vital.  Nobody is perfect.  Any dispute between Biden and Reade, though, rests on honesty.

Biden?  The biggest integrity issue he has had in his career was... a plagiarism scandal!*

No, I haven't forgotten about that, because I'm a professor.  Neil Kinnock.  Biden plagiarized a speech by a British Labour Party MP named Neil Kinnock in his 1988 presidential campaign.

No, that's not a typo.  1988.  Dude is seriously old.

And then there's his history of creepiness towards women, his treatment of Anita Hill, and I could keep going, and like I said, nobody is perfect.  Some people have more flaws, some have fewer, and this will be a contest between Joe Biden and... Donald.... J. ... Trump.

Anyway, Tara Reade has a history of lying in some weird ways.  Is Reade lying now?

In Bayesian terms, we update our probabilities.  Just because she has a history of dishonesty doesn't mean she is not telling the truth now.  You can factor in Biden's weirdness towards women however you choose, Reade's Putin fascination, and all of that.  However, the mathematical point is that the probability of Reade's accusation being true must be updated downwards given her propensity for not telling the truth.

Her lawyer dropped her for a reason.

Tara Reade may be telling the truth.  Joe Biden may have sexually assaulted her.  However, she does not look like someone I want to trust.  So, I must update my probability of her truthfulness downwards, knowing what I now know about her.

This is hard.  Sexual assault is one of the hardest crimes to manage because it is both one of the most vile, and one of the most difficult to prosecute.  There is rarely any physical evidence, particularly since the victims almost never come forward, at least not immediately, and they don't do so not simply because of the trauma, but because they know that a) the perpetrator will probably get away with it, and b) the victim will wind up being the one investigated, all creating an ugly, vicious cycle.

That means that when we do hear of an accusation, it often comes down to whom you believe, which will be based on a variety of factors, unfortunately including partisanship or other personal biases, but among the factors will be whether or not you understand and accept the baseline probability of truthfulness, and how you assess the integrity of the accuser and the accused.

In legal terms, we aren't a part of this.  We are making a political assessment, but political assessments matter, and political assessments should be based on integrity.

There's a reason I hate liars so much.  And it really is hatred.  The word, "hate," is rather strong, and the precise denotation is actually something that can be debated, which shouldn't be the case for "denotation," but liars should be hated.

Here's why.

Do you want to live in a Hobbesian state of nature?  Probably not.  I don't.  What allows humans to not live in nightmarish conditions, keeping in mind that the "state of nature" is a hypothetical counterfactual that never actually has existed?  Language.  Communication.  Our capacity to resolve conflict without violence.  That requires honesty.  Liars undercut the one thing that allows humanity to not exist in barbarism.  That is why liars are to be hated.

Hated.  Hated with every fiber of your being.

My "default," such as it is, is to side with the accuser because the baseline frequency is that more accusations are true than false.  I do not stop there, and we cannot have formal decisions based simply on the existence of an accusation, for obvious reasons.  We must, though, assess integrity.

Once I assess you to be a damned liar, you're gonna have a hard time with me.  You might find yourself telling the truth on one particular Night of the Canis Lupus, but if you expect me to come-a-runnin', you will be disappointed.

I do wish that people would guard their integrity more carefully, because sometimes it matters, but less than I would like.  Really, there aren't many times when your integrity will matter, except to weirdos like me.  A cheap smile, "manners," and all of that superficial crap... unfortunately you can manipulate the rubes with that stuff on enough occasions that lying does, in fact, pay if you do it with the style and grace that social butterflies so often have.  The honest misanthrope gets the raw deal, more often than not, because too many people fall for the cheap smile and refuse to check facts.  Sometimes the liars don't even need smiles or manners, as some politicians have shown us.  And alas, facts are pretty much dead in this world anyway, making me a creature of the past in the post-truth era.

Um... sorry for that.

Anyway, Tara Reade's lawyer dropped her as a client.  He... "cut bait," in a phrase that I will use very strategically.

This, I think, is a decision that people need to make.  If you find yourself with a liar on the line, for your own sake as well as the sakes of others, cut bait.  Liars can do a lot of damage.  And if you let them take you down, you have no sympathy from me.

Is Tara Reade lying now?

I do not know.  But at this point, I cannot take her word with enough confidence to adhere to my previous post.

Note, though, that I will leave up that post as a record of Bayesian updating.  This allows you, the reader, to watch the process of Bayesian updating.  That's the point.



*No, there are no other real scandals.  Ignore the noise being ginned up by pseudo-investigations.  If the media let themselves get drawn into this again... then they will have demonstrated the impossibility of learning.  What am I doing with my life?  Hey, there's a guitar.  I should practice more.