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qualeed06/16/20252 repliesview on HN

>"assume people are innocent unless you see convincing evidence of guilt".

So... base assumption is innocent.

That's all I was saying.


Replies

burkaman06/16/2025

Ok, I think you may have misinterpreted some other comments then. The argument was that "proven" in "innocent until proven guilt" is too high a bar for a low-stakes internet discussion.

eru06/16/2025

No. Base assumption doesn't have to be binary.

Just get some background rates, and assume that people are guilty with eg 0.1% probability. (Just a made a up number. Real priors should depend on a lot more context.)