3 ms·

Rape is shockingly common and cultures are human made things, so they express human nature or some variation of it. Picking which cultures you like as examples

Rape is shockingly common and cultures are human made things, so they express human nature or some variation of it. Picking which cultures you like as examples of "human nature" and excluding others isn't really a sound tactic of argumentation.

viraptor 6y ago
It's not picking cultures I like. It's a counterexample - describing specific culture doing/avoiding X to an extreme level does not prove or disprove X being or not "in human nature".
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  This is from your previous comment: Very small minority would participate in murder, stealing, or rape, even if we created no disincentive for them. I have seen articles that say that if you ask a room full of women if they have been raped, you may get as much as half the hands go up. If you ask them if they ever said "no" to sex and ended up having sex anyway, up to 90 percent of the hands go up. In most countries, the definition of rape hinges on the detail of consent and is presumed to be only something a man can do to a woman (though some laws are being updated). If you accept that forcible sodomy by a man against another man is also rape, prison rapes are quite common. Human trafficking exists and every single instance of sexual intercourse with someone being trafficked against their will is typically referred to in articles on the topic as rape. Then there is statutory rape, where someone is deemed to be too young to reasonably give their consent, so it doesn't count if she said "yes" to it. Then there is date rape, which typically involves alcohol, a culture clash between people with different expectations for what would happen and tragic misunderstanding. Sometimes the guys will tell you that they didn't think they forced her. It's news to them that she felt forced into sex when someone shows up to accuse them of rape and drag them in front of a college review board or charge them with a crime. A lot of people think rape is about physical violence. It's not. Most rapes don't involve beating the hell out of the victim. It's a complicated topic, but rape is far from uncommon. I don't know where you get your ideas about human nature from but they don't seem to fit with anything I know about human nature and I'm some idiot with pie-in-the-sky ideals prone to assuming people are just going to be nice because that's just the right thing to do and that, sadly, is often not the case. At all.
  - da_big_ghey 6y ago
    Do you have citations for these incredibly high numbers? There has been some justified criticism about the way rape stats have been re-designed to elicit higher numbers. https://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/ https://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      Do you have citations for these incredibly high numbers? Sorry, no. It was an article I read a long time ago. Rape stats are an inherently difficult thing to measure well. I could, in all earnestness, argue for either much higher or much lower figures than the reported figures. That's a discussion I don't care to try to have on HN at all, much less on two hours sleep.
    - watwut 6y ago
      Afaik, highers numbers about rape are somewhat less then 20%. So the 50% or 90% is bonkers and does not represent general population. However, rape (no matter what definition) is not evenly spread, some groups of women are more likely to become victims then others. Perpetrators pick their victims in a sort of rational way - some are more vulnerable. So if you bias the group the right way, you can get large numbers.
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        So the 50% or 90% is bonkers and does not represent general population. No, it's actually commentary on the fact that women themselves often cannot clearly state "I was raped." The article in question was trying to show that lots more women have been raped than will admit to it or claim it. But you can also read it the other way: It casts light on how difficult it is to define rape. Rape hinges on the detail of consent. Even women who have been fed alcohol until they were incapacitated and then taken to someone's room will go online and say things like "I had sex with a friend last night. I'm in a relationship. I know I need to drink less..." and get a chorus of people saying "Honey, that was rape." People imagine rape to be some clear cut crime. In reality women are often very unclear in their own minds whether or not they were raped. If the crime hinges on the detail of consent and the woman in question can't state clearly whether or not she wanted it, much less whether or not she consented, then you have bigger problems in determining data than in how surveyors ask their questions.

viraptor 6y ago

It's not picking cultures I like. It's a counterexample - describing specific culture doing/avoiding X to an extreme level does not prove or disprove X being or not "in human nature".

DoreenMichele 6y ago
This is from your previous comment: Very small minority would participate in murder, stealing, or rape, even if we created no disincentive for them. I have seen articles that say that if you ask a room full of women if they have been raped, you may get as much as half the hands go up. If you ask them if they ever said "no" to sex and ended up having sex anyway, up to 90 percent of the hands go up. In most countries, the definition of rape hinges on the detail of consent and is presumed to be only something a man can do to a woman (though some laws are being updated). If you accept that forcible sodomy by a man against another man is also rape, prison rapes are quite common. Human trafficking exists and every single instance of sexual intercourse with someone being trafficked against their will is typically referred to in articles on the topic as rape. Then there is statutory rape, where someone is deemed to be too young to reasonably give their consent, so it doesn't count if she said "yes" to it. Then there is date rape, which typically involves alcohol, a culture clash between people with different expectations for what would happen and tragic misunderstanding. Sometimes the guys will tell you that they didn't think they forced her. It's news to them that she felt forced into sex when someone shows up to accuse them of rape and drag them in front of a college review board or charge them with a crime. A lot of people think rape is about physical violence. It's not. Most rapes don't involve beating the hell out of the victim. It's a complicated topic, but rape is far from uncommon. I don't know where you get your ideas about human nature from but they don't seem to fit with anything I know about human nature and I'm some idiot with pie-in-the-sky ideals prone to assuming people are just going to be nice because that's just the right thing to do and that, sadly, is often not the case. At all.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  Do you have citations for these incredibly high numbers? There has been some justified criticism about the way rape stats have been re-designed to elicit higher numbers. https://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/ https://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Do you have citations for these incredibly high numbers? Sorry, no. It was an article I read a long time ago. Rape stats are an inherently difficult thing to measure well. I could, in all earnestness, argue for either much higher or much lower figures than the reported figures. That's a discussion I don't care to try to have on HN at all, much less on two hours sleep.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Afaik, highers numbers about rape are somewhat less then 20%. So the 50% or 90% is bonkers and does not represent general population. However, rape (no matter what definition) is not evenly spread, some groups of women are more likely to become victims then others. Perpetrators pick their victims in a sort of rational way - some are more vulnerable. So if you bias the group the right way, you can get large numbers.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      So the 50% or 90% is bonkers and does not represent general population. No, it's actually commentary on the fact that women themselves often cannot clearly state "I was raped." The article in question was trying to show that lots more women have been raped than will admit to it or claim it. But you can also read it the other way: It casts light on how difficult it is to define rape. Rape hinges on the detail of consent. Even women who have been fed alcohol until they were incapacitated and then taken to someone's room will go online and say things like "I had sex with a friend last night. I'm in a relationship. I know I need to drink less..." and get a chorus of people saying "Honey, that was rape." People imagine rape to be some clear cut crime. In reality women are often very unclear in their own minds whether or not they were raped. If the crime hinges on the detail of consent and the woman in question can't state clearly whether or not she wanted it, much less whether or not she consented, then you have bigger problems in determining data than in how surveyors ask their questions.