5 ms·

I'd certainly also like to see a source for the basic claim. It would be wonderful news if true.

by throwanem 2y ago

jchw 2y ago
Why don't you Google it? This is fundamental basic knowledge about CSA incidence.
- throwanem 2y ago
  If it's so trivial, you should find the claim no harder to substantiate than to insist upon as here. I encourage the attempt. Seriously. Go show me how easy reliable data is to find on this. Prove me wrong and you'll have earned a friend for life, or at least a dinner at the nice place down the street the next time you're in town.
  - jchw 2y ago
    OK... but there really are so many results upon literally just searching it. You immediately get multiple prominent results. You'd think if people actually cared about substantiating this, they could do one (1) Google search to find out. But here you go, courtesy of lazyweb. https://files.calio.org/BIBS/declining-rates-bib4.pdf https://files.calio.org/BIBS/declining-rates-bib4.pdf https://www.stopitnow.org/sites/default/files//prevalence-rate-white-paper-d2l.pdf https://www.stopitnow.org/sites/default/files//prevalence-ra... https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/resource/decline-sexual-abuse-cases https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/resource/decline-sexual-abuse-cases (Of course the answer is that people don't care. They'd be happy to ignore the lack of sources if the conclusion being drawn agreed to them, but can't do a single fucking Google search if it doesn't.)
    - throwanem 2y ago
      I'd be interested to know what search query you actually used. It's also been a while since I compared DDG and Google result quality. Maybe I'm getting poorer results than in the past. Queries on the theme of "child sexual abuse statistics US by year" don't get me anything very useful from DDG, much more advocacy around headline prevalence figures than anything relevant to incidence. (Statista does reflect a drop, but I didn't want to make an account to see their sources. Fair, my fault, I can't evaluate that well.) The bibliography is interesting and useful but not immediately evaluable, and seems mainly Canada-focused. The Stop It Now/D2L data is very clear up front that it relates to prevalence and not incidence, a distinction that matters for reasons to which we'll return in a moment. The UNH data substantiates some level of decrease since the early 90s, as does every other source, but disagrees with itself on magnitude in different places and comes out of one researcher's shop, which does not invalidate it but does mean I'd like to see someone else produce something similar before I weight their novel results too heavily. I guess maybe we have differing definitions of "reliable," but I think you and I have clashed on this subject before. I don't blame anyone for assuming that a victim of such abuse would tend to overestimate its prevalence, and I try to watch out for the tendency in myself, but what's all the anger about? The difference between prevalence and incidence matters because the former tells us how many people have been abused as children, and the latter tells us how frequently children are abused over time, which is the thing we're actually talking about. How we count multiple instances of abuse against the same person confounds everything, and intuitively I would expect prevalence by victim (ie for a given victim how frequently they themselves were abused) to follow something like a power-law distribution, but in general if we just take the headline number of "X total kids" it's hard to see how that gets us to a nuanced understanding of incidence rates that lets us talk knowledgeably about how and to what extent the shape of this problem is changing over time.
      - jchw 2y ago
        So when you said: > I'd certainly also like to see a source for the basic claim. It would be wonderful news if true. You actually already knew about all of these sources and have debated this before, and decided now to start talking about this bit of nuance? I'm not going to play. Sorry.
        throwanem 2y ago
        I'm familiar with the subject through long study. The sources you identified were not previously known to me but I feel confident evaluating them as I have based on prior knowledge and review. Do you mean to argue whose web search skills are the best - a point I already spent a paragraph conceding - or do you mean to argue the subject actually under discussion? I still don't understand where the anger is coming from. Why does it piss you off that I want to argue child sexual abuse is more common and more of a problem than it's broadly acknowledged to be? Are you assuming I mean to use that claim as an argument against porn or something? I really can't figure out what's gotten so far up your nose on this, and I wish I could because it's really making it impossible for us to have a conversation. Last I recall, we spoke cordially enough last year, if not generally in agreement, on the subject of AI capable of CSAM generation, and how it might be regulated. That was coincidentally a very strange day for me, granted, but again, I struggle to see what's changed since to earn this sort of acrimony. With whom do you understand yourself to be needing to have this fight right now?
        jchw 2y ago
        > I still don't understand where the anger is coming from. Why does it piss you off that I want to argue child sexual abuse is more common and more of a problem than it's broadly acknowledged to be? Are you assuming I mean to use that claim as an argument against porn or something? I really can't figure out what's gotten so far up your nose on this, and I wish I could because it's really making it impossible for us to have a conversation. It's pretty simple honestly, any online discussion about pornography has turned into a complete and total clown show and it has become increasingly obvious that people who are arguing are doing so in bad faith. I don't know what previous conversations we've had, as I spend far too much time on this damned website and have probably made tens of thousands of comments, but I kind of had a bad feeling the moment I saw your first comment because I had a pretty good feeling you knew what sources people were referring to and decided to play it as if you didn't, for one reason or another. I can see strategically why one would do this when the data seems to contradict the conclusion you have drawn so unilaterally, but at the same time, it's an annoying strategy. It's like laying a trap. I really don't like this sort of discussion thread: > Oh, it would be great news if incidence of CSA has gone down. Care to link to a source? > Sure, here: [d2l link] > Ah, but, you see, that talks about prevalence, not incidence. [...] Because you knew what direction it was going to go all along. Playing coy here feels like theatrics. If I took your position, I'd probably go more along the lines of: > I am aware of the abundance of studies that discuss the prevelance of CSA, but [...] (And I'm sure people would probably downvote that, but also, I get downvoted any time I respond in one of these types of threads, so it wouldn't make any difference to me.) Anyway, the truth is that when I saw your first post, I didn't know what type of trap was being set, but my expectations were pretty low. The actual nuance you brought up is more interesting than that, but still not something I really care to debate.
jmull 2y ago
My basic search turned up: https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/trends-child-victimization https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/trends-child-victimization Scroll down to the "Updated Trends" link and click it for more up-to-date info. In the latest one (looks like it covers 2023, released last month), child sexual abuse is down 67% since 1990. (Also, physical abuse is down 63% and neglect down 27%.) Child sex abuse down 63% from the '90s.
- throwanem 2y ago
  Since you turned up one of the same sources as my other interlocutor, I'll refer you to my reply there at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43593671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43593671

I'd certainly also like to see a source for the basic claim. It would be wonderful news if true.

jchw 2y ago

Why don't you Google it? This is fundamental basic knowledge about CSA incidence.

throwanem 2y ago
If it's so trivial, you should find the claim no harder to substantiate than to insist upon as here. I encourage the attempt. Seriously. Go show me how easy reliable data is to find on this. Prove me wrong and you'll have earned a friend for life, or at least a dinner at the nice place down the street the next time you're in town.
- jchw 2y ago
  OK... but there really are so many results upon literally just searching it. You immediately get multiple prominent results. You'd think if people actually cared about substantiating this, they could do one (1) Google search to find out. But here you go, courtesy of lazyweb. https://files.calio.org/BIBS/declining-rates-bib4.pdf https://files.calio.org/BIBS/declining-rates-bib4.pdf https://www.stopitnow.org/sites/default/files//prevalence-rate-white-paper-d2l.pdf https://www.stopitnow.org/sites/default/files//prevalence-ra... https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/resource/decline-sexual-abuse-cases https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/resource/decline-sexual-abuse-cases (Of course the answer is that people don't care. They'd be happy to ignore the lack of sources if the conclusion being drawn agreed to them, but can't do a single fucking Google search if it doesn't.)
  - throwanem 2y ago
    I'd be interested to know what search query you actually used. It's also been a while since I compared DDG and Google result quality. Maybe I'm getting poorer results than in the past. Queries on the theme of "child sexual abuse statistics US by year" don't get me anything very useful from DDG, much more advocacy around headline prevalence figures than anything relevant to incidence. (Statista does reflect a drop, but I didn't want to make an account to see their sources. Fair, my fault, I can't evaluate that well.) The bibliography is interesting and useful but not immediately evaluable, and seems mainly Canada-focused. The Stop It Now/D2L data is very clear up front that it relates to prevalence and not incidence, a distinction that matters for reasons to which we'll return in a moment. The UNH data substantiates some level of decrease since the early 90s, as does every other source, but disagrees with itself on magnitude in different places and comes out of one researcher's shop, which does not invalidate it but does mean I'd like to see someone else produce something similar before I weight their novel results too heavily. I guess maybe we have differing definitions of "reliable," but I think you and I have clashed on this subject before. I don't blame anyone for assuming that a victim of such abuse would tend to overestimate its prevalence, and I try to watch out for the tendency in myself, but what's all the anger about? The difference between prevalence and incidence matters because the former tells us how many people have been abused as children, and the latter tells us how frequently children are abused over time, which is the thing we're actually talking about. How we count multiple instances of abuse against the same person confounds everything, and intuitively I would expect prevalence by victim (ie for a given victim how frequently they themselves were abused) to follow something like a power-law distribution, but in general if we just take the headline number of "X total kids" it's hard to see how that gets us to a nuanced understanding of incidence rates that lets us talk knowledgeably about how and to what extent the shape of this problem is changing over time.
    - jchw 2y ago
      So when you said: > I'd certainly also like to see a source for the basic claim. It would be wonderful news if true. You actually already knew about all of these sources and have debated this before, and decided now to start talking about this bit of nuance? I'm not going to play. Sorry.
      - throwanem 2y ago
        I'm familiar with the subject through long study. The sources you identified were not previously known to me but I feel confident evaluating them as I have based on prior knowledge and review. Do you mean to argue whose web search skills are the best - a point I already spent a paragraph conceding - or do you mean to argue the subject actually under discussion? I still don't understand where the anger is coming from. Why does it piss you off that I want to argue child sexual abuse is more common and more of a problem than it's broadly acknowledged to be? Are you assuming I mean to use that claim as an argument against porn or something? I really can't figure out what's gotten so far up your nose on this, and I wish I could because it's really making it impossible for us to have a conversation. Last I recall, we spoke cordially enough last year, if not generally in agreement, on the subject of AI capable of CSAM generation, and how it might be regulated. That was coincidentally a very strange day for me, granted, but again, I struggle to see what's changed since to earn this sort of acrimony. With whom do you understand yourself to be needing to have this fight right now?
        jchw 2y ago
        > I still don't understand where the anger is coming from. Why does it piss you off that I want to argue child sexual abuse is more common and more of a problem than it's broadly acknowledged to be? Are you assuming I mean to use that claim as an argument against porn or something? I really can't figure out what's gotten so far up your nose on this, and I wish I could because it's really making it impossible for us to have a conversation. It's pretty simple honestly, any online discussion about pornography has turned into a complete and total clown show and it has become increasingly obvious that people who are arguing are doing so in bad faith. I don't know what previous conversations we've had, as I spend far too much time on this damned website and have probably made tens of thousands of comments, but I kind of had a bad feeling the moment I saw your first comment because I had a pretty good feeling you knew what sources people were referring to and decided to play it as if you didn't, for one reason or another. I can see strategically why one would do this when the data seems to contradict the conclusion you have drawn so unilaterally, but at the same time, it's an annoying strategy. It's like laying a trap. I really don't like this sort of discussion thread: > Oh, it would be great news if incidence of CSA has gone down. Care to link to a source? > Sure, here: [d2l link] > Ah, but, you see, that talks about prevalence, not incidence. [...] Because you knew what direction it was going to go all along. Playing coy here feels like theatrics. If I took your position, I'd probably go more along the lines of: > I am aware of the abundance of studies that discuss the prevelance of CSA, but [...] (And I'm sure people would probably downvote that, but also, I get downvoted any time I respond in one of these types of threads, so it wouldn't make any difference to me.) Anyway, the truth is that when I saw your first post, I didn't know what type of trap was being set, but my expectations were pretty low. The actual nuance you brought up is more interesting than that, but still not something I really care to debate.

jmull 2y ago

My basic search turned up: https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/trends-child-victimization https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/trends-child-victimization Scroll down to the "Updated Trends" link and click it for more up-to-date info. In the latest one (looks like it covers 2023, released last month), child sexual abuse is down 67% since 1990. (Also, physical abuse is down 63% and neglect down 27%.) Child sex abuse down 63% from the '90s.

throwanem 2y ago
Since you turned up one of the same sources as my other interlocutor, I'll refer you to my reply there at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43593671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43593671