331–340 of 359 posts
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> Are you honestly going to claim that his description of "putting off victims" advocates for no position? No specific policy, certainly. There are many policies consistent with what he said. I gave one already; another would be we should punish false accusations of sexual assault, but not as severely as sexual assault itself . But you leapt to the most indefensible one. And you didn't even seem to notice that you we…
> But you leapt to the most indefensible one. Nonsense. His position was that any punishment of false claims was "putting off" victims from making real claims. Which is what I reacted to. Given the upvotes for my position and the downvotes for yours, I suspect the majority of people came to the same conclusion I did. Please stop grasping at straws. Your insistence on taking me at an extreme position while accusing me…
Not true. He was replying to a post that said "False accusations should be punished with the same penalty as the accuser tried to put upon the innocent." He said "This has the side-effect..." The referent of "this" is clearly not "any punishment of false claims".
And even if true, that is still not a policy proposal. I've given two alternative interpretations of the original comment. Here's a third: I have no particular policy proposal myself, but I wonder whether you've thought through the implications of yours?
> downvotes
Not that it matters, but right now my comments are all upvoted/neutral.
> Your insistence on taking me at an extreme position
I don't think we disagree on what your position is? We just disagree about whether or not you're correct.
That is, I'm accusing you of accusing peteretep of making a specific policy proposal. You insist that your accusation is correct. So I don't think I'm taking you at a position that you'd call extreme; I think I'm taking you at a position that you actually openly hold. If you disagree then we're wildly talking past each other.
If the burden of proof is on the prosecution then, similarly, why isn't the burden on the victim to prove they were actually sexually harrassed? This isn't victim- BLAMING . This is simply an accuser having to prove their case and there is nothing wrong with that .
> why isn't the burden on the victim Because there is often a massive power imbalance between the harasser and the victim. Either way, for any legal consequences to take place, the victim must prove his/her accusation. There is no system in the world that can protect people's careers and reputations. If a false accusation is made and the accused person can prove it, then a lawsuit will often be filed (as in the case…
Otherwise, it is reminiscent of the false accusations about political candidates in the 1940s/1950s making wildly false accusations, which forced their opponents to spend time and money to defend the claims. It still happens today as well although it seems easier to defend claims via social media and the 24hr news cycle having to keep up with all sorts of stories that draw people's attention.
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If the genders were reversed then that would be sexual harassment...
I consider it sexual harassment as it is written. The victim's gender matters in the sense that harassment is more likely against women due to the patriarchal character of our culture, but men can still be victims of sexual harassment. They just very rarely ever are.
Or they rarely report it (partly because they afraid they won't be believed)?
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> Occasionally a guilty person will be acquitted, and it would really be best not to also punish an innocent as a result of that. That's not how it works, is it? it is not a battle where someone has to be guilty - either the accused or the accuser. Someone can be acquitted without anyone lying, or making false statements, or anything else. Just a few examples: insufficient evidence to prosecute, contradictory timelin…
Ok, that's fair, I was being a bit over dramatic. However, I still think that the kind of 'eye for an eye' approach proposed by the comment I was relying to would have a non-trivial, negative impact on the reporting of crimes. Just as guilty people can be acquitted, innocent people can be found guilty (even if it's not automatic), and this means that the accuser is exposing themselves to risk. Fundamentally, no one s…
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While the construction of this old joke is admittedly good, using it as an argument advertises the fact that you view women as prizes rather than as people. It is complaining that they have a say in who they enter into relationships with. Or it's complaining about the fact that humans are more attracted to attractive people, which is how we define the word "attractive" in the first place. I'd avoid it generally, as y…
> using it as an argument advertises the fact that you view women as prizes rather than as people How? There's no connection between what was said and the conclusion you drew from it. arkh's post observes that women often apply different standards to men's behaviour based on whether they find them attractive or not. That's not really in dispute, it's the origin of the "hot women being attracted to asshole boyfriends"…
Viewing social interaction as a series of rules/steps to follow in order to "succeed" or "win" is how you view being attractive as a form of "cheating" or unfairness. This doesn't account for the other party having agency, since the only perspective taken is that of one side of a two sided issue.
Even in your post you say "women often apply different standards to men's behaviour based on whether they find them attractive or not".
Let's be damn clear: there are no different standards at play, there are two completely different behaviours at play - welcome romantic advances and unwelcome romantic advances.
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>no one should ever have to worry about the consequences of reporting a crime The rub is, they should have to worry about the consequences, if they're making a bad-faith false report. They should have to worry a lot, because they themselves are committing a wrong by reporting a false crime in such a way. It's an incredibly hard problem, though.
> because they themselves are committing a wrong I think you mean crime, not wrong.
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Careful with that kind if talk here. In this kind of social political climate logic does not always prevail. Just go look at some past HN threads regarding sexual harassment. The sheer number of people who react emotionally to allegations of sexual harassment is truly astounding. All rationality goes out the window with men throwing themselves over each other to proclaim "I BELIEVE YOU" instead of asking for the leas…
This is a huge straw man if I've ever seen one (and present in many other posts on this thread). To act as if there isn't any logic in the opposing side isn't going to get anywhere. Because of the very nature of sexual assault, providing evidence up to the standards of the US criminal legal system is very hard to do. It likely means that more harassers get off and very few get wrongful sentences. The logic in support…
The reason we don't lower the standard of proof is that we've been down that road already - and it leads to bad places.
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While the construction of this old joke is admittedly good, using it as an argument advertises the fact that you view women as prizes rather than as people. It is complaining that they have a say in who they enter into relationships with. Or it's complaining about the fact that humans are more attracted to attractive people, which is how we define the word "attractive" in the first place. I'd avoid it generally, as y…
"...using it as an argument advertises the fact that you view women as prizes rather than as people." That's an interesting and incendiary interpretation. Do you know for a fact that this person views women as prizes to be won or are you perhaps ascribing more meaning to the comment than can reasonably be inferred?
It is an impossible argument to make it you assume that the other party has a right to make a choice about who continues to pursue them for whatever damn reason they please.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While the construction of this old joke is admittedly good, using it as an argument advertises the fact that you view women as prizes rather than as people. It is complaining that they have a say in who they enter into relationships with. Or it's complaining about the fact that humans are more attracted to attractive people, which is how we define the word "attractive" in the first place. I'd avoid it generally, as y…
Women as prizes? Where did you read the word women in my post? I wrote about sexual harassment which can come from a person of any gender unto a person from any other gender. The attractiveness also mean a lot of things to different persons. A man who does not like tattoos may react differently to the same behavior coming from someone with a face tattoo or someone without. But I hope you can reflect on how many thing…
We can move on, and now you know that this is a rather famous thing to say among people who are angry that women are allowed to choose who they wish to pursue them romantically.