Serious Political and economic discussion thread

[willempju]

I was referring to conceal and carry, which flips that scenario you just outlined on its head.

You really want people to carry a gun 24/7, including in their homes, just to prevent them from getting raped (or mugged or whatever)?

 

[Dece1t]

You really want people to carry a gun 24/7, including in their homes, just to prevent them from getting raped (or mugged or whatever)?

Yea, I don't see an issue with that, so long as they've been thoroughly background checked and cleared of any major mental illness that could cause them to use it for the wrong motives. The world is dangerous, and you have the right to protect yourself. Rape should never be taken lightly (neither your life being threatened in general), and I'm surprised to see you're scoffing it off like a minor nuissance. You realize people already do that, correct?

 

[tcr]

You brought up some really good points here, that was a great read! This is not me so much debunking as much as I am trying to outline discrepancy. Even if a fetus (or any life outside of a fetus) has to rely on something to keep it alive, to me that doesn't disprove whether it's factually a life or not. It can outline and rationalize when it may be the most humane to kill that life, but I don't believe that itself defines life. When you're defining life, it can't just apply to a fetus, it has to apply to all life as a whole in order to be consistent in the law. For instance, let's say you were in a coma, you can't feel any pain, but you have to rely on machines to keep you quote unquote alive in hopes of some brain activity returning. With your definition you explained, if you were in that coma, can I stab you and not get charged for murder? In my sincere opinion I would hope not lol.

Good point! That definition of human life is a little loose, and I’d like to revise it to include the capacity of consiousness and self-awareness. This I think would include your example of a comatose patient, while also excluding for example a brain dead individual. Yes, while you may be unconsious and have to rely on a machine to be alive you still have the capacity to consciously arise. This working definition is entirely reliant on the mechanisms of the brain and provides us with a, albeit slightly crude, method of pinpointing a time period where we can definitively say “this is not a human yet, this is a human.” I would argue that this capacity of consciousness excludes fetus’ prior to brain development as there is no guarantee yet they survive until the point the mechanisms required are created.

Think of it this way as well, let's say your parents had you by accident, it's not even the end of the first trimester. Given you've lived for how long you've lived and what you've been able to do in your life up to this point, do you believe your parents have the right to kill you and rip that opportunity away from you, because you were "not sentient and can't feel pain?" I don't think your parents can really assume what you want at that time, so they shouldn't justify their decision based on that.

I believe i may not fully understand the question, is this hypothetical indicating I was premature and born after the first trimester, or I am simply being aborted in the first trimester? In either case it does not really matter because as so underdeveloped as this hypothetical would be it is possible I cannot even live or would much rather not want to live. Is this first trimester hypothetical indicating I was still an embryo? Barely classified as a fetus? After the first trimester is over a fetus develops a majority of organs, but is this time period a point where my organs are undeveloped, or worse not dveloped at all? At this point I think the question is not whether with my life experience right now would I want to br aborted but the question is rather is it morally reprehensible to extinguish a life that would not live long anyway, and if so only in suffering? I think you may be underestimating the development of an embryo/ fetus, if one eas hypothetically born before the first trimester even ends its highly possible that not only is the fetus not considered a fetus (while its growing basic organs for the first seven weeks it is in the embryotic process) it is also highly unlikely it would actually live, and if it did it would require such intensive care to keep it alive for a couple months at best.

You work, I eat, slavery as defined by Lincoln, is completely unfair, those who grew the harvest should have the rights to it, so to speak.

small irrelevant side not but this is the basis for marxism lol

All of that being said, I think it's unfair to compare a fetus to an actual parasite. It may correlate with parasites by definition, but that doesn't mean you swat at it because it's using up your life energy. I think the distinction that needs to be made is that you created that life, that "described parasite." If you were to apply that to ticks, lets say, you didn't create them obviously, but you might have unwillingly harbored them. Fetus's are different, people mess up, but my overwhelming point is the fetus shouldn't be to blame, and it shouldn't be terminated out of uncomfort.

Being labelled as parasitic is only a bad thing through cultural appreciation of the word, not all parasites are bad. We appear to be using two different working definitions of the word, which are not always equivalent but have the potential to be equivalent. The definition I am using is simply “an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense. (Merriam Webster / Medical definition)” Not all parasites are bad, in fact tapeworms or other intestinal parasites can actually have positive effects. However the definition of the word does not depend on a pre-existing condition of good will towards the host. It may sound derogatory, its not, but by definition a fetus starts to grow as a parasitic entity.

My point though with using the word was not really to blame the fetus but more to point away from the commonly used anthropomorphized version of a fetus that simply appeals to emotion.

Ashaebi if you could please answer my original post + the questions I proposed I would be thankful. Currently you are simply appealing to emotive reasoning with charged rhetoric and blanket statements that are not sourced (1% of all abortion cases are rape). At the very least provide some basis for this statistical claim. Moreover you didnt really elaborate on anything I said you simply sidestepped it and said “also women who have abortions are more likely to commit suicide.” If you dont really have any interest in answering the questions and just wish to appeal to emotion then thats fine I guess but at the very least acknowledge that can’t or won’t answer the questions laid out, specifically to get your particular outlook on on abstract social concepts

 

[willempju]

Yea, I don't see an issue with that, so long as they've been thoroughly background checked and cleared of any major mental illness that could cause them to use it for the wrong motives. The world is dangerous, and you have the right to protect yourself. Rape should never be taken lightly (neither your life being threatened in general), and I'm surprised to see you're scoffing it off like a minor nuissance. You realize people already do that, correct?

I think you are the one scoffing it off by suggesting that you can simply prevent it by carrying a gun. That really shows you have no idea how complex rape typically is.

 

[Dece1t]

I think you are the one scoffing it off by suggesting that you can simply prevent it by carrying a gun. That really shows you have no idea how complex rape typically is.

No, I think that's a fundamental logic flaw. How do you react if you have a gun pointed at your face, and you, at best, maybe have a knife. You wouldn't stand a chance, right? Unless you have god-like speed and can lunge at incredible force even before the victim can fire a bullet at point blank, you might as well run the other direction. Concealed guns have the ability to prevent nasty situations like that from ever happening, and preventing you from becoming a victim. That's the point behind conceal and carry, you have it on you at all times God forbid you ever get into that type of situation.

just to prevent them from getting raped (or mugged or whatever)?

I think it is more than fair to say you are scoffing how serious rape actually is, based off that. That's rather shitty if that's how you feel, if you'd rather have defenseless women become victims as opposed to preventing it in the first place.

I believe i may not fully understand the question, is this hypothetical indicating I was premature and born after the first trimester, or I am simply being aborted in the first trimester? In either case it does not really matter because as so underdeveloped as this hypothetical would be it is possible I cannot even live or would much rather not want to live. Is this first trimester hypothetical indicating I was still an embryo? Barely classified as a fetus? After the first trimester is over a fetus develops a majority of organs, but is this time period a point where my organs are undeveloped, or worse not dveloped at all? At this point I think the question is not whether with my life experience right now would I want to br aborted but the question is rather is it morally reprehensible to extinguish a life that would not live long anyway, and if so only in suffering? I think you may be underestimating the development of an embryo/ fetus, if one eas hypothetically born before the first trimester even ends its highly possible that not only is the fetus not considered a fetus (while its growing basic organs for the first seven weeks it is in the embryotic process) it is also highly unlikely it would actually live, and if it did it would require such intensive care to keep it alive for a couple months at best.

I meant simply being aborted in general (I said first trimester in the hypothetical because that's the most common trimester abortions occur). In general though, I was asking you if you were to go back in time and change events, would you be comfortable if your parents aborted you and not given you your fair chance to live your life? You've done a lot I presume, you've lived a lot just like the rest of us. The point I wanted to make was the choice would be out of your hands, and, speaking back down to earth now, that should be applied to a fetus in the present day and age. We can't predict what it would want as a fully developed human being in the future, what that person wants to do in their life, their purpose. The best we can do, in my opinion, is to give it it's fair chance like everyone else that was born as intended and obviously not aborted.

small irrelevant side not but this is the basis for marxism lol

Yea, I apologize for the tangent lol

Being labelled as parasitic is only a bad thing through cultural appreciation of the word, not all parasites are bad. We appear to be using two different working definitions of the word, which are not always equivalent but have the potential to be equivalent. The definition I am using is simply “an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense. (Merriam Webster / Medical definition)” Not all parasites are bad, in fact tapeworms or other intestinal parasites can actually have positive effects. However the definition of the word does not depend on a pre-existing condition of good will towards the host. It may sound derogatory, its not, but by definition a fetus starts to grow as a parasitic entity.

My point though with using the word was not really to blame the fetus but more to point away from the commonly used anthropomorphized version of a fetus that simply appeals to emotion.

You got me fair and square there, I can agree on those terms. In that regard, yea, a fetus does at least exhibit a parasitical relationship with the mother. I don't believe that necessarily lessens the human life value of it, because how else would it be able to grow and develop if it's practically helpless. That's more or less biology, and I don't want to derail that point too much.

Ashaebi if you could please answer my original post + the questions I proposed I would be thankful. Currently you are simply appealing to emotive reasoning with charged rhetoric and blanket statements that are not sourced (1% of all abortion cases are rape). At the very least provide some basis for this statistical claim. Moreover you didnt really elaborate on anything I said you simply sidestepped it and said “also women who have abortions are more likely to commit suicide.” If you dont really have any interest in answering the questions and just wish to appeal to emotion then thats fine I guess but at the very least acknowledge that can’t or won’t answer the questions laid out, specifically to get your particular outlook on on abstract social concepts

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html This compilation of stats compares two studies on abortions, one from 1987 and the other down the line in 2004. I will concede this though, not all rapes are reported as they should unfortunately (a lot of that comes down to the responsibility of the victim), so there is an unknown amount of abortions (likely minute) due to rape that could have been classified as a normal abortion, out of not having the evidence or even privacy/embarassment. That still doesn't change that the vast majority are for reasons other than that (examples in these statistics including, but not limited to: interference with career/education, possible fetal health problems, unreadiness, not being able to afford a baby, etc.).

Also, I can understand why he's saying women can become depressed/suicidal, especially since we did define, correct me if I'm wrong here, that abortion is still murder no matter what, it all depends on if the murder can be described as ethical or not. Take a different example, i.e. the rape situation I mentioned above. Let's say the woman did fire than gun on the perpetrator, and he was killed. I'd be damned if she didn't feel at least some guilt, despite the fact that ethically she was defending herself.

 

[Soul Fly]

TIL: A woman should be made to feel guilty if her actions in self defense leads to the death of a perpetrator trying to rape her. This is somehow an analogy about how abortion is murder and should make a woman feel guilty.

I would not want to be a woman in esteemed smogon user Dece1t's world.

 

[vonFiedler]

Third wave Feminists complaining about rape is like me complaining about me potentially being a victim of a mugger.

In that you don't want to be mugged? What in the world are you on about?

 

[Dece1t]

In that you don't want to be mugged? What in the world are you on about?

He can pitch in on this later if I took what he said incorrectly, but what I think where he's trying to go is some women are accusing people of rape when they haven't even been raped. They're essentially crying wolf in an attempt to get attention (and this is much different than an actual rape victim calling for justice). This is something that, sadly, has held up.

 

[tcr]

I meant simply being aborted in general (I said first trimester in the hypothetical because that's the most common trimester abortions occur). In general though, I was asking you if you were to go back in time and change events, would you be comfortable if your parents aborted you and not given you your fair chance to live your life? You've done a lot I presume, you've lived a lot just like the rest of us. The point I wanted to make was the choice would be out of your hands, and, speaking back down to earth now, that should be applied to a fetus in the present day and age. We can't predict what it would want as a fully developed human being in the future, what that person wants to do in their life, their purpose. The best we can do, in my opinion, is to give it it's fair chance like everyone else that was born as intended and obviously not aborted.

I do not believe this is that great an argument simply because with the issue of consent this scenario is easily turned onto you. You are asking for consent from the fetus or child to be aborted but never question the idea of a fetus not consenting to live in the first place. You are right, there is no choice given to the fetus to live or die but that should not automatically facilitate the decision of forcing life onto the fetus. I am not advocating a pro-death philosophy in this manner, I am simply stating that yes, you are correct, a fetus cannot consent. However this is the keystone of at least my philosophies on abortion. As a fetus cannot consent to live or die how it pleases the decision should then fall on the host to either permit the venture or preclude it.

If you wish to continue this particular section then I would ask you to provide your reasoning and support for the idea that the default state of human nature is to choose life over not-life (I don't say death because if something has not truly had the chance to live then it is absurd to suggest it can die, and still hold fast to my view of a fetus being a hybrid of human life and not life). One could argue that it is simply nature's directive to spread and multiply itself to further its own creation, depending on your metaphysical perspective, but does that necessarily make it ethical? As we are aware, just because it is so in nature does not mean that it is necessarily correct for humans to follow.

edit: to elaborate a bit more with examples, what necessarily qualifies something to live? Sperm and egg cells have the capacity to become life given the right conditions, extremely similar to a fetus, and yet no one bats an eye if someone masturbates, or menstruates, or discusses the ethical grey area of the millions of sperm cells that do not become life, what is it about the one specific combination that gives it special treatment?

 

[vonFiedler]

He can pitch in on this later if I took what he said incorrectly, but what I think where he's trying to go is some women are accusing people of rape when they haven't even been raped. They're essentially crying wolf in an attempt to get attention (and this is much different than an actual rape victim calling for justice). This is something that, sadly, has held up.

I really wanted to dunk on you with some statistics showing that the prevalence of false rape accusations falls in line with any other crime. And while those stats and studies are out there, including from the FBI, I didn't feel what I could find focused enough on the other crimes aspects to be really strong. (and why would you falsely accuse someone of rape when knuckleheads will use the same dark alleyway arguments in court as in this thread? you can't have your cake and rape it too)

What I can show is a massive disparity over 30 years between exonerations from false accusations of rape (here, be sure to only include false accusations) versus the number of forcible rape reports per year (here, and again, only forcible). That's 131 people falsely imprisoned over rape charges in total compared to 80 to 110 thousand rapes per year. You might notice that a lot more people are falsely accused of murder, which also seems a hell of a lot harder than just planting drugs on them, but there's the facts.

 

[Dece1t]

I really wanted to dunk on you with some statistics showing that the prevalence of false rape accusations falls in line with any other crime. And while those stats and studies are out there, including from the FBI, I didn't feel what I could find focused enough on the other crimes aspects to be really strong. (and why would you falsely accuse someone of rape when knuckleheads will use the same dark alleyway arguments in court as in this thread? you can't have your cake and rape it too)

What I can show is a massive disparity over 30 years between exonerations from false accusations of rape (here, be sure to only include false accusations) versus the number of forcible rape reports per year (here, and again, only forcible). That's 131 people falsely imprisoned over rape charges in total compared to 80 to 110 thousand rapes per year. You might notice that a lot more people are falsely accused of murder, which also seems a hell of a lot harder than just planting drugs on them, but there's the facts.

I'm talking about the MeToo movement in particular, if you were wondering.

 

[vonFiedler]

I'm talking about the MeToo movement in particular, if you were wondering.

What about it? Are all of those accusations false? Is this Norm McDonald?

 

[Dece1t]

What about it? Are all of those accusations false? Is this Norm McDonald?

Not all of them obviously, there have been a good majority that have been proven true, which is great. I'm talking about the sizable minority, which have been factually proven to be false, that's what he and I find to be garbage.

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

Some ill-informed (imo) posts about sexual violence in this thread. I don’t have a bunch of stats to link to but I have things I’d like to add from personal experience.

From my experience it seems like over a half of women I know in college have had some form of sexual violence committed against them by a man, ranging from harassment to rape. I have not heard a single story that involved men literally pinning them down and forcing entry. All of them were manipulative and used some power dynamic other than physical force, although being physically stronger does help because it makes the victim more afraid to resist.

These power dynamics look like using positions of authority to figuratively bend their victims arms to allow the predator to do nonconsensual sexual things to them. A well respected family member groping their niece, knowing the rest of the family will believe him over her. Pressuring victims to drink more to make it more difficult to say no to their advances. Employers using employees fear of losing their job to demand favors, a la Weinstein. A mentor in the university attempting to use their position of power to lure in unsuspecting girls. See Alan Aragon for a very recent example of how this plays out. Victims don’t speak out or fight back due to fear they have been outleveraged.

This gets even more insidious in the context of relationships. I know several women who have been assaulted by former boyfriends. They say things like “you can’t stop now, we’ve gone this far!”. They try to make them feel like they are in the wrong for saying no to get what they want. In the end they often get away with it because “boys are supposed to make the first move” and women are blamed for not being clear enough when they clearly never wanted it in the first place.

(This is not to say this doesn’t happen to men- it does, and similar tactics are used against them. However, sexual violence is not systemic against men to the extent it is against women, from my own experience)

If I’m in walking in a bad part of town where I know I’m at higher risk of being mugged, etc, I would love to be carrying. If someone jumped me it would be very simple for me to turn the situation around, most of the time. If most sexual violence occurred in this manner, carrying a gun would absolutely be a practical. But the reality of the matter is that this scenario is a very small minority. Pulling a gun in any of these situations i laid out isn’t practical and ignores what’s going on in the victims’ head. When you are in this situation you feel like you don’t really have a choice. I don’t want my SO to break up with me. I don’t want to lose my job. Man I’m fucked up and I can’t really tell what’s going on.

Furthermore, it ignores the systemic issue- we should not exclusively be putting the onus on women to not be raped. While teaching people self defense and other preventative measures can be useful, at the end of the day the biggest issue is that people (both knowingly and unknowingly) exploit certain power dynamics to sexually abuse people. Today’s society is also extremely critical of survivors coming forward to the point where many of them would rather try to ignore their own trauma rather than press charges.

Some things I might not have touched on well (might edit this post later when I’m off work to touch on false rape accusations) but I think I got most of what I wanted to say.

Thanks for reading

 

[vonFiedler]

Can we not focus on the semantics of "teach men not to rape"? There's another thread talking about it. Thanks in advance,

 

[Ashaebi]

Good point! That definition of human life is a little loose, and I’d like to revise it to include the capacity of consiousness and self-awareness. This I think would include your example of a comatose patient, while also excluding for example a brain dead individual. Yes, while you may be unconsious and have to rely on a machine to be alive you still have the capacity to consciously arise. This working definition is entirely reliant on the mechanisms of the brain and provides us with a, albeit slightly crude, method of pinpointing a time period where we can definitively say “this is not a human yet, this is a human.” I would argue that this capacity of consciousness excludes fetus’ prior to brain development as there is no guarantee yet they survive until the point the mechanisms required are created.

I believe i may not fully understand the question, is this hypothetical indicating I was premature and born after the first trimester, or I am simply being aborted in the first trimester? In either case it does not really matter because as so underdeveloped as this hypothetical would be it is possible I cannot even live or would much rather not want to live. Is this first trimester hypothetical indicating I was still an embryo? Barely classified as a fetus? After the first trimester is over a fetus develops a majority of organs, but is this time period a point where my organs are undeveloped, or worse not dveloped at all? At this point I think the question is not whether with my life experience right now would I want to br aborted but the question is rather is it morally reprehensible to extinguish a life that would not live long anyway, and if so only in suffering? I think you may be underestimating the development of an embryo/ fetus, if one eas hypothetically born before the first trimester even ends its highly possible that not only is the fetus not considered a fetus (while its growing basic organs for the first seven weeks it is in the embryotic process) it is also highly unlikely it would actually live, and if it did it would require such intensive care to keep it alive for a couple months at best.

small irrelevant side not but this is the basis for marxism lol



Being labelled as parasitic is only a bad thing through cultural appreciation of the word, not all parasites are bad. We appear to be using two different working definitions of the word, which are not always equivalent but have the potential to be equivalent. The definition I am using is simply “an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense. (Merriam Webster / Medical definition)” Not all parasites are bad, in fact tapeworms or other intestinal parasites can actually have positive effects. However the definition of the word does not depend on a pre-existing condition of good will towards the host. It may sound derogatory, its not, but by definition a fetus starts to grow as a parasitic entity.

My point though with using the word was not really to blame the fetus but more to point away from the commonly used anthropomorphized version of a fetus that simply appeals to emotion.

Ashaebi if you could please answer my original post + the questions I proposed I would be thankful. Currently you are simply appealing to emotive reasoning with charged rhetoric and blanket statements that are not sourced (1% of all abortion cases are rape). At the very least provide some basis for this statistical claim. Moreover you didnt really elaborate on anything I said you simply sidestepped it and said “also women who have abortions are more likely to commit suicide.” If you dont really have any interest in answering the questions and just wish to appeal to emotion then thats fine I guess but at the very least acknowledge that can’t or won’t answer the questions laid out, specifically to get your particular outlook on on abstract social concepts

Sure thing.
https://www.operationrescue.org/about-abortion/abortions-in-america/

I know this might not be the best site to use as evidence, I’d probs find a better one but the rough idea is it is only about 1%

https://www.abortionfacts.com/reardon/abortion-and-suicide

 

[Ashaebi]

In that you don't want to be mugged? What in the world are you on about?

Obviously no one wants to get mugged just like women don’t want to be raped but unlike 3rd wave feminists I do something to prevent it while 3rd wave feminists just walk around protesting hoping men will actually change their behaviors LOL.

Tbh if they bothered to carry a weapon gun or non lethal, they will feel safer at least. Or stay away from compromising situations.

 

[vonFiedler]

Obviously no one wants to get mugged just like women don’t want to be raped but unlike 3rd wave feminists I do something to prevent it while 3rd wave feminists just walk around protesting hoping men will actually change their behaviors LOL.

Why do you believe that feminists aren't avoiding dark alleys? If men aren't walking down dark alleys, does no one get mugged anymore? Can you find me some statistics on the prevalence of dark alleys in rape cases?

 

[Ashaebi]

Why do you believe that feminists aren't avoiding dark alleys? If men aren't walking down dark alleys, does no one get mugged anymore? Can you find me some statistics on the prevalence of dark alleys in rape cases?

I mean it doesn’t make sense. I rarely see a conservative women if not at all virtue about a rape culture. It’s overwhelmingly overshadowed by left wing women. Seems to me having a weapon makes a significant difference.

Lastly is if they don’t carry a weapon I don’t know how can we prevent rape.

 

[vonFiedler]

I mean it doesn’t make sense. I rarely see a conservative women if not at all virtue about a rape culture.

Could you guys stop using the word virtue signal. You're literally just using it to mean things you don't agree with at this point. I don't think it's a thing that doesn't happen on both sides, but how does a woman virtue signal about not wanting to get raped? #buzzwords

Second, you rarely see a conservative person take a liberal stance on an issue? That's not a revelation. "I rarely see people who don't order HBO talk about how good Game of Thrones is. Only Game of Thrones fans seem to like it. It doesn't make sense!!!" And even if your logic weren't non-euclidean, there's a big gap in women who identify as liberal vs conservative: http://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/ Do you ever try to make sense of the connection between that fact and conservative stances on rape and abortion? (I won't put words in your mouth, but if I'm guessing correctly, I wouldn't answer that)

 

[Ampharos]

Lastly is if they don’t carry a weapon I don’t know how can we prevent rape.

By attempting to address the systemic issues that facilitate rape in the first place?

I don't understand why "world in which everyone has to arm themselves in order to feel safe" is preferable to "world in which men are less likely to commit rape due to having addressed the differences and power dynamics that facilitate men's ability to do so."

 

[Demoness]

Because it places the burden and the vast majority of the energy and action required onto the groups being primarily affected by rape, and thus, they don't need to bother actually thinking about how they could help reduce it and reach the solution themself.

I mean, it's basically underlying misogyny

 

[fanyfan]

By attempting to address the systemic issues that facilitate rape in the first place?

I don't understand why "world in which everyone has to arm themselves in order to feel safe" is preferable to "world in which men are less likely to commit rape due to having addressed the differences and power dynamics that facilitate men's ability to do so."

Now, obviously a "world in which everyone has to arm themselves in order to feel safe" isn’t preferable, but the alternative isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Until then we have to be realistic and say, yes, there are always going to be crazy people in the world are always going to try to hurt/sexually assault/rape you. I don’t think it’s a revolutionary idea to try and teach people how to protect themselves. Carry a gun, pepper spray, whatever makes you feel safe. Obviously victim blaming is bad and should not be done ever but putting a focus on people protecting themselves isn’t victim blaming. Obviously in a perfect world it wouldn’t be necessary, but unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in.

mod edit: I said not to go on about semantics

 

[Clouds]

This might be controversial, but I don’t think the idea of “teaching men not to rape” is actually going to lead to less rapes. Unless there’s hard data behind this, which I have not found, I don’t think it’s effective for a couple of reasons. 1. Most rapists know it’s aronv but they do it anyway. I don’t think the shocking statistics of sexual assault and rape are really coming from people who just never learned rape was wrong. They come from people who knew it was wrong but they did it anyway. A lot of crimes come from that. You think murders come from people who didn’t know murder was wrong? That’s what a teaching men not to rape seems like. Teaching a murderer not to murder. 2. Notice how I’ve said “people” when referring to rapists and rape victims. That’s because rape isn’t just a man on woman issue. Anyone can be raped regardless of gender/sexual orientation and anyone can rape regardless of gender/sexual orientation. Teaching men not to rape doesn’t account for that and places the blame for a pretty widespread crime on one demographic, which doesn’t address the entire issue and singles out an entire demographic for no reason.

I'm confused as to where you inferred "teaching men not to rape" from this:

"world in which men are less likely to commit rape due to having addressed the differences and power dynamics that facilitate men's ability to do so."

Addressing lingering power dynamic issues encompasses far more than that, if at all. Sure, you can always use the argument that "people who commit the crimes know they're wrong but choose to do them anyways", and that's certainly true in a lot of cases, but it doesn't mean revamping dynamics wouldn't decrease the number of rapes that occur. It goes hand-in-hand with gun control, you'd still have shootings, but with much stricter gun control laws, the number of them that occur would decrease greatly, which is why the whole "criminals will still find a way to get their hands on guns" argument is so flawed. If you can mitigate the amount of times something harmful occurs by making changes, then those changes should absolutely be made.

 

[Ashaebi]

I'm so gonna practice some martial arts like Wing Chun and Shaolin Kung Fu so I can take down my bullies or those who threaten to harm me or my family without needing to kill them. Who needs guns when you hands and feet make a formidable weapon? :^)