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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   25167 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024

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I still remember the blue/gold dress discourse.

Plenty of women go abroad alone to dangerous countries like India. Sure there are some examples of women getting raped/killed there, but plenty more aren't.

If the questions specifies that they're in the woods, this presents a situation where the male in question can reasonably expect not to be observed by a third party.

THAT much, I will grant, is reason for concern for the woman.

I would not say 20% of men across the world would choose to assault/rape/attack a lone female. And even actual criminals don't commit crimes all the time.

I'm not quite willing to say 20% of men would not, purely on the evolutionary argument that assault and rape were a common element of our ancestral environment.

Really, my concern is that I don't know to what extent all men, everywhere on the planet, are actually socially trained against any sort of violence against women... and have enough to lose that they care about that social training. I could see it being higher than 20% who would in theory be dangerous to an unaccompanied female. But the error bars on that estimate are large.

But I can say for damn sure that a tiny handful of bears is trained not to be violent towards humans in general, but some are more naturally inclined towards it than others.

If the questions specifies that they're in the woods, this presents a situation where the male in question can reasonably expect not to be observed.

That is a fair point but I will still have to disagree with you that greater than 20% of men when given the opportunity will have a near 100% chance of committing rape/assault on a lone woman.

I'm not quite willing to say 20% of men would not, purely on the evolutionary argument that assault and rape were a common element of our ancestral environment.

On the evolution argument, the child has to survive to pass on their offspring. Babies and pregnant women are extremely vulnerable. The genes that foster safety in groups and willingness to cooperate will outpace the genes that might make a man rape/assault someone. There could be an argument for tribes taking women as a prize after some kind of war/battle, but that's distinct from just an early caveman just raping/assaulting any woman.

The genes that foster safety in groups and willingness to cooperate will outpace the genes that might make a man rape/assault someone.

Right, but in this situation, as stated in the question, there are no groups to cooperate with or intervene, the male's behavior is based solely on whatever he himself chooses to do in the absence of any observers, and thus no immediate social consequences.

I am going to argue that in the ancestral environment, if a random male happens across a random female, both complete strangers to the other, in the middle of the woods, nobody else around, rape WAS probably a common outcome. And this would eventually lead to general norms that women shouldn't travel anywhere alone.

I have seen decent evidence that many males of certain cultures are willing to engage in violence against females even in the full view of other people. Can't say what that percentage is with precision, but I'd have to assume a higher percentage would willingly engage in violence if there were no observers.

I think I will stipulate that the number has to be <50%, but 3% is probably the absolute lower bound.

But we built society to heavily punish males who do such things. Therefore there was evolutionary pressure against “randomly rape women”

I still remember the blue/gold dress discourse.

Was I the only person on the planet that went with "huh, that's a cool optical illusion"?

No, but it was a good example of people not being aware of how human perception works, and thus jumping right to "these people have to be lying to me" rather than "there's something weird about that dress."

I don't recall anyone claiming that the other side was lying.

Was I the only person on the planet that went with "huh, that's a cool optical illusion"?

Was there another way to view it besides a cool optical illusion? Was there some crazy blue/gold dress controversy that I wasn't aware of?

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