What’s your prior probability that someone reading this thread (during, say, October 2009) has committed or will commit rape or sexual assault within ten years?
I haven’t the slightest idea. I also have no reason to think that it is higher, lower, or the same as the number for the members of a similarly sized SF convention, trainspotters club, or firm of chartered accountants.
I think you are being extremely judgmental.
You bet I am.
I described my hypothetical character as “misunderstood”, and indeed, here you are misunderstanding him. He’s not dangerous; you can add that to the description: “shy, misunderstood, non-dangerous...”
The fact that he “would never dream of saying such a thing except anonymously in an unusually open-minded online community” was intended to illustrate his kindness and sensitivity as a human being in contrast to the boorish brute I placed him in opposition to.
He thinks women owe him sex, but is “kind and sensitive” enough not to say so. I seem to feel another judgement coming on.
This imaginary geek: let us suppose he is twenty. One day he will be thirty. Fifty. Eighty, which by then may not be forty, and perhaps he can expect another half century more. Imagine for me this geek in the prime of life at eighty. What has he done in the last sixty years? Is he still whining about not getting any?
I consider your attitude dangerous. Judgement is not without consequence and a readiness to do so based on very weak evidence is a trait I consider undesirable.
I haven’t the slightest idea. I also have no reason to think that it is higher, lower, or the same as the number for the members of a similarly sized SF convention, trainspotters club, or firm of chartered accountants.
You bet I am.
...invisible, inaudible, and intangible.
He thinks women owe him sex, but is “kind and sensitive” enough not to say so. I seem to feel another judgement coming on.
This imaginary geek: let us suppose he is twenty. One day he will be thirty. Fifty. Eighty, which by then may not be forty, and perhaps he can expect another half century more. Imagine for me this geek in the prime of life at eighty. What has he done in the last sixty years? Is he still whining about not getting any?
I consider your attitude dangerous. Judgement is not without consequence and a readiness to do so based on very weak evidence is a trait I consider undesirable.