OK, so I briefly considered that interpretation but thought it was more unlikely than that he had some unorthodox meaning attached to “rape of private property”.
So apparently he wants rape to be legal as long as it happens on private property.
OK, Clarity, in what possible sense is it a “libel” to accuse Roosh of
wanting to legalise rape
if in fact he
wants to legalize rape that happens in private property?
I mean, that does in fact mean legalizing a whole lot of rapes. (I would bet that a large majority of rape happens on private property, even if you adopt a narrower definition of rape than the law generally does.)
If I say I want insider stock trading to be legal provided you wear a suit when you do it, I am proposing to legalize insider trading. If I say I want murder to be legal unless it’s done with a gun, I am proposing to legalize murder. If I say I want making copies of copyrighted works to be legal if it’s done by men rather than women, I am proposing to legalize copyright infringement. And: if I say that I want rape to be legal if it’s done on private property, I am proposing to legalize rape.
(For the absolute avoidance of doubt: I am not, in fact, making any of those proposals.)
Oh, very likely, but Clarity claimed that people were libelling Roosh for proposing to legalize rape when actually he’s just proposing, er, to legalize rape. My bemusement at this has basically nothing to do with how sincere Roosh is or what ulterior motives he may have for proposing to legalize rape.
(Unless his proposal is so obviously not intended to be taken seriously that the objection should be not “he wants to legalize rape” but something more like “he thinks legalizing rape is a reasonable thing to propose as a joke”, I guess.)
Oh, very likely, but Clarity claimed that people were libelling Roosh for proposing to legalize rape when actually he’s just proposing, er, to legalize rape.
I agree with this framing for this specific case, but I do want to point out that there are huge noncentral fallacy issues with this framing in general; if I say “hey, we should add an age difference exemption to all the statutory rape laws that don’t have one yet” that would be arguing for legalizing some rapes (because it involves redefining rape).
(The steelman of Roosh is basically arguing that, instead of changing campus culture to reflect the law, we should change the law to reflect campus culture. So it’s certainly skeevy enough that “legalizing rape” has fair connotations, and that’s even before one drops out of the steelman lens and into the literal lens.)
Yup, I agree. That’s why I remarked that I think a large majority of rapes fall into the category he’s proposing should be legal, even if you adopt a relatively narrow definition of rape.
Of course, I could be wrong. (And I could have said more explicitly that “legalize some instances of X” is by no means always fairly summarized as “legalize X”.)
His overall point is that the current memes circulating in the general public on the topic of rape are ineffective at handling the issue, and furthermore that they’re so ineffective that getting rid of them altogether and doing something as extreme as legalizing rape on private property would actually lead to a better aggregate outcome for not only men but also women.
At least that’s my interpretation.
Note that Roosh writes a lot of satirical essays that are supposed to systematically introduce various details that he thinks are important while suggesting a general conclusion. This I think is a common tactic for people who write on controversial topics or have a lot to allude to and brainstorm about but don’t have a fully fleshed out conclusion to simply state directly.
Here is another example of his non-literal exposition style.
The idea of how the law is supposed to benefit woman is by making woman so fearful of getting raped that they don’t go home with a boy after a club night.
It’s that woman are too promiscuous and have to be forced by fear to to less promiscuous. It’s an ugly argument.
That’s his PR strategy, for sure. He wouldn’t be nearly as popular if he wrote rigorously thought-out expositions using neutral language and containing a lot of qualifiers to make sure nobody thinks he’s a bad person.
While I think part of his mission puts being famous and notorious as an end in and of itself, I don’t think we should assume he’s not also genuinely motivated by an attempt to disseminate information that he believes is important. For a brief attempt to translate the overall point of his article on legalizing rape into language that’s more literal, see this post I just submitted elsewhere in this thread.
I’m not particularly interested in reading it; he’s neither my ally nor my enemy, and I find neither what he says, nor how he says it, particularly entertaining or useful. I’d guess it’s something along the idea that “Removing safety rails make people behave more safety-consciously”, or consideration of its converse, “Safety rails make people behave less safety-consciously”. Which is true, but… premature. Society isn’t there quite yet. We have at least another decade, although things are accelerating a bit, so it’s hard to pin down a time.
Shrug I encountered exposure to his ideas back when I read Captain Capitalism, before that blog turned into yet another outlet for the backlash against the constant overreach of social justice types. I find him… unnecessary.
No need to read it. I don’t think Roosh is very good. For me reading him even for a few minutes feels like akrasia. I guess I’m more entertained by the style than you are, but entertainment is different than education. My priority is the latter.
For reference, it’s not just the safety-rail consideration, though that’s relevant too. It’s also that the current cultural landscape removes personal responsibility in many cases. Women will sometimes regret having sex the same way anyone may regret eating a cookie (they felt good then, but feel bad now). While no man would be proud of being the sexual equivalent of junk food during a one-night stand with a woman, I think today’s society is a bit trigger happy in such situations in saying the man took advantage of the woman instead of saying that she indulged in the moment and later thought herself hedonistic.
Making rape legal on private property would be the most extreme version of expecting personal responsibility from women. It certainly goes (way) too far, but within the fog of satire I believe Roosh has a point. Though, again, I wouldn’t recommend his writing to someone looking for thoughtfulness or rigor.
rape is a serious accusation and all though some women may feel the way you described/misuse the legal system… I doubt that it’s a common occurrence, most women are ashamed to admit they’ve been raped...don’t think many would put themselves through the stress of it willy nilly.
Haven’t read the article, but even if the idea of legalizing rape on private property is looked at as sincere for even a second… it falls flat on its face. Marital rape is a thing that happens, seems likely this legalization would condone it. And so long as we’re talking about responsibility, it would be the responsibility of the owners of properties legally raping people to put up a sign saying as much..kinda like the beware of angry dog ones...except about rape...which I don’t think would catch on.
I assume the “it’s not rape if she liked it” argument refers to circumstances where the woman doesn’t consent to the sexual encounter, but then changes her mind part of the way through. In other words, we’re talking about a shift from “don’t want” (when the sex started) to “want” (before the sex is over), and describing the general result as “she liked it”. It would be more precise, of course, to phrase it as, “She didn’t like it and then she did like it.”
Now, which part of my post were you saying fit that argument?
It’s also that the current cultural landscape removes personal responsibility in many cases. Women will sometimes regret having sex the same way anyone may regret eating a cookie (they felt good then, but feel bad now). While no man would be proud of being the sexual equivalent of junk food during a one-night stand with a woman, I think today’s society is a bit trigger happy in such situations in saying the man took advantage of the woman instead of saying that she indulged in the moment and later thought herself hedonistic.
I assume you meant this part.
With the considerations above in mind, I don’t see how my point fits the “it’s not rape if she liked it” argument. While that argument refers to situations where the woman felt averse to sex but then changed her mind part of the way through (with no specification about how she felt afterwards, the following day, and so on); on the other hand my example refers to situations where the woman wanted the sex both during the initial escalation and throughout the entire act (but then felt regret later on).
Let me know if I misinterpreted you.
rape is a serious accusation and all though some women may feel the way you described/misuse the legal system… I doubt that it’s a common occurrence, most women are ashamed to admit they’ve been raped...don’t think many would put themselves through the stress of it willy nilly.
I’m under the impression that when alcohol is involved the average person is more likely to use the words “taken advantage of” than “raped” unless the woman is passed out.
I wasn’t necessarily referring to misusing the legal system, though that’s probably an issue in certain isolated cases. My concern, instead, is that Western culture at this time in history seems to allow women an escape route from admitting personal responsibility for certain actions.
Women may not be flocking to the justice system, but there’s certainly a trend where female sexual hedonism is blamed on the men who take up the offers.
Haven’t read the article, but even if the idea of legalizing rape on private property is looked at as sincere for even a second… it falls flat on its face. Marital rape is a thing that happens, seems likely this legalization would condone it. And so long as we’re talking about responsibility, it would be the responsibility of the owners of properties legally raping people to put up a sign saying as much..kinda like the beware of angry dog ones...except about rape...which I don’t think would catch on.
It was a satirical article and Roosh has no intention of trying to legalize rape on private property. I don’t necessarily suggest reading the article, as it’s long and liable for misinterpretation from anyone unfamiliar with the PUA community, but if you want to criticize his reasoning in a disciplined and responsible manner then you’re going to have to take the plunge.
If you do decide to read the article, feel free to post in this sub-thread any counterarguments you come up with.
If you say you want insider stock trading to be legal as long as you wear a suit, but your rationale is “it’s so easy to convict innocent people of insider stock trading that the benefits from stopping false convictions outweighs the harm done by the insider trading”, then that’s the noncentral fallacy—a noncentral use of “want”. Normally saying that someone wants X carries the connotation that they like X and don’t believe X causes harm, which isn’t true in this case.
If you don’t want people to be convicted of rape based on evidence obtained by torture, you also “want rape to be legal” (specifically, you want the subset of rapes “rapes where evidence is only obtained by using torture” to be legal) but describing it that way would be misleading. You don’t think rape is good, you just think encouraging torture is worse than rape. It would be possible to think that encouraging false accusations is worse than rape as well (especially if false accusations are common) and want to allow some rapes so you can discourage false accusations in the same way that you might want to allow some rapes to discourage torture.
(I really hope it’s okay to even talk about this. I would rather not get banned.)
(I really hope it’s okay to even talk about this. I would rather not get banned.)
My impression is that incivility and social obliviousness is really what gets to people. The couple people I’ve seen banned here over the past year or so, even though many people pointed to the non-PC content of their posts as the reason for the ban, I believe that was a misinterpretation. They were banned for being unlikeable and uncivil. Simple as that.
This mirrors my experience on almost any forum out there, except where systematic censorship exists for the benefit of a certain established agenda (like selling a product).
I don’t think anyone is saying that Roosh wants rape. Only that he wants (many instances of) rape to be legal. Which is in fact what he wants (or, at least, what he says he wants; he may not be sincere).
There is a risk of the noncentral fallacy here—if someone proposes to make a small minority of atypical instances of something legal, that’s not fairly described by saying they want to legalize whatever-it-is. But AIUI most rapes are committed on private property, even if (as I can imagine Roosh might want to) you take “rape” to imply outright nonconsent and force or threat or the like. (I confess I don’t have statistics to hand to back up this claim.) If I’m right about this, then Roosh is proposing to legalize most rapes, and I think it’s reasonable to describe that by saying he want to legalize rape.
I’m sure it’s true[1] that he wants to do this because he sees bad side-effects of the illegality of rape, rather than because he would like there to be more rape. But I think this is very often the case when people propose to legalize things, and therefore saying “Roosh proposes to legalize rape” doesn’t amount to claiming he likes rape.
[1] Or at least true-according-to-what-he-says; again, he might not be sincere.
I don’t think “sincere” is the best word to use here.
You’re contrasting “interpret him literally” with “assume he’s not sincere”, but I don’t see a connection. It’s entirely possible that he’s completely sincere in his attempt to communicate certain information through a satirical article. That is, he may be honest in his communication attempt but speaking in a way where interpreting him in too straightforward of a way would lead to misinterpretation.
This is I believe what he’s doing. See here for another post of mine, building on the points I made in my previous reply to you. It seems clear to me that he’s writing a satirical polemic against a societal trend that he believes exists where women are not expected to bear personal responsibility for certain actions (such as voluntarily increasing their time preference through alcohol consumption).
If you don’t want people to be convicted of rape based on evidence obtained by torture, you also “want rape to be legal”
You seem to be confused here. Rape is and should be illegal. This however does not conflict with the idea that there are limits to what the state can do to obtain convictions in criminal cases. Laws prohibiting extracting confessions under torture, warrantless searches, the principle that the accused is innocent until proven guilty, etc., are on the books to prevent innocent people from being convicted by overzealous prosecutors (or by an overzealous system). They are in no way an endorsement of the offending behavior.
They are in no way an endorsement of the offending behavior.
Let’s consider two of the lines from Jiro’s post:
If you don’t want people to be convicted of rape based on evidence obtained by torture, you also “want rape to be legal”
Normally saying that someone wants X carries the connotation that they like X and don’t believe X causes harm, which isn’t true in this case.
Put together, it seems obvious that Jiro is pointing out a verbal technicality and you’re interpreting him as if he means what he’s explicitly saying he doesn’t mean.
Jiro’s post is highly contextual and makes sense only by taking into account what he’s responding to. You may want to re-read the subthread.
I may be missing Jiro’s point, but it seems to me that he is stating that having limits on what the prosecution can do to achieve a conviction in rape cases is somehow the same as making rape legal. It is exactly that point that I am disagreeing with. Not allowing torture to obtain a conviction for a crime is not the same as making the crime legal.
Allow me to paraphrase the essentials of the conversation in my own words:
Roosh: “We should legalize rape on private property.”
Clarity: “A lot of people are accusing Roosh of wanting to legalize rape. This is libel.”
gjm: “Um, how is it libel to accuse Roosh of wanting to legalize rape when he says that we should legalize rape on private property? Most rapes likely happen on private property, which means he wants to legalize most instances of rape. For example, if I say I want insider trading to be legal but only if you wear a suit while you do it, I want insider trading to be legal.”
Jiro: “But what if you don’t like insider trading, yet you believe that there are so many innocent individuals accidentally convicted that it would be a net benefit to simply legalize it? If you describe that view as ‘you want insider trading to be legal’, we can see how English grammar and dictionary definitions would permit that, but it would be grossly misleading. When we say we ‘want X’, we normally mean that we like and endorse X. This isn’t the case here. Even if we want it to be legalized, we don’t want it.”
To be concise, Roosh said that we should “legalize rape on private property”, various people described that viewpoint as Roosh “wanting to legalize rape”, and Jiro is claiming that such a phrasing is misleading. When we use the phrase “want X”, we usually mean that we like X. But Roosh isn’t saying that he likes rape.
They are in no way an endorsement of the offending behavior.
Jiro drew an analogy to Roosh’s argument, and then advised against describing the content of that analogy with the words “want rape to be legal”, because it makes it sound like the arguer endorses rape. And then your rebuttal included clarifying that putting into effect the law explained in the analogy would not, in fact, be an endorsement of rape.
Put as simply as possible, Jiro used an analogy to suggest against describing Roosh’s argument as X because it causes people to react like Y (which would constitute a misinterpretation), and then in response you wrote a post which was purely a matter of reacting like Y.
Let this be a lesson for how easily words lead to systematic miscommunication.
I suspect that you are taking an expansive interpretation of what it is in the OP that I am objecting to. As I have already stated, I am objecting to exactly one statement:
If you don’t want people to be convicted of rape based on evidence obtained by torture, you also want rape to be legal
And, I will repeat and (hopefully) clarify my objection as well:
Making rape legal is not the same as not permitting the state to resort to torture to obtain a conviction in rape cases. Making rape legal is tantamount to a legal endorsement of rape in the sense that the law is stating that it is legally OK to commit a rape, and that the law will not take action against the perpetrator of that rape. Declining to allow torture to be used to obtain a conviction in a rape case is however not an endorsement of rape.
The distinction I am making is a distinction with tangible differences. For example, suppose action X is taken against person Y. Now consider two different scenarios:
X is legal.
X is illegal, but there is insufficient evidence against any suspected perpetrator to allow a conviction without, for example, resorting to torture to obtain a confession.
In scenario 1, legally no crime has been committed (because X is legal). Therefore, person Y is not a victim of a crime. This means that person Y is not entitled to victim’s services. Beyond that, since there is no crime, it is doubtful that the state will even mount an investigation. And, there could be implications for insurance settlements and/or liability resulting from action X as well (e.g. suppose X occurs at a nightclub with lax security. If X is legal, it is less likely that person Y would win a liability settlement against the facility than it would be if X were illegal).
In scenario 2, a crime has been committed. Presumably the state will mount an investigation, update crime statistics to reflect the incident, attempt to bring the perpetrator to justice, etc. Even if no one can be convicted or even brought to trial, person Y is recognized as a victim of a crime and would be eligible for victim’s services (if victims’ services are offered by the state). And, recognition that a crime has occurred can in some cases be beneficial to person Y’s psychological recovery from the incident, and could factor in to liability settlements, etc.
I believe that I understand the point that Jiro is attempting to make with the OP. However the argument presented utilizes a false equivalence between (X being legal) and (X being illegal but not allowing torture to be used to obtain a conviction for X). It is that false equivalence that I am objecting to.
Finally, your comment:
Let this be a lesson for how easily words lead to systematic miscommunication
frankly sounds condescending; IMO comments like that are inappropriate for LW.
As I have already stated, I am objecting to exactly one statement
This is your problem right here. You can’t simply single out a specific statement and attempt to grapple with its internal logic. Again, Jiro’s response is highly contextual and only makes sense when you consider the big picture. Have you read the subthread carefully, going all the way back to Clarity’s question? Have you read Roosh’s article? If you haven’t done these things, then you’re being irresponsible in your attempt to interpret Jiro.
Let’s look again at the statement you’re objecting to:
If you don’t want people to be convicted of rape based on evidence obtained by torture, you also want rape to be legal
Oh wait, you misquoted Jiro. Let’s take a look at what Jiro actually said:
If you don’t want people to be convicted of rape based on evidence obtained by torture, you also “want rape to be legal”
See the quotation marks?
Jiro’s whole response was an attempt to explain that we shouldn’t use the phrase “want rape to be legal” to describe either Roosh’s position (that rape should be legal on private property) or the analogy (that rape convictions based on evidence obtained by torture should be thrown out) because it makes it sound like Roosh or the hypothetical person in the analogy endorses rape.
If I sound condescending, it’s because it’s tiresome to argue with someone who is taking a single point as literally as possible while neglecting to look into the context of the discussion.
Taking a step back:
Jiro expressed uneasiness about submitting his or her post, probably because he or she knows how likely explicit discussions on these topics are to provoke angry or offended replies. While you didn’t seem offended, you nevertheless began your reply with an emotionally charged claim that Jiro seemed “confused”. I’m sure you’re aware that such phrasing provokes the same kind of emotions that you’re experiencing with my patronizing responses.
I believe that it’s very important for people to speak openly on these kinds of subjects, so when Jiro made what I interpreted as a solid point and then showed uneasiness about being part of the conversation, I found this somewhat alarming. I wrote a reply, and then soon afterwards I discovered your response, which began in a condescending way and then continued into what I considered (and still consider) a misinterpretation which demonstrates lack of care and thoroughness and stands as a frivolous disincentive for Jiro to jump into similar discussions in the future.
I admit that I felt a bit of annoyance right from the beginning. The emotional charge you can feel channeled through my words is a product of status-posturing emotions related to defending Jiro.
Thanks for the lengthy response. I better understand the cause of the disagreement. And, I reread my response to the OP with your comments in mind, and you are 100% correct; I did sound more irritated and dismissive than I had any reason to (when I used the word “confused”). That was not my intention; I apologize for any offense caused.
In addition, I would like to respond to and/or comment on some of your other comments. You asked:
Have you read the subthread carefully, going all the way back to Clarity’s question? Have you read Roosh’s article?
Yes and yes. It was an interesting thread. However the point I was making was not about what Roosh may or may not have meant in his article, nor was it about Clarity’s question, nor about gjm’s comments to Clarity’s question. All of those are interesting topics, and I have opinions on them, but I did not express them. Why not? Because the discussion volume on all of those topics has been large enough that my opinion on each of the main controversial points of the thread has been stated by someone else (in some cases, by multiple people); my stating opinions that have already been stated would add little value to the conversation. However, Jiro’s post did contain a statement that had not been addressed elsewhere and that I thought should be addressed, so I addressed it.
You also said:
You can’t simply single out a specific statement and attempt to grapple with its internal logic.
Actually, you can. Jiro made a propositional statement and it can be evaluated independently without rehashing the entire thread history.
Again, Jiro’s response is highly contextual and only makes sense when you consider the big picture.
Agreed – Jiro’s entire response was multifaceted, nuanced and complex, and were I disagreeing with his/her entire comment, the context of the thread would be relevant. The one statement I was commenting on however was self-standing and could be evaluated as such:
If you don’t want people to be convicted of rape based on evidence obtained by torture, you also “want rape to be legal”
And, no, the quotes in the original do not significantly change the meaning of the sentence; certainly they do not render my objections (stated here) invalid.
So, why did I think that this one statement was important enough to respond to? Two reasons:
The statement is factually incorrect – it expresses a false equivalence, as explained here
The belief is not only factually incorrect, it is actually harmful; if widely held, it would have a pernicious effect on the justice system. If it was widely believed that placing reasonable limits on what the state can do to win a conviction for some offense is the same as making that offense legal, you could expect to see increased demands (and eventually capitulation to those demands) to actually allow torture to obtain convictions, or to reduce the standard of proof from “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” to “guilty by the preponderance of evidence”, or even “guilty by the majority of the evidence”, etc. This is especially true for crimes that tend to evoke strong emotional responses in the public. This is not a theoretical objection – there are currently voices arguing for torture to be used in cases involving terrorism, for example.
If I sound condescending, it’s because it’s tiresome to argue with someone who is taking a single point as literally as possible while neglecting to look into the context of the discussion.
Understood, but as stated, my objection was to a single point; various responses to the bulk of the thread’s controversial points have been discussed at length elsewhere. Therefore, it would have been pointless for me to address the entirety of the thread.
While you didn’t seem offended, you nevertheless began your reply with an emotionally charged claim that Jiro seemed “confused”.
Yes, valid point. I apologize for that.
I admit that I felt a bit of annoyance right from the beginning. The emotional charge you can feel channeled through my words is a product of status-posturing emotions related to defending Jiro.
Understood, and your desire to defend a fellow LWer is noble. My feeling, however, based on Jiro’s history of high-quality, well-argued comments, is that Jiro is in no need of verbal defense. Jiro has a higher karma score than either you or I do, and has (I suspect) a history at LW longer than mine (not sure about yours). None of that of course changes the fact that my initial comment was unduly abrasive, however.
I appreciate the level-headed emotional de-escalation.
And with that, onto the content:
Yes and yes.
Understood. The next thing I’m wondering, then, is whether you’ve read this article. The reason I’m asking is because that’s the full and original explanation of the non-central fallacy, the fallacy that Jiro was claiming was exemplified by saying that Roosh “wants rape to be legal”.
Whatever your answer to that question, I would like to make a request. Can you re-state Jiro’s original argument in your own words? I don’t mean simply repeating the propositional logic inherent in the single statement that you’re objecting to; I mean explaining in full detail what Jiro meant to convey.
Actually, you can. Jiro made a propositional statement and it can be evaluated independently without rehashing the entire thread history.
Oh wait, I guess you may think that my request is irrelevant.
I believe we have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of language and epistemology, and I’m not optimistic that we will be able to resolve this dispute within this subthread. I will, however, put your username in my notes and contact you if I put together a sequence on logic which bears on this discussion.
But I might as well give it a brief attempt.
Few things are more common in Less Wrong culture than taking things far too literally. Most people on this website come from a background of social oddity and nerd interests. The source of the average Rationalist’s superpowers is also the source of his weakness: undue attention to the finely delimited moving parts of single isolated statements. Such an orientation of mind allows deep analysis, innovative thinking, and so forth. But the danger is that natural language is too primitive of a tool to expect to be able to scrutinize single statements; arguments must be evaluated as a whole unless we’re in the realm of mathematical logic.
Perhaps it would be easier to explain if I merely claim that your original post was irrelevant and off topic. Whatever the case with the single statement that you’re analyzing, neither I nor Jiro make any claim which rests upon that foundation. Sure, you can find that statement in Jiro’s post. You can discover that sequence of Latin characters lying within the square. But did Jiro think to himself or herself that there exists an equivalence between those two concepts? Absolutely not.
I’m a little bit lost about how to elucidate this clearly. How about you take up this challenge, which I mentioned earlier in this comment: Explain in your own words what Jiro meant, complete with demonstrating an understanding of the nature of the non-central fallacy. You’re going to have to take my word for it, but I believe that completing this exercise will reveal to you why I believe it’s so important that you take the context into account rather than simply pinpointing that one statement and laying out your disagreement.
I have a strong suspicion that Old Gold is Eugine Nier. Based on this suspicion, I made a comment from the anonymous “Username2” account. This comment was deleted almost immediately by someone else logged in as Username2. I see this as additional evidence in favor of the Eugine_Nier hypothesis.
The suspicion was based on the following observations:
(1) As Lumifer has previously hinted, Old Gold’s writing style is recognizable
(2) The political opinions that he has stated so far are also recognizable
(3) The rapid increase in Karma on Old Gold’s comment above is anomalous.
(4) Around the same time as the comments above were posted (within a 15 minute time period), the username2 account was used for a personal attack on Nancy corresponding closely to Eugine’s modus operandi.
OK, so I briefly considered that interpretation but thought it was more unlikely than that he had some unorthodox meaning attached to “rape of private property”.
So apparently he wants rape to be legal as long as it happens on private property.
OK, Clarity, in what possible sense is it a “libel” to accuse Roosh of
if in fact he
I mean, that does in fact mean legalizing a whole lot of rapes. (I would bet that a large majority of rape happens on private property, even if you adopt a narrower definition of rape than the law generally does.)
If I say I want insider stock trading to be legal provided you wear a suit when you do it, I am proposing to legalize insider trading. If I say I want murder to be legal unless it’s done with a gun, I am proposing to legalize murder. If I say I want making copies of copyrighted works to be legal if it’s done by men rather than women, I am proposing to legalize copyright infringement. And: if I say that I want rape to be legal if it’s done on private property, I am proposing to legalize rape.
(For the absolute avoidance of doubt: I am not, in fact, making any of those proposals.)
The proposal has nothing to do with that. This is Roosh’s real proposal: “Pay more attention to me! I’m still edgy and obscene and dangerous!”
And it’s working.
Oh, very likely, but Clarity claimed that people were libelling Roosh for proposing to legalize rape when actually he’s just proposing, er, to legalize rape. My bemusement at this has basically nothing to do with how sincere Roosh is or what ulterior motives he may have for proposing to legalize rape.
(Unless his proposal is so obviously not intended to be taken seriously that the objection should be not “he wants to legalize rape” but something more like “he thinks legalizing rape is a reasonable thing to propose as a joke”, I guess.)
I agree with this framing for this specific case, but I do want to point out that there are huge noncentral fallacy issues with this framing in general; if I say “hey, we should add an age difference exemption to all the statutory rape laws that don’t have one yet” that would be arguing for legalizing some rapes (because it involves redefining rape).
(The steelman of Roosh is basically arguing that, instead of changing campus culture to reflect the law, we should change the law to reflect campus culture. So it’s certainly skeevy enough that “legalizing rape” has fair connotations, and that’s even before one drops out of the steelman lens and into the literal lens.)
Yup, I agree. That’s why I remarked that I think a large majority of rapes fall into the category he’s proposing should be legal, even if you adopt a relatively narrow definition of rape.
Of course, I could be wrong. (And I could have said more explicitly that “legalize some instances of X” is by no means always fairly summarized as “legalize X”.)
His overall point is that the current memes circulating in the general public on the topic of rape are ineffective at handling the issue, and furthermore that they’re so ineffective that getting rid of them altogether and doing something as extreme as legalizing rape on private property would actually lead to a better aggregate outcome for not only men but also women.
At least that’s my interpretation.
Note that Roosh writes a lot of satirical essays that are supposed to systematically introduce various details that he thinks are important while suggesting a general conclusion. This I think is a common tactic for people who write on controversial topics or have a lot to allude to and brainstorm about but don’t have a fully fleshed out conclusion to simply state directly.
Here is another example of his non-literal exposition style.
The idea of how the law is supposed to benefit woman is by making woman so fearful of getting raped that they don’t go home with a boy after a club night.
It’s that woman are too promiscuous and have to be forced by fear to to less promiscuous. It’s an ugly argument.
You’re taking it too literally. See here for a better explanation of what Roosh means.
That’s his PR strategy, for sure. He wouldn’t be nearly as popular if he wrote rigorously thought-out expositions using neutral language and containing a lot of qualifiers to make sure nobody thinks he’s a bad person.
While I think part of his mission puts being famous and notorious as an end in and of itself, I don’t think we should assume he’s not also genuinely motivated by an attempt to disseminate information that he believes is important. For a brief attempt to translate the overall point of his article on legalizing rape into language that’s more literal, see this post I just submitted elsewhere in this thread.
I’m not particularly interested in reading it; he’s neither my ally nor my enemy, and I find neither what he says, nor how he says it, particularly entertaining or useful. I’d guess it’s something along the idea that “Removing safety rails make people behave more safety-consciously”, or consideration of its converse, “Safety rails make people behave less safety-consciously”. Which is true, but… premature. Society isn’t there quite yet. We have at least another decade, although things are accelerating a bit, so it’s hard to pin down a time.
Shrug I encountered exposure to his ideas back when I read Captain Capitalism, before that blog turned into yet another outlet for the backlash against the constant overreach of social justice types. I find him… unnecessary.
ETA: Ugh. I regret having participated in this.
No need to read it. I don’t think Roosh is very good. For me reading him even for a few minutes feels like akrasia. I guess I’m more entertained by the style than you are, but entertainment is different than education. My priority is the latter.
For reference, it’s not just the safety-rail consideration, though that’s relevant too. It’s also that the current cultural landscape removes personal responsibility in many cases. Women will sometimes regret having sex the same way anyone may regret eating a cookie (they felt good then, but feel bad now). While no man would be proud of being the sexual equivalent of junk food during a one-night stand with a woman, I think today’s society is a bit trigger happy in such situations in saying the man took advantage of the woman instead of saying that she indulged in the moment and later thought herself hedonistic.
Making rape legal on private property would be the most extreme version of expecting personal responsibility from women. It certainly goes (way) too far, but within the fog of satire I believe Roosh has a point. Though, again, I wouldn’t recommend his writing to someone looking for thoughtfulness or rigor.
Ahh..the: it’s not rape if she liked it argument!
rape is a serious accusation and all though some women may feel the way you described/misuse the legal system… I doubt that it’s a common occurrence, most women are ashamed to admit they’ve been raped...don’t think many would put themselves through the stress of it willy nilly.
Haven’t read the article, but even if the idea of legalizing rape on private property is looked at as sincere for even a second… it falls flat on its face. Marital rape is a thing that happens, seems likely this legalization would condone it. And so long as we’re talking about responsibility, it would be the responsibility of the owners of properties legally raping people to put up a sign saying as much..kinda like the beware of angry dog ones...except about rape...which I don’t think would catch on.
I assume the “it’s not rape if she liked it” argument refers to circumstances where the woman doesn’t consent to the sexual encounter, but then changes her mind part of the way through. In other words, we’re talking about a shift from “don’t want” (when the sex started) to “want” (before the sex is over), and describing the general result as “she liked it”. It would be more precise, of course, to phrase it as, “She didn’t like it and then she did like it.”
Now, which part of my post were you saying fit that argument?
I assume you meant this part.
With the considerations above in mind, I don’t see how my point fits the “it’s not rape if she liked it” argument. While that argument refers to situations where the woman felt averse to sex but then changed her mind part of the way through (with no specification about how she felt afterwards, the following day, and so on); on the other hand my example refers to situations where the woman wanted the sex both during the initial escalation and throughout the entire act (but then felt regret later on).
Let me know if I misinterpreted you.
I’m under the impression that when alcohol is involved the average person is more likely to use the words “taken advantage of” than “raped” unless the woman is passed out.
I wasn’t necessarily referring to misusing the legal system, though that’s probably an issue in certain isolated cases. My concern, instead, is that Western culture at this time in history seems to allow women an escape route from admitting personal responsibility for certain actions.
Women may not be flocking to the justice system, but there’s certainly a trend where female sexual hedonism is blamed on the men who take up the offers.
It was a satirical article and Roosh has no intention of trying to legalize rape on private property. I don’t necessarily suggest reading the article, as it’s long and liable for misinterpretation from anyone unfamiliar with the PUA community, but if you want to criticize his reasoning in a disciplined and responsible manner then you’re going to have to take the plunge.
If you do decide to read the article, feel free to post in this sub-thread any counterarguments you come up with.
If you say you want insider stock trading to be legal as long as you wear a suit, but your rationale is “it’s so easy to convict innocent people of insider stock trading that the benefits from stopping false convictions outweighs the harm done by the insider trading”, then that’s the noncentral fallacy—a noncentral use of “want”. Normally saying that someone wants X carries the connotation that they like X and don’t believe X causes harm, which isn’t true in this case.
If you don’t want people to be convicted of rape based on evidence obtained by torture, you also “want rape to be legal” (specifically, you want the subset of rapes “rapes where evidence is only obtained by using torture” to be legal) but describing it that way would be misleading. You don’t think rape is good, you just think encouraging torture is worse than rape. It would be possible to think that encouraging false accusations is worse than rape as well (especially if false accusations are common) and want to allow some rapes so you can discourage false accusations in the same way that you might want to allow some rapes to discourage torture.
(I really hope it’s okay to even talk about this. I would rather not get banned.)
My impression is that incivility and social obliviousness is really what gets to people. The couple people I’ve seen banned here over the past year or so, even though many people pointed to the non-PC content of their posts as the reason for the ban, I believe that was a misinterpretation. They were banned for being unlikeable and uncivil. Simple as that.
This mirrors my experience on almost any forum out there, except where systematic censorship exists for the benefit of a certain established agenda (like selling a product).
I don’t think anyone is saying that Roosh wants rape. Only that he wants (many instances of) rape to be legal. Which is in fact what he wants (or, at least, what he says he wants; he may not be sincere).
There is a risk of the noncentral fallacy here—if someone proposes to make a small minority of atypical instances of something legal, that’s not fairly described by saying they want to legalize whatever-it-is. But AIUI most rapes are committed on private property, even if (as I can imagine Roosh might want to) you take “rape” to imply outright nonconsent and force or threat or the like. (I confess I don’t have statistics to hand to back up this claim.) If I’m right about this, then Roosh is proposing to legalize most rapes, and I think it’s reasonable to describe that by saying he want to legalize rape.
I’m sure it’s true[1] that he wants to do this because he sees bad side-effects of the illegality of rape, rather than because he would like there to be more rape. But I think this is very often the case when people propose to legalize things, and therefore saying “Roosh proposes to legalize rape” doesn’t amount to claiming he likes rape.
[1] Or at least true-according-to-what-he-says; again, he might not be sincere.
Given that people call the gatherings proposed by Roosh to be gatherings of rapists, I’m not sure whether that’s true.
I don’t think “sincere” is the best word to use here.
You’re contrasting “interpret him literally” with “assume he’s not sincere”, but I don’t see a connection. It’s entirely possible that he’s completely sincere in his attempt to communicate certain information through a satirical article. That is, he may be honest in his communication attempt but speaking in a way where interpreting him in too straightforward of a way would lead to misinterpretation.
This is I believe what he’s doing. See here for another post of mine, building on the points I made in my previous reply to you. It seems clear to me that he’s writing a satirical polemic against a societal trend that he believes exists where women are not expected to bear personal responsibility for certain actions (such as voluntarily increasing their time preference through alcohol consumption).
For reference, did you read his article in full?
You seem to be confused here. Rape is and should be illegal. This however does not conflict with the idea that there are limits to what the state can do to obtain convictions in criminal cases. Laws prohibiting extracting confessions under torture, warrantless searches, the principle that the accused is innocent until proven guilty, etc., are on the books to prevent innocent people from being convicted by overzealous prosecutors (or by an overzealous system). They are in no way an endorsement of the offending behavior.
Let’s consider two of the lines from Jiro’s post:
Put together, it seems obvious that Jiro is pointing out a verbal technicality and you’re interpreting him as if he means what he’s explicitly saying he doesn’t mean.
Jiro’s post is highly contextual and makes sense only by taking into account what he’s responding to. You may want to re-read the subthread.
Upvoted for skillful use of diplomacy.
I may be missing Jiro’s point, but it seems to me that he is stating that having limits on what the prosecution can do to achieve a conviction in rape cases is somehow the same as making rape legal. It is exactly that point that I am disagreeing with. Not allowing torture to obtain a conviction for a crime is not the same as making the crime legal.
Allow me to paraphrase the essentials of the conversation in my own words:
To be concise, Roosh said that we should “legalize rape on private property”, various people described that viewpoint as Roosh “wanting to legalize rape”, and Jiro is claiming that such a phrasing is misleading. When we use the phrase “want X”, we usually mean that we like X. But Roosh isn’t saying that he likes rape.
From your original reply:
Jiro drew an analogy to Roosh’s argument, and then advised against describing the content of that analogy with the words “want rape to be legal”, because it makes it sound like the arguer endorses rape. And then your rebuttal included clarifying that putting into effect the law explained in the analogy would not, in fact, be an endorsement of rape.
Put as simply as possible, Jiro used an analogy to suggest against describing Roosh’s argument as X because it causes people to react like Y (which would constitute a misinterpretation), and then in response you wrote a post which was purely a matter of reacting like Y.
Let this be a lesson for how easily words lead to systematic miscommunication.
I suspect that you are taking an expansive interpretation of what it is in the OP that I am objecting to. As I have already stated, I am objecting to exactly one statement:
And, I will repeat and (hopefully) clarify my objection as well:
Making rape legal is not the same as not permitting the state to resort to torture to obtain a conviction in rape cases. Making rape legal is tantamount to a legal endorsement of rape in the sense that the law is stating that it is legally OK to commit a rape, and that the law will not take action against the perpetrator of that rape. Declining to allow torture to be used to obtain a conviction in a rape case is however not an endorsement of rape.
The distinction I am making is a distinction with tangible differences. For example, suppose action X is taken against person Y. Now consider two different scenarios:
X is legal.
X is illegal, but there is insufficient evidence against any suspected perpetrator to allow a conviction without, for example, resorting to torture to obtain a confession.
In scenario 1, legally no crime has been committed (because X is legal). Therefore, person Y is not a victim of a crime. This means that person Y is not entitled to victim’s services. Beyond that, since there is no crime, it is doubtful that the state will even mount an investigation. And, there could be implications for insurance settlements and/or liability resulting from action X as well (e.g. suppose X occurs at a nightclub with lax security. If X is legal, it is less likely that person Y would win a liability settlement against the facility than it would be if X were illegal).
In scenario 2, a crime has been committed. Presumably the state will mount an investigation, update crime statistics to reflect the incident, attempt to bring the perpetrator to justice, etc. Even if no one can be convicted or even brought to trial, person Y is recognized as a victim of a crime and would be eligible for victim’s services (if victims’ services are offered by the state). And, recognition that a crime has occurred can in some cases be beneficial to person Y’s psychological recovery from the incident, and could factor in to liability settlements, etc.
I believe that I understand the point that Jiro is attempting to make with the OP. However the argument presented utilizes a false equivalence between (X being legal) and (X being illegal but not allowing torture to be used to obtain a conviction for X). It is that false equivalence that I am objecting to.
Finally, your comment:
frankly sounds condescending; IMO comments like that are inappropriate for LW.
This is your problem right here. You can’t simply single out a specific statement and attempt to grapple with its internal logic. Again, Jiro’s response is highly contextual and only makes sense when you consider the big picture. Have you read the subthread carefully, going all the way back to Clarity’s question? Have you read Roosh’s article? If you haven’t done these things, then you’re being irresponsible in your attempt to interpret Jiro.
Let’s look again at the statement you’re objecting to:
Oh wait, you misquoted Jiro. Let’s take a look at what Jiro actually said:
See the quotation marks?
Jiro’s whole response was an attempt to explain that we shouldn’t use the phrase “want rape to be legal” to describe either Roosh’s position (that rape should be legal on private property) or the analogy (that rape convictions based on evidence obtained by torture should be thrown out) because it makes it sound like Roosh or the hypothetical person in the analogy endorses rape.
If I sound condescending, it’s because it’s tiresome to argue with someone who is taking a single point as literally as possible while neglecting to look into the context of the discussion.
Taking a step back:
Jiro expressed uneasiness about submitting his or her post, probably because he or she knows how likely explicit discussions on these topics are to provoke angry or offended replies. While you didn’t seem offended, you nevertheless began your reply with an emotionally charged claim that Jiro seemed “confused”. I’m sure you’re aware that such phrasing provokes the same kind of emotions that you’re experiencing with my patronizing responses.
I believe that it’s very important for people to speak openly on these kinds of subjects, so when Jiro made what I interpreted as a solid point and then showed uneasiness about being part of the conversation, I found this somewhat alarming. I wrote a reply, and then soon afterwards I discovered your response, which began in a condescending way and then continued into what I considered (and still consider) a misinterpretation which demonstrates lack of care and thoroughness and stands as a frivolous disincentive for Jiro to jump into similar discussions in the future.
I admit that I felt a bit of annoyance right from the beginning. The emotional charge you can feel channeled through my words is a product of status-posturing emotions related to defending Jiro.
Thanks for the lengthy response. I better understand the cause of the disagreement. And, I reread my response to the OP with your comments in mind, and you are 100% correct; I did sound more irritated and dismissive than I had any reason to (when I used the word “confused”). That was not my intention; I apologize for any offense caused.
In addition, I would like to respond to and/or comment on some of your other comments. You asked:
Yes and yes. It was an interesting thread. However the point I was making was not about what Roosh may or may not have meant in his article, nor was it about Clarity’s question, nor about gjm’s comments to Clarity’s question. All of those are interesting topics, and I have opinions on them, but I did not express them. Why not? Because the discussion volume on all of those topics has been large enough that my opinion on each of the main controversial points of the thread has been stated by someone else (in some cases, by multiple people); my stating opinions that have already been stated would add little value to the conversation. However, Jiro’s post did contain a statement that had not been addressed elsewhere and that I thought should be addressed, so I addressed it.
You also said:
Actually, you can. Jiro made a propositional statement and it can be evaluated independently without rehashing the entire thread history.
Agreed – Jiro’s entire response was multifaceted, nuanced and complex, and were I disagreeing with his/her entire comment, the context of the thread would be relevant. The one statement I was commenting on however was self-standing and could be evaluated as such:
And, no, the quotes in the original do not significantly change the meaning of the sentence; certainly they do not render my objections (stated here) invalid.
So, why did I think that this one statement was important enough to respond to? Two reasons:
The statement is factually incorrect – it expresses a false equivalence, as explained here
The belief is not only factually incorrect, it is actually harmful; if widely held, it would have a pernicious effect on the justice system. If it was widely believed that placing reasonable limits on what the state can do to win a conviction for some offense is the same as making that offense legal, you could expect to see increased demands (and eventually capitulation to those demands) to actually allow torture to obtain convictions, or to reduce the standard of proof from “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” to “guilty by the preponderance of evidence”, or even “guilty by the majority of the evidence”, etc. This is especially true for crimes that tend to evoke strong emotional responses in the public. This is not a theoretical objection – there are currently voices arguing for torture to be used in cases involving terrorism, for example.
Understood, but as stated, my objection was to a single point; various responses to the bulk of the thread’s controversial points have been discussed at length elsewhere. Therefore, it would have been pointless for me to address the entirety of the thread.
Yes, valid point. I apologize for that.
Understood, and your desire to defend a fellow LWer is noble. My feeling, however, based on Jiro’s history of high-quality, well-argued comments, is that Jiro is in no need of verbal defense. Jiro has a higher karma score than either you or I do, and has (I suspect) a history at LW longer than mine (not sure about yours). None of that of course changes the fact that my initial comment was unduly abrasive, however.
I appreciate the level-headed emotional de-escalation.
And with that, onto the content:
Understood. The next thing I’m wondering, then, is whether you’ve read this article. The reason I’m asking is because that’s the full and original explanation of the non-central fallacy, the fallacy that Jiro was claiming was exemplified by saying that Roosh “wants rape to be legal”.
Whatever your answer to that question, I would like to make a request. Can you re-state Jiro’s original argument in your own words? I don’t mean simply repeating the propositional logic inherent in the single statement that you’re objecting to; I mean explaining in full detail what Jiro meant to convey.
Oh wait, I guess you may think that my request is irrelevant.
I believe we have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of language and epistemology, and I’m not optimistic that we will be able to resolve this dispute within this subthread. I will, however, put your username in my notes and contact you if I put together a sequence on logic which bears on this discussion.
But I might as well give it a brief attempt.
Few things are more common in Less Wrong culture than taking things far too literally. Most people on this website come from a background of social oddity and nerd interests. The source of the average Rationalist’s superpowers is also the source of his weakness: undue attention to the finely delimited moving parts of single isolated statements. Such an orientation of mind allows deep analysis, innovative thinking, and so forth. But the danger is that natural language is too primitive of a tool to expect to be able to scrutinize single statements; arguments must be evaluated as a whole unless we’re in the realm of mathematical logic.
Perhaps it would be easier to explain if I merely claim that your original post was irrelevant and off topic. Whatever the case with the single statement that you’re analyzing, neither I nor Jiro make any claim which rests upon that foundation. Sure, you can find that statement in Jiro’s post. You can discover that sequence of Latin characters lying within the square. But did Jiro think to himself or herself that there exists an equivalence between those two concepts? Absolutely not.
I’m a little bit lost about how to elucidate this clearly. How about you take up this challenge, which I mentioned earlier in this comment: Explain in your own words what Jiro meant, complete with demonstrating an understanding of the nature of the non-central fallacy. You’re going to have to take my word for it, but I believe that completing this exercise will reveal to you why I believe it’s so important that you take the context into account rather than simply pinpointing that one statement and laying out your disagreement.
I believe the relevant term is “satrie”. Or should we start accusing Swift of promoting cannibalism.
Note to moderators:
I have a strong suspicion that Old Gold is Eugine Nier. Based on this suspicion, I made a comment from the anonymous “Username2” account. This comment was deleted almost immediately by someone else logged in as Username2. I see this as additional evidence in favor of the Eugine_Nier hypothesis.
The suspicion was based on the following observations:
(1) As Lumifer has previously hinted, Old Gold’s writing style is recognizable
(2) The political opinions that he has stated so far are also recognizable
(3) The rapid increase in Karma on Old Gold’s comment above is anomalous.
(4) Around the same time as the comments above were posted (within a 15 minute time period), the username2 account was used for a personal attack on Nancy corresponding closely to Eugine’s modus operandi.
Instead of figuring out an answer to that I’ll concede it was a poor choice of words