I find the 1 in 6 statistic you site highly dubious. Eric Raymond has a decent explanation here of what’s wrong with it.
Frankly, even the people who claim to believe it don’t act like they do, as demonstrated by the fact that they are organizing “slut walks” rather than advising women to use make up to make themselves look uglier (which is what women frequently do in times and places where the rape rate is really that high) or even advising them to avoid the parties where this rape allegedly happens. Seriously imagine if the prevalence of some other serious crime (such as burglary, mugging, or murder) were that high, people would be investing in body guards and improved security not demonstrating for their right to walk alone at night down dark alleys wearing expansive jewelery.
advising women to use make up to make themselves look uglier
That sounds like it would make it harder for them to get consensual sex either. The analogue of that wouldn’t be just wearing ostensibly cheap clothes so that muggers, pickpockets, etc. won’t target you, it would be leaving your wallet at home so that you can’t even spend money if you do want to.
And if victims of thieves were customarily asked why they were carrying money in the first place if they were going to keep it for themselves (as if the askers didn’t realize that someone could be willing to potentially give money to people but not to anyone who asks, or more realistically as if they were envious that they’re not the ones being given the money) and accused of being prodigal, they’d be probably eventually be quite rightly pissed off by that.
That sounds like it would make it harder for them to get consensual sex either.
So you admit that these alleged “rapes” are some combination of sufficiently rare and/or insufficiently bad, that the expected utility loss from them is less than the expected utility gain from the increased amount of consensual sex?
It also matters how much rarer rapes are given modest clothes than given sexy clothes, to which question I’ve heard that the answer is “not so much as one would expect”.
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, the most recently available rape victimization rate is 0.4 per 1000 people. Applying the 0.91 percentage of female rape victims corrects this to 0.364 per 1000,
0.364 female rape victims per 1000 people total, or 0.364 female rape victims per 508 women. If he’s going to say stuff like ‘1/7 isn’t compatible with 1/6’ (seriously—are we talking about watchmaking?), he shouldn’t be making factor-of-two mistakes himself.
EDIT, 21 Sep 2013: And of course 0.4 x 0.91 = 0.364 is most likely false precision.
Seriously imagine if the prevalence of some other serious crime (such as burglary, mugging, or murder)
Murder obviously doesn’t sound comparable, and ISTM it’s not like people living where the rate of mugging is of the order of 0.1 per person per lifetime are that terrorized. (Sicilians do rally against the mafia once in a while.)
EDIT: I’ve started to read the comments to the article you linked to and… Wow. Suffice it to say that I am appalled that the same person as the editor of the Jargon File would be that bad at middle-school maths.
Non-negligible prior probability.
(See this.)
I find the 1 in 6 statistic you site highly dubious. Eric Raymond has a decent explanation here of what’s wrong with it.
Frankly, even the people who claim to believe it don’t act like they do, as demonstrated by the fact that they are organizing “slut walks” rather than advising women to use make up to make themselves look uglier (which is what women frequently do in times and places where the rape rate is really that high) or even advising them to avoid the parties where this rape allegedly happens. Seriously imagine if the prevalence of some other serious crime (such as burglary, mugging, or murder) were that high, people would be investing in body guards and improved security not demonstrating for their right to walk alone at night down dark alleys wearing expansive jewelery.
That sounds like it would make it harder for them to get consensual sex either. The analogue of that wouldn’t be just wearing ostensibly cheap clothes so that muggers, pickpockets, etc. won’t target you, it would be leaving your wallet at home so that you can’t even spend money if you do want to.
And if victims of thieves were customarily asked why they were carrying money in the first place if they were going to keep it for themselves (as if the askers didn’t realize that someone could be willing to potentially give money to people but not to anyone who asks, or more realistically as if they were envious that they’re not the ones being given the money) and accused of being prodigal, they’d be probably eventually be quite rightly pissed off by that.
So you admit that these alleged “rapes” are some combination of sufficiently rare and/or insufficiently bad, that the expected utility loss from them is less than the expected utility gain from the increased amount of consensual sex?
I dunno, having no first-hand experience.
It also matters how much rarer rapes are given modest clothes than given sexy clothes, to which question I’ve heard that the answer is “not so much as one would expect”.
From that article:
0.364 female rape victims per 1000 people total, or 0.364 female rape victims per 508 women. If he’s going to say stuff like ‘1/7 isn’t compatible with 1/6’ (seriously—are we talking about watchmaking?), he shouldn’t be making factor-of-two mistakes himself.
EDIT, 21 Sep 2013: And of course 0.4 x 0.91 = 0.364 is most likely false precision.
Murder obviously doesn’t sound comparable, and ISTM it’s not like people living where the rate of mugging is of the order of 0.1 per person per lifetime are that terrorized. (Sicilians do rally against the mafia once in a while.)
EDIT: I’ve started to read the comments to the article you linked to and… Wow. Suffice it to say that I am appalled that the same person as the editor of the Jargon File would be that bad at middle-school maths.