I was thinking of a movie that shows how the Nazi was mislead into gassing people, not simply one that makes the bald statement “this man is an ordinary human, yet also kills people”.
The article doesn’t show how he was misled into thinking that someone flirting with him while they’re both drunk is consenting to any sex act, or into thinking that he gets to weigh the damage rape does to his victims against his fun. It just says that he thinks that, then adds “But I don’t wanna feel like a bad person, waaaah!”.
Re-read the article. He doesn’t claim his actions were the correct decision.
It’s right there in the title. Also at the end
Some might think it’s monstrous of me to keep drinking, keep partying. But I have had so many good, positive, happy experiences because I took a chance and altered my state and connected with someone else sexually, it seems crazy to throw all that away.
But IIRC the author of the essay does criticize his own reasoning where it lead him to rape, although obviously not enough to stop. And he doesn’t offer any defense of rape at all, he just assumes it to be bad
Yeah, but that’s like our Nazi character saying “Sure, it’s sad when we kill Jews. But if we don’t they’ll destroy the Aryan race, so it’s worth it.”.
We’re not discussing someone advocating bad things and it being defended for anti-censorship reasons.
He’s advocating laxer social punishment for people who rape at parties. You’re defending it because you think people should know about his reasoning.
The article doesn’t show how he was misled into thinking that someone flirting with him while they’re both drunk is consenting to any sex act,
I think you need to re-read the article. It describes, from the inside, someone who raped without believing that rape is OK. Most people in our society are aware that rape is Bad. Obviously rapists are more likely to believe that rape is OK, but here we have a rapist who acknowledges that what he did was wrong, and thus is able to give significantly less biased account. That’s valuable information for most people.
It’s right there in the title. Also at the end
Saying “I’m going to do this” is different from providing arguments why that’s the correct decision. He admits he can’t justify it;
He’s advocating laxer social punishment for people who rape at parties.
Deciding someone is an inhuman monster is not a punishment, it’s an error of rationality.
Lots of people believe “rape is bad, rape is a stranger leaping out of the bushes, rape isn’t sex with someone too drunk to know who you are”. That isn’t news. This guy believed that, then learned better, then shrugged and kept on raping. I guess the valuable info is “Telling people what rape is might not convince them to stop”.
He admits he can’t justify it
He doesn’t even admit it’s bad. (“And maybe finding it livable-with condemns us all to hell. I don’t know.”) The reaction he’s going for is “Yeah, it’s more complicated than I thought, we shouldn’t be so harsh on you.”. In particular he’s telling that to himself, and hoping to get external validation for that.
It’d be a very different story if he was saying “This is horrible, but I can’t bring myself to stop. Where can I get help?”.
Deciding someone is an inhuman monster is not a punishment, it’s an error of rationality.
Aren’t you reading too much into the denotation of insults? He’s a specimen of H. sapiens with normal psychological development given his environment. He’s also a person whose actions are harmful, and who should be pressured to stop through guilt and shunning. (And removed from society, but we don’t know who to jail; if Brand has info he’s not saying.)
Lots of people believe “rape is bad, rape is a stranger leaping out of the bushes, rape isn’t sex with someone too drunk to know who you are”. That isn’t news. This guy believed that, then learned better, then shrugged and kept on raping. I guess the valuable info is “Telling people what rape is might not convince them to stop”.
It’s possible that you know so much on the subject that this essay genuinely doesn’t contain any information you can use.
He doesn’t even admit it’s bad. (“And maybe finding it livable-with condemns us all to hell. I don’t know.”) The reaction he’s going for is “Yeah, it’s more complicated than I thought, we shouldn’t be so harsh on you.”. In particular he’s telling that to himself, and hoping to get external validation for that.
He admits, repeatedly, that it’s bad. He also admits that he’s conflicted, and a mixture of akrasia, uncertainty and plain old hypocrisy means that he’s not modifying his behavior as a result of this fact. But he doesn’t claim that this is in any way the “right choice”. Furthermore, he doesn’t claim we shouldn’t punish him or whatever—although clearly he’s not exactly turning himself in—he claims (more or less) that we should stop modelling him, and others like him, as The Enemy and more as, well, people. People who have done things with some horrific consequences, but nonetheless people, not “predators” hiding beneath a human skin. To model our political enemies as Evil Monsters is a persistent fault in human rationality, for obvious evopsych reasons. It may not do all that much damage when it deals with rapists (although it’s harder to stop something you don’t understand.) But this is nonetheless a bias that should be fought, because in other, less forgiving circumstances it can produce horrific results (including some rapists more dangerous than this guy, ironically.)
It’d be a very different story if he was saying “This is horrible, but I can’t bring myself to stop. Where can I get help?”.
It would be happier ending, sure, and obviously I wish that’s how it had ended. But the virtue ethics of the author does not tarnish the information in the text, as long as it’s not biased (it’s a hell of a lot less biased than most such essays.)
Aren’t you reading too much into the denotation of insults? He’s a specimen of H. sapiens with normal psychological development given his environment. He’s also a person whose actions are harmful, and who should be pressured to stop through guilt and shunning. (And removed from society, but we don’t know who to jail; if Brand has info he’s not saying.)
Once again, there is a difference between deciding, for the good of the tribe, to treat this man like a demon that crawled into your friend’s skin if you meet him on the street. (Although I suspect that’s suboptimal, somehow.) But in terms of rationality—y’know, the thing this site is about? - it is factually wrong to be modelling him as one. And it’s dangerous, judging from history, to start demonizing those who don’t demonize.
It’s possible that you know so much on the subject that this essay genuinely doesn’t contain any information you can use.
Articles and studies on the psychology of rapists aren’t rare. If someone doesn’t understand all that much how rape works, they should read the Yes means yes blog, not an article saying “Consent is complicated”.
People who have done things with some horrific consequences, but nonetheless people, not “predators” hiding beneath a human skin.
I’m confused. Can you describe some differences between the two models?
The man who believes it’s sinful for his wife not to put out is following moral principles, and is just factually mistaken. The woman who rapes someone, then is horrified and turns herself in, is trying to follow correct moral principles and failing due to akrasia. The man who knows he’s raping people but is uncomfortable with admitting he should stop and thus doesn’t try… isn’t that best described by “evil monster”? Dude is the villain of his own story!
as long as it’s not biased (it’s a hell of a lot less biased than most such essays.)
You mean because it shows the cognitive dissonance between “rape is bad” and “I don’t wanna stop raping” head-on?
Articles and studies on the psychology of rapists aren’t rare.
Informative ones, by actual rapists, who aren’t defending rape, are pretty damn rare.
If someone doesn’t understand all that much how rape works, they should read the Yes means yes blog
Funny.
an article saying “Consent is complicated”.
Please stop claiming that’s all this is. I’ve refuted it like five times now.
I’m confused. Can you describe some differences between the two models?
Imagine two serial killers. One is a robot, sent from the future to kill Sarah Conner. The other is crazy, and believes that only he can stop the Moon People from taking over.
You mean because it shows the cognitive dissonance between “rape is bad” and “I don’t wanna stop raping” head-on?
Pretty much. It’s not trying to persuade you that rape is OK, it’s trying to help you understand why (some) rape happens, and that it doesn’t require an evil mutant or even a particularly dangerous person (except to the people getting raped, obviously.)
PS:
The man who believes it’s sinful for his wife not to put out is following moral principles, and is just factually mistaken. The woman who rapes someone, then is horrified and turns herself in, is trying to follow correct moral principles and failing due to akrasia. The man who knows he’s raping people but is uncomfortable with admitting he should stop and thus doesn’t try… isn’t that best described by “evil monster”? Dude is the villain of his own story!
Imagine two serial killers. One is a robot, sent from the future to kill Sarah Conner. The other is crazy, and believes that only he can stop the Moon People from taking over.
Okay, so you’re trying to say that… rapists don’t literally endorse hurting humanity? They know that rape does so, and they don’t try to figure out a way to stop, and you have to use force to make them stop because moral concerns don’t move them, but unlike evil mutant robot monsters, they feel guilty about it and write self-pitying essays?
it’s trying to help you understand why (some) rape happens
No it isn’t. It’s trying to help me understand what rapists tell themselves is why rape happens. I very much doubt those are the real causes.
and that it doesn’t require an evil mutant or even a particularly dangerous person (except to the people getting raped, obviously.)
If the scores of articles by feminists about how anyone, no matter how charming and friendly and good to have in your tribe, can be a predator don’t convince people, but this one article by a rapist does… then the article is worthwhile and I weep for humanity.
I don’t understand this bit.
I was giving examples of rapists who think of themselves as good people. The first has incorrect beliefs about morality, and does what he believes is right. The second has correct beliefs, but fails to follow them once, though she does most of the time. Someone who has correct beliefs about morality and consistently fails to act on them (akrasia shmakrasia, he’s not trying to figure out a way to make himself stop) pretty much has to think of himself as evil.
articles by feminists about how anyone, no matter how charming and friendly and good to have in your tribe, can be a predator
Chirping in: This formulation is problematic. Rapists aren’t “predators disguising as people” until they shed their social pretense and let loose their inner evil upon unsuspecting victims. This is not a “one of them could be inherently rapist, we just don’t know who”.
Until they rape, rapists are just people in the exact same way that until they get elected/nominated politicians are just people. It could be argued that for the entire set of all humans, there exists for each human at least one non-contrived configuration-space of “current situation” in which they would rape, either by choice while aware of it, by choice while not realizing that it’s rape, or with some form of pressure that makes it clearly unreasonable not to.
After the rape, have those people become fundamentally changed in some way? Are their neural systems now different, and now optimizing for a completely different utility function that has a parameter for reducing other peoples’ utility as much as possible? They’re still the same people, to the extent that “same people” remain “same people” throughout time.
Someone who has correct beliefs about morality and consistently fails to act on them (akrasia shmakrasia, he’s not trying to figure out a way to make himself stop) pretty much has to think of himself as evil.
This… doesn’t seem to follow. They do have to think of themselves as perfect on pain of not being perfectly consistent, yes. However, making the jump from there to “evil because not maximizing morality” is far-fetched, and I doubt most of these people are rational and/or smart enough to even reason about this in these terms.
Rapists aren’t “predators disguising as people” until they shed their social pretense and let loose their inner evil upon unsuspecting victims. This is not a “one of them could be inherently rapist, we just don’t know who”.
There is such a thing as a rapist type. A little over half of rapists are repeat offenders, with six victims on average. This group is also more likely to slap or choke people they have sex with, and to hit children. (And also to commit sexual assault, but at this point that’s obvious.)
The remaining group, of one-time rapists, probably matches your model.
Until they rape, rapists are just people in the exact same way that until they get elected/nominated politicians are just people. It could be argued that for the entire set of all humans, there exists for each human at least one non-contrived configuration-space of “current situation” in which they would rape, either by choice while aware of it, by choice while not realizing that it’s rape, or with some form of pressure that makes it clearly unreasonable not to.
I’m pretty sure that’s false, assuming we’re counting fuck-or-die situations (where both parties are being raped, anyway) and messing with meds as contrived. To stretch your metaphor horribly, until Obama was first elected he wasn’t president, but he was the type of person who wants a political career and has positions that fit in a party’s platform and can give good public speeches and raise money to campaign and so on, in the way that most people aren’t.
To take a N=1 sample, I can’t think of a non-contrived situation where I would rape. What’s more, when I model myself being born in the kind of environment that would lead me to rape, the person stops being recognizably me long before puberty. Whereas other unfortunately-raised mes remain me well into invading Poland or going postal or torturing heretics.
There are certainly some people, possibly more than I think (but way less than the whole of humanity), who can lose control. And as they’re still the same people, once they regain control of themselves, they are horrified and atone as much as they can.
Or are you thinking of something like war, where (or so I heard) people go berserk and kill and rape indiscriminately? That I’ll buy. (It does change people fundamentally, but doesn’t replace them with evilbots.) But that’s nowhere near what we’re discussing here.
making the jump from there to “evil because not maximizing morality” is far-fetched
Wait, is the jump from “anyone who chooses to do this is evil, I do this, I know ways to stop doing this, I’m not taking them” to “I’m evil” far-fetched? Isn’t that as basic as cognitive dissonance gets?
There is such a thing as a rapist type. A little over half of rapists are repeat offenders, with six victims on average. This group is also more likely to slap or choke people they have sex with, and to hit children. (And also to commit sexual assault, but at this point that’s obvious.)
I understand there’s some questionable statistics here, but I have to admit that that’s reasonable enough that I don’t care if it should really be one-third or something. My model predicts that there is indeed such a cluster. Doesn’t mean they’re “‘predators disguising as people’ until they shed their social pretense and let loose their inner evil upon unsuspecting victims.” as DaFranker so helpfully put it.
The remaining group, of one-time rapists, probably matches your model.
They all match my model, except the actual psychopaths and such. Who, while probably over-represented among rapists, are by no means the norm.
I’m pretty sure that’s false, assuming we’re counting fuck-or-die situations (where both parties are being raped, anyway) and messing with meds as contrived. To stretch your metaphor horribly, until Obama was first elected he wasn’t president, but he was the type of person who wants a political career and has positions that fit in a party’s platform and can give good public speeches and raise money to campaign and so on, in the way that most people aren’t.
That doesn’t change the fact that rape, while it obviously selects somewhat, does not rewire you into a cartoon villain.
To take a N=1 sample, I can’t think of a non-contrived situation where I would rape. What’s more, when I model myself being born in the kind of environment that would lead me to rape, the person stops being recognizably me long before puberty. Whereas other unfortunately-raised mes remain me well into invading Poland or going postal or torturing heretics.
… and that doesn’t indicate to you that your model may be inserting magical personality-rewrites into Evil Mutants? It sure as hell would to me. In fact, it has. Always proved right so far. If you can’t empathize with them, you don’t understand them. Might not work on aliens, but it sure as hell works on humans.
There are certainly some people, possibly more than I think (but way less than the whole of humanity), who can lose control. And as they’re still the same people, once they regain control of themselves, they are horrified and atone as much as they can.
Or are you thinking of something like war, where (or so I heard) people go berserk and kill and rape indiscriminately? That I’ll buy. (It does change people fundamentally, but doesn’t replace them with evilbots.) But that’s nowhere near what we’re discussing here.
I wouldn’t say they “kill and rape indiscriminately”. They just kill and rape the enemy. It’s not like they’re people, right? Because if they were, that might make killing them wrong. Can’t have our soldiers thinking that, can we? (I understand the US army, at least, has switched away from demonizing their enemies in Basic Training for precisely this reason.)
Wait, is the jump from “anyone who chooses to do this is evil, I do this, I know ways to stop doing this, I’m not taking them” to “I’m evil” far-fetched? Isn’t that as basic as cognitive dissonance gets?
Calling people “evil” is tricky. There are a lot of conflicting metaethics and definitions floating around the issue. But I think it’s fair to say that “not maximizing morality” is different from “evil”. You ever spend money on chocolate? Fuck you. That money could have gone to charity. Saved lives. And you spent it on chocolate instead? Who the hell do you think you are, to put your pleasure above people dying? Of course, this goes for all nonessential expenditure. Humans don’t maximize morality, because if we did we wouldn’t be able to compete. We might want to, but if we somehow learned to defeat the layers of akrasia and bias and simple hypocrisy then we would no longer be human. Humans aren’t FAIs, we’re evolutionarily adapted to a specific niche.
I wouldn’t say they “kill and rape indiscriminately”. They just kill and rape he enemy. It’s not like they’re people, right? Because if they were, that might make killing them wrong. Can’t have our soldiers thinking that, can we? (I understand the US army, at least, has switched away from demonizing their enemies in Basic Training for precisely this reason.)
This is a complicated subject. To begin with, it’s pretty hard to get more than a small percentage of soldiers to kill people at all: until after WWII, somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of combatants in any given battle didn’t fire their weapons, and the great majority of shots fired weren’t aimed. Modern training methods aim to reduce this through associative conditioning, making training as realistic as practical, and a variety of other techniques that sometimes include dehumanization of the enemy.
Now, there’s a spectrum running from battlefield killing to full-blown atrocity, but atrocity’s also got some unique features. If you’re ordered to execute prisoners, for example, the prisoners end up dead or they don’t: you can’t shoot over their heads, or run ammunition or tend to the wounded instead of fighting, as you could in pitched battle. Because of this atrocity can be used as a tool of policy: soldiers who’ve committed war crimes have no choice but to justify them to themselves and each other, distancing them from their enemies and bonding them with a shared rationalization.
This is bidirectional, of course; committing atrocity makes it easier to commit further atrocities, and a war where many gray-area cases come up (engaging enemy fighters in civilian clothes, for example, or mistakenly shooting a surrendering soldier) is one in which deliberate atrocity becomes more likely. The US army in the last few wars has tried very hard to draw a line, partly for PR reasons and partly because atrocity isn’t well suited to recent strategic models, but the psychology involved doesn’t lie entirely within institutional hands—though institutions can of course exploit it, and many do.
soldiers who’ve committed war crimes have no choice but to justify them to themselves and each other, distancing them from their enemies and bonding them with a shared rationalization.
That occurred to me, and I decided not to bother adding a caveat, since they presumably justify it by demonizing the enemy anyway. Although I guess that some “accidental” rapists probably rationalize their crime as not a big deal when if realize what they did, which could indeed lead to more rapes. That’s a different proposition to actually turning them into a cartoon villain, but still.
It would help if you named one false prediction that my model of rapists as “Evil Mutants” makes.
This would require interpreting your “rapists are Evil Mutants” claim as about making falsifiable predictions, which would be unreasonable interpretation of your comments thus far. Instead “Rapists are Evil Mutants!” seems to be presented tautologically for the purpose of signalling your own strict virtue and social dominance within the role of moral arbiter.
We can arrive at a falsifiable interpretation if we interpret “Mutant” as an indicator that the labelled individual must be in someway genetically different from a ‘typical’ sample of the species homo sapiens sapiens—or even stretch it to mean that extreme environmental conditions have impacted it sufficiently that the individual can not be said to be exhibiting behaviors representative of its species. It is hopefully obvious to most that this makes “Rapists are Evil Mutants” both falsifiable and trivially false. This is particularly the case if we are using the rather general definition of ‘rape’ that MixedNuts prefers. (See, earlier mentions of strict consent standards and a rejection of the intuitive notions of what rape is.)
It is in fact the case that rape is bad. Violent stereotypical rape is bad. Other complicated things with insufficient quality or admissibility of consent that we call rape are also bad. Yet these are bad things that many or most actual humans would do in the right (or perhaps wrong) circumstances. Many of them are not even considered ‘evil’ by all cultures, much less as evidence of a bizarre deviancy.
We can arrive at a falsifiable interpretation if we interpret “Mutant” as an indicator that the labelled individual must be in someway genetically different from a ‘typical’ sample of the species homo sapiens sapiens—or even stretch it to mean that extreme environmental conditions have impacted it sufficiently that the individual can not be said to be exhibiting behaviors representative of its species. It is hopefully obvious to most that this makes “Rapists are Evil Mutants” both falsifiable and trivially false. This is particularly the case if we are using the rather general definition of ‘rape’ that MixedNuts prefers. (See, earlier mentions of strict consent standards and a rejection of the intuitive notions of what rape is.)
In fairness, that’s probably an overly narrow interpretation of their views. They don’t seem to believe rape is genetic, at least. It seems closer to “liberals” than “Jews”, in stereotype terms. That’s not to say it can’t produce inaccurate results, of course. Otherwise it wouldn’t be rational to avoid stereotyping.
That’s what I’m whining about. MugaSofer claims that I believe (something ey rephrases as) “rapists are Evil Mutants”, and that the essay we’re discussing is valuable because it’s evidence for the true claim “rapists are not Evil Mutants”. I’m trying to figure out what these claims mean. So far we have ruled out “rapists are genetically abnormal” (we agree this is untrue), “rapists hold true beliefs about morality but don’t care” (we agree this is true is this case), and “rapists rape due to choice, not just akrasia” (we also agree this is true in this case).
These beliefs all seem sane. (And thankyou for explaining.)
For future reference when making comments like this it may be worth making it clear that you do not in fact have the belief that your words literally attributing to yourself and are instead being misrepresented. I’m afraid the literal interpretation seemed to fit reasonably well so I did not immediately interpret it as a countersignal.
“rapists hold true beliefs about morality but don’t care” (we agree this is true is this case), and “rapists rape due to choice, not just akrasia” (we also agree this is true in this case).
That’s probably true for some rapists, sure, but it’s clearly not true for all of them. It’s generalizations that are the problem here.
Yeah, just talking about this guy. I gave examples of someone who sincerely believes marital rape is okay (falsifies “true beliefs”) and someone who immediately regrets raping and takes steps to avoid it (falsifies “choice, not akrasia”).
Well, I’m not sure how someone not raping falsifies choice, not akrasia. It just means they chose right. (And that they happened to beat akrasia.) Or do you mean it would invalidate your claim that most rapists have already made that choice?
The person with akrasia I mentioned rapes once (or, if sufficiently good at introspection, not at all), then stays well clear of any situations that would require them to exert willpower not to rape. This can be done by automatically learned aversion (“Holy crap I just raped someone” being a strong punishment), by turning oneself in, by getting therapy, by avoiding the context where they raped (such as being drunk), by avoiding all sexual activity in that context, by getting away from the kind of person one is likely to rape, etc.
Well, for one thing you seem to think that this particular rapist wrote this as part of a calculated ploy to reduce society’s defenses against him (and other rapists?) But I’m not sure how we could test that. By “Evil Mutants” I mean you’re using the neuroarchitecture that demonizes political opponents and Hated Enemies in general, if that clears anything up. I understand you’re pretty knowledgeable about rape; could you mention some predictions you don’t already know to be true? (Of course, I suspect some of your predictions regarding things you know about are wrong anyway because of poor data or whatever, but that’s harder to find and, y’know, rarer.)
you seem to think that this particular rapist wrote this as part of a calculated ploy to reduce society’s defenses against him (and other rapists?)
Not quite. I believe that the effect of the article is to reduce society’s defenses against that type of rapist, and that the author would still publish the article if he shared my belief about this. I think it’s unlikely that he has consciously thought about it, or that he would share my belief if he did. I believe that he did not decide to write the article in order to get this effect. I believe that the cause of this decision was cognitive dissonance between his beliefs “rape is bad” and “I’m a good person”, which led him to seek reassurance of the latter. I wouldn’t know what he believes was the cause; I doubt it’s “to make myself feel better” (or any other phrasing of what I think is the true cause).
By “Evil Mutants” I mean you’re using the neuroarchitecture that demonizes political opponents and Hated Enemies in general, if that clears anything up.
It’s not an answer I can use, as long as we don’t have an MRI handy. So we’ll have to settle for wrong predictions.
could you mention some predictions you don’t already know to be true
Rapists target victims who are easiest to rape and least likely to get the rapist in trouble. (pretty sure) I make no claim as to how much of that selection is conscious.
Visibly strong people are less likely to be raped. (somewhat confident)
People who display willingness to attract attention or to fight are less likely to be raped. (pretty sure, but I’m not sure I can honestly claim not to know this)
Disabled people are more likely to be raped. (somewhat confident)
Cognitively disabled people are more likely to be raped than people with other kinds of disabilities. (pretty sure)
Locked-up people get raped ten ways to Wednesday. Obviously I know about prison rape, but that covers nursing homes and long-stay psychiatric hospitals as well. (near certain)
Most behaviors commonly believed to increase risk of being raped in fact do so. Of course this is compatible with many other explanations. (pretty sure)
People who have personal harm to fear from reporting rape are more likely to be raped. This includes undocumented immigrants, sex workers on the job (major confounding here), trans people (also confounding, also I can’t claim I don’t know that), gay people where that’s illegal, and people in communities that disapprove of airing dirty laundry such as the kinky scene (confounding) and small religious communities. (pretty sure of the general idea)
Rapists target victims they find attractive (this should correlate with conventional attraction), but the effect is less strong than that of vulnerability. (somewhat confident)
Rapists are a little, but not a lot, more likely to commit non-sexual violence. (somewhat confident)
Active rapists have greater variance in status than non-rapists; they’re more likely to be either very high- or very low-status. (somewhat confident)
The smaller the social unit, the stronger the above effect is. (conditioning on it, pretty sure)
Medium- or high-status men who gain status become more likely to rape. (unsure)
Rape in a relationship (not necessarily one that’s supposed to include consensual sex), like other forms of abuse, is used as a punishment (by which I mean occurs more frequently after the abused has disobeyed, voluntarily or not, the abuser, but is unlikely to leave the relationship) if the rapist is male (near-certain) or female (somewhat confident).
Creepiness is correlated with rape in men (pretty sure) and in women (unsure).
Effects of situational partner availability (dispreferred gender, lower attractiveness, taboo pairings) are stronger for rape than for consensual sex if the rapist is male. (unsure)
Rape by men is strongly correlated with testosterone level. (somewhat confident)
Rape is strongly correlated with sexual jealousy. (somewhat confident)
Rapists are more likely to be friends with other rapists. (pretty sure)
Rapists are more likely to be friends with rapists with the same methods of operation (familiarity with the victim, use of violence, use of alcohol, use of other substances, criteria for choice of victims). (somewhat confident)
Rape is correlated with making rape jokes, mild disregard of consent (such as tickling protesting people), and what I’m going to call “comments on the victim’s behavior before and during the rape” when discussing rape cases, correcting for frequency of such behaviors in the social circle. (unsure)
Rape is negatively correlated with close relationships with known rape victims (of other perps, obviously). (somewhat confident)
If you ran that empathy study where people write “E” on their foreheads on men, they would be less empathetic primed with images of women than with images of men (pretty sure), and the effect would be stronger in active rapists of women than on non-rapists (conditioning on previous, pretty sure).
If you ran that study on women, they would be less empathetic primed with images of men than with images of women (somewhat confident), and the effect would be stronger in survivors of recent rape by a man than in non-survivors (conditioning on previous, somewhat confident).
Men who rape without use of violence are rougher when raping than when having consensual sex. (somewhat confident)
Male rapists are on median worse in bed (as judged by consensual sex partners) than non-rapists of similar sexual experience. (There’s a question of how to count the rapes toward sexual experience.) (unsure)
The kick of power (I don’t know if we know how to detect it, but it’s a clearly recognizable emotion) is stronger (in the same individual) when raping than when having consensual sex in male rapists of men (pretty sure), in male rapists of women (somewhat confident), and in female rapists (unsure).
On average, rapists seek the aforementioned feeling of status elevation more than non-rapists if male (somewhat confident) and if female (unsure).
Okay, so you’re trying to say that… rapists don’t literally endorse hurting humanity? They know that rape does so, and they don’t try to figure out a way to stop, and you have to use force to make them stop because moral concerns don’t move them, but unlike evil mutant robot monsters, they feel guilty about it and write self-pitying essays?
I’m saying that they’re human, and best modeled as such. I am not advocating any particular method of rape prevention, but since we’re on LessWrong it should come as no surprise that I think understanding the problem fully is probably going to make our solutions better.
No it isn’t. It’s trying to help me understand what rapists tell themselves is why rape happens. I very much doubt those are the real causes.
No, it isn’t. He’s clearly an atypical rapist in that regard. If he was a typical rapist, then the essay would be hopelessly biased and would never have been published. Instead it is only mildly biased, and offers an opportunity to see into the mind of a rapist via his future self, who is now aware that his actions were rape and thus doesn’t try to excuse them.
If the scores of articles by feminists about how anyone, no matter how charming and friendly and good to have in your tribe, can be a predator don’t convince people, but this one article by a rapist does… then the article is worthwhile and I weep for humanity.
Just because someone is charming doesn’t mean they can’t be a monster. Most actual psychopaths are pretty good at hiding the fact. But that doesn’t mean that we should assume that just because someone is both charming and hurting people they’re a psychopath. Because it doesn’t take a psychopath to hurt people. If it did, the world would be a very different place.
I was giving examples of rapists who think of themselves as good people.
The article doesn’t show how he was misled into thinking that someone flirting with him while they’re both drunk is consenting to any sex act, or into thinking that he gets to weigh the damage rape does to his victims against his fun. It just says that he thinks that, then adds “But I don’t wanna feel like a bad person, waaaah!”.
It’s right there in the title. Also at the end
Yeah, but that’s like our Nazi character saying “Sure, it’s sad when we kill Jews. But if we don’t they’ll destroy the Aryan race, so it’s worth it.”.
He’s advocating laxer social punishment for people who rape at parties. You’re defending it because you think people should know about his reasoning.
I think you need to re-read the article. It describes, from the inside, someone who raped without believing that rape is OK. Most people in our society are aware that rape is Bad. Obviously rapists are more likely to believe that rape is OK, but here we have a rapist who acknowledges that what he did was wrong, and thus is able to give significantly less biased account. That’s valuable information for most people.
Saying “I’m going to do this” is different from providing arguments why that’s the correct decision. He admits he can’t justify it;
Deciding someone is an inhuman monster is not a punishment, it’s an error of rationality.
Lots of people believe “rape is bad, rape is a stranger leaping out of the bushes, rape isn’t sex with someone too drunk to know who you are”. That isn’t news. This guy believed that, then learned better, then shrugged and kept on raping. I guess the valuable info is “Telling people what rape is might not convince them to stop”.
He doesn’t even admit it’s bad. (“And maybe finding it livable-with condemns us all to hell. I don’t know.”) The reaction he’s going for is “Yeah, it’s more complicated than I thought, we shouldn’t be so harsh on you.”. In particular he’s telling that to himself, and hoping to get external validation for that.
It’d be a very different story if he was saying “This is horrible, but I can’t bring myself to stop. Where can I get help?”.
Aren’t you reading too much into the denotation of insults? He’s a specimen of H. sapiens with normal psychological development given his environment. He’s also a person whose actions are harmful, and who should be pressured to stop through guilt and shunning. (And removed from society, but we don’t know who to jail; if Brand has info he’s not saying.)
It’s possible that you know so much on the subject that this essay genuinely doesn’t contain any information you can use.
He admits, repeatedly, that it’s bad. He also admits that he’s conflicted, and a mixture of akrasia, uncertainty and plain old hypocrisy means that he’s not modifying his behavior as a result of this fact. But he doesn’t claim that this is in any way the “right choice”. Furthermore, he doesn’t claim we shouldn’t punish him or whatever—although clearly he’s not exactly turning himself in—he claims (more or less) that we should stop modelling him, and others like him, as The Enemy and more as, well, people. People who have done things with some horrific consequences, but nonetheless people, not “predators” hiding beneath a human skin. To model our political enemies as Evil Monsters is a persistent fault in human rationality, for obvious evopsych reasons. It may not do all that much damage when it deals with rapists (although it’s harder to stop something you don’t understand.) But this is nonetheless a bias that should be fought, because in other, less forgiving circumstances it can produce horrific results (including some rapists more dangerous than this guy, ironically.)
It would be happier ending, sure, and obviously I wish that’s how it had ended. But the virtue ethics of the author does not tarnish the information in the text, as long as it’s not biased (it’s a hell of a lot less biased than most such essays.)
Once again, there is a difference between deciding, for the good of the tribe, to treat this man like a demon that crawled into your friend’s skin if you meet him on the street. (Although I suspect that’s suboptimal, somehow.) But in terms of rationality—y’know, the thing this site is about? - it is factually wrong to be modelling him as one. And it’s dangerous, judging from history, to start demonizing those who don’t demonize.
Articles and studies on the psychology of rapists aren’t rare. If someone doesn’t understand all that much how rape works, they should read the Yes means yes blog, not an article saying “Consent is complicated”.
I’m confused. Can you describe some differences between the two models?
The man who believes it’s sinful for his wife not to put out is following moral principles, and is just factually mistaken. The woman who rapes someone, then is horrified and turns herself in, is trying to follow correct moral principles and failing due to akrasia. The man who knows he’s raping people but is uncomfortable with admitting he should stop and thus doesn’t try… isn’t that best described by “evil monster”? Dude is the villain of his own story!
You mean because it shows the cognitive dissonance between “rape is bad” and “I don’t wanna stop raping” head-on?
Informative ones, by actual rapists, who aren’t defending rape, are pretty damn rare.
Funny.
Please stop claiming that’s all this is. I’ve refuted it like five times now.
Imagine two serial killers. One is a robot, sent from the future to kill Sarah Conner. The other is crazy, and believes that only he can stop the Moon People from taking over.
Pretty much. It’s not trying to persuade you that rape is OK, it’s trying to help you understand why (some) rape happens, and that it doesn’t require an evil mutant or even a particularly dangerous person (except to the people getting raped, obviously.)
PS:
I don’t understand this bit.
Okay, so you’re trying to say that… rapists don’t literally endorse hurting humanity? They know that rape does so, and they don’t try to figure out a way to stop, and you have to use force to make them stop because moral concerns don’t move them, but unlike evil mutant robot monsters, they feel guilty about it and write self-pitying essays?
No it isn’t. It’s trying to help me understand what rapists tell themselves is why rape happens. I very much doubt those are the real causes.
If the scores of articles by feminists about how anyone, no matter how charming and friendly and good to have in your tribe, can be a predator don’t convince people, but this one article by a rapist does… then the article is worthwhile and I weep for humanity.
I was giving examples of rapists who think of themselves as good people. The first has incorrect beliefs about morality, and does what he believes is right. The second has correct beliefs, but fails to follow them once, though she does most of the time. Someone who has correct beliefs about morality and consistently fails to act on them (akrasia shmakrasia, he’s not trying to figure out a way to make himself stop) pretty much has to think of himself as evil.
Chirping in: This formulation is problematic. Rapists aren’t “predators disguising as people” until they shed their social pretense and let loose their inner evil upon unsuspecting victims. This is not a “one of them could be inherently rapist, we just don’t know who”.
Until they rape, rapists are just people in the exact same way that until they get elected/nominated politicians are just people. It could be argued that for the entire set of all humans, there exists for each human at least one non-contrived configuration-space of “current situation” in which they would rape, either by choice while aware of it, by choice while not realizing that it’s rape, or with some form of pressure that makes it clearly unreasonable not to.
After the rape, have those people become fundamentally changed in some way? Are their neural systems now different, and now optimizing for a completely different utility function that has a parameter for reducing other peoples’ utility as much as possible? They’re still the same people, to the extent that “same people” remain “same people” throughout time.
This… doesn’t seem to follow. They do have to think of themselves as perfect on pain of not being perfectly consistent, yes. However, making the jump from there to “evil because not maximizing morality” is far-fetched, and I doubt most of these people are rational and/or smart enough to even reason about this in these terms.
There is such a thing as a rapist type. A little over half of rapists are repeat offenders, with six victims on average. This group is also more likely to slap or choke people they have sex with, and to hit children. (And also to commit sexual assault, but at this point that’s obvious.)
The remaining group, of one-time rapists, probably matches your model.
I’m pretty sure that’s false, assuming we’re counting fuck-or-die situations (where both parties are being raped, anyway) and messing with meds as contrived. To stretch your metaphor horribly, until Obama was first elected he wasn’t president, but he was the type of person who wants a political career and has positions that fit in a party’s platform and can give good public speeches and raise money to campaign and so on, in the way that most people aren’t.
To take a N=1 sample, I can’t think of a non-contrived situation where I would rape. What’s more, when I model myself being born in the kind of environment that would lead me to rape, the person stops being recognizably me long before puberty. Whereas other unfortunately-raised mes remain me well into invading Poland or going postal or torturing heretics.
There are certainly some people, possibly more than I think (but way less than the whole of humanity), who can lose control. And as they’re still the same people, once they regain control of themselves, they are horrified and atone as much as they can.
Or are you thinking of something like war, where (or so I heard) people go berserk and kill and rape indiscriminately? That I’ll buy. (It does change people fundamentally, but doesn’t replace them with evilbots.) But that’s nowhere near what we’re discussing here.
Wait, is the jump from “anyone who chooses to do this is evil, I do this, I know ways to stop doing this, I’m not taking them” to “I’m evil” far-fetched? Isn’t that as basic as cognitive dissonance gets?
I understand there’s some questionable statistics here, but I have to admit that that’s reasonable enough that I don’t care if it should really be one-third or something. My model predicts that there is indeed such a cluster. Doesn’t mean they’re “‘predators disguising as people’ until they shed their social pretense and let loose their inner evil upon unsuspecting victims.” as DaFranker so helpfully put it.
They all match my model, except the actual psychopaths and such. Who, while probably over-represented among rapists, are by no means the norm.
That doesn’t change the fact that rape, while it obviously selects somewhat, does not rewire you into a cartoon villain.
… and that doesn’t indicate to you that your model may be inserting magical personality-rewrites into Evil Mutants? It sure as hell would to me. In fact, it has. Always proved right so far. If you can’t empathize with them, you don’t understand them. Might not work on aliens, but it sure as hell works on humans.
There are certainly some people, possibly more than I think (but way less than the whole of humanity), who can lose control. And as they’re still the same people, once they regain control of themselves, they are horrified and atone as much as they can.
I wouldn’t say they “kill and rape indiscriminately”. They just kill and rape the enemy. It’s not like they’re people, right? Because if they were, that might make killing them wrong. Can’t have our soldiers thinking that, can we? (I understand the US army, at least, has switched away from demonizing their enemies in Basic Training for precisely this reason.)
Calling people “evil” is tricky. There are a lot of conflicting metaethics and definitions floating around the issue. But I think it’s fair to say that “not maximizing morality” is different from “evil”. You ever spend money on chocolate? Fuck you. That money could have gone to charity. Saved lives. And you spent it on chocolate instead? Who the hell do you think you are, to put your pleasure above people dying? Of course, this goes for all nonessential expenditure. Humans don’t maximize morality, because if we did we wouldn’t be able to compete. We might want to, but if we somehow learned to defeat the layers of akrasia and bias and simple hypocrisy then we would no longer be human. Humans aren’t FAIs, we’re evolutionarily adapted to a specific niche.
This is a complicated subject. To begin with, it’s pretty hard to get more than a small percentage of soldiers to kill people at all: until after WWII, somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of combatants in any given battle didn’t fire their weapons, and the great majority of shots fired weren’t aimed. Modern training methods aim to reduce this through associative conditioning, making training as realistic as practical, and a variety of other techniques that sometimes include dehumanization of the enemy.
Now, there’s a spectrum running from battlefield killing to full-blown atrocity, but atrocity’s also got some unique features. If you’re ordered to execute prisoners, for example, the prisoners end up dead or they don’t: you can’t shoot over their heads, or run ammunition or tend to the wounded instead of fighting, as you could in pitched battle. Because of this atrocity can be used as a tool of policy: soldiers who’ve committed war crimes have no choice but to justify them to themselves and each other, distancing them from their enemies and bonding them with a shared rationalization.
This is bidirectional, of course; committing atrocity makes it easier to commit further atrocities, and a war where many gray-area cases come up (engaging enemy fighters in civilian clothes, for example, or mistakenly shooting a surrendering soldier) is one in which deliberate atrocity becomes more likely. The US army in the last few wars has tried very hard to draw a line, partly for PR reasons and partly because atrocity isn’t well suited to recent strategic models, but the psychology involved doesn’t lie entirely within institutional hands—though institutions can of course exploit it, and many do.
Yay, an expert!
That occurred to me, and I decided not to bother adding a caveat, since they presumably justify it by demonizing the enemy anyway. Although I guess that some “accidental” rapists probably rationalize their crime as not a big deal when if realize what they did, which could indeed lead to more rapes. That’s a different proposition to actually turning them into a cartoon villain, but still.
You claim that I model rapists as Evil Mutants, but I don’t know what you mean by that. Can you name one false prediction of my model?
Edited; previous version was:
It would help if you named one false prediction that my model of rapists as “Evil Mutants” makes.
This would require interpreting your “rapists are Evil Mutants” claim as about making falsifiable predictions, which would be unreasonable interpretation of your comments thus far. Instead “Rapists are Evil Mutants!” seems to be presented tautologically for the purpose of signalling your own strict virtue and social dominance within the role of moral arbiter.
We can arrive at a falsifiable interpretation if we interpret “Mutant” as an indicator that the labelled individual must be in someway genetically different from a ‘typical’ sample of the species homo sapiens sapiens—or even stretch it to mean that extreme environmental conditions have impacted it sufficiently that the individual can not be said to be exhibiting behaviors representative of its species. It is hopefully obvious to most that this makes “Rapists are Evil Mutants” both falsifiable and trivially false. This is particularly the case if we are using the rather general definition of ‘rape’ that MixedNuts prefers. (See, earlier mentions of strict consent standards and a rejection of the intuitive notions of what rape is.)
It is in fact the case that rape is bad. Violent stereotypical rape is bad. Other complicated things with insufficient quality or admissibility of consent that we call rape are also bad. Yet these are bad things that many or most actual humans would do in the right (or perhaps wrong) circumstances. Many of them are not even considered ‘evil’ by all cultures, much less as evidence of a bizarre deviancy.
Your enemies are (probably) not innately evil.
In fairness, that’s probably an overly narrow interpretation of their views. They don’t seem to believe rape is genetic, at least. It seems closer to “liberals” than “Jews”, in stereotype terms. That’s not to say it can’t produce inaccurate results, of course. Otherwise it wouldn’t be rational to avoid stereotyping.
That’s what I’m whining about. MugaSofer claims that I believe (something ey rephrases as) “rapists are Evil Mutants”, and that the essay we’re discussing is valuable because it’s evidence for the true claim “rapists are not Evil Mutants”. I’m trying to figure out what these claims mean. So far we have ruled out “rapists are genetically abnormal” (we agree this is untrue), “rapists hold true beliefs about morality but don’t care” (we agree this is true is this case), and “rapists rape due to choice, not just akrasia” (we also agree this is true in this case).
These beliefs all seem sane. (And thankyou for explaining.)
For future reference when making comments like this it may be worth making it clear that you do not in fact have the belief that your words literally attributing to yourself and are instead being misrepresented. I’m afraid the literal interpretation seemed to fit reasonably well so I did not immediately interpret it as a countersignal.
That’s probably true for some rapists, sure, but it’s clearly not true for all of them. It’s generalizations that are the problem here.
Yeah, just talking about this guy. I gave examples of someone who sincerely believes marital rape is okay (falsifies “true beliefs”) and someone who immediately regrets raping and takes steps to avoid it (falsifies “choice, not akrasia”).
Well, I’m not sure how someone not raping falsifies choice, not akrasia. It just means they chose right. (And that they happened to beat akrasia.) Or do you mean it would invalidate your claim that most rapists have already made that choice?
The person with akrasia I mentioned rapes once (or, if sufficiently good at introspection, not at all), then stays well clear of any situations that would require them to exert willpower not to rape. This can be done by automatically learned aversion (“Holy crap I just raped someone” being a strong punishment), by turning oneself in, by getting therapy, by avoiding the context where they raped (such as being drunk), by avoiding all sexual activity in that context, by getting away from the kind of person one is likely to rape, etc.
Well, for one thing you seem to think that this particular rapist wrote this as part of a calculated ploy to reduce society’s defenses against him (and other rapists?) But I’m not sure how we could test that. By “Evil Mutants” I mean you’re using the neuroarchitecture that demonizes political opponents and Hated Enemies in general, if that clears anything up. I understand you’re pretty knowledgeable about rape; could you mention some predictions you don’t already know to be true? (Of course, I suspect some of your predictions regarding things you know about are wrong anyway because of poor data or whatever, but that’s harder to find and, y’know, rarer.)
Not quite. I believe that the effect of the article is to reduce society’s defenses against that type of rapist, and that the author would still publish the article if he shared my belief about this. I think it’s unlikely that he has consciously thought about it, or that he would share my belief if he did. I believe that he did not decide to write the article in order to get this effect. I believe that the cause of this decision was cognitive dissonance between his beliefs “rape is bad” and “I’m a good person”, which led him to seek reassurance of the latter. I wouldn’t know what he believes was the cause; I doubt it’s “to make myself feel better” (or any other phrasing of what I think is the true cause).
It’s not an answer I can use, as long as we don’t have an MRI handy. So we’ll have to settle for wrong predictions.
Rapists target victims who are easiest to rape and least likely to get the rapist in trouble. (pretty sure) I make no claim as to how much of that selection is conscious.
Visibly strong people are less likely to be raped. (somewhat confident)
People who display willingness to attract attention or to fight are less likely to be raped. (pretty sure, but I’m not sure I can honestly claim not to know this)
Disabled people are more likely to be raped. (somewhat confident)
Cognitively disabled people are more likely to be raped than people with other kinds of disabilities. (pretty sure)
Locked-up people get raped ten ways to Wednesday. Obviously I know about prison rape, but that covers nursing homes and long-stay psychiatric hospitals as well. (near certain)
Most behaviors commonly believed to increase risk of being raped in fact do so. Of course this is compatible with many other explanations. (pretty sure)
People who have personal harm to fear from reporting rape are more likely to be raped. This includes undocumented immigrants, sex workers on the job (major confounding here), trans people (also confounding, also I can’t claim I don’t know that), gay people where that’s illegal, and people in communities that disapprove of airing dirty laundry such as the kinky scene (confounding) and small religious communities. (pretty sure of the general idea)
Rapists target victims they find attractive (this should correlate with conventional attraction), but the effect is less strong than that of vulnerability. (somewhat confident)
Rapists are a little, but not a lot, more likely to commit non-sexual violence. (somewhat confident)
Active rapists have greater variance in status than non-rapists; they’re more likely to be either very high- or very low-status. (somewhat confident)
The smaller the social unit, the stronger the above effect is. (conditioning on it, pretty sure)
Medium- or high-status men who gain status become more likely to rape. (unsure)
Rape in a relationship (not necessarily one that’s supposed to include consensual sex), like other forms of abuse, is used as a punishment (by which I mean occurs more frequently after the abused has disobeyed, voluntarily or not, the abuser, but is unlikely to leave the relationship) if the rapist is male (near-certain) or female (somewhat confident).
Creepiness is correlated with rape in men (pretty sure) and in women (unsure).
Effects of situational partner availability (dispreferred gender, lower attractiveness, taboo pairings) are stronger for rape than for consensual sex if the rapist is male. (unsure)
Rape by men is strongly correlated with testosterone level. (somewhat confident)
Rape is strongly correlated with sexual jealousy. (somewhat confident)
Rapists are more likely to be friends with other rapists. (pretty sure)
Rapists are more likely to be friends with rapists with the same methods of operation (familiarity with the victim, use of violence, use of alcohol, use of other substances, criteria for choice of victims). (somewhat confident)
Rape is correlated with making rape jokes, mild disregard of consent (such as tickling protesting people), and what I’m going to call “comments on the victim’s behavior before and during the rape” when discussing rape cases, correcting for frequency of such behaviors in the social circle. (unsure)
Rape is negatively correlated with close relationships with known rape victims (of other perps, obviously). (somewhat confident)
If you ran that empathy study where people write “E” on their foreheads on men, they would be less empathetic primed with images of women than with images of men (pretty sure), and the effect would be stronger in active rapists of women than on non-rapists (conditioning on previous, pretty sure).
If you ran that study on women, they would be less empathetic primed with images of men than with images of women (somewhat confident), and the effect would be stronger in survivors of recent rape by a man than in non-survivors (conditioning on previous, somewhat confident).
Men who rape without use of violence are rougher when raping than when having consensual sex. (somewhat confident)
Male rapists are on median worse in bed (as judged by consensual sex partners) than non-rapists of similar sexual experience. (There’s a question of how to count the rapes toward sexual experience.) (unsure)
The kick of power (I don’t know if we know how to detect it, but it’s a clearly recognizable emotion) is stronger (in the same individual) when raping than when having consensual sex in male rapists of men (pretty sure), in male rapists of women (somewhat confident), and in female rapists (unsure).
On average, rapists seek the aforementioned feeling of status elevation more than non-rapists if male (somewhat confident) and if female (unsure).
Any disagreements? Any sources for resolution?
I’m saying that they’re human, and best modeled as such. I am not advocating any particular method of rape prevention, but since we’re on LessWrong it should come as no surprise that I think understanding the problem fully is probably going to make our solutions better.
No, it isn’t. He’s clearly an atypical rapist in that regard. If he was a typical rapist, then the essay would be hopelessly biased and would never have been published. Instead it is only mildly biased, and offers an opportunity to see into the mind of a rapist via his future self, who is now aware that his actions were rape and thus doesn’t try to excuse them.
Just because someone is charming doesn’t mean they can’t be a monster. Most actual psychopaths are pretty good at hiding the fact. But that doesn’t mean that we should assume that just because someone is both charming and hurting people they’re a psychopath. Because it doesn’t take a psychopath to hurt people. If it did, the world would be a very different place.
Oh. Why?